She smiled up at him and said, "We've got a lot of time to work on it—together."
"I really hope so," he smiled back.
Soon, Jason was back up in the air again and flying back towards the barn near Paint Creek. It was a clear night—and would have been a beautiful one for flying—if not for the fact that he was low on fuel and trying his best to be clandestine about the whole affair.
When he got to the field where he would land, he circled in the sky until he saw Bronwyn pulling out into the meadow with her lights on. She had a lantern which she swung back and forth over her head to signal that he was cleared to land. He blinked his landing lights at her and, for all intents and purposes, landed blind.
As he climbed out of the cockpit inside the barn he told her, "You know, three or four more of those and—I still don't think I'd be used to it. If I never have to take off or land in the dark again, it'll be too soon."
She threw her arms around his neck and said, "You did a great job. And, I've never said this to another pilot, but, well, I don't think I could have done it that well."
He smiled at her and chided, "I notice you didn't say you couldn't have done it at all."
"Oh, if it can be done with an airplane, I can do it. I'm just saying I couldn't have done it as well." She kissed him, the asked meekly, "Can I tell you something?"
"Sure. Anything."
She hesitated, then said, "When I saw you land that airplane back at Marathon without the landing gear, that was nerve-wracking. But tonight, this was incredibly tense. I almost passed out. And, well, I don't think it was just because of the landing in the dark aspect of it. I think the worst part of it was that, well, I love you now. It's always hard for me to watch another pilot land, but tonight—" she broke off in mid-sentence and began smothering him with kisses.
As they stood there in the dark, he held her tightly to him, liking the feel of her body against his. With one hand on the small of her back and another against her neck, feeling the luxurious softness of her hair—hair whose beautiful color he felt like he could see even in the dark—he could feel the firmness of her breasts against him and the shape of her curves. As he breathed in the light scent of the little perfume she wore, he whispered, "I need to apologize for something, Bronwyn. I've meant to for a long time, but I kept putting it off."
She pulled away slightly, trying to see his face in the light from the stars and the little bit of moon. "What?" she asked with a smile. She couldn't imagine that he truly had anything to apologize to her for.
"Do you remember," he hesitated, "It seems like so long ago but I guess it wasn't. Anyway, do you remember that morning when Captain McIntyre called the four of us into his office and asked if we wanted to fly those old beaters?"
"That was the same day you had your crash. Of course I remember."
"That was all the same day, wasn't it?" he marveled. "Gosh, so much happened it seemed like that had to have been over a couple days." He took a deep breath and then continued, "Anyhow, when you walked into that office in those fresh clothes, well, I had never seen you like that. I mean, you had been cleaned up the evening before, but there was something about that morning that—well, the something about that morning was that when I saw you in that uniform and your hair all brushed and—"
As he trailed off, she chided him with a little poke to the ribs and asked, "What? What are you getting at?"
He sighed, as if steeling his will—which he was—then blurted out, "I wanted to apologize because when I saw you looking so pretty that morning the first thought that popped into my mind was—um—what you must have looked like in the shower."
"The show—" her hand shot to her mouth and then she buried her head against his chest to hide the severe blush that had overcome her face, even though it was almost pitch dark where they were standing and he couldn't have seen it anyway. Finally, she said without looking up, "I had forgotten all about that. I was so embarrassed when I realized who I was talking to. Anyone else and I probably would have been just marginally embarrassed. Oh gosh, my face is hot."
After a moment, she asked, "So what is it you're apologizing for?"
"For my thoughts," he replied quickly, before he could lose his nerve to talk about it. "It's not right to think of a woman . . . in that way."
"You are an officer and a gentleman, huh?"
