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The highway was clear both ways, and she hit the gas harder after taking a left toward Lester’s farm. A second later, it hit her that someone might call Scooter to double-check she put gas in her car.
Flustered, she hit the brake and cranked the wheel. The car spun so fast she grew dizzy, but once again she kept it on the road. Now facing the other direction, she laid her foot hard on the gas. A mile later she cranked the wheel again, to pull into the fueling station.
To her utmost astonishment a large Closed sign hung on the door. Dang. She’d wasted valuable time for nothing.
Gravel sprayed from beneath her tires as she rounded the gas pump and headed toward the highway again. A couple of miles later, she slowed her speed, watching the side roads to make out the exact one she and Forrest had used on Sunday. When her heart skipped a beat, she turned, knowing it had to be the one.
This road was as rough as a washboard, but Twyla had to drive slowly anyway, watching carefully for the field road that led to Forrest’s hangar. It seemed as if she went a hundred miles, and was just about to turn around, figuring she’d missed the turn, when she saw it.
Little more than two tire trails in the grass, the field road wasn’t very long. In no time she pulled up next to Forrest’s roadster.
Climbing out of her car, she examined his. How could a man have a car that nice, and an airplane, and a bowling alley, and be broke? Perhaps that was why. All those things cost money.
The hangar doors were open, and no doubt having heard her pull in, Forrest, dressed in his flyboy jacket, hat and boots, was leaning against one of them. “What are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you a little bit excited to see me?” she asked. Considering the way her insides were leaping, she was a lot more than a little happy to see him.
He shook his head. “Your father should keep you handcuffed.”
She ignored his jibe. His grin said more. He was happy. He just didn’t want to admit it. Maybe hearts could talk to each other, just like Norma Rose had said.
“I heard your plane,” she said, arriving at the hangar. He’d gone back inside and was hooking the fuel nozzle back onto the barrel. “And thought I’d come to see where you’d gone.”
“Just for a short flight,” he said.
“Where to? Why?” Twyla couldn’t help but wish he’d asked her to accompany him. She’d have gone, even though her father had said she couldn’t go flying until after he returned from Chicago.
“North a ways,” Forrest said, pulling the barrel toward the door. “For a friend.”
“For a friend? Who?”
He shook his head.
Walking beside him, she shook her head too, and wished she’d taken the time to reapply her lipstick or run a comb through her hair. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
“I have no intention of telling you anything,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, but wasn’t surprised. There had to be a way to show him she was more than a pretty face. That she had a mind and could help him in all situations. Noticing one of the concrete blocks the barrel sat on was tipped slightly upward, she hurried ahead to push it back in place. Stomping on it didn’t work, so she kneeled down, but couldn’t budge it with her hands, either. When Forrest crouched down beside her, she said, “There must be something under it.”
“I noticed that one was loose the other day. Here, let me see. A root might have pushed a rock up.”
She scooted over, but when Forrest lifted the edge of the block, she leaned closer. “What is that?”
“What’s what?” Forrest asked.
“That,” she said, pointing and moving aside so he could peer under the block.
“I don’t know.” He shoved the block aside and then scraped at the dirt. “It looks like a handle.” Forrest lifted up another block. “There wasn’t anything here when I dug out this area.”
“Why do you put your gas tank here?” she asked.
“Because it would get too hot inside. Here it has some shade, and is far enough away that if any fuel leaked out, it wouldn’t be under the plane, where it could catch fire.”
He’d removed three other blocks while talking, and was now digging with his hands.
“It’s a suitcase,” he said.
For the first time in years, Twyla didn’t consider the damage she might do to her freshly painted nails, and dug beside him. “It’s like buried treasure.”
“Hardly anyone knows about this place,” Forrest said. “And I know nothing was here when I laid the blocks.”
“Maybe the tree roots pushed it up,” she said.
“Tree roots wouldn’t have pushed this up.”
