Saving Mrs. Roosevelt Read online

  Praise for Saving Mrs. Roosevelt

  Full of intrigue and historical detail, Patterson brings to life the little-known women's SPARs who deserve to have their story told as part of the Greatest Generation. Drama and faith seamlessly blend together with just the right amount of romance to delight any WWII fan.

  —J'nell Ciesielski, bestselling author of The Socialite

  In Saving Mrs. Roosevelt, Candice Sue Patterson has crafted a home front story of WWII that will satisfy fans of Lynn Austin and Amy Lynn Green. Filled with intrigue and drama, the hero and heroine must work together to infiltrate a spy ring that is determined to harm Mrs. Roosevelt. Along the way you'll enjoy the setting and supporting characters. This is an engaging story with a layer of romance that I enjoyed.

  —Cara Putman, bestselling, award-winning author of Flight Risk and Lethal Intent

  Saving Mrs. Roosevelt © 2021 by Candice Sue Patterson

  Print ISBN 978-1-63609-089-4

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63609-091-7

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher. Reproduced text may not be used on the World Wide Web.

  All scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Photograph © Joanna Czogala/Trevillion Images

  Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1810 Barbour Drive, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com

  Our mission is to inspire the world with the life-changing message of the Bible.

  Printed in the United States of America

  In memory of

  Seaman Joseph Franklin Patterson,

  United States Navy

  (Grandpa Joe)

  and

  Seaman Turner Lee Ridge,

  United States Navy

  (Grandpa Turner)

  You are missed.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  Lubec, Maine

  December 1942

  Shirley Davenport was a breath away from dying.

  Of boredom.

  She lowered the newspaper to her lap. Why did men get to have all the fun?

  Brows arched, Daddy looked up from the boat he was cleaning and held out the scraper. “I'm sorry. Did you want to remove the layers of crust? I wouldn't call it fun.”

  Embarrassed, Shirley bowed her head. She hadn't meant to voice her thoughts aloud, but she did that sometimes.

  “I was speaking of the war, Daddy.”

  The heater surged beside them, warming a small bubble of space in the massive barn. The scent of hay and dust and kerosene wasn't a pleasant one, but she'd rather be working in a cold dank barn any day than in a stuffy kitchen.

  Her father winced and stood from his crouched position, hand bracing the pain she knew lived in the curve of his back. “I know.”

  A gust of winter forced its way between the cracks of the old structure. Christmas was over, and a new year awaited. While two of her brothers were scattered across the globe, fighting for freedom and justice, she was stuck in a little town by the frozen sea, doing the same things she'd done since childhood.

  And would probably do every year for the rest of her life.

  Daddy's footsteps shuffled remnants of straw on the dirt-packed floor. Easing onto an upturned bucket beside her, he grimaced. As much from exasperation with her as from the pain, no doubt. “War is never fun, Shirley Jean.”

  Guilt pricked her as she recalled the gruesome stories of the World War he used to tell her and her brothers while they lounged by the fireplace after dinner. They'd hung on every word. Their mother didn't care to hear the tales, but she'd told Shirley it helped him to talk about them. Her mother would hum church hymns to block him out while she mended clothes on the other side of the room.

  Shirley had liked the gory parts as much as her brothers, not understanding everything her father recalled. Older, she understood now. “I'm sorry. I only meant that I'm left here, helpless to do anything for the cause, while men all across the country are free to sign up and fight.”

  He frowned at her, bulging his auburn walrus mustache threaded with gray. “They called the draft. Not all men were willing to go.”

  His comment was beside the point. She passed him the newspaper. “Have you read about the Doolittle Raid? It's amazing.”

  He pointed his nose to the rafters and closed his eyes. “Sure, there's great victories. But there's also death and destruction. When war is over, nothing's the same. Nothing.”

  Restless, she stood and toed a pile of straw. “I can't sit by and do nothing either. It's my country too. There's got to be something I can do to help.”

  “There is. You can ration, write to your brothers, sew blackout curtains, get married, and have children. Maybe then you wouldn't be so discontented.”

  She pointed to the newspaper curled in his grip. “I'm restless because I want to be with them. I hate sewing, I already write to James and Thomas once a week, and all the young, decent men are off fighting.”

  The man she'd spotted in town yesterday sprang to mind. Younger than Daddy, he was much older than Shirley but still handsome enough. The interested way he'd looked at her, almost as if he could see inside her, had made her nervous.

  Shirley plopped down beside Daddy and noted the frayed hem of her trousers and her scuffed boots. “Even if there were eligible men my age, they'd not want me.”

  “Hush now.” His big hand landed on her shoulder. “When it comes to young ladies, you're the finest kind.”

