A Matter of Trust

Book excerpt: Stanford University is out of reach for most Colorado teens in 1939. The opportunity to gain an education there is beyond nineteen-year-old Dena Caulter's wildest rural dreams. Yet Uncle Walter, a professor at the prestigious university, extends an open door to his home as well as the Howard Hughes Aeronautics program, and Dena is more than willing to spread her wings. Upon arriving in California, Dena feels her rustic roots showing but easily adapts to a more sophisticated lifestyle alongside her cousins, Emily and Stuart. Life may be offering opportunities and fun Dena never thought existed, but her naÏve world is about to get a huge dose of reality. Uncle Walter is chosen to work with Howard Hughes in Virginia as part of an elite, top secret team working on NACA technology, And The move threatens to break up the family with the mention of an unfathomable divorce. Talk of war also breaks up the previously pleasant conversations and laughter that once provided the soundtrack for gatherings between Dena and friends. With opinions voiced, she worries that the boy she secretly has a crush on-Clay-will be whisked away before she gets the chance to truly know him. Even her beloved brother wants to join a war effort she has yet to understand. Studying blueprints no longer offers the intriguing escape it once held for Dena. Struggling to find balance in a life moving faster than one of Mr. Hughes' airplanes, Dena must hold on To The Christian values her mother always instilled in her youth, especially when the bright future of her friends and family begins to dim under the threat of war and A Matter of Trust.