Lone eagle

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.