One Was a Soldier

Book 7: Fergusson/Van Alstyne Mysteries

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Genres: Police Procedurals; Military Thrillers

Synopsis

At the Millers Kill community center, five veterans gather to work on adjusting to life after war. Reverend Clare Fergusson has returned from Iraq with a head full of bad memories she’s using alcohol to wipe out. And down-on-her-luck Tally McNabb has brought home a secret—a fatal one.

Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne just wants Clare to settle down and get married—to him. But when he rules Tally McNabb’s death a suicide, Clare sides with the other vets against him. Russ and Clare’s unorthodox investigation will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny Adirondack town to the upper ranks of the Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Release date: April 12, 2011

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

ONE WAS A SOLDIER (Begin Reading)
I BELIEVE IN…THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS…

—The Apostles' Creed, The Book of Common Prayer

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

Sarah Dowling's first thought, peering through the wire-reinforced glass of the community center's door, was that they were an odd group. Usually returned vets had a lot to talk about with one another, even if they were embarrassed to be seen in counseling. She would have thought that in a tiny town like Millers Kill—she couldn't help it, she still saw the place as a cross between a Thomas Kinkade painting and Bedford Falls—they'd be even easier together, but none of these soldiers were speaking to each other.

The two men unracking metal chairs could have been father and son; both middling height, in khakis and button-downs, both with regulation crew cuts—the fifty-something graying, the thirty-something dark brown. The younger man kept glancing sideways at the older as if looking for clues on how to behave. He didn't pay attention to the young woman opening the chairs in a ragged circle, watching him. She was maybe midtwenties but dressed like a teen, with a little muffin top squeezed between low-rider jeans and a mini-tee. Sarah would have to include her no-romantic-relationships spiel in tonight's session.

The other woman in the group was a decade or more older than the little cutie, wearing unrelieved black that almost hid her taut physique. As Sarah watched, she stirred spoon after spoon of sugar into coffee poured from the community hall's industrial-sized coffeemaker. The last participant—Sarah frowned. A young man, maybe still a teenager. His hair had grown out, indicating he'd been out of the service for several months, at least. Well, she could have guessed that even if he had still been wearing it shaved to the skin. They didn't let double amputees out of Walter Reed until at least four months after admission. His presence here worried her. If he was having post-amputation issues, he ought to be seeing a psychologist at the VA Hospital, not hanging around an LCT's group.

She checked her watch, then gathered up her stack of handouts. Time to get the road on the show. She opened the office door and strode into the meeting room, the soles of her shoes squeaking on the polished wooden floor. Beyond the closed door, she could hear the faint thump and holler of the basketball game going on in the gym. On the far wall, construction-paper letters spelling out HELLO SEPTEMBER were taped over bright cutouts of apples and school buses. A preschool met here mornings. She thought of the stiflingly tasteful tenth-story office she had left behind in Silver Spring. Free at last, free at last.

"Hello, everyone." She gestured toward the chairs. "Why don't we get started? If we have any latecomers, they can join us in progress." She smiled and took her own advice, selecting the twelve o'clock position in the circle. The woman in black pulled two chairs out of the way to make room for the teen in the wheelchair. The rest of the gang of five followed suit, scraping and clunking the cheap chairs until they were all roughly equidistant from one another, and twice as far from her.

"I'm Sarah Dowling," she began. "I'm a licensed clinical therapist. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, that means I've been trained in psychology and in facilitating therapy, but I am not allowed to diagnose or to prescribe medications." She stood up and handed the first stack of papers to the graying man seated to her left. "Take one and pass it along." She resumed her seat. "I've just recently relocated here from the Washington, D.C., area, so this is my first group in New York State. However, I've been doing veterans' counseling and running the on-base family mental health program for the past four years at Fort Meade."

The older man nodded in approval. Officer, she thought.

"Just to make sure we're all on the same page, this is not a Veterans Affairs program, although it does receive funding from VA, as well as from New York State and the National Institute of Mental Health." She leaned forward. "Participating in our group will not affect your VA benefits or treatment, nor will it be in any official record." For those in the group who would be continuing on in the service, that was often critical. Seeking out therapy was still viewed in many quarters of the military as suspect. Talking about feelings was not a high priority for the average CO.

"I apologize for scheduling the first session on Labor Day, but the community center gave me this time slot, and I didn't want to lose it." She smiled at them. "I was afraid I'd be the only person here, so believe me when I say I'm glad to meet you all. Why don't we start by introducing ourselves, and saying a little something about our service." She looked encouragingly at the older man.

