Grounded Hearts Page 7

  Kelly dropped her paring knife into the water, wiped her hands on her apron, then placed them on her hips. “That’s not all he’s trying for, is it, Nan? He still after you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Regret for last night’s encounter stewed through her.

  The sergeant wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “He’s a good officer.”

  “He’s a rotter,” Kelly huffed. “First class. And he’s sweet on Nan. Won’t give her a moment of rest. It’s enough to make any girl sick.”

  The women exchanged a glance.

  “Is he so bad?” Halpin asked. “He’s better than most. Owns a farm. May have a good job as a Garda after the war.”

  Kelly smirked, then looked to the young women crowding the table. “Girls,” she said above their chatter, “what do ya think of Shamus Finn, our eligible village bachelor?”

  The teen pack made gagging noises. Turned their thumbs down. Someone let out a raspberry sound.

  “I’d sooner marry one of his pigs,” the sassy girl said.

  “Better looking,” Bridie added. The teens’ laughter filled the kitchen.

  With a satisfied expression, Kelly turned her palms upward. “See?”

  “Oh,” Halpin said. “I thought you liked him, Nan.”

  Kelly smacked his arm. “Are ya blind? You men are so dense sometimes. Where did you get an idea like that, Paul?”

  “From Finn.”

  “Of course he’d say that.” Kelly shook her head.

  “Is he giving you a hard time then, Nan?”

  “Always,” Nan muttered. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Nan knew she shouldn’t, but she found herself saying, “He came by my house last night, looking for the bomber crew.” She hesitated. “What if, say, a citizen were to help one of them get across the border? What then?”

  Halpin looked her up and down. “Why do you ask?”

  She shrugged. “Curious is all. Wondering what our Free State of Ireland would really do.”

  Folding his arms, he seemed to assess her like the nuns at school had, but this time it wasn’t for hopping out the window late at night to smoke or smooch with a local boy.

  “You know this, Nan. Under the Emergency Act, the guilty party would face jail time. It’s imperative we remain neutral. Show no leniency to either side. Allies or Axis. They’re all deemed belligerents and combatants for the purpose of our official stance.”

  “Is that a fact?” Her mother’s outlaw training kicked in. She held her gaze on his. Let her facial muscles slacken.

  He looked away and focused on his wife as she chopped carrots. “Afraid so. We’re all in this together. We all have to do our part to keep Ireland neutral.”

  “Oh, enough now. Enough politics.” Kelly gave her husband a gentle push with her hip. “Both of you sit down and have your tea. When will the army be here to pick up our RAF heroes?”

  “I got a call. They’ve had a flat tire. They’ll be along before nightfall.”

  Kelly carried a plate of chopped carrots to the table. Before Nan could advance a step, the sergeant stopped her by the elbow. It was a gentle yet firm hold.

  “I’m telling you this because you’re one of Kelly’s best friends. If the opportunity arises to help one of these combatants, resist. Don’t underestimate Finn’s ambitions. He’s out to make a hero of himself. He wants that Garda post, and he’d give up his mother if it suited his purposes.”

  “A regular hero.” She hoped he couldn’t hear her heart pounding. He let go.

  Halpin joined the troops at the table. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the young men, the “belligerents,” were the Halpins’ nephews come for a visit. Not RAF pilots on their way to internment. That’s where they were headed. No mistake there. Was she completely daft to help Dutch?

  A voice within reminded her of what Margaret had said today: God doesn’t bring you anything you can’t handle.

  She trusted the Lord with all her heart. In a couple of days, no one would be the wiser. And then life would return to normal.

  As long as Dutch kept out of sight.

  CHAPTER 6

  Dutch sat with his bare legs stretched out over the patchwork quilt. He balanced the cane across his palm and looked at the cat, who sat at the foot of the bed, mildly interested in Dutch’s balancing act. “You believe in destiny?”

  The cat stopped licking his paw, stared at Dutch, and then resumed his cleaning.

  “I do. Oops.” The cane dipped to the right. He counterbalanced to the left. “I believe in trusting the Lord with my destiny. The hard part for most people is figuring out what the Lord has in mind. I’m lucky; I know. I’m supposed to save the free world. But I can’t do it from this bed.”

