Come Fly With Me

by Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  “You’re talking in circles, and I’m too tired to follow.”

  “What if everyone was in on the secret except Kitty and her lawyer?”

  “I don’t see how that would work. Someone would tell her.”

  “Who?” Margaret looked excited. “Everybody hates her. Well, except for her farm manager, but we won’t tell William. This is a brilliant plan, and I am a genius.”

  “I don’t even understand the plan, so I’m not sure about the genius part.” Katya reached for the chocolate biscuits, regretting she hadn’t managed to finish her dinner before Mary arrived and ruined her appetite. “I’m not sure I can pretend with Brodie anymore. I feel sick even thinking about him going on a date with Mary. Not that I’m interested in him, you understand, but because it was Mary. Mary? He should probably get a rabies shot.”

  “Stop distracting yourself with the trivial stuff,” Margaret said. “You waved goodbye to the man ten years ago. Who he takes to his bed is no business of yours.”

  “Bed?” The room began to spin. Or maybe it was her head on her shoulders. Because yuk! “I thought they only had dinner plans. But bed? I’m going to vomit.”

  Margaret waved a dismissive hand. “That was ages ago, and knowing Mary, I’m sure he regrets it. But you can console yourself with the old adage that if you sleep with a dog, you’ll catch its fleas.”

  Katya’s stomach lurched. Mary and Brodie? Yeah, she was definitely going to vomit.

  “Who has fleas?” Dougal boomed as he came into the room. He stopped short when he spotted Katya. “You didn’t tell me we had company.”

  “Brodie and Mary. He caught her fleas when they had sex.” Katya gagged. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Nonplussed, Dougal pointed to the hallway and Katya made a run for it. Fortunately, there was no puking. Unfortunately, her imagination was seared with images of Brodie and Mary together. Images she would never get out of her head. After splashing water on her face, she returned to the living room, wishing she was alone so she could process the news.

  “Are you okay?” Margaret looked worried. “I shouldn’t have told you like that.”

  “It’s fine. It’s all fine. As you pointed out, he doesn’t belong to me. It’s not my business who he takes to bed, or what he catches when he does it.” She shuddered at the thought.

  Dougal was sitting in the armchair beside his wife and leaned over to pat her hand. “Now then, this isn’t anybody’s fault.”

  Katya wasn’t so sure about that. She was pretty certain Brodie was to blame for everything. But she smiled at the couple and feigned agreement.

  As usual, Dougal was dressed head-to-toe in Elton-John chic, with a luminous green waistcoat, purple shirt, and green tartan trousers. Dougal’s dress sense had long been a source of speculation around Invertary. There were those who thought he dressed ironically and those who thought he must be color-blind. Katya had always been of the opinion he just had bad taste.

  “Now, what’s brought you out to visit so late on a Friday night?” Dougal asked once settled.

  While Katya was debating the merits of telling him about their fake relationship, Margaret went ahead and blurted it all out.

  “Now, you see,” she said. “They need to pretend to be in a real marriage until next week, that’s when the hearing is, to stop Kitty Baxter from taking the land back.”

  “This is a secret, Dougal,” Katya said.

  “One I thought we’d share with the town,” Margaret said mischievously. “Apart from Kitty’s farm manager, who’d tell her it’s all fake.”

  Dougal didn’t hesitate. “Morag McKay. That woman hates everybody and she’d sell out Katya and Brodie in a heartbeat.”

  He wasn’t wrong. If it weren’t for Morag running the only bakery in town, no one would go near her.

  “Our parents can’t know either,” Katya said. “There isn’t one out of the four of them who wouldn’t blow it for us. Or lose their mind over our relationship being fake.”

  “Our lips are sealed where they’re concerned.” Margaret did that thing where she pretended to zip up her mouth and throw away the key.

