Soaring Home. Christine Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ if you promise to go on the picnic with George.”

      Darcy gritted her teeth. It was extortion. “All right, but only if I reach the plane before it takes off.” Without waiting for confirmation, she hitched up her skirts and ran across the field. The wiry grass tangled around her ankles. She stumbled on the uneven ground.

      Dennis Allington pulled on the propeller. The engine coughed and rumbled to life.

      No time. No time.

      Darcy gasped for air, her lungs burning. She couldn’t run any faster. She couldn’t get there in time. Her whole future was flying away.

      Her hair tumbled from its pins as the plane inched forward. Then the motor spluttered, choked and died. A thistle caught her shirtsleeve. She tore loose as the men gathered along the back of the wings. They pushed. She stopped, gulping for air, as the machine coasted into the barn.

      Thank heavens. She composed herself and twisted her hair back into a knot, so she’d look professional for the interview.

      By the time Darcy slipped through the open barn doors, Devlin, Allington, Simmons, old man Baker, and half of the supposedly employed men of the town had gathered around the aeroplane in a big semicircle. Darcy tried to wedge through, but they stood like a fence between her and the plane.

      She circled around, looking for a gap, and spied Hendrick Simmons. Her childhood friend would let her through. She made her way toward him as the pilot climbed out of the cockpit. He tossed his goggles into the forward seat before jumping to the barn’s dirt floor, still seeded with trampled bits of straw.

      “Should be a matter of two, three days at most,” the pilot said to Baker, who was doubtless calculating precisely how much rent he could weasel out of his new tenant. “Do you have a telephone?”

      “Don’t need them newfangled contraptions,” Baker said, his lower lip drawn over his upper, due to the few teeth he had left and his general disinclination to spend money on luxuries like false teeth.

      “There’s one in town—” Darcy began, but Devlin cut her off.

      “Closest one’s at the Prognosticator office.” He stuck out his hand. “Frank Devlin, managing editor of our fair city’s most highly esteemed publication. I’d be glad to loan you the use of our telephone.”

      Oh, no. Devlin was going to beat her out of the story and steal the pilot, too.

      “Jack Hunter.” The pilot shook Devlin’s hand. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”

      Mr. Jack Hunter ruffled his sandy-colored hair with the luxurious ease of a cat rising from a nap. Standing perhaps six feet tall, Hunter had the confident manner to be expected in a pilot. And he was handsome. Easily as athletic and dashing as Douglas Fairbanks. Every unmarried woman in town would swoon over him, but not Darcy. Darcy Shea did not swoon.

      “Tell me what fair city this happens to be,” Hunter said.

      With one quick thrust, Darcy burst through the circle of men. “Pearlman,” she said before Devlin could answer. “Pearlman, Michigan.”

      Jack Hunter took notice, his gaze traveling up and down Darcy’s frame, as if sizing her for a dress, but if he thought he would unnerve her, he was sorely mistaken.

      She stared back. Square between the eyes.

      One eyebrow rose. “Pearlman? Never heard of it. Anywhere near Chicago, Miss…?”

      “Shea. Darcy Shea. And yes, about a hundred miles, less by air.”

      “That so?” Hunter chuckled as he fetched a cap from the cockpit. He tipped it slightly. “Many thanks, Miss.” He turned to Devlin. “With any luck, Burrows—he’s my mechanic—will have reached Chicago by now.”

      “Let’s get going, then.” Devlin shoved the stump of a cigar back into his mouth. Frankly, it was a wonder he’d bothered to take it out. He never did at the presses, and the stench of the thing overwhelmed even the smell of ink and grease.

      Hunter turned to old man Baker. “I’ll be back later to check on the plane.”

      Darcy had to act now. If she was going to have any chance at this story and her plane ride, she had to be with Devlin and Hunter in the motorcar, not hanging back in Baker’s barn. She curled behind the bystanders, who pressed closer to the aeroplane.

      “Don’t touch anything,” Hunter warned, when one of the kids climbed on the lower wing. “Any damage, Mr. Baker, comes out of the fee.”

      That put Baker into action, rousting everyone from the barn. It also gave Darcy opportunity to slip past unnoticed.

      “I’m a mechanic…” Hendrick Simmons said weakly as Hunter strode by, but the pilot didn’t hear him.

      Poor Simmons. He was a nice guy, forever tinkering with motors, and talkative enough when you asked him how stuff worked, but he hadn’t an ounce of gumption. Darcy, on the other hand, had plenty. Devlin was not going to steal Hunter away from her. She raced to the Model T and slid into the backseat, keeping low so Devlin and Hunter didn’t spot her.

      “Cora can place the call while you settle up at Terchie’s,” said Devlin, opening his door. “That’s the hotel here.”

      Darcy smothered a laugh. Terchie’s was nothing more glamorous than a boardinghouse.

      “Want to bring your bag along?” Devlin asked. “It’ll save you the trouble of hefting it into town later.”

      Jack Hunter dropped into the passenger seat. “Don’t have a bag.”

      Darcy could see his reflection in the windshield. Even teeth and a boyish grin, just a little lopsided. And his eyes. She sighed. Oh, his eyes. Bright as cornflowers. If she did happen to be interested in a man… Darcy shook her head. What was she thinking?

      “Didn’t expect to need it,” Hunter said. “My things are with Burrows on the train.”

      He sat so close Darcy could touch him. She could smell the warm leather and faint scent of soap. No starch or stiff collar in his shirt. The black tie hung loose, as if he didn’t care what people thought. And his jacket was soft and brown and buttery.

      “Well, I might be a tad larger,” Devlin said, rubbing his expansive gut, “but I could loan you—what on earth?” He’d spied her. “Shea. What are you doing in my car?”

      “Uh…” Darcy scrambled for an explanation and spotted Beatrice approaching, red-faced and out of breath. “You do give rides to ladies, don’t you?”

      “Ladies?” he spluttered. “Out!”

      Hunter grinned at Darcy, and she nearly melted. Those blue eyes. The crooked smile. The strong jaw.

      “I don’t see why we can’t give Miss Shea a lift,” he said. “We’re going that direction anyway.”

      In that instant, Jack Hunter won her gratitude. Now, if he would just give her a plane ride….

      Devlin didn’t share Mr. Hunter’s generosity. “I СКАЧАТЬ