Noah Harrison was on my porch.
“Try to hang up on me now, Georgia.”
I slammed the door in his gorgeous, smug, romance-minded little face.
Chapter Ten
September 1940
Middle Wallop, England
Jameson had been born to fly the Spitfire. It was agile, responsive, and moved like it was an extension of his body, which was just about the only advantage he had in combat.
Was Great Britain cranking out planes at an unprecedented rate? Yes. But what they needed were pilots with more than twelve hours in the cockpit heading into a dogfight.
The German pilots were more experienced, with more hours, more aces, and more confirmed kills in general. Thank God the Nazi long-range capabilities were shit, or the RAF would have lost the Battle of Britain more than a month ago.
But they were still in it.
Today had been the hardest yet. He’d barely rested between launches, and that had been at airfields that weren’t his own. London was under attack. Hell, the whole island was. It had been for the last week, but today the skies were heavy with smoke and aircraft. The Nazi assault seemed endless. They were pummeled by wave after wave of bombers and their fighter escorts.
Adrenaline sang through his body as he zeroed in on an enemy aircraft somewhere to the southeast of London, coming up on the fighter’s tail nice and close. Closer made it easier to hit his target. It also made it easier to go down with them. The enemy began a steep climb, taking them nearly vertical as Jameson chased him through a heavy layer of clouds. His stomach pitched.
He had a few seconds, no more.
Already his engine sputtered, losing power.
If he went fully inverted, he’d lose the whole thing. Unlike that Messerschmitt, he didn’t have fuel injection under his hood. The carburetor of his little Spitfire had a very real chance of being his doom.
“Stanton!” Howard shouted through the radio.
“Come on, come on,” Jameson growled as his thumb hovered over the trigger. The instant the fighter appeared in his crosshairs, Jameson fired.
“Yes! Got him!” he shouted as smoke streamed from the Messerschmitt, his own engine gasping its final warning.
He banked hard left, narrowly missing the plummeting fuselage of the enemy fighter. Gasping, he leveled out, then descended through the clouds, letting the engine and his heartbeat steady itself. One more second, and he would have flooded the engine and joined the Messerschmitt as a crater in the English countryside.
Two confirmed kills. Three more, and he’d be an ace.
An aircraft pulled alongside him, and he glanced left to see Howard shaking his head.
“I’m telling Scarlett you did that,” he warned over the radio.
“Don’t you dare,” Jameson snapped, glancing at the photograph he’d wedged in the framework of the altimeter. It was Scarlett, mid-laugh, captured just after the sisters had joined the WAAF. Constance had given it to him after Scarlett refused, saying he knew exactly what she looked like without carrying her picture into battle. Of course he knew what she looked like. That was why he liked looking at her so much.
“Then don’t pull that again,” Howard warned.
Jameson scoffed, knowing they’d have words about it at beer call. Scarlett had enough on her shoulders to worry about without throwing his flying habits into the mix. As long as he came home to her, how he did it was a moot point as far as he was concerned.
Especially since he was due to leave RAF Church Fenton in a few days and had yet to think of a way to bring her with him. The Eagle Squadron, composed of other American pilots serving in the RAF, was actually happening.
He was being transferred.
“Sorbo leader,” the call came over the radio, “this is fighter command. We have forty-five plus on approach at Kinley at angels thirteen. Vector 270.”
“Received,” their wing commander answered.
They were headed back into the thick of battle.
…
Two days. That’s how long it had been since Scarlett had word of Jameson. She knew the squadron had refueled elsewhere during what had been the longest two days of her life. The air raids from the fifteenth had worn her to the bone, both in the operations room and in her heart.
She knew of at least two dozen fighters who’d carried their pilots to their graves.
The blitz of bombings yesterday saw much of her day in the air-raid shelter when she was not on watch. All she’d thought about was Jameson. Where was he? Was he safe? Had he been injured…or worse?
Today she was waiting for him, and she wasn’t alone. There were perhaps a dozen women in their little group, all sweethearts of the pilots, all gathered on the stretch of pavement between the parked cars and the two remaining hangars on the airfield. It was approximately the same spot where she and Jameson had been when the now-demolished hangar had been done in a month ago.
The hum of engines filled the air, and her heartbeat skyrocketed.
They were here.
She squared her shoulders as the Spitfires landed, wishing she’d worn her uniform instead of her blue-checkered dress. A woman in uniform was required to keep herself together, and at this moment, she felt anything but. Her nerves were simply shot.
It was easily another twenty minutes before the first pilots made their way down the pavement, still wearing their flight suits. A few she recognized, especially the three other Americans who would be leaving with Jameson in two short days. She should have been prepared for his transfer orders—God knew the RAF was the most mobile force in Britain—but it had still hit her like a blow.
Her stomach clenched as more and more pilots appeared.
Then she saw him.
She ran, cutting through the grass to bypass the foot traffic.
He spotted her and stepped clear of the crowd just before she reached him, catching her easily as she threw herself into his arms.
“Scarlett, my Scarlett,” he said into her neck, his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her as her feet dangled far above the ground.
“I love you.” Her arms shook slightly as she held tight, the full measure of her relief coursing through her in a shock wave of emotion.
“God, I love you.” With one arm locked tight around her back, he cupped her face with the other, pulling back enough to lock their gazes.
“I was terrified for you.” The truth spilled from her lips so easily, even after she’d withheld those very words from her sister over the last two days.
“There was no reason to be.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to her lips.
She melted against him, kissing him back despite the very public audience. Today, she couldn’t bring herself to care if the king himself were watching.