“It’s not that I doubt Mattie’s talents.” Leo could feel his back muscles tighten into a ball-like mass. “But I’ve watched so many excellent pilots crash.”
John didn’t speak for a moment, and Leo guessed he was trying to figure out if it was his place to talk. Finally, the man said gently, “No one is shooting at her.”
“Many of those pilots weren’t brought down by bullets—sometimes their machines failed them, or they just made an error in judgment.”An image flashed in Leo’s mind of Alfred’s Nieuport flying blindly into an ambush.
“The trapeze is part of who my Alice is.” John jerked his chin toward his wife, who was swinging her body in order to gather enough momentum to hook her legs around the bar. “I first saw her when her great-uncle, Vera’s grandfather, hired me. She was flying through the air toward her partner, and I knew that I wanted to be the man who’d catch her. But I realized something then. To be that person, I also had to be willing to release her too.”
Release her.Leo tracked Mattie’s position in her two-seater. It sounded so simple, those two words:release her. Not even a positive action was required. Just letting go... it should be easy for him. He’d had so little in his life. He’d left the orphanage without a single thought. Through the war, he’d lost so many comrades—not just Alfred, but other compatriots: brash ones, quiet ones, pranksters, and scholars. He’d learned how to mourn one moment and fight the next. Leo had never even jealously guarded his own life. It was always something he was prepared to part with.
But this wasMattie... the woman whom his mind had drifted toward during solo patrols over enemy lines. Thoughts of her had beckoned like the Very lights released by aerodromes to guide aviators home from dangerous night missions.
In the late evening while the other pilots had slept and he couldn’t, Leo would lie in the barracks and painstakingly reread one of the cheerful letters that Mattie had sent. He had heard her voice as he’d studied her bold, messy scrawl that somehow was still perfectly legible to a man who hadn’t had much book learning. Even after half a decade on the road, he still had all those missives. They were well worn and weak at some of the folds but not wrinkled or bent.
For a man who’d let go of most everything in his life, how could he release the one thing that he’d held on to?
“I’ve learned to view Alice’s choices through a lens of fairness.” John rubbed his thumb across his jaw as Alice and Vera sat on top of their trapeze bars, giving one last exuberant wave to their spellbound audience.
“Fairness?” Leo asked.
“I expect Alice to support me jumping off a high platform and releasing one swing to grab the next. Why shouldn’t I do the same for her?”
Leo massaged his head, as if he could rub the man’s words into his brain. He’d never thought about his relationship with Mattie from that angle. It struck him that he was always looking at it from his perspective, not hers. The thought unnerved him, and he felt more than a little trickle of guilt.
“The Great War... it changed things.” John shifted as his wife finally climbed back inside Carrie’s Jenny. “We were fighting to preserve our way of life, but in all that destruction, it got us thinking about what things mean. Then we also started wondering if the way we did those things made sense. Some women like my wife, Vera, and Mattie have looked and found they wanted something different than what they’ve been handed. They saw how women drove ambulances, cared for the wounded, and took on factory jobs, especially overseas.”
John couldn’t have known how much his words echoed Mattie’s on the beach when she and Leo had built the sandcastle together. And Leo... Leo wanted that halcyon lakeshore moment back, when he and Mattie were finally not at odds but working together. It wasn’t that simple, though.
“Mattie takes unnecessary risks.” Leo watched as Mattie’s yellow-tipped plane landed in concert with Carrie’s green Jenny. Vera and Alice jumped from their seats, blowing kisses to the crowd. Carrie and Mattie leaned from their cockpits to wave to the hollering assembly. Although Leo couldn’t make out the color of Mattie’s eyes from his far-back position, he knew that the gold flecks would have overtaken the blues and greens in her rush of excited pride.
“In my experience, people like Mattie don’t take kindly to orders and demands.” Now that John’s wife was safely on the ground, his full attention was on Leo, a fact that made Leo more than a little uncomfortable. The acrobat’s moss-green eyes were dark and serious as he added, “Maybe your job is being her flying partner instead of her flight leader.”
Flight leader.It had been Leo’s job to protect the men flying under him, but he wasn’t at the head of the formation anymore. Maybe he needed to try to workwithMattie and not try to act like a commander.
Unfortunately, in less than ten minutes, he needed to stage an argument with her in front of a crowd of over a hundred. People who wanted a performance with sparks and real heat. With one last scrub of his hand against the back of his head, he pulled a fake mustache from his pocket. Rubbing the ridiculous piece against his skin, he, as Mr.Yesteryear, marched toward his appointed rival, Miss Modernity.
As soon as Leo emerged from the sidelines after Vera’s introduction, cameras clicked, and the crowd hushed. With his fake press smile plastered across his face, Leo waved. Despite his cartoonish mustache, he looked heroically handsome in his old military flight jacket made from sealskin. The brown hue complemented his neatly trimmed chestnut hair and provided a perfectly neutral foil for his cobalt-blue eyes. A group of vamps sighed lustily and grabbed each other’s arms when they caught sight of the famous balloon buster.
Mattie felt her blood rise too.
But from irritation.
At least shetoldherself it was just from annoyance. But part of her couldn’t completely deny that Leo’s presence was having an increasingly strong effect on her.
The realization frustrated Mattie. Mattie and Leo had come so close to reaching some sort of accord... but then he just had to backslide and become so stiflingly protective and overbearinglymale.
The welcome flicker of rage licked through Mattie again. That turbulence was so much easier and less dangerous than whispers of desire.
“Is anyone bold enough to try to outfly a real-life balloon buster and one of our top American aces who is flying today as Mr.Yesteryear? I heard that the enemy observers used to quake in their overly polished boots when they heard the roar of his SPAD.” Vera flung out her arms, punctuating each word with the energy and volume of a ringmaster. She’d cinched a satin robe trimmed with feathers over her red leotard. Although the garment fell well below her knees, it was scandalously reminiscent of a silk dressing gown.
Vera’s offer of a challenge was met with a chorus of good-natured laughs. After all, not a single male pilot was in the vicinity, let alone a flyer who was a war veteran. Mattie stepped forward, feeling a rush of stubborn pride as she did so.
“I’m Miss Modernity, and I will.” Mattie stuck her chin in the air, trying not to feel self-conscious about her new outfit. Vera had gifted her with new trousers and a shirt this morning. Unlike her old hand-me-downs, these fit snugly to her curves. There was no hiding her natural form in this getup.
“Aww, go make the man a cake instead, sweetheart!” The male voice sounded jovial on the surface, but an ugliness threaded through his laughing snipe.
“Maybe a pie, a nice apple one.” The second heckler also aimed for a degree of affability, but he couldn’t keep the words from ending in a sneer.
“I can think of better uses for her kisser than for challenging heroes.” The last speaker didn’t even try to make his voice pleasant as he referred to Mattie’s mouth. His tone was hoarse and just plain mean, like that of a troll in a children’s story.