He looked around the circle, knitted up his brows as if he didn't understand the reasoning behind her request, then shrugged. "Sure. If you think it's helpful." He straightened in his seat. "I'm George Stillman. The Third. I'm a doctor and a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. I was with a forward surgical team outside Mosul."

"When did you get back, George?"

He smiled a little. "Please. Call me Trip. I hear George and I look around for my father."

Sarah nodded.

"Oh. I got back from my second tour of duty about two months ago."

The kid in the wheelchair looked at him oddly. "Three months ago. You were here in June."

The doctor stared at the kid for a moment, then wrinkled his face into an apologetic smile. "Sorry. We had a death in the family this summer, and I swear it's thrown my whole sense of time out of kilter." He tapped his palm. "I'd better start carrying my PalmPilot around again. My wife calls it my portable brain."

Sarah smiled reassuringly at him before gesturing to the young man. "Would you introduce yourself?"

"Yes, ma'am." Marine, she thought, just as he said, "I'm Lance Corporal Willem Ellis, of the 5th Marine Division." He looked down at the prosthetics strapped to his knees. "Formerly of the 5th Marine Division." He glanced back up at her, then dropped his gaze. "I was only in-country a little over two months when this happened, so I can't say I saw much traumatizing action."

"How 'bout when your mother found out you'd enlisted?" Sarah was surprised by the black-clad woman's accent, a southern Virginia drawl that sounded more out of place up here in the North Country than her own clipped urban consonants.

Willem Ellis laughed at the woman's remark. "Yeah, I guess that counts as combat. Or at least battle royal."

"And you are…?"

The woman slouched in her seat. "Clare Fergusson." There was a pause. Sarah made a go-on gesture. Clare Fergusson sighed. "Major in the Guard, 142nd Aviation Support. Stationed in Ramadi, Tikrit, and Kirkuk." She took a long drink from her coffee cup. Nothing more seemed forthcoming.

"Aviation support?" Sarah said.

"She flies helicopters," the brown-haired man said. Before Sarah could ask, he went on, "I'm Eric McCrea. I'm a sergeant. Also in the Guard."

"Did you serve with Major Fergusson?"

"No." His gaze slid away from her and came to rest on the doctor. His lip curled up in what might have been a sneer. "I'm an MP."

"What were you assigned to?" the young woman demanded. "Were you on base patrol? At the Green Zone?"

His lips thinned. "I was on prisoner detail. Camp Bucca."

Sarah kept herself from reacting, but the rest of the group stared. They had all seen the pictures.

"That figures." The young woman folded her arms over her generous chest.

"That has nothing to do with it." Eric McCrea's cheeks blotched with color. "You think you know what it was like—"

Sarah held up her hands. "Stop right there." She gave both McCrea and the girl a measured look. "Let's not go jumping in the deep end before we've finished getting our toes wet." She dropped her hand, opening it to the last person in the circle. "Why don't you introduce yourself."

The brunette braced her hands on her thighs. "My name's Mary McNabb, but everybody calls me Tally." She looked at Stillman. "Sorta like you, I guess. I was formerly a specialist, formerly in the United States Army."

"Where did you serve, Tally?"

"Camp Anaconda."

That got some whistles from the rest. "Mortaritaville," Fergusson said.

"Yeah, well." McNabb ran her hands through her short hair.

Stillman snapped his fingers. "Mary McNabb. Fractured left ankle. A car dropped on you?"

McNabb laughed. "I was helping my husband fix it up for resale. I'm impressed you remember."

Sarah put her hands up again. "Wait." She looked around the circle. "Do you all know each other?"

They looked at each other. They looked at her. "Yes," they all said.

"It's a very small town." Clare Fergusson's voice was dry.

Sarah stopped herself before she could ask them to explain. She'd need a clearer picture of their interrelationships eventually, but right now she wanted to focus on opening the first door to whatever issues they might have. "We'll get into that later," she said. "I'd like to start by discussing your homecomings."

MONDAY, JUNE 6

Their dispatcher, Harlene, had managed to get a red, white, and blue WELCOME HOME, ERIC banner printed up and hung from the front of the Millers Kill Police Department. It billowed and snapped in the warm wind gusting up Main Street.

"We gonna have to do the same thing for Kevin, when he gets back?" Deputy Chief Lyle MacAuley squinted in the bright morning sunshine.

