From roots to sky, p.4
From Roots to Sky, page 4
He set to sorting through the lumber in the back, listing hardware to purchase on a scrap of paper, making measurements, sawing marked lines. Perhaps it was the noise of his back-and-forth sawing, or the way the project had swallowed him up, mind and body, but he was entirely consumed with the work when a tap on his shoulder made him jerk in surprise.
“Hey!” he said, a little too loudly. He could still hear the grating cry of the saw ringing in his hears, though he’d stopped work. Hannah stepped back, hands in the air in surrender.
“Hey,” Luke said again, calming his voice. “I mean, hello. Hello, Hannah.”
She tilted her head quizzically. “Hi, Luke.” Her voice mimicked his serious and schooled tone. “What are you working on?”
“A door,” he said, the words coming out too hurried and sounding more like adore. Hannah’s pretty mouth turned up at the corners, mischief in her eyes. “A door,” he repeated, with a painstaking pause in between the two words.
“So you said,” Hannah replied. “Well, it looks mighty fine, Mr. Hampstead,” she said, nodding an official approval. “It looks a sight better than the one I tried to make,” she said, laughing.
“You made one?” Luke kicked himself. He knew he should’ve waited and asked before blazing forward like this.
“See for yourself,” Hannah said, leading the way to a scrap pile around the corner and gesturing at a piece of wood no longer than his own legs. It was a door, true enough—and an impressive one, at that. Just . . . small. “Ladies and gentlemen, the revolutionary miniature door! Only one of its kind in existence, and sure to go fast, so don’t hold your wallets too close, now.”
Luke chuckled, scratching his head. “How . . . I mean, I saw you with your measurements. You’re very accurate. How did this . . .”
“Happen? Glad you asked, my good man.” She carried on in her salesman impression. “This here is what occurs when a perfectionist starts with the perfect size of wood, but then also wants the perfect cut, the perfect sanding, the perfect ornamentation, and keeps slicing off little corners and cuts to slice off mistakes and make it appear just so. What you get is, indeed” —Hannah held up a finger for emphasis—“the perfect door. In miniature. The just-so door, if you will.” She rested her hands on her hips proudly, though the blush on her face told him she was, under all that show, embarrassed by her endeavor.
He’d known his fair share of embarrassments in his time and felt a sudden camaraderie with this girl. Woman, he corrected himself. There was no mistaking that; her loveliness was only emphasized by her girlish enthusiasm.
He studied her, then crouched, running his finger over the door. It was truly a work of art. She’d carved vines into the upper arch of it, sanded it to velvety smoothness, and it pained him to see it lying here in a pile of scraps. It seemed to go against the very nature of the cottage that salvaged broken things and gave them a place to live forever.
“This doesn’t belong here,” he said simply, rather enjoying the confounded look she gave him.
She held a palm upward toward it as he stood. “What do you mean? It’s clearly—well, too small. Too big for a doll’s house. I can’t give it to one of the neighbors for that. Too small for the cottage . . .” She let her thoughts trail off, eyes big as she stared at him.
He pursed his mouth. “Leave it to me,” he said thoughtfully, seriously. He had an idea brewing.
“Alright, Mr. Hampstead. You do whatever you like with that.”
“Are you sure?” He needed her permission for what he had planned but didn’t want to give too much away.
“Entirely. It was bound for the big bonfire we have come harvest time, so you can make a suit out of it for all I care.” She brightened. “Say, that’s not a bad idea. Mrs. Hollis came into the shop today and was saying how you were in need of a suit. She told me to tell you to stop by the fabric store this week and she’ll get you all shipshape.”
Now it was his turn to feel the keen heat of embarrassment. “I can’t argue that,” he said.
Later that week, when Luke arrived around the time he’d noticed Hannah usually came, his stride carried him under the arching branches of the reaching oak to reveal a sight that set him running: his Dutch door, swinging in midair over the balcony railing. Hannah was stationed up on the balcony, her face beet red, holding her breath as she leaned backward, leveraging the rope and pulling with all her might to get that door upstairs. But the door barely budged, the rope snagged on something on the railing. She was barely hanging on, keeping it from crashing into a window or the ground below, and then they’d have two doors bound for the bonfire.
