This.Thiswas the best way to celebrate being alive.
Chapter Two
Horror exploded inside Leo with the force of an artillery shell. The past and the present meshed. Flames licked the edge of his vision. Alfred had died in a ball of fire, and Leo swore he could feel the lethal heat crackling over his own skin. His breath grew harsh and staccato as memories of Alfred’s fatal dogfight crashed into Leo’s mind. The sharp whine of bullets exploded in his ears, amplified to such an unholy degree he thought his eardrums would burst.
Guilt and helpless terror plowed into him. Mattie dived her plane straight toward the unforgiving Missouri dirt. He retained enough sense to realize that she intended to gain speed to turn the propeller. Yet the sight of her plunging Jenny flickered in and out with Alfred’s Nieuport until Leo could barely discern the real versus the remembered. At times, it seemed that her tail was aflame, too, with tongues of fire scorching toward the fuselage.
Somehow, Leo gathered the presence of mind to fly toward her, as if he could somehow lift her plane with his own. He’d trade places with her, just as he would have with Alfred. If any of them should die, it should behim.
Then, just when he felt he would rip in two, Mattie managed to restart the engine and take back control. She zoomed skyward. Back among the clouds, she twisted her plane in tight barrel rolls, as if her near-death experience was something tocelebrate. Leo’s spark offrustration at Mattie’s cavalier attitude toward her own demise cracked through the husk of horror encasing him. Slowly, the sensations of being in a dogfight receded, and his body sagged as he sucked up the air that he’d forgotten to breathe. But he had no time to allow relief to flood him. Not at four thousand feet. Instead he dug into his aggravation.
Still feeling shaky, he watched as Mattie deftly landed the plane. A few seconds after her Jenny rolled to a stop, Leo touched down beside her. Wingtips only a yard apart, they cut their engines at the same time. Mattie whipped off her leather helmet and sent her red hair flying. Almost all of it had escaped her ever-present braid, and it hung around her face like a curtain of fire. The goggles fell off next, revealing her eyes, which had turned a warm golden color, the green-blue hues almost swallowed up in her excitement. Her pale cheeks were flushed a faint pink, complementing the smattering of freckles across her nose. She jumped from the cockpit, not waiting for anyone to help her down. She had so much spring in her step she practically bounced like a rubber ball. She was a walking personification of exhilaration, and he desperately wanted to gather her into his arms... to try to capture that wonderful energy, to assure himself that his eyes hadn’t deceived him and she really had pulled out of the seemingly deadly spiral.
Anger and relief mixed with desire, creating an unholy brew. Fortunately, he was accustomed to dealing with the potent cocktail of emotion he felt toward Mattie. If he had one talent other than flying, it was masking his feelings. Hell, sometimes, he could even hide them from himself.
Leo leaped from the cockpit and stalked toward Mattie as he tore off his goggles and helmet. Clenching the leather in his fist, he tried to measure his approach as she stood, her shoulders thrown back, her defiant posture reminding him of a stylized hood ornament on a fancy car—ready to face any obstacle impudent enough to stand in her way.
“What happened up there?” Somehow, he managed to keep his voice calm, but Mattie still crossed her arms, her unique hazel eyes sparking a greenish gold.
“My magneto didn’t fire properly,” Mattie explained.
Leo shoved his hand into his hair as a sick feeling twisted through him. “What about the backup?”
Mattie’s lips tightened. She still met his gaze, but he could see the flicker of sheepishness. He squeezed his eyes shut as he realized that she’d purposely gone up in the sky knowing she only had one working spark. And no one understood the inner workings of an engine better than Mattie. She’d comprehended the risk and recklessly accepted it.
A fresh surge of anger burned through his habitual numbness. Leo’s next words blazed from him before he could think of a less inflammatory delivery. “That was beyond foolish.”
Mattie flicked her long hair behind her back. She always managed to look like adventure, even after she’d nearly terrified his soul into leaving his body.
“You’re not exactly in the position to give lectures on caution.” Mattie’s words hung in the air, a gauntlet thrown down by the damsel. For a moment, Leo almost spoke the truth—that when he’d watched his best friend’s reckless heroics end in a horrific, fiery crash behind enemy lines, he’d sworn on Alfred’s memory, and to himself, that he’d protect the rest of the McAdamses.
“Mattie, you just knowingly took a malfunctioning plane into the air and performed tricks with it.”
She bent slightly at the waist, placing her upper body closer to his in a clear challenge. “I’m not the one with the reputation for utter fearlessness.”
Leo didn’t know if he’d ever really experienced an absence of fear. He’d lived with dread for so long that he’d become numb to the constant thrum of it. He felt no anxiousness at the idea of his own passing. When he’d lived as a runaway on the streets, a premature demise had been aforegone conclusion long before the Great War. But after he’d trained with the McAdamses and discovered a home with them, he’d registered the sharp bite of fear again. His own end might not concern him, but the deaths of any members of his newfound family did. Mattie’s most of all.
“I don’t make spontaneous decisions when I execute stunts.” He spoke the half truth. True, he wasn’t the hothead Alfred had been and Mattie still was. But that wasn’t why he insisted on performing the most dangerous tricks. He didn’t have kin who cared about him or even close friends outside of the McAdams Family Flying Circus. But if he mentioned that to Mattie, she’d protest and start fretting over him. She’d make it her mission to convince him otherwise, but he knew the truth. To survive, all unclaimed foundlings had to recognize at some point that they were alone.
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t be as mechanical as you are about flying.”
Leo suppressed a wry, humorless smile that he knew Mattie would read only too well. He used to love the thrill of soaring as much as she did, maybe even more. It had been one of the first true pleasures in his life. He’d felt powerful,unstoppable, as he’d charged through the sky—cities and their inhabitants mere specks below. The freedom he’d found hurtling through the air had damn near intoxicated him. But dogfight after dogfight had drummed that joy right out of him. He didn’t care if he never stepped into a cockpit again. But even if he hadn’t given himself a mission to protect a family who currently made its living running a flight school, he’d still be working as a pilot. After all, it was the one thing, the only thing, he knew how to do.
“Flying is risky enough, Mattie, without taking a single-magneto plane out for a joyride.”
Mattie waved her hand dismissively, the movement causing her red curls to bounce. “We all used to fly them.”
Leo pinched the bridge of his nose as he kept rubbing the back of his head with the other hand. “Because there were no other options. There’s a reason you modified the engines so that we have two.”
“It’s not like you’ve never made the decision to fly with only one working magneto,” Mattie pointed out as she stepped closer to him.
Leo froze as he realized that Alfred must have written to her about that particular exploit of his. It had become a legendary story—not only in his squadron but in the entire US Army Air Service—of how he’d restarted the dead engine in midair with two Fokkers on his tail. He’d managed to loop back over his trackers, placing himself in the chase position before shooting both German fighters down.
“That was war, Mattie. This isn’t.”
“But there were plenty of other pilots and planes who could have flown instead. You could have taken the time to get the problem fixed.”
But he’d been the one in command of his squadron. “Mattie, the two circumstances are not at all alike. You need to be more careful.”