The youngest officer on the MKPD had been shipped off for temporary detached duty almost a year ago, first with the Capital Area Drug Enforcement Association in Albany, then with the Special Investigation Division of the Syracuse PD, which saw more major crimes in two weeks than Millers Kill might see in a year.

"Kevin Flynn's welcome home is going to be a bump up in pay grade, if I can ram it down the aldermen's throats." Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne shook his head. "What we really need is another officer on the force. That way, we wouldn't be overscheduling everybody. I worry that we're putting Eric back on the streets too soon. A few days ago he was eating MREs and holding down a guard post in Umm Qasr."

Lyle raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed. The only place I could name in Iraq is Baghdad, and don't ask me to find it on a map."

"I was in that neck of the woods, remember? First Gulf War." He rubbed the back of his neck. "God, doesn't that feel like an age ago."

"It was. I think Eric was finishing up high school. Kevin was probably still in diapers."

"Hunh." And Lieutenant Clare Fergusson had been twenty-three. "They probably already have our beds reserved up at the Infirmary."

"Speak for yourself. I plan to be shot to death by the enraged father of a pair of twenty-year-old twins."

Russ laughed. Lyle gave him a sideways look. "You hear from the reverend lately?"

Russ's laugh died away. "A phone call five days ago. The 142nd is still on target to ship home in three weeks." He tried to smile. "Of course, they were on target to leave last March, too. Until their tour got extended."

"She should'a gone into the chaplain's corps instead of air support. She'd have been home by now." Lyle hooked his thumbs in his duty belt. "A year and a half's a long time."

"Oh, yeah." The longest damn eighteen months of his life, and that included a tour in Vietnam, going cold turkey on cigarettes, and quitting booze. Sitting home night after night, watching the casualty counts mount on the news—hell, giving up drinking again would have been easier. Drinking and smoking.

"How's she sounding?"

"Like she always sounds. Chipper. Everything's fine. She's fine. The weather's fine." Russ glanced up at the banner, the granite, the clear blue sky. "You know what the temperature was in Basra that day? A hundred and five degrees. I saw it on CNN." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can't decide if she's so happy flying helicopters again she's forgotten there's a war on, or if she's babying me so I don't…" He looked at Lyle. "You know how many helos have crashed or been shot down in Iraq since the beginning of the year? Fifteen. You wanna know how many pilots have been killed?"

"No." Lyle held up a hand. "Stop it, or you're going to make yourself crazy. Crazier," he amended. "Eric's home safe and sound, and your lady'll get here, too."

Russ touched the spot where, beneath his uniform blouse and undershirt, Clare's silver cross rested against his chest. She had given it to him for safekeeping the day she left, and he hadn't taken it off yet. He might not believe in a god, but that didn't seem to stop him from putting his faith in superstition.

"Eric." Lyle's tone was deliberately workaday. "When I spoke with him, he was hot to get back into investigation, but if you think he needs more time, I can find some desk work to keep him busy."

"What, running down addresses for check bouncers and updating the evidence lists? The last thing I want is for him to think we don't need him anymore and head off for better-paying pastures. He's our best investigator, after you."

MacAuley touched one bristly gray eyebrow and smirked.

"Don't look so smug," Russ said. "Consider the competition."

"A diamond in an ashtray is still a diamond," Lyle said with immense dignity.

Which made Russ think of his recent purchase. He hadn't told Lyle about that. He hadn't told anybody, yet. What if she turned him down? A fifty-two-year-old widower with a bum hip wasn't any great prize. His phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket. "Van Alstyne here."

"His wife says he's on his way." Harlene, who had been at the MKPD longer than Russ and Lyle combined, didn't believe in deferring to rank. "Get in here or you'll spoil the surprise."

"We're coming." He shut his phone. "Harlene says it's time to get into the squad room and hide behind a desk."

"I think she does these surprise parties as an excuse to stuff us with sweets until we can't move."

Russ thwacked Lyle on his still-flat belly. "She's got a way to go with you, then, old-timer."

Lyle tugged his uniform blouse into place. "I gotta keep my boyish figure. Just in case I find the woman of my dreams hanging around a church or something."



Eric thought he might never have had a better moment, standing in the squad room, getting roasted by his brother officers. Harlene was squeezing his arm like she was testing to see if he was done, and the big boxed assortment from the Kreemy Kakes diner was on the scarred table where the chief liked to sit, and the old paint was still flaking beneath the windows, and nothing was changed. Everything was the same.