  He glanced at the recessed bedroom window. Beyond the heavy burlap drape, a Ford Model A sedan waited to be fixed. He itched to open the hood and poke around, get the car working.

  He’d read somewhere that Ford had opened a manufacturing plant in Cork for the Irish market. The steering wheel position would be different, but he hoped that Ireland’s Fords were basically the same as the American versions. Fords were cars he knew how to fix.

  The cane dipped right, the evil fox face on the handle staring up at him. Then left and right again. He felt so useless. How swiftly their victory mission over Germany had ended in defeat. His chest tightened at the thought of his crew. Were they alive? Captured? Free across the border?

  The cane tipped and rolled off balance. Instinctually, he righted the stick with his other hand. Burning pain shot from his wound to race over his arm and across his shoulder. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.” He dropped the cane. It smacked against the floor, bounced, and rolled away.

  “Great.” He looked at the cat licking his orange-colored paw. “I don’t suppose you’d like to get that for me?”

  The cat yawned, then flopped onto his side.

  “No, I didn’t think so. A mutt would at least try.”

  The tabby stretched his lanky body across the quilt.

  “Yeah, you’re a real tomcat, eh? Bet you have a female at every farm. Me, I’m more of a dog person. Loyal. To a fault.”

  Loyal. He knew what that meant in every part of his body and soul. His mind slipped back to home. He wondered what his older brother, Simon, was up to right now. Probably sitting at his newspaper desk, studying war reports, trying to decide what story to lead with tomorrow.

  Perhaps Simon knew that the bomber had gone down. His brother had a finger on what was happening overseas. Best investigative reporter on either side of the pond. If Dutch was reported missing, he was sure Simon would be on the case, trying to figure out what had happened. Poor Mom. She’d be going out of her mind. Thank you, God, for sending Rachel. His sister-in-law had a calming effect on his mother.

  “If I could fight, I’d go with you,” Simon had said at the train station. They’d hugged, and then, as Dutch stepped onto the train bound for New York and the war, Simon had limped away.

  Mother had been too upset to see Dutch off, but if Father were still alive, Dutch was sure his dad would have been there.

  “Fight injustice wherever you see it” had been his father’s motto, especially when it applied to family and those he loved.

  Dutch had always protected his big brother from bullies. A fight in secondary school, after a bully had shoved Simon down the stairs, had gotten Dutch expelled.

  “The price you pay sometimes for standing up for justice,” his dad had said. “Proud of you, kid.”

  Mother wasn’t so happy about the brawl. Dutch had to leave one of the best prep schools in the city and take an hour-long train ride to his new school.

  Dutch thought the price was worth it. The bully he beat up would forever have a crooked nose, and the kid had also been expelled. No one messed with Simon after that day.

  His father had fought in the Great War. Lost the use of his left hand. “Mark my words,” he would say, positioning his useless hand in his jacket pocket. “The Hun will rise again. When they
do, we’ll fight to the death. Freedom is worth dying for.”

  Dutch nudged the cat with his big toe, the soft fur a reminder of all that was good. “For what does the Lord require of me? To seek justice, and love mercy, and to walk humbly with the Lord.”

  The cat strutted over Dutch’s legs and jumped off the bed, sniffing at the cane on his way out of the room.

  “Thanks for picking up my cane.” Dutch lay back onto the pillow with a groan. He stared at the window and tapped his fingers over the patchwork quilt. What kind of condition was the Ford in? At the very least, the car would need a battery charge. Parked in the barn for so long, the vehicle had probably had its wires and tubes chewed through by mice.

  The cat sashayed back into the bedroom, jumped onto the bed, and lay at Dutch’s feet.

  “Did you do your job and keep the mice away?”

  The cat shut his eyes and licked a spot of milk from his lips.

  “No, I didn’t think so. Nan feeds you too well, right? Why bother with scrappy field rodents?”

  In his periphery, Dutch noticed the torn sleeve of the minuscule nightshirt. Hobbling around today, he’d ripped the back, too. Teddy must have been a shrimp. There was no way her dead husband’s clothes would fit. They’d figure that one out later, but something had to be done or he’d be driving to the border in his drawers.

