A Soldier Saved--A Clean Romance

by Cheryl Harper

  “Ever get homesick yourself?” Angela asked. She wasn’t watching him, but he had a feeling she knew a thing about deflecting tension.

  “It’s harder for me. I was born in Georgia. My family was there. My father is buried there. I expected the same for my mother. Instead, she’s here, forcing me out on Saturday so she can cross something off her bucket list. I joined the army when I was eighteen, so I’ve lived in a whole lot of places.”

  Jason took a chance and brushed one hand over her shoulder. “Homesickness, though—I get how it can be for a person more than a place. Those bright sails over there?” He pointed with his free hand and waited for her to nod. “That’s my mother. You met her at Sawgrass that first day. She’s moved to Miami to be close to me and now she’s determined to ‘live a little.’ Those are her words. As if she didn’t run Rosette High School from the administration office gleefully and with a firm fist.”

  “She’s over there? Parasailing? I’m going to try that someday.” The spark of excitement in Angela’s eyes was nice. “That doesn’t fit with the woman I met in the hallway.”

  “It does and it doesn’t. Her Sunday school teacher and best friend told her she’d be a fool to try it, and I swear she hadn’t even ended the call before she was putting on her shoes to come here.” He’d been surprised, and a little annoyed, when his mother had called him to pick her up for breakfast and her parasailing tour appointment. But he’d been on autopilot until they arrived at the beach and agreed on a time and a place to meet after her tour. The third time he refused to join her on the boat, she’d stomped off in a huff. His temporary prosthesis would be destroyed in the water. He wasn’t even sure he could wear it parasailing. He didn’t have his crutch to go without it, and imagining removing it with a crowd watching was terrible.

  So here he sat.

  An old man holding down a bench or the kid left behind on the school field trip.

  Mad at his mother because she hadn’t considered all those facts before insisting he bring her here today. That anger had swiftly twisted to depression.

  And then Angela had dropped right into the middle of it and he’d forgotten his pain.

  “Why aren’t you over there with her?” Angela pointed with her chin. “So much fun. Not cool enough for you?”

  How much of his angry list should he share? He didn’t want to explain his prosthesis, the amputation, the accident that had led to it or any of the worries that came with it. Not yet.

  “Not my kind of adventure.” There. Good answer. Cool enough without giving away much. “I would be happy holed up at Concord Court, working on my homework, except my mother is also certain that that is a sign of depression. I can’t have her dwelling on that. And to be honest, I’d much rather watch her adventures from this bench.”

  As he said it, Jason realized it was true. Adventure was good for his mother, for everyone.

  Was he ever going to have that thrill again?

  “Parasail tours in the bay don’t measure up to the army, I guess.” Angela didn’t turn back to him, but he was bracing himself for the questions. Where had he been deployed? What had he done?

  The unspoken one would be about injuries or friends he’d lost in Afghanistan or anywhere she might have remembered from a blip on the news. And it would remain unspoken because those wounds were truths few people wanted to tackle. Only once had a man been brave enough to cross over that line, the surface, to ask about actual combat.

  If Jason displayed his prosthesis, that number would increase. He was sure of it. And the last thing he wanted to talk about was combat.

  Jason studied his jeans and running shoes and wondered what Angela would say if she knew about his injury and what his life after the adventure was like. Safe. Boring. Lots of staring at white walls and holding down benches.

  The screen on her phone lit up again.

  “What’s with all the messages?” Jason asked, ready to move away from the hardest stories he had to tell. “Are you an ‘influencer’ or something?” He made air quotes. He hadn’t realized he knew how to make air quotes, but there his hands were, all up in the air.

  “Hardly. I imagine that’s my daughter. I posted a photo I knew would get her attention.” Her grin was infectious. She was proud of herself. As she picked up her phone again, a group of cyclists swept past them on the path, stirring up a breeze that blew strands of Angela’s hair across his arm.

