His Very Own Girl

by Carrie Lofty

  In the meantime, I’m staying with Paulie and her new husband. She married Lee Cooper, if you can believe it! Their wedding was held at Mersley as the autumn leaves fell. So lovely, and the best sort of good-bye. I bawled like a baby.

  It’s coming to an end, Joe. Really and truly. I dream about you every night. Are your nightmares fading, my love? Can you imagine waking up next to each other each morning? Kissing each other just because we want to? The thought of it brings tears to my eyes and stops my heart. I—oh, I just can’t stand it anymore!

  Soon, my love.

  A hundred kisses from your adoring wife,

  Lulu

  Lulu stared out the window as the waters of the Atlantic faded from deep, fathomless blue to the paler surf along the coast. Almost there. Nerves and anticipation meant she couldn’t sit still. Not that anyone would notice. She had Lee to thank for connecting her with a transcontinental pilot able to fly her to the States. She was the lone passenger among countless mail crates.

  A deep sigh seemed to start at her toes and work its way up. She might never fly the equivalent of this Skymaster ever again. Would she miss it too much? Not that she had much choice. The ATA had been treated so dreadfully in its final months, with each responsibility slashed one at a time. Most of the foreign pilots had already returned home.

  Those who remained were invited to join a celebratory parade in London. However, unlike the parade in ’43 when Lulu had walked right alongside the RAF, her brave, selfless colleagues would be relegated to the rear of the procession, with the other civilian forces. She doubted they would find enough volunteers.

  The engines throttled down—that familiar sound. She swallowed against the change in air pressure and checked her lap belt. The strap of her handbag bore the brunt of her fidgets.

  At least she and Joe had been sensible enough to get married in England. The hospital hadn’t been the most romantic setting for a wedding, with Joe still confined to his bed. An infantry chaplain three curtains down had officiated. Even as far back as February they’d heard stories of foreign women detained for long periods, waiting to be reunited with their GIs.

  In the meantime, she had taken comfort in the fact Joe was safe in the United States. Army doctors had deemed his injury too serious to consider reassigning him to the front. He had been in New York for rehabilitation ever since. Sleep was so much easier knowing he was so well looked after. Each of his letters had revealed a man on the mend—mind, body, and soul. He might never fully recover from his months in combat, but he would never succumb to those horrors as Robbie had. Each of her fears was dissipating, like a heavy mist parting to reveal nothing but sunny skies.

  Only one concern remained. As the Skymaster flew into position for landing, she looked at her meager possessions where they’d been tucked among the mail crates. Blimey, had she made the right choice? After so many years of serving her country, she felt oddly like a traitor for having left when the task of rebuilding was only just beginning. To be surrounded by Yanks for the rest of her life . . . could she manage? Could she take up residence in a new city, with no real plan for the future she now shared with Joe?

  Gnawing a raw spot on her lower lip, she watched the runway draw up toward the plane. LaGuardia Field was used primarily for logistics and training, which meant it resembled any airfield in Britain. Military vehicles and servicemen were thick on the ground.

  Then she was, too. The heavy transport landed with a sharp bump. Tires squealed, and the engines changed timbre once again. Lulu struggled to calm her breathing. She focused on Joe—the idea of him, mostly. Memories of him. They had been apart nearly as long as they had been together. Would all they shared still be there? Would it be enough to make such a huge leap of faith worthwhile?

  Silence in the cargo hold was broken only by the sound of the pilot communicating with the tower. They taxied around to the terminal. Her stomach pitched at the slightest change of course.

  Once the ground crew had helped with her bags, Lulu trudged toward the immigration center. A rigorous health check followed. She waited. She fidgeted a little more. Then came countless reviews of her legal paperwork and questions by at least three officials. Perhaps those hours would’ve been even more tedious had she not been Mrs. Joseph Weber.

  Finally, she was cleared to proceed.

  “Welcome to the United States,” said the last official, a woman dressed in some American uniform.

  Lulu didn’t know what to say. She only nodded.

