In Perfect Time by Sarah Sundin Read Free Book Online

sleep too late. He said you don’t even own an alarm clock.”
    The ends finally tied up. “They’re forbidden at the Cooper homestead. No farmer worth his salt uses an alarm clock, my parents always say. They get up with the chickens.”
    Kay tipped a saucy smile. “You’re not on the farm. No chickens here. You need a clock.”
    Roger shrugged. “I get by.”
    “That’s not what Grant said.” Her eyes gave off more sparks than Vesuvius’s eruption last week. “You need to get up on time, impress your CO, get that big band spot, and prove Grant Klein wrong.”
    Volcanoes had nothing on scorned women. “Why? What did he do to you?”
    “Nothing. Really, he didn’t. But I don’t like the way he talked about you. Not after what you did for me, giving me your Bible.”
    “Nah. I already got a new one.”
    She flipped the clock over and over in her hand. “I know it isn’t just a book to you. I saw the inscription from your friend, all your notes.”
    His neck heated up. His Bible was as personal and private as a diary. How much had he revealed in those notes? What had he inadvertently confessed to this woman?
    Kay thrust out the alarm clock. “It’s a gift, and you can’t say no.”
    Repeating his words, was she? Would she grab his wrist ashe’d grabbed hers? He could still feel the warmth, the tight-muscled stubbornness in her slim arm.
    “Please?” Her green-eyed gaze reached out to him, just as warm and stubborn. And as fragile as a new blade of grass. “I want to do one little thing to help you achieve your dream.”
    His dream? His family saw his dream as foolishness. His friends saw it as wishful thinking. But she looked at him as if she believed he could do it.
    “Thanks,” he muttered through a too-thick throat. He took the clock, careful not to touch her fingers. But the black leather case carried the heat of her touch.
    Kay gave him a shaky smile and gestured toward the flight line. “I kept you too long. You’d better get moving. I’ll see you later.”
    Should he tell her? “Um, actually, you won’t. We’re shipping out tomorrow.”
    “Shipping out?”
    “Group’s deployed to a new theater. We’re flying back to Comiso now, heading off tomorrow.”
    All the color left her face. She opened her mouth, closed it, blinked a few times. “Oh. I had a few questions for you. I tried to read, but it just—it isn’t . . .”
    The Bible. Oh, great. He’d given her the tool but not the instructions on how to use it. “I’m sure someone can—”
    Kay shook her head hard. “Mellie and Georgie don’t understand. Not like . . . well, never mind. It’s fine.” She raised her usual confident smile and walked away. “Good luck to you.”
    Ah, for crying out loud. Her friends didn’t understand like he did. He understood how it felt to be a sinner, to be drowning, to grasp for a lifeline, any at all. The least he could do was throw her a line.
    “Kay, wait.”
    “Yes?” Poise masked her turmoil again.
    He pulled a notepad from the breast pocket of his shirt. “If you want, you can write me, ask your questions.”
    “I could?” The poise dissolved. He’d seen the same hunger in the faces of starving street urchins in Naples.
    “Sure.” With teeth gritted, he scrawled down his address and Army Post Office number. What on earth had the Lord gotten him into?

6
    Over the Mediterranean
April 4, 1944
    The rumble of the C-47’s twin engines vibrated through Kay’s backside as the words in the book of Job ricocheted in her head.
    “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers.” Kay squeezed her eyes shut. How many times had her father quoted Job 8:20 to her?
    Willard Jobson’s other favorite verse for her was Job 5:2: “For wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one,” used to chastise her when she dared to argue with Jemima and Keren, the favored daughters, the songbirds with heavenly blonde hair.
    Even as a child, it