“I love you,” she whispered, and he smiled sleepily in answer.

“I love you too, sweetheart…. I even love your mother.” She giggled, and a moment later they were fast asleep, as were Liz and Clarke. One pair lovers, the other married. It was hard to say who was happier that night.





11

WHEN JOE LEFT for New Jersey, he promised to have Kate come down to spend the weekend with him after he settled in. He thought it would take him a couple of weeks, but it was a month before he found an apartment. There was a hotel nearby where she could stay, where he had been living for the past month. But the truth was he had no time to spend with her. He was working night and day, and staying in the office until well after midnight. And he was working weekends too. Sometimes he even slept in his office on the couch.

Joe was hiring people, setting up the factory, and redesigning the airstrip. He never seemed to come up for air, but the aeronautics industry was beginning to get interested in what he was doing in a major way. The whole plant they were setting up was going to be highly innovative, and there had already been several articles about it in business sections and trade papers. He barely managed to call Kate at night, and it had been six weeks since he left Boston when he finally let her come to see him for a weekend. He looked exhausted when she arrived. And when he explained to her all that he'd been doing, Kate was enormously impressed. It was a fantastic operation, and Joe loved the fact that when he explained it to her, she understood it all.

They had a wonderful weekend together. They spent most of it at the plant, and even got some flying time in a brand-new plane he had designed. When she got back to Boston, she described it all to her father. He was dying to see it too. People in the business world were beginning to realize that Joe was making history with his ideas.

Two weeks later, Joe came up to spend Thanksgiving with them. But he was having problems with the factory, and on Friday morning he had to go back. He had responsibilities he'd never had before, and an entire industry was resting on his shoulders. Sometimes it felt like the whole world. Joe was handling it well, but it left him no spare time to play, or even call Kate much of the time. And by Christmas, in spite of her enthusiasm about his work, she was complaining to him. She had seen him twice in three months, and she was lonely in Boston without him. And every time she said it to him, he felt consumed by guilt, but there was nothing he could do.

Kate was beginning to think her mother was right, and they should get married. At least they'd be together then, instead of miles apart. She said as much to Joe when he came to spend Christmas with them, and he looked surprised.

“Now? I'm home about five hours a night, Kate. That wouldn't be much fun. And I can't move to New York yet.” Marriage still didn't make sense to him.

“So we'll live in New Jersey. At least we'd be together,” Kate said reasonably. She was tired of living with her parents. And she didn't want to get her own apartment in Boston, if they were going to get married. She felt as though she were living in suspended animation, waiting for him to set up his business, and have time for a life. But it was no easy task for him. He had taken on a mammoth project, and he was only just then beginning to realize how much time and effort it was going to take to do it right. In three months, he had barely scratched the surface. He was working a hundred and twenty hours a week, or more.

“I think it's silly for us to get married now,” he explained to her on Christmas Eve, after he snuck into her bedroom. To Kate, it was beginning to seem like a crazy way to live, and a frustrating way to see each other. She felt like a child, still living with her parents. By then, most of her friends were married. Those who hadn't gotten married before or during the war, were all getting married now, and having babies. She was suddenly anxious to get started or at least live with him. “Just give me time to set this up, and then we'll find an apartment in New York and get married. I promise.” A year before he'd been in prison in Germany, being tortured by the Germans. And suddenly he was running a major empire. It was an enormous adjustment for him. And he didn't want to get married until he had time for her. He thought it wouldn't be fair to her otherwise. But neither was this.

He spent a wonderful Christmas with her family, and managed to spend three days in Boston. Kate and Joe went flying again, and they even spent an entire day in bed in a hotel, and by the time he left, Kate was feeling better. He was right. It made more sense to wait until he had a good grip on the business. Kate understood that. Things were winding down at the Red Cross, so she decided to look for a job. And she found something she liked right after New Year's. She had spent New Year's Eve in New Jersey with Joe, and it made her realize again how lucky they were. The year before she'd been crying for him, thinking he was gone forever. She would have given anything then for what she had now, even if she seldom saw him. At least they had a whole life ahead of them, and a rosy future once they got married.

