by Sarah Sundin
He gazed down the length of the deserted ward. “Where’s my crew, the flight nurses?”
“The men are out for their daily constitutionals. They’ll be back soon.”
“And the nurses?”
“Another building.”
“Which one? I need to find them now.”
She offered a bathrobe and a condescending smile. “Lieutenant Cooper, you are a patient here. You can’t simply come and go as you please. The doctor hasn’t even examined you.”
“Sure he has, right before my shower and shave.” He stood and pulled on the bathrobe.
“That was the admitting physician. Now you need to see the ward physician.”
He jammed his feet in the slippers. “No, now I need to find my friends. They might not even know I’m alive.”
“You’ll have plenty of time—”
Roger held up one hand to silence her. Voices came from the doorway, all the way down the ward. Feminine voices.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. As a nurse, you know hospital policy does not allow visitors without physician approval. He hasn’t been examined yet.”
“But I need to see him, need to know he’s all right.”
That was Kay! Her voice sounded better than the sound of the shower pelting his skin. “Kay!”
“Roger?” She peeked around the nurse at the door, her face lit up, and she reached an arm to him. “Roger!”
He shouldered his way past his nurse and ran down the ward.
“Sir! Lieutenant Cooper!” she called after him.
The nurse at the door blocked Kay’s path. “Ma’am, you can’t. Hospital policy.”
He didn’t care about hospital policy, only about Kay. When he came barging toward the door, the nurse startled and stepped away.
Kay stood there, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, her red hair glossy and fresh, her hands over her mouth, her eyes glittering.
And his life was complete again. He threw his arms around her waist, lifted her right off her feet, carried her down the hallway, around the corner, and away from prying eyes. He set her on her feet, took her face in his hands, and studied every gorgeous inch of her. “You’re all right. Thank God, you’re all right.”
“You—you’re alive.” Her mouth bunched up funny, like she was about to cry.
“Ssh.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, same as he’d done in that Italian cellar a month earlier.
She held him tight, her hands firm on his shoulder blades. “I thought—we heard gunshots. Enrico?”
“He’s fine.” His lips swept over her forehead, and he savored the silkiness of her hair, her clean, feminine scent—her living warmth. “A goat.”
She pulled back to look him in the eye. “A goat?”
“The Nazis shot a goat out of spite.”
Her face reddened. “I thought you were . . . you were . . .”
He couldn’t let her finish that sentence, couldn’t let her cry, so he silenced her with a kiss on the mouth.
On the mouth.
On the softest, sweetest lips he’d ever . . .
For heaven’s sake, what was he doing?
He eased back. Kay looked at him, her lips parted and moist and inviting, her eyes wide and adoring and vulnerable. So vulnerable.
Her face rose to his. Her eyes fluttered shut.
He couldn’t kiss her again. He couldn’t. But how could he resist the woman he loved, the woman he longed for, the woman who filled him and refreshed him and satisfied him more than food and water?
His lips found her, tasted her, drank her in. He held her close, one hand buried in her hair, the other caressing her back. Never before had he kissed a woman like this. Never before had he loved a woman.
Her heartbeat thumped against his chest, spoke to his heart, and the beats synchronized in perfect, irresistible rhythm.
“Oh, Roger.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder and sighed.
He stroked her hair, breathed in the smell of her. “My Kay.”
She settled a kiss on his jawline. “I love you so much.”
“I—I—” He loved her too. But where would love lead? Love would lead to marriage, to disaster. He shouldn’t have—man alive! Why did he kiss her?
She rearranged her arms around his waist and gazed up at him with dreamy green eyes. “I’ve never been in love before. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
What had he done? What had he done to her? His heartbeat disconnected from hers and careened out of control.
Roger set his hands on her waist and pushed himself away. “Shouldn’t have done that. I made a mistake. Shouldn’t have.”
Her gaze swam around as if she’d just woken up, a look he’d seen several times during the evasion. “Shouldn’t have done—done what?”
He raked his hands back into his hair. He wanted to rip out his own heart and stomp on it, kick it, mangle it, anything so he could take the pain in her place. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He was the one without self-control. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Shouldn’t have . . .” Groggy confusion yielded to comprehension. “You’re not saying . . .”
He gripped his hair until it hurt, gripped it even harder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
Her gaze hardened, and her jaw jutted out. “How dare you? Last time you pushed me away because I flirted with you, but this time—you kissed me! You did.”
“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” He implored her with his eyes. “Don’t you see? No good can come of this.”
She crossed her arms, her color high. “Why? Because I’m a two-bit floozy?”
“What?” He stepped closer, stopped himself. “That’s not what I said—not what I think. You’re wonderful, everything I could want in a woman.”
“Except you don’t want me.”
Roger groaned and gazed at the ceiling. “I do. That’s the problem. But I’m no good for you. Don’t you see? I’ll never amount to anything.”
“Why would you say that?”
He returned his gaze to her, to her gut-wrenching hurt. “I got an audition with the Veerman band.”
A spark of light entered her eyes. “See? You will amount to something. I knew you would.”
“Yeah. I’ll be a drummer, drifting from town to town, hotel to hotel. I can’t give you what you want most of all.”