  Leaving her trunks with a porter, she wove through countless more servicemen. Her knees weren’t steady, and she couldn’t catch a breath. She felt conspicuous, still getting used to civilian clothing. Her heels splintered with pain and her toes protested, having been crammed into patent leather for nearly eighteen hours. But she kept walking.

  And there he was.

  Her husband.

  Lulu dropped her case. “Joe!”

  A flash of joyous recognition lit his dear face. He raced toward her. Tall and sturdy, he caught her and pulled her close, bundling her in the solid strength of his body. She found his smiling lips and kissed him as she’d never kissed him before—with no war, no worry, no injuries between them. Every doubt that had crept and festered since their last good-bye was erased in an instant. She was right where she wanted to be. Needed to be.

  Joe growled in the back of his throat. His tongue swept across hers and thrilled her with his hot spice. Then he was saying her name over and over, like exclamation points at the end of each peppering kiss. He spun her around until she was dizzy, absolutely giddy and exhilarated. She didn’t want to cry ever again, but the tears came anyway.

  As the frenzy of their hello began to subside, Lulu just held him. He rested his cheek against her crown. His heart pounded like mad beneath where she pressed an ear to his chest.

  “I was beginning to think you’d never show,” he said, his voice abnormally rough. “I would’ve taken a nap had I known it would take all day.”

  “Mmmm.” She nuzzled his shirtfront. “A nap sounds heavenly.”

  “Good thing I got us a hotel room.”

  “You always were a thoughtful chap.”

  Joe slid an arm around her waist. She finally got a good look at him. He wore a smartly cut suit and a fedora of matching dark brown felt. His hair had grown out. Delicious light brown curls grazed the collar of his crisp white shirt. He had put on weight—not in a way to suggest sloth. Just health. He had been so thin in that distant hospital, having survived combat on rations and stubbornness. Now he was robust, healed, stronger than ever.

  He stared with equal intent. With a tentative hand, he touched the hair she’d left unbound. “Jesus, Lulu. How could I have forgotten how beautiful you are?”

  Past another wash of tears, she smiled. “Perhaps not so thoughtful after all.”

  He grinned—that slow, sexy grin. The one that had caught her heart from their first dance. “Come, Mrs. Weber. Your chariot awaits.”

  After the porter loaded Lulu’s trunks, she and Joe bundled into the back of a yellow taxi. She should have been soaking in sights of New York City as their driver sped them away from LaGuardia, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the man at her side. He lounged on his seat with a loose-limbed grace. Every coil of that old tension was gone. He looked younger, happier, absolutely carefree.

  He was simply breathtaking. She couldn’t get her fill.

  Was this really her husband?

  He hooked his palm around the back of her neck. The flex of his thumb sent a shiver of pleasure right down her spine. Searching moss green eyes held her mesmerized.

  She toyed with his lapels. “I’m nervous,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to be.”

  “Me, too.”

  Two words—that chagrined confession—shook her nerves into submission. She smoothed an errant lock back from his forehead and gloried as he closed his eyes. He leaned into her touch. “Then we’ll be nervous together.”

  “Lulu, my English dar
edevil.” He pulled her into his arms and held on tightly. For so many nights she’d imagined just such an embrace. Now they were together, finally, and she could hardly think past waves of joy. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  She nodded as reality pushed into their taxi. Joe had written to his mother and sister but had yet to see them in person. He’d also started a tentative correspondence with Harry Dixon. Slowly, with time, they might be able to heal those old hurts.

  And then there was the matter of what to do for a living. They’d discussed starting a flight school. Joe had even suggested that he could learn to repair planes instead of automobiles. Anything but people, he’d written. Lulu had yet to tell him about her job offer from Pan American, courtesy of Howie Rosen’s recommendation. But she would. A few years spent training airline pilots might help them gather enough purse for a business, for a family.

  That he’d come around to supporting her ambitions still lit her with a satisfied glow. He would never be anything other than an old-fashioned chap at heart, but he loved her too much to stand in her way. Every time she climbed into a cockpit, she would remember to cherish the concessions made by his masculine pride and fierce, protective love.