  He’d found his cleaned underwear hanging in the room off the scullery, still damp, and had put them on. They were wet and clammy, but he deemed his discomfort better than being in the natural beneath the shirt.

  The only glimmer of fortune in this situation was Nan. Brave girl. And the prettiest he’d ever met. He liked her taking care of him, her cool fingers over his forehead, down his neck, gently across his shoulders. Gazing into her deep blue eyes, he felt a million miles away from the war. And he felt connected. Connected to something worth the fight.

  Pain throbbed through his arm, stabbing and burning. Being stitched up by her hadn’t been much fun though.

  Where was she? What was taking her so long? Perhaps “back soon” in Ireland really meant hours.

  Or maybe she was turning him in. She’d given her word, but could he trust her? What would he do in her situation?

  He leaned back and covered his eyes with his good arm. His crew had trusted him. Look where it’d landed them. In Ireland. In trouble. Or even dead.

  He tried to quiet the jumble of thoughts about the night before, but they would not be silenced. The sequence of events spun through his mind. With a sharp inhale, he felt searing pain lash through his arm.

  “Bail out, bail out, bail out!” Dutch had yelled to his crew. Each one had jumped out the door, the tops of their parachutes disappearing into the night.

  “Go on ahead, Williams,” he’d said to his flight officer. “I’m going to reset the tabs.”

  “See you down there.” Williams had stepped out the door and into the night.

  Dutch scooted back into the cockpit. He must have read the winds wrong. The bomber was supposed to crash into the sea, not a cow pasture. Certainly not in Eire, either.

  Course set, he’d jumped, drifting in silence toward the Irish soil. So serene, and the moonlight so brilliant, it’d seemed unreal. Peaceful. But hitting the bog had grounded him back into reality.

  If he’d been a better pilot, he might have corkscrewed the aircraft out of harm’s way, far from the flak, from the ribbons of purple, yellow, orange, stretching up and exploding around them. One burst had rocked the front fuselage, destroying the loop antenna.

  It had been his fault, getting separated from the formation. They’d headed back to the base without a radio, the navigator’s only guidance in the darkness a compass and watch.

  He was responsible for his crew. What had happened was his fault. His. Fault.

  His stomach lurched at the sound of footsteps and laughter. Heavy footsteps that couldn’t belong to the beautiful, young nurse. A child’s laughter rang over the sound of crows.

  Who was out there? The LDF officer? Had Nan turned him in? The LDF wasn’t going to take him without a fight. Why hadn’t she given him the gun?

  He focused on the cane, slid off the blankets, and stood. A razor-sharp burn struck his knee. Groaning, he grabbed his leg. Pain needled down his left arm, flaming, aching. The fox face seemed to mock him as he picked up the walking stick.

  The front doorknob rattled. He straightened. His pulse raced fast and hard, as though he’d just run down the football field. Whoever it was, he was trying to get inside.

  Where had she put his gun? He’d poked around the cabin looking for it earlier, but she’d squirreled it away somewhere. How could she leave him without protection? He squeezed the cane. That was her idea of defense?

  Overriding the aches that ripped through his body, he padded barefoot over the slate floor to the window.

  The doorknob rattled again. He froze, cane in hand.

  His heart pumped as hard as bullets shooting against his ribs. From outside, he heard a female voice say, “Mind ya don’t take too much turf, or Nurse Nan will know we’ve been here.”

  What? Parting the curtain a little, he surveyed the yard. A barefoot boy, wearing a muddy RAF-aviator flight helmet and dressed in shabby clothes, helped himself to the turf piled in a shelter built against the calf house. The kid took the bricks in such a way as to disguise the theft, loading them into a bucket.

  Dutch gaped. The aviator helmet. He bet it was his. His name would be written inside.

  The woman who accompanied the child wore a multipatched dress that hung down to her dirty, oversized men’s shoes. She adjusted the shawl around her shoulders, then jiggled the door handle one more time.

  Without any luck, she stepped away, turned on her heel, and strolled into the calf house. A minute later she returned, her apron pockets filled. She bit into an apple and then handed one to the boy. The two lumbered off after leaving a dent in Nan’s fuel supply and probably her apple barrel, too.

