Her Cowboy Soldier (7 page)

“Then it’s a good time to find out.”

“Maybe. I’m not making any decisions right now.”

“Well, you’re going to have to make one decision—you have to choose a dress. What about this one?” Charla held out a long-sleeved wrap dress in a slinky fabric. The gown was a bright tomato-red.

“Oh, no.” Amy shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not? With your dark hair and eyes the color is perfect.”

“It’s too bold.”

“It is not. It’ll look great. Come on, try it on.” Charla urged her toward the dressing room.

Five minutes later, Amy stood in front of a bank of mirrors, staring at her reflection. The red dress skimmed her curves, the full skirt swirling around her calves. The bright color made her skin glow and brought out reddish highlights in her brown hair.

“You look amazing,” Charla said.

“It does look good.” She turned and looked over her shoulder at the back view. “I’m just not used to standing out.”

“Then maybe you should get used to it. Honestly, it’s gorgeous.”

“You’re sure I won’t be out of place?”

“You’ll look great. After all, red and gold are the school colors. You’ll fit right in.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now hurry up and change, and we’ll look for shoes. Something you can dance in.”

“Oh, I’m not going to dance.”

“You might change your mind once you’re there.”

“Charla, I’m not there to dance, I—”

“I know, I know. You’re working. But you still need shoes to go with this dress. So come on.”

They paid for their purchases and headed across the mall toward a discount shoe retailer. As they passed the food court, Charla made a sharp left turn. “We can’t shop on an empty stomach,” she said.

They settled on Thai food from a stand and carried their trays to an empty table in the center of the food court. Amy had just pulled out her chair to sit when a man called out her name. “Amy Marshall, is that you?”

She looked up to see a slender young man with close-cropped hair approaching. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a blue polo shirt, but his erect bearing, as well as the severe haircut, told her he was a soldier. A black Lab with a blue-and-red service dog vest walked at his side.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” the man asked.

Amy shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“No reason you should. I weighed about thirty pounds more the one time we met. I’m Gary Prescott.” He offered his hand and she shook it. “I served with Brent in the Fourth Brigade. I met you the day we all shipped out to Iraq.”

Amy’s memory of that day featured a crowd of young men in desert camo, along with wives, children and parents filling the Quonset hut at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. She’d clung to Brent’s side, but the two of them had scarcely spoken, anger building a wall between them that mere words couldn’t breach. “I guess that day was kind of a fog for me.”

“I understand.” He offered a crooked grin. “I remember you because I was jealous that Brent had such a pretty wife to see him off. I’d just broken up with my girlfriend.” He waved the words aside. “But that’s old news. I’m really sorry about Brent.”

“Were you there, the day...the day he was killed?” She didn’t want to know the answer, but she couldn’t keep back the question.

“I was injured in the same attack.” He pointed to his head. “TBI. It’s the reason I have Custer here.” At his name, the dog stood up and wagged his tail, his gaze fixed on Gary.

Amy recalled reading something in the paper about service dogs helping veterans who suffered from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. “How does that work, with the dog?” she asked.

“He keeps me calm in crowds. I know he’s got my back. If he senses I’m getting agitated or frustrated, he licks my hand, kind of brings me back down.” He shrugged. “Hard to explain, but he makes it easier to talk to other people, too. Gives us all something else to focus on.”

Amy realized she’d been watching the dog, avoiding looking at Gary. Here was another soldier who had returned home when Brent had not—though Gary had suffered his own injuries, ones not visible but still affecting his life.

“So, are you living in Junction, or just visiting?” Gary asked.

“I’m here for the day, shopping with a friend.” She turned to Charla. “This is Charla Reynolds. Charla, this is Gary Prescott.”

He gave Charla a stiff nod, scarcely glancing at her. “So you live nearby?” he asked Amy.

“Right now I’m staying with my grandmother in Hartland.”

“Nice little town. My dad used to take me fishing near there.”

“So, um, are you living in Junction now?” Amy struggled to keep the conversation going. She tried to catch Charla’s eye—why wasn’t she helping? But Charla was focused on arranging the items on her lunch tray with overly meticulous care.

“I’m staying with my folks here in town,” Gary said. He switched the dog’s leash from one hand to the other and back again. “Maybe we could get together some time.”

“Oh, I...I’m not sure that would be a good idea. I mean, I’m leaving soon and...”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He took a step back. The dog nudged his hand and he absently patted it. “I understand. Well, see you around.” He turned and hurried away, dog and man threading through the crowded tables and melting into the mall traffic.

