Angel's Wings

by Anne Stuart

  But that was only a tiny part, that tiny kernel of fear that lived inside everyone, a part she was used to ignoring. She rose, pushing back from the desk, and was pleased to see that her hands were steady and calm.

  "Go on home, Red," he said again. "You're not going to accomplish anything tonight, and I'm willing to bet half our lessons won't show up tomorrow, not if our budding pilots have a radio or a pair of ears. I don't know how this is going to affect business in the long run, but right now things are clear."

  "That's good," Angela murmured, moving past him.

  He caught her arm and she looked down at his hand clamped across the white linen shirt she usually wore. He'd been tinkering with one of the engines and his long fingers left dark grease marks across her lower arm. "What're you doing?"

  "What do you think I'm doing, Clancy? I'm going flying." And she jerked her arm out of his hand and kept going, out into the hangar.

  The Lockheed Vega was already out on the tarmac, waiting for tomorrow morning's student pilot, the one who wasn't going to show. She'd checked it over herself, earlier, and Sparks had done the same. Without hesitating she grabbed her leather jacket and flight helmet and headed out, vaulting into the cockpit without looking back. She just got the Wasp engine into a confident purr when the door opened and Clancy heaved himself up beside her. He'd managed to change out of his oil-stained coveralls and grab his own jacket, but he still didn't look any too pleased to be there.

  "Don't be a sap, Angel," he said. "You're in no condition to fly."

  "Don't condescend to me, Jack Clancy," she said fiercely, gunning the motor and starting down the runway. "I can't think of a better thing to do right now." Her eyes met his for a brief, challenging moment. "Can you?"

  She half expected him to come up with an argument. She'd forgotten that one good thing she could say about Jack Clancy was that he was honest. "No," he said. "I can't." And leaning back, he strapped himself in, bracing himself for her takeoff.

  She would have thought she'd be nervous, self-conscious, ham-handed with Clancy beside her, watching her every move, judging her. But she wasn't. As the plane gathered speed and hurtled down the short runway, she could feel the old familiar sense of rightness seep into her bones. She was one with her pretty blue bird, getting ready to hurl herself into the twilight sky, and no one else mattered as she felt the familiar rush of excitement shoot through her.

  She knew he was watching her out of those hooded eyes. As she brought the plane up, up and then began to level off, she was suddenly aware of him beside her. Her feet on the rudders, her hands on the throttle were suddenly clumsy and she muttered a small, daring curse under her breath.

  "Forget about me, Red," Clancy ordered. "You're doing fine."

  "Go to hell, Clancy," she snapped. "Of course I'm doing fine. I'm a pilot, damn it, not some wet-behind-the-ears student."

  "I know that. You're not bad, either."

  "Kind of you to say so. I really appreciate compliments coming from old-timers like you."

  "Feeling feisty, are you?"

  "I'm feeling angry. Angry at the waste of human lives. Why can't those stupid Nazis realize that occasionally we know what we're doing? We've lost hundreds of people in airship disasters. Anyone with any sense would have given up long ago."

  "Haven't you noticed how stubborn governments get? No bureaucrat has ever admitted he was wrong."

  She glanced over at him. "You're pretty cynical, aren't you?"

  "I've been kicking around this world for thirty-six years. It's enough to make anyone cynical. Look on the bright side, kid. At least you've got yourself a mechanic."

  "Why do you say that? Parsons flat-out said he didn't want to work for me. Just because the Hindenburg crashed doesn't mean he'll show up here. The damned thing might have even landed on him."

  "He'll be here. Call it a hunch. I'd say two days at the outside." He leaned forward. "Aren't you accelerating a little too much?" He frowned at the control panel.

  "No," she said, and promptly did a faultlessly executed double loop. The wind was perfect, the day clear and cloudless, and her heart soared with her airplane as it dipped and swirled and spun.

  "Okay," Clancy drawled as she leveled off again. "So you can get a job at a carnival. That doesn't mean you're a great pilot."

  Try as she might, she couldn't conjure up her usual knot of anger. She was too happy to be out, flying. It had been too long. "Believe it or not, Clancy, I wasn't trying to impress you. Scare you, maybe."

