“You planning to marry him?”

  “Never!” The word blew out of her mouth across the night in a cloud of crystalline white.

  “John not good enough?” The sharp was back in her adversary’s voice.

  “I don’t believe in family. Not as a soldier, not when I could die crossing the next horizon.”

  They stared at each other in silence, three paces between them. One lost in the night, the other silhouetted by the home of her birth.

  At length Noreen rubbed at her arms.

  “You should come inside soon. John’s already missing you, though he hasn’t figured that out yet.”

  Noreen turned back to the house. Before stepping through the door, she paused, as if there was something more to say. But then she continued through.

  And Connie was left to stare at the old clapboard house, in wonder that John could be missing her.

  No one missed Connie Davis.

  32

  John slept like the dead. He and his brother had shared the big, old double bed until they were ten and Grumps’ sister had passed in her sleep. With her room opened up, John had the chance to sleep on his own.

  He and Larry had traded stories long into the night. They’d talked about the farm. The success of the last season, the high cost of irrigation water versus driving in a couple more wells.

  And they’d talked about flying, briefly. The topic too foreign to any of his kin to sustain the conversation for long. His family didn’t truly understand. They liked that he flew as a mechanic for the US Army. But they thought he’d do a tour and come home, as had he. Now that he’d been in the service a decade, the family wasn’t so sure how to think about it.

  Larry’d come to Campbell once on a visit and been smitten with quite a crush on the then Captain Beale. He’d sworn to ten years of abstinence in mourning the day she’d gotten married. As John had expected, it had lasted about three days until Tamara Zulaski had thrown herself at him.

  John had gone barhopping with Larry and Crazy Tim more than once during that weeklong visit. He and Tim drinking soda because they were always on call for flight duty, Larry getting mellow and happy, but no more. Larry and Tim had hit it off, trading girl stories late into the night. John had brought Crazy Tim home a few times since. Each time, he and Larry had picked up right where they left off. They were his favorite two guys, but no girl could figure out how to pin either one down for more than a handful of months at a time.

  When he’d noted as much to Paps, he’d laughed and tapped the center of John’s chest and gone on about pots and kettles. John always had more than his fair share of luck with the ladies, but he didn’t talk about them like war stories.

  Paps was the one who came closest to understanding why John flew. He’d spent two years pounding the ground near the end of ’Nam. But his had been a different war. In a different era. One tour and he’d been done and came back to marry John’s mother, have kids, and work the farm.

  John lay a moment longer in the sunlight that streamed across the bed.

  Thought of the one thing that no one had asked him. Not openly at the dinner table, not covertly before shooing him off to bed. The question that his brother had not asked him last night, except with a long silence before they finally slept.

  Sergeant Connie Davis.

  One helluva good question.

  She’d stood on the edge of his awareness all evening. Observing. Smiling. A gentle touch that left him as aware of her as he was of his family. An easy mix, a happy blend.

  He swung out of bed and planted his feet on the floor. Cold wood worn smooth by ten thousand mornings. John fished a fresh shirt out of his pack and headed for the bathroom. Coffee, eggs, and bacon scents wafted up the stairs. Maybe he’d get a shower later. Then he thought about all of his hard work in Nevada yesterday, then six hours travel, and he turned toward the bathroom hoping someone had left him hot water.

  Twenty minutes later, John thudded down the stairs a new man. Give him a mug of coffee big enough and strong enough to fuel a helicopter, and he’d be good to go.

  No one in the sun-filled kitchen, but the oven was on warm. He hauled out the covered platter his mom had left in the oven. He briefly considered dishing a portion of it onto a plate. Instead, he grabbed a kitchen towel against the hot platter, picked up a fork, and dug in.

  He leaned his butt against the warm oven and closed his eyes as he chewed. This is what it was about. At moments like this he couldn’t remember why he ever left.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw exactly why he had. It was to fly with people like the Majors and Crazy Tim. And Archie and Kee. It was to make these people safe in their homes with kitchens this warm and this safe in the freest country on the planet. The one who had borne him and the ones who’d taken him in as family.