  She refrained from rolling her eyes. “That's not true, and you know it. I don't possess one feminine skill. All I know is fishing and lobstering, boat repair, and how to build a fire. Hardly duties that will help protect my country. Or catch me a husband.“

  Her dearest friend, Joan, had once told her boys liked girls who were approachable, weaker. Girls who looked soft. Not girls who could keep up with them in a boxing match.

  Daddy nudged her with his elbow. “Someday the right man will come along and appreciate your resourcefulness.”
br />   The pathetic description was accurate. Resourceful, never desirable. Not that such a thing mattered to her. Well, it did. She wanted to be soft. She wanted to be wanted. To marry and have children someday. But first—before she spent the rest of her life cooking meals, cleaning house, and changing diapers—she wanted to do something grand.

  Over the course of time, she'd seen the young women in this town fade beneath the weight of homemaking and childbearing, like Mama. Shirley loved her mama, but she didn't want to be her mama. Shirley had ambition and a desperate need to make her mark on the world. She wanted to live in a world where she was free to do so. Was that too much to ask?

  If nothing was the same when war ended, then she hoped after this one such a world for women would exist.

  She looked up at Daddy. Deep lines etched his weathered skin and traced a path into his gnarly beard. She smiled, showing teeth, the way she had when she was a child trying to persuade him to her way of thinking. “Assembling airplane motors and stuffing bullets is resourceful too.”

  He chuckled and pulled her to his side. “Shirley Jean, your patriotism is honorable. I understand your need to help. I truly do. But you're my little girl. There's no need for you to go traipsing off to the big city for a factory job. You're taken care of right here. Aid the effort like the other local women until this is all over.”

  Twenty-two hardly qualified as a little girl.

  “I want to go to Washington too, Daddy.”

  He crossed his ankles. “I know you do. My word from last week stands firm—if you go, you're getting there on your own. I'll not take part.”

  Disappointment settled like a boulder in her chest. Hundreds of women were flocking to Washington, DC, upon hearing Eleanor Roosevelt's request for clerical workers and switchboard operators. Shirley didn't have enough money saved to sustain her travel and living expenses for more than a few weeks. Until she saved enough for at least a month—in case finding a job was harder than she thought—she'd be scraping boat bottoms, hauling pots, and building fires.

  She reached for the scraper in the front pocket of her daddy's overalls and began scraping where he had left off. Dried barnacles and crusted algae fell to the floor.

  Daddy released another sigh and rubbed his forehead. She didn't mean to be so exasperating. It came naturally, according to her brother

  Walter.

  The barn door burst open behind her, sending a cold shock to Shirley's backside.

  Joan stepped in and tried to tug the door shut, but the cantankerous hinges didn't like winter any more than Daddy's joints. Daddy waved her into the barn and tugged the door to seal them in.

  “Thanks, Mr. D. Have you seen this, Shirl?” Her best friend held out a crumpled paper in her red glove. Joan's cheeks were nearly the color of her scarlet coat, and clouds of breath escaped from her mouth and nose.

  Shirley took the paper and smoothed the edges. A colored printing of a woman in a dark blue uniform raising an American flag stared back at her. “Enlist in the Coast Guard SPARS. Release a man to fight at sea. ”

  Joan's radiant smile almost reached her ears. “It's a new female-only reserve of the Coast Guard. The president approved its establishment last month. We'd be taking over duties on the home front to release the men to fight.”

  “We?” Shirley's heart raced at a pace that made her dizzy.

  Joan shook her arm, rattling the paper. “This is what we've been waiting for,” she whispered.

  The advertisement trembled in Shirley's hand. She looked to Daddy, who shook his head and turned away.

  Eleanor Roosevelt's words from her last “My Day” column played in Shirley's memory. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you'll be criticized anyway. ”

  Joan raised a brow at her, clearly confused as to why Shirley seemed torn after months of their dreaming of an opportunity like this. She took the paper from Shirley, turned it over, and pointed at the writing. “A Captain Webber is going to be recruiting single females or married women whose husbands are not members of the Coast Guard at the town hall in Machiasport tonight at six. If we really want to help our country, here's our chance.”

  A rhythmic scritch filled the silence that followed. Daddy had retrieved another scraper and gone back to work. Shirley didn't want to abandon her family or defy Daddy's wishes, but she was a grown woman. The independence that had been pounding at her heart's door since childhood shoved forth into the light.

  For herself and for her country, she'd be the first in line for Captain Webber or perish.

  CHAPTER 2

  Captain Leonard Webber's anger ran as red as the sun setting against the harbor. Machiasport Town Hall was stifling, unlike the frozen tundra outside. His breath made the glass fog, hindering his view of the water.

