The Flyer

by Marjorie Jones

  He didn’t care about her married lover. He only cared that she’d been hurt. There was nothing she could have done that would drive him away. Didn’t she know that?

  The image of her brilliantly shining eyes begging for him to understand, defending herself against her mother’s outburst, haunted him. She didn’t understand how deeply he cared for her, he realized. She still dwelt in a world where her mother’s condescension ruled.

  Nobody should have to live under that kind of scrutiny. Especially someone like Helen, who was kind and generous to a fault.

  As he shifted gears and turned onto the street that would take him to Annie Sullivan’s house, he fell in love with Helen all over again.

  When he skidded to a stop in front of Annie’s place, the front door came open. Annie stepped outside with a package wrapped in brown paper and twine. “Where’s the doc?” she asked with a confused frown.

  “That’s what I came to ask you. Have you seen her, love?”

  “Not since last week when she asked me to make this,” she replied, holding up the package.

  “What is it?”

  “A couple of boring dresses Christina McIntyre wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, that’s all.”

  “She commissioned dresses?”

  “Aye.” Annie came down the porch steps and handed the package to Paul. “Can you see that she gets these? My bill is tucked inside.”

  “I will. If you see her before I do, tell her I’m looking for her, will you?”

  “Done.” Annie frowned, tucking a strand of bright red hair behind her ear. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  “I hope not,” Paul answered, more to himself than Annie.

  He drove to the church house, Bully’s Dry Goods, Doc’s sister’s place, and back to the clinic. No sign of Helen anywhere.

  Finally, he headed to the McIntyre’s house on the off chance she’d decided to check on Marla.

  Nothing.

  He leaned on the fender of his car, pulling off his hat and running one hand through his hair. Crikey. She had to be somewhere. She couldn’t have fallen off the planet.

  In the corner of his eye, he caught a gentle movement in the distance. Behind his house, well past the landing strip, Helen stood looking into the desert. The wind caught the ends of her short, black hair and tossed them haphazardly about her head like a dark halo. She didn’t move. She just stood there, like a statue, as if the answer to some great, mysterious question could be found in the endless sand dunes and scrub brush.

  He sighed, pushing off the car. Should he approach her or let her work things out on her own? The answer was clear. She might not know it, but she needed someone. Everyone needed someone.

  He sure as hell needed her.

  By the time he reached her side, the ache in his heart had more than doubled. He took his place next to her, shoved his hands into his pockets, and rolled back on his heels. Focusing his gaze into the desert he’d studied a million times, he tried to find what she found. Something new and interesting to hold his attention. The only thing new and interesting in his life was the woman beside him.

  She didn’t say anything at first. She barely acknowledged his presence. When she did speak, her voice cracked. “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing you didn’t hear.” For her sake, he kept his eyes trained forward. What he could see of her face from the side of his vision was red and swollen as though her tears had been fierce, indeed. New anger at her mother grew in his belly. At least it was something.

  “She didn’t say anything about … anything else?”

  “I left right after you. You have a great knack for hiding out. Are you sure you weren’t a bushranger?” He slid his eyes to the side and caught a slight twinge that might have been a smile curve her lips.

  “No. And I’m not hiding.”

  “I suppose you’re not. But this wasn’t the first place I looked, obviously.”

  “Why not?” She spun on him suddenly. A shock of black hair danced across her cheeks, and she brushed it away with long, slender fingers. Fingers that held the power to take him to the heights of heaven with a simple touch.

  “I’m not sure.” And he wasn’t. He loved her. He knew that. But why had she run here first? Could she possibly feel the same way about him? A lonely, ornery bush pilot?

  “This is the only place I want to be right now, Paul. I sure as hell don’t want to go home. Not to America, and not to my apartment.”

  “You want to stay here, with me? I don’t have a lot of room, but then, you’re a tiny little thing, aren’t you?”

  She nodded. “I want to stay here, Paul. I want to go inside your tiny little house and I want to make love until I forget.”

  “Forget what, love?”

  “What it ever felt like to be touched by anyone but you.”

  14

  Sunlight spilled through the bedroom window. Glinting off his plane tied down behind the house, it sent prisms of light to all corners of the room. Paul glanced at the woman sleeping beside him. He wanted to wake up next to her for the rest of his life. No other woman was such a perfect match for him.

  His mother had always told him he wore his heart on his sleeve. When he wanted something, he did what he had to do to get it. Singularly determined. When he’d wanted to learn to fly, he’d done so in a matter of days, teaching himself most of the time and taking a lesson or two when something didn’t work quite right. When he’d wanted to join the military, he’d done so without consulting anyone, even his best friend, Dale. As it had turned out, they’d joined at the same time and spent their service together until Dale had been injured in the war and discharged.

  Dale’s brother, Joel, had been killed in the same attack that had wounded Dale. His friend had been unable to cope with the loss and fallen headfirst into a barrel of grog for months. As soon as Paul had been able to, he’d found his friend and dragged him back to Australia. He’d forced Dale to confront his demons. Emily had been the one to save Dale in the end, but Paul had been unable to let his friend suffer alone.