  “That’s one thing I missed in my ‘welcome to Miami’ packet, a warning about the roving bands of men and women on bicycles. They’re everywhere.” Jason turned to watch them ride away. That was something he could do. Easily. Even with a prosthesis.

  “And they’re fast.” Angela swiped through her photos.

  “Gazelles on the Serengeti fast.” Jason smiled at her, proud of himself. Parts of him were gone forever. The ability to make conversation with a beautiful woman was still there.

  She frowned. “Do gazelles have flashing red tails? I have a hard time picturing red dots disappearing in the tall grass.” She pointed at the seats of the last cyclists who were moving around the bend in the boardwalk. In the shade, it was easier to see the safety lights on their seats. “I guess safety matters even in the wild?”

  Jason shrugged and returned his arm to the back of the bench, grateful to roll some of the tension off his shoulders. Puns. Quips. He was rusty, but he could work that out. “I’ve never actually been to Africa or seen a gazelle in motion. I’ll have to do some research on their factory-installed safety features.”

  The pause before she laughed lasted forever, but the payoff was sweet. So sweet. She giggled. Years disappeared in a poof and he was a dumb kid showing off to impress a pretty girl. War was a world away. Pain and uncertainty and a long stretch of what-do-I-do-now wasn’t even on his radar. Just him and a woman and that bubble of emotion he’d mentioned from Smokey’s “My Girl.”

  He wasn’t sure if Angela had forgotten his arm on the back of the bench or if she was ignoring it, but she leaned closer to him to show him her phone. “Here’s my post.”

  Jason took her phone and stared hard at the selfie of Angela and some guy dressed like the captain of a ship. “Love boat,” Jason read slowly before he turned to face her. They were close. In a different relationship, this could have been a kiss in a second.

  Angela seemed proud of herself. Her hands were clasped together in glee. “Yeah, I couldn’t come up with anything better, but I knew it would work to draw Greer in. These other people? Happy bonus.”

  Moving his arm would be good. He didn’t spend time charming women who were with other men. It was sleazy and he’d hope if he ever managed to have his own girlfriend again that other guys would toe the same line.

  But he didn’t want to move away from her. This place next to her, with the sun and the water. He was truly happy here.

  “I felt a bit weird asking for the photo, but it was worth the chance.” Angela turned to him. “He had the smoothest move. I asked for a selfie, because captain of the ship”—she made the “so you understand” motion, rolling her hands in the air—“and he put his number in my phone.” Her jaw dropped wide open. “What? Who does something like that? Bold is what it is.”

  “So you just met him?” Jason asked and made a mental note.

  “On the boat tour. I saw the summer homes of famous people, took a selfie with the captain and got this cool story. I was so proud of myself, but I don’t think I’ll call him...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Why can’t I decide? What would I even say?”

  “I usually start with ‘hello’ and go from there.” Jason studied her. Did she not understand that any smart man would say yes to her in a heartbeat? “Better decide if you’re ready to date a tour-boat captain.”

  He’d said that with more stink than he should have. The guy was working, earning a living and loving his life. While Jason was limping along. Literall
y.

  “I don’t know him.” Angela crossed her arms over her chest.

  “That’s sort of what dating is.” Jason fiddled with her phone and pulled up the camera. “How about we take our own selfie?”

  Angela leaned away from him while she studied his face. “You’re a student. Of mine.”

  Jason nodded and then held the phone out. “Sure, but I need the practice. I definitely do not selfie enough.”

  He held off until she leaned closer. When she moved her sunglasses back up to rest on her head, he took the photo. “What should you caption this one?”

  She narrowed her eyes as she thought. “It took me forever to come up with the first one. I’ll have to think.”

  A gust tangled her long brown hair over her lips and he was tempted to smooth it away for her. So tempted. He sat there so long imagining a smooth move that Angela took care of it herself. “Aren’t you going to put your number into the phone? That’s how the rest of this particular maneuver works.”

