Chapter 7
Speed and danger. That was what Rory needed to forget her troubles. Thank heavens for Hank Hawley. This flight was just the thing to sooth her soul.
She took a cab to Polo Field, which until recently had been a park.
The hastily constructed hangar gleamed with fresh whitewash, looking like a newly built barn.
The runway was merely a long, open stretch of grass, and the trees had been cleared from one end to allow for safe departures and arrivals.
Was there even enough room for an airplane to take off? It looked rather short.
Speed and danger? What a wonderful, terrible idea. Her father would be apoplectic if he found out, but at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She needed to feel free of her cage even if she knew, deep down, she wasn’t.
It didn’t take long to find Hank. He was underneath a Jenny, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, grease streaking both arms, as he did something with a wrench.
She stood there appreciating the way his corded arm muscles flexed beneath his tanned skin before saying, “Hello, Hank.”
He jumped at the sound of her voice and hit his head, muttering a string of curses under his breath. It was delightful fun unnerving him.
“I’m almost done, princess. Give me a minute,” he said, going back to tightening something.
With a grunt, he gave it a final twist, put down the wrench in his tool box, and brushed off his hands, which made no difference to the grease.
She could see his tattoo clearly now. It was a Jenny on his left forearm that rippled like it was flying through the air when he flexed. Fitting.
“Give me a moment to wash up, and we’ll be on our way,” he said, heading over to a small building nearby.
She stayed with the plane. It was such a sleek and alluring machine with its dual wings and its curving fuselage—sculpted perfection hiding a snarling beast of an engine within.
The fabric that stretched taut across the wooden frames of the wings was painted with round medallions bearing stars, reminding her of a crisp dress uniform, bedecked with medals and perfectly tailored to display the machine’s tantalizing curves.
She ran her hand along the fuselage until she reached the prominent arc of the rudder and examined it at length.
Then she walked to the front and traced the powerful petal-shaped propeller blades.
As she contemplated the crisscross of wires holding the wings together like a suspension bridge, she felt his presence behind her. He drew close. If she backed up a few inches, they would be touching.
“She’s beautiful,” she said.
“Yes, she is.”
She could feel his eyes on her, smell his masculine scent. The temptation to lean back and sink into him was almost overwhelming.
“They say seventy-five miles per hour is a Jenny’s maximum speed, but I’ve pushed them faster. Would you like to see?” he murmured right next to her ear.
Oh yes, she would. Turning to face him, eyes wide, she smiled mischievously. “Show me. I like to go fast.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, returning her grin with a slow, devilish one of his own.
“How did you get permission to take me up?” Surely, he couldn’t simply take a government plane up for pleasure.
“I promised the mechanics a round of beer this evening to turn a blind eye. Don’t worry. They won’t tell tales.” He gestured toward the front cockpit. “Would you like to get in?”
Were her undergarments on fire? It certainly felt as if they were.
Climbing the ladder resting against the fuselage, she slid into the cockpit.
She was glad she remembered to wear divided skirts for this outing.
Today, she was dressed all in white, a fitted cotton shirtwaist on top and linen on the bottom with brown suede kitten-heel pumps.
Hank handed her goggles and a cap that fastened under the chin.
Putting them on gave her a little shiver.
“You’ve been up in an airplane before, I assume?” Hank pulled the ladder away and climbed into the rear cockpit.
“Only once. Papa worries too much.” She didn’t feel that Hank needed to know how apoplectic her father was when she paid a pilot to take her up after an aeronautics display on Long Island.
He definitely didn’t need to know that Papa tried to have the man arrested for kidnapping.
Fortunately, the police refused when she explained it had been entirely her idea.
“As he should. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely sure,” she said, hardly able to contain her excitement.
He shook his head. “All right then. Here we go.”
He took a few minutes to check everything, and she recited her own mental checklist as he went, recalling the names and functions of each component of the plane with loving detail.
When he finished, he signaled to a nearby mechanic, who gave the propeller a good swing and backed away. Hank opened the throttle.