  Lowlife thieves. Why didn’t Nan have a dog? A nice big, ferocious mutt who could scare away the likes of those two. The cat rubbed against Dutch’s calf, then passed in and out of the space between the man’s legs. “Think you could meow or something to scare them away?”

  Dutch hobbled into the main cabin room, the cane tapping along with each step. He lowered himself to a chair beside the fireplace. Stretching his legs out, he inhaled slowly, taking in the scent of the burning turf. He let the air escape in one powerful puff.

  He’d placed his wet boots beside the fireplace, in the hopes of drying them, but they still appeared to be soaking wet. With this cold, damp climate, they’d grow mold first.

  He scratched his eyebrow. Nan had scrubbed the boots clean and had left them in the laundry room to air beside his cleaned underpants. He shifted in his seat as the damp boxers clung to his skin.

  This was no good for Nan. She shouldn’t have agreed to hide him. There was too much at risk. If he was discovered, they’d take him into custody, and her, too. The longer he waited around, the more his odds of being found increased.

  He smacked his hand against the armrest. Time to stop being a wimp and take decisive action. His escape training kicked in. No time to wait for Nan to get back. He resolved to inspect the car, get it operational, and save her further entanglement.

  Standing, Dutch wobbled. The floor’s coldness penetrated his bare feet. No telling what he might encounter in the barn. Adding cuts to his injuries seemed unwise. He remembered a pair of men’s Wellington boots in the laundry room beside the back door.

  He considered picking up the cane, but after staring at the creepy fox-face handle, he decided to leave it beside his drying boots.

  When he got to the back room, he saw a rack holding the dress she’d worn the night before, along with her bra and panties. He ran his hand over the soft wool. The dress was damp. He resisted touching her drying undergarments.

  He wasn’t supposed to look at her last night, but he hadn’t been able to he
lp himself. The image of her standing there in only a slip was burned in his memory.

  He wished she hadn’t burned his clothes. He felt ridiculous wearing this tiny nightshirt. And cold. Never mind, he told himself. Buck up. Carry on with your mission.

  He yanked on the rubber boots. They were too small, but they had to do. Cramped toes beat cut feet. He limped to the recessed window in the main cabin, pulled back the curtain, and peered outside. It seemed clear, so he unlocked the door.

  The cat stepped over Dutch’s feet and ran into the yard, disappearing into a row of hedges. Dutch closed the door behind him and dashed across the cobblestone courtyard, the boots pinching his toes and sending smacking sounds into the misty air. Every step sent a stab to his knee. He swung open the faded calf-barn door and stepped inside. His knee burned, and pain throbbed up his hip, but he tried his best to ignore it.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust. The barn smelled of hay, earth, mold. And apples. Three barrels stood to his left, under a window. The shuttered window was the only one in the barn.

  Sweat poured down his face. Catching his breath, his gaze lit on a hulking form covered with a tarp. “There you are. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  He spotted a lantern in the recessed window, along with a box of matches. After adjusting the dilapidated barn-window shutters to a closed position, he lit the lamp.

  From the corner of his eye, he spotted the cat wiggling in through a broken board in the double doors at the other end of the barn.

  “So, you going to be my lookout? Pretend you’re a dog?”

  The cat hopped onto a barrel and glared at him.

  “Right. Sorry for the insult. Any help accepted,” he said, scratching the cat behind the ears.

  Dutch placed the lamp on a tool bench, illuminating the car and the concrete floor. The tarp came off without a struggle. The black Ford sedan appeared solid enough, no missing doors, headlights intact. The windows were all there and mostly free of cracks. The tires needed air but seemed sound.

  “Not bad,” he muttered. On the surface, at any rate.

  Now the fun part. He set the oil lamp closer to the edge of the tool bench and opened the car’s hood. It creaked and protested at being lifted, but he fought to raise it with his good arm. When it started to close, he grabbed the edge with his injured arm. Pain burst down his limb, but he powered through until he set the hood prop. He stepped back, holding his arm. After he took a few long gulps of air, the pain receded and he continued to inspect the engine.