In a matter of seconds, Luke had bounded up the stairs, freed the rope from its snag, and taken hold of the coil to help Hannah hoist it over the rest of the way. They worked in tandem, pulling in perfect time until the door appeared at the railing. He was thrown back to the singular and satisfying feeling of striving together with someone toward a common goal and finding in it a brotherhood. The last person he’d worked so in stride with had been Danny.
With a quick nod from Hannah silently affirming his plan, he left her side and eased the door over the railing. Their eyes met, shared victory brimming in both of them. He felt he should salute her, offer a handshake, or show some gesture of that shared brotherhood. Only . . . looking at this fount of words and energy, the way she looked fit to burst with joy, he had the sudden urge to gather her up in an embrace instead.
That was different from a brotherhood. Very different.
He cleared his throat, shoving back the ridiculous notion. Of course it was different. She wasn’t a brother. If anything, she should be like a sister to him, seeing as how Danny was like a brother. That was logical.
The ache in his arms without her in them was not logical.
“Good work, pilot,” she said, her smile dimpling rosy cheeks.
“Same to you,” he said. “That was a good idea, the pulley you rigged up to get that upstairs.”
She shrugged. “Maybe in theory. But if you hadn’t come along when you had—I’m afraid my pulley would’ve been the death of your beautiful door, there. Speaking of which . . .” She dashed inside to the loft area and snatched up a carefully folded paper bag. “I come bearing gifts.”
He opened the bag and saw everything he’d listed on his scrap of paper earlier that week. Hinges, screws, all of it. “How did you know?”
Again with her nonchalant shrug. “A girl knows things. What can I say?”
He was impressed.
“Plus, I snatched up your list when you weren’t looking.” She winked and, without missing a beat, sidled up to the door again. “Now, let’s get this door up, shall we?”
By the time they’d released the Dutch door from its rope binding, rigged up a way to hang it, secured all the hardware, and tested it out, it was clear that Hannah Garland was a force to be reckoned with. Brilliant and bright, intense and jovial, all wrapped together.
He pulled the door closed with her on the other side for one last test, and listened as she unlatched the top half of the door, pulling it open on her side. She rested her elbow on the ledge, leaning her head into her fist as she studied him.
“I don’t know about you, Mr. Hampstead.”
“Luke,” he said, the word coming out too quick. “You can call me Luke.”
“Alright, Mr. Luke. I don’t know about you.”
“What don’t you know?”
“Well, you’re a mystery, is all. You come over and spend the whole evening listening to me blabber away, and by the time we part ways, I feel like I know you. But that doesn’t add up. How you could speak three to ten words, and I could speak a hundred—”
He stifled a laugh.
“Okay, ten thousand.”
He nodded, raising his eyebrows with a suppressed smile. That was a better estimate.
“And then I wake up the next morning and can’t wait to see you again? It doesn’t make sense at all. I mean—” She stopped. Her hand flew to cover her mouth, eyes round as saucers. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean anything by it or—well, I just mean—”
This was where he should jump in and say something nice, something smooth and gentlemanly to get her out of her bind. Goodness knew he understood what it felt like to be trapped by one’s own words. Think, Luke. Think . . .
“I don’t blame you,” he said. There. That would show her he understood. That he felt the same about her and looked forward to their time together. Right? Why was she looking at him like her whole being was laughing and she was barely holding it in?
“Really, now,” she said. “Well, thank you for deigning to grace me with your presence.” She laughed.
And then it hit him. What he’d said, how it had sounded.
“No—no, I meant I enjoy my time with you, too,” he said, rubbing his temple with his fingers and wincing. “I should be going.” He tried to open the door to move past her, disappear down the stairs as fast as he could, maybe find a way to disappear entirely.