  “Don’t worry.” Dougal winked at Katya. “We’ll make sure all the right people know about your and Brodie’s problem, and we’ll make sure to keep your parents in the dark. You won’t lose your land if we have our way. Ben Baxter was very clear when he gave it to you that he wanted you to have it. His daughter has no right to let her bitterness get in the way of his gift.”

  To be honest, Katya was beginning to think that Catherine had a right to her bitterness. If she’d found a wedding certificate that turned her father into a bigamist, she’d have been pretty mad too. “Thanks, Dougal, Margaret. We need all the help we can get right now.”

  “You can count on us.” Margaret shared a smile with her husband.

  And, for some reason, Katya wasn’t reassured.

  21

  January 1946

  * * *

  Their journey to Scotland began in the belly of a tank. A friend of Ben’s dropped them off a few miles west of Berlin, where they met up with another army vehicle that then took them a few miles more.

  Natasha squeezed in beside her new husband, self-conscious whenever their bodies touched as the car bounced over damaged roads. Apart from Ben taking her hand to help her on and off their transportation, they’d barely touched. Even her wedding kiss had been a chaste peck on the cheek. It was nothing less than she’d expected and hoped for in a marriage that was only meant to rescue a friend. And that was all it was to Natasha. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure Ben was on the same page.

  Before they’d started their journey, Ben pulled her aside and whispered in her ear, “I know you don’t love me, and I don’t expect you to. We’ve both been through a lot. But I want you to know that I have feelings for you, Tasha, and if you wanted to try to make this marriage work, I wouldn’t object. So please think about it.” Then he’d pressed a kiss to her forehead and left her to say her goodbyes.

  Now she sat beside him, a small battered suitcase clutched tight in her lap. It contained her beautiful wedding dress, the precious gifts from her fellow camp residents, and the necklace she’d removed from Marina after the crash. One day, when everything had settled and the world was more peaceful, Natasha would return the medallion to Marina’s parents in Moscow. It was a silent promise she made to her navigator each night before sleep. During their trip, Natasha had a lot of time to think about her promise. And her future.

  Transport through Germany and France was patchy at best. Tired Allied forces used what meager resources they had to help the people around them, and little was left over to assure the comfort of their soldiers. There was so much rebuilding to do. And as news filtered down to Natasha and Ben, they became aware of the scale of need in Europe and the rest of the world. The war had left millions homeless and traumatized. Countries were decimated, food was scarce, and winter had hit hard. Already, snow was making it difficult to help those who needed it most, and world leaders feared another famine like the one in Holland the winter before.

  Given the magnitude of everything going on around them, it was easy to understand why transport home for one army translator and his new wife wasn’t high on anyone’s list of priorities.

  At the border with France, Ben managed to scavenge some winter coats from American soldiers leaving for home. It was the luckiest they’d been on their trip so far, as the snow had started falling in earnest the night before.

  “There’s a train leaving for the coast tomorrow,” Ben said as they bedded down, fully dressed, on mats in the corner of one of the American tents. “If we get there early, we should be able to find a space.” He didn’t need to tell her there would be a lot of desperate people trying to board the same train.

  Belly full, thanks to the generosity of the American forces, Natasha felt hopeful they would find a space. Things were finally looking up. They were warm, safe, and well-fed for the first time in weeks, so surely fa
te had decreed they’d get the transportation they needed.

  “Come here,” Ben said. “We’ll be warmer if we stay close.”

  Natasha thought about it and nodded, leaning into his side as his arm went around her. It was the closest they’d ever been, and it felt…nice. Comfortable. Easy. She sighed and settled against him.

  “You’ll love Scotland,” he whispered. “It’s as green as you’ll ever see. Invertary’s a friendly place too. You’ll have no trouble fitting in. I can’t wait for you to see the loch, with the purple heather-covered hills surrounding it. There’s no fairer sight in all of Europe.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” she said honestly. It seemed like paradise.

  “Our home is an old farmhouse, passed down through the generations. I’ll admit it’s in need of some modernizing, but it’s warm and comfortable, and there’s food aplenty.”

