by Sarah Monzon
Hang her father. Henry was an earl. That made her, what? A—
Henry hooked an arm over her shoulder and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Welcome home, Countess.” He dropped the luggage and swept her off her feet.
“Henry!” Her exclamation covered so much. His penchant for carrying her around when she was more than capable of walking on her own. His lack of informing her of his station and rank among English gentry and the size of his family estate. His surprise and apparent delight of her response to all of the above.
An elderly gentleman stooped with age opened the grand door, his livery a testament of times gone by, though thoroughly pressed and preserved. “Good to have you home, my lord.” He inclined his head to Alice. “My lady.”
Alice smiled in return, biting her tongue from explaining such formalities were not necessary with her. She had a suspicion her breath would be wasted on the butler steeped in social traditions.
“You’re looking spritely, Collins.” Henry flashed the butler one of his smiles as he passed and entered the manor.
White Oak was a splendid plantation full of southern charm with its columned wraparound double porch, gabled roof, and plantation shutters. Roaming its halls was like being transported back to a time of hoop skirts and top hats.
But this…
Alice stared up at the high ceiling towering above her, the curved twin staircases that led to the upper floor. Walls that were framed like beautiful pieces of artwork. She had never seen a house more exquisite. She could imagine Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy greeting them and inviting them to stay for tea.
“Well?” Henry’s voice brought her inspection back to his expectant face. “What do you think?”
“Stunning.”
His eyes softened as they stared into hers. “I think so too.”
Heels clacked behind them on the wooden floor, and Henry turned to include Sybil. He lowered Alice to stand on her own, then hooked out both elbows to the ladies. “Let me show you around.”
They traveled from the reception hall to the drawing room, where floor-to-ceiling drapes covered the windows, but even with the lack of light, Alice could see the layer of dust that coated everything. Good thing the furniture had been covered with white sheets to protect it. A fireplace took up the center and lower portion of one wall, the ceiling ornately scrolled with woodwork.
“If we remove the furniture and store it in the attic, how many beds do you think we could fit in here, Sybil?” Henry looked around the room with a calculated eye.
Alice pivoted toward him. “Beds?”
He jolted. “Right. Yes, sorry. The other part of the surprise.” A grin broke across his face. “We are going to turn the estate into a convalescent home for wounded soldiers.” Four steps and he was in front of her, hands wrapped around her waist and resting at the small of her back. “I know you want to do your part in this war, make a difference. As do I.”
She picked at a piece of lint on the shoulder of his jacket. “You do. With your newspaper stories and spying.”
“And now with this.” He kissed her nose. “Your heart may always be up in the clouds, but I’m hoping you’ll be content to clip your wings for just a while. Work with your aunt to get these soldiers back on their feet.” He traced small circles on her back with his thumb. “I promise you won’t be grounded forever. You will fly again, my dear, just maybe not to fight against Hitler and his army.”
Leaning forward, she pressed her mouth against his. “I do love you, Henry. You’re a good man with a great heart.”
They stood there, staring into each other’s eyes for countless moments before his lips tipped. “Should we see the rest of the house? There’s one room in particular I am especially interested in showing you.” He glanced over her shoulder and then slanted his head toward her ear. In a low whisper, a seductive smile in his voice, he said, “Although maybe not with your aunt in tow.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Present Day, England
Three weeks and Jack still couldn’t believe what she’d become a part of. She remembered her surprise and delight when Alice and Albert had given her a tour of the family estate’s extensive grounds, introduced her to the men and women who resided there. She remembered because she awoke every day with the same feelings.
A legacy indeed. Apparently transforming the mansion into a convalescent home during World War II had been a sort of gift Henry had given his wife. A way to make her feel useful since she could no longer ferry planes for the Air Transport Auxiliary. Neither of them had foreseen just what that legacy would continue to look like over seventy years later.
Veterans, diverse in need as they were in rank during their time of service, littered the wood-accented halls and rolling green acreage. Some came for the peace and quiet of the countryside, an atmosphere of healing to the demons they still battled in their minds. Others came for the vocational education the Caldwell family provided. Computer science, culinary arts, agriculture. More recently auto mechanics and welding. Never would she have imagined she’d be teaching a trade to veterans, but every time she looked into their eyes, a mixture of dragons yet to be slain and the burgeoning hope and confidence in their ability to slay them, she thought of Michael. The way his expression would take on a haunted glaze when he looked at her. Maybe he’d benefit from a program like the one the Caldwells had created. Why then did something stop her every time she reached for the phone to call him?
Truth was, she missed him. Fiercely. Daydreamed about his crooked smile and laughing eyes. His determination and strength of spirit. She’d cried when Alice had brought four boxes of doughnuts one morning, reminding Jack of his ridiculous personality test based on the pastry. Relived the moment in Eli’s living room when she had sat in his lap, kissed his scar, and tried to convince him he was her choice.
