Secrets of the Red Box (32 page)

Luther bit his lip. “Oh, I didn’t do all that good in school.”
“Me neither,” Bonnie added. “But I did like reading.”
Luther laughed out loud. “Me too—still do. I like mysteries and science fiction, that sort of
thing.”
“Have you ever read Jules Verne?”
“Only all of them,” he snorted with a laugh. “
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
,
Around the World
in Eighty Days
, but I think my favorite is
The Mysterious Island
.”
Bonnie placed her hand over his across the table. “Luther, it feels like I’ve known you all my
life…like we’re old friends or something.”
He moistened his lips and looked into her eyes. “I feel it, too. I’ve never met anyone like you,
Bonnie. I wish…” He let his words trail.
Bonnie tightened her fingers on his hand. “What? What do you wish?”
His pale eyes darkened as he looked at her. “I wish we had more time. I wish we’d met back in
Iowa or Kansas, or somewhere I didn’t have to leave.”
Bonnie pulled back her hand and lowered her gaze. She nodded slowly. “I know…” Then she
looked at him again. “But we can make the best of it, can’t we? We can enjoy whatever time we
have. We won’t think about tomorrow, or next week. We’ll just enjoy today.”
Luther reached for her hand this time. “This is sort of crazy, isn’t it? I mean everything feels so
different. Here we are together…I never thought a pretty girl like you would even notice me.”
“I noticed you right away,” she said softly. “I could see the kindness in your eyes, and I knew
you were good inside…not like the people who only pretend to be good, but deep down, I knew
you were the kind of man who cared about people, about important things…”
His face spoke to her of all the feelings he’d never been able to say before. She could see how
he’d yearned to belong to someone, to share all that he had to give but never had the opportunity.
His hands were no longer sweaty, his eyes riveted to hers as if he was trying to see inside her soul.
“Bonnie?” he asked with a hesitant catch in his voice. “Do you think there’s such a thing as love
at first sight?”
She gave him a softened smile and pulled a hand free to touch his cheek. “Maybe.”
They ate and talked until nearly eleven o’clock, when Luther had to be back to the base. Hand in
hand, the pair strolled down the quieting streets of San Diego, shrouded in the glow of new love.
Luther paused in a darkened recess between two buildings and took Bonnie in his arms. She felt him
shaking, his lean body hard against hers. She lifted her hand to his face, as if to guide him to her lips.
His mouth felt rigid and inexperienced as he kissed her. Bonnie leaned back. “Like this,” she
murmured, then placed her lips to his with a soft, slow kiss.
He pulled her tight, held her as if she might run away or disappear in a puff of hallucinated
smoke. “Oh, Bonnie…” he breathed against her ear.
She pushed him back, gently, carefully. “Let’s keep walking,” she said.
For an instant, she thought he was going to protest, but he surprised her by taking her hand. “I
think you’re right,” he said, walking in step beside her. “I’ve got to be back on base in a little while.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I have another pass for tomorrow. Can I see you?”
She nodded. “But not at the canteen. Let’s meet at the same café, about two o’clock?”
“Okay, I’ll be here,” he said. Then he laughed, a short, knowing laugh. “If my buddies could see
me now, they wouldn’t believe their eyes.”
“Well, maybe tomorrow we’ll have to do something about that.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll get our picture made, and then they’ll have to believe you.”
Luther paused on the sidewalk, his eyes wide. “You’d do that? You’d have your picture taken
with me?”
She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Sure. You don’t think I’m going to let my fella go off to war
without a picture of us, do you?”
“Your fella?”
“Well, what do they call it in Iowa? A beau, a steady, a boyfriend?”
She thought he blushed again although it was too dark to tell. “Fella will do.”
Her voice lowered, became more serious. “And you’ll write, won’t you, Luther? You’ll write as
often as you can, so I know you’re okay?”
“Sure, but right now I can’t even think of leaving you. I don’t want to leave you…not ever.”
Bonnie threw her arms around his neck. “I don’t want you too, Luther. I don’t want you to
leave.”
He linked his hands around her waist, touched her forehead with his and swayed her back and
forth. The stood together, the breezes from the bay inching around them with cool fingers. They
said nothing, just swayed together in each other’s arms as the night engulfed them.
///////
It was already a quarter past two, but Bonnie had to stop at the post office and the bank before
she met Luther. She hurried along B Street, hoping Luther hadn’t gotten impatient enough to leave.
