One Lavender Ribbon (27 page)

“How’d you know about this, Will?” Pops asked, using his hand to shield his face from the sun.

“Internet. They do this every year.” Will grinned. Adrienne and Sara had to be prodded along; they both stopped frequently to gaze at the planes, helicopters, and midway that resembled a carnival.

Once inside, they meandered through the tables of military memorabilia. Every war that had been fought by American troops was represented, but the group spent most of their time in the World War II section.

Military personnel were stationed at each area to answer questions and give general information about the displays. Before long, they had worked their way to the landing strip that held five planes and one helicopter. Each was anchored with an information table and personnel. The planes were opened up to facilitate tours of the interiors.

While Pops and Sara examined a Hummer, Will snagged Adrienne by the hand and dragged her beside the airstrip, where a hangar blocked them from the crowd.

“What are you doing?” she giggled, turning into him.

He gripped the belt loops of her jeans and pulled her close. “Have I told you how great you look today?”

“Hmm, not that I remember.”

“Well, you do. Those jeans are deadly.”

She blinked innocently. “That doesn’t sound good. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn them.”

“You should wear them all the time.” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “But, uh, if you’re suggesting ditching them, go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

The moment turned serious. Adrienne placed a hand to his cheek.

“What? What’s wrong?” He searched her eyes, wanting to place a label on the sweet, sad look that entered them.

“Nothing.” Her fingertips slipped smoothly back and forth on his skin. “Nothing at all. I just want to remember this moment. It’s . . . nice.”

“It is nice.” His hands slid with agonizing slowness from her hips to the small of her back, where they trapped her body against his.

Will licked his lips.

Adrienne’s eyes fluttered. “Kiss me.”

“What?” Had he heard her right? Or was that just what he’d wanted her to say, so he’d imagined it?

“Kiss me, Will Bryant. We’re never going to keep our attention on the festival if you don’t go ahead and get it over with.”

Something about
that
command from
this
woman tightened Will’s chest. For the briefest of instants, he imagined waking beside her, not once, not twice, but every day. This woman who could surprise him with such a simple command as
kiss me
.

Will closed his mouth over hers and sank his hands deeply into the hair at her nape. Mink-soft strands curled around his fingers while Adrienne curled around his heart.

Will stood under the propellers of an Apache helicopter that loomed over him like a giant locust waiting for the appropriate moment to whip out a lightning-fast tongue and swallow him whole. He had always thought the Apaches were cool, but now, being dwarfed by its size and ominous presence, he couldn’t imagine the sound those blades must generate.

“Invades every cell of your body,” came a reply from behind him.

Will turned and squinted to see a young military man, standing at ease—which didn’t look at ease to him—gazing up at the sinister aircraft. He smiled.

“I bet it would. How’d you know what I was thinking?” Will split his glances between the soldier and the Apache.

“It’s what I thought when I first laid eyes on her.” And both men admired the power before them. Will threw a thumb toward it. “You fly one?”

The young man nodded. “Yes, sir. Warrant Officer Roger Patterson.” He spoke in an abrupt, no-nonsense military tone, but pride threaded his words.

“Air Force?”

“Army,” Patterson corrected.

“What’s it like?”

The young officer met his gaze fully. “It’s like heaven. Except in combat, then it’s . . . well, like hell.”

“This one still used?”

The young man nodded. “Just got back from the Middle East.”

Will’s brows rose. “Really?” There was still war, of course. But as life went on, it was sometimes easy to forget that.

“Yes, sir.” He motioned for Will to follow him. “She took some fire here. Scattered fire, nothing too bad. But when they got her back to base, they discovered some frayed wires, a few too many to patch.”

Will copied him, running a hand along the holes.
Bullet
holes.

Patterson patted the side of the aircraft like one might pat a favorite pet. “Until they track down why and how the wires frayed, she’s on vacation.” He pointed to the front of the craft. “See that turret gun?”

He couldn’t miss it. “You mean the cannon?”

The young man laughed. “Yes, it’s linked to the pilot’s helmet. As the pilot’s head turns, so does the gun.”

“That would come in handy during rush-hour traffic,” Will joked.

“That’s why they don’t allow us to take them home, sir.”

Will shook the young man’s hand as Pops, Sara, and Adrienne—who just
had
to stop and buy an Air Force ball cap and T-shirt—caught up to him. He thanked the young man for the information and followed Pops to the next aircraft. A large cargo plane waited at the end of the runway. It dwarfed the rest.

They toured the other planes before coming to the C-47. Will stepped up first, then took Adrienne’s hand, tugging her inside. Looking around and above them in the cylindrical cave, he wondered how many men had jumped from this craft. How many men had died after leaving this tunnel encased in Army drab? Pops helped Sara onto the platform. Footsteps echoed on metal floorboards as they moved toward the front, silently absorbing the plane’s secrets.

Will looked at Pops. “Been in one like this before?”

Pops ran an open hand along the green wall. “Many times.”

Weathered fingers examined the seats, the netting, touching each article like he knew it. “This is a C-47. Not the biggest toy on the playground, but it gets the job done. Ninety-five-foot wingspan, sixty-four feet long, sixteen feet high.” Pops rubbed his chin, gaze floating somewhere above. “Funny that I still recall those dimensions. Anyway, it carried about thirty seated passengers, or two or three jeeps. Let me tell you, you never forget your first combat jump. Ours was Normandy.” He walked to the open side door of the plane. “We’d done practice jumps on many occasions, but the first real jump . . . ”

Sara moved to stand next to him.