  Protecting them came at a price. And was worth every drop of sweat, every aching muscle, and maybe, just maybe, worth the good people who had died beside him as they flew. He sent a silent prayer for safety to the folks still flying nightly sorties out of Bati air base. He glanced at the clock. They were probably coming out of an evening preflight briefing about now. Grab some food, then fly.

  God but his mama could cook. He shoveled down another mouthful of French toast with farm butter and real sorghum syrup and poured himself a steaming mug from the old steel coffee pot. Balancing it on one end of the platter, he wondered where everyone was hiding.

  The kitchen clock answered part of that. Ten o’clock. Grumps, Paps, and Larry would be out working for hours already. Fixing a combine, turning the corn stubble under to rot until spring, weeding the south beet field. If they’d done beets this year. It bothered John briefly that he didn’t know.

  Noreen would be taking her first-semester, senior-year finals at Northeastern State. How did that happen? Twenty-two, an honors major in pre-med. Pre-med? She was supposed to be a model or married to the perfect man. Instead she was talking about emergency medicine. The first Wallace through college, and she was doing it with honors.

  Mama must have gone to Janice’s instead of the other way round so that the kids didn’t wake him.

  He started to laugh, and choked on a mouthful of homemade bacon that he managed to wash down with more coffee before it killed him. No, they weren’t worried about his sleep. Mama and Janice would be out rousin’ the troops. There’d be a hell of a party this weekend. Christmas but four days out.

  There would be a serious lot shopping to do.

  That stopped him. He’d grabbed a couple presents over the last month or so. Had a deal with Larry ’cause Janice couldn’t keep a secret to save her sweet soul and Noreen was too much of a snoop. He’d mailed packages home to his brother as he found them in Afghanistan or Italy or wherever SOAR led him, and Larry would have them hidden away somewhere until Christmas Eve.

  But he hadn’t thought about Connie.

  Wow! And what was he supposed to get her? Something to take apart and fix? He’d flown with her for three weeks now, been in the same unit for a couple months before that, and he had no idea what to get her. “Pretty damn sad, Wallace. Pretty damn sad to not know that much about a person.”

  And where was she anyway? Probably off with Mom and Janice and the kids.

  He chewed on another piece of bacon but stopped half through.

  No. That didn’t sound right.

  She’d be more likely to be out doing the winter plowing with Paps. It had been good to see the two of them hit it off right away.

  But she’d been quiet last night. Quieter than normal Connie standards, which was saying something. He strolled across the living room and down the hall, stabbing up more scrambled eggs as he went.

  But his old room was spotless. The bed made Army tight. Could bounce a quarter off the old quilt. He’d certainly never made it up like that. Her kit sat in front of his dresser, his old high school football trophies across the top. Her bag all perfectly neat, packed. She wouldn’t have to break stride to get her gear and be headed out the door. Exactly as Henderson had ordered.

  He’d scattered his crap around, as much old habits coming to the surface as to piss off Larry, who’d always been too neat-freak anal anyway.

  So, where was she?

  He listened to the house. Nothing. No one here. Not a creak or groan in the old wood.

  “Strange to sleep in your bed.”

  He spun fast enough that he lost the coffee mug. It spun through the air, leaving a trail of only a few drops. Thankfully, he’d drained it.

  Connie moved forward from the door where she’d been leaning on the jamb and snagged the cup out of the air.

  “You’d…” He swallowed against a dry throat. “You’d have made a good wide receiver.”

  “We never lost.”

  “We?”

  “You don’t think I’ve spent seven years in the Army and never played ball?”

  He thought about the pickup games he’d played over the years. Army was rough, they played for keeps. Football played as a contest of who was tough and who was tougher.

  “Really?”