As she neared the café, she saw him pacing back and forth, glancing at his watch. She waved and
called out to him. Luther pivoted, broke into a mile-wide smile, and ran to meet her.
She threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said in a rush as she pulled back to
look into his eyes. “Forgive me?”
Luther’s lips curved into a smile. “Nothing to forgive.” He had a small satchel slung over his
shoulder. He scoured the inside of it and produced a small box camera. “Look what I borrowed,” he
said, beaming. “We can take all the pictures we want!”
She shot him a sly smile. “Aren’t you the clever one?”
“What do you want to do, Bonnie? Go to a movie? Get something to eat?”
She linked her arm through his. “Let’s go to Balboa Park. It’s so beautiful there.”
“Okay—anywhere you want is good by me.”
“It’s not far. We can walk,” she said, starting him down the street.
The Luther who held her arm was not the same boy she’d met the night before. He seemed
boiling over with confidence and possessed an effervescence that became contagious. It was as if
he’d been freed from some internal prison, aching to feel and taste and touch everything in sight, as
if it were all new to him. She knew she’d done that for him, had been the catalyst for his newfound
buoyancy.
Here was a young man changed, changed in ways he might never have known had Bonnie
looked in another direction. She almost felt sorry for Luther, knowing that he could be just as easily
returned to the insecure, lonely boy of the past if she decided to turn away from him.
“I dreamed about you last night,” she said, squeezing his arm.
“You did?” He sounded incredulous.
“I did.” Bonnie glanced up at the cloudless sky as if to recall the dream from the heavens. “We
were on an island, just the two of us. It was warm and I could hear the ocean waves lapping at the
beach. You brought me a coconut, cracked open, with a straw in it. You were very tan and
handsome…”
Luther blushed. “I don’t tan. I’m too fair. All I manage to do is burn. And I’m not handsome,
but it’s real nice that you dreamed of me that way.”
Bonnie skimmed the back of her fingers across his cheek. “You are handsome, Luther. You are
to me.”
He looked at his feet as they continued to walk and slowly shook his head. “You almost make
me believe it.” Luther turned to look at her. “So what else was we doing on the island?”
“That’s all I remember,” she said with a slight laugh. “But it felt wonderful…just like it feels
now to be with you.”
He paused and reached into the satchel. “Let me take your picture,” he said, pulling out the
rectangular box.
“Here? Why here?”
He scanned the area and then smiled. “Because the sun lights up your hair, kind of like a halo,
and you look like an angel.”
Bonnie gave him a disapproving grin and posed beside a streetlamp. She wrapped her arms
around the pole and swung out from it as if she might fly about it in a circle. He aimed the camera
and pressed the button. Click. He smiled. “I like that. You’ll want to send that one to your parents.”
Bonnie’s smile faded. “I didn’t mention it last night, Luther, but my parents are dead.”
His face fell as if wounded by her remark. “I’m so sorry, Bonnie. I hope I didn’t—”
She moved toward him, reached for his hand, and they started walking again. “It’s all right. My
father died last year in an accident. He was working for Consolidated-Vultee building B-24s. He was
riveting somewhere high up on the plane and fell from the platform. No one knew exactly how it
happened. Maybe he lost his balance, maybe he misstepped. He lived for a couple of days after the
fall, but then…anyway, his death broke my mother’s heart.” She let out a long sigh. “She never got
over it. They were so much in love. She just got so depressed…I couldn’t get her to leave the house
or do anything anymore. It was like she gave up living.”
He looked at her, his eyes misted. She swallowed and moistened her lips. “She died just after I
graduated, and I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“On your own…you don’t have any family to help?”
“I do, back in Kansas, but I haven’t seen any of them for years now. Besides, I’m old enough to
be on my own. I have a little apartment, and I get by.” She glanced at him and thought maybe he
didn’t believe her. “My parents rented the house we lived in, so I sold most of the furniture and my
father left a small life insurance policy. It’s been enough for now, and I work part-time at Owl
Drug.”
Luther stopped at the corner and took hold of Bonnie’s hands. “I don’t think I like that, Bonnie.
You should be taken care of. You should have someone to watch after you, someone who cares—”
She raised a shoulder and let it fall. “It would be nice, but it’ll have to be the way it is for now.”
