The Soldier's Homecoming

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She tried to shrug it off now, especially since he didn’t seem afflicted with the same reactions. He was cool, and even amused at times, but nothing seemed to penetrate his shell.

That was a good thing.

He stopped the car on what looked like the main street. Maude’s was proclaimed on a sign above the glass front. It looked like many of the small-town diners she’d seen throughout the United States, and she’d always sought them out over the franchise restaurants.

It was getting late in the afternoon and she hadn’t had anything but toast since breakfast. When he parked, she slid out of her seat and had started for the diner before he caught up with her. “You really are hungry,” he said.

“I warned you earlier,” she said as they reached the door.

A middle-aged woman with a maternal air immediately came from behind a counter and greeted them. “Welcome back, Major Hammond,” she said with a wide smile. “And who is this?”

“Jennifer Talbot,” Travis said. “She’s a reporter. She flew in from Denver today and claims to be in dire need of a hamburger.”

“Or two,” Jenny added. “With fries and pickles. And everyone calls me Jenny.”

“I’m Maude,” the woman said, “and I’m delighted to meet you, Jenny Talbot. Why don’t you take the back booth? Hopefully, no one will bother you there.”

Jenny felt her face flame at the intimation that they might want to be alone. “No need,” she said.

“I’m giving her a ride,” Travis explained. “Josh asked me to pick her up at the Pueblo airport. She’s staying at the Camel Trail Inn.”

Maude nodded, but Jenny noted a gleam in her eyes.

“Well, welcome to Covenant Falls,” Maude said as she plucked two menus from the counter and led the way to the back. Jenny noticed five tables were occupied and another four people were at the counter. They all turned, and she felt their eyes on her as she and Travis followed Maude to a booth set against the window and the back wall.

Jenny slipped in ahead of Travis to grab the seat against the wall. He looked startled but grinned ruefully and took the seat across from her. She had learned from her time in dangerous countries to always take a corner seat where you had full view of the interior. She couldn’t help but feel a ripple of satisfaction at beating him to it.

If Maude noticed anything, she kept it to herself as she handed them worn menus. “We have great hamburgers,” Maude said. “The beef is fresh, and we use a mix of ground sirloin for taste and chuck for texture. But the steaks are great, too, as the major can testify to.”

“The burger,” Jenny said. “Two of them with cheddar cheese, if you have it, and onions and ketchup on the side. And french fries.”

“You have a keeper here, Major,” Maude said. “Steak or hamburger for you?”

“She ordered with such relish, I guess I’ll have the same,” he told Maude. “And unsweetened iced tea for me.” He glanced at Jenny with a raised eyebrow.

“With lots of lemon,” Jenny said.

Maude laughed. “I’ll have to hire her to sit at the door and eat cheeseburgers. I bet my business would double.” She turned back to Travis. “I heard you brought a young man with you.”

Travis turned to Jenny. “There’s no secrets here. Not for long.” He turned back to Maude. “His name is Danny Ware,” he said. “First time he comes in here is on me, okay?”

“Nope. Heard he’s a wounded vet. First visit is on me. You can have the second. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Who is Danny?” Jenny asked as Maude walked away.

Travis felt uncomfortable. “A kid I met in rehab. Lost his leg in Afghanistan. One of the ranchers hired him to do some work.”

“Jubal or Josh?” she asked.

“Didn’t Susan tell you that, too?”

“No, but it makes sense. He came with you. Josh is your friend and he’s working with Jubal.”

The drinks came immediately in tall, frosted glasses with lemon. She took an appreciative sip. “Hmm. I can tell I’ll like this place.”

“You’ll also like the inn,” he said. “Susan’s great, and so is the food. I ate there when I was here a couple of months ago.”

“How long were you in Covenant Falls then?”

“Three days. Then I came back a few days ago.”

“With Danny?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to meet him.”

“He’s a little shy.”

“I’m good with shy.”

Travis sighed. Hell, she was probably good with everyone. It was downright scary. He changed the subject. “How long are you going to be here?” he asked.

“As long as it takes.”

He considered that. He felt like smiling—and groaning. He liked her. He liked her very much. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him like this. Yes, he could. Never.

He’d been infatuated with Dinah, but had he ever really liked her? He’d been proud to have her on his arm. He was impressed with her accomplishments. She was damned good in bed, too. He even thought he was in love, but now he wondered whether he’d ever really known her. Some of the attraction, he’d realized while recuperating, had been wanting to know someone was waiting for him back home.

That seemed kind of sad now. But he should have been far more devastated at her reaction than he was. Still, it had burned into his consciousness that other women could feel the same.

This woman didn’t appear to notice his limp, nor the missing fingers on his hand. Nor was she obsessed with her own looks. She’d applied only a touch of lipstick and was dressed in comfortable, well-worn jeans—unlike his former fiancé, who wouldn’t be caught dead in them.

“Why are you really interested in Covenant Falls?” he asked abruptly. “It’s just another small town. It seems way below your league.”

She squinted at him as if he had three heads. “There’s always a story,” she replied.

He took it as an invitation for find out more about her. She had been interrogating him. Time to turn the tables.

“Then why go all the way to the Middle East?”

“Good question,” she said. “I asked myself that many times, especially when I was in the hospital.”

“Any answers?”

“Hard to explain,” she said. “Why did you join the army?”

