The Way Home Read Online Free PDF

have to have a passenger to do a proper test, maybe you’d be willing to go up with me?” he asked Patsy.
    “I might.” She hesitated only a moment longer before tossing her head, making her bobbed hair swing out from her face. She slanted Jack a flirtatious look. “I reckon I can always say that it took me awhile to find Meg.”
    Ty didn’t wait for more. He lifted Meg bodily and set her in the front of the plane. Meg sat docilely while he tugged a leather cap over her hair and buckled it under her chin. She took the goggles he handed her and slid them on, hardly aware of what she was doing, unable to think of anything beyond the fact that she was actually going to go up in an airplane.
    She felt no trepidation. Her confidence in Tyler McKendrick was absolute. She gripped the sides of the plane as it lumbered down the field. It felt heavy and clumsy, nothing like she’d imagined. But before disappointment could take hold, the wheels lifted off the ground and they began to angle away from the earth and Meg forgot how to breathe.
    It was everything she’d imagined it would be and more. So much more that she didn’t even have the words to describe it. The ground fell away beneath them, becoming a patchwork quilt of green fields and trees with crisp edgings of brown where roads cut through. Ty turned the Jenny’s nose westward and suddenly Regret lay spread beneath them, the houses like a child’s building blocks lined up in neat rows.
    Meg tilted her head back to look up at the sky. It was a vast blue arc, the color paler and yet sharper than it was from the ground. It seemed as if she were a part of the sky, as if she belonged there, as if she’d found a place that could truly be hers. Up here, earthbound concerns were small and insignificant. It didn’t matter if her dresses were hand-me-downs or that there might not be enough food for supper. Those were all distant things that didn’t matter up here.
    She laughed up at the sky.
    Ty felt his heart contract at the sheer joy he saw in Meg’s face. Over the course of the afternoon, he’d seen many reactions, from fear to a distinct greenish tint that indicated a quick landing to be a wise choice, to a cautious pleasure. Not once had he seen the elation he saw now.
    It made him wish the flight could be longer, that he could give her more than just a taste of what flying was like. But the light was starting to fade and he could see Jack’s plane already taxiing to a halt near the edge of the field. He brought the Jenny around and started down.
    He stopped the plane behind Jack’s, pulling off his leather cap and tossing it in the seat as he jumped to the ground and moved forward to help Meg out. The cap had flattened her pale hair against her head, crushing all the fat curls, but her eyes shone bright blue. He’d half expected a spate of words. Most children couldn’t wait to talk about their short freedom from the bonds of earth. But Meg didn’t say anything until he’d set her on the ground. They could both see her sister and Jack approaching, Patsy’s steps quick and hurried.
    “Come on, Meg. We’ve got to hurry or Mr. Davis’ll bust a gusset,” Patsy called from a few yards away.
    Meg hesitated a moment longer, looking up at Ty with those big blue eyes. “Thank you. It’s like being right next to heaven.”
    She darted off before Ty could think of a reply. Not that there was much he could have said except that he agreed. Patsy threw a last look in Jack’s direction, her smile pure flirtation, before she hustled Meg in the direction of the fair.
    Ty was still watching the two of them when Jack reached him.
    “You know, when she gets a little older, that girl is going to be pure dynamite,” Jack commented, his eyes on the carefully cultivated swing in Patsy Harper’s walk.
    “I think you’re right,” Ty said, thinking of the fathomless blue of Meg Harper’s eyes. “She’s going to be a heart-breaker.”

     

CHAPTER 3
     
     
    SEVEN YEARS