It was a bright, clear day, not a cloud in the sky.
They taxied into position and started down the runway going faster and faster…
She felt the lift as the plane left the ground and let out a whoop of glee.
The wind whipped in her face as they cleared the end of the runway and soared up into the sky so high it was dizzying.
She looked down, and the world below hardly looked real.
This was every bit as good as she remembered.
Her heart jolted with adrenaline as they passed a flock of birds, and landmarks slipped beneath them like so many pebbles in a stream. Their speed was breathtaking. Her father’s car only went thirty miles per hour. They were going more than double that.
Hank flew past the White House and the Capitol Building. He soared out over the Potomac into Virginia, quickly leaving the city behind. They flew over farmland, a patchwork quilt below them in shades of green and gold. It was glorious. She felt more alive than she’d ever felt on land.
Up in the air like this, she had not a worry in the world.
There was no Edward, no father, no expectations.
Who she was didn’t matter. She was a leaf on the wind, and the world below was irrelevant.
She threw her head back and yelped once again, not caring if Hank thought she was a madwoman.
This was living. She couldn’t get enough of it.
Then the engine choked.
There was a jolt. It sputtered.
She gulped hard.
It died.
Her heart was in her mouth. She turned to look at Hank.
He cursed a blue streak as he tried to restart the engine.
They began to lose altitude. Her stomach lurched.
For a mad moment, she was sure this was the end and braced herself with all her strength, clenching her eyes shut.
Waves of terror washed through her as she attempted to breathe.
In and out. In and out. She opened one eye and then the other.
They were still in the air. All was quiet except the whistling of wind past the wires.
“Hank,” she yelled, daring a glance backward. “What’s happening?”
“The engine died. Don’t worry, princess. I’ll get you down safe. I’ve done this before. You saw me do this the day we met, remember?”
She nodded slowly. “Right. Of course.” That morning, his airplane glided down out of the sky silent and graceful as a bird. This was nothing new to him. He would get her down safe. She hoped.
Turning back around to avoid further distraction, she closed her eyes again and tried to calm herself.
This was a lot of peril, even for her, though some perverse part of her was enjoying it even now.
Confronted with her own mortality, she felt a strange clarity and freedom.
In this moment, all that mattered were the people she loved, and Edward was notably absent from that list. She could never go back to him, no matter the cost. So much for being a practical girl.
Opening her eyes, she watched as time slowed.
Every second felt like an eternity as they drifted toward the ground.
At peace, she put her arms out and felt the quiet buffeting of the wind, as if she herself were floating down like a bird.
Wind was such a strange thing, soft enough to caress her face but strong enough to hold them up.
The ground came closer and closer. Rory could see that Hank was making for a fallow field.
The world no longer felt so far away and unreal.
It was whizzing by, dangerously close. She clutched the sides of the cockpit and breathed deeply.
Every second that she wasn’t dead was a miracle.
And still some part of her reveled in the risk.
This was so much more dangerous than anything else she’d done, like staring down a line of police times ten.
The feelings coursing through her were equal parts terror and euphoria. Most of all, she felt so very alive.
The moment of truth. The plane touched down with a jolt and then floated back up again for a moment before settling back down with a bone-jarring rattle in the midst of grasses as tall as her waist. After grinding to a bumpy halt, she took a deep, shuddering breath.
Intense elation flooded her like a drug.
He did it! The urge to move overpowered her.
She unstrapped herself and slid down from the cockpit, ran to the middle of the field and let out a barbaric howl, venting all the feelings flowing through her in that moment.
“Princess, are you okay?”
She ran back to the plane where Hank stood watching her and jumped into his waiting arms. Her momentum slammed them against the fuselage, as their lips met in a desperate kiss.
Nothing had prepared her for the sensation of that kiss, the intensity, the heat. She felt as if her whole body was aflame from the mere touching of lips and tongue. They devoured each other with a ferocity and intensity that could only be the result of their brush with death.