"It's not just that," he denied. "It's not that at all. It's that, well, when a guy starts thinking that way about a girl, he stops thinking about her any other way. He stops noticing that she's really smart or witty or fun to be around. All he thinks about is her . . . figure. And, um, I just think it's morally wrong. Maybe I'm a prude—"
"Prude isn't necessarily bad," she whispered. She finally raised her head, and kissed him. After the kiss, a soft one, she told him, "There are times when you want to be looked at. Ogled a little, even. But I know what you mean. No woman wants a guy to—there's no good way to say it. And when you really meet a guy—the guy—you do want him to think you're pretty, and that you've got a nice figure, but that's not all you want him to see in you. You want him to see your mind and your heart and, well, the whole picture.
"But, um, back to what you were apologizing for. I never knew if you, um, saw me that way."
"Well, as for what I'm apologizing for, I have tried my best not to see you that way. I have tried to see your mind and your heart and I've found them both to be beautiful. But if I haven't mentioned it before, I really do think you're very pretty. And, uh, I don't apologize for that."
As they drove back into town, he suddenly asked, "Does it seems strange to you that we're not both more shook up by all this?"
She knew exactly what he meant and nodded. Then, realizing he couldn't have seen the motion, she told him, "Yeah. It's weird. There's a certain melancholy when I think of what we've apparently lost, but not the sense of panic you might expect, or fierce determination to get back I would have expected of myself a week ago."
"A week ago, if someone had lain this scenario out for you, you would have thought they were nuts. But now," he said, then drifted into silence. After a bit, he offered, "I think it would be different if we had people back there."
"Huh?" she blurted out, shaken from a reverie she couldn't now remember.
"If my parents were alive and back there—or my Susan—I'd be doing everything I can to get back there. War or no, I'd trade this peace for that war. But I've got nobody back there."
He said nothing about her situation, but she realized he was probably right. It was her turn to blurt something out as she asked, "So, are you thinking it's a mistake for us to get married?"
"What?" he asked loudly. "Where did that come from?"
"Right now, Jason, you are my world. You're the only person I care about. You're the only person I really know. And, while you remember people who were like many of the people here, they don't know you. I'm the only person you know here. I love you, but I don't want you marrying me just because—"
"Stop that," he said as he brought the truck to a screeching halt beside the highway. He took her hand and, by the light of the dashboard, told her, "I want to marry you because I love you. I wouldn't marry you for any other reason.
"Yes, the circumstances do play into that—this decision. But that's who we are and we can't change it. If I need to prove it to you, I'll take up a separate residence in another town and date you and court you until I can convince you to marry me. I'm willing to do that, Bronwyn. But I'm really hoping—literally, praying—that you will marry me this Saturday night. Now, if you're worried about anything and want to take some time just to sit back and think about it, I'll wait for you as long as—"
"I was just being stupid," she said, the sound of tears near her voice. "Now, as the heroine said in that dippy movie we saw, 'Shut up and kiss me.'"
"You know," he said as he pulled the tarp off of Eddie, "If we could really perfect all the math and everything needed to program this, we wouldn't need to buy a car."
"I thought of that. But, it's like Gustav was always pointing out, we'd have to know the exact distance from the center of the earth of the spot where we wanted to go and all that."
"You think we should have left it on the airplane? Just used it that way?"
"As tempting as that sounds," Bronwyn shrugged, "I don't think it would be wise. Even if we keep the airplane and use it for our own personal transportation, if we start taking off from recognized landing fields then someone's going to want to inspect it for safety reasons and all that. Eddie would just be too hard to explain. If it were just cargo, maybe, but something like that that's actually bolted into the frame is bound to generate questions."
"Good thing we got the model without any guns or bombs, huh? And it might generate some questions if we take off from Abilene one moment and land in Dallas five minutes later." He twisted his back as if trying to loosen it—or unattach it from his pelvis.
She reached out a hand and asked, "Something wrong with your back?"
"Just stiff from sleeping on the floor these last couple nights."
She smiled genuinely and said, "Well, last night was your last night for that." More demurely, she asked, "Are you sure you're ready for tonight?"
"Absolutely. Are you?"
"Waited all my life."
Making sure no one was driving up, he put his arms around her and asked, "How are you feeling? I didn't hear you throwing up this morning."