  He wanted to.

  “Nah, it’s pushy.” Jason gave her the phone back.

  “Okay! I thought so, but...” Angela winced. “I haven’t dated since the divorce and I was married forever. Rodney asked me out after a language lab, and I took over from there. I refuse to do that again, to find another guy to organize into a life. I have no idea how anyone gets to know each other today. Who wants to go out with a stranger?”

  Organize into a life. The words made him picture her drawing up to-do lists while her husband and daughter fell in line. He’d hate that. Her tone suggested she’d hated it, too.

  As a man who had zero plans for what to do after he met his mother, not for the afternoon, the next week, or the next four or five decades in his life, Jason realized he might not be as ready for Angela as he wished. Another reason to crush the crush.

  “It’s not that different. You call the captain, you talk. That’s how dating works. Strangers get to know each other. That is the real adventure,” Jason said slowly.

  Angela clearly wasn’t convinced. Her skepticism was easy to read.

  Relieved that the captain wasn’t as far ahead as he’d first assumed, Jason stretched. “Text him and ask him to send you a poem. That will tell you all about him. It won’t be as good as mine, which you will judge the best poem you’ve ever read, but it could be adequate.”

  “I’ve read Maya Angelou and Walt Whitman and Billy Collins and Langston Hughes. Should I go on? It’s not that it won’t be good, but the best?” She patted his thigh and then snatched her hand back. “Walk before you run.”

  Angela cleared her throat and stood with a jerk. “Before class starts Monday.” She’d hurried back to the fork she’d paused at when he’d noticed her that afternoon. No ice cream. No water. Just a worried frown to go with her beautiful summer picture.

  “Hey, Angela.”

  She didn’t answer, but she did slow and stop to wait for whatever came next.

  “When you’re ready for me to call you, don’t forget to give me your phone, so I can enter my number. And if you want to send me that picture of us, I’d love to have it, but no creeping.”

  She turned to stare over her shoulder. The desire to hit him with something fun or flirty was on her face, along with a bit of extra pink, but she faced forward and walked away without satisfying either of them.

  Still, the day had turned out to be a whole lot more fun than he’d expected.

  The twist in his chest was familiar. It had been a long time since he’d hated watching a woman walk away, but that was where he was.

  On his bench, like an old-timer, but fighting a junior high school crush.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  VERY FEW STUDENTS took advantage of her posted office hours even during the spring or fall semesters, but Angela kept them faithfully. Sawgrass administration expected that, and she wanted to be available to anyone who needed help. The faculty in her department muttered every time she reiterated her expectations about office hours, but today she was the only faculty on hand. Everything was quiet.

  That made it easier to appreciate the poems she’d received from Jason Ward. Not only the first assignment, but an extra poem. He’d gone from behind to ahead since their conversation on the bench.

  Neither of the poems had titles.

  Angela was sympathetic to the struggle. It was often easier to pour her emotions out in a carefully constructed poem, one that might take weeks to perfect, than it was to find the title that fit it. She made a mental note to expand on the importance of titles in class. Meanwhile, here, in her office, she could stare at the words he’d arranged on a page and be impressed.

  The first one she’d opened, creatively titled “Assignment Number One,” was, on the surface, about ice cream. A universal image that everyone could connect to.

  Jason had taken that everyday object and turned it into a consideration of wanting what you can’t have. Even more, he took that concept and turned it further to show how hard it was to want something that everyone else could have, would have and maybe not even appreciate, and fear you’d never have it.

  Ice cream.

  The ice cream she’d held in her hand while they talked on a bench in the shady bend of a popular tourist attraction.

  Something so common and recognizable turned on its head to represent distance and yearning.

  It was good.

  But “Assignment Number Two” was better. The subject? The color red. It was a collection of images and a repetitive rhythm of syllables to suggest a heartbeat or a drum that took a jumble of impressions and created a wild progression of sweet to scary to funny to heartbreaking. This was it.

