{"id":1083,"date":"2019-02-12T13:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2020-06-01T09:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T13:07:00","slug":"broken-wings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/broken-wings\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken Wings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Broken Wings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

by Dianne Price<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lives to fly\u2014until a piece of flak changes his life forever.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tragic childhood has turned American Air Forces Colonel Rob Savage into an outwardly indifferent loner who is afraid to give his heart to anyone. RAF nurse Maggie McGrath has always dreamed of falling in love and settling down in a thatched cottage to raise a croftful of bairns, but the war has taken her far from Innisbraw, her tiny Scot\u2019s island home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hitler\u2019s bloody quest to conquer Europe seems far away when Rob and Maggie are sent to an infirmary on Innisbraw to begin his rehabilitation from disabling injuries. Yet they find themselves caught in a battle between Rob\u2019s past, God\u2019s plan, and the evil some islanders harbor in their souls. Which will triumph?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Prologue<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t

Isle of Innisbraw, Outer Hebrides, Scotland<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

August, 1938<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay! Don\u2019t go! <\/em>Maggie McGrath struggled to ignore the words\nscreaming in her mind. She tucked a tissue-wrapped sprig of heather into a fold\nin her battered traveling bag. Too dry for the fragrance to linger, but she\u2019d\nput it in a drawer. When the longing for home shredded her heart, she\u2019d hold\nthe fragile, purple buds close to her nose and imagine the sweet scent\nperfuming the air every summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her fingers\ntrembled as she fastened the bag and looked around the wee bedroom she\u2019d shared\nwith her younger brother, Calum, for over half of her life. His box-bed unmade,\nsheets and bed plaid in a muddle. A ragged sweater and pair of soiled trousers\ncrumpled on the floor. Tears burned her eyes. Typical of a nine-year-old lad\nwho lived for the day he would be old enough to crew a fishing trawler. Och,\nshe would miss him so terribly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heedless of those\nwords still torturing her mind, she pulled the sides of her waist-length black\nhair into a celluloid clip at the top of her head and dragged her bag into the\ncramped room that served as the cottage\u2019s living quarters and kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father\nstood at the small, deep-set window above the sink, his face toward the morning\nsun colouring the cloudless blue sky with a soft blush of orange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bump of her\nbag over the rough stone-flagged floor seemed to rouse him. He placed his cup\nof tea on the scarred table and walked toward her, arms outstretched. \u201cReady\nare you to be off then, lass?\u201d He enveloped her in a hug, the tweed of his\njacket scratchy, yet so familiar, against her cheek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soft\ncadence of the Scots he spoke threatened to crack her resolve. She\u2019d hear only\nEnglish in Edinburgh. I cannot stay. I\nhave to go. <\/em>A sigh. \u201cAye, as ready as can be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know \u2019tis\nhard.\u201d He stepped back and wiped a tear from her cheek. \u201cBut in a bit over twa\nmonths I\u2019ll join you in Edinburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wanted him\nto beg her to stay, to refuse her opportunity to study at the Edinburgh Royal\nInfirmary\u2019s Nursing School. But why would he? It was her dream, the culmination\nof everything she had studied for, including four years at a boarding academy\non the Isle of Harris where she had learned to speak English as fluently as her\nfather. Hard years, those. Painful raps on her knuckles when she spoke Scots,\nfollowed by humiliating mockery from the English-speaking students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His warm hand\nrested on her shoulder. \u201cOn you come, lass. I\u2019ve a pottle of strong tea\nwaiting.