But she held that door latch tight.
“Never you mind, Mr. Hampstead.”
“Luke,” he mumbled. He lifted his eyes. He could do better.
“I knew what you meant, Luke. And I’m the one that got all tongue-tied. But what I’m getting at is, who are you? How is it that you can spend all this time here when the great city of New York is waiting for you?”
His shoulders eased. This, he could answer. “Pan-Am is just making preparations right now. Anticipating the end of the war, but no one knows when that might be. So I wait to hear from them. I’ve sent them my address at the inn, and they’ll let me know once they’re ready.”
Hannah tilted her head, waiting. She was a good listener, it turned out.
But he didn’t know how to put this next part into words. It felt too . . . torn. “I know a lot of guys who’d switch places with me in a heartbeat,” he said. “Guys still up there flying, fighting.” He nodded up at the sky. “To get to come home, to have a job waiting when the time is right—and when this war ends, there are going to be more pilots freshly trained and home from the war than this nation has ever seen at once . . . but fewer jobs. I’ll have to jump on that job right away when word comes, or there’ll be a hundred guys waiting on the sidewalk to take my place.”
He paused, breathed deep.
“But . . . ?” Hannah opened the door, letting him in from the balcony. She settled into a sun patch on the wooden planked floor, and he followed suit across from her. The loft was so small, their feet nearly touched.
“I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I’m lucky to be alive,” he said. This, she grew serious at. But that was a tale for another day. “I’m here, alive, healed, and with a job waiting. I’d just—there’s part of me that would give anything to still be in the fight,” he said.
Especially looking at those blue eyes of hers, the earnest sincerity and openness of them. As long as there were people like Hannah Garland in the world, it was worth fighting to protect them.
She drew in a long breath and let out a whistle. “I guess it’s true what they say,” she said, studying him.
“What’s that?”
“Still waters run deep. You’ve got a lot going on inside of you.”
He dropped his gaze. How had she done that? Pulled so much up out of him?
“Well, you’d better keep that coming. Don’t let me talk so much.” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “Say more. I like it. And by the way, I’m glad you’re here. I’m sorry for what you went through, and what you had to leave behind. And I mean that. But at the same time—maybe you were born for such a time as this.”
He leaned forward, hoping for more.
She obliged. “Seems to me whenever a body finds themselves in a place they never thought life would take them, there’s purpose there. They were born for that moment, even though it might be hard. And you, Mr. Luke . . . you are full of purpose, sure as the day is long.”
She rose to go, looking at the sky. “It’s late—Gran’ll be comin’ after me soon if I don’t get home.”
“I’ll walk you,” he said, standing.
“Mighty chivalrous of you, but don’t you worry. I know the path home like the back of my hand. And I’ve got your words to keep me company. Besides, you’d best head on home, too. Jerry’ll chew my head off if I hog you. He likes having help around.”
Luke stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I have one or two things to wrap up here, and then I’ll head back,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes. “One or two things,” she said. “That sounds mysterious.”
“You’ll see.”
And she would. He made sure of that. In the alcove beneath the narrow stair, he worked late into the night removing a piece of the wall to make a small storage closet and inserting a smallish door carved to perfection. Just-so door, he wrote on a note, and left it wedged there for her to find.
He thought of her words as he swung the door closed with a quiet click. “For such a time as this,” he said. “May it be so.”
six
JUNE 1945
Four weeks. Twenty-eight days. Six hundred seventy-two hours spent here in Oak Springs, and at least three boxes of nails expended on siding, trim, windowsills, shingles, and shelves on a tiny cottage in the shadows of a sprawling oak.
At night, Luke dreamt of the frigid dark on the outskirts of the Ardennes, fingers so stiff he could barely form a single word.
During the days, he soaked in the warmth of the Texas sun, and the warmth that was the girl who’d gotten him through that frigid night in what felt like another lifetime. Never had he imagined he’d still be here—and still had not given her that letter, nor the package he came here to deliver.
