by Sarah Sundin
One of his eyebrows hiked up in a curious way, and he excused himself.
If she weren’t careful, she’d just replace one bad reputation with an entirely new bad reputation—odd and mercurial.
Kay headed outside into fresh air. The ground personnel would have unloaded the cargo by now so she could set up the plane for her patients.
In front of the next hospital tent, Vera and Alice stood chatting.
Kay waved and strolled over. “Hiya, ladies. Have a good flight?”
Alice shielded her eyes from the sun and frowned at the hills in the background. “I don’t like the sounds of that artillery. Don’t you think it’s too early for us to be flying in here?”
“Not for these patients.” Vera turned to Kay, and her dark eyes gleamed. “Have you come to your senses? Are you going dancing with us tonight?”
Kay’s feet did itch to dance, and she couldn’t unify the nurses in the flight if she became a hermit. But if she went dancing, she’d come home with three new boyfriends. “Sorry. Not tonight.”
“Are you all right, sweetie?” Alice’s blue eyes brimmed with concern. “You’ve been so quiet lately. You’ve lost your zest for life.”
Actually, she’d never felt more zestful, as if she’d been faking it for the past twenty-eight years. She shrugged. “I’m still new to this—to God—and I’m trying to figure things out.”
Vera eased back.
Alice sent a patronizing smile. “Going to church is good, but you don’t have to go overboard and let it ruin your life.”
A snort from Vera. “Too late for that. She’s turning into a redheaded Georgie. Are you going to start preaching at us too?”
“Of course not.” Kay sighed and gazed away, where hospital tents spread inland like sand dunes.
“Good.” Alice shook back her blonde hair. “My mother says one should never discuss religion or politics in polite company.”
Vera thrust both hands in front of her chest. “Then I am extremely polite company because I don’t want to hear one word about it.”
Sadness tugged down on Kay’s heart. Vera’s father went to church every Sunday, worked hard Monday through Friday, drank hard on Saturday, and beat hard on his family Saturday nights. Then on Sunday, he’d go back to church.
Until recently, Kay had been Vera’s biggest ally in this matter. “Listen, I still want to be friends. But I have to make changes, and that means not dating six fellows at a time. For now I have to pull back and figure things out.”
Alice cocked her head. “How are we supposed to be friends if you won’t do anything with us?”
In the cloudless sky, three P-40 fighter planes zipped by in a V formation. Kay chewed on one side of her lip. “Why don’t we play bridge? Like we used to do in North Africa?”
“We were in the middle of nowhere.” Alice wrinkled her nose. “We didn’t have anything else to do. Here we have nightclubs, and I want to dance.”
“So do I.” Vera gave Kay a scornful glance, grabbed Alice’s elbow, and sauntered away. “Kay’s turned into a fussy old lady. We’ll go without her. She wouldn’t be fun anyway.”
Kay groaned, and her shoulders sagged.
“What was that about?”
With a sharp intake of air, she whirled to face Lt. Cora Lambert.
“Well?” Lambert’s gaze wandered over Kay’s shoulder to her retreating friends.
Kay smiled and fluttered a hand in their direction. “Oh, them. They’re just annoyed because I don’t feel like going out tonight.”
A long silence painted two creases up the chief’s forehead. “I’m worried about you. Ever since the incident with that Lieutenant Heathcock, you haven’t been yourself.”
“I hope not. I’m trying to change. I broke up with all my boyfriends.”
“So you can become a chief nurse?”
Kay’s breath formed a solid block in her chest. Was that how it looked? Like she was only trying to gain Lambert’s favor? “No. I just—I had to make changes in my life.”
“Hmm.” She crossed her arms over her gray-blue jacket. “Apparently, Vera and Alice aren’t fond of these changes. And I’m tired of the division. You ladies need to learn how to get along.”
A deep sigh fluttered over Kay’s lips. How could she gain ground on one front without losing it on the other?
15
Dinjan, India
June 8, 1944
Kavi and Asad ran to Roger with four other boys and girls. “Drum? Drum?”
He grinned. In Italy the kids asked, “Gum? Gum?”