  "You can't do that, either. I've flown with too many student pilots to let anything frighten me. Besides, I know when someone's got it."

  "Got what?"

  "'It.’ That special something that separates the flyboys from the real pilots. I don't know where it came from, Red, and you sure as hell don't deserve it, but you've got it."

  She glanced over at him, startled. "Why, Clancy, is that a compliment?"

  "Nope. Simply a statement of fact. Now why don't you land this baby," he suggested lazily, "so we can get ourselves a drink?"

  *

  Tony's was more crowded than usual that night, and all anyone could talk about was the Hindenburg. Someone had recorded the commentator's voice as he described the awful sight, and that recording was played over and over again on Tony's radio, reliving the horrible moments.

  "Shut that damned thing off, willya?" Sparks shouted drunkenly. Tony was doing a land-office business in boiler-makers that night, and even the usually officious Rosa was turning a blind eye to the heavy drinkers.

  "Someone said they were making a record of that newscast," Stan said bleerily. "Put it in all the jukeboxes, in between Benny Goodman and Fats Waller."

  "You hear that, Tony?" Clancy called out. "If you put it in this one I'm going to shoot the damned machine."

  "Sure thing, Clancy," Tony said in a somber voice. "No Hindenburg on my jukebox, you bet."

  "Where's Angela?" Robert Bellamy demanded.

  Clancy glared at him. The pilot had come in with Stan and joined them a few minutes ago, and Clancy had let him stay, despite Sparks's obvious animosity. "She went straight home. She was tired."

  "Angela doesn't get tired," Sparks said flatly.

  "No, I can believe it," said Clancy. "I think maybe she wanted some time alone. Say, Sparks, why didn't you tell me she was such a good pilot?"

  "I told you, Clancy," Sparks said bleerily. "You just didn't listen."

  "I listened. I guess I had to see it for myself."

  "She's swell, isn't she?" Stan said soulfully. "She's got such a light touch on the controls, delicate but sure."

  "Yeah," Bellamy said with a grin on his pretty face. "I bet she'd be hell on wheels in bed."

  Without hesitation Clancy sent his fist into Bellamy's jaw, sending the handsome man sprawling backward onto the floor, glasses and beer bottles and half-empty plates of spaghetti flying after him.

  "Hey, what's going on here?" Tony demanded, emerging from behind the bar. "You trying to break up my place, Clancy?" Rosa was right behind, scolding like an angry Italian magpie.

  Sparks had managed to grab his drink before the table went flying and he was still sitting, like a drunken potentate, clutching his glass. "You don't wanna yell at Clancy," he announced with great dignity. "Bellamy made a smutty remark about Angela. Clancy was just defending her honor."

  Tony was in the midst of helping the downed pilot to his feet, but instantly his solicitous care disappeared and he hauled the dazed flier up with brute force and carted him to the door. "You learn to treat Miss Angela with respect if you come in my bar," Tony said sternly, dumping Bellamy outside and slamming the door behind him. Tony came back into the room rubbing his hands together briskly. "And now, we have a bottle of our best Chianti for Clancy and drinks all around. And we will drink a toast to Miss Angela."

  "God bless her," Rosa said fervently.

  Clancy wasn't about to voice the same sentiment. In fact, he felt the opposite. Angela Hogan's presence was a tho
rn in his side and an ache in his gut, and he wished that right now he weren't so inextricably entwined with her.

  In the ensuing fuss no one stopped to notice how absurd it was to think of a womanizer like Clancy defending any woman's honor. And it wasn't until several hours later, when Clancy was lying stretched out on his sagging double bed in the room over the bar, that he thought about what had sent the white-hot bolt of fury spiking through his brain. Not outrage that Bellamy had had impure thoughts about Saint Angela but the knowledge that he'd been thinking the very same thing.

  He lit another cigarette, tipped his complimentary bottle of Chianti to his mouth, drained the last drops and then slid down farther on the bed. He'd kicked off his shoes but that was it, too lazy to undress. He liked the wine. He'd learned to drink it in France during the war and he still liked it. This red stuff was rougher than he was used to, but nice, nonetheless.

