Page 74 of Soaring Sweethearts

She hung up, and the silence weighed her down like a lead blanket. There was nothing to do but wait, and if bad news came, she just had to hope she was equal to it. She’d fallen apart over losing Jack to Myrtle, and that was nothing to this. Now he was everything to her, and if he didn’t come back, she might never feel whole again.

28

Jack sat by the side of a lake in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the Alleghenies, watching his plane sink. Somehow, he’d missed Bellefonte in the fog and flown too far. Thinking about the night he spent with Constance hadn’t helped. Between his exhaustion, his overheated daydreams, and the bad weather, it was a wonder he hadn’t slammed into the side of a mountain.

It had been sheer luck to find this lake. When his fuel sputtered out, he dove down as low as he dared and jumped for it. By sheer luck, he’d landed safely in deep water as his plane crashed into the shallows at the edge. He’d managed to rescue three of the six bags of mail before the rest sank out of reach. He’d have to leave them behind while he went in search of some sign of civilization.

He’d tried three directions already, walking out several miles and then walking back when he found nothing. The sun was starting to set, and it was no use continuing to explore. He was going to have to spend the night out here and pray the morning brought him better luck.

His stomach growled as he tried to clear his head. One way or another, he had to find his way out of here and home to Constance. And the minute he did, he was quitting this job and marrying her, no matter what anybody said about it. If he couldn’t line up the loan he needed to open the flight school, he’d dig ditches. He’d wash windows. He’d do anything at all as long as it kept him close to home and to her.

This was the final straw. He was a fool to think he could make it safely through the next few months without going down. After all, he’d had sixteen forced landings in the last year. Nobody but a lunatic would fly these old planes in all kinds of weather just for a paycheck. For a long time, he’d thrived on the risk, but now there was too much at stake.

Mosquitos swarmed around him, and he smacked them one by one. If he didn’t want to be eaten alive, he was going to have to get some distance from the water.

Forcing himself to stand, he headed a short distance into the woods. The bugs stuck with him as visibility decreased. The moon glowed faintly from behind a thick layer of clouds, and he couldn’t see a single star.

The air was hot and humid. If it didn’t rain on him, it would be a miracle. He found the most sheltered spot he could beneath some tall leafy tree he didn’t know the name of, gathered as many leaves as he could to make a cushion, and lay down, thinking of Constance.

She must have been so worried about him. In fact, she was probably regretting that she’d let herself fall for him. If she’d been as upset as she was about Myrtle, he could only imagine how his disappearance would affect her.

He’d read through all her letters the night she gave them to him as he waited for her to sneak over. She had such a gift for saying exactly the right thing and melting his heart. It was such a shame that they’d both hidden their feelings from each other for so long.

His favorite passage was, “I see you in the little things everywhere I go. When I make bread with Mom, I think of all the pastrami sandwiches you ate at our kitchen table growing up. When I practice my typing, I think of that time in eighth grade when you wrote a story about a cowboy who builds a rocket to the moon. When I comb my hair, I imagine your fingers running through it. I wonder if you’ll ever see me the way I see you. You give my world color and music, and when you’re away, life seems gray.”

He’d read it five times over, committing it to memory. Because he felt precisely the same way. Being with her had transformed how he saw the world. She made life glow and sparkle, even when he was doing something as mundane as tying his shoes. His heart swelled with pride at the thought that she had chosen him. His sweet, beloved angel loved him, despite all his flaws.

And now he’d gone and ruined it all by crashing in the middle of nowhere.

“Constance, I’m coming. I promise I’ll come home to you,” he whispered to the night, only to be answered by the high-pitched whine of another mosquito and the strange hoots and rustling sounds of nature.

Just as he started to doze off in his makeshift nest, a drop landed on his face. And then another. And then the heavens opened, drenching him from head to toe. Again. As if he hadn’t already jumped in a lake today.

He tried to turn over and ignore it, but there was no way to get to sleep with rain pelting down on him, no matter how uncomfortable he was. So he got up and looked around for the fiftieth time, walking around the lake and peering into the depths of the woods.

And then he spotted it. In the distance, through the leave, a light glowed. Someone was out here. Someone had shelter. It was a risk to wander off into the woods in the dark, but he had to do it. The only way out of this predicament was to find civilization. It was too much to hope that whoever lived there had a phone, but perhaps they’d be able to point him to the nearest town.

He followed the light as best he could, tripping over tree roots and slipping on slick stones as he navigated the thickly forested mountainside. Sure enough, after five minutes of walking, he could just make out the outline of a cabin in the distance with smoke billowing out of its chimney. He was saved!

As the rain pelted down on him, he broke into a jog. Hallelujah! Someone was home. A silhouette of a man moved in front of the curtained window. He ran as fast as he dared in the dark toward the humble, rustic abode and pounded on the door. “Please help me! My airplane crashed, and I’m lost. I need to get home.”

The door creaked open, and the muzzle of a shotgun poked out. “Who the hell are you?”

Jack backed up several steps and raised his hands. The door opened wider, and a wizened old man with a beard down to his belly came into view. He might have been older than Methuselah, but his hands were steady on the trigger, and the gun was pointed straight at Jack’s heart.

“Please, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you. I don’t mean any harm. I was flying in an airplane and it crashed in that lake over there.” He pointed back where he came from.

The man frowned. “An airplane? Is that one of those flying contraptions I read about in the papers?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man narrowed his eyes and slowly lowered his gun. “Can you keep a secret?”

Jack had no idea where this was going, but he said, “Yes, sir.” He just had to hope he wasn’t going to find a dead body on the other side of that door.

“All right. But if you snitch on me, I’m coming after you, ya hear?”

“I solemnly swear not to snitch on you.” Jack didn’t care what the old man was up to if he would just let him come in out of the rain and get some sleep.