“Me, too,” said Simmons.
That echo didn’t extend to Darcy Shea, widening the gulf between them. She didn’t want to marry or have children. A future together was impossible. Fine. It had never been likely anyway. At least now he could stop worrying about her.
Jack Hunter had turned out to be like every other man. Darcy hated when men resorted to the old adage that a woman belonged in the home raising children. Childrearing was important; it just wasn’t the only vocation.
What’s more, he’d never told her if he had a serious girlfriend or not. All that grief for nothing. Very well. If Jack Hunter wanted strictly professional, she’d be strictly professional—as long as she flew in the transatlantic attempt.
The next morning she marched to the barn to complete the requisition list. Despite a thawing rain, the workspace was freezing. Jack stood alone on the ladder, working on the left motor.
“Where’s Hendrick?” Darcy had never worked at the barn without Simmons near. Given her determination to be professional, it shouldn’t have made a difference, but the atmosphere definitely felt different.
“At the garage, trying to get a nick out of the ring.” He didn’t even look at her.
“I’ll have the requisition list for you shortly.”
“Good.” Again, not even a glance.
Despite every attempt to convince herself that his opinion didn’t matter, his coolness toward her hurt. Fine, she’d concentrate on flying. “I hope to resume lessons in the spring. Papa said I could. I remember everything you taught me. The elevators, the rudder, and even how the ailerons work.”
“Good.” He leveraged his weight against a wrench, and the ladder wobbled.
Darcy raced over to steady it. “I’ll hold the ladder.”
“No need. I got it.” He held up a grimy nut.
“The list is finished.”
His eyebrows rose. “Already?” He climbed down the ladder and wiped off his hands before taking the clipboard from her.
Darcy rubbed her hands together to get some warmth in her stiff fingers.
“A ladder is too heavy and completely unnecessary.” He crossed it off with a stub of pencil.
“Suppose we land on a glacier?”
“This is a transatlantic attempt, not a polar crossing.”
“Oh.” She had been thinking in terms of a polar expedition. All the supply lists she’d found had come from the expedition narratives in her father’s library. “There are icebergs.”
“If I hit an iceberg, I’m dead.”
“Don’t say that.” The thought of Jack splattered on the ice sickened her. “All right. No ladder.”
He skimmed down the list. “We don’t need a hatchet.”
Darcy had already given up the ladder. She wouldn’t budge on the hatchet. “It’s for safety, in case of an emergency. You can use it to make a shelter or chop firewood.”
“The idea is not to crash. Besides, there aren’t many forests in the ocean.”
“It’s just a little hatchet,” she insisted.
“It weighs three pounds that we don’t have.”
Darcy stubbornly clung to her point, and in the end Jack agreed to keep the hatchet if she’d drop another item of equal weight.
“The rest looks satisfactory.” He handed the list back to her. “Get the best price. Money is running low.”
That wasn’t good news, with the second motor still not working. In addition to supplies, they’d have to transport the plane and hire crew.
“Who is going to be your navigator?” she blurted out as he climbed back up the ladder. “Me, I hope.”
He glanced up from the motor. “Very funny.”
She climbed the other ladder. “Why? I could do it.”
“You know nothing about navigation, for one.”
“I can use a sextant.”
He cocked one eyebrow. “You’re joking.”
“My father taught me when I was young.”
He slid down the ladder. “There’s more to navigating an aeroplane than using a sextant.”
“I know—” she followed him down “—but you could show me.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
She knew better than to mention the transatlantic attempt. He’d shown no sign of relenting on that point. “Doesn’t every pilot need to know navigation? If I’m going to fly someday, I’ll have to learn.”
The old grin reappeared. “Someday, eh? You have a point. As long as you realize this is just instruction.”
“When can we begin?”
“We have some time now.” He led her to his personal trunks. “What do you know about aeronautical navigation?”
Darcy did not want to disappoint him. She also didn’t want to get it wrong. “The way I figure it, a sighting has to correct for altitude, and you’d need a true horizon. Another difficulty has to be measuring drift. I haven’t seen an instrument for that in any of the planes.”