“Yes,” she said, but didn’t ask what he wanted to make happen. She didn’t want to hear. “You do understand. Just as you were different without meaning to be, so was I. I was strange and when I couldn’t fit in, I began to thumb my nose at the other kids, telling them and myself that I didn’t need them.”
“And then you fell in love,” he said softly.
“With Charley?” There was disbelief in her voice.
“Something a little larger than Charley.”
She smiled. “Ah, yes, airplanes. You know, I used to think that airplanes were male, but the older I get, the more I think that planes are female. They’re no longer something I’m trying to conquer, but they’re my very, very good friends. Someone I’ve shared a great deal with.”
“And what about men?”
She looked off into the horizon and didn’t answer him.
He persisted. “What do you want to do with your life now, Jackie?”
She didn’t look at him, but when she spoke, there was passion in her voice. “Something in me has changed. I don’t know what it is. For so many years I wanted to conquer the world. I had such a clear view of what I wanted and how I was going to get it, but I accomplished everything I set out to win, and now I don’t know where I’m going to go next. Part of me is angry that the world seems to be moving while I’m standing still, but part of me just wants to sit still and let it go by. Part of me wants to grow roses and—”
Abruptly, she broke off and took a deep drink of her wine.
“And have kids,” he filled in for her with amazing—and annoying—accuracy.
“Ridiculous! Do you realize that two girls from my high school class are now grandmothers? What would I do with kids, anyway? Besides that, what man my age wants to start a family?” She stopped because she was protesting too much. A family of her own was not something she had thought too much about in her life. She’d been too busy with planes and taking care of Charley to think about a bunch of kids. Now the urge to see the world was no longer pulling at her, and yet she still wanted to participate in the world.
“I guess what I really want is everything. Everything the world has to offer is what I want. I don’t want to give up anything, yet I want to add everything that I don’t have.”
William was smiling and the sun on his face made him especially handsome. “I can’t give you everything, but I’d love to marry you and give you as many kids as you want.”
Jackie knew he was serious and for a moment her mouth was dry. There was an almost overwhelming urge within her to say yes. The feeling was every bit as intense as what she’d felt the first time she saw an airplane. Then she’d known nothing about the world. She’d had no idea of the cruelty of people, how they were going to judge her and her abilities before they met her. Now she was older and she’d experienced a great deal of pain as well as joy and she knew what people were going to say. If she married William they would see nothing except the age difference.
“Don’t answer,” he said, forcing a smile. “It was just a thought.”
“Yes, just a thought.” She tried to compose her face so that when she turned to him he wouldn’t see what was in her eyes. “We are too serious. What we should be thinking of is who is going to clean up the kitchen. And you are going to put my kitchen back the way it was, the way I want it. And my desk, too.”
“Ha! Do you know that you have a packet of needles and thread in your desk and a stapler in your sewing basket?”
She didn’t know any such thing, but didn’t doubt it. Sometimes a person got busy and put things where it was handy, but that wasn’t any of his business. “It doesn’t matter where I put things. It’s my house.”
“Only temporarily. Did I mention that I own all the houses in Eternity, as well as the land?”
At that Jackie laughed. Only a Montgomery could say he owned a town in that offhand tone of voice. “So, did you get the buildings for your twenty-first birthday?”
She meant it as a joke, but from the way William’s face turned red, she knew she had guessed right, and she gave a whoop of laughter. “Every other person on earth would ask for a trip around the world or a mansion or even a diamond necklace, but what does my rock-solid, always-thinking-ahead William ask for? A ghost town! A run-down, worthless old town that people didn’t want even when it was alive. What in the world made you ask for this place?”
When he looked at her, his eyes were intense. “I could build a landing field here.” His answer was simple, but it said so much. He’d said that he was always planning, and the town and the airfield had been a lure to her. Even though she had been married to another man and had had no intention of returning to her hometown, William had been planning to bring her back. What was it he had said? That if you plan hard enough you can make things happen. Was she here today because he had wanted her so much, planned so hard, that she had returned?
She smiled at him. Whether things worked out between them or not, she couldn’t help being flattered. Charley had never courted her; he’d always made her feel that he was doing her a favor by taking her away from two-bit Chandler. He had let Jackie court him with work and more work and more work. But now here was a man who had spent years planning to win her.
“You make me feel valuable,” she said softly. “You make me feel as though I am the most precious object in the world.”
“You are.”
There was such sincerity in his voice that Jackie didn’t know whether to be pleased or embarrassed. She was some of both. In the end, all she could say was “Thank you.”
Chapter Eight
This is heaven, Jackie thought. Next to fifteen snap rolls one after another, this was as good as life got. She was on her pretty couch, doing the best she could to keep her mind on the radio program that William had on, but the truth was, she was watching him as he polished a foot-high stack of shoes, both his and hers. She complained and she hated his presumption, but maybe it was rather nice to open a sewing basket and take out a pair of scissors instead of a stapler. And it would be nice to put on shiny shoes.
It was raining outside, so William had built a fire to take the chill off the cool mountain night. He’d insisted that Jackie stretch out on the couch, a thick blanket draped over her, and she was to do nothing but be quiet and listen to the radio. And watch him, she thought. Who would have thought that seeing a man do something as domestic as polish shoes could have such an effect on her? In a way this simple action made her think more of love than all his kisses did. As Jackie well knew, it wasn’t passion that made for a good marriage, it was the little things. If something needed to be assembled, could one of you read the directions while the other constructed? In Jackie’s experience, a man didn’t like to take orders from a woman for anything at all. Did the two of you bicker? That petty arguing could ruin evenings and afternoons.