Forrest didn’t have time to react or comment before the music paused. As graceful as a butterfly, Norma Rose fluttered out of his arms and into Ty’s. The other man swept her onward without missing a beat.
The woman who landed in Forrest’s arms was more like a blue jay—pretty to look at, but loud and ornery.
“I told you to stay away from my sister,” Twyla squawked.
“I’m free to dance with whomever I want,” he said, twirling her in the opposite direction from where Ty spun Norma Rose.
“Not Norma Rose,” Twyla insisted. “She doesn’t want anything to do with you. Hasn’t for years. Don’t you see that?” With a well-aimed glare, she added, “You aren’t welcome here, Forrest.”
He didn’t react to the sting of her words. There was no reason to. He hadn’t expected any of the Nightingales to want anything to do with him. He didn’t blame them, nor did he blame Roger for putting Galen behind bars. Galen did, though, and had sworn vengeance. If what his mother claimed was true, Galen might get his chance, and that was what Forrest was here to stop.
They were near the edge of the floor when the music ended. There would be no more switching partners. The song was over.
Forrest used his close proximity to the tables to grab his jacket and tie. Flipping the suit coat over his shoulder, he gave Twyla a wink. “See you around, doll.”
She looped an arm through his before he’d taken more than two steps. “You’re leaving?”
He had no intention of stopping, but something in her tone stilled his feet. Glancing down, the shimmer in her eyes held a touch of sadness. He felt that, too, deep down where it had settled years ago. Not about to let the emotion show, he grinned. “Are you flipping sides already?”
“Fl-fl—” she stuttered before gathering her tongue. “I’m not flipping anything.”
“You aren’t?”
“No.”
“You just told me I’m not welcome here.”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times before she pinched her lips together.
The sight was comical and he laughed.
“Fine,” she said, pulling her arm out of his. “Leave. But you’ll be missing the best party this country has ever known.”
Slim was striking up another tune, so Forrest leaned close to Twyla’s ear and said, “I hate to tell you this, doll, but your ice sculpture is already melting. The fun will be over before you know it.”
With that he marched forward, through the ballroom doors, across the entranceway and out of the double doors that led to the parking lot. He could talk to Roger tomorrow. The man was an integral part of his plan. A plan he was seriously reconsidering. Drawing any of the Nightingales back into his family’s trouble wasn’t right. It was his fight, not theirs. Trouble was, Galen’s pending release wasn’t the thing eating at him. Twyla was. He could only handle small doses of her. She’d already gotten under his skin, too deep for comfort.
He was opening the door of his roadster when his name echoed over the parking lot.
“What’ll it be, boy?” Roger Nightingale asked with his booming voice while gesturing toward the mass of bottles and crystal highball glasses set upon the credenza in his office.
Forrest didn’t take offense to Roger calling him boy; the man always had, and in a sense it brought back good memories. “I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head while taking a seat in one of the two red velvet chairs facing Roger’s desk. “I’ve learned to limit myself.”
“Limit? You a teetotaler?”
“I guess I am, sir,” he answered respectfully. “By choice. After taking the oath for flying, I learned I need my senses alert at all times.”
“Aw, yes, your piloting,” Roger said, pouring himself a good bump of brandy before walking over to sit down behind his big mahogany desk. The man might look the size of a bear, but he had the stealth of a mountain lion. “Hear tell you’ve got a lot of hours under your belt.”
“That I do,” Forrest said. “Flew airmail from Washington to Pennsylvania for six months and then to New York for another six.”
“I gotta admit those flying contraptions scare the dickens out of me, but they intrigue me, too. How’d you get involved in that?”
Forrest had no doubt Roger already knew. The man spoke to other people who talked with his mother, and she never shied from making his flying part of her conversations. “Mechanical engineering always interested me. After earning my degree I went down to Nebraska, to Lincoln and the air flight school there.” He didn’t mention that had been a year after graduation. It had taken him that long to learn to walk again after both his legs had been mangled. “From there I joined the air service reserve corps. The army didn’t have much use for pilots since the war had ended, but they used us occasionally for things, and then regularly once airmail started.”
“I heard you were one of the pilots that carried mail all the way across the nation,” Roger said, appearing to be genuinely interested.
“I was,” Forrest answered. “The route includes thirteen stops for fuel, mail exchange and aircrew changes. I flew the section from Chicago to Iowa City and back again. The entire trip, from ocean to ocean, took just a little over seventy hours when we first started.”
Roger let out a low whistle.
“Last year we got it down to little more than thirty,” he said. “With night flying.”
“Night flying? How do you fly a plane in the dark?”
“With navigational instruments,” Forrest answered. A familiar longing rose up in him by simply talking about flying. He loved it, and missed it daily. He also knew his flying opportunities would be limited if he couldn’t update his plane. Currently, his controls consisted of an oil pressure gauge and a horizontal indicator, not enough for night flying. “Things change,” he said, not realizing he was responding to his internal reactions. “In February of this year the government passed a new bill. It took the airmail contracts away from the army and opened it up to private aviation companies. Right now anyone can put a bid on flying a route, especially new ones that connect with the transcontinental route between New York and San Francisco.”
“Are you putting in a bid?” Roger asked.
Forrest smiled. Roger had always been able to read between the lines. “I already did. I’ve surveyed and established a route between Minneapolis and Iowa City. It’ll be Minnesota’s first opportunity to have airmail. I won’t know whether or not I’ve got the contract until October, but I’ve already sent in my paperwork along with the fee they required.”
Roger guffawed. “The government, they get money from us in every way possible.” He leaned back then, folding his thick arms across his chest. “What about the Plantation?”
An undeniable ball of disgust rose in Forrest’s stomach. If not for the Plantation, he’d have a new plane, which would guarantee his contract for mail service. Right now, if the government did accept his bid, he wouldn’t be able to fulfill it.
“I’ve heard you made some remarkable changes.”
“I wouldn’t call them remarkable,” Forrest admitted. His goal had been to erase Galen from his mind and life. It still was. “You know Galen never owned the Plantation.”
“I do,” Roger answered. “Your grandfather willed it to you before he died.”
“I wish I’d known him,” Forrest said sincerely.
“He was a good man, but hard,