\u201d He poured tea into her mother\u2019s treasured china cup. The burden in her\nheart lifted a wee bit. It seemed only fitting she embark on her journey into\nwomanhood after drinking from her mother\u2019s legacy. If Elizabeth McGrath had\nsurvived the birth of her laddie, Calum, she would have been proud of her\ndaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie added heather\nhoney and milk to her tea and stood in front of the glowing peat fire,\nshivering from an inner chill no flame could warm. It was already gone 0530. In\nless than half an hour she would be saying \u201cguid-by\u201d to all she held dear. And\nhow would Calum fare? \u201cAre you certain Calum will be all right staying with\nMorag and Alec when you leave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOch, the lad\u2019s\nspent most of every winter with the MacDonalds since you started academy.\u201d Her\nfather settled into his rocker with a grunt of satisfaction. \u201cAnd he\u2019ll have a\nbed to himself now, what with their Graham going off to school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few strands\nof grey invaded his dark brown hair and short beard. When had that happened? It\nseemed only yesterday he\u2019d rocked her in his lap and sung silly ditties in\nScots or the Gaelic to soothe away her tears from a skinned knee or bad dream.\nThat had all changed ever-so-gradually over the years. There was no question he\nloved her and Calum. But as head of Orthopaedics at the Royal Infirmary, he now\nspent most of his time in Edinburgh. Only one short three-month visit beginning\nin August and a weekly radio call the rest of the year to fill the aching void\nin their hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her heart cried\nout to recapture those carefree childhood days when her life revolved around\nfamily<\/a> and friends, this wee stone cottage with its thatched roof, and her\nbeloved green island. But she would be eighteen in a few months\u2014old enough to\nfall in love, marry, and have her own bairns to rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And old enough\nto voice the one subject she\u2019d never dared broach aloud. \u201cAre you never coming\nhome to open your infirmary permanently?\u201d Maggie choked out the words. \u201cI know\nwhat you do is important, but Calum needs a faither, no\u2019 just fishermen who\nhave their own lads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stroked his\nbeard, avoiding her gaze. Was he considering an excuse\u2014perhaps something\nfamiliar, that he told himself every day to assuage his guilt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shouldn\u2019t\nallow such words to ruin her last moments at home. Leaving her untasted tea on\nthe table, she dashed to the door, pulling it open with a jerk. Even the\npervasive scent of the heather covering the towering slopes of Ben Innis and\ntumbling in purple splashes down braes and over hillocks brought no solace as\nshe raced to the low, dry-stone wall separating their croft from the path which\nran across the high, flat top of Innis Fell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tears pooled in\nher eyes, blurring the harbour below and the Minch stretching to the horizon,\nits waves capped with white horses whipped to a gallop by the brisk morning\nbreeze. What if the rumors of an imminent war with Germany came true? Everyone\non the island was talking about Hitler\u2019s invasion of Austria. Would he be\nsatisfied to stop there or would he want more and more until all of Europe\nerupted into flames the way it had in the last Great War? Calum was too young\nto serve, but what about Graham MacDonald, Mark Ferguson, and the other lads on\nInnisbraw? Their ruddy-cheeked, innocent faces swam before her eyes. How many\nwould die? How many would never come home to take up sheep or cow crofting or\nfishing with their fathers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father came\nbehind her and his strong arms pulled her against his chest. He rocked her back\nand forth for a moment before speaking. \u201cI canna leave my work yet, Maggie. I\u2019m\non the brink of perfecting a new technique for repairing compound fractures.\nMebbe when you\u2019ve finished your training we\u2019ll come back together. I\u2019ll need a\nnurse at our infirmary, and in the meantime, Elspeth and Hugh have promised to\nwrite often.\u201d He squeezed her shoulders before his steps faded away on the\nscudding breeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie bit her\nlip to keep from weeping aloud. She couldn\u2019t bear to hear the names of her two\ndearest friends when she wouldn\u2019t see them for at least two years. Elspeth\nNicAllister had been her surrogate mother since Calum\u2019s birth. Hugh MacEwan,\nthe island\u2019s minister and other anchor in her life, had never been too busy to\noffer words of encouragement or scriptures to give her guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Och, Heavenly Faither, please help me be strong, for\nYou planted the need to help others in my heart. Help me remember the honey-sweet\nscent of the heather, the sound of the sea sooking on the shore, the tumbling\nburns and shaded glens, even the plomping rain and skailing winds of winter.\nBut most of all, give me the faith that I\u2019ll come home to Innisbraw someday.<\/p>\n\n\n