January was difficult for both of them. She was adjusting to a new job in an art gallery, and he had a terrible battle with the unions. For him, the entire month was a nightmare, and February was worse. He didn't make it up for Valentine's Day, in fact he forgot it completely. They had failed to get their final permit for the airstrip. It was crucial for them, and he had to spend three days romancing politicians and lobbying petty officials to get it. He only remembered that it had been Valentine's Day when she called him two days later, crying. They hadn't seen each other in six weeks by then, and he promised to make it up to her, and suggested she come down again for the weekend.

They had a great time while she was there. She helped him organize his office, and he even managed to take her out to dinner. He stayed at the hotel with her, and she went back to Boston on Sunday night smiling and happy. She enjoyed it so much, she wanted to come down every weekend, which sounded good to him. He was lonely and he missed her, but he also knew he had to work eighteen hours a day, even on weekends, just as he did on weekdays. He felt terrible about Kate, but for the moment, there was nothing he could do. He felt as though he were on a constant merry-go-round, trapped between feeling guilty about Kate and running a business that devoured his every waking hour. And the worse he felt about Kate, the less time he seemed to have. It didn't even make sense to him. Finally, in desperation, three weeks later, he let her come down for a week, so they could be together. And he was surprised by how smoothly things went when she helped out in the office. He only caught glimpses of her all day, but she seemed blissfully happy. And at least they could sleep together at night, and have breakfast together at the coffee shop in the morning. The rest of the day's meals he ate at his desk or on the run. The only time he actually sat down to dinner at a restaurant was when she came to visit him in New Jersey, and then he felt guilty for the time it cost him. He felt like a man being pulled in ten thousand directions at once. And he was.

Things didn't even begin to fall into place until May. And by then, she quit her job, and came down to work for him for the summer. It worked perfectly, and although she kept a room at the hotel for the sake of respectability, she stayed at his apartment with him. She had never been happier in her life, and he had to admit it suited him too. She was no longer complaining about not seeing him. It seemed like the perfect arrangement, to them, if not to her parents. They weren't pleased about her visiting Joe in New Jersey, but she was twenty-three years old, and she told them she stayed at the hotel. She had the room at the hotel in case they called.

Joe had been home for a year by then, and neither of them ever talked about an engagement. They were far too busy thinking about his work. It was only when he took a week's holiday and went up to the Cape with them, that her father took him aside, and had a serious talk with him. It had been nearly a year since Liz's last outburst. And she was furious by then with both Joe and Kate. She had begun to suspect what their living arrangements were, and she disapproved vehemently, if she was right. What if Kate got pregnant? Would he even marry her then? She fumed every time she looked at Joe. And more than ever, Kate's mother made Joe feel like a wicked child. Whenever he saw her, it made him want to run. She was like a constant guilt machine, spewing at him, even when she didn't say a word. She didn't need to anymore. And Kate felt torn between her parents and Joe.

By then, Clarke wasn't happy either, it had gone on for too long, and he said as much to Joe as they took a walk on the beach in Cape Cod. Joe had flown up from New Jersey in a beautifully designed plane that his company was making. They were pulling in huge money. Joe's life was in a far distant place than it had been in a year before, when he was taken off the hospital ship in Boston. He was becoming a very rich man. But he was too busy to breathe. And Clarke was worried about both of them. He was fond of Joe.

Joe took Clarke up in his new plane, and they agreed not to tell Liz, who was even more furious now that she knew that Kate often flew with Joe. Despite his history as a flying ace, and his years as a war hero, she was still convinced he was going to crash and kill them both. She had been beside herself when she discovered that Joe was giving Kate flying lessons. Kate had slipped and told her inadvertently. But Joe was confident about how capable Kate was. He had taught her well, although she hadn't had time to qualify for her license yet. She was too busy working for him.