just wasn’t much visual grandeur in car engines. “Would anyone mind if I went into the hangar and snapped a roll?”
Another man, she thought, might have been spiteful and said no. Garrett just gave a stiff nod, eyes drifting past Tony to the person hovering impatiently behind. “Are you going to introduce me to your other friend?”
Jordan opened her mouth, but Nina Graham ran right over her. “You have planes?” she asked in her strange accent, coming forward in a clack of boots. “Let’s see.”
Jordan had been rather startled to see a blond head in the backseat of Tony’s Ford when he came by the house to pick Jordan up. “I’m sorry to say we have a third wheel,” Tony said with a glare at his passenger. “Jordan McBride, may I introduce Nina Graham, Ian’s wife. The moment she heard me mention this morning that I was driving you to an airfield, she invited herself along.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Graham—” Jordan began, but an impatient flap of the hand cut her off.
“Nina. So you’re the girl Antochka likes.” She looked Jordan over, speculative, and Jordan murmured pleasantries even as she was thinking, Rats. A third wheel in the backseat—there was definitely not going to be any pulling over on the way to the airfield for kissing. With Anneliese still in Concord, Ruth gone every afternoon to a neighbor’s house to play, the shop safe in the capable Mrs. Weir’s hands, and with Ian Graham and his wife absent on some sort of driving tour for the past few weeks, Jordan and Tony had had the freedom for quite a lot of kissing. Jordan had been looking forward to more today, because Tony kissed like a man who actually enjoyed it, not a man who hurried through five minutes of it as a prelude to unbuttoning a girl’s blouse. Only now there was this woman in the backseat who Jordan hadn’t met before, though what she’d heard had certainly been interesting.
“Ian’s Red war bride,” Tony had said. “Don’t ask.”
Jordan had envisioned an exotic beauty in sables, not this compact bullet of a woman in shabby boots. Now, Nina Graham was shaking Garrett’s hand in business-like fashion, firing off questions. “You have what, Travel Air 4000 there? What else? Stearman, Aeronca, Waco—”
“Mostly American craft.” Garrett straightened, listing aircraft, and Jordan was amused to see his most charming smile wink on like a searchlight. “You’re an enthusiast, Mrs. Graham?”
Nina smiled modestly. “I fly a little.”
“Well, let me show you a few things while Jordan and Timmy here look around . . .”
“Holy hell,” Tony whispered in Jordan’s ear as Garrett sauntered off with Nina at his elbow, looking up earnestly as he expounded. “He’s flirting with her.”
“He’s trying to make me jealous.” Jordan smiled as she dug in her bag for film, relieved to realize she didn’t feel jealous. The last bit of proof, if she’d needed it, that it had been right to call off the wedding.
Garrett’s voice floated over. “. . . this Travel Air here, her name’s Olive. Pilots like to name their planes, did you know that? I could take you up for a quick spin, go easy on you—”
Tony spluttered laughter. “She’s going to eat him alive.”
“Enjoy the show,” Jordan said, laughing too. “I’m going to get my shots.”
Tony carried her bag into the hangar, looked around for the mechanics, backed her unhurriedly into the shadow of a decrepit crop duster, and gave her a long kiss. “For later,” he murmured, “when we lose the third wheel, after she’s eaten Gary boots, bones, and coveralls.”
Another kiss, even longer. Jordan pulled back eventually, trying to remember why she was here. A Mechanic at Work. Right.
She found the mechanics and introduced herself, chatted lightly, flattered them, and got them laughing—she’d picked up a few things from Tony, the way he got subjects to relax. She waved the mechanics back to work, asking admiring questions, scolding when they tried to meet the camera’s eye, clicking away once they got absorbed. Two rolls of film, no fuss. I’m getting better at this, she thought, thanking her subjects. Her photo-essay was taking wonderful shape, the centerpiece of the work she’d have to show when she began job hunting in New York. Soon she’d have to begin thinking about an apartment, job interviews . . .
And breaking the news to Ruth that yes, her sister really was going away, but she’d be back every month to visit. Jordan grimaced. Ruth knew about the