  Although stormy skies remained, the reality of being reunited with Joe was far more powerful. This was worth it. This would be worth it for the rest of their lives.

  Lulu kissed her husband tenderly, reverently. And under that overwhelming emotion simmered the desire they’d restrained for so many months. How far away was their hotel? The taxi wasn’t traveling nearly as fast as she wanted.

  “We do have a lot to talk about, Joe. But no matter what awaits us, we’ve already endured the worst. The rest . . .” She ran an eager hand up his thigh. “It can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?”

  “You have other plans, Mrs. Weber?”

  “I do.” She adored how fast his heart raced. It matched her own.

  He grinned. “Then maybe next week.”

  “Oh, yes, that does sound better. Next week.” She tucked into his arms and rested her head on the solid curve of his shoulder. “After all, every war bride deserves a honeymoon.”

  Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from Starlight by Carrie Lofty

  Alex Christie, the oldest and most steadfast of the four Christie siblings, is a widower with a flourishing career in astronomy. In order to protect his frail infant son from his cruel father-in-law’s bid for custody, he undertakes Sir William Christie’s posthumous million-dollar challenge: to make a Glasgow cotton mill profitable. Although clever and determined, Alex has never possessed his late father’s knack for business, nor his killer instinct. Sabotage, union agitation, and the peculiarities of urban Scottish life only magnify his burdens.

  Polly Gowan also seeks the identity of the saboteur, hoping to exact justice without involving the police. Because a sympathetic mill master would aid in her cause, she becomes Alex’s guide among her people. From soccer games to drinking contests to pub brawls, she is astonished to learn what masculine vitality lurks beneath Alex’s intellectual exterior. Too good for too long, he aches to burst free of his tight, repressive shell, just as Polly harbors a secret longing to escape the impoverished community she loves and defends.

  As plots threaten to extinguish their newfound passion, Alex and Polly realize just how at-odds their ambitions are. Alex will do anything to earn that million-dollar bonus and protect his son, while Polly refuses to put one boy’s future ahead of an entire community’s well-being. Only when the saboteur is revealed as an enemy to them both do they unite to protect all that they hold dear, including a love strong enough to shatter class boundaries.

  chapter one

  Glasgow

  March 1881

  Polly Gowan had never heard the sound of a cannon shell ripping open, but the blast that rocked the rear of the textile mill must have been a small taste of combat. The south wall caved inward under the explosion. A blinding plume of smoke and debris slammed toward the looms below. Three giant machines disappeared in the wake of that chaos of powdered brick. Shocked, screaming workers stumbled and ran in all directions, as flames licked their heels.

  Eyes wide, taking in every horrifying detail, Polly didn’t move. Her hands were still poised above the warp and weft of her own loom, the threads tangling from her lack of attention. She should move. Her thundering heart demanded flight. But she was consumed by one nauseating thought—one thought that meant the end of peace and safety for her people. And her family.

  Tommy had gone through with his threat.

  She held her aching stomach. The lightning-quick slam of that hideous realization gripped her hard, but not for long.

  She kicked off the firing mechanism that powered the loom’s arms and pulleys. It was instinct; if the place didn’t burn to the ground, she might at least be able to salvage her work. Then she grabbed the hands of the nearest two little sweepers, Ellen and Kitty. They were sisters of only eight and ten, both as redheaded as Polly. At the next loom, Agnes Doward did the same with nearby apprentices. Together they gathered the children who worked the mill, most of whom had been scared into paralysis or equally useless screams.

  “Come on now, lassies,” Polly shouted over the din. The harried calls of the other workers competed with the burn and crash. “Out we go. Out into the street. The fire brigade will be here in a wink.”

  She doubted her own words. The fire brigade might eventually hurry to the scene, but only once they learned which building blazed. The chiefs knew how furious the mill masters would be if the factories were destroyed. The rest of Calton was simply not a priority.

  “Polly,” Agnes called.

