The Invitation (4 page)

She laughed at that. “How about some new planes for a start?”

“What type would you like?”

He was as serious as she was being lighthearted, and Jackie was suddenly serious too. “How about a couple of Wacos for a start?” And, she thought, maybe later something heavy that can carry a dozen rich passengers in style.

“All right, I'll see what I can do.”

“Just like that?” she said. “I snap my fingers and two new planes show up?”

“They're not free.
I
come with them. You have to take me with the planes.”

That didn't seem like much of a punishment. “I guess beggars can't be choosers.” Stretching, she yawned, snuggling her head on his leg.

“I think it would be all right if you went to sleep now,” he said, tucking the blanket around her.

“What about you?” she asked dreamily. “You need to sleep too.”

“No, I'll stay awake and watch the fire.”

“And protect me,” she murmured as she closed her eyes. No, she didn't think there was going to be any problem with this man's reliability. Smiling, she dozed off, feeling as safe as though she were home in her own bed, not in the open with coyotes howling in the distance.

G
ood morning.”

Wearily, Jackie sat up on the hard ground, and for a moment she didn't know where she was. Blinking against the bright light of day, she squinted at the woman sitting on the rock across from her.

“Would you like some coffee?”

Rubbing her eyes, covering a yawn, Jackie took the tin mug that was held out to her. “Who are you?”

“William's sister.”

“Oh,” she said, still too groggy to ask any questions, but she looked around. William's car was gone, and in its place was a pickup truck.

The woman—pretty, dark haired, about thirty—smiled. “You must be confused. Here's what happened. Last night my mother had one of her spells, as the family calls them. She often gets the idea that one of her children is hurt, is going to be hurt, or is in some danger. Since most of these hunches of hers are correct, my father listened when she said that her son William was lost. That was at about three this morning. I happened to be up, so I said I'd go. It wasn't difficult to find William; he'd left a map showing where he'd be.” She raised her eyebrows in sisterly mockery. “William is a very responsible person.” She said this last in a sarcastic voice, accompanied by some eye-rolling, as though she also thought William was a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.

Jackie opened her mouth to defend him, but she closed it. “So you found us.”

“Yes. I guess my mother sensed the danger you'd been in.” She nodded toward Jackie's airplane, still smashed against the boulder.

“Where is he?”

“William? Oh, he had to leave. He said he had to get to Denver as soon as possible, that he had to buy something very important. He wouldn't tell Dad or me what it was.” She looked down at her coffee cup. “Do
you
have any idea what he's after?”

Jackie pulled her knees into her chest and didn't answer. William was very responsible, she thought, feeling a little bit of a thrill run through her. A man who knew what responsibility was would be nice to be around. Charley had been a lot of fun; people loved Charley—but they didn't have to live with him. Charley never remembered where he put anything; Jackie used to say that she'd spent half of her life looking for whatever Charley had lost that hour. When Charley agreed to go to two different houses for dinner on the same evening, it was Jackie who had to play the villain and get him out of one engagement. There was never a question of how much money Charley brought home; he never got that far with whatever money he received. One time they had spent a grueling week with an air show, flying through a burning barn for the edification and delight of a few hundred farmers and their families. The owner of the show made the mistake of giving Charley their pay while he was in a bar. Charley was brought home the next day, too drunk to stand up, and he hadn't a penny left; he'd bought everyone round after round of drinks. No, responsibility in a man was not something Jackie was used to.

“Whenever you're ready, Dad and I will take you back to Chandler, and we'll send someone for the plane.”

“Thanks, that would be great.” Drinking the last of her coffee, she stood and stretched. Looking about her, she couldn't help smiling. Last night William had said he would take care of everything and he'd already started. He was not only a man of responsibility but a man of his word as well.

 

Many years ago Eternity was a thriving little town, close to the big city of Denver, on the way to San Francisco. The discovery of silver was the reason for the town's existence, and for years the inhabitants thrived. They built rather quickly, but thanks to a Rumanian carpenter, who had grown wealthy, the buildings were sturdy and well constructed. They weren't the usual flimsy fire traps that were the mainstay of so many towns that sprang up and died within a decade.

