Isabella’s Airman Read Free

used to, aye?”
    “Yes,” I whispered, grateful for his reassurance. It felt wrong to be speaking out loud, the night crowding us like a thick blanket. I took a quick breath, still unable to see. How quickly would my eyes adjust to this?
    This was ridiculous, I couldn’t see a thing. How were people supposed to get around? No wonder there were so many accidents. Davy stepped forward, his feet crunching on gravel, and I followed. After a few steps, my eyes began to adjust, and I realized there was some light. Not enough to find my way around, though. I knew the kitchens were behind me, the dry store over to my left, but how would I find my sleeping quarters?
    Seconds later, Davy stopped. Had we arrived already? “Look up.” His murmur took me by surprise, and I lifted my head to gaze up into the night sky. Stars carpeted the heavens, glittering points of light gleaming like a thousand candles. They appeared different from how I usually saw them, and I frowned as I contemplated why. There were so many here…my gaze was transfixed by the almost full moon, a giant yellow disc that hung in the sky.
    “Do you want to hold it? The moon?” Davy’s voice whispered somewhere near my ear. His breath drifted across my lobe, causing a shiver to course through my body. “Like this.” My vision adjusting to the gloom, I followed his arm as he raised it to the moon, his head tilting. “You close one eye and squint. Go on, try it.”
    I freed my right arm from his, copied the movement, and squinted. “Oh!” Entranced, I blinked and stared again. “It looks as though it’s sitting on my palm.” The illusion was perfect, the way the moon bobbed and danced across my hand. I spun round to face Davy, brushing against his outstretched arm as I moved. “It’s so beautiful.”
    I’d never stood so close to a man before. I should have felt threatened. Instead I felt… safe . The breath caught in my throat as he brushed his fingertips against my cheek. “It’s you that’s beautiful, Isabella.”
    I could make out his face in the darkness, a hint of white teeth when he spoke. I’d never been called beautiful before. This was a night of firsts.
    Juliet flashed through my head, and her clear instructions on how to kiss. She’d made me giggle as she practiced on the back of her hand. She was probably practicing her own moves right this minute. I could hear her words in my head. Lean into him, tilt your face, don’t forget to open your mouth.
    He seemed impossibly young to be fighting in a war, to kill his enemies, to put his own life at risk every time he climbed into his airplane.
    “What do you do,” I blurted, “in your crew? What part do you take?”
    “Rear gunner.” His voice gruff. “There are six of us in the Wellingtons. I’m one of the two gunners who try to keep everyone from shooting us down.”
    I curled my hands into loose fists, a shaft of fear stabbing my heart. His hands, the same hands that covered my embarrassment in the truck, were used to kill other men. It didn’t seem right.
    “I didn’t plan to do this, but I couldn’t sit back and not do my bit. I signed up at the start of the war.” His quiet voice washed over me. “I planned to be a doctor. Like my father.” I digested his words. I wondered how it must feel to plan one future and have it snatched away. “I’ll do that later.”
    “Later?”
    “After the war.”
    My heart ached afresh. I knew Davy would never see the end of the war.

Chapter Three
    There was nothing I could say to Davy. Not one thing that would fill this gaping silence without me breaking all the rules that had been drummed into me. I wanted to tell him to make the most of his last few weeks, months, however long it was. All I could do was stand there and stare.
    I’d met him just hours earlier, and yet I already knew him more intimately than any man of my own time. He called me beautiful .
    Time spun out, and it was Davy who moved first. “You probably need to be up