The Things We Leave Unfinished Read online

“Scarlett,” he answered without pausing to think it over.

  “Why would you say that?” Scarlett challenged with a slight tilt to her head.

  “You’re protective of her.”

  Her eyes flared with surprise and her lips tugged upward.

  “She’s only eleven months older, but she acts as if it’s eleven years,” Constance teased.

  That earned a full smile from Scarlett, accompanied by a shake of her head. Damn, she was a knockout. Who the hell left a woman like that to walk down the street? His brow puckered. “So what happened to your ride? I’m guessing you hadn’t planned on walking all the way back to the station.”

  “She probably lost track of time,” Scarlett answered in a tone that made him exceptionally glad he wasn’t the one who’d forgotten.

  Not a man, then. He filed that fact.

  “We appeared to have overestimated a friend’s ability to remember appointments,” Constance added. “Your accent is lovely. Where are you from?”

  “Colorado,” he answered as a pang of homesickness stabbed quick and deep. “Haven’t seen her in over a year, but she’s still home.” He missed the mountains and the crisp lines they cut against the sky. He missed the way the air felt in his lungs, light and clear. He missed his parents and Sunday dinners. But none of that would exist for long if they didn’t win this thing.

  “You’re with the 609?” Scarlett asked with the same accent her sister had, the one that screamed money and education.

  “For a few months now.” He’d gotten to France only to be told that he was needed in England, and he wasn’t the only one. There were a few of them in the 609, and the Brits had welcomed them with open arms once they’d shown their skills in the sky. “What about you two?”

  He fought the urge to drive slower, to make the trip last a little longer just so he could see Scarlett smile again, even though he knew stopping had already put him in danger of being late to the flight line. His gut tightened as their eyes met in the mirror for another flash of a second before she looked away.

  “We’re both clerks in sector operations.” Constance lifted her eyebrows at Scarlett.

  “We’ve been in for about a year now,” Scarlett added.

  Two sisters. Both officers. Same position. Stationed together. Jameson was willing to bet that Daddy had money or influence. Most likely both. Wait…sector operations? He’d raise that bet to his whole month’s pay that they were plotters. “You move a lot of flags over there?”

  Scarlett arched a brow, and his entire body tightened.

  “You honestly think we pilots don’t know?” They were saving his ass, that was for sure. Plotters tracked all aircraft movement in the sky with the help of radio operators and RDF—Range and Direction Finding, creating the very map he flew by when the raids came. They were also top secret.

  “I wouldn’t presume to guess what you know,” Scarlett responded with a faint smile.

  Not only was she gorgeous but smart, too, and the fact that she didn’t let on that he was right—when he now knew he was—earned his respect. He was intrigued. He was attracted. He was in a damnable mess because he only had a few more minutes with her.

  The minute they passed through the gate, a pit formed in his stomach, and the odometer ticked like a countdown. He’d been stationed here nearly a month and he’d never seen her. What were the chances he’d ever see her again?

  Ask her out.

  The idea nagged at him as he pulled up in front of the women’s barracks—the Brits called them huts. The entire station was still under construction, but at least these were done.

  The girls climbed out before he could open their door, which didn’t surprise him. The English girls he’d met since landing in country had learned to do a lot for themselves in the last year the UK had been at war.

  He took their bags from the trunk but held on to Scarlett’s as she reached for it.

  Their fingers brushed.

  His heart jolted.

  She startled but didn’t pull back.

  “Can I take you to dinner?” he asked before he lost the nerve, which wasn’t something he’d particularly had to worry about lately, but something about Scarlett had him tongue-tied.

  Her eyes flared wide, and her cheeks flushed with heat. “Oh. Well…” Her gaze darted toward her sister, who was doing a poor job of hiding a smile.

  Scarlett didn’t let go of her luggage. Neither did he.

  …

  “Is that a yes?” he asked with a grin that just about took her knees out of service.

  Trouble. For the first time in her life, she didn’t want to avoid it.

  “Stanton!” another pilot called out as he walked over with Mary tucked beneath his arm and her lipstick smudging his face. At least that question was answered.

  Mary gasped, then cringed. “Oh no. I’m so sorry! I knew I was forgetting something today!”

  “Don’t worry about it. Seems to have worked out for everyone involved,” Constance responded with a cheeky little smile, her engagement ring winking in the sun.

  Scarlett narrowed her eyes at her sister before a tiny tug reminded her that she still stood on the pavement with her luggage suspended between herself and Jameson. What kind of name was Jameson, anyway? Did he prefer it to James? Jamie, perhaps?

  “I’m glad to see you, Stanton. Can I catch a ride with you to the flight line?” the other pilot asked as he disengaged from Mary.

  “Sure. As soon as she answers the question.” Jameson looked her dead in the eye.

  A nagging little feeling told her that he’d always be this forthright. It also told her not to let go.

  “Scarlett,” Constance urged.

  “I’m sorry, what was the question?” Had he asked another while she was distracted by staring? Her cheeks caught fire.

  “Will you please let me take you to dinner?” Jameson asked again. “Not tonight, since I’ll be flying. But some night this week?”