Amy sat and focused on rearranging her cup, plate and silverware on her tray. Her hands shook, and she fought the urge to flee. Seeing Gary had been such a surprise—and not a pleasant one. “He seemed like a nice guy,” Charla said after a moment.

“I’m sure he is.” Amazing how calm she sounded, though her heart pounded and she had trouble breathing.

She stabbed her fork into a piece of chicken and forced herself to chew. If her mouth was full, she didn’t have to talk—she didn’t have to answer the questions implied by Charla’s steady, curious gaze.

The food tasted like sawdust—she had trouble swallowing, her stomach in knots. Finally, she pushed her still-full plate away. “I just didn’t want to spend the evening with him reliving old times and talking about Brent or the war or anything like that,” she said. “I’m trying to put that part of my life behind me.”

“I think that’s understandable,” Charla said. “Maybe he’s trying to move on, too.”

“But it would always be there between us. Brent would always be there—the one thing we have in common. I’m not ready to deal with that.”

“And nobody says you have to. Not now.” She added a packet of sweetener to her glass of tea and stirred. “But one day you probably will have to deal with it.”

“You’re acting like a therapist again.”

“I’ve never been a therapist, but I’ve seen them on TV,” she quipped. She leaned over and placed her hand over Amy’s in a comforting gesture. “I’m not judging you, honey. You do what you have to do.”

Right. And what she had to do now was get through this dance with her dignity intact and a terrific story for the paper. “I’m going to write the best prom story anyone ever read,” she said.

“And I can’t wait to read it.”

Between the prom and the upcoming science bee, not to mention the baseball coverage, she was building quite a portfolio of high school stories. Maybe some teen magazine would be impressed. Not what she’d had in mind when she started at the paper, but one thing she’d learned in her years spent overseas—you had to take whatever bus came along to get you where you were going. Maybe high school stories would be the ticket out of town she’d been looking for.

CHAPTER FIVE

J
OSH
MANAGED
TO
slip away from his cabin the night of the prom without his mother taking more than half a dozen photographs or fussing too much. “I’m only going as a chaperone,” he reminded her. “It’s not as if this is my prom.”

“I don’t get to see you dressed up nearly enough,” she said, snapping another photo with the digital camera Josh had given her last Christmas.

He kissed her goodbye and drove to the Opera House, where a crowd of well-dressed young men and women filled the front lobby and flowed up the stairs to the ballroom. “Coach, could you take a picture of us on the stairs?” Chase Wilson shoved an iPhone into Josh’s hand and put his arm around a petite strawberry-blonde—Heather somebody, a junior.

“Sure, Chase.” Josh focused on the smiling couple and pressed the shutter button.

“Sweet!” Chase admired the photo and showed it to Heather, who nodded.

“Thanks, Coach. See you around.” Chase waved and was gone, melting into the mass of formal gowns and suits.

Josh made his way up the stairs to the main ballroom, where Teresa Fischer, a teller at Grand State Bank, greeted him. “Josh! Lookin’ good.” She gave him a thumbs-up. “If you wore that suit to every ball game, attendance would be way up, I guarantee it.”

“The guys would boot me off the team,” he said.

“But not the girls.” She winked at him.

He offered a polite, but not-too-encouraging smile and slipped past him. Teresa was a nice kid—only a few years younger than him, but he felt so much older sometimes.

The decibel level inside the ballroom was considerably higher, with blaring music competing with dozens of voices. The senior class of Hartland High School had about thirty students, and traditionally everyone attended the prom, whether they had a date or not. Add in dates, chaperones, the DJ and catering staff, and Josh figured about a hundred people would fill the ballroom once the party really got started. Enough to make him wish he’d worn earplugs.

He made a tour of the room, nodding to students he knew and reassuring himself there was no trouble yet. He wasn’t here to keep the kids from having fun, just to head off little problems before they became big ones. He stopped beneath the archway of roses that crowned the refreshment table and looked back toward the entrance. Chase and Heather entered, followed by Charla, who wore a clinging blue dress that showed off her curvaceous figure to advantage. More than one senior boy stared at her with a glazed look in his eyes, but Charla was oblivious. She was too deep in conversation with the woman behind her.

Josh’s gaze shifted to Charla’s companion, and he involuntarily sucked in his breath. Charla might have had a knockout figure and mass of blond hair, but this woman was truly beautiful, dark hair piled atop her head and cascading in curls around her face, her rich red dress shaped to her more subtle curves. Who would have thought nosy reporter Amy Marshall could be so...so glamorous?

Seeing this other side of her was like discovering a secret about her, Josh thought. In all their tussling over the story she’d written about him, Josh hadn’t thought about Amy as so feminine and elegant.