  She left him hanging for a long moment, then flashed that killer smile as she returned his mug to his platter. And stopped there, not two steps away. So close he could smell soap and shampoo. He breathed in again, and that unique scent of Connie came through.

  Damn! was all his brain managed.

  “No. But I played first base in Fort Rucker varsity softball for most of high school. And no one beat us. Ever.”

  That was an image he could live with pretty happily. A uniform stretched tight on a beautiful woman. On a woman athlete. One leg stretched back to touch the bag, leaning all the way out to snag the throw. Every curve of muscle etched clear in the moment.

  He could feel the sweat on his brow. “That’s a sight I would have enjoyed.”

  Connie nodded. Not embarrassed. Not coy. Simply matter of fact. “So, are you going to eat all day?”

  “I can think of something else I’d like to do more.” Couldn’t believe he’d said it.

  For the longest moment, she simply watched him. Then she slid the plate from his nerveless fingers and slipped it onto the dresser top between his trophies.

  Without hesitation, she took the step forward that placed her body against his, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him down to her.

  For the first time, his hands slipped around her waist. With women in his past, his hands had either encircled impossibly slender waists that had no strength to them or there’d been plenty there to hold on to. He liked women and was thankful that women liked him. They were a joy to hold no matter what size they came in.

  But Connie’s waist was the first that had ever fit his hands so perfectly. His fingertips rested against the soldier-strong muscles of her back right at the moment before they descended into that most feminine of curves. Connie had great hips. With his thumbs, he could feel the tight gut muscles from years of training, of a thousand miles run, of ten thousand crunches. In his hands, for the first time in his life, he held a woman of as near-perfect form as nature and the best physical training on the planet could produce.

  Then she pulled his lips to hers and he was gone. Apple pie and cinnamon washed through his brain. Warm tropical and deep spice. Her mouth opened, welcomed, joined.

  He’d thought Connie meek or timid. But that wasn’t right. And his thoughts were in no condition to puzzle out the answer to that. Rather, he simply fed upon those soft lips and the strong tongue. And pulled her in, never removing hands from hips. Pulled her in until their bodies pressed together in a way that allowed no secrets.

  Her arms around his neck pulled her chest against his, twin swells of soft heat. And hip-to-hip… all he could do was groan into her mouth as she drank him in.

  When at last she backed off, he refused to let go, and she didn’t complain. She simply lay her head against his shoulder. Stood there and snuggled against him as if they’d stood like this every day for years. He rested his cheek atop her hair.

  Soft. Her hair softer than it looked. Softer than he’d imagined.

  “This is nice.”

  He could feel the gentle buzz of her voice where her chest still pressed against his. Nice? He’d had women say several things when he held them close, and “nice” wasn’t real prominent on the list. Though it was hard to be offended when she felt this way.

  “Your sister wants to know if I’m trying to marry you.” His sister? Marriage? What?

  “Uh, what did you say?” he asked before the statement fully registered.

  She pushed back enough to look into his face, but not to drive them apart.

  “Of course I said I was.”

  That cleared his brain faster than a fresh mug of steaming coffee. He could feel the blood drain right out of his face, leaving a chill on his cheeks that slid down his spine. He’d brought home a crazy—

  “Actually, I’m joking.”

  He tried not to reveal the relief that flooded into him, but when you held someone this close, there wasn’t a pulse or a breath that wasn’t clear as an onboard intercom between them.

  “But it’s nice that you care.” Again she slipped her head against his shoulder and sighed as she snuggled there a moment.

  “Maybe we’ll jes’ be usin’ each other for sex?” He tried to make it light and funny. It came out a rather choked grunt from a throat gone dry.

  She shrugged in his arms. “Probably. Though it will piss Noreen off pretty bad.”

  Like he was going to let Nori have any say in the matter of what he did with…

  Sex with Connie Davis? Somehow he hadn’t quite gone there. He knew her kiss blew his knees into butter, and her smile blew his brain into next week. He’d invited her home for Christmas, but he hadn’t quite connected that they would…

  Here? In his childhood room?

