Nineteen

LOTTIE SQUINTED AS SHE stood on the deck of the carrier. The strong Hawaiian sun had come out in full force that day. The wind was whipping the tendrils of her hair that had escaped from the bandana and tight knot she always pulled it back in when she was working, as she stared up into the propeller of the busted bomber.

Over the past few weeks, the deck had steadily filled as their shop put bird after bird into fighting shape, replacing bad gears and calibrating electronics. Now there were only a few slots left on the carrier deck. The shop had been working almost around the clock to get all the planes possible onto the ship before it went out, along with dozens of others scheduled to head for the brewing conflict in the Pacific.

But they hadn’t been working so fast to get just the birds on the ship. After the carrier moved out, there wouldn’t be much of a shop. The demand for manpower was so high in the Pacific that most of the men Lottie had been working with had been assigned to deploy—they’d be shipping out along with the planes they’d fixed.

That only made sense. There was no reason to keep a whole mechanic’s shop working hundreds or thousands of miles from the real conflict. Putting them on the carrier itself was the best way to keep the pilots safe and get the planes back in the air as quickly as possible, even if a battle was raging around them.

Of course, Lottie hadn’t been assigned to deploy with them. The Navy might have tolerated women in their secretarial pool, or even in the mechanic’s shop, if they fought hard enough. But there was no place for one on a carrier—or in battle.

So when everyone else shipped out, she’d be one of the few who stayed on. It gave her a lonely feeling, thinking of rattling around in that big hangar with just a skeleton crew. But their reduced number also raised a fighting spirit she didn’t tell anyone about, especially the other women at the barracks.

While the other women seemed content to share news and speculation about the coming conflicts, most of them hated the idea of battle. A lot of them were nervous to be as close to the fighting as they were.

But a part of Lottie was itching to fight. Maybe it was because, more than the other women, she’d worked side by side with men in the shop. She hated the idea of their going off without her, taking risks without her—putting their lives in danger without her. If someone had been willing to put a wrench, or a weapon, in her hands, she’d have been just as ready to take it as any of the men.

She’d heard how men in service grew deeply loyal to their units, wanting nothing more than to stick with them, whether they were under terrible fire or not. She felt that way about her unit—the men in the shop—leaving without her. About Luke’s leaving without her. Deep in her heart, she felt a strong desire to protect her country, and her freedom, just like them.

In the meantime, they still had to finish the last planes that could fit on the carrier. Every one counted. And every one had to be perfect.

That was why Lottie was there now. Pilots had started to fly short flights from the base runway to the carriers, delivering finished planes. Sometimes Chief Cunningham made the runs himself.

Cunningham hadn’t flown a plane for the Navy in a long time. But for the short hops to the carrier—basically a takeoff, lazy circle around the bay, and landing—he often volunteered without complaint.

Today, Luke had sent Lottie along with him. It was a welcome relief to have a break from trying to do her work without thinking of him. Now, though, with the fresh, salty breeze, she couldn’t help but wish it’d been Luke, and not Cunningham, sitting next to her in the cockpit. Her stomach lurched at the thought.

The maintenance department on the ship had sent a message over saying the propeller on one of their TBM Avenger reconnaissance planes had been catching when it started up. They’d given it a crack on board, but it was such a serious problem they wanted some expert eyes on it.

“You look it over,” Luke told her. “I think we can get it back, no problem. But I can’t leave the shop while we’re working around the clock. I want you to be my eyes. You can do that?”

It wasn’t really so much a question as a statement.

And without hesitation, Lottie had nodded.

Then she’d jumped into the next plane Cunningham was flying down to deliver to the carrier, so she could get on board and get a look at the Avenger herself.

Maybe she should have been worried about the fact that it was her job to decide whether the Avenger was safe to fly back in, not for some faceless pilot, but for both her and Cunningham.

But what had really worried her, on the flight over, was the fact that she’d never set foot on the carrier before. The men on land at the base had had time to get used to seeing some female faces around. But the carrier was still a man’s world, through and through.

And now it was her assignment to convince all the mechanics on board that she knew how to do something not one of them had been able to do themselves.

Lottie had seen this kind of problem before. If she was right, it was simple, but deep in the propeller, so that most of the obvious fixes, even by a seasoned mechanic, wouldn’t work. In any other circumstances, she’d have been sure. But in this case, she had to get into the plane and fly in it back to base.

So she climbed up the ladder to the propeller and removed the variable-pitch hub case, exposing the gears. There it was: a dislodged gear.

“What’s she doing?” one of the carrier’s mechanics asked Cunningham, who was standing at the foot of the ladder. “Gonna wind it by hand?”

Cunningham didn’t say anything, but she could imagine his smug expression: a cross between annoyance and anticipation of what this guy’s reaction would be if she could get it working.