“That’s that reporter—Amy Marshall, isn’t it?”

The question was like the clash of symbols disturbing Josh’s peace. He turned to see Rick Southerland at his side, staring at Amy like a hunting dog on point.

“Yes, that’s Amy,” he said.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to her,” Rick said, and started across the dance floor toward the door.

Josh had a good idea what Rick wanted to talk to Amy about—his favorite subject—how Josh had used underhanded means to acquire his job, depriving others—namely Rick’s wife—of theirs. Most people had grown tired of Rick’s complaints and ignored him, but a reporter with an agenda of her own might be the perfect audience for Rick’s slanted view of the situation.

A student intercepted Rick halfway across the dance floor and he was forced to stop. Meanwhile, Charla and Amy joined a group of teen girls at a table. Though Josh couldn’t hear the conversation, he watched the pantomime of admiring dresses and hairstyles. All the women were lovely, the teens with the kind of innocent freshness magazines favored. But Amy had a gravity and maturity he appreciated. Did it come from being a mother, a world traveler, a widow? Probably all three. She knew about suffering and hardship, something those girls couldn’t have an inkling about.

As if feeling his gaze on her, she looked up and their eyes met. As she recognized him, her expression transformed from interest to something else—not anger, but hurt. The knowledge made his chest ache. Is that how she thought of him—as an accuser? Yet she was the one who’d maligned him in her article.

Rick arrived at Amy’s side and said something to her. She turned her attention from Josh. After a moment, she opened the small purse she carried and took out a notebook and pen. Did she bring that thing everywhere?

If Josh was going to salvage his reputation he needed to find out what accusations Rick was making against him now. What would Rick tell Amy that would find its way into the paper next week?

He made his way around the edge of the dance floor until he neared the reporter. She was engrossed in her work, head down, scribbling in her notebook, while Rick talked and talked. He looked up and saw Josh just as Josh moved within earshot. “Let’s dance,” Rick said, and took her by the wrist.

“No, I really don’t think we should dance,” she said, but he was already dragging her onto the floor.

“It’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Charla is dancing.”

Charla was indeed dancing, twirling around with the elderly man who managed the Opera House. Rick didn’t wait for Amy’s response, but pulled her into the mill of dancers. He had to settle for holding only one hand, since she still clutched the notebook in the other.

Josh clenched his good hand into a fist. What did the guy think he was doing? Couldn’t he see Amy didn’t want to dance with him? She looked around the room, as if searching for some avenue of escape. Her eyes met his, a pleading look in them he could not turn his back on.

He waded into the crowd, sidestepping dancing couples until he reached Rick and Amy. “I’m cutting in,” he said, and stepped between Rick and his partner.

“You can’t do that,” Rick protested.

“I just did.” He took Amy’s hand and steered her away from the other man. For a moment, Rick acted as if he might follow, but apparently thought the better of it. Josh was twenty muscular pounds heavier than the math teacher, and his missing hand gave new meaning to the phrase “strong right hook.”

“Thanks,” Amy said after Rick had retreated from the dance floor. She pulled her hand from Josh’s and fumbled her notebook back into her purse.

“You’re welcome.”

She started to move away, but he stepped in front of her. “I won’t make the same mistake he did and try to manhandle you, but do you think we could finish this dance?”

“We’re chaperones. I don’t think we should be dancing.”

“It’s actually the best way to see what’s happening on the dance floor. I’ve had to separate couples who got a little carried away before.”

She looked around them at the couples swaying to the rhythm of a slow, bluesy number.

“Smile,” Josh said, and took her hand again. “People are watching.” As if to confirm this, a camera flash went off nearby.

“All right.” She didn’t smile, but she did relax a bit, and let him lead her in a slow waltz.

He rested his hook lightly at her waist. “Does this bother you?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Not as much as I thought it might.”

Her honesty pleased him. “It’s times like this I miss my hand the most,” he said.

“Dancing?”

“Touching a beautiful woman.” He was acutely aware of her cool fingers twined with his own, so slight and feminine. He fought the urge to pull her closer, to lean in and inhale the sweet scent of her, to lose himself in the sensation of her.

Pink warmed her cheeks. “Are you always this much of a flirt?”

“Almost never.” He had little time or patience with flirting, but something about her—maybe the unexpectedness of seeing her so lovely and vulnerable—brought out this side of him. He forced himself to assume a more serious expression, reminding himself why he was here with her now. “What was Rick talking to you about?” he asked. “Or can I guess?”

“He really doesn’t like you.”

“He blames me for his wife losing her job.”

“He said the school board laid her off in order to hire you. I didn’t get the connection.”

