Page 46 of Plane Passion

“No, thank you,” she answered. “I would like to get out of this godforsaken town as soon as possible, which means digging out this runway.” She turned back to her work, ignoring the others.

“Oooooh,” the man said loudly. “She must be that lady pilot I heard about. Give women the vote, and they think they can do anything.”

Millie ground her teeth, trying to hold back the torrent of arguments about women and their capabilities that was flooding her mind. No. This man wasn’t worth it. Taking deep breaths, she focused on her digging.

“Well, Aldrich here can do anything,” Ernie said. “She’s a damned good pilot, one of the best I’ve seen, man or woman. And I think she’s just proven she can dig snow with the best of us. There are very few things she couldn’t do if she set her mind to them.”

Warmth bloomed in her heart at his words, much to her consternation. Why did he have to come to her defense like that and make her feel all warm and fuzzy?

She dug into her work with renewed vigor. She couldn’t get out of here soon enough.

The man shrugged. “If she wants to dig, who am I to stop her?”

They all lapsed into companionable silence as they continued the agonizingly slow work of digging out the runway.

By the time they stopped, the winter sun was low in the sky. Millie’s arms felt like rubber bands, and everything in her ached.

“Hey, Jack,” Ernie said as they walked back to the hotel together. “I bet you couldn’t hit that tree over there with a snowball.”

“Of course, I could.”

They paused. Thompson threw and missed.

“I could hit it,” Millie volunteered, instantly regretting her words. She wanted to get away from these men, not spend more time with them.

She packed herself a snowball, aimed, and threw.

Bullseye.

“Hot damn,” Ernie murmured.

Thompson whistled.

“Where’d you learn to throw like that?” Thompson asked.

“My father wanted a son. He got me instead. He taught me a lot of things a young lady shouldn’t know.”

“Like flying an airplane?” Thompson asked as he took aim at the tree again, determined to redeem himself.

The snowball grazed the side of the trunk. A hit, but barely.

“I learned that from his friend, but yes.”

Ernie took a turn, packing his snowball, winding up, and then letting it fly.

By God he was a lovely man in motion.

The snowball hit home, exploding against the trunk.

“Miss Aldrich, would you join us for dinner?” Thompson asked. “You’re a very interesting woman, and I’d like to get to know you better.”

Millie and Ernie exchanged a panicked glance.

With an all-too-knowing look, Thompson said, “We all just spent several hours together in hard labor. Surely, we can survive one dinner like civilized people.”

Oh, God, he suspects.

Still. There was no graceful way out of this. “Dinner sounds lovely.”