  Perhaps that’s what he was doing with Helen. She was suffering from a broken heart. How could Reginald, how could any man, play with a woman’s heart like he had? Women should be cherished.

  Paul had had his share of lovers over the years, but the relationships had been understood. At no time had he ever led a woman to believe he loved her. Until now. There was no denying how much he loved Helen. The feeling made his heart swell to twice its normal size, filling his chest with more hope and promise than he’d ever believed possible.

  He kissed the top of her head, and she came awake in his arms.

  She stared up at him with sleepy eyes, barely focused in the morning light. “You’re still here.”

  “Of course, I am, love. Where would I go?”

  She shrugged, tucking her face against his chest. “I don’t know.”

  “Ah, sweets. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for as long as you’ll have me.”

  “It’s not a question of how long I’ll have you, but how long you’ll have me.” Sadness wound through her words, as though she honestly believed he would tire of her, cast her aside like so much bathwater. But there was something more.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, stroking the soft strands of her hair. It was like silk on his fingertips, soft and rare.

  “Don’t you think we should?”

  “Look at me,” he demanded gently. When she didn’t respond, he shifted beneath the covers and brought her face even with his. “I don’t give a bloody wombat about what you did in California. I only care that you’ve been hurt, and that isn’t acceptable to me.”

  “I need you to understand that I’m not … that I don’t … behave the way my mother implied.”

  He couldn’t stop the chuckle from escaping, even though the serious expression on Helen’s face indicated how seriously she believed her words to be. “I don’t believe it, love. You’re like a new spring flower, just testing t
he light. Your mother is dreaming.”

  “She has the right to. She’s the one who found out about Reginald.”

  He didn’t say anything. She wanted to talk about it, and if it made her feel better to do so, he’d let her. The thought of another man touching her made a primitive part of his soul rebel and fight, but he could force himself to listen. For her.

  “I met Reginald at a party on campus. I thought it strange at first that a professor would attend, but some of the other students told me how modern he was. He wasn’t like our parents. He loved music. He loved to dance. And, oh Lord, could he drink.”

  “I thought booze was against the law in America.”

  “Oh, it is. Well, you can’t buy it, but a friend of ours, Bruce, brewed gin in his bathtub, of all places. We were free, coming into a new age with as much selfish, childlike aplomb as we could.” She turned onto her back, staring at her fingers, which she worried into a knot.

  “Go on.”

  “Reginald felt that was immature. He said he could take me places that were far more rich and lovely. We went to a club in the city. It was the basement of a warehouse near the docks. The neighborhood was dirty and dark. I’ll admit that I was terrified, but excited at the same time. I liked the adventure, I suppose.”

  “I can believe that,” he laughed. “You don’t strike me as someone who would back away from a challenge.”

  “I suppose. But once we went inside, it was fabulous. Bright red velvet on the seats, candlelight, gambling. Everyone was dressed to the nines, and a woman sang such sweet, beautiful melodies, I thought I was in heaven.

  We danced for hours, got drunk, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I could make own decisions. My mother would have been mortified if she’d known what I was doing, and I loved it.”

  “So far, love, you’re not shocking me,” he prompted. It was true. Her zeal for life was part of what made him love her so much.

  “It wasn’t long after that when I bobbed my hair. So many girls were doing it, and Reginald loved the new styles. He bought me new clothes. We’d drive down the coast to Los Angeles and attend lavish dinner parties filled with movie stars and starlettes, drink fine smuggled champagne, and dance on the beach until the sunrise. I was completely enamored of him, and after a few months, I thought I was in love.”

  “Thought?”

  “Yes. As it turned out, he didn’t love me at all. He was married.”

  “Some people love each other very much when they aren’t married to one another. Isn’t the same true of people who are? Perhaps he didn’t love his wife, and he loved you instead.” Paul doubted the veracity of his own words. If Reginald had loved Helen, they would still be together, wouldn’t they? Or perhaps Helen had discovered she didn’t love him on her own. “What happened to change things?”

  “He didn’t love his wife, either, in my estimation.

  But he loved her money. It was her wealth that allowed us to live such a lavish lifestyle. I knew it was wrong, but he spoke of her in such a way that she reminded me very much of my own mother. Cold. Wickedly hurtful. I excused my behavior by telling myself that Reginald was just like me.

  “But then, a short while before I came to Australia, something happened that proved how wrong I was.”

  “She found out about you and pleaded for her husband.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Then, I met a woman. She was delightful, and pretty. She had a smile that warmed a room, if you know what I mean.”

  He did. Helen’s smile did that, simply from existing.

  “I met her by coincidence. We were both waiting for an appointment. She told me about how she and her husband had been trying to have a child for years. She had been unable to become pregnant, and yet she held out hope that the new doctor she was going to see would be able to help her. In the meantime, she’d decided to adopt several children from an orphanage because she had the money to share and wanted some poor child to benefit from that. I realized then that her dress must have cost a fortune, and while she didn’t wear a lot of jewelry, what she did wear was expensive and quite lovely. She told me she’d been too relaxed with her money, that she allowed her husband to spend it on frivilous things, but that she was going to change that when they became a family.”

