Tried to remember that just twenty-four hours ago, she’d been pining for his friend Alex. But Alex wasn’t here. Alex hadn’t wanted her, and this man had just bared his wounds to the company of them to save this little boy’s life.
She knew she shouldn’t look, had felt shame the moment her gaze landed on his chest. He had the toned muscles of a soldier, despite his scars. She might forgive herself for the way her heart leaped to life inside her.
But, first, she had to know how much Jake really knew about her.
Had Alex told him about her job with the WAACs, in the motor pool? How she had changed tires and replaced radiators throughout the duration of the war? Had he mentioned that her mother hadn’t once written to her, how she’d received mail only from her father, until his death? Had Alex told him how she’d felt like a misfit on Saturday nights when she’d rather be out in the barn with her father, overhauling the truck, than spiffing up for a dance?
Jake had said some cryptic things in the kitchen that had her curiosity buzzing. Like saying she didn’t care what her mother thought. Or calling her independent. Except, on his lips it didn’t seem like criticism.
No, back then, when her emotions had a firmer grip on her resolve, she hadn’t cared what her mother, what the people of Frost said. She just hadn’t wanted to be left behind. She wanted to fight alongside her brothers.
Be a heroine.
However, she didn’t want to be the motor pool girl to Jake. The thought pulsed inside her, gaining power. Not with him lying on the sofa, holding this frozen boy in his arms, like he might be his father. Jake had closed his eyes, shivering, and she tucked the blanket up around his shoulders, making a little well for the boy to breathe. He’d begun to shiver also, but he hadn’t wakened.
Getting stranded at Dottie’s house—with Jake here—just might have saved the boy’s life.
Maybe Jake was a doctor.
But first, “What did Alex tell you about me?” she asked.
He kept his eyes closed. His chest rose and fell and for a moment, she thought he might be sleeping. “Enough,” he said finally.
What did that mean?
But he answered her before she spoke.
“He told me that the day he met you, you nearly ran him over.”
“I did not!”
He opened one eye. “I now can relate to his words.”
“Funny.”
He smiled at her, and she felt it deep inside. “I was chauffeuring a general, and Alex was in the way. I honked my horn—”
“Calm down, Sergeant, I was just kidding.”
She stilled. “You know I was a sergeant? Did Alex tell you what I did?”
He met her eyes. “I suppose it had something to do with driving?”
So, maybe he didn’t know. “Go back to sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping. I’m concentrating on staying warm.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“He’s really shivering too.”
“I know, and it’s going to get worse. He’ll be in pain when he wakes up.”
She ran his hair from his face. “Poor kid.”
“Brave kid, to make it all the way to the barn in the storm. But then again, people don’t really know what they have in them until they face something like that.” He opened his eyes again. “The war made a lot of heroes out of people you’d least expect to be.”
Like him? Her gaze flickered to his chest, although the boy and the blanket covered it. She didn’t want to ask, but it seemed almost rude not to. “Were you hurt in the war?”
He didn’t open his eyes. “Belgium. I was transporting some wounded; we were hit with artillery fire.”
“You were a medic?”
He drew in a breath. “I did a lot of things. Not all of them am I proud of. And none of them were very exciting.”
She frowned. But Roger didn’t like to talk about the war either, so much of it still in his eyes, or his dreams. Sara told her too many stories of him waking in the middle of the night, shaking.
“Alex was in the infantry,” she said, not sure why. “He stormed the beaches at Normandy.”
“I know. Alex was a real hero.” Jake’s tone sounded tired, however, almost with a shade of remorse.
Maybe she was talking too much about Alex. Babbling, in fact. She could hear herself, blathering on about the love that wasn’t. She looked around. Couldn’t she be doing something useful?
“He told me, after the war, that he wanted to build airplanes. Or maybe cars.”
Jake had opened his eyes again. “He said that?”
She
had
to stop talking about Alex. She got up, stoked the fire.
“What do you do, Jake?”
He was quiet again and she returned to him. “Jake?”
“Right now? I work for the army, traveling.” He opened his eyes, however, and met hers. He had a self-deprecating smile. “What do you do?”
From the mudroom, she heard feet banging into the house. She turned, and in a moment Gordy stormed into the room, ice caked in his goatee.