The ache of his absence chipped deeper into a chasm each passing day.
She exited her room in the attic and descended the back staircase, which had been reserved for servants back in the day when there had been a distinct social line between the gentry who resided upstairs and the commoners who served them downstairs. The manor house had been updated and renovated to accommodate its new purpose, but they’d kept as much of the history of the home as they could. Made watching shows such as Downton Abbey all that more relatable and interesting to her. She’d still rather tune in to Top Gear, and most of the residents appreciated that, except for when Alice got ahold of the remote—then it was Lord and Lady Grantham all the way.
Jack opened the back door and stepped out into the morning fog that settled along the lush green pasture she pretended were the moors. On mornings like this they did have the mysterious, eerie quality that gothic novelists liked to describe, so her make-believe was easy. The outline of the old coach house, which had stored the horse-drawn carriages in the day and had been retrofitted as her work space, was barely recognizable through the thick mist. It was there that the family had collected and stored the pieces of Alice’s plane that they’d salvaged from her wreck in the mountainside
Her students would start to arrive in about thirty minutes, ready to get their hands streaked with grease as they became elbow deep in the six-cylinder engine they were rebuilding. Brought back memories of her and her dad restoring her vintage BMW Roadster in high school—the project that had ignited her love of bringing new life back to things left forgotten, things other people had given up on.
The mist cleared as she neared the carriage house. The stone structure complemented the main manor, the three arches outlining where the Caldwells had replaced the three separate doors into one large opening. Perfect for when Alice Caldwell’s plane was put back together and ready to take to the skies once more. She flipped on the lights and waited for the incandescents to warm up and fully illuminate the space. Footsteps sounded above her, then the whine of a drill. The sound brought a smile to her face. One of the men who had worked in the construction battalion had offered to update the apartment in the upper st
airs of the carriage house for her. At first she’d refused, afraid doing the same work he’d been doing in Iraq when he’d witnessed his best friend blown up by an IED wouldn’t help his PTSD and night terrors. He assured her, however, that the rhythmic hammering was cathartic and made him feel useful again.
A knock sounded at the door, and Jack turned toward it. “Come in.”
Alice stepped in, a pair of designer jeans stuffed into her Wellingtons, hair pulled back in a chic low ponytail. “Just a heads-up that we’ll have someone new joining the team. He’s scheduled to arrive sometime today.”
“Oh?” Jack tried to keep her curiosity at bay. Who was he? A part of the medical team or the training team? And why did Alice feel the need to give her a heads-up about it? Unless maybe… “Did you need me to pick him up at the airport?”
She shook her head and waved a hand at the same time. “No, no. Nothing like that. In fact, he’s flying in on his own plane.” Her gaze left Jack’s to sweep the room. “He’s volunteered to teach flying lessons to the residents.”
God forgive her, she shouldn’t judge. Shouldn’t assume some rich guy with his own private jet was going to fly in on some Good Samaritan complex and think he could relate to what the men and women at Caldwells’ estate were going through. As if he’d ever been called to sacrifice anything in his privileged life before.
A low hum in the distance piqued her hearing, the sound growing, getting closer. Jack would recognize the shrill of propellers and the cadence of a single-engine plane in her sleep—especially when it flew right over her.
“That must be him now.” Alice smiled and stepped out of the building.
Jack scrambled. To follow. To reconfigure the image in her head. That had not been a fancy-pants Learjet that had passed overhead. She stepped out of the carriage house-turned-hangar-slash-classroom and peered into the direction the plane had flown. Already the mist had consumed the outline of Alice’s form. Jack had no chance of making out the model of the plane.
Her feet sank into the muck the rain from the night before had created in the fields and was glad that she’d already donned her overalls and steel-toed boots. Maybe with a good scrubbing, the pink leopard print on her boots would be noticeable again under all those layers of claylike mud.
Voices reached her before her vision picked out any forms. She couldn’t make out words, just the pitch—one clearly Alice, the other decidedly male. No surprise there. What was a surprise, however, was the pale-yellow paint of a very familiar Piper Cub. The laugh and then distinct profile that had been burned into her mind, her memory, her heart.
Michael.
She stumbled to a stop, arms and legs no longer obeying the commands of her brain. As if her gaze alone summoned his attention, he turned and set his ocean-blue eyes on her. He said something to Alice that Jack couldn’t hear, his lips moving but not his focus. Tunnel-visioned, he stepped toward her, his gait confident.
Everything stilled—her breath, her heartbeats, her thoughts—as she watched him eat up the distance between them. Her eyes swept over him, cataloguing every swell of muscle, every ridge and line of his body that had become so familiar and precious to her over the last few months. He looked good, well. Upward her gaze went until it was captured again by his. Pulled in.
