“Is...” Mattie paused to take her own steadying breath. “Is that why you were always urging me not to fly stunts?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “When you dive too sharply or when you free-fall without warning, the images blur, and I think I catch sight of Alfred’s plane on that last plummet. It was worse, much worse, when I just returned from the front. That’s why when you told me that you planned the stall maneuver during Alfred’s memorial service, I... I panicked. I ratted you out to your brothers in hopes they could convince you not to try the trick. I didn’t realize they’d stop you from flying altogether.”
“Oh, Leo.” Mattie lifted her other hand and placed it over his, sandwiching his fingers between her two palms. “I never thought, never considered. I should have, but I was just so, so focused on thinking that you wanted to curtail my flying because I am a female.”
“That was never the reason, and I should have told you that years ago,” Leo admitted, “but I let you believe that because I thought it was easier to keep you safe.”
“But why?” Mattie asked. “I might have listened more if I’d understood the truth.”
“But you also would have realized how much you meant to me, Mattie,” Leo confessed.
“I rather like knowing.” Mattie’s voice sounded as pleasant as heat from a coal stove on a cold winter’s day, and he wanted to warm himself in the glow. She leaned closer to him, as if to impart a secret. “Because I feel the same about you.”
Ignoring the protest of his abused body, he lifted himself on his elbows and planted a quick kiss on her lips. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the energy for a longer one. He collapsed back down on the bed, feeling not exactly at ease but not as troubled as he’d thought he’d be by the confessions he was making.
“I was afraid that once you understood your power over me, I wouldn’t be able to keep you from danger, because you’d see that you could persuade me to agree to anything,” Leo admitted. “And I was also afraid of admitting how I felt.”
Mattie tenderly brushed back his hair and kissed his cheek. “Says the man who jumped in a sabotaged plane to prevent me from flying it, even after we became sweethearts and argued over whether I’d compete that day.”
“I underestimated my own stubbornness.” Leo lifted one side of his mouth.
“But not mine,” Mattie said softly, “butthatis going to change.”
Leo searched her face, trying to understand what she meant. She looked more solemn than he’d ever seen her. Her determination was there too. Fiery. Intense.Fierce.
“I won’t always take your advice, and I’ll always make up my own mind, but I promise to do a better job of listening. But you have to understand that we’ll protect each other. I’ll be worrying about you too. You frightened me today in ways that I didn’t know that I could be frightened. It made me understand why you worry, and I reserve the right to fret too. You’re not the only one with fears about losing someone they love again.”
Any other time Leo would have shifted uncomfortably, but he suspected his body wouldn’t appreciate the unnecessary movement. Instead, he kept his gaze on Mattie, and the patent affection he saw on her face soothed him more than any amount of fidgeting ever could. This wasMattie. Mattie, who had been in his life and in his heart for so long. If he loved her enough to protect her, then he should also love her enough to let her protecthim, lovehim—in all its manifestations.
It was time for him to share the burden he’d carried for years. The burden he and Walt McAdams had paid over and over to keep buried.
Leo needed to open himself fully to Mattie, to allow her to understand him, maybe even parts of him that he didn’t fully comprehend himself. If Leo wanted her to turn toward him, he had to lean on her. He had to stop fearing she would reject him, leave him.
“There was a chance Alfred could have landed his plane. Many pilots did. I have. We were too deep in enemy territory for him to glideto safety, but he was a skilled aviator. He could have coaxed that bird to the ground. He would have become a prisoner of war, but he would have survived. He would havesurvived.”
Mattie seemed to sense that Leo needed to speak without interruption. But she still comforted him—supported him—with her tender green-gold gaze, with her butterfly-soft touch, and even with her silence. It wasn’t a stony one but a warm one full of empathy and compassion.
“During the first dogfight that day, I was battling an Albatros when out of the corner of my eye I saw a plane with US roundels on its wings heading the wrong direction. The plane seemed like it was moving oddly, like the pilot was having some sort of trouble, but the bird was still mostly operable. Then the German fighting me started shooting, and I turned my attention back to him. By the time I’d freed myself, my comrade’s plane was deeper into enemy territory. I was the flight leader, so I took off after him, hoping I could signal for the unlucky fellow to turn around. I’d only been following him for a few seconds when I recognized Alfred’s bold flying technique.
“It was awful watching him wing into peril and having no way to stop him.” Leo spoke fast now, the words tumbling out one on top of the other. He was afraid if he didn’t release them now, he never would. “I spotted the ambush straight off. Alfred didn’t. There were five planes surrounding him before I got close enough to engage. That’s when your brother dived too fast for how the Nieuport wings were constructed. I saw the bare frame of his plane. The Fokkers who your brother had been chasing had started to loop over your brother to reverse their positions. I went to assist Alfred, but another German plane intercepted me. I took the time to engage him, and by the time I’d finished the skirmish, your brother’s Nieuport was in flames.”
Leo did not have to tell Mattie that death in a burning plane was the most painful way for an aviator to be killed. All pilots feared it the most, dreaded it the most. In a profession that attracted the intrepid, a fiery crash was the one thing that secretly terrified them all.
“I should’ve flown around that Albatros,” Leo continued. “I should’ve protected Alfred’s rear, guarded him until he could land.”
“But you would have died, Leo,” Mattie said gently. “There was no guarantee that you could have prevented the shot that caused the leak in his gas tank. You had no way of knowing that the pilot tailing Alfred would even continue shooting. He might have just followed Alfred’s plane to the ground to make sure he fell behind German lines.”
“I shouldn’t have taken that risk.” Leo ignored his protesting muscles and shoved his hand into his hair. “Alfred had a family. He had people who would mourn him. He was important.”
For the first time since the painful conversation had begun, Mattie’s face crumpled, and several tears rolled down her face. “Oh,Leo, you are important too! Don’t ever think that you’re not.”
“Your family was the only one I’ve ever known. You’d given me so much, so very much, and I let one of you die on my watch.” The words, laden with half a decade of guilt, ripped from Leo.
Mattie reached up and gently tugged at his wrist, removing his hand from its viselike grip on his hair. She held both of his palms between her own now and applied a gentle, reassuring pressure.
“You are part of our family, Leo.” Mattie pulled slightly on his hand when he started to shift his ashamed gaze from her fierce one. He jerked his chin back and allowed himself to accept the intense affection pouring from Mattie. “We would have mourned you as much as Alfred. I would never,neverwant to be forced to choose between your two lives, but Iamglad you lived through the war. We all are. Father. My brothers. All of us.”
Something cracked inside Leo. Not in a bad way but in a good way. It was as if a blockage—old, hard, and formerly impenetrable—had broken off. Mattie’s resilient sweetness had been working against the clog for weeks now, weakening it, filing bits of it away, pushing a hole or two through the tough core. Now it burst loose. Messy, sloppy, and chaotic feelings rushed at him, carrying him along in an almost dizzyingmadness. But he didn’t try to dam them back up. He let them wash through him, filling him, changing him.