  “Smart woman, isn’t she?”

  “The nurse called her name, and I thought I would die. Mrs. Reginald Spalding.”

  “Ah. The wife.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You were waiting to see a doctor?” Cold dread spiked up his spine.

  She nodded. “The same doctor she’d been waiting for, in fact.”

  “A baby doctor.” He hadn’t thought he could be more angry with the mysterious Reginald than he had been, but he’d been wrong. The pain and loss Helen must have gone through. The abandonment. “Finish,” he growled, the sound coming out harsher than he would have liked.

  “I was pregnant,” she continued, tears choking her throat. “I didn’t know what to do. I suddenly realized what a mess I’d made of things, and I’d met his wife. She wasn’t horrible. She was sweet and generous and everything I wasn’t. It was bad enough when I knew he was married, but after I met her … I could barely look at myself in a mirror.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. He’d obviously misled you. He took advantage of that enormous heart of yours.”

  “Don’t defend me, Paul.”

  “Can’t help it,” he answered, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “What happened when you told Reginald?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Come again?”

  “I went to him, and I confronted him about his wife. I told him I was tired of living a secret and that he had to make a decision. Either he stayed with his wife, or he stayed with me.”

  “An ultimatum.”

  “Yes. He looked at me as though I were a child throwing a tantrum over a piece of candy. He was piteous, to tell the truth. Poor little Helen. She actually believed I loved her. Tsk. Tsk.” Anger replaced the sad note that had been running through her words. She seethed, her body tensing beneath his fingers. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and began to relax. “He told me he would never leave his wife, that her money supported his lifestyle exactly to his liking and I had nothing to offer him. My father’s money wouldn’t be good enough, he said. He wouldn’t have enough access to it.”

  “And then what?”

  “I begged. I pleaded with him to leave with me, that we could be happy together without the money, that our love,” she scoffed, “would carry us through.” She paused, wiping a tear from her cheek. “He laughed at me … So you see, I couldn’t tell him about the baby. Not only would he think I’d tried to trap him, but I couldn’t face it if he simply didn’t care. And he wouldn’t have. I’m sure of it.”

  “So that’s when you decided to come to Australia and work with Doc.”

  “Uh huh. My mother found out I was expecting soon after that. She was so angry. She told me how she’d been right all along, that everyone would know I was a tramp. She said I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. The next week, I was supposed to graduate from medical school. They mailed my certificate, but I wasn’t allowed to participate in commencement exercises. Everyone knew about me. My mother saw to that. She had to be the victim, you see? It didn’t matter that I wasn’t showing, or that I wouldn’t start showing for at least another few months. She was the injured one.

  “So, Daddy sent a letter to Doc, and I came here. And that’s that.”

  “You’ve forgotten something, I think.”

  She didn’t answer, slipping farther under the covers and pressing her cheek tight against him.

  “You aren’t pregnant. At least, not that I’m aware.”

  “No,” she whispered, her tears burning his naked flesh. “Not anymore. I suffered a miscarriage on the way here.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t so bad. The ship’s doctor was rather ski
lled, and even though it wasn’t something he was used to, he treated me well.”

  “That’s not the point. What about you? What about how you must have felt? That’s why you were so upset after treating Jayla … and nobody knew.” He pulled her closer, holding her in some useless attempt to erase the memory of her ordeal. How could a woman face losing her child, let alone with no one to lean on, no one to ease the pain?

  If he’d hated Reginald before, he loathed him now. The man should be beaten to within an inch of his life, then fed to the bloody crocs.

  “And now that you know the whole truth, I won’t be offended if you don’t want me anymore. I’ll understand.”

  “You’re cracked, Doc. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not letting you run away again, either.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. I love you, Doctor Helen Margaret Stanwood, and it’s going to take more than this to get rid of me.”

  “You’re not angry?” Helen pushed herself up and held the sheet across her naked breasts with one hand. How could he not be angry? No man could want a woman like her. Not for anything other than a plaything, to be used and discarded. Was it possible he loved her that much?

  “Of course, I’m not angry. I’m worried about you, yes. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.” He stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb, hard and callused, but so soft and gentle she wanted to cry.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

  “Impossible, love.”

  Slowly, the apprehension that had made every muscle in her body contract with fear began to subside. The pain and fear of the past year flowed out of her at his touch. Everything she’d ever believed love to be was proved true in him. The memory of Reginald faded into something like a dream. Real, but not real. A series of thoughts that would be gone by morning.

  “So, what do we do now?” Paul asked, rising and pulling on a pair of strides. “I was thinking of a picnic. The last one I planned didn’t fair too well, if you’ll remember.”

  “A picnic sounds lovely. But I should go to the clinic first and tend to Djuru.”