Asad tugged on Roger’s arm—and his heart. “Raji, play?”
“Sorry, kids.” He sat on the steps of the basha. “I’m afraid we won’t be drumming together anymore. I’m leaving India.”
Kavi fingered the strap of his dhol and gazed down at the drum. “You are going back to America?”
Roger’s gaze passed from one set of sad dark eyes to the next. Military secrecy decreed he couldn’t say he was returning to Italy and escaping the dangers of the CBI right at the start of the monsoon season.
Back to Europe where the Allies had leaped out of stalemate. The US Fifth Army had taken Rome on June 4, and two days later the Allies landed in force in Normandy. The Nazis would be brought to their grimy knees in a few short months.
He offered the kids a smile since he couldn’t offer time. “A soldier can’t say where he’s going. But we’re leaving India.”
Asad hugged Roger’s arm. “I want you here.”
He patted the boy’s head. “I know, buddy. I don’t want to leave you guys.”
Kavi raised fiery eyes. “We need you here. The British Army needs you to fly food and guns to them.”
“Not anymore. A new group of pilots arrived in India a few days ago. We were just borrowed.”
Asad’s dark brown fingers played with Roger’s sleeve. “One more time on the drums?”
“Sorry.” He sighed and beckoned for the kids to follow him into the basha. He needed to pack and maybe he could find some candy for the children. He’d used up his gum weeks ago.
Roger snatched his drying laundry from the line strung across the room and shoved it—still a bit damp—into his barracks bag. He knelt beside his cot and pulled out his last package from Mom, which arrived just before they left Sicily. Two months in the boonies had decimated the contents. All he had left was a box of lemon drops. Mom could never remember Roger didn’t like lemon drops. But with eight kids, who could blame her?
“You guys like lemon drops?”
Kavi held the dhol in front of him, right in Roger’s face.
“I wish I had time to play, but I don’t.” Roger got to his feet.
Two shimmering lines ran down the boy’s face. He shook his head. “No, it is a gift. I give to you.”
Roger’s chest constricted. The dhol was Kavi’s prized possession, and although his family seemed well off, they had so little by American standards. He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I couldn’t take . . .”
Kavi’s big black eyes went from sad to devastated before Roger could finish his sentence. Accepting the gift would deprive the boy of his favorite possession, but refusing the gift would insult him.
Roger leaned down to look Kavi in the eye. “Do you really want me to have your dhol?”
“Yes.” He thrust it into Roger’s hands then swatted away a tear and gave a dismissive shrug. “It is a child’s dhol. My father said he will give me a man’s dhol for my tenth birthday this winter.”
Roger stroked the smooth drumhead, and his throat felt tight. How could he make things even?
Of course! He spun around and grabbed his tom-tom and spare pair of drumsticks beside his cot. “This is for you, Kavi. I want you to have this.”
The younger kids squealed, and Kavi’s eyes grew wide—but not as wide as his grin. “For me?”
“For you.”
Kavi hugged the drum with one arm and rapped on it with both drumsticks in his other hand. “See
me. I am big famous American drummer.”
Roger laughed, but regret nibbled at his stomach lining. How could he become a big famous American drummer without an American drum to practice on? He’d order a new one from the Chicago music store that supplied his drumsticks, but how long would he go without?
The kids danced to Kavi’s beat, and Roger shoved away the regret. What did a drum matter compared to the kids’ joy? The gift would be used and treasured.
What about the other gift? Was his Bible being used and treasured? He pictured Kay’s pretty face bent over the pages, inhaling the words, but that wasn’t the Kay he knew. Even so. Even if she’d burned it and flung the ashes into the sea, it didn’t matter, because he’d done the right thing.
Yet in the space of two months, Roger had given away the two things in the world that meant the most to him.
Once Dad said Roger wasted every good gift in his life—his mind, his legacy in farming, and his good solid Cooper reputation.
Kavi threw his free arm around Roger’s waist and hugged him. “Thank you, Raji.”
Roger smiled and ruffled the kid’s silky black hair. What he didn’t waste, he gave away.