  Now? Who knew when his parents were coming back? But he could feel the heat returning to his body. To have this woman against him, skin-to-skin. To feel himself inside her. That most certainly got his body’s attention.

  “I told her I didn’t believe in marriage. I can’t tell if that calmed her down or upset her more.”

  John felt the cold wash down his body, an ice chill this time. Freezing every reaction that had begun pounding him moments before with its heat.

  Connie sensed it, must have felt the change. She looked once more up into his eyes. That assessing, measuring gaze of hers. Then her expression grew serious.

  He felt her moving away from him though his hands still encircled her waist, rested on those incredible hips.

  “I don’t, John. Not for a soldier. Not when I could be dead the next moment. It’s not fair. What my father did…” She stopped, the pain a sharp slice across her speech. Then a whisper. “It’s not fair.”

  Long before he could speak, she’d stepped from his arms, gathered his plate, and headed back toward the kitchen.

  33

  “You okay, hon?”

  “Fine, Mama.” Through a day and another night home, John still hadn’t puzzled out what he was feeling. Connie had shot his blood pressure to the moon twice in as many minutes, then he’d barely seen her for twenty-four hours.

  He poked at his breakfast, but he hadn’t slept well last night and his heart wasn’t in it. Again, by the time he dragged himself up, everyone was gone except his mom.

  “You don’t look so fine, Johnny.”

  Without thinking about it, he snagged her around the waist and pulled her against him. She raised the hot fry pan she’d been serving him from so that she didn’t burn him as he sat at the kitchen table. He breathed in the smells of home. A fresh-washed apron, flour, cooking oil, something sweet and something like forever, the smells that were always his mother. He’d been gone half a year and been home but a day and two nights. He’d never get enough of his mother’s smell.

  She kissed him atop the head, then shoved back, leaving a pair of fried fresh eggs on top of his toast, so rich and yellow-orange they looked like they’d trapped the sun.

  She returned to the stove. Setting the pan aside to cool on the back burner.

  “I don’t hear you eating my eggs. That’s not like you, either.” John sliced his fork down until it clicked against the plate, releasing the yolk and snagging a bite of toast along with it. He ate it, drank some juice, ate another bite, and looked up to see her sitting beside him at the table in the empty kitchen.

  “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”

  “Her name is Connie.”

  “I know her name. And you know that’s not what I’m saying.”

  He nodded, he did know. Between him and Larry, his mama had welcomed a long line of girls into her kitchen. Sometimes it felt as if they followed him home like stray kittens. Michelle would just happen to ride the school bus five stops past her own house and just happen to notice that at his farm. Time after time. And she’d need a ride or an escort for the long walk back. Nancy showed up a lot on her bicycle. Later in her dad’s pickup.

  And Mama had fed each one, offered them comfort, sometimes advice. But none had stuck. Not Tanya. Not Bernice. And Mama had never said a word about Janine, the brunette who couldn’t put together three words without “like” being at least one of them, or the redhead who’d lasted until she’d found out John had no intention of living anywhere beyond Muskogee or…

  “So, what are you saying?” He cut off a bit of sausage, dunked it in the puddle of sorghum syrup he’d pooled in one corner of his plate.

  “You’re different about this one. About Connie.”

  He looked into her eyes. “As dark as the good earth,” he’d heard Paps say a thousand times of his wife’s eyes, “and twice as deep.”

  He set himself to protest. But you couldn’t fake it with Mama. He hadn’t pulled it off when he was eight, eighteen, or now at twenty-eight. Keeping his mouth shut didn’t work, not when Mama was on the warpath. A quarter Cherokee that showed in her height, her long dark hair, and her spine made of adamantine steel. “They none of them measured up to you, Mama. That was a problem. I’d bring a girl into this kitchen and she’d look plain ridiculous.”