In Perfect Time (14 page)

“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.

Then on May 1, an abrupt change.

Roger scanned the airfield again. Kay Jobson had been saved? Of all people.

He chuckled. When he’d been saved, everyone said the same thing. Roger Cooper? Of all people.

Despite the warm day, goose bumps poked up against his khaki shirtsleeves. He’d argued with God about giving Kay his Bible, and look what happened. “Well, Lord,” he muttered. “Guess you knew what you were doing.”

“Hi, Roger.”

Kay. He spun around. There she stood in her blue trousers and white blouse, smiling, her hair gleaming in the sun.

“Hi.” That’s all he could say?

“I heard you fellows were back. I—”

“Listen.” He held up one hand. “I only have a few minutes before takeoff, so let me talk. I need to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

He motioned with his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Sicily. “Just got back from India yesterday. They didn’t forward our mail. You must think I’m—”

“I must think it takes a horribly long time for mail to get to India and back. I thought nothing of it.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I read your letters last night.”

“You did?” Her gaze wavered and flitted away.

“I’m real sorry for everything. Your dad, that jerk in Quartermasters—I want to beat up both of them.”

She wouldn’t look at him, but one corner of her mouth flicked up.

“You did the right thing. I’m happy for you.”

She turned back to him, green eyes bright. “Now I can give you back your Bible.”

“No, no, no.” He waved his hand back and forth like a windshield wiper, sweeping away her concerns. “It’s yours. I got a new one shipped from stateside.”

Mischief sparkled in her eyes. “I hope it has big margins.”

He laughed. “It does.”

“Lieutenant Cooper?” The sergeant in charge of loading saluted Roger and handed him the invoice.

“Thanks.” Roger scrawled his signature, returned the bottom copy to the sergeant, and added the top copy to his clipboard. He gave Kay a sheepish smile. “I don’t want to be rude, but I have to get this bird in the air.”

“I’m on your flight.”

“You are?” He flipped to the flight manifest. “I thought—”

“Alice and I switched places. I hope you don’t mind. I figure you owe me some answers.” That mischief again—but not a hint of flirtation.

Roger’s heart thudded into his rib cage with strange anticipation. “About ten pages’ worth of answers.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “I overdid it, didn’t I?”

“Hardly. You should have heard me batter poor old Lou with questions back in the day.” Tonight he’d write to Lou. Who would have thought the same Bible Lou used to lead Roger to Christ had now led Kay to Christ?

Kay hoisted herself through the cargo door without waiting for assistance.

Roger followed her inside and down the aisle past crates of bullets and artillery shells. He made sure each crate was secured, then headed for the cockpit. Kay sat in a folding seat on the right side of the fuselage.

He almost passed her by, but his conscience dogged his steps. He braced his hand against the bulkhead leading into the radio compartment and drummed his fingers on the metal. “Say, listen, Kay. We’ve got almost a two-hour flight to Grosseto. If you want, you can come up front. We can talk.”

She studied him for a long, nerve-wracking moment.

His finger drumming accelerated.

Kay nodded.

“Swell.” He escaped to the cockpit. What on earth was he doing? Why was he inviting conversation with the most attractive woman he knew?

He settled into his seat and put on his headphones. Why was he fussing? If God knew what he was doing when he told Roger to give away his Bible, then he certainly knew what he was doing today.

Mike Elroy joined him in the cockpit and ran through the preflight checklist. Roger trained his mind on his actions. With all that ammunition on board, he couldn’t afford any mistakes.

He and Elroy started engines, taxied into position, and took off into a clear blue sky. Should be a good flight. If Pettas lost his way, Roger could just follow the coast. And they’d pass Rome. Maybe the brass would give the boys from the 64th TCG a pass. After two months in the jungle, they deserved it.

He felt Kay’s presence behind him.

She stood with arms crossed and an uncertain look on her face. Had the woman ever been uncertain of anything in her life?

Roger slid his headphones off his right ear so he could hear both her and the radio. The first months after he’d given his life to the Lord had been an uncertain time too, as if he floated between two worlds, not belonging in either. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” She sat with her knees hugged to her chest and leaned against crates in the small cargo space between the cockpit and the radio room.