Pops’s words trailed off for a moment. “There’s the noise of the plane, everything flapping and banging against the walls. The wind, it takes your breath away. Anything that’s not fastened down becomes a missile. Door open, your commander screaming, ‘Go, go, go!’ You jump. And you hear this whoosh of air.” He shook his head. “It’s so loud you can’t believe it’s only air. And you’re moving, gaining speed with each second until you pull the cord. Everything starts to get quiet. And you’re no longer careening down, you’re floating. You look at the ground and your heart rate picks up again. You don’t know who saw you, and you know before the jump that it’s a hot DZ .”

Adrienne shot a questioning look over to Will. “DZ?” Like him, she had to have seen it in the letters, but didn’t know what it meant.

“Means drop zone,” he whispered, leaning toward her.

She nodded.

Pops shrugged. “Once on the ground you find out real quick who knows you’re there.”

Will leaned out the side door. “I can’t believe you jumped out of these.” He turned to face his grandfather. “You jumped out of
airplanes
, Pops! I wouldn’t do that even if I wasn’t landing in a war zone, but you did it with people shooting at you.”

Pops nodded. “I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“Did you ever want to back out?” Adrienne asked, fisting her hands in Will’s shirt and tugging him back inside the aircraft.

Pops studied the roof of the plane. “Every jump. Especially Normandy.” He moved across the aircraft. “Here’s where I sat on the way.” He pointed to the seat beside his. “And Rick sat there, Rusty, Eli, Baxter.” He tossed the names out as his finger darted around the interior. I never saw Eli or Baxter alive again.”

A mournful silence surrounded them.

“We were being dropped behind enemy lines. I can’t explain what that feels like. You land already cut off by the enemy. Your only prayer is to advance, complete the objective. Our job was to take out key targets to soften the firepower on the beach. If the sea invasion failed, we didn’t have a chance. We knew what was awaiting us when we landed.” He leaned against the wall by the open door. “Normandy was by far the hardest jump I ever made.”

Sara moved closer to him. “You wrote about Normandy in some of your letters. Back at home, we were watching the newsreels about it.” She shook her head as if to shake off the memory of sixty-odd years earlier. “I was so scared for you.”

Pops released her hand and put an arm around her shoulder tenderly. “Sweet Sara.”

When another group of spectators entered the back of the plane, Will stepped out, with the others following. But he watched Pops stop in the doorway and glance at the hull. One long, meaningful look. Will felt the emotion. Pops was saying one last good-bye.

I
t was strange, really. The sounds, the smells. Half a century had passed, but the scent of fresh gear, hearing the crunch of military boots on the ground, the faint taste of aircraft smoke that floated on the air and stung the back of your throat. If he closed his eyes and imagined hard enough, he was a raw recruit again, waiting to go to war. Eager, able, hopeful.

They’d spent another twenty minutes outside the plane, with Pops giving a play-by-play of battle after battle. Will was enthralled. Sara and Adrienne had finally grown weary of the graphic account and had gone back to the main boardwalk to get drinks, leaving Pops and Will alone at the end of the runway.

“I remember you telling me war stories when I was little.”

“I did,” Pop’s said proudly. “When your parents brought you home from the hospital, you were so small.” Pops lifted his hands palm side up. “Your whole body fit in my two hands.”

Will smiled.

Pops stared at his palms. If he concentrated hard enough, he could still see, still feel the tiny form of his newborn grandchild. “Your mom and dad said I shouldn’t tell a tiny baby war stories. But I did it anyway.”

“They didn’t like you to talk about it?”

Pops grinned. “Nah. Just wasn’t proper dialogue for a newborn.”

Will looked out over the planes. “Why did you stop? The last story I remember, I was probably ten or eleven.”

Pops’s eyes followed the trail to the six military aircraft in front of him. “You were getting older. G.I. Joe was out. You wanted to hear about mutated Ninja reptiles and Spiderman.”

“I’m sorry, Pops. I didn’t know the stories were real. I didn’t know they were about you.” Will reached down and plucked a small shell from the ground, rolling it over and over in his hand. “I wish I had grown up with them.”

Regret wasn’t a welcome visitor in Pops’s world. He hated Will feeling this way.

Will’s gaze narrowed. “But Mom and Dad didn’t make you stop telling the stories?”

Careful, here. Will rarely brought up his parents. Now, an inquisition about them. “No, why would you think that?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know. Their whole mission is about bringing
peace
to the world.”

Pops took a stern stance, planting his feet firmly and his hands on his hips. “Your mom and dad are soldiers, just like me.”

Will smirked. “I guess. I don’t want to talk about them right now; today is about you. I feel like I’ve missed out on such an important part of your life. Now I just want to know everything about it, Pops.”

Appreciation surged as William stood looking over airplanes with his grandson at his side, reflecting on all that was. He was a man who’d lived out his years. He had a wonderful son and a caring grandson. The woman he had once loved like a sister had come back into his life. If he were to die right now, he would be content. No, not just content, he would be fulfilled. If only he could help reconcile son and grandson, it would be perfect.

In all honesty, he didn’t know what the problem was. But over the past several years, Will’s attitude toward his parents had disintegrated. Sure, fathers and sons often had their difficulties. But Will’s words and actions suggested a deep-rooted hurt that pushed far beyond normal father–son struggles. On many occasions he’d tried to discuss it with him, but Will always shut the conversation down. He considered approaching the subject now. One glance at his grandson’s face stopped him. Will was dealing with enough for today. But William offered up a silent prayer.
I’d like to see my family intact again. If not today, then before I die.