  Natasha hesitated, not wanting to upset him. “Will I live with you?”

  His body tensed beneath the palm she had resting on his chest. “If you want to.”

  “Then we’d have to tell people we’re married.” She couldn’t live with Ben without them knowing. A scandal wasn’t how she wanted to start her new life.

  “Like I said, it’s all up to you, Tasha.”

  “I need time,” she whispered. Time to get to know him as a man rather than her rescuer and confidant.

  “That’s fine.”

  He sounded a little strained, so she changed the subject. “I thought that farmers in Britain were allowed to stay home from the war.” She’d heard some of the Allies talking about how necessary farmworkers were to their country, which made them exempt from conscription.

  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the farmer. I inherited the land and didn’t take much interest in it. I was too busy trying to learn every language under the sun.” Ben chuckled. “Look where that got me. No, my best friend, Tom, runs the farm. He’s the finest farmer in Scotland, although you’d never know it because he doesn’t tend to take life too seriously. If there’s a party, Tom will be the first one through the door, guitar in hand, ready to entertain the ladies.”

  She struggled to imagine somber, quiet Ben being best friends with a man such as Tom.

  “Captain Baxter?” an American soldier whispered as he approached.

  “Yes?” Ben sat up, taking Natasha with him.

  “We have a situation and need someone fluent in German. Can you help?”

  “Of course.” He took his arm from around Natasha. “I’ll be back soon; try to get some sleep.”

  “Be careful,” she said as he left.

  Natasha was dozing when a gunshot woke her. The sound of running feet and shouting followed the blast. It was strange how, after being used to daily gunfire, a single shot could render her wide awake. An hour later, Ben returned. His face drawn, he’d changed his clothes, and he held a gun in his hand.

  “Why do you have a gun?” Natasha asked as he tucked it into his duffel bag.

  “The German had it.” His head fell forward as his eyes closed briefly. “He was a Nazi officer pretending to be Jewish to escape the Allies. He gave himself away when I was talking to him, and a search of his person revealed the gun and…and gold.” Agony-filled eyes met hers. “Gold he’d taken from people’s teeth.”

  Natasha’s trembling hand covered her mouth.

  “He tried to bribe us with the gold. To make us forget who he was and send him on his way.” Ben sat on the mat beside hers. “There was a struggle, and I grabbed his gun from the table where the Americans had put it. I shouted for him to stop fighting. He wouldn’t listen…”

  “It’s okay,” Natasha soothed. “It’s okay.”

  “I killed him,” Ben said.

  “You had to do it.” She knew Ben, and she knew he wouldn’t have done it if he’d had another option.

  Ben looked down at his hands. “Do you think the blood will ever come off these?”

  She wrapped a hand around one of his. “They’re clean now. Look?”

  Dark eyes met hers. “They’ll never be clean, Tasha. I’ve lost count of how many men I’ve killed. My hands are soaked in their blood.”

  “Not only yours,” she whispered. A bomber might not look their victim in the eye, but that didn’t mean death wasn’t left in their wake.

  “When I’d changed out of my blood-stained clothes, the American handed me the German’s gun. Told me to take it as a souvenir for a job well done. For saving his life.” He seemed bewildered. “I couldn’t refuse.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  He stared at her, looking lost. “I can’t get that gold out of my head. There was such a lot of it, Tasha.”

  “Come.” She tugged at him. “Lie down beside me. If you can’t sleep, then talk. You know I’ll always listen, and I’ll never judge.”

  He came to her side willingly, and as the silence of night fell over them like a blanket, he whispered the horrors of what he’d seen on the day he’d helped liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

  22

  “We looked everywhere for you,” a frowning Darach told Katya when he opened the door to their house after Dougal dropped her home.

  “Why?” Katya padded inside.