“Where were you?”
“Don’t ask.” Gordy looked at Jake. “How’s the boy?”
“Still alive, thank God.”
Gordy turned away and crouched down before the large Silvertone radio. “Maybe we can get a weather report.”
But when he turned the dial, nothing happened. He got up, checked the plug.
“It hasn’t worked in about three years.” Dottie appeared at the door, looking shaken, her cheeks red.
Gordy turned around, his mouth in a grim slash. “Of course it’s broken.” He stormed past her and returned in a moment with a tray of tools. He yanked the plug from the socket, turned it around.
“What are you doing?” Dottie came toward him.
“I’m fixing it.”
“You’re going to break it.”
He looked up, narrowed his eyes. “More than it already is?”
She threw her hands up, as if she might strangle him, then turned away. “Do you two need tea?” She nearly barked it, and Violet shook her head. Dottie stormed back into the kitchen. This Dottie, she recognized. The one seated at the table this morning… perhaps the Dottie she’d only hoped to see.
“She’s quite angry,” Jake said. “What did you do, Gordy?”
“Just keep your trap shut, Dapper Dan. If it weren’t for you, none of us would be in this mess.”
Jake met Violet’s eyes, raised an eyebrow, making a face. “Mommy and Daddy are fighting.”
She opened her mouth then shut it. But a giggle emerged.
Still, she couldn’t help but turn her gaze to the back of the Silvertone. Even from here, she could see the dark dusting of one of the four radio tubes. It needed to be replaced if they wanted to listen.
Instead, Gordy wiggled the fuses on the main board to make sure the connections were solid and not blown.
She held her tongue. Gordy didn’t need her mechanical skills. In fact, no one needed her mechanical skills.
That thought sifted through her. She glanced at Jake.
If she never said anything about the war or her job, he’d never know. And then he wouldn’t have to look at her with the stigma of her military service in his eyes.
“The FM radio tube is broken,” Gordy said finally. He sat back. “Dottie, do you have another radio tube?”
“Oh sure, I keep one in my apron pocket,” she barked from the kitchen.
But what he could do is swap one of the radio tubes from the AM slot to the FM slot. Violet stared at the flames flickering in the hearth, eating at the logs, willing herself to stay quiet.
Jake had moved his hand atop hers on the boy’s cheek. He had sleek, strong hands, and she wouldn’t move hers all day if it would help the boy stay warm.
“Maybe if I switch them out…” Gordy unsnapped a tube from the AM connector, replaced the FM tube.
He turned the radio back around, plugged it in. Fiddled with the dial. Static, then a voice came through.
She recognized the deep tones of J. Anthony Smythe, as Henry Barbour and his family’s soap opera escapades filled the room. Gordy flipped the stations, perhaps searching for the weather.
Dottie came out of the kitchen holding a spatula. “I wanted to hear that.”
The weatherman came on, his voice cut with static. “The wind chill is down to thirty below south of Canby and—”
The voice cut out as all the lights in the house clicked off, leaving only the crackle of the fire behind.
“Never mind,” Dottie said.
Gordy ran his hand down his face. Stared at the radio as if he’d like to throw it—or something—against the wall. “Do you still have that old generator, Dot?”
“It’s in the barn. It hasn’t worked for years.”
Gordy got up, as if heading out to the barn. Violet stilled the urge to follow him. She may have even started to draw her hand away.
Jake’s tightened over hers. “Stay. He needs a woman’s touch.”
She met his eyes and smiled. A woman’s touch.
Gordy could fix the generator just fine on his own.
CHAPTER SEVEN
What did Dapper Dan over there have that Gordy didn’t? Gordy had hauled the generator back into the house—his hands turning stiff in the cold, and now worked on it on the dining room floor, much to Dottie’s consternation.
“You’re going to get gasoline all over my carpet. And not to mention asphyxiate us.”
“I won’t start it in the house, Dottie.” But she stomped back to the kitchen.
Perfect. So much for helping them remember the good old days.
His gaze kept returning to the clasped hands of Violet and Jake and he just wanted to throw something.
Like Jake.
Out the window.
And lock the door.