Pulled in. Had she ever experienced all in with him? Her heart, which had stilled at the first sight of him, now knocked against her ribs at a frantic pace. There was a difference about him. She saw it now. In the way he strode, shoulders back, spine straight, conviction in each step. More so in that gaze that arrested her. There had always been a magnetic tug whenever she’d looked at Michael, but his eyes had been reserved, only letting her in as far as he was comfortable. It had been that clear line he’d drawn. Now? His gaze was a vortex that sucked her in. Wide, open, deep. He looked at her and held nothing back. Not the pain, not the disappointment, but even more importantly not the hope. And—she reeled from the intensity—not the love.
His steps did not lax as he drew closer, instead it seemed he gained speed until all at once, in one graceful move, he was before her and she was wrapped up in his arm, chest pressed against chest.
A small breath escaped her parted lips, and his head dipped, his mouth on hers, moving in a confession. She felt it. Heard it. To the tips of her toes and back again she felt everything that he had ever bottled inside, that he’d tried to hide away and shield her from. From his disappointment and confusion to his anger and helplessness. He softened his lips, his touch. Asked for forgiveness. For a chance.
Rising on her toes, she pulled his head down to answer him with a truth of her own, her heart swelling until she felt the overflow on her cheeks. His mouth left hers, and she reeled, her stability only returning when his lips pressed gently at the corner of her eye as he kissed away her tear.
He rested his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling. “Jackie—”
“I know,” she whispered. What was there left to say? He’d said it all with that kiss.
“I need to tell you—”
Her fingers rested on his lips. “Shhh. I know.”
He chuckled against her fingertips. “Most women like it when a guy wants to apologize and tell her he loves her.”
Warmth spread out from her core. She’d already known his feelings, but hearing the words caused tiny fairies to do summersaults in her tummy. Leaning back, she looked into his eyes and quirked a brow. “Haven’t you noticed yet that I’m not like most women?”
His gaze roamed her face, long and slow, tenderness softening the lines of his face, usually taut with restrained emotion. “Honey, I’ve noticed every little thing about you since the moment we met.”
“Took you long enough to do something about it.”
Tilting her head back with a finger under her chin, his lips covered her once more in heady euphoria, taking her for a ride that ended with slow, sweet kisses trailing to her ear, where he whispered, “Making up for lost time.”
Gooseflesh rose on her arms as his hot breath fanned her cheek.
He took a half step back, his hands still anchored around her waist. “Now, let me say what I need to say.”
She smiled up at him, expectant.
“Mitch has been arrested. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
So not what she thought he was going to say. “Arrested?”
Michael nodded. “He was using his position as a corpsman to steal OxyContin and Vicodin and then selling them. They caught him red handed.”
Wow. Didn’t surprise her in the least though. A weight lifted at the realization she wouldn’t have to continually be looking over her shoulder for danger at every turn.
“There’s something else I need to tell you too.”
She looked into his eyes, mesmerized at all she saw there.
“I love you, Jacqueline Rogers.”
She grinned. “Jack.”
“Quiet, woman,” he laughed. “I love you, Jackie, and I’m sorry I was too stupid to say so before. I’m here now, ready to fight for you with everything I’ve got. If you’ll—”
“I surrender.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to fight. I surrender.” She reached up her hands and placed them on his cheeks, lifting up on her toes to press her mouth to his. “I love you.”
He smiled against her lips. “Best three words in the English language.”
Acknowledgments
Jesus: The greatest story teller and the well from which all my stories are derived. Thank you for your immeasurable blessings.
Jose: Thank you for being my real-life hero and the love of my life.
Elijah and Arianna: Mama loves you. Thank you for understanding that sometimes I have to be boring and work on my computer instead of playing Uno or coloring.
Robin Feathers: I couldn’t have maimed Michael without you. I really appreciate all your help and advice.
Mikal Dawn: Couldn’t have done this without you, your encouragement, and your connections. T
he woman who knows everyone!
Iola Goulton: I can never thank you enough for all of your insights and the things you caught early on. Your advice has seriously improved this story.
Jennifer Rodewald, Janet Ferguson, and Lucy Nel: Thank you for your help along every step of the way with this story. You women have a way of making my stories sound so much better!
Dori Harrell: The greatest editor award goes to you, my friend. I couldn’t imagine doing this without you.
Thank You Readers!
I sincerely hope you enjoyed both Michael and Jack’s story, as well as Alice’s. I’d be forever grateful if you’d leave a review on Amazon/Goodreads—even just a sentence or two. http://amzn.to/2ofEVDC
I’d love to connect with you! Find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sarahmonzonwrites on Twitter at https:// twitter.com/monzonwrites on Pinterest at https://www.pinterest.com/monzons and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/sarahmonzonwrites
If you’d like to be kept up-to-date on new releases, stop by https://www.sarahmonzonwrites.com and sign up for my non-spammy newsletter.
God Bless You!
Sarah Monzon
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
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Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
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Chapter Eleven
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Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
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Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen