Grounded Hearts Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Jeanne M. Dickson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Waterfall Press, Grand Haven, MI

  www.brilliancepublishing.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Waterfall Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542045537

  ISBN-10: 1542045533

  Cover design and photography by Laura Klynstra

  For Scott, the love of my life.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  10 February 1941

  Ballyhaven, County Clare, Ireland

  Dutch Whitney hit the bog hard, tumbling forward to smack facedown into the muck. The taste of dirt and the searing pain in his knee and arm signaled that the Canadian RAF pilot was alive. He’d survived the jump from the bomber. He looked side to side at the moonlit marsh for any sign of his crew.

  He saw nothing.

  His parachute floated down around him, the thin material glowing in the moonlight. He unlatched the chute and batted the silk away, but it fell on top of him like a giant spiderweb.

  Don’t panic, he told himself. Otherwise, he’d end up drowning in the bog like those RAF pilots in France.

  Wind howled across the marsh, billowing the parachute. There. An opening in the material. Crawling on his elbows with his belly dragging through the mire, he managed to free himself. Icy mud and water sank into his boots, through his pants, and down inside his flight jacket. His old football injury, sustained in his days at McGill University, sent stabbing throbs through his knee. The shrapnel cut on his left arm burned with every movement, but he had to get out of the bog, find his crew, and then figure out where exactly in Ireland he’d landed.

  Please, God, let it be the north. Not the south. Please. Or at least within dashing distance of the border. The crew had been briefed before the mission about Ireland’s neutrality.

  An RAF lawyer had swaggered into the briefing room, reeking of tobacco. “Right, lads,” he’d said, picking up a pointer. His sneer lifted his mustache to his nose. “Seems our Irish friend, de Valera, has not only declined our requests to use Irish ports and landing strips, but Ireland has declared itself a neutral nation.” He smacked the pointer at the map of Northern Ireland. “Land in the north or get your backside across the border, and you’ll be debriefed and back in England in time for tea.” He stabbed the pointer repeatedly across Southern Ireland. “Land anywhere in here, and you’ll be arrested and shipped to an Irish internment camp to rot behind barbed wire for the rest of the war. Any questions?”

  Dutch hadn’t had any at the time, but now he had a million. Internment for the duration of the war would be unbearable.

  Crawling through the slime, he inched his way to dry land. Exhausted, he spit the grit and the taste of mold out of his mouth before he rolled onto his back. He sucked in deep breaths and stared at the starry sky. If only the sky had been that clear three hours ago, when they had gotten separated from their squadron. Even with their navigation radio and antenna blown apart by shrapnel, they might have made it home.

  Dutch struggled to sit upright. Lord, help me, he thought, peering at the bog as he tore off his flight helmet. The parachute shone in the moonlight, a dead giveaway of his presence. He’d have to go back into the bog to bury the evidence. Then relief edged through him as the silky material sank onto the earth.

  Over his shoulder, he spotted a mound of hay about twenty feet away. He scooted to it on his bottom and then pressed his back against the haystack to help him stand.

  He looked down at his leg and braced himself. With one swift chop to his knee, he sent the cartilage back where it belonged. A moan rattled in his throat, and he bit his lip to stifle a shout. Grabbing his throbbing knee with both hands, he squeezed. Needling pain shot through his wounded arm.

  Heart thumping out of control, sweat dripping, he surveyed the moonlit surroundings. His stomach twisted. A red glow on the horizon had to be his aircraft. The Wellington bomber had crashed on land instead of open water.

  Where was he? Visible in the moonlight, rolling hills and stone fences stretched for miles. A lone cabin stood tucked against a hillside, its windows flickering with golden light.

  He was in the middle of nowhere.

  The wind had scattered his crew in all directions like dandelion seeds. A sick feeling crept through his stomach. There weren’t any other parachutes visible. God help his crew if they had dropped in the sea.

  Dutch whistled a birdcall into the night, hoping to hear another back. Nothing.

  He made the birdcall again.

  In the distance, a dog barked. A cow mooed.

  One more whistle, and he waited. Silence, grave-like, followed.

  He blew his breath over his freezing fingers, trying to stop them from trembling. Deep down, this didn’t feel right. Could he be the only survivor? Each of his crew members’ young faces flickered in his mind. They were just kids and should be home, going to school and chasing girls, not fighting for their lives and country against a German madman.

  Scrubbing a shaking hand over his face, he forced himself to focus. With slow, deep breaths through the nose that smelled of hay and damp night air, Dutch gradually slowed his pulse.

  Think. Now what?

  If he were in Northern Ireland, returning to England would be a piece of cake. He’d be home by dinner. But if this marsh was in the south, he was in deep trouble. The Garda and the Local Defence Force would be out looking for survivors. There was no way to determine how many LDF soldiers might be on patrol. Could be one or ten or a dozen. Either way, if found, he’d get hauled off to the internment camp.

  He clenched his teeth; his destiny was to fight for freedom. Nothing would keep him here. He’d find his way back to England no matter what the cost. The RAF needed him. His crew would want him to carry on. He straightened up and kicked his fear into submission.

  Okay. He could do this. All he needed was a plan.

  He had to blend in with the locals, find out where he was, and, if necessary, head quickly across the border.

  How did a brogue sound? He summoned up the way his Irish drinking buddies talked, tried to recall their pattern of speech. “Sure now,” he whispered. No. More lilt. “Suuurre now.”

  He continued to practice the accent as he ripped off his RAF badges and insignia. Get rid of the evidence. If the Garda stopped him, he’d say he was visiting family in the area. Yeah, he got lost and stumbled into the bog. And that wasn’t even a lie.

  Ripping off the last RAF patch from his flight jacke
t, he winced as a searing stab shot through his left arm. Blood dripped down his fingers, an eerie purple color in the light of the moon.

  He dropped the patch on top of the other badges and then stomped the lot into the soil, burying them in dirt.

  Time to get moving.

  Dutch set his sights on the cabin. Smoke trailed out of the chimney and looped around like a ghostly noose. As he made his way through a field, toward a stone fence, he caught the scent of a burning turf fire. It evoked memories of family campfires, of summertime in the Canadian mountains with his little nephews, of roasting marshmallows around the fire pit and telling bloodcurdling stories. He’d have a few to add after this war.

  He thought about his brother, who wanted to but couldn’t join the fight, because of his crippled leg. And his mother, at home organizing tin or cloth or food drives for the war effort. And of course, his sister-in-law, Rachel, a Jew who had converted to Christianity. Many of her German relatives were missing or deemed dead.

  They all reminded him of why he was fighting. It was for their freedom. For peace.

  Focus. How did that brogue sound? “Suuurre now . . .”

  Nan O’Neil gazed at the picture on her mantel of Jesus pointing at His Sacred Heart. She lowered herself to the slate floor in front of the roaring turf fire, the stone hard and rough and familiar against her knees. The flames warmed her, but inside, she sensed the coldness of death nearby.

  The explosion and the afterglow on the hillside signaled another downed plane. Whatever side the airmen might have served on, they were all the same in the eyes of the Lord.

  With her rosary beads wrapped around calloused fingers, she prayed, “Holy Father, watch over the men who fell to earth this night, and I pray You grant mercy to the souls who are at heaven’s gate.”

  She blessed herself, stood, and rubbed her aching knees. Kneeling didn’t used to hurt so much. Was she getting old? Today she’d noticed her first gray hair lurking among the red. Time moved on for everyone. Twenty-eight wasn’t ancient, unless she was trying to have her first baby. Most women in town had six or more before their thirtieth birthday. She ran a hand over her flat belly, longing for the child she and her husband never had.

  She ached for Teddy, for the chance to change the unchangeable. She was a nurse, a midwife, for heaven’s sake. She helped everyone in town, especially the women, but she’d failed Teddy. And this failure bit at her insides, ripped away her peace late at night, when the shadows ought to be easing her to sleep instead of into regret.

  She stared at the empty cane-back chair beside the fireplace. The image of him sitting there, reading his poems aloud, haunted her. If she closed her eyes, she could almost remember the deep sound of his voice. Prose had dripped off his tongue like diamonds and rubies. He would have been the next Yeats, scholars at the University of Dublin had all proclaimed. So young. So talented.

  Her chest tightened. They didn’t know about Teddy’s dark moods, which would go on for hours, leaving him staring into the fireplace or pacing in the garden or pushing her away if she tried to help. He’d sit in the chair, hugging his knees and crying like an inconsolable child. Or rage at her, that she was the source of all his problems, and then go upstairs to his desk and drink himself to sleep.

  She thought back to the day three years before, when she’d chased after him through the wind and rain to the craggy cliffs above the sea. Why had he gone against all that was holy and taken his own life? She feared for his immortal soul. At best, he was lost in purgatory for what he’d done. Why hadn’t she been able to stop him? Now, all she could do was pray for her husband and hope the Lord would have mercy.

  Clearing her throat, she found herself wondering if she’d ever be able to confess her sin to Father Albert. When the Garda had pronounced Teddy’s death as “accidental,” she’d remained silent. Her husband had been buried in the cemetery in town. He shouldn’t have been. Suicide was a mortal sin. He shouldn’t have been resting in hallowed ground.

  The black rosary beads clicked as she placed them next to the oil lamp on the mantel. Maybe it was better she hadn’t had his child, yet she could not ignore the empty ache, the loneliness of her cabin at night after she’d spent the day bringing new life and joy to the families in town. The hurting always surfaced again. Pressing her hand against her chest, she pushed away the grief. So much for not picking at those wounds. Enough. Enough. Enough, she told herself. Stop.

  Staring at the portrait of Jesus, she whispered, “You are my shepherd. I shall not want.” She closed her eyes, opened her palms, and invited the Holy Ghost to heal her heart and lead her to peace.

  She looked down at her sleeping kitty and tapped him with her big toe. “We’ll be grand on our own, won’t we, Mr. Dee?”

  Her tabby cat glanced up from his pillow on the hearth, meowed, flicked his tail, and then licked his paws. His purring filled the whitewashed room.

  Stretching her arms above her head, she let out a yawn. Time for a bath. She couldn’t wait to sink her tired body into a tub of hot water, and she’d be glad to get out of this wool dress, too. It smelled like hell itself.

  And wouldn’t music be lovely. She crossed the room to the radio, which sat in the recessed windowsill. With a click of the knob, the wireless crackled and static filled the cabin. An announcer said, “This is Radio Éireann. In the news, our leader, de Valera, came under attack today by British reporters for our neutrality policy in the European war, and he was lectured that our Emergency policies are ill-advised . . .”

  Nan placed her hands on her hips. “Ill-advised, indeed.”

  Given the circumstances, there was little choice, but everyone in the pub the other night had argued over it. One Guinness-infused partisan had proclaimed, “If we join with England and the Allies, we’re easy targets for the Germans. And how will we defend ourselves? Throw potatoes at them?”

  While the other side, pint in hand, had argued, “If we join with the Germans and the Axis, England might finally do what they’ve wanted to do to us for centuries. Annihilate us.”

  De V was right—neutrality was the only solution.

  But that solution had come at a cost. The LDF, formed to help the Garda patrol and keep the citizens safe, had backfired in Ballyhaven because they’d appointed that pig farmer, Shamus Finn. Finn had the legal power to question, follow, harass. Arrest.

  He held this over the women in town. What exactly did he think he’d find in their undergarments hanging out to dry? He’d had the nerve to shove Nan aside after Mass last month, point his meaty finger at her nose, and say, “I’m watching you. Put a foot out of line, and I’ll arrest you. You and your friends. I’ll see you in jail, Nan. I’ll see you run out of town.”

  All because she’d shunned his advances. Advances that made her skin crawl.

  No more news about the Emergency, she thought, reaching to turn off the radio until she heard the announcer say, “And now for a few more bits and pieces from our featured composer, Cole Porter.”

  That was more like it.

  Nan hummed along with Fred Astaire’s sophisticated voice, held her skirt as though it were made of fine satin, and danced across the stone floor into a back room that she and Teddy had spent all their wedding money converting to a decent bathroom. Worth every pence, too. Plumbing and hot water was heaven on earth.

  Perched on the edge of the claw-foot tub, she opened the faucets. The rush of hot water swirled steam into the room. She dipped her hand into the filling tub and then unbuttoned the front of her dress.

  A soft rat-a-tat-tat sound at the front door stopped her from disrobing. She shut off the faucets. Who could that be at this time of night? Was there trouble with one of her mums-to-be? Maybe Kelly Halpin, the Garda’s wife, had gone into early labor. Kelly might be shy of her twenty-third birthday, but Nan worried about her.

  Hopefully it wasn’t Shamus Finn. She wrinkled her nose. The downed plane would give Finn an excuse to bother her. Again.

  She padded out of the bat
hroom into the cabin’s main room and turned off the radio. Rebuttoning her dress, she called, “Who’s there?”

  “Top of morn . . . evening to ya. ’Tis meself, ’tis,” a muffled voice answered.

  What on earth? Who talked like that? She opened the door a couple of inches. A tall man covered in mud filled the doorway. Water dripped from his flight jacket and boots.

  Her jaw squeezed so tight, her teeth immediately ached.

  An airman. A bomber boy.

  At the rumpled sight of him, a chill slithered down her spine. What had he already been through this night?

  A million warnings sparked in her mind. Get rid of him quick before Shamus Finn comes nosing around.

  “How’ya. What’s wanting on this fine night?” She hoped all he needed was a glass of water and directions. Getting involved any deeper would only bring her trouble.

  Straight white teeth gleamed from his theatrical smile. Even under the mud, he was a looker, with high cheekbones, a square jaw, and wide-set blue eyes. How much death had this young man seen tonight? What side was he on?

  “Suuurre now, I’m sorry to bother ya, miss,” he said, wiping a hand over his muddy forehead.

  “Did you take a dip in the bog, then?” So he wasn’t German. Or English. American, maybe? Canadian?

  “I, ah—forgive my nasty appearance. I, um, fell into the marsh,” he said, followed by a thin, nervous laugh. “I’m a bit lost, ya see, miss. I’m supposed to be meeting me friends up north. Where might I be? How far am I from the border?”

  “You’re in Ballyhaven, County Clare. You’re two hundred miles south.”

  He turned his face from her and muttered several curse words.

  Her gaze roamed over his broad chest, across his trim waist, and down his long legs. Then she saw his trembling hand.

  “Lord help ya, you’re bleeding on my threshold.”

  “Sorry. Just a scratch.” He stepped back, wobbling from foot to foot. “Ah, if you’d point me in the direction . . .”

  He slumped forward and gripped the door frame to keep from falling down.

  Ah, she thought, sweet Jesus, give me strength.