  Looking back to where Agnes had nodded, Polly saw that a hole the size of a horse had opened in the south wall. Its near-circular shape was visible now that some of the dust had settled. Flames still crawled over the wool stores. Male workers did their best with water from an outside pump, working a chain of buckets and swatting the fires with overcoats.

  What in the bloody hell had Tommy been thinking?

  She tugged the girls’ hands a little too roughly. She’d sort out the culprit later, feeding him to the families of whoever came away from this sabotage with injuries. There were bound to be some. The explosion had been too large to leave everyone unscathed.

  The crush toward the front and side exits was sizable and frenzied. Polly handed Ellen and Kitty to another worker, Constance Nells, and elbowed her way past a half-dozen people. She hoisted her skirts and climbed atop two crates, an advantage of height made her feel as brave as she needed to be. The panic wanting to break free would just have to wait. She needed to keep calm and set an example for the others.

  If the factory burned . . .

  Cupping her hands over her mouth, she shouted at the top of her lungs—which her ma had always said were the equal of a booming dockworker’s twice her size. That was not exactly flattering, but her strong voice was most useful today.

  “Everyone, listen up!” For emphasis, she shouted it again in the Lowland Scots dialect they all shared. “Keep panicking if you want to burn alive. Whoever did this will win the day. They’ll be glad for it, knowing we reacted like animals. I, for one, would rather breathe clean air again. Now, you’ll bloody well calm down, keep care of the young ones, and behave like the Calton survivors you are!” She hooked a thumb back toward those who worked to quench the flames. “And men, if you have any meat between your legs, you’ll help save our livelihoods!”

  For the span of a breath, there was no human sound. She had silenced them all. Nods and strong words of agreement followed. And, to her astonished pride, the seventy workers at Christie Textiles found their civilized minds. The men hurried back to help the efforts against the fire. The women hoisted children onto their shoulders and gripped their small fingers. Doors parted under the push of unseen hands, letting in a stream of misty spring sunshine. The smoke sucked out into the street, and Polly could taste the coming rain.

  Two hands
reached up to help her down from the crates. It was Les MacNider, a tall, skinny firebrand who talked as well as any professor—but only on the topic of workers’ rights and the oppression of their people. Otherwise he was just as likely as any man to grunt vague replies and talk sport, gambling, and women. He was a loyal friend.

  Polly accepted his aid in descending. “It was Tommy,” she whispered.

  Les shook his head. Although he was only in his late thirties, he was mostly bald. “I won’t believe it. Not of Tommy.”

  “There’s no time. Go help the other men. I’ll make sense of whatever awaits us out in the street.”

  Les nodded again and added a grunt of agreement. He worked his lanky frame back through the factory to take up a position in the line of buckets. In the distance, the clang of the fire brigade’s bells offered some relief, bringing with it a familiar flare of indignation. Polly wondered how quickly they responded to emergencies in Blythswood Hill. But she didn’t indulge in bitterness. That way lay melancholy and a dependence on strong drink.

  Or, in Tommy’s case, a yearning for violence.

  She rushed out after the last of the escaping workers. The streets were full of people, from both the Christie mill and across the street. Her fellow workers wore soot and ash like an actor’s face paint, while those from Winchester’s appeared curious and concerned. Every building on the street was vulnerable if the winds shifted.

  Already the scent of hot water and wet ashes permeated the air. Maybe they had a chance. The fire brigade had taken position in the alley, back near the stables and where deliveries of wool were stored. Whoever had planned the attack knew the establishment’s weakest place, right where the equivalent of dry tinder waited to erupt with the smallest spark—let alone actual explosives.

  Rough hands grabbed Polly from behind. She yelped. Reflex helped her fight, but the hands were strong, implacable.

  “You think you’re unstoppable, don’t you, Polly?”

  A shudder ripped across her upper back. She stopped fighting, if only to process her shock. Although his sneak attack had been a surprise, Rand Livingstone never failed to single her out as a scapegoat. Winchester’s overseer held a grudge against her as deep as the River Clyde. That she’d nearly made him a falsetto for the rest of his life had something to do with it.