Rome, Italy
June 14, 1944
“Benvenuto a Roma!” Georgie Taylor twirled in front of the gigantic Arch of Constantine. “I can’t believe we’re here.”
“It’s true, la mia bella Giorgianna.” Her boyfriend, Technical Sergeant John Hutchinson, stood an unromantic distance away and grinned at her.
Kay smiled at the pair. Since Hutch was a noncommissioned officer and Georgie was commissioned, they weren’t allowed to fraternize. Hutch played the role of tour guide to justify his presence. Could the Military Police arrest him for the adoring glances he lavished on his girl?
“I can’t believe we’re here either.” Mellie gazed up at the hulk of the Colosseum to their left. “The first Axis capital to fall into Allied hands.”
Lt. Tom MacGilliver clasped his fiancée’s hand. “I’m thankful the Germans didn’t sack Rome on their way out like they sacked Naples.”
“For once they showed some heart and some sense.” Kay shielded her eyes from a shaft of morning sun piercing one of the Colosseum’s arches. “Can you imagine destroying something that’s stood for almost 1,900 years, just out of spite?”
“With the Nazis, I can.” Hutch beckoned the group onward. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Georgie walked beside him, taking three steps for every two of Hutch’s. He stood at least a foot taller than she.
Kay fell in behind the two couples. With one hand, she clamped her shoulder bag over her stomach, although she couldn’t imagine what the locals would want with face powder and lipstick. Her other hand swung free and awkward. On sightseeing trips, this hand was usually wrapped around a muscular manly waist.
Had she ever been in a group like this without a date? Felt odd and unnatural.
The group wandered down the broad avenue leading from the Arch and running alongside the Colosseum. GIs on leave gawked at the sites, and Italian women and children offered items for sale.
Kay kept a firm watch on soldiers and locals and the cobblestone roads.
Hutch led them past a pair of MPs standing guard at the entrance to the Colosseum. Kay paid a dime of occupation money and entered.
Dozens of voices bounced off the stone walls and ceiling. Kay and her friends headed through a tunnel and up uneven ancient stairs to the first level, where the stadium opened before them in the warm sunshine. They circled to the right around the thickest part of the crowd until they found an open spot.
“Oh my.” Kay leaned her elbows on a waist-high stone wall. Remains of stadium seating slanted up around her, pierced by arched tunnels and windows. Pilings sprang from the ground. Once they’d supported the floor—now they supported sun-browned vegetation.
“Imagine all the gladiators in battle.” Tom waved his arm over the wall as if he held a Roman broadsword.
“You’re such a little boy,” Mellie said.
Georgie rested her chin in her hand. “The place makes me sad. Think of all the Christians martyred here, all the innocent animals slaughtered.”
“Well, hello there, doll face.”
Kay turned to her left. An officer draped his elbow on the wall beside her. Handsome and dark-haired, he wore a khaki shirt with lieutenant’s bars on the collar, pilot’s wings over his pocket, and a leather flight jacket with the patch for the US Fifteenth Air Force on the sleeve.
A bomber pilot showing off. Why else would he wear the jacket when the temperature promised to hit the high eighties?
His buddy stood beside him, dressed the same, taller, lankier, with a goofy grin as if he hadn’t seen a woman for a year.
“Hello.” Kay gave them a noncommittal smile and faced the stadium.
Officer A leaned closer. “A beautiful woman like you doesn’t deserve to be alone.”
How many times had she heard that line? She usually ignored the lack of originality and credited the man for the compliment, but today she heard the line in a new way.
“Is that so?” She cocked her head, letting her hair swing out to the side. “So if I weren’t beautiful, I would deserve to be alone?”
He jerked back his head. “That—that wasn’t what I said.”
“Yes, it was.” Kay gave the officer a sweet smile. “And you only sought my company because I’m beautiful. Shortsighted, don’t you think? What do you know about my personality, my intellect, my character? Nothing.”
“Say, Leo . . .” Officer B tapped his friend on the arm with the back of his hand, his smile as rigid as Kay’s. “I think I see Jones and Davison over there.”
Leo edged away from Kay. “Yeah, let’s go. Later, ma’am.”
