Lone Eagle Read Online Free PDF

not very good at it. And I used to love to skate when I was a little kid. I would have played hockey, but my mother had a fit and wouldn't let me.”
    “That was smart of her, you'd have wound up with no teeth.” Clearly, from her dazzling smile, he could see that she hadn't played hockey. “Do you drive?” he asked, as he sat back in his chair. For a crazy moment, he was wondering if she'd like to learn how to fly. But Kate smiled.
    “I got my license last year when I turned sixteen, but my father doesn't like me to use the car. He taught me atCape Cod in the summer. There's no traffic and it's easier there.” Joe nodded but looked startled by what she'd said.
    “How old are you?” He had been sure that she was in her mid-twenties. She looked so grown-up, and she was so at ease with him.
    “Seventeen. I'll be eighteen in a few months. How old did you think I was?” She was flattered that he looked so surprised.
    “I don't know… maybe twenty-three … twenty-five. They shouldn't let kids your age out in dresses like that. You're going to confuse some old man like me.” He didn't look old to her, especially when he looked shy and awkward and boyish, which he often did. Every few minutes, he would look ill at ease for an instant, and look away, and then he'd recover himself and look her in the eye again. She liked his shyness. It was an interesting counterpoint to his flying expertise, and suggested humility.
    “How old are you, Joe?”
    “Twenty-nine. Nearly thirty. I've been flying since I was sixteen. I was wondering if you'd like to fly with me sometime. But I guess your parents might not like it.”
    “My mother wouldn't. But my father would think it was fun. He talks about Lindbergh all the time.”
    “Maybe I could teach you to fly someday.” As he said it, his eyes were filled with dreams. He had never taught a girl to fly before, although he knew plenty of female pilots, he and Amelia Earhart had been old friends before she disappeared three years before, and he had flown with Charles's friend Edna Gardner Whyte several times, Joe thought her nearly as impressive as Charles.She had won her first daredevil solo race seven years before, and was training military pilots. She was very fond of Joe.
    “Do you ever come to Boston?” Kate asked hopefully, looking suddenly young again, as he smiled. There was something exciting and feminine and youthful about her, and at the same time, he found her remarkably poised.
    “Once in a while. I have friends on the Cape. I stayed with them last year. But I'll be in California for the next few months. I could give you a call when I get back. Maybe your father would like to come with us too.”
    “He'd love that,” she said warmly. To Kate, it sounded like a fine idea. All she could think of now was how they would sell it to her mother. But who knew if he'd really call her. Probably not.
    “Do you go to school?” he asked with a curious expression, and she nodded. He had stopped his formal education at twenty, and the rest of his education he had gotten in planes, once Lindbergh took him under his wing.
    “I'm going to college in the fall,” Kate said quietly.
    “Do you know where?”
    “I'm waiting to hear. I want to go to Radcliffe, my father went to Harvard. I'd go there too, if I could. But Radcliffe is close enough. My mother wants me to go to Vassar, which is where she went. I've applied there too. But I don't like it quite as much. I think I'd rather stay in Boston anyway. Or maybe Barnard here in New York. I like New York too. Do you?” Her eyes were wide as she asked him, and he was touched.
    “I'm not so sure. I'm kind of a small-town guy,” butas he said it, she wasn't sure she agreed. It was where his roots were, but something about him suggested that he had outgrown small-town living more than he knew. He had become part of a much larger world, he just hadn't realized it himself yet, but she did.
    They were still chatting about the virtues of