He returned his attention to the instrument panel. “Got a question?”

“Sure. How was India?”

“India?” A quick scan of the gauges, then he sent her a questioning look.

She cast a glance at the back of Elroy’s head.

Understood. Personal spiritual questions wouldn’t be appropriate. “Yeah, India.”

While he flew over Italy’s rugged hills sprinkled with olive trees and vineyards and tile-roofed homes, he told stories about
bashas
and jungles, about downing Zeros and drumming with little boys.

When was the last time he’d had a normal conversation with a young woman who wasn’t his sister or cousin? Years and years, and it felt good.

Kay laughed at his stories and told about her trip to Rome.

Thank goodness he had instruments to watch and headings to mind, giving him an excuse not to look at her too often.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

What was the question? He faced her. The brassy glint in her eyes had been replaced by a golden glow.

What did he think? He thought she was beautiful. He thought she was fascinating. And now they had an unbreakable bond because of his gift.

“Well?” She gave him one of those “you weren’t paying attention, were you?” looks.

He cocked half a grin. “I think it sounds great.”

A smile revealed neat white teeth, and she chattered about an orphanage and her friends and a plan. He’d actually chosen the right answer.

He veered his attention back to his job. Good thing he hadn’t told her what he really thought—that he hadn’t been in such a dangerous situation since high school.

Kay strolled across Grosseto Airfield in the sunshine toward the tent hospital by the flight line. Artillery boomed in the distance, competing with the noise of the engineers’ bulldozers and graders. Maybe Mellie’s Tom was here.

“Glad we’re on the move again.” Sergeant Dabrowski
walked alongside, gazing north as if he could see the US Fifth Army chasing the Germans up Italy’s boot.

“Me too. It’s—”

“Kay! Wait up!” That was Roger.

Her heart lurched in a way it had never done in all her dating years. “Did I forget something?”

He thumped to a stop a good ten feet from her. “I want to apologize.”

“Apologize? Again?”

Dabrowski tapped her on the arm. “I’ll go on ahead.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.” After he left, she returned her attention to the pilot. “Why do you want to apologize?”

His square jaw worked from side to side. “You see, I promised. I said I’d answer your questions, but I didn’t think about Elroy being there. I still haven’t given you a single answer.”

“It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. Maybe . . .” The expression in his eyes froze. His Adam’s apple slid down to his open collar and back up to that strong jaw.

Maybe later. Only two months ago, she would have given him a coy look and said, “Maybe over dinner tonight.”

But that was the old Kay. Not the new Kay. “I’ll see you around.”

His eyebrows arched in appreciation, then a smile spread. “Yeah. I’ll see you around.” He waved and trotted back to his plane.

She chuckled. Yeah, she’d see him on the return flight.

Kay headed for the hospital. What a strange day.

Roger had always fled her presence. At best, he was guarded. But today, he seemed genuinely glad to see her, and their conversation in flight was comfortable and easy. She’d never seen him so relaxed and animated, one square hand leaving the control wheel to emphasize his stories, one leg jiggling as if playing the pedal for a bass drum.

The man never stopped moving, and she liked that, liked the colorful way he told a story, his down-to-earth wisdom, even liked his lack of attraction to her.

He kept his eyes on hers, his hands to himself. Once that would have bugged her, but now it made her feel safe, special, as if she were good enough
not
to make a pass at.

And it completely unraveled her inside.

Kay drew a deep breath to clear her head.

A dozen patients lay on cots outside the tent, and Dabrowski waved her over. “Lieutenant Jobson, this is Captain Arnold.”

Kay shook hands with a balding man in his fifties with the sweetest grandfatherly smile. “Good afternoon, Captain.”

“I’ll warn you, young lady.” The physician leaned closer. “That fellow on the far right is a screamer. I gave him half a grain of phenobarbital about thirty minutes ago, but it didn’t sedate him much.”

The patient moaned and writhed on his cot.

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing worse than the other fellows. Bullet to his upper thigh, avoided the major vessels, no bone damage. He had minor surgery, needs a few weeks to recuperate.”