"Good Lord," Harlene said. "How many chin-ups do they make you do in the army? You feel like you could pick me up, and let me tell you, there's not many men as could do that." She slapped her ample hips.

Eric wrapped his arms around her midsection and hoisted her a few inches off the floor. She whooped. "Now, don't tell Harold," he said, resettling her solidly on her feet, "but I did it all for you." In fact, there just hadn't been anything to do on his off-hours except sleep and pump iron. He'd heard up in the Green Zone, they had round-the-clock computers, and movies, and clubs, but in Camp Bucca, the only diversions were once-a-week access to a staticky phone line and the occasional smuggled-in bottle of hajji juice—Iraqi moonshine that was rumored to be al Qaeda's secret weapon against the occupancy.

"Jesum, Eric." MacAuley hitched himself up against one of the desks. "We oughta put you in one of them beefcake calendars."

Eric laughed. "I'll have to ask my wife first."

"Might improve the recruitment rates down to the academy." Harlene fanned herself.

"Only if you're trying to get girls and gays." Paul Urquhart laced his hands across his expansive middle, as if a beer belly were the mark of a real man. The chief frowned.

"How do you know we don't already have someone gay on the force, Paul?" Hadley Knox picked through a Kreemy Kakes box. Despite her regulation uniform and cropped hair, she looked more like a model in a commercial than a real cop. "After all, we've already got a girl." She ripped a doughnut in half and popped one piece in her mouth. "Come to think of it, I don't recall ever hearing about you going out on a date."

Urquhart straightened, quivering with outrage. "I'm divorced! I've got kids!"

Noble Entwhistle squinted, concentrating. He wasn't the fastest runner off the block, but he had a prodigious memory for people and places. "Dr. Dvorak, the ME, was divorced. He's got grown kids."

"Yeah, and now he's living with a big bearded guy." Hadley leaned toward Urquhart, her brown eyes filled with sympathy. "We're your fellow officers, Paul. You don't have to hide who you are with us."

"That's enough," the chief said.

Hadley grinned and bit into the other half of her doughnut.

Eric was laughing into his fist. It was so familiar, so normal and uncomplicated. "Man, I missed this place."

"I'm glad to hear it." The chief beckoned to him and stepped away to one of the tall windows. Eric followed him farther out of earshot of the others, who were continuing with jokes at Urquhart's expense. The chief looked at him, steady, not smiling. "How are you? Really?"

Eric spread his hands. "You're ex-army, chief. You know what it's like."

"Yeah," the chief agreed, "but I don't know if what's going on over there is like Desert Storm or Vietnam."

Eric thought of the wire. The prison barracks. "It's not like either of them. I think…" The heat, pounding air and dust and dogs flat beneath it. Patrolling dirty streets down to the scummy harbor. "It's its own thing. It's…" The eyes of men, hating on him so hard that if they had had anything—sticks, stones, bottles—he would be dead. He snapped to focus again. Looked at the chief.

"It wasn't any Caribbean cruise, but I'm okay." He glanced around at the squad room. "And I gotta tell you, being back here, with all of you guys, is—" He didn't know what to do, shake his head or nod. "It feels real good."

"Good." The chief slapped him lightly on his upper arm. "Look, if at any time you're feeling stressed out, or if you feel like you need to dial back a bit—"

Eric shook his head. "That's not going to happen."

"If it does," the chief emphasized, "I want you to come to me. You don't have to give me any details. You don't have to justify yourself. Just give me the word, and we'll lighten things up for you for as long as you need it."

"That's not going to happen," Eric said again. And it wasn't. Home was stressful. Trying to deal with a wife who'd been running everything her way for a year was stressful. Discovering his son had gone from being a sweet, goofy kid to a moody irritable teen while he was away was stressful. Getting back to chasing down bad guys? That was pure gravy.

FRIDAY, JUNE 24

"You here to arrest somebody?"

The man with the fistful of helium balloons next to Russ grinned. "Huh?" Russ's focus had been on the hangar-sized doors at the end of the armory. He couldn't decide if staring at the damn things would make the 142nd Aviation Support Battalion appear sooner or not.

The man thumbed toward Russ's brown-and-khakis. "That's not the sort of uniform you expect to see here." He squinted at the MKPD shoulder badge. "Millers Kill, huh? I'm from Gloversville. We used to play you guys at b-ball. You rode us hard for the Class E championship in '69."

