Chapter 1

“But I don’t want green, Daddy!” A slim figure clad in a royal blue jumpsuit came into view as I rounded the hangar’s corner. The midmorning sun beat down on the parking apron, and I shielded my eyes against it as I approached the hangar doors.

“Edna...”

“My name is Jo!” The girl, I could see her form clearly now, removed her white helmet, and a cascade of chestnut hair fell across her shoulders and halfway down her back. She stood at the wingtip of a primed but unpainted Extra 300L aircraft, with her back to me, glaring at her father.

Robert Hamilton sighed with the patience of a man who had little enough to spare. His eyes found mine, and his weathered face twisted itself into what could be deemed a smile. “Fine, Jo,” he rumbled. The smile vanished. “Find Edward and tell him to bring the yellow paint.” He held out a set of keys. “Stay off the main road; you don’t have your license and the police won’t be so lenient the next time.”

I stopped as Jo followed her father’s gaze and half turned toward me. I hadn’t seen her in several years, and the tomboy l I remembered had grown into a young woman. I smiled as our eyes met. “Hello, I’m Gil Hickman. I don’t know if you remember me; your father and I go way back.”

The anger drained out of Jo’s eyes, and a bit of color tinted her lightly tanned cheeks. “I remember you,” she replied quietly. “Um, I need to go ... get something.” She turned and hurried out of the hangar without another word.

Robert watched her go with mingled amusement and exasperation. “I love that girl to death. Really, I do.” He walked up to me and stuck out his hand. “What brings you to my humble airstrip?”

“A business deal. Interested?”

Robert chuckled and gestured toward the hangar. “Step into my office. There’s a couple of cold beers left if Edna didn’t sneak one out.” Robert opened his office door, and set his own helmet down on a small table. I followed my friend into the building; we chatted amicably as the image of a redheaded girl - no she wasn’t a girl anymore, she was a young woman - in a blue jumpsuit stuck in my thoughts.

After a stint in the Army right out of high school, I had used my GI Bill benefits to take flying lessons. I’d had some flight training while in high school, but I’d not had the money to complete my private license requirements. Robert had been my instructor, and I had also worked for him after school, and that was when I’d met Jo.

I was sixteen when I started working, and Jo was six. I enjoyed flying, as did Robert, but Jo had a love for it. She would help me with the aircraft, whether to wash them, fuel them, or push them around on the ground. Her father taught her about aircraft maintenance, and she soon became proficient at helping the mechanics with their work. Jo could identify aircraft at a glance, which occasionally resulted in bets between the regulars who knew her, and the visitors who did not.

The airport was privately owned, but open to the public, so we had hosted a number of aviation-related activities. We had a glider club, a skydiving business, a flight school that would also give aerial tours, and even an agricultural aircraft operation during the right times of the year. We had no scheduled passenger services, though, so our airport didn’t rate an air traffic control tower. The field itself was built during World War Two, and two of the three runways were still open.

In the eight years since I’d graduated, the airport had seen some changes. The glider school was still in business, but the other operations were gone. Robert had built rows of T-hangars, and they were nearly full. That also provided some maintenance business and fuel sales. Being an astute businessman, Robert had branched out into real estate, and had done very well at it.

I’d taken my flight training when I still lived near my last Army post, and then I’d moved back home. So, it had been four years since I’d last seen Jo, and that only briefly. Robert and I discussed my business proposal at some length, and then the conversation turned to his daughter. “Is Jo old enough to solo, now?”

“She has soloed in a glider, and in an ultralight. She will be sixteen in a week, and she’s champing at the bit to solo in an airplane.”

“I heard her talking about paint. Is that going on the Extra?”

Robert nodded. “Yep, that is her airplane, or it will be when she’s more experienced in it. She twisted my arm into buying it; I got a really good deal on it, since it’d been damaged in a ground collision. A new left wing, and now some paint and an annual, and it will be good to go. We were out test flying it earlier.”

“How does she like it?”

“She loves it, and she’s got talent, Gil. I’m not saying that just because she’s my daughter. She has the touch, and she learns quickly.”

“That taildragger, though,” I said with a smile.

“Yeah, it can be tricky, but it’s doable. I’ll bet it won’t take her long to solo in it. We have several very good instructors to teach her aerobatics, too. I can do it, but I’d rather defer to folks with more experience in that sport.”

We talked for a while longer, and I noted that Robert still had no wedding band, and that the only pictures on his desk were of Jo. Robert’s wife had died of cancer when Jo was five, and he had never shown an interest in finding someone else. Jo never spoke of her mother, at least in my hearing.

Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside. The office door opened, and Jo stepped inside, carrying a pail of paint. I jumped to my feet. “Let me help you with that, Jo.”

“N-no, it’s fine,” she stammered. “There’s a box in the bed with more stuff. You can carry that.” She ducked her head, stepped around me, and entered the hangar.

I looked to Robert. “Was it something I said?”

He frowned and shook his head. “I have no idea. The last time you even saw her was what, five years ago?”

“Four, actually. I came home after mustering out, and then I left again for my job. I just moved back here three months ago.”

He sighed and shook his head again. “Women. Who knows?”

I went out to retrieve the box Jo had told me about, and I stepped into the hangar with it in hand. Jo was standing at a workbench on the far wall, and I walked around the Extra’s tail to approach her. At almost sixteen, Jo was five nine or so, and about a hundred and twenty pounds; slim, though it was hard to tell under her loose-fitting flight suit. “Where would you like this, Jo?” I called out to her.

She turned to face me with an expression I couldn’t parse. “Uh, right here on the bench is fine, thank you, Gil.”

I set the box down and turned to her. “Have I offended you in some way?”

She stared at me. “What?”

“You seem uncomfortable around me, and I was wondering if it was my fault.”

Her cheeks colored, and she shook her head. “No, you didn’t do anything. You did leave, though, and now you’re back.” She glanced at me and looked down. “Are you staying, or visiting?”

“I’ve moved back here, but my company is thinking of opening another division, and the office rumor mill has me as the leading candidate for a manager’s position. So, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay.”

She looked up, and our eyes met. “Oh. Will you come visit before you, uh, go?”

I stared into her green eyes for what seemed like an hour. “Of course,” I heard myself respond.

“Okay,” Jo looked away. “I, um, have to get to work.” She turned away. “See you later.”

“Yes, you will,” I blurted out. She glanced back at me, and then she walked out of the hangar.

I stood in the shadow of a C-17, and shaded my eyes against the summer sun. The airshow had started an hour before, and I was here to watch the Thunderbirds perform. They were due on in a half hour, and I watched as the latest aerial act completed one last roll, and turned toward the runway to land.

Then, the announcer spoke again. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for our next flyer, fresh from a championship win, and at only eighteen years old – Jo Hamilton!”

I looked up just in time to see a bright yellow Extra scream down the runway past the crowd. White smoke pouring from the exhaust, the aircraft pitched up into a vertical climb, hanging on the prop as it clawed its way skyward. Finally, the aircraft slowed to a stop, pitched down, and howled toward the ground. Jo pulled out only feet above the ground, and then she zoomed upward again.