After the silver was played out, most of the residents left the town to die a slow death, but in the 1880s there was a short-lived revival. A rich young woman from an extremely wealthy eastern family named Montgomery moved to town and opened a dress shop that was patronized by other wealthy people from hundreds of miles away. But the young woman fell in love, began to produce babies, and lost interest in the dress shop. And when her interest slackened, so did the quality of the shop. Gradually the town of Eternity renewed its downhill slide, and more people left. The ones who stayed produced children, who left as soon as they were able. Each person who left sold his home and land to the relatives of the young woman who'd once tried to revive the town, until at last every house, every piece of land, was owned by the Montgomery family.

By the beginning of the twentieth century there was no one living in the town, and the buildings, which had weathered the years well, thanks to the expert carpenter and his harassed crew, were vacant.

Nearly two years ago, only days after Charley's death, Jackie had received a letter from the scion of the Montgomery family telling her that his family, now living in the nearby town of Chandler, Colorado, needed a freight service from Chandler to Denver to Los Angeles, and if she was interested in the job, he would build to suit. She accepted his offer right away, but it was six months before she could meet all of her commitments and free herself to move to Chandler. When Charley died, she'd been too grief-stricken to consider her future, but after he was gone, she found that a lot of her ambition had gone with him. Maybe Charley's praise when she accomplished some great aerobatic feat had pushed her to higher and more difficult deeds. Whatever it was, she no longer wanted to spend her life traveling around the world flying upside down in an airplane before audiences that were holding their breath in fear.

She sent Mr. Montgomery a detailed list of what she'd need: a landing field, a hangar big enough for four planes—she had great hopes for the future—and a comfortable house that she could eventually buy, since it was her dream to own her own home, a place that no one could take from her.

After her decision, she had to figure out what to do with Pete, Charley's mechanic. She had known Pete since she was a girl; she'd met him the day she met Charley, and he had always been there. But that didn't mean she knew anything about him. Pete didn't talk, rarely said a word. At first she'd found his constant silent presence almost eerie, for he was wherever Charley was and he was absolutely loyal to him.

“Doesn't he ever say anything?” Jackie had demanded of Charley when they were alone in bed. Sometimes she thought she should look under the bed to make sure Pete wasn't there.

Charley'd just laughed at her. “Don't ever underestimate Pete. He may not talk, but he sees and hears everything. And he's a brilliant mechanic.”

“He gives me the willies,” she'd said, but Charley laughed at her again, pulled her on top of him, and began kissing her. They'd rarely mentioned Pete after that; he was just something that was
there,
rather like the planes themselves.

Over the years she began to understand how valuable Pete was, and when the thin little man saw that Jackie was also loyal to Charley, that she didn't run around with other men, didn't give Charley too hard a time, he began to take care of her, too. Pete made sure that her planes were ready and that nothing that a mechanic could foresee was wrong with them.

Gradually, over the years, Jackie grew used to him and talked to him at times, and somehow his silent presence was comforting. He never offered any advice, never even made a comment when she talked to him. He just listened to her and let her sort out her own problems.

After Charley's death it was natural that Pete should stay on the circuit with her, but when she decided to move to Chandler, she had no idea what he would do. She told him what she had planned and fully expected him to say that he'd start working for one of Charley's thousands of male friends. But Pete listened to her, his weather-beaten old face showing nothing; then he said, “When do we leave?” Those few words told Jackie that he had transferred his loyalty to her, and she knew it was high tribute. Charley had said that Pete was a snob; he'd only work for the best. No amount of money could make him work for someone he thought was less than the best. So when Pete said he was going with her, she knew he was complimenting her on her talents and on the decision she had made. On impulse she kissed his leathery old cheek and then had the great pleasure of seeing him blush.

So she had flown to Chandler, and Pete had driven her car, pulling a trailer full of all the necessities of their life—that is, mechanics' tools and engine parts. Neither she nor Pete owned any furniture or much clothing to speak of.