She shrugged, "I think it was just a coincidence that I got so sick that one morning. I've had a few other bouts, but there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. It'll just come over me all of a sudden and I'm sick, then it goes away just as suddenly."
"How often is it happening?"
"Like I said, no pattern. But, well, I guess it's happened about five times in the four days we've been here. One evening I thought it was the chemicals at the laundry that set me off, but yesterday I got sick on the way to work. I haven't been sick today, but I don't know if that means anything or not."
"Any idea when the doctor might hear back from Abilene?"
"Should be within the week." Looking at him, she asked, "You're thinking of something else, aren't you? What? What's on your mind?"
"I don't want to in any way sound negative," he began, slowly and carefully, "But if they should want you to take any kind of treatments or any sort of long range plans, let's don't do it in Abilene. I, um, don't have a pleasant association with Abilene hospitals."
"We'll go anywhere you want." She looked at the "Frostie Root Beer" clock on the wall of the car bay and said, "I better get going. My break time's about over, you know."
"Take care of yourself."
"You, too," she said, punctuating it with a kiss. She had never enjoyed kisses so much as even the little ones with Jason.
He watched her walk away and his heart tugged at the sight. He really was in love with her, he realized. And not just because of the circumstances or her figure or that beautiful red hair. He was in love with her because . . . because he loved her. And he liked the fact that she loved him. He could feel it in those little kisses, and even more in the longer ones. He felt it in her touch and heard it in her voice with every word she said.
He smiled appreciatively and went back to work on the old Studie Dave Lester had brought in for him to work on.
"Bad news," she said as she showed up at the gas station to ride back to their apartment with him in the station's tow truck. It wasn't a great vehicle, and it was just slightly less greasy than Ernie Pike himself, but they needed it to get to Weinert. Bronwyn had covered the interior with some of the unclaimed towels from the laundry, which not only helped with the cleanliness but actually made it look better, too.
"What's that?" he asked, almost in a panic. He was thinking of her illness and afraid something bad had happened during the day.
"Bert and Chan can't make it. Bert's got a baseball game and Chan's got to go somewhere with her folks."
"So who do we ask?"
Just then, as Jason lowered the door to the first bay, a car pulled into the gas station and a voice called out, "Can I still get some gas?"
"Sure," Jason called over his shoulder. Kerrigan turned around to see Lanny and Susan at the pump. Nervously he walked over and asked, "Regular or Hi-Test?"
"Regular," Lanny replied. Looking over Jason's shoulder, to where Bronwyn had come up close behind him (to get a look at Susan), Lanny asked, "So, what're you two doing tonight? By the way, your name's Bronwyn, isn't it?"
"Yes," Bronwyn replied hesitantly. "How did you know?"
"Aletha Klines is my aunt," Lanny hastily explained. "She speaks real highly of your work. Says she doesn't expect to keep you for long."
"Thanks," Bronwyn nodded. "And no offense to your aunt, but I hope she's right."
"So, what are ya'll doing tonight?" he asked again, smiling in an extremely friendly way. It occurred to Jason that this was one of the "good ol' boys" Texas had always produced.
Jason looked at Bronwyn. Bronwyn looked at Jason. They both shrugged, then Bronwyn raised her left eyebrow and Jason looked at her as if to ask, "Are you out of your mind?"
Giving him a look intended to imply, "What choice do we have?" she returned Lanny's question, "What are you two doing this evening?"
"Not much. Just out for a drive."
Bronwyn took a deep breath and said, "Is there any chance we could ask a really big favor of you two?"
"I love your dress," Susan said as Jason and Bronwyn climbed into the back of the Stevens' car. Susan and Lanny had gone home to change into dress clothes as Jason and Bronwyn had done the same. The Stevens had even offered to drive (which was good because there was no way all four were going to fit into the cab of the pickup), so now they were parked in front of the Kings' garage.