  Her lips parted. She hadn’t agreed to a date since the war began.

  “I’m quite sorry, but I don’t see men like you socially,” she managed to croak out.

  Constance let loose a sigh of frustration strong enough to change the weather.

  “Men like me?” Jameson questioned with a tease in his tone. “Americans?”

  “Of course not.” She scoffed. “I mean, not that I’ve ever been asked by an American, naturally.”

  “Naturally.” And that grin was back, wobbling her knees again. He really was too handsome for his own good.

  “I mean pilots.” She nodded toward the wings on his uniform. “I don’t see pilots.” Out of every job in the Royal Air Force, pilots were the most nomadic in regard to where they slept, and geography wasn’t the least of it. They also had a tendency to die with a frequency she couldn’t stomach.

  “Shame.” He clicked his tongue.

  She tugged on her luggage, and he released it.

  “It is most assuredly my loss,” she professed, the words ringing true in her own ears. She shouldn’t go. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to. Longing resonated through her like a church bell, hitting hard and loud, only to come again in softer echoes the longer she stood there looking up at him.

  Was every American as handsome as he was? Surely not.

  “No, I mean it’s a shame that I’ll have to resign. I do love to fly.” A corner of Jameson’s mouth quirked a little higher. “Wonder if they need more officers over at Sector Command?”

  The other pilot scoffed. “Stop flirting—we’re going to be late.”

  Scarlett arched a singular eyebrow at Jameson.

  “Let me take you to dinner,” he asked again, this time softer.

  “Stanton, we really have to go. We’re already late.”

  “Give me a second here, Donaldson. Come on, Scarlett, live a little.
” Those eyes of his stayed locked on hers, unraveling her defenses.

  “You really are insistent,” she accused, straightening her spine.

  “It’s one of my finer qualities.”

  “It hardly argues that I should acquaint myself with your less-than-finer ones,” she muttered.

  “You’ll like those, too.” He winked.

  Oh, lord. That single action nearly wiped out any and all reasoning she had left. She snapped her mouth shut to keep from sputtering and prayed the flaming heat in her cheeks didn’t give her away. “You’re honestly going to stand there until I agree to go to dinner with you?”

  He seemed to ponder that for a second, and she fought the urge to lean closer to him. “Well, you’re still standing here, too, so I figure you might actually want to have dinner with me.”

  She did, damn him. She wanted to see him smile again, but she might not survive that little wink twice.

  “Stanton!” Donaldson shouted.

  Jameson watched her like she was a play and he couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

  “Well, if you’re not, then fine, I’ll go—” Constance started, stepping forward and jarring Scarlett out of her staring contest.

  “I’ll go to dinner with you,” Scarlett blurted, mentally cursing her sister’s gleeful little smirk.

  “Are you going to make me turn in my wings first?” He smiled, and her stomach filled with another zing of electricity.

  “Would you?” she challenged.

  His head tilted to the side. “If it got me a dinner with you…I just might.”

  “Stanton, get in the bloody car!”

  “You’d better go,” she urged, stifling a grin.

  “For now,” he agreed, his eyes dancing as he backed away. “But I’ll be seeing you, Scarlett.” He flashed her another smile and disappeared into the car.

  They pulled away a heartbeat later, vanishing down the road toward the airfield.

  “Thank you for the help, dear sister.” She rolled her eyes at Constance as they headed into the hut.

  “You’re quite welcome,” Constance answered unabashedly.

  “You’re supposed to be the shy one, remember?”

  “Well, it had appeared that you had taken my role for the moment, so I assumed yours. It’s rather fun to be the bold, outspoken one,” she mused, smiling over her shoulder as she waltzed through the door.

  Scarlett scoffed but followed her conniving little matchmaker of a sister.

  I’ll be seeing you, Scarlett. Trouble, indeed…if he survived tonight’s patrol flights. Her chest tightened at the all-too-real possibility that he wouldn’t. Cardiff had been bombed last week, and patrols were becoming increasingly dangerous with the Nazis’ advance. This vise of worry was the precise reason she had a no-pilots rule, but there wasn’t much she could do but head to work and wait to find out if she would ever see Jameson again.

  Chapter Four

  July 1940

  Middle Wallop, England

  Dappled sunlight filtered through the leaves of the giant oak tree and flickered over Scarlett as she lay below on a thick plaid blanket, thoroughly enjoying her first day off in almost a week. Not that she minded keeping busy. There was a certain rush to being at work that she found utterly addictive.

  But there was something to be said for a miraculously cooler day, a stiff breeze, and a good book.

  “I’ve just finished,” Constance said, waving a folded piece of paper from her seat at the picnic table.

  “Not interested,” Scarlett responded, turning the page so she could sink further into the misadventures of Emma. Her choice in literature was yet another thing for her mother to pick apart, another example of failing to meet their impossible expectations.

  “You’re not interested in what Mummy has to say?”

  “Not if it has anything to do with Lord Ladder Climber.”

  “Do you want me to read it to you?” Constance leaned toward her sister, bracing her hand on the bench so she didn’t tumble off.

  “Not particularly.”

  Constance sighed heavily, then turned on the bench. “Okay then.”