  The thought of water brought his brothers to mind, and his stomach seized. Lonnie had loved the ocean from the moment he'd first spied it on their trip to Bridgeport, around the age of five, if Leo remembered correctly. That would've made Leo ten. Watching the sheer joy on Lonnie's face was like Leo experiencing it for the first time himself.

  Donald had been the opposite. He'd feared the powerful waves but had loved the music and attractions of Pleasure Beach. Leo's younger brothers may have been identical twins, but where one left the womb ready to take on the world, the other had a cautious, sensible nature.

  How he missed them.

  Leo swallowed down the memories and stepped back to let the fog on the window dissipate. The vapor was so light, so thin, yet it had the power to completely obstruct the beauty lying beyond.

  Like the disaster at Pearl Harbor. A vapor of false security, of assumption that the blip on the radar screen was only a group of American B-17s arriving from California and not two hundred of Japan's best pilots flying loaded.

  Leo's hands balled into fists. More than half of the country's Pacific Fleet had been moored in that harbor. Why hadn't someone been more vigilant? Why had Japan's alliance with the Germans come as a surprise to the United States? Why hadn't American informants discovered that the Japanese were modifying their torpedoes to navigate the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor and sent warning?

  Despite what men said, there were no rules to war. Mistakes were made, sometimes people betrayed their countries, and there were times when the other guy won.

  He rubbed away the pressure that built behind his eyes. The pain was too fresh, and his thoughts were too loud in the silent room. A room that would soon be filled with exuberant women lining up to serve their country.

  Women.

  Not that he was against their help. By all means, they were just as capable as the men—in some respects more so—but hadn't they suffered enough already by sending their loved ones to war? By taking over the running of the household? By answering the knock at the door where a telegram awaited that would alter their lives forever?

  Like his mother.

  Three children out of four deceased. His sister—stillborn. The navy was doing its best to make sure Leo remained alive. The reason his superior had pulled him from commanding his own ship and landlocked him recruiting women for the SPARs. The government didn't wish to rob a mother of all her children. Honorable, but the enemy had poked a sleeping bear when they'd murdered his brothers, and Leo lusted after justice.

  Something touched his elbow, yanking him from the dark path his mind liked to travel of late. Commander Dorothy Stratton frowned. “Captain, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Got a little lost admiring the view, is all.”

  She peered out the same window he'd been blindly gazing out for who knew how long. “Yes, that's…quite a sight.”

  Said view was nothing more than a giant stack of lobster traps, ropes, and spare boat parts covered in a layer of snow tinted orange by the sunset.

  She studied him a moment longer. More questions were simmering beneath the surface, but thankfully she wasn't the prying type.

  “Recruits should start arriving within the hour,”
she said. “Everything is set up and ready to go. Do you need anything? The secretary has coffee, tea, water.”

  Leo blinked away the remaining haze of memories. “Coffee. I'll get it myself though. Thank you.”

  She tilted her head to an acute angle. “I'll fetch it for you, Captain. You enjoy your…view.”

  The commander retreated on sturdy shoes, spine as straight as a flagpole. Though he hadn't been thrilled with his reassignment, he'd been impressed with Commander Stratton from the day they'd met, when she'd been a lieutenant commander in the WAVES, the Navy Women's Reserve. The former dean of women at Purdue University had a repertoire to rival any man's. A bachelor of arts degree, a master of arts in psychology, and a doctorate in philosophy. Every accomplishment made her uniquely her and the perfect woman to direct the SPARs.

  It was her psychology degree that made him uncomfortable, however. He was proud of his ability to tuck away emotion. To do what was needed without feeling. Feelings could be processed later. Stratton had the ability to see straight to his core and spot every worm that feasted on his rotting insides.

  That scared him to death. Like a bulldog, she also smelled fear, which was most disconcerting.

  If even a handful of the women enlisting were as intuitive as Stratton, the coalition's chances of winning this war would skyrocket. That's what he prayed for—victory for the United States and her allies. Victory for all who valued human life.

  If all the death and destruction and evil in this world made Leo this sick, it must make the good Lord vomit.

  The squeaky leather of Stratton's shoes warned him of her return. “Here you are, Captain.”

  He took the offered mug and watched the swirls of steam curl as they lifted into the air, then disappeared. So like life. A vapor.

  Leo pasted on a smile. “I hear Mainers are a hearty breed. I look forward to seeing who enlists.”

  The corners of her lips twitched. “I wouldn't speak such thoughts in front of the recruits, Captain. No matter how tough or resilient we may be, remember, at the end of the day, we're still women and would like to be thought of as such.”

  Her scolding was soft and every bit as effective as his mother's. He supposed she was right. He'd been around men for too many years to recall the sensitivities of the female nature. His dreams of a wife and children had burst like a torpedo with the declaration of war.