His face registered a mix of concern and anxiety, but he didn’t say anything. They turned north
and neared an entrance to Balboa Park. “Here’s a good spot for a picture,” she said, “right in front
of the park. Let’s have someone take it for us.”
Luther surveyed the various pedestrians and approached an older gentleman. “Would you mind
taking our picture?” he asked him.
The man obliged and held the camera at the proper height. When the shutter clicked, he smiled
and handed the camera back to Luther. “Newlyweds?” he asked.
Luther’s cheeks turned crimson. “No, we’re not…”
“Well, you look happy enough to be,” he commented as he tipped his hat. “Hope the picture
turns out all right.”
“Thank you,” Bonnie called after him.
Luther avoided her gaze, his face still pulsing hot with color.
“Have you ever been here before?” she asked, reaching for his hand. He shook his head.
“There’s so much to do. There’s a natural history museum, a botanical building, the San Diego Zoo
is in the park, and there’s a wonderful organ pavilion that has one of the world’s largest outdoor
pipe organs. The Old Globe Theater does plays. The Museum of Art was taken over by the Navy to
use as a hospital, and the House of Hospitality is being used as a nurses’ dormitory.”
Luther chuckled and shook his head. “Sounds like there’s a lot to do, all right. What do you want
to do first?”
“Oh, I don’t want to do any of that,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I just want to
spend time with you. I thought maybe we could sit in the grass or walk around until we’re
tired…maybe you can buy me a hot dog.”
He stopped, but she continued to walk until their arms stretched out between them. She turned
back her head. “What?”
He tugged her near, grinning, and kissed her. He was tender this time, kissing her with feeling.
His long fingers slid up her back and pulled her closer. When he’d finished, he smiled. “I’ve wanted
to do that all day.”
“So have I…”
He kept his arms around her waist, studied her blue eyes. “Bonnie…I think…”
Luther stopped and turned away from her. She touched his shoulder. “What is it? What are you
trying to say?”
He shook his head. “It’s too crazy…too impossible.”
Bonnie eased around to face him. She lifted his chin with a finger. “Look at me, Luther.” He
worked the muscles in his lean jaw and gradually raised his gaze to hers. “I think I know what you’re
trying to say because I feel it, too. And I know it seems crazy and impossible—we’ve only just met.
But there’s no need to deny it…not if we both feel it.”
Luther blinked and drew in a deep breath. He let it out in a whoosh. “Marry me, Bonnie.” He
blurted it out, acting astounded by his own words. “I love you,” he said, taking her by the shoulders.
“I know I’ll never love anyone else.”
Bonnie looked into his pale blue eyes. “I’ll marry you, Luther.”
His eyes widened as if he was surprised by her answer. He grinned and then smiled, and then
laughed as he grabbed hold of Bonnie. “You’ve made me so happy!” He kissed her and cupped her
face between his lean fingers. “And you know what? You won’t be alone anymore.”
Bonnie brushed her fingers over his cheek. “No, I won’t. I’ll be your wife. I’ll belong to you
now.”
“I’m going to talk to my CO and see if I can get leave. As soon as I can, we’ll get married.”
Bonnie glanced at her watch. “Let’s go to the courthouse now. We can apply for the license, and
we have to get blood tests.”
“Oh, yeah, blood tests. I forgot about that.” He grinned and took hold of her hand. “Okay, let’s
go.”
“Let’s take a cab so we can save time.”
Luther looked as if he could scarcely breathe as he studied her face. “I love you so much…”
“We won’t have long together, Luther, but what time we’ll have will be wonderful. It’ll have to
last us.”
He looked pained. “I know, but I’ll come home to you, Bonnie. I know I will. And you said so,
too.”
She slid her hand along his cheek. “That’s right…you’ll come home to me.”
They walked back to the street and Luther watched for a cab. He turned to her with a look of
excitement. “I’ve got my parents signed up to receive my allotment, but I’ll change that as soon as
we’re married. That way, you’ll have my pay while I’m gone. And as soon I start fighting, combat
pay is even more. You’ll have fifty dollars a month.”
Bonnie linked her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “Oh, I don’t care about
that, Luther. I just want you.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Well, all the same, you’ll get it and then I won’t have to
worry about you.” His expression darkened. “I heard some of the fellas talking about an insurance
policy I can get—”
Bonnie’s hands tightened around Luther’s arm. “No. I don’t want to collect…not if you have to
die.”