“Good-bye.” She fluttered her fingers and her eyelashes at them, and they scrammed.
Silence to her right. Her four companions gaped at her.
“Goodness gracious,” Georgie said. “That was quite a show.”
“Rubbed me the wrong way. Think about it. You two were friends first.” Kay gestured toward Georgie and Hutch, then to Tom and Mellie. “And you two fell in love through letters, for heaven’s sake. Those two—they just saw a pretty face.”
Mellie’s exotic dark eyes took on a gentle, playful gleam as if saying, “Now you want something more, something better.” But she didn’t open her mouth.
Neither did Kay, though her heart screamed yes.
Hutch pointed Georgie to a pair of Italian boys in a mock swordfight, and the couple laughed at the little ones.
“Let’s go up to the next level.” Tom led the group through the nearest tunnel.
Did Kay stand a chance? Every relationship she’d ever had started with her looks and charm. Could she attract a good man based on her character?
And what kind of man did she want? A strong man of faith, but still fun and energetic. She couldn’t give that up.
Maybe someone with auburn hair and cocoa eyes and big thick shoulders.
“Oh brother.” Her words absorbed into the brick walls of the staircase. Roger Cooper was in India, and he didn’t like Kay one whit.
Maybe that was one of the reasons he appealed to her, because he didn’t like the old Kay. But what about the new Kay?
Nonsense. She didn’t even know who the new Kay was.
“Would you look at that view?” Georgie gazed through an arched window in the outer wall.
“The Forum to the right, Palatine Hill to the left.” Hutch pointed over Georgie’s curly head. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Columns, temples, arches, and remnants of buildings covered the hill before them. What once had been a thriving center of a decadent civilization now lay in ruins. But off in the distance, new structures poked up, shiny and clean.
A sense of warmth stirred in her chest. Perhaps the new Kay could be shiny and clean too.
Georgie clucked her tongue. “I should have asked Louise if we could borrow her camera. Poor thing
.”
Kay murmured her agreement. Louise Cox was in the hospital suffering from a bout of malaria.
“I forgot to ask,” Mellie said. “Did you invite Vera and Alice to join us?”
“Yes.” Kay grumbled so loud she thought the Colosseum would crumble beneath her. “They wanted to go shopping, find some nightclubs later on. Captain Maxwell agreed to take them and some of the other girls.”
“Sorry. I hoped they’d join us.”
Kay squeezed her friend’s arm, grateful for her subtle help in building unity. Since Mellie had been most injured by Vera and Alice’s cattiness, it meant a lot.
Georgie huffed. “Why would we want them along? They’d smirk at everything we said, as they always do.”
“Please.” Mellie’s voice lowered. “You know I don’t like gossip.”
Georgie set her hand on her hip. “And I don’t like how they look down on us because they think we aren’t sophisticated. We’re all nurses. We’re supposed to work together.”
“I know, but holding grudges makes things worse.”
“Doesn’t mean we have to socialize with them and take their snippiness either.” Georgie flounced down the aisle into the stadium.
Kay grimaced. She was doing a swell job unifying the flight, wasn’t she?
16
Capodichino Airfield, Naples
June 16, 1944
The new Form F annoyed Roger. Not only did he have to enter data he knew by heart, but now there were little boxes for each individual digit, as if he were a second-grader who’d get his columns mixed up when adding.
Sergeant Whitaker jumped down out of the cargo door. “Okay, Coop. All loaded and lashed in place.”
“Thanks, Whit.” He’d check everything again after he finished the stupid form. Crates of ammunition filled his C-47, bound for Grosseto Airfield, which the Allies had captured the day before. On the return trip, he’d evacuate wounded soldiers from the new US Fourth Corps.
A warm breeze fluttered the form on his clipboard, and he glanced around Capodichino Airfield for the hundredth time since he landed. Too bad he’d have nurse Alice Olson on his flight instead of Kay.
The day before, he’d arrived back at Comiso to find a dozen letters from Kay with lists of questions. She’d even numbered them. At first, she questioned God in a bitter tone, but as she neared the end of Job, her anger shifted from the Lord to her father, and her tone became desperate and longing.