What was it with some fellas who knew exactly what to say, when and how to say it? Twelve hours the man had been here. He’d caused Violet to drive into a tree and wreck her car, delivered the bad news of her friend’s death—not to mention the gigantic lie he toted around about said dead man and the subsequent correspondence—and perky Violet sat there, holding Jake’s hand and giggling?
The generator hadn’t a spark of life, although he’d checked the diesel fuel. Could be a clogged fuel line, perhaps even a blown spark plug.
Who was he kidding? He didn’t know where to begin to repair the engine. Sure, he could putter around the farm, coax the Ferguson to life, but diagnostic mechanics still had the power to elude him.
He got up, walked over to the fire, picked up the poker, and stabbed at the logs in the hearth. Sparks spiraled up the flue.
With the electricity out, the stoker wouldn’t run, which meant they’d have to keep feeding the fire, not to mention close off the other rooms.
Which meant they’d have to stay in this room or perhaps the kitchen to keep warm.
The house was getting smaller by the minute.
He could still feel Dottie’s lips on his—the taste of cinnamon from the apple butter, and coffee—it rushed him back in time, stirring the hope of their tomorrows in his heart. He’d lost himself in that brief moment, lost the man he’d become.
And, in that flash of time, he became the man he’d wanted to be. The man who loved Dottie back to herself.
Then, she’d pressed her hand into his chest and stopped his world from spinning. Still, he hung onto her, desperate, just like he’d been in the barn that day so long ago.
“Dottie, c’mon. Haven’t we fought long enough?” he’d said it softly, with pleading.
But, as if time had cruelty, he saw her change in his arms, just like before. Her mouth closed into a tight line, her eyes sparking. And his mouth, as usual, decided to break his heart.
“Stop being so stubborn.”
What was wrong with him?
Outside the snow had begun to cake upon the windows, and the occasional sky-rending crack evidenced the weight of icy accumulation upon the trees. He had no doubt there’d be trees littering the roads when the storm lifted.
The boy moaned in Jake’s arms.
“Gordy, could you ask Dottie for a thermometer? I’d like to take his temperature,” Jake said.
“I’ll get it,” Violet said, and Gordy noticed how he squeezed her hand before releasing her. She caught his eyes, a softness in them, a moment before limping from the room.
Gordy stared after her. His words emerged almost in a growl. “What are you playing at, Dapper Dan?”
Jake caught his eyes, frowned. “Stop calling me that. And I’m not playing at anything—”
“You’re holding her hand.”
Jake made a face. “I know. It just…it felt like the right thing to do.”
“What are you trying to do—break her heart? Or yours?”
“I don’t know, okay?”
Gordy slid into the chair. “You know perfectly well that when she finds out you wrote to her, pretending to be Alex, she’ll never speak to you again.”
“You’re killing me here.” Jake shifted the boy, repositioning him. “Keep your voice down.”
Gordy lowered his voice to a whisper. “You gotta tell her the truth.”
“I know that!” He glanced toward the door, schooled his voice down to low. “Don’t you think I’m sitting here, calling myself a chump? She’s Alex’s girl, except…” He shook his head.
“What?”
Jake glanced at the door. “Something’s not right. Alex told her this story about when he nearly drowned…only he had it backwards. He saved me, not the other way around. Why would he tell her that?”
“Maybe he wanted to sound bigger in her eyes.”
“Trust me, Alex wouldn’t trade his life for mine. Until I was twelve, I couldn’t play sports. I spent half the winter in bed. He would have never wanted to be me.”
“What’s so wrong with being you?”
Jake shook his head. “Trust me, I’m no hero, Gordy. I…let’s just say that I never picked up a gun to fight, I never saved any lives. She deserves a guy like Alex.”
“Why doesn’t she deserve a guy like you?”
He looked up, at the ceiling. “Because I’m not the man I should be. Because…I spent the last four months of the war in a hospital in Minneapolis. Trust me, I’m no hero.”
“You went to war, didn’t you?”
Jake closed his eyes. “I went to war, yes. I watched my buddies die. And I came home, broken.”
The urge to throttle the man had passed. Jake seemed like a real straight ace, the way he’d rescued the kid, the way he held him as he shivered.
Gordy stirred the coals. “If you want to win this girl, you have to tell her the truth. Alex has been dead for two years. It’s time she knew that. Then you can start with a clean slate.”