"I was on that team," Russ said. "Class of '70."

"Me, too!" The man laughed. "Hair down to my nipples and a big ‘Peace Now' headband I never took off. Who'd'a guessed I'd wind up here waiting for my girl to get back from war?" He bounced his balloon bouquet in the air.

"Yeah. Same here. Well. Not the long hair bit." Russ clutched the green-paper-wrapped roses he'd gotten from Yarter's. They'd looked a lot better a few hours ago. How had all those petals fallen off? "The waiting for my girl part."

A harried-looking woman elbowed her way through the crowd, one little kid on her hip and a six-or seven-year-old dragging along in her grip. "There you are," she said. "You would not believe how far we had to go to reach a bathroom." She handed the little one over to the balloon man. "Go to Grandpa, now."

"Grandpa! Grandpa!" The seven-year-old pirouetted and leaped. "I think I saw the buses!"

The balloon guy—the grandpa—nodded toward Russ. "Turns out I played basketball against this fella in high school. He's meeting his daughter, too."

His wife smiled at Russ, amused. "You'd better stop whacking those flowers against your leg or there won't be anything left for your girl."

He could feel the tips of his ears turning pink. "It's not—I'm—" He was saved by the rumble of the buses, bumping over the slow strip into the cavernous building, a sound immediately drowned out by the roar of the waiting crowd.

Russ didn't join in. He watched the buses maneuvering into place, watched the exhaust rising to the fluorescent lights above, felt the sound and the light rising in him, lifting him off his feet, until he wouldn't have been surprised to find himself floating through the air like one of those helium balloons.

The buses parked. The doors slid open. Guardsmen started shuffling down the steps, anonymous in urban camo. Was that her? No. Not that one, either.

He suddenly couldn't stand it, couldn't stand one more minute of not seeing her; after counting off the seasons, and then the months, and then the days, and the hours, he realized all the waiting had accumulated, and he was going to be crushed beneath it.

Clare, he mouthed without speaking. A stab of pain made him look at his palm. He had driven one of the roses' thorns through the paper and into his flesh.

The dancing girl had stilled and was looking at his hand. Then she looked up at him. She had hazel eyes and a pointed nose.

"It's really hard to wait," he said.

She nodded. "My mommy says count to ten, ten times. She's a helicopter pilot."

"So's my…friend."

The little girl reached into her pocket and pulled out a grubby tissue. She handed it to him. "Thanks," he said, wiping up the blood.

"Pumpkin, I think I see Mommy," her grandmother said. The girl whirled and danced away. That's what their daughter would look like, he realized. His and Clare's.

Then she stepped off the bus. He almost didn't recognize her. Beneath her black beret, her hair was short, bleached lighter than he had ever seen it, and her face, all points and angles, was deeply tanned. She was looking around, scanning the crowd, her eyes alight with hope and anxiety.

The band struck up a tune, combining with squeals from children and the howls of babies to create an echoing cacophony that guaranteed she wouldn't hear him call her name if he was standing five feet away instead of fifty. Instead, he willed her to find him. Clare. Clare. Clare.

She paused for a second, closing her eyes, breathing in as if she could taste the far-off Adirondack air above the fog of bus exhaust and machine oil and human sweat. Then she opened her eyes and met his over the heads of the crowd.

Her mouth formed a perfect O, then curved into a heartbreaking smile. She blinked hard and raised one hand, and then she was bumped from behind by the next man in line and stumbled forward.

He watched as she lined up with the rest of the brigade and came to attention. When the last guardsman was off the bus and in formation, the band wheezed to a stop. There was a shuffle of dignitaries and brass at the front, and then the families were welcomed, and a minister gave an invocation, and the CO read a letter from the governor, and the XO gave a speech about the brigade's accomplishments in Iraq, and Russ thwacked and thwacked and thwacked the roses against his leg, until he looked down to see his well-worn service boot decorated with crimson petals.

Come on already! Come on! What jackass had decided it was a good idea to separate family members from soldiers they hadn't seen for eighteen months? When he'd come home from Vietnam, he'd just stumbled off a Pan Am flight from Hawaii. Yeah, it wasn't a hero's welcome, but at least he got to hug his mom and his sister, not stand at parade rest in front of an officer who sounded like he was running for Congress.

Finally, finally, the official orders terminating the brigade's deployment were read, and the CO dismissed his command, his words drowned out at the end by a howl of glee from the waiting crowd as they surged forward, mothers and fathers and wives and children, arms outstretched, too eager to wait any longer.