“You first,” he insisted.

She took a long sip of tea before answering.

She shrugged. “I always had wanderlust. When I was a kid, I could travel through books and movies and television. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to see places and events through my own eyes, not someone else’s. I majored in journalism in college, helped put myself through by writing for the university television station and stringing for state newspapers.

“When I graduated, reality hit,” she said with a wry grimace. “Jobs were hard to come by in the business. Newspapers were consolidating all over the country. Really fine, experienced reporters couldn’t find jobs. The entire field was in withdrawal.

“I auditioned for several television stations,” she continued with that spark of defiance in her eyes, “but I turned down being a weather girl.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. Just from the few hours he’d spent with her, he realized she wouldn’t be satisfied in a nine to five job even on television. He had a damn hard job thinking of one for himself. “No,” he said. “I can’t picture you standing in front of a board, day after day.”

Her brow furrowed. “You’re right. Instead, I worked at making contacts with editors through press clubs and friends. I made a nuisance out of myself. Through pure persistence, I got a job with a small city newspaper. Interesting, but not what I wanted. I wanted to cover more big news, and I wanted to travel.” She paused. “I’m talking too much.”

“No, you’re not,” he replied. “Go on.”

“Maybe you should have been a reporter,” she said with that quick, heart-stopping grin. “I discovered that my newspaper was paying freelancers for travel articles. I investigated and discovered a lot of travel magazines as well as newspapers used freelancers. I also discovered that, unlike newspapers, travel magazines are doing very well and looking for contributors. I’d saved enough money to take a sailboat cruise to some off-the-beaten-trail Caribbean Islands and wrote three different stories and sent them to three different travel publications. All three bought them and wanted more.”

She paused, but now he was caught up in her story. She sipped her tea.

“How did you go from travel writer to war correspondent?” Travis asked. He wanted to keep the conversation away from Covenant Falls and himself, and turnaround from all her questions was only fair. He also liked watching her as she spoke. Her green eyes lit with life and humor. Determination and restlessness radiated from her. It was even in the way her fingers wandered from her glass to the silverware. They were always in motion.

He realized one thing. It was going to be nearly impossible to deflect her from whatever she was seeking.

She played with the napkin, another indication of suppressed energy. “I spent two years as a travel writer, both for magazines and newspapers. I could always find quirky people and odd bits of history and out-of-the-way places. Most of my expenses were paid by hotels or ships or travel agencies. I saved money. I was satisfying my travel drive, but not the part of me that wanted to be where important things were happening.

“When I’d saved enough money and made contacts with major news organizations, I decided to go out on my own. I had a college friend who worked with refugees in Jordan and I was able to get a visa. That was before everything blew up there. Once in the Middle East, I started writing stories about ordinary people caught up in war and a growing number were picked up by several news services. Few of them wanted to pay for a full-time reporter with all the risks involved.”

It sounded easy, but Travis knew how difficult it was to get permission to enter Middle Eastern countries. He wondered whether it was that smile or the obvious never-say-quit determination. Whatever it was, it did not bode well for trying to discourage her from whatever she wanted here.

“You did more than a few articles,” he said.

“You did some research, too,” she tossed back.

“A little,” he admitted. “But I suspect there’s more to the story.”

“I was in the right place at the wrong time,” she said. “I was staying in a hotel in Iraq when terrorists hit a popular restaurant on the same street. I emailed it to a news service that had picked up some of my travel articles. The news manager bought it, pushed it and it got wide distribution. He said he would take whatever else I could give him. Through him, I was able to get press credentials and go pretty much wherever I wanted to go. And that’s pretty much the whole story.”

“And what about your family?” he asked.

She shrugged. “No husband. No children. As for my parents, they disapproved of almost everything I did. My father’s expectation was a proper marriage to a very eligible and preferably wealthy man. He was sadly disappointed with my wandering ways. We don’t speak much.”

“Mother?” he asked.

“She thinks like Father thinks.”

The food came. Jenny grabbed one of the two cheeseburgers the second the plate was down, but she paused before eating long enough to look up at Maude with a blinding smile. “Heavens, but that smells good.”

He was just as hungry, and they both concentrated on hamburgers and fries. He was impressed. When she finished with the first burger and french fries, she fastened her gaze on him. “Your turn to tell your life story.”

“You still have a burger left.”

“That’s dessert. A dignified pause is warranted,” she explained patiently.

He chuckled. He was both relieved and yet oddly saddened to be leaving Covenant Falls the day after tomorrow.

“Fair’s fair,” Jenny persisted. “I get to ask a question now.”

“Okay,” he said. “Ask.”

“How long have you been in the army?”

“Seventeen years in September.”

“Do you want to stay in?”

“Depends on the job. My injuries, both leg and hand, will keep me out of the field.”

She studied him for a long moment. “Why did you join the army?”

He shrugged. “Nine-Eleven, like a lot of people my age. A close friend died in the South Tower.”

“What were you planning to do?”

“Sports management. High school or college athletics. I’d just received my undergrad degree and was planning to get my master’s, but sports didn’t seem that important after Kevin died. Instead, I went into officer candidate school.”

“What about your family?”

“There isn’t any,” he said in a flat tone that ordinarily would have warned most people off. He’d already said more to her than he remembered telling anyone else. More explanation would carry too much pain.