Lone eagle

She would just have to make the best of the time they had. The only concession they made was that she could stay at the house with Joe and them, as long as she went to classes every day.

“I'll take her to school myself, and make sure she stays there,” Joe promised them, and she suddenly felt as though she had two fathers, not just one. There had always been something very paternal and protective about Joe, which was part of why she felt so comfortable with him. There were a million reasons why she did, and when he left her to drive back late that night, he held her for a long moment and told her how much he had missed her and how much he loved her.

Kate looked at him and savored the words. She hadn't heard them in a long time.

“I love you too, Joe. I've been so worried about you.” Far more than she could ever tell him.

“We'll get through this, baby. I promise. And when it's all over, we'll have a great time together.” It was not the kind of promise that her mother was hoping for, but she didn't care.

Just being with him was enough.

Joe came back from Washington, sooner than expected, in two days, and moved into the house with them. He was courteous, considerate, polite, well behaved, and extremely respectful of Kate, which pleased her parents. Even her mother was impressed by how he behaved. The only thing he hadn't done, which would have pleased them more, was ask for her hand in marriage.

Her father skirted the subject delicately one afternoon when he came home early from the office, and found Joe in the kitchen sketching designs for a new airplane.

There was no way to get it built now, but when the war was over, it was going to be his dream plane. He had already filled several notebooks with intricate details."

"Seeing that led to a brief discussion about Charles Lindbergh, who was helping Henry Ford organize bomber plane production. Lindbergh had wanted to enlist in the military, but FDR had refused.

And what he was doing with Ford was valuable and important to the war effort. But nonetheless the public and the press remained critical of him, due to the political positions he'd taken before the war. Like the rest of the country, Clarke had been disappointed by his statements on behalf of America First. They had made him appear to be sympathetic to the Germans. And like many others, Clarke had lost some of his earlier respect for him.