  Scarlett could practically taste her sister’s disappointment in the air. “Why don’t you tell me about the other one, instead, poppet?” She glanced over the cover of her book to see Constance’s eyes light up.

  “Edward says that he loved our time together, and that he’s hopeful he can coordinate his leave with ours again soon.”

  Scarlett propped herself up on her elbows. “You could always meet him at Ashby. I know you both love it up there.” She loved the small estate, too, but her affection was nothing compared to how Constance felt about the place where she’d fallen in love with Edward.

  “We do.” Constance sighed, running her fingers over the envelope. “But it’s not worth the time to travel. It’s easier to meet him in London.” She looked off into the distance, as if she could see Edward’s brigade group from there. Then her eyes popped wide, and her gaze darted back to Scarlett’s. “You look beautiful,” she blurted. “Try to relax.”

  “I’m sorry?” Scarlett’s brow furrowed, then deepened as her sister scrambled to collect what few things she’d brought out to the table.

  “Your hair, your dress, it’s all perfect!” Clutching her things to her chest, Constance swung her legs over the bench. “I’ll be…somewhere else!”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I think she’s trying to give us a little privacy.”

  Scarlett’s gaze whipped toward the deep voice she’d been dreaming about for the past week and found Jameson Stanton approaching the edge of her blanket.

  Her heart sprung to a gallop. She’d checked the casualty list daily, but seeing him in person was a relief after Brighton had been bombed last night.

  He was dressed for flying, minus the gloves and yellow survival vest, and that crisp breeze she was so fond of played in his hair. She pushed herself to a sitting position and fought the urge to smooth the lines of her dress.

  It was a simple, blue-checked shirtwaist dress, belted around her middle, with a modest neckline and sleeves that nearly reached her elbow, but compared to the sturdy, serviceable uniform she’d had on when they met last, she felt all but naked. At least she was wearing shoes.

  “Lieutenant,” she managed to say in greeting.

  “Let me help you up.” He held out his hand. “Or I can join you,” he offered with a slow smile she felt in every line of her body.

  Just the thought sent heat streaking up her cheeks. It was one thing to declare that she was a modern woman to her mother, but quite another to act.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Her hand shook as she took his. He pulled her to her feet in one smooth motion, and she caught herself with a palm to his muscular chest. There was nothing soft or yielding under her fingertips.

  “Thank you,” she said, quickly stepping back and breaking their connection. “To what do I owe this honor?” She felt exposed, overwhelmed. Everything about him was too much. His eyes were too green, his smile too charming, his gaze too forthright. She fetched her book, holding it to her chest like it might offer a shred of protection.

  “I was hoping you might have that dinner with me.”

  He didn’t take a step, but the air between them was charged with enough current that she felt as though they were both moving closer, and if she wasn’t careful, they would collide.

  “Tonight?” she squeaked.

  …

  “Tonight,” he said, doing his best to keep his eyes on her face and not the curves of her body. Scarlett in uniform was breathtaking, but finding her lounging under a tree in that dress? She blew him right out of the sky. Her hair was pinned but loose, just as shiny and dark as it had been last week but without the service hat to cover it. Her eyes were wide and even bluer than he’
d remembered as she blinked up at him. “Right now, actually.” He smiled, simply because he couldn’t help it. She seemed to have that effect on him. He’d been smiling all week, planning this dinner, hoping that Mary—Donaldson’s current girl—hadn’t been wrong, and Scarlett would be free.

  Her soft lips parted in surprise. “You’d like to go to dinner right now?”

  “Right now,” he assured her with a grin, his focus dropping to the book she held in a death grip. “Emma can come along, too, if you like.”

  “I…” Her gaze darted to the left, toward the women’s housing.

  “She’s free!” Constance yelled back from the porch.

  Scarlett’s eyes narrowed, and Jameson pressed his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing.

  “She’s about to be otherwise engaged in the act of murdering her sister!” Scarlett fired back.

  “Do you need help burying the body?” Jameson asked, smirking when Scarlett’s gaze snapped toward him. “If you’re intent on murdering your sister, that is. I’d rather take you to dinner, of course, but if you insist, I’m quite capable of digging if that’s what it takes to spend time with you.”

  A slow, reluctant smile spread across Scarlett’s face, and his stomach pitched like he was mid-dive.

  “You want to go to dinner dressed like that?” She motioned to his flight suit.

  “It’s all part of the plan.”

  Her head tilted in curiosity. “Okay, my evening is yours, Lieutenant.”

  He barely kept from raising his arms in victory. Barely.

  …

  “You’re out of your mind,” Scarlett said as Jameson buckled her into the front seat of the biplane. His hands moved quickly, tightening the harness that had her dress bunched awkwardly around her, though he’d put her blanket over her thighs and knees. As proficiently as he moved his hands about her waist, she had the feeling he’d been around more than a few girls without that barrier.

  “You’re the one who got in,” he argued, strapping the helmet under her chin.

  “Because the idea was so preposterous that I was certain you were kidding!” This had to be a joke. At any moment, he’d pull her from the cockpit and tease her about her reaction.