He didn’t know why. At first it felt presumptuous. Embarrassing, even, to relate that tale to a near stranger. But each day, he realized more and more that she was no stranger at all. Strange, perhaps, in a most wonderful way, and he laughed thinking of her near misses walking into posts and beams when her eyes were glued to sketches. But she was no stranger.
And then the prospect of giving her the parcel became fear. It was so very rustic compared to what she deserved. She’d lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of the just-so door when she’d discovered it. He’d do anything to see that same thrill upon her face. Or rather—saturating her being. For nothing with Hannah Garland was confined to the surface. Whatever she felt, she felt it straight through. Whatever she did, she did with everything in her.
He was beginning to feel less a stranger here, too. Hannah’s Gran made sure of that, demanding he sit down for a full breakfast each day, and sneaking him a plate of hot sausage links when the toast served him by Hannah crunched like steel. But he finished every bite of that toast, too, his smile sincere. How had he ended up here? At a warm kitchen in a family home, when he had never known such before. The sky had been his home, and he’d been fine with that.
But now . . . when he thought of New York, of taking to the skies once more, a strange ache cracked open inside of him. All through the war, he’d had no home to be homesick for. And now . . . he was pining for a home that was never his, and he wasn’t even gone from it yet.
“Pull yourself together,” Luke muttered to himself.
“What’re you mutterin’ about now?” Jerry piped up between bites of his sandwich. They were sneaking a quick bite in between repairing part of the inn’s paneling. Luke was dead tired after working all afternoon at the cottage with Hannah, but he was earning his keep here at the inn by helping Jerry into the evening.
“Nothing,” Luke said. “Just thinking.”
“Thinkin’,” Jerry said, sounding like the idea was as absurd as swallowing a frog.
“Yeah.”
“That’ll get you into trouble. How much should I wager that you’re thinkin’ on that pretty, young Hannah Garland?”
Luke had to stifle a laugh at the man’s description. Hannah was pretty, yes. Prettier than he had words for. And true, she was a young woman. But when he thought of Hannah, a thousand other words burst into thought, too. She was bright. Brilliant, really. Ambitious. Undaunted. Spunky and quirky and plucky, and yet just when she risked fooling everyone into thinking she was clumsy and scatterbrained, she stopped the world with some stroke of genius.
More than all that, though . . . she was kind. The sort of kindness that made a man not know what to do with himself, when she looked at him with those clearer-than-the-sky blue eyes and saw right down to his soul, stopped what she was doing, and listened. Understood.
“Well?” Jerry’s voice grated into his thoughts.
“I might’ve been thinking about her,” Luke admitted, quick to pick up a two-by-four and measure it. Hopefully Jerry would let it be.
“Well, what’re you gonna do about it, son?”
Luke propped the wood against the wall. “What can I do? I’m leaving in a few weeks. Maybe a few months.”
“See? Look at you. You’re already solving it. Stretch those weeks on into months, those months on into years, and before you know it, you’ll be as much a part of this place as old Jerry here, and then there’s no leavin’, no matter what.”
“I don’t think I can stay,” Luke said, thinking about the scarcity of that pilot job. A man needed to earn a living, especially if he had hopes of providing a home for someone someday. The very idea of having a someone was miraculous. His heart’s door had been firmly shut after everything with Caroline, and yet the thought kept knocking on it. And the irony of him needing to leave town to make that possible urged him to pound a bucket of nails more into that place inside, nail it firmly shut forever. Luke narrowed his eyes. “But even if I did, that doesn’t mean she’d want me to. I just showed up out of the blue one day and inserted myself into her life. A girl like that . . . she doesn’t need me getting in her way.”
“True, you are in the way more often than not,” Jerry said, chewing on his straw.
“Thanks.”
“Just sayin’. But who’s to say she doesn’t want you in the way? Many a fella’s tried to court Hannah Garland. Just none of ’em can keep up with her, is all. She’s got twelve schemes and ideas in her head if she’s got one, and never has there been any room there for a fella, too.”