Bronwyn had found a white dress that was simple, yet somehow elegant. It came to just below her knees and she wore white hose and matching white shoes. The neck had a bit of a "V" to it, but not much and the sleeves were long. She couldn't imagine what else she might ever be able to wear it to, but it had seemed right for the wedding. Jason had found a nice, black suit, though the lapels were a little wide for his tastes.
Lanny said from the front seat as they pulled out, "I know it's none of my business—but you two aren't really married?"
"Seeing as how we asked you to do this for us, I think it is your business." Having quickly worked this out in the apartment while changing clothes—Bronwyn in the restroom and Kerrigan in the bedroom in a move decided on not just out of propriety but out of a sincere and dually shared case of nerves—Bronwyn replied, "No. In fact, we've only known each other for about six weeks. To tell the truth, we've never even, um, slept together, but we were both down on our luck and we knew the only way we could get a room was to pretend to be married. We started out just to be doing it until we could get on our feet then I guess we figured we'd both go our separate ways."
She smiled at Jason, "But then I convinced him that being married to me might be a good idea after all, so we decided to go ahead and get married. But then we had the problem that we're both basically orphans and have no papers, no way to get papers—"
"And everybody we knew thought we were married, anyway," Jason injected. "But I remem—I had heard about this JP over in Weinert that would marry just about anybody."
"Judge Thigpen. He married us," Susan nodded.
"No kidding?"
Susan replied, "Uh-huh. See, I was raised Catholic and got married when I was sixteen. But the guy turned out to be a real—jerk. So I got a divorce. When I met Lanny last year," she put her hand on Lanny's shoulder and looked to be truly in love with him, "And we decided we wanted to get married, well, my church wouldn't marry us. Lanny's wouldn't either, so we went to Judge Thigpen and he married us right away. He just likes to see people together."
This not being his favorite topic of conversation, Lanny quickly asked, "Were you in the service, Jason?"
"Yeah, just got discharged,
in fact. That's where I met Bronwyn." It suddenly occurred to Jason that a discharge from the military would have left him in better shape financially than he currently appeared to be. It also should have left him with a truckload of papers confirming his identity, so he quickly added, "I had this buddy back when I was in the service that was going to make some money in his Daddy's business when he got out. I invested all of my savings in that, but, well, it didn't turn out to be the pot of gold it was supposed to be. I spent all my discharge money trying to get out of that hole. Got out of the hole, but had nothing left to show for it. Guess I should've checked into it a lot better than I did. I was kind of naive."
Lanny nodded, as if he'd heard such stories before. "What did you do in the service? I was in North Africa, myself. Sergeant of a machine gun unit. Chased Romell to hell and back."
"I was a pilot. Never saw much action, though. Kept getting sent places where the enemy wasn't."
Susan looked at Bronwyn and asked, "What did you do during the war? With everyone gone and everything?"
Without hesitation, Bronwyn replied, "I went to college. Got my masters in physics."
"Whoa!" Lanny responded. "No foolin'? And you can't get a job with that?"
"I've got to get my records taken care of," Bronwyn shrugged. "Plus, I kind of wanted to take some time off. Been so hard at work for so long, you know. Then a few weeks off drug into a few months off, and it gets harder to go back." She looked at Jason and honestly said, "And sometimes I'm not sure I want to go back."
"I went to college for a term," Lanny nodded, "But then I joined up and, once the war was over, I just didn't feel like going back. Maybe someday. I've got a good job out at the cotton gin but I bet I could be runnin' that place if I had a college degree. Might be worth—"
Suddenly, Bronwyn said, "Pull over!"
"What?" Lanny asked, even as he was pulling over.
As soon as the car had come to a stop, Bronwyn jumped out and, leaning on a fencepost and trying her best not to soil her dress, threw up. It wasn't until she had finished that she realized Susan was behind her, holding her hair out of the way for her. She stayed that way while Bronwyn stood there with her head bowed, just trying to catch her breath and calm down. "Can I get you anything?" Susan asked.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 3): Lost Time Page 23