Russ stayed where he was as civilians swept past him. She had seen him. She had marked him. He had no doubt she would find him. Sure enough, there she was, wrestling her way through the crowd, beret stowed in her epaulet, rucksack over her shoulder, the reverse image of the woman he had last seen walking away from him beneath a gray January sky eighteen months ago. Major Clare Fergusson. She kept her eyes on him the whole while, an undeveloped smile on her face. She halted in front of him. Dropped the rucksack to the concrete floor. Looked up at him.

"Promised you I'd come back." Her faint Virginia drawl sounded out of place against the North Country Yankee burrs and flat Finger Lakes twangs all around them.

She didn't leap into his arms. They had been circumspect for so long, always standing apart, controlling their eyes and hands like nuns in a medieval abbey. They had no easy familiarity with each other's body. The two weeks they had been lovers—a year and a half ago, before she shipped out—seemed like a fever dream to him now. The small velvet box he had stuffed in his pants pocket suddenly felt like a five-pound brick.

He thrust the roses toward her. Two more ragged petals fell to the concrete floor. The bouquet looked as if a goat had been chewing on it. She bit her lip, just barely keeping a smile from breaking out. "Why, thank you, Chief Van Alstyne." She took the flowers in both hands and buried her face in what remained of them. She had tiny lines etched along the outsides of her eyes that hadn't been there when she left.

"They don't have much of a scent." He shoved his hands in his pockets, brushed the velvet box, jerked them out again. "But wait till you get to St. Alban's. You missed the lilacs, but the roses are amazing. You can smell 'em halfway across the park."

She looked up at him over the fraying flowers, her smile changing to something wistful. "I can't wait."

He stepped toward her just as she bent to reshoulder her rucksack. She let go, opening her arms in time for him to nearly knock her over as he ducked to grab the duffel for her.

"Screw this." He kicked the canvas sack to one side and took her by the shoulders. "C'mere." She folded inside his embrace as if she had always been there, and he kept his arms hard around her, his cheek resting on her too light, too short hair. Letting the reality of her, the warmth and weight and solidity of her, sink into his bones.

"Holding on," she said against his chest.

"Not letting go."

"I want to go home." She tipped her face up. "Take me home."

He smiled. "Petersburg, Virginia?"

She shook her head. "No. Millers Kill, New York."

The parking lot was throwing off heat like a griddle in the late June sun. He tossed her rucksack into his truck bed and popped the doors. He thought for a second, then slipped the velvet box from his pants to the driver's seat pocket. He jumped in, ratcheting the AC to full as soon as the engine caught. "Sorry," he said as she climbed into the ovenlike cab. "I would've kept it on for you, but I didn't want to risk running out of gas. The army doesn't seem to have changed its hurry-up-and-wait policy since I was in."

She laughed. "Don't worry. It's been so long since I've been in an air-conditioned vehicle, I've forgotten what it's like." She unbuttoned her bulky uniform blouse and stripped it off, revealing a gray T-shirt that stretched across her breasts when she twisted to drop the heavy shirt and the roses onto the narrow backseat. His throat went hot and tight. He shifted into gear and rolled out of the lot.

"Do you—" He coughed to get his voice under control. "Do you want to stop for a bite to eat? I went by the rectory yesterday with the fixings for a couple meals, but I didn't know what you'd feel like doing. What you'd want to do."

She stretched her arms toward the vents, which had begun blasting cool air, and closed her eyes. "Oh, Lord, this feels good." She smiled, still shut-eyed. "Just to be sitting here in a truck without having to wear thirty pounds of Kevlar." She ran her hands flat-palmed down her T-shirt from her collarbone to her waist, a perfectly natural gesture that nearly caused him to swerve over the centerline.

He corrected with a jerk. Which he was starting to feel like. She had just gotten in from a combat zone, for chrissakes. She still had dust on her boots. She was enjoying the first real freedom she'd had in a year and a half, and all he could do was salivate over her. She's not a piece of meat, asshole.

He focused on getting up the ramp and into the flow of traffic on the Northway. The only good thing about the battalion's delay and the interminable ceremony was that it put them on the road after Albany's rush hour. In his rearview mirror, the Empire Plaza towers caught the setting sun, their marble and steel surfaces almost too bright to look at.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her turn toward him, tucking one leg beneath her. "You've gotten back from more deployments than