  “Why?” Darach put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from walking down the hallway to the kitchen. “It’s almost midnight. You’ve been gone for hours with no phone, no money, and no shoes. Everyone’s been worried—especially Brodie. If I’d had to hear one more time about your feet getting cut up on your walk, or some guy abducting you from the side of the road, there would have been violence.”

  “Katya.” Brodie stalked out of the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

  She was definitely missing something because she couldn’t figure out why the guys were overreacting. “I’m fine. What’s going on? Why were you two worried about me being out alone in Invertary? Has Catherine put a hit out on me?”

  They clearly weren’t amused, and for a second, she thought Brodie was going to reach for her—the same way he used to pull her into a hug when they were together. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair.

  “I was worried something had happened to you,” he said gruffly.

  “I wasn’t,” Denise called from the kitchen. “I told them if you could handle yourself with the London Mob, then you could handle a walk through a sleepy Highland town.”

  Oh crap. “You told them about the Mob?”

  Denise’s head popped around the doorway. “Purely to reassure them.”

  “They wanted you to run drugs?” From the color creeping up Brodie’s neck, it looked like it was only a matter of time before his head exploded.

  “I said no,” she pointed out.

  “To. The. Mob.” Brodie forced the words through clenched teeth.

  Darach had the same grim, almost angry, look on his face as Brodie. “People don’t say no to the Mob.”

  “This isn’t the movies.” Honestly, it was far too late at night to be dealing with their outrage. “People say no to the Mob all the time.”

  “Aye, and do all of them have to leave the country until the Mob gets over it?” Brodie gritted out.

  Katya turned to the kitchen. “Is there anything you didn’t tell them?”

  Denise was unrepentant. “I thought it’d reassure them.”

  Judging by the way Brodie and Darach were frowning at her, Katya would have to say Denise’s plan had failed.

  “I’m fine.” Katya held up her hands. “Then and now. I can take care of myself.”

  “No,” said a stony-faced Brodie. “You really can’t. You scrape by on luck and bravado, and it’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

  The realization that he’d been genuinely scared for her made her soften. “Seriously, I’m okay.”

  “This time.” His jaw firmed. “I should never have let you go off on your own. You need a keeper.”

  This again? “It’s only Invertary.”

  “I’m not talking about tonight,” he said with c
lear exasperation. “I meant ten years ago.”

  As Katya rocked back on her heels, she registered the same shock in Darach.

  However, Brodie wasn’t paying attention to their reactions. He was too busy ranting to himself. “If I hadn’t been so concerned with myself, I’d have realized you attract trouble, and without me to watch your back, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Clearly I didn’t,” she pointed out but refrained from adding that he wasn’t making any sense.

  “Aye,” he said grimly. “But what about the next time you wander off? Who’ll make sure you’re fine then?”

  “Brodie, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here in Invertary, remember?”

  “Not only in Invertary.” He pointed at the floor in front of his feet. “You’re staying right by my side, so I can keep an eye on you. You hear me? Don’t even think about wandering out of my sight.” He turned back toward the kitchen, muttering about her giving him premature gray hairs.

  “What’s going on with him?” Katya asked Darach, genuinely confused.

  Amused, he patted her shoulder. “I’ll leave you to figure that out, little sis.”

  “Whatever.” Katya was too tired to deal with MacGregor logic. “Come on, I need a cup of tea, and then I’ll tell you what happened with Dougal and Margaret. They’ve got a plan to help us with the whole fake relationship thing.”

  “You told them?” Darach groaned. “What part of secret operation didn’t you understand?” He took a deep breath and called toward the kitchen, “Brodie, she’s roped in Dougal and Knit or Die.”

  Loud cursing emerged from the kitchen, before Brodie appeared in the doorway with the sleeves of his pale blue dress shirt rolled up. He had his arms folded. “What did I say about being out of my sight? Get in here and tell us what you’ve done now.”

  “I resent that.” Katya squeezed past him and into the kitchen, where she took a seat at the dining table beside her traitorous best friend. “I was helping.”