She had no idea what she'd find in the renovated ghost town of Eternity. She was prepared for run-down houses with the wind whipping through the boards—she and Charley, when they were down on their luck, had certainly lived in such places—but what she'd found was beautiful. Mr. Montgomery had renovated the town's hotel for her and it was, quite simply, lovely. The lobby had been freshly covered with cream-colored wallpaper splashed with pink roses. All of the oak woodwork had recently been varnished. Brand-new telephone wires had been strung from Chandler into Eternity so she'd have a telephone. A beautiful bathroom of pink marble had been installed on the first floor. Everything was clean and welcoming.

The town livery stables had been turned into an enormous hangar with overhead doors so they could work on the planes in bad weather. The parsonage—Charley would have laughed at that—had been made over for Pete. The blacksmith's shop had been converted into a machine shop with tools so new and fine they almost brought tears to Pete's rheumy eyes.

Outside, Mr. Montgomery had built Jackie the best runway she'd ever seen; no expense had been spared. And in the fields behind the town were three wrecked planes that could be cannibalized for repair parts.

Never in her life had Jackie felt so welcome as she did in this town. She was close enough to Chandler so as not to feel isolated but far enough away to have privacy. She knew that she had come home.

She also knew there had to be a catch, so when she went to Mr. Montgomery to negotiate a salary, she was prepared for a fight. She could almost hear Charley telling her, “Stick to your guns, kid. Don't let him cheat you. Set the highest price you can think of and bargain from there.” By the time she saw Mr. Montgomery, whom she'd known all her life, her hands were sweating. She wanted the pretty little ghost town so badly that she thought she'd pay him to let her live there.

Thirty minutes later she walked out in a daze. Mr. Montgomery had offered her three times what she had been planning to ask him for, and he'd given her a bonus for signing a two-year contract. She'd be able to buy furniture. She'd be able to buy things that would belong to
her!

Now, a year later, she was serving tea in the living room of her pretty house.

“What in the world is wrong with you?” Terri Pelman asked her friend as Jackie entered her living room, a tray of tea things in her hands. Over the last year she'd spent every cent she'd earned on making her house beautiful: fat upholstered chairs, a deep couch covered in mossy green and rose, a needlepoint rug, a mahogany desk, antiques everywhere.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” Jackie said, setting the tray containing a lovely teapot and cups down on the table in front of the sofa. No one who'd ever known Jackie would have guessed how she hungered for pretty things. With Charley she'd always lived from hand to mouth; Charley believed that possessions weighed a person down. “Absolutely nothing.”

“You can't lie to me, Jacqueline O'Neill. I'm not the press whom you can bamboozle. I've known you all your life, and something is definitely going on.”

Smiling, Jackie sat down on a chair slipcovered in a cotton print of flowers and paisley ferns. As she sipped her tea, she looked at her friend. They were the same age, both thirty-eight, but no one would have guessed it from looking at them. After they'd graduated from high school, Jackie had taken off to spend her life in every corner of the world, but Terri had married her boyfriend the day after graduation. She had produced three children within as many years, kids who were now big, hulking boys of nineteen, eighteen, and seventeen. With each child Terri had gained weight and had never lost it, and somewhere along the way she had decided she was old. When Jackie chided her for not taking care of herself, Terri would say, “The kids and Ralph only care what I put on the table, not what I'm wearing when I do it. I could look like Harlow and they wouldn't notice.”

“Come on, tell me,” Terri urged; then, her eyes widening, she gasped. “You've met a man! That's it, isn't it? We women are such fools. Even marriage can't cure us of falling in love, and if marriage can't cure a person, nothing can. So what's he like? Where did you meet him?”

Jackie wanted to tell Terri about William, but she didn't want to look like a fool. What if William hadn't been as affected by their night together as she had? What if he thought it was an ordinary encounter? Maybe he'd forgotten about her by now, forgotten about their partnership. Charley would have. Charley often got drunk and met people and made them feel he was their best friend. He made plans to do things together, got them enthusiastic, but twenty-four hours later, when the people sought him out, ready to act on the plans, he could hardly remember them. Of course it was left to Jackie to smooth ruffled feathers and get Charley off the hook once again.