  He'd put off flying with Angela for days, his instincts, his wonderful, infallible instincts, warning him. He knew she'd be good. Despite what he'd said to Sparks, he took his old friend's word in matters like that. He already had a grudging admiration for her. That, mixed with his nagging, inexplicable attraction to her, was making things hard enough. Going up with her might be the final straw.

  It had been, all right, but not in the way he'd expected. Sure, she flew like a dream, like a cross between Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post. Stan was right, her touch on the controls was sure and delicate, and Bellamy was right, too. She would be hell on wheels in bed.

  She certainly wasn't going there with a two-timing two-bit pilot like Bellamy. She wasn't going there with anyone but him, and not even that, if he could help it. She was trouble, trouble, trouble, and he was looking for peace and quiet.

  She probably didn't know what happened to her when she flew. He'd watched her, covertly enough, as she taxied down the runway and lifted off. He'd seen the subtle change in her eyes, the slightly glazed look of pleasure, the speeding up of her pulses, hammering away at her slender white neck, the flush of excitement on her high cheekbones. She might not think she knew what sexual excitement was all about, but she felt it every time she flew, and more strongly than anyone he'd ever seen. By the time they landed it was all he could do not to rip off her leather flight jacket and that prim white shirt beneath, not to...

  "Damn it," he said out loud, stubbing out his cigarette. He'd been plagued by erotic thoughts ever since he'd gotten in that airplane with her. He'd never realized what a sexual thing it was to fly with a woman, having her in control as they soared far above the world and everyone in it. He wondered if he could talk her into being on top.

  His wry bark of laughter broke the silence of the darkened room that was laden with the ancient aromas of garlic and onions and beer. He wasn't going to talk Miss Angela Hogan into a damned thing, least of all his bed. He was just horny, is all. He needed to find himself a woman, his kind of woman. And then Angela Hogan's long-legged, cool-as-a-cucumber charms would no longer have the ability to move him.

  Clancy was wrong. Will Parsons didn't show up in two days. It was almost a week later when he appeared in Angela's doorway, neatly dressed, full beard trimmed somewhat, battered felt hat in hand. "You still got a job?"

  Angela put down the unpaid bills she was fretting over and leaned back in her chair. The radio was tuned to NBC's red network, and someone was playing Bing Crosby singing some song about the beach at Waikiki. She'd almost given up hope of having Parsons show up, and it took all her formidable self-control to keep the relief from showing on her face. Sparks and Clancy were doing an adequate job of maintaining the Avian and the Lockheed, but the Percival was proving beyond their capabilities, and the Percival was Angela's largest plane. She needed it up and running, needed it desperately, and her savior stood in front of her.

  "I've still got a job," she said carefully. Savior or not, he might prove more trouble than he was worth. She couldn't rid herself of the notion that there was more to the man than appearances. Couldn't rid herself of the notion that maybe she'd met him before.

  "Mind if I take a seat?" He moved to the vacant chair, his left foot dragging slightly, and sank down wearily. "It's been a long trip."

  "If you'd wired me I would have sent the money for your train fare."

  "If I'd had the money for a telegram, I would have had the money for the train. Besides, I like riding the rails. You meet a better class of people that way."

  She stared at him. In the full light of day, without the enveloping fedora covering his grizzled gray hair, he looked even more familiar.

  "Do you fly?" she asked abruptly.

  "You need two good feet, two good arms and two good eyes to fly, Miss Hogan. I stopped flying years ago. Why?"

  "A couple of reasons. I think a good mechanic has to know what a pilot's up against, not just understand engines."

  "True enough."

  "And I can't get rid of the feeling I've met you before. Maybe at an air race, something like that."

  He didn't seem discomfited by the notion. "Could be. I've met a lot of people over the years. You might be one of them."

  "That's probably it," she agreed, still not satisfied. "How much do you drink?"

  "That's my business."

  "If you're working on my engines it's my business, too. I can't have a drunken mechanic responsible for the safety of my pilots and students."

  "I've quit drinking."

  "Just like that?" she asked cynically.