“There is no connection. The decision to eliminate the aide’s position was part of an overall budget restructuring. It had nothing to do with filling the coach’s position.”

“He’s still concerned about your qualifications for the coaching job.”

“The district got what it could afford—a coach with experience and a winning record would command a higher salary.”

She studied his face, as if judging his sincerity. “I hadn’t considered that. In that case, you might say they got more than their money’s worth, since you did lead the team to a winning record.”

“So you don’t think I’m teaching under false pretenses?”

She surprised him with a teasing smile. “I guess I’ll find out at the science bee.”

When had a woman had the ability to keep him so off balance? Again, he resisted the urge to pull her closer, though the desire to hold her tugged at him like the tide. He remembered standing in the parking lot with her after the game, talking about Afghanistan and Iraq, and felt the same connection now as he had then—that here was a woman who might understand him and all he’d been through.

He pushed the thoughts away. Dangerous thinking. Amy might be a beautiful, desirable woman, but she wasn’t his friend. The best he could do was hope she wouldn’t be his enemy.

“This is a very long song,” she said, but made no move to pull away.

Josh was pretty sure the DJ had segued into a second song, but Amy had been so focused on their conversation she hadn’t noticed. He wouldn’t volunteer the information. He was enjoying this too much. Enjoying hearing her admit she might have been wrong about him. And enjoying having her this close, her hand in his. “Why don’t you like to dance?” he asked.

“I feel self-conscious around all these young girls.”

“They are pretty, but you have something they don’t.”

“Oh?” She eyed him skeptically.

“You have life experience.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I’m old?”

He laughed. “You’re not old and you know it. But you’ve lived. You’ve traveled. You know what it is to love and to laugh.”

A shadow haunted her eyes. “And to hurt.”

“That, too.” He squeezed her hand. “But knowing bad times makes the good times all the more precious.”

She looked away, and when she spoke, her voice was so low he had to lean close to make out her words. “Was it very bad for you, when you were wounded?” she asked.

Others had asked that question, and he’d offered a perfunctory answer—something about putting all that behind him, or turning the conversation to talk of how glad he was to be home. With Amy, he sensed he could be more honest. She didn’t ask out of some prurient desire to pry into his emotions, but because she was still trying to understand what had happened to her husband.

“The pain and the fear was something I was prepared to deal with,” he said. “Something you think about from the time you know you’re going into battle. When it happens, you deal with it, the way you deal with any tough task. Getting well—enduring the treatment, getting through therapy—is just another job. Another kind of battle to fight. The worst part was not knowing what to expect at home—how people would treat me.”

“And how have they treated you?”

“Most of them have responded well. They accept me as I am. Others can’t get used to the idea that I’m different now.” He lifted the hook from her waist. “Different outside, and inside. You don’t go through things like this and come out unchanged.”

Her brow furrowed, as if she was memorizing this information. Or analyzing it. “Your family?” she asked after a moment. “Are they the ones who can’t accept the changes?”

Her insight startled him. “Is it that obvious?”

“I imagine it’s toughest on the people who love you most. When you hurt, they hurt—and maybe they don’t recover as quickly.”

He heard the pain in her words. Her husband was dead, but she still suffered. At that moment he would have given all he had to take away that hurt from her. “Maybe not. But I hope they’re learning.”

The song ended, and she moved out of his arms. “Thanks for the dance,” he said. “And thanks for listening.”

“Sure.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m really not out to get you, Josh. I promise.”

“That’s good to hear.” And he wanted to believe it. A man could do worse than to have a woman like Amy on his side.

* * *

A
MY
SQUEEZED
through clusters of teens, on her way to the ladies’ room to freshen up and regroup. Her encounter with Josh had left her warm and flustered. When she’d first spotted him across the room she’d been stunned. Having seen him dressed in ordinary khakis and then again in a grubby baseball uniform, she wasn’t prepared for the impact of him in a Western-cut suit and black Stetson. He looked too handsome...and dangerous.

But the danger wasn’t his appearance, as distracting as that might be. Josh had a way of making her lower all her defenses with his talk of love and pain—as if he really understood how she felt. But that wasn’t possible. Yes, he’d suffered loss, but he was still surrounded by people who loved him, who went out of their way to make a place for him. When she’d lost Brent, she’d lost her dreams of a home with a husband and more children, and all the plans they’d made for the future.

“You and Josh looked great out there on the dance floor.” Charla burst into the ladies’ room as Amy was studying her flushed cheeks in the mirror. “Friendly, even.”

“He rescued me from Rick Southerland, who seems determined to blame Josh for every problem he’s ever had in his life.”