The Invitation (Montgomery/Taggert 19)

“Because I’m too old,” she said quickly, wanting to say anything to make him stop talking about this. “My reflexes aren’t as fast as those of these youngsters flying today. I’ve been in this business a long, long time and—”

William said a very vulgar word that perfectly and quite correctly described what she was trying to make him believe. “You are lying to me. Why?”

She hated it when people didn’t believe what they were told. Why couldn’t people just accept what others told them? Why couldn’t William accept that she was too old to fly in t

hat blasted race and leave it at that? “I don’t like races,” she said. “They are a useless waste of gasoline in a time of need in our country. While other people are hungry, pilots are engaging in senseless waste. When you’re older, you’ll realize that money can be better spent in more intelligent ways than on races and other folderol.”

At that little speech, William snorted in derision. “What’s wrong with the American economy right now is the absence of money in circulation. People are hoarding what funds they have, too terrified to spend. What this country needs is more spending, not less. And races like the Taggie give depressed people pleasure.”

He stopped talking and looked at her hard, as though he wanted to see inside her soul. When she turned her head away so he couldn’t see into her eyes, he put his fingertips under her chin and raised her face to meet his eyes. “There’s more to this than you’re saying. Why won’t you tell me the truth?”

Angrily she jerked away from him, moving into the darkness of the night, into the black shade of the old dress shop so he couldn’t see into her eyes. Stupid, she thought, it was really stupid of her to feel so bad because she was disappointing him. Many, many people had thought she should enter races and competitions, and she’d laughed their suggestions off. But she had an irrational desire to please William.

In spite of what she meant to say, the words that came out of her mouth startled her. “Why? What does it matter whether I win some race or not?” There was an almost plaintive tone to her voice, she thought in disgust. Why don’t you like me as I am? she seemed to be saying.

“I want you to be remembered,” he answered simply, and it didn’t take a genius to know what he meant. The history books always remembered the people who did the most, the best, who flew the highest, the fastest, the longest, whatever. If Jackie stopped setting records, winning races, the things that she had done would die with her. Never in her life would she say so aloud, but she had thought of this many times. Sometimes she felt anger and quite a bit of envy to read that some whippersnapper of a pilot who didn’t have as much knowledge in his head as Jackie had in her little finger, had won a place in the history books by setting some aviation record.

“You’ve thought of it,” he said, as much to himself as to her. When she turned away from him again, he took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll stop. For tonight, anyway, but not forever. You’re going to tell me the truth if I have to…”

“To what?” she asked, meaning to challenge him in a tough sort of way, but her voice came out instead in a tone of teasing.

“I’ll have to challenge you to a duel.” Even in the dark she could see that his eyes were sparkling.

“Do I get to choose the weapons?”

“Sure,” he answered in the same tone. “Anything you want. Swords, pistols.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “A wrestling match.”

“Airplanes,” she said. “We will duel with planes.” She started laughing when William groaned as though in great agony.

As they laughed, their eyes locked. What was more dangerous than shared laughter? Laughter was more powerful than all the kisses in the world. You could keep from falling in love with a man whose only attraction was a feeling of sexual interest, but how could you not fall in love with a man who made you laugh? Laughing with a man made you dream of a life with a man who could see the bright side of life, a man who would smile when the going got worse.

“Don’t,” she said softly and turned away from him, starting back to the house.

He didn’t move from where he was but instead watched her walk away from him.

Chapter Five

Two days later, after yet another restless night, Jackie knew she had to do something. Each night she seemed to turn over many times, and each time she awoke and listened for a sound from William. Of course she knew that he was two floors above her and she couldn’t possibly hear him, but that didn’t make any difference. She knew he was there; she could feel his presence.

On the morning of the third day, at about three A.M., she awoke and had a mature, intelligent talk with herself. Her conclusion was that either he had to leave or she would go crazy. When she was younger, she always liked to know why she did something, and if she found that her behavior was based on something childish, like jealousy or envy, she tried to overcome the feeling. But with age came the wisdom to know that everyone was human. For whatever reason, she knew that she had to get rid of him. Suppose Terri came to visit and found her and William occupying the same house? She could hear all the snide hometown things that would be said about “robbing the cradle” and “wet behind the ears.” If this were Paris she might get away with what seemed to be occupying her every waking and sleeping thought, but this was backwoods, unsophisticated Chandler, Colorado, and a thirty-eight-year-old woman did not take up with a man ten years younger than herself.

And if the age difference wasn’t enough, there was William’s talk of the Taggie. She needed to stop that right now. William had the eyes of a zealot, of a do-gooder. He meant for her to win that race so she could enter the history books. With that sparkle in his eyes, he was likely to do something absurd, such as announce to the town that she was going to enter, hoping to force her to change her mind.

As she began to dress, Jackie couldn’t help feeling sad, for she knew that what she was doing was possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life, but even that knowledge didn’t keep her from doing it. Having a man with the money and business acumen of William Montgomery was something that every underpaid glory hound of a pilot dreamed of. William wasn’t trying to steal the spotlight from Jackie, nor was he trying to take over the directorship of the business. He just wanted to stay in the background and do all the boring work of managing the money. He deferred to Jackie at every turn, saying things like “I’m sure you know best.”

It was infuriating. But what was really infuriating about him was that she loved being around his slow, deliberate ways. She didn’t know how else to explain it: William made her feel safe.

The first day he had asked her where she kept her books, and they then had gone through an annoying hassle while Jackie figured out that he wasn’t trying to get into her bedroom where she had her one and only bookcase. He had wanted ledgers telling who owed what and how much to her. “Oh, that,” she’d said, then began to rattle off to him how much various people in town owed her for the use of the airfield, for carrying a package to Denver, for begging a ride with her to Trinidad. She could remember who had paid her and how much was still owed. She remembered dates of flights and how long they took. She remembered who had paid her in chickens and who in cash.

After sitting spellbound while listening to this rendition of her monetary life, William blinked a few times and said he’d buy ledgers and draw up a proper set of books. Trying to be as flippant as possible, Jackie had swept from the room, tossing over her shoulder, “I hope you don’t expect me to record every penny I make in some book.”

Jackie’s plan was to make William say he was leaving; also she wanted to make it quite clear to him and to anyone visiting them that there was nothing whatsoever between them except business. So maybe in trying to reach this end she hadn’t exactly been the most gracious of business partners. And it was indeed stupid to try to sabotage herself, but with every passing day she liked William more.

Nothing she said seemed to bother him. He was the soul of calmness. When three people had called in one day to cancel planned flights to Denver, she could have pulled the hair out of the nearest person, which of course was William. All day long she’d picked on him. “Of course, what would a kid like you know about disappointment?” she said. “You haven’t been alive long enough to understand how difficult life can sometimes be.” William hadn’t said a word to her, just raised one eyebrow in a way that made her want to crawl under a table. It would have been easier to believe he was a kid if he had acted like one.

With each passing minute Jackie could see the possibility of danger in being too near t

his young man. So she strengthened her resolve to stay away from him. The first night he had used her kitchen when she wasn’t there, but the second night he’d asked if he could come down from the top floor and use her kitchen, since all he had was a hot plate. She didn’t feel she could refuse him this request, and for one long, delicious moment, she thought of sitting at the table in the kitchen with a man and laughing across a bottle of wine. She had to shake herself to make the image go away. At dinnertime she had found that she had to make an emergency drive into Chandler to pick up a box of tissues.