  "Just like that. I figure if I've got a good job and a decent place to live I won't need to drink."

  "We haven't decided on that. How much do you want?"

  "I want fifty dollars a week. That's what I was getting at Lockheed. However, I know you're not going to be paying me that much. From the looks of things, you aren't overrun with business. Things should pick up a bit once people get over their scare about the Hindenburg. And once they hear you've got a decent mechanic. Let's start at twenty-five and see how things work out. Once you get Charlie Olker licked, you should be raking in the money." He glanced around him. "So what's it to be, Miss Hogan? Have I got a job or don't I?" His raw, raspy voice sounded no more than vaguely curious. He'd traveled more than a thousand miles under less-than-ideal conditions, and it didn't seem to make the slightest bit of difference what the outcome was.

  "You've got a job," Angela said, wondering whether she was making a huge mistake. "But the first time you show up drunk, you're out of here."

  "Fair enough." He glanced out the windows to the hangar beyond. Clancy was climbing down from the recalcitrant Percival, a disgusted expression on his face. "Who else works for you besides Clancy?"

  "Another pilot who helps with the maintenance. He'll answer to you, of course. His name is Thomas Crowley, but everyone calls him Sparks."

  "What about the office? Does your sister help out here?"

  A sudden chill swept over Angela's back. "How did you know I have a sister?"

  If he was discomfited by her question, he didn't show it. "I've been in town for a while. It made sense to check you out. Clancy's got a good reputation, at least for work, but you were a question mark."

  She didn't believe him. She didn't know what else she could say, though. "If you heard I had a sister, then you should have heard that she works at Woolworths. She doesn't like planes or flying or anything about them. Our father was a pilot, and he died badly."

  "Does anyone die well?"

  "My fiancé did," she said flatly. "He died trying to make a run, but his altimeter was broken, he flew too high and his wings iced up. You know what happens next."

  "He went into a spin. That's tough." His rough voice was filled with sympathy. "What happened to your father?"

  "He was a cheat, Mr. Parsons," Angela said coldly, the anger still burning deep inside her. "He was running bootleg liquor and he decided to cheat his employers. His employers countered by blowing him up, along with my stepmother and an innocent bystander. So Constance doesn't care much for pilots
. They remind her of the man who was responsible for her mother's death."

  "That's pretty harsh."

  "Life can be pretty harsh."

  "Do tell." He sat forward, and for a moment Angela was ashamed of herself. This was a man who knew even better than she did how tough life could be. If things worked out, they'd both of them be a lot better off.

  "Thirty dollars a week to begin with," she said briskly, getting back to business. "We'll raise it to thirty-five when things begin to pick up. We've got to find you a place to live."

  "I've taken care of that. There's a boarding house over on Canal Street. The place is clean and decent and I gather the food is good."

  "You must have been pretty confident I'd hire you."

  "You don't strike me as anybody's fool."

  She couldn't help it—her eyes riveted to Clancy's lean body as he crouched over the Percival's landing gear. "I'm not," she said, wishing she believed it. Parsons's gaze followed hers, and it didn't take a college professor to read her mind. "You're lucky to have Clancy, you know," he said. "He's one of the best."

  She looked back at her new employee. "Word has it the same thing could be said about you."

  "Then we'll make a hell of a team."

  She thought back to Hal Ramsey, decent and good and brave. And dead. And now she had Clancy, brave, certainly, but not very decent or good. She thought of her father, feckless and wild and dead. And now she had Parsons to take care of her airplanes, to keep things going. A man she was going to have to rely on the way she'd never relied on anyone since her father was killed.

  It was a frightening thought. But Angela Hogan didn't let things frighten her. "You're right," she said coolly. "We'll make a hell of a team. Come on out and meet Sparks."

  Chapter Nine

  She should be feeling more optimistic, Angela chided herself two weeks later. Things were going well, almost dangerously well. The Hindenburg disaster hadn't had the effect they'd worried about. While the entire world now seemed convinced that airships were an unqualified failure, it only seemed to reinforce the belief that airplanes were the travel mode of the future. If things could just keep going as well, if there were no major air crashes, then maybe her instruction business would pick up.