“What makes you think you know what I want?”
Roger ruffled his hair, smoothed it, then gave her a firm gaze. “You told me what you want. A home. You want a yellow house with a wicker chair on the porch. I can’t give you that.”
She hugged herself, and her expression changed—to a lost little girl. “If I . . . if I had you, I wouldn’t need a house.”
His head sagged back. “You say that now. But how long would that last? One year? Maybe two? Then kids would come, and you’d want to settle down, plant some roots. Kids need a home, a school, a church—and I can’t provide those things. You’d be miserable. I refuse to do that to you. I’d only disappoint you.”
“What gives you the right to decide what makes me miserable, what disappoints me?”
“It’s not a right. I’m not deciding. I just know.”
Kay stood still and quiet so long, he ventured a glance. The lost look had vanished, and only strength remained. “So you refuse to love me because you’d disappoint me?”
“Yes.” The word stung on the way out.
“Well, congratulations. You don’t have to wait—you’ve disappointed me right now.” Chin high, she marched away.
Roger leaned his forehead against the wall, rapped it on the wall, and pain zipped through his skull. What was new? He’d been disappointing people all his life.
44
Capodichino Airfield, Naples
February 28, 1945
From Algeria to Tunisia to Sicily to Italy to Southern France. Two years in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, and now Kay was going back to the States.
She shielded her eyes and gaz
ed around the airfield, the rugged mountains in the background, the bright blue sky. Many wonderful things had happened here.
So why did her anger at Roger Cooper overpower everything? She couldn’t stand to open her Bible and see Roger’s hypocritical notes. And prayer felt as effective as shouting into the wind. Her words flowed back into her own ears, unheard, unanswered.
She sighed and climbed the steps of the four-engine C-54 Skymaster transport plane, leaving Italian soil for good.
After she stashed her bag in the back with the rest of the luggage, she followed Georgie and Mellie down the aisle of the plane, set up with upholstered seats like a true passenger plane from her stewardess days.
About a dozen officers filled random seats. Georgie and Mellie found two seats together along the right side of the plane, and Kay slid into the row behind them.
She settled her musette bag on the floor by her feet. Only a few months earlier she’d flown immediately after Roger Cooper had spurned her and she’d ended up trapped behind enemy lines with him. History had better not repeat itself.
No, this time she’d be trapped for a month on a bond tour with him. But this time she wouldn’t let him close, wouldn’t let him anywhere near her heart.
She sensed him pass by on his way down the aisle, so she tipped her head away as if fascinated by the view out the window. The past two weeks in the hospital she’d managed to avoid him, except for one short meeting. He hadn’t been able to look her in the eye.
Good. He ought to be ashamed of himself, kissing her like that.
Like that . . .
She tried to shake the memory, but how could she? That kiss—the yearning, the power, the connection of it. And it was a mistake, he’d said. A mistake.
Oh, he was perfectly fine kissing her. But not loving her. That’s when he’d pulled back, when she said she loved him. She was good enough for clandestine kisses in the hallway but not for love and marriage.
All that talk about not being able to provide a home for her? Nonsense. Hadn’t she told him it didn’t matter to her? She’d gladly sacrifice that dream to be with him. If anything, she’d be the perfect band wife because she was used to living on the move.
What nonsense, a big fat lie. It was kinder than saying the truth—that she was desirable and kissable but not the sort of girl to bring home to mama. Because she wasn’t. She’d never be. Why did she even try?
Her throat thickened, and she crossed her arms.
“May I join you?” Capt. Don Sellers, the public relations officer, indicated the seat next to Kay.
She shrugged. “If you want. But I plan to take a nap.”
He sat and draped his overcoat across his knees. “An excellent idea. You ladies went through an ordeal.”
The engines built to a roar, one at a time, and her annoyance built to a roar too. “The ordeal would be over and we could get on with our lives if it weren’t for this tour.”
His gaze bored into the side of her face. “Why don’t you want to go, Lieutenant? The other ladies are sad to leave their men, but you seem downright angry. What would you be doing if it weren’t for this tour?”
Kay faced him. “You really want to know?”
“I really want to know.” His eyes were an unusual shade of light brown, an arresting shade.
She narrowed her own eyes at him. “I was admitted to the chief nurse program at Bowman Field. The next class starts on Monday. I could have made it, but thanks to this tour, I’ll miss this class and the next, and who knows if there will be a class after that. But don’t you worry—I’ll smile and wave and bat my eyelashes and sell your war bonds.”
Sellers’s smile grew from studious to appreciative to an outright grin. “You slapped him so hard his head spun, didn’t you?”
Kay stared at him. What on earth was he talking about? “Excuse me?”
He inclined his head toward the front. “The pilot—Cooper. He made a pass, and you slapped him.”
“Where on earth did that come from?” Her cheeks heated. “I was talking about the chief nurse program.”
“And in that speech I saw you’re a spitfire.” He chuckled. “Would’ve loved to see his face.”
Kay clutched the armrests as the plane jostled down the runway. “I’ve never slapped him.” Although she should have.
