The Invitation by Jude Deveraux Page B

she was swept out to sea.
    She decided to show William nearly everything she’d learned. She raced around tall trees, calculating the distance between them by inches. One miscalculation and the wings would have been torn off. The moment she was through the trees, she did a couple of snap rolls. Nailing the nose to the horizon, she did several three hundred and sixty degree lateral turns, one after another, coming out about a quarter of an inch before she would have flown smack into a mountain.
    About a week after she ran off with Charley, during which time he’d rarely let her out of a plane, he’d said, “Kid, you got a gyroscope in your head. If you’re upside down and backwards it’s all the same to you. You know where you’re going.” Now Jackie flew upside down for a while, maneuvering through the trees with her head pointed toward the ground.
    She knew she was getting low on gas so she headed back to Eternity, writing her name in the sky as she went. Skywriting lost something with no flares attached to the tail of the plane, but the motion was the same.
    As she hit the hard-packed runway in Eternity, the engine died from lack of gas. Perfect, she thought. She had calculated perfectly. Charley would have been proud of her.
    After Jackie landed the plane, William stayed in his seat, not moving, his head back, his eyes closed, and she could see that he was fighting hard not to be ill. There weren’t many people who could go through what William had just experienced and not lose a meal. But somehow he was managing to control his stomach.
    Standing up, Jackie reached her hand out to him, and briefly— very briefly—he opened his eyes to glance at her, then gave a faint shake of his head. He was not going to accept her offer of a steadying hand when he disembarked.
    On the ground, Jackie politely looked away as he somehow climbed down from the plane without anyone’s help. When she turned to look at him his face was white, his skin clammy-looking, and he wasn’t too steady on his feet.
    â€œAll right, Jackie,” he said solemnly, as he took a deep breath, working hard to control his nausea. “You win. I’ll pack my bags and leave. I’ll be out of here in a matter of hours.”
    Now that she’d done what she planned, she couldn’t help feeling bad. She didn’t want to discontinue their friendship; she just wanted him out of her house and out of her life on a daily basis. “William, I…”
    When he turned to look at her, his eyes blazed, and his white skin was tinged with the deep glow of anger. No, there was more in his eyes than anger; there was rage. Old-fashioned life-endangering rage.
    When he spoke, his voice was very soft and very quiet. “So now I guess you’ll tell me you want to be friends. That you’ve always had a high regard for me and you’ll always treasure my friendship.” He took a step toward her, looming over her. “I don’t want your friendship, Jackie. I never wanted your friendship. Since I was a little boy I’ve wanted your love.”
    At that statement she made the mistake of giving the slightest smile, and that smile seemed to make something in William break. Even as a child he had been mild-mannered and sweet-tempered, but now he seemed to turn into something fierce, something dangerous. When he took a step toward her, she stepped back.
    â€œDoes my wanting your love amuse you? Is it something to make you laugh? Stupid little Billy Montgomery following tall, eccentric Jackie O’Neill around. Oh, yes, you’ve always been eccentric. Even as a child you were different from everyone else. The other kids were trying their best to be carbon copies of each other, but not you. Oh, I know you thought that what you wanted was to wear the latest fashions and be part of the group, but the truth was, you loved climbing on your mother’s roof and hammering the tiles in place.