I Shall Not Want

  “Geoff Burns called me.” Russ smiled a little. “I guess I’m going to have to stop calling him a dickhead.”

  “And so you what, thought you’d rush over here like a swabbie in On the Town and marry me before I shipped out? Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Clare—”

  “I have to see to the fire.” She went through the swinging doors into the living room. He followed her. He stopped by the sofa as she knelt and jabbed the poker at the inoffensive logs.

  “I don’t want you to go.” His voice was low.

  “I don’t want to go either.” She didn’t look at him. “My whole life is here.” She inhaled. “But I knew what I was getting into. Which is more than I can say about becoming a priest.” She got onto her feet and turned toward him, a big man in khaki and stocking feet, hands jammed into his pockets.

  He looked at the floor. “When I say I don’t want you to go, I mean I don’t want you to die.”

  She went to him then, wrapping her arms around him. He folded her into his embrace and rested his chin on her head. They rocked together.

  “You’re cold.”

  “It was a long walk. And I’m a little scared.”

  “Burns told me it was Iraq. He didn’t say how long your tour is going to be.”

  “A year. I’ve got two weeks to report.”

  His arms tightened. He breathed in. In the quiet, she could feel him silently enumerating everything that could happen over the course of a year in a war zone. When he finally spoke, he surprised her. “I went to Linda’s grave this morning.”

  She looked up at him.

  “I had this idea of—I don’t know—talking to her. Like people do in the movies? So I got there, I stood around in the cold, I felt like a posturing fool: then I realized; I don’t need to do this. She knew the truth. About how I felt about her. She was headed back. Headed toward me. She forgave me before she died. I just had to—I don’t know—forgive myself the same way.” He ran one hand through his hair. “It sounds stupid when I try to say it.”

  Clare shook her head. “No.”

  He smiled, one-sided. “There were already fresh flowers against her stone when I got there.”

  “Ah.”

  “Much nicer than the ones I managed to get for you.”

  She laughed.

  He tightened his arms around her. “I don’t want to spend another year kicking myself for what I should have done or not done. So tell me what I can do for you, love. You want me to go away? Help you pack? Take care of your house while you’re gone? What do you need from me?”

  No more waiting, she thought. No more time. She smiled slowly. “Make love with me.”

  He stared into her face for a heartbeat, then let her go to strip off his shirt. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am!”

  She was still laughing when he hauled her against him, bare-chested. He kissed the corners of her mouth and her jaw and her neck, yanked her sweater over her head and flung her bra across the room; kissed her shoulders and breasts and nipples until she was gasping and incoherent. She trapped his face between her hands and brought him back up to her mouth, exchanging deep, drugged kisses that made her head spin.

  She tried to tell him, The bedroom’s upstairs, but he was tugging at her skirt, saying, “I want you naked,” and the fire was hot against her back, and his hands were running between her legs and she thought she was going to die if she didn’t have him right now.

  He kicked away his pants and shorts and there they were, face-to-face and skin to skin. Everything stopped. His hands were shaking. Hers were, too. She touched the fading pink lines and puckered circles marking the violence that had nearly killed him.

  “Not very pretty,” he said.

  “No.” She looked into his eyes. “But it’s you.”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t smile. “Yes.” She stepped into his arms, listened to the hiss of his breath as they pressed together, his skin hot against hers.

  “Oh, God, you feel good.” He buried his face in her neck.

  “Um.” His hands were moving over her again, making it hard to think. “I should let you know I’m on—oh, God—birth control pills. To regulate my cycle.” He moved down her body, using his tongue and teeth now, as well as his hands. “But I don’t have—oh, yes, do that again—any condoms or anything.”

  He looked up at her. “Clare, the last time I was with someone new I was twenty-three years old. I’m not worried about diseases, I’m worried I’ve forgotten what to do.”

  She laughed, then gasped. “That’s okay. I’ve forgotten what you’re supposed to do, too.”

  He laughed against her belly, a low rumble that sank into her bones. He got off the floor and half sat, half sprawled onto the sofa. She climbed onto his lap. Leaned forward. Kissed him. Teased him, with her mouth and breasts and hands, until he was clenched and trembling. “Now, please.” His voice was heavy. “Please, now.”

  He looked into her eyes as she took him inside her. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “Clare . . .”

  “With my body I thee worship.” She didn’t know if he recognized the words.

  “I do,” he said. “I will.” Then she moved, and he moved, and every thought fled like sparks up the chimney as he kissed her and licked her and stroked her with his long, clever fingers, over and over and over again. Her slick-wet skin felt taut, fever-hot. She clutched at him, closed her eyes, opened her eyes, watched his face glazed with pleasure, a face she knew like her own and had never seen before.

  He slid down, braced his legs, thrust hard into her. She cried out.

  “Tell me.” Rough and hard.