He pulled a silver cigarette case from the breast pocket of his service jacket. “Well, something happened. The evasion reports talk about you and Cooper working as one, close friends. And I saw your face when you found out he was alive, heard your voice when you said you had to see him. But since then, you two have avoided each other, and you’re furious about the tour. Something happened.” He plucked out a cigarette and offered one to her.
She shook her head. A perfect stranger. How dare he? Her chest heaved, desperate to spin a lie to save face, but she couldn’t lie. “It’s none of your business.”
“I disagree.” He slid the case back into his pocket. “My job is to keep the five of you happy and pampered. Barkley runs the show, but I manage you folks. If there’s a problem between you and Cooper, I need to know.”
Kay put on a stiff, sweet smile. “Lieutenant Cooper and I are both professionals and we’re both adults. We will get along and not cause any problems. That’s all you need to know.”
Sellers leaned closer until his shoulder almost touched Kay, and a trace of masculine cologne reached her nose. “I need to know one more thing. Are you dating anyone?”
Only a year ago, she would have added him to her lineup. Now his smooth confidence, easy charm, and good looks did nothing for her. “No, I’m not, nor will I for the duration of this tour.”
He settled back in his seat and lit his cigarette, a smug smile creasing his handsome face. “We’ll see about that.”
Kay groaned and pressed up against the fuselage. This tour got worse and worse.
Washington, DC
March 7, 1945
Maybe this bond tour wouldn’t be so bad after all. Roger glanced behind him to the drum set on the makeshift stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
“So tell me, gentlemen.” Major Barkley spoke into the microphone and grinned for the audience. “How did the ten of you get through this ordeal?”
“I tell you, sir, it wasn’t easy, but we had a philosophy.” Roger spoke from the script Captain Sellers had prepared from their evasion reports, polished to appeal to the public and censored to protect Captain Anselmo, Enrico, and the partisans.
“Yes, sir, we had a philosophy.” Mike’s earnest voice worked well with the script, and he could keep a straight face while mouthing the corniest lines. “We decided to accentuate the positive.”
Barkley tapped his finger to his chin. “Say, that reminds me of a song.”
Cheers erupted from the crowd gathered in front of the Memorial on their lunch break.
“How about it, folks? Lieutenant Cooper, they tell me you’re a fine drummer.”
“I get by.”
“He gets by.” Barkley gave a knowing glance to the audience. “Do the fine people of our nation’s capital want to see if this young man gets by on the drums as well as he does in the cockpit?”
More cheers, and Roger headed to the drum set, slipping out his sticks from inside his lightweight leather flight jacket.
Three dames in short red, white, and blue star-spangled outfits pranced onto stage. One of them scanned Roger head to toe and winked at him.
He gave her the briefest smile, polite but uninterested. After all, the girls would join them on the bond tour. As if having Kay around weren’t complicated enough.
The bandleader raised his baton, and Roger launched into a lively beat for “Ac-cen-tchu-ate the Positive.” The trio sang in harmony with little dance steps and much mugging, and the audience loved them.
Just yesterday Barkley learned Roger could drum, listened to him play, and had Sellers rewrite the script. Now Roger could practice before his audition with Veerman. Drumming would also keep him occupied d
uring the tour.
They arrived in New York on Saturday, took the train to DC, and spent Monday and Tuesday being interrogated by Army brass, one-on-one, thank goodness, so he didn’t have to be in the same room as Kay for long. Today they were putting on two performances, more on Thursday and Friday, then away for two-week furloughs.
Offstage, the three nurses waited for Barkley to pretend to interview them for the crowd. Kay hadn’t looked Roger in the eye since he’d kissed her, and words were chilly and few.
This time she wouldn’t forgive him. He didn’t blame her, since he couldn’t forgive himself. If only he had one iota of self-control. Then her heart and their friendship would be intact.
Sure, he’d done the right thing letting her go. Maybe the realities of the bond tour—hopping from city to city and living on the rails—would make her realize it too.
That didn’t ease his guilt. If he hadn’t kissed her, he wouldn’t have needed to push her away.
He thumped out the final beat, and the audience cheered. Roger stood, bowed his head, and headed down rickety stairs offstage.
“Let’s hear it for our three little nightingales,” Barkley called. “Come up and join us, ladies.”
Roger stepped to the side as the women climbed the stairs. Kay walked past as if he didn’t exist.
The crushing ache in his chest intensified.
“That was swell, Lieutenant.” Charlie Poole, the stagehand, ushered them toward the tent they used between shows. “You’re a top-rate drummer.”
“Thanks.” He smiled at the kid.
Mike lagged behind to listen to the women speak.
Inside the tent, Roger sank onto a camp stool. “Say, Charlie, how old are you?”
He pulled himself taller and ran his hand through unruly straw-colored hair. “Eighteen, sir.”
“Liar.”
Charlie glanced around the tent, but they were alone. “All right, I’m sixteen, but that’s old enough for a job, you know.”
“I know. What about school?”
He flapped a hand at Roger. “Ah, I’m no good at school, sitting still and doing what Teacher says. Why should I when I can get a man’s job and a man’s wages?”