Wings

Cassie's life on the West Coast seemed to move even faster than her planes. She could hardly keep up with herself, between test flights, and short runs to check out new instruments on planes, and meetings with engineers to explain their aerodynamics to her. She had gone to a few development meetings too, to better understand what direction Williams Aircraft was striving for, and Desmond himself couldn't believe the extent of her involvement. She wanted to know everything there was to know about his planes. He was flattered and impressed, and he was enormously proud of his good judgment. He had inherited an empire, which he had doubled in size in an incredibly short timespan. At thirty-four, he was one of the richest men in the country, if not the world, and he could have had or done almost anything he wanted. He had been married twice, and divorced both times, had no children, and the only thing he cared about, or loved with any passion at all, was his business. People came and went in his life, and there was always plenty of talk about his women, but the only thing that mattered to him were his planes, and being at the very top of the aviation business. And for the moment, Cassie O'Malley was helping him get what he wanted.

He loved Cassie's remarkable understanding about planes, and her naive but clear perceptions about his business. She wasn't afraid to express herself, or even, when necessary, to confront him. He liked seeing her at meetings, liked the fact that she cared enough to be there. He was thrilled with the flying records she'd set too. She dared almost anything, within reason. The only thing she seemed hesitant about, and often balked at going to, were the social events, which he insisted were critical, and Cassie thought were nonsense.

“But why?” She argued constantly with Nancy Firestone. “I can't stay out all night, and fly intelligently at four o'clock in the morning.”

“Then start later. Mr. Williams will understand. He wants you to go out in the evening.”

“But I don't want to.” Cassie's natural stubbornness hadn't been left in Illinois, and she had every intention of winning. “I'd rather stay home and read about his airplanes.”

“That's not what Mr. Williams wants,” Nancy said firmly, and so far she had usually won the argument, but there were a few times when Cassie escaped her. She preferred walking on the beach, or being alone at night, writing letters to Nick, or her sisters, or her mother. She missed her family terribly, and the familiar people she had grown up with. And even writing to Nick made her heart ache. Sometimes she felt as though the air was being pressed out of her as she wrote to him and told him what she was doing. She missed flying with him, and arguing with him and telling him how wrong he was, or what a fool. She wanted to tell him how much she missed him, but it always sounded strange to her in a letter. And more often than not, she tore it up, and just told him about the planes she was flying.

She never mentioned her social life to him, or to anyone, it didn't mean anything to her, no matter how much they wrote about it in the papers. Nancy had found a lot of young men to escort her, most of whom knew nothing about planes, and some of them were actors who needed to be seen too. It was all about being “seen,” and where she went, and who you were “seen” with. She didn't want to be seen with any of them, and most of the time, they just posed for photographs and then took her home, and she would collapse into bed, relieved to be rid of them. The only thing she really loved about her new movie-star life was the flying.

And the flying was incredible. Sailing into the dawn in the Phaeton, breaking all records for speed, was the sweetest thing she had ever done, and probably the most dangerous. But much to her own surprise, with the incredible machines, she was honing her skills here. She was learning how to handle very heavy planes, learning how to compensate for any problems they had, signaling them to the engineers, and correcting them right along with them. Her input was valued here, her views, they admired the way she flew, and they understood everything she wanted. It was every pilot's dream to be in the seat she was in, and as long as she was in the air, there was no question about it. She loved it.

She was stepping out of an Army pursuit plane with a Merlin engine on it for more speed, one afternoon, after a short flight over Las Vegas to make some notes for the design team, when a hand reached up to her and helped her down, and she was surprised to see it was Desmond Williams. He was as impeccable as ever, and his hair blew a little off his face in the soft breeze and he looked suddenly less rigid, and much younger than the other times she'd seen him.

“Did you have a good flight?”