  “I love you.” She didn’t recognize her own voice.

  “No. Tell me you’ll come back.”

  “Russ—”

  “Promise me. Promise me you’ll come back.”

  He battered at her. Fingers moving. So good. “I can’t—”

  “Promise. Me.”

  “Oh, God!” She broke, snapped, arched, tore open to him. “I promise, I promise, I’ll come back to you, I’ll come back to you, I’ll come back. . . .”

  EPIPHANY

  January 6

  Russ woke up in his lover’s bed alone. He sat up. She was at the other end of the spartan room, kneeling at her prie-dieu. Morning prayers.

  “I was that good, huh?”

  Without looking at him, she raised her voice. “Bless, also, O Lord, the aged and infirm, especially your servant Russ Van Alstyne. . . .”

  He threw a pillow at her. She laughed but continued on silently. He tossed the covers back and padded downstairs to get the coffee going.

  Her duffel bag was already by the door.

  After he put Clare’s fancy French press to work, he went back upstairs, hip twingeing as it always did these days, and got dressed. Her shower was running. He cracked open the door, letting out a rush of steam. “I’m going to get my truck,” he yelled.

  “Okay.”

  For the past two weeks, he had parked his truck overnight in Tick Solway’s lot across from the church, in the driveway of a couple of snowbirds, and on Washington Street, two blocks up and one block over. He guessed more than one of Clare’s congregation had an idea she hadn’t been spending these last nights alone, but no one seemed inclined to judge a woman headed for a war zone.

  His stomach twisted.

  He brushed a dusting of snow off the window as the engine warmed up and then drove the three blocks to Clare’s. He left the truck running. Kicked off his boots and entered the kitchen. “You ready?”

  Her hair was seal-slick from her shower, already pinned up. She was going to get it cut at Fort Drum, she’d told him. She poured the coffee into a travel mug. “Ready.”

  They were quiet on the drive to Latham. The sky was sheet-metal gray, promising more snow by noon. She looked out the window, watching the Northway roll by, and it felt like she had already left him.

  “I’d like you to just drop me off at the depot,” she said, as he threaded his
way through the Albany traffic.

  “Okay.”

  “They’re going to have one of those send-offs, with a band, and the young wives dressed up in red, white, and blue, and parents trying not to cry. I hate those.”

  “Okay.”

  She rubbed her hands along her BDUs. Past Albany, now, coming up on Latham. Had Linda felt this way when he had deployed to the Gulf and to Panama? How did she stand it? He shot a fierce apology to the place where he kept her memory.

  Clare turned to him. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think women should be anywhere near any combat zone at any time.”

  She laughed.

  And there they were, at the gate, showing her ID, pulling onto the tarmac outside the depot. Gunship gray buses were lined up nose to tail, waiting to take the battalion to Fort Drum. They both stared at them.

  He moved first, getting out of the truck, hoisting her rucksack, opening the door for her. She jumped down. “Thanks.”

  She looked up at him, like she wanted to say something but didn’t know where to begin. He knew how she felt. He was afraid if he started talking they’d be there all day, he had so much stuff in his head. Instead, he pulled her into a hard embrace. They stayed like that for a long time. She pulled away first. He had always suspected she was stronger than he was.

  She dug into her pocket. Pulled out something silver. “I want you to keep this for me until I get back.” She placed it in his hand. It was the cross she always wore with her clericals.

  He tipped a one-sided smile. “I can see it now. I’m going to wind up going to your church just to be where you were, like some old dog circling back to an empty chair.”

  “Well.” She shouldered her rucksack. “They did want me to increase attendance. Old dog.”

  He caught her hands. Squeezed hard. “I’m holding on,” he said. “No matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing. Don’t ever doubt it. I’m holding on.”

  She ducked her head. Leaned against him for a moment. Took a deep breath. Stood straight. Her eyes were liquid-bright, but she managed a smile. “Not letting go,” she said.

  Then she did just that, releasing his hands. She turned and walked toward the depot. He watched her cross the tarmac, an average-sized woman in desert camo and army boots. He watched her until she disappeared inside. She never looked back.

  He dropped the silver cross over his head. Tucked it beneath his shirt. Climbed into his truck. By the time he reached the Northway, the snow had started. He flicked on the wipers and turned on his lights. A lot more winter to get through, he thought. A long, long year to go.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  ONE WAS A SOLDIER

  the next Julia Spencer-Fleming novel,

  available soon in hardcover from Minotaur Books

  “You here to arrest somebody?” The man with the fist full 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 fixedly 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 though 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 almost 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 suddenly 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 deeply, 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 brigades’ 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 ha
dn’t seen for eighteen months? When he’d come home from Viet Nam, he 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. And 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. Captain 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 them in both hands and buried her face in the remaining flowers. She had tiny lines etched along the outside of her eyes that hadn’t been there when she left.