Lottie fastened the stray gear back into place, at least enough so that they could get it to the shop, where they could tear the whole thing apart.

Then she climbed down the ladder.

“You might want to get out of the way,” she told the mechanic beside Cunningham, who was already following her out of harm’s way.

“You sure about that, honey?” the mechanic said with a leering grin.

Ignoring him, Lottie gave the thumbs-up to the tech in the pilot’s seat, who had been waiting for her signal to fire the engine to test the prop.

Instantly, the engine roared to life—with the propeller spinning.

The mechanic on the ground scrambled out of the way. “You got her fixed!” he yelped.

“Not quite,” Lottie said. “Just a patch-up. Once she’s loaded off the boat, we’ll need to get her back to the shop and tear it apart to make sure it’s fixed once and for all.”

When they got back to the shop, Lottie strode in with an air of satisfaction. But she’d hardly had a moment to savor it when she saw Luke coming toward her.

“Palmer,” Luke said. “Glad you’re back. Come here.”

Dutifully, Lottie went over to where he was standing, close to the lip of the repair bay, where the shadows of the hangar gave way to the bright Hawaii sunshine, and tried to pay attention to anything else in the world but how close Luke was.

To her surprise, he immediately climbed up on a nearby stool and began to whistle and clap to get the hangar’s attention. The dozens of men in the shop began to gather ’round. As they did, Lottie’s own heart started to slow down.

“As you know,” Luke said when they were all assembled, “the carrier is shipping out tomorrow. You men have all done tough work here. We’ll have twenty more planes on board than the commander ordered, because of your work in the past weeks. And I don’t have to tell you, those twenty planes could be the difference between victory and defeat.”

A low cheer rose up among the crowd.

“As you also know,” Luke said, “most of us will be shipping out with them, on the carrier or support ships. Including me.”

Another cheer rose up.

Lottie scanned Luke’s face, looking for any trace of the vulnerable man she knew lay buried beneath the surface.

Is he really ready to go to battle? she wondered. A nagging voice inside her knew that he wasn’t. And her heart twisted at the thought of what might happen to him if he was sent back into the fight while he was still struggling with the nightmares she’d seen in his eyes. But war raged on, whether the men were ready or not.

“We’ll be leaving a skeleton crew in the shop,” Luke went on. “If you haven’t got orders to ship out, you know who you are.”

A few of the men looked at each other. Lottie glanced at them as they did, hoping to get a sense of who she’d be working with.

“Cunningham will be running the shop while I’m gone,” Luke said. “And Palmer will be his second-in-command.”

The room suddenly fell silent.

Lottie’s head spun.

“I’ll expect nothing but the absolute best standard you’re all used to providing in my absence,” Luke added. “Because believe me, I’ll be back to check up on everything you’ve done.”

He grinned, then clapped his hands. “All right,” he said. “Get back to work.”

As the men shuffled away, Lottie looked up at Luke, in shock.

“What’s the matter, Palmer?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you don’t think you can do it without me.”

For some reason, this challenge focused Lottie’s mind. She lifted her chin. “I can,” she said. And at the same time, she started to feel a bit of indignation. Where did he get off, putting her in charge without ever even talking to her about it? Maybe he thought it was some kind of compliment and she should be grateful for whatever she could get from him. But she deserved more respect than that.

Luke raised his eyebrows. “So why are you still standing here? You out of work to do before the carrier goes out?”

“No,” Lottie said.

“I didn’t think so,” Luke said, and grinned.

As Lottie headed back to the plane she’d been working on, she heard a voice she didn’t recognize. “Hey, Palmer,” he said.

When she turned, she found herself face-to-face with a mechanic she’d never talked to before, whose name tag read Redmond.

“Guess you’re the captain’s favorite,” he said. “Wonder how you managed that?”

By the lift of his eyebrows, he made it very clear how he thought she’d managed to become Luke’s favorite. Her cheeks flared with heat.

“Redmond,” Lottie said with as much authority in her voice as she could muster.

Redmond looked at her in shock, as if she were some kind of savant for knowing his name. Apparently he’d forgotten it was prominently displayed on the chest of his overalls.

“You staying here once the carrier goes out?” she asked.

Almost reluctantly, Redmond nodded.

“You think you’d make a good boss?” Lottie continued.

Redmond wasn’t sure of the answer to this one. He just looked at her, calculating.

“You see that Avenger out there?” Lottie said, nodding at the plane she and Cunningham had just brought in from the carrier. “I’ll tell you what. You get that thing up and running, I’ll make you the boss. Deal?”

Redmond couldn’t bring himself to say no, but he wasn’t about to try his hand at the Avenger on his own, either.

Lottie just stood there for a long moment, making sure that he, and all the men around him, had the time to take the situation in.

“I didn’t think so,” she finally said, then turned on her heel and smiled as she walked away.