  The loud jangle of her phone interrupted her fourth reading of the poem, and Angela jumped. A quick look at the doorway confirmed she had no audience. That was a relief. She’d forgotten time and place as she read.

  “Hello?” she answered as she wiped her eyes.

  “Good morning, Dr. Simmons. How is sunny Florida today?” her ex-husband asked.

  Since they’d established a pattern, Angela answered, “Sunny, Dr. Simmons.” She moved to put the phone on speaker so she didn’t get a neck cramp from holding it against her shoulder. They didn’t talk often, so this might take a minute.

  He chortled like it was the first time they’d ever done that routine. Since it had taken several tense conversations to get to this point of basic friendliness, Angela was willing to play along.

  “Good morning, Greer.” Angela knew her daughter was in the car. Rodney only called her when Greer was nearby to observe the conversation, and she could make out faint sounds of...road construction? They had to be on the way to work and internship. “You guys are running late this morning.”

  “Yeah, on top of the never-ending road construction, there are three accidents, which means we live here now, right here on the interstate. Please have our mail forwarded.” Greer’s dry delivery was sweetly familiar. Resignation was there, as if she almost believed what she was saying.

  Her ex continued. “I decided it was an excellent chance to give you a call to talk about all the changes happening in Nashville. I know Greer’s kept you updated on the baby and the engagement.”

  Sure. Along with about twenty posts every day on each social media site. No way would she admit that she was following along at home. “Sure. Congratulations. Have you set the date for the wedding yet?”

  There. Nonchalant, but still interested, the same way a truly compassionate emergency room nurse might be when you went in with a sprained ankle. It wasn’t life or death, but she would still care. A little.

  “We’re planning for the first weekend of August. I know it’s got to be the worst time to come to Florida, but ever since Greer suggested Key West, we’ve sort of run with it. I can’t believe I’ve never visited. Ernest Hemingway’s home! You remember I did my dissertation on the role
of alcohol in numbing trauma in Hemingway’s works.”

  Of course, she did. She’d had to hear about it for months while he was working on it and every now and then when Rodney could get it into conversation. That was more often than she’d expected.

  “I sort of recall that,” Angela answered and tried to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. If Greer had been beside her, they would have traded eye rolls.

  “What was yours again?” Rodney asked.

  This was a pretty normal segue. “The role of tradition in Millay’s view of modern woman.” Her mother had loved to read poetry to her when Angela was a girl. At first, the sounds and the rhyme schemes were what she understood, but it was the language, the poet’s voice that had caught her. That dissertation had been a chance to dive deep into a woman’s life, a contemporary of Rodney’s hero, the man’s man, Hemingway. When Hemingway and Millay wrote, the whole world was changing. War was their past and their future, and Millay had embraced every new bit of freedom she gained as a woman in the midst of it all. She’d pushed boundaries. It was a good dissertation, but Rodney wanted to reduce it to a nonserious study of rhyming sonnets.

  He’d learned not to express his opinions regarding Millay directly, but his superior intellect was never to be forgotten.

  Angela rested her head against the chair. She didn’t have to fight this fight anymore.

  “Did you guys call just to chat or...” It was time to get the conversation moving.

  “Dad’s excited to finally make it to Key West. That’s where he’s going with this.” Greer’s answer was her attempt at keeping the peace. She’d done that ever since she was a little girl. She never could stand to let them fight.

  It was a good reminder that they had no real reason to argue about anything anymore. That was the upside of divorce.

  “It will be a beautiful destination for a wedding.” That was an easy truth to tell. Thank goodness something about this could be easy.

  “I wasn’t sure we were going to manage it, since most of the venues are booked out so far in advance. If we’d tried to wait until the Christmas break, we would have been stuck for sure, but Kate’s working with an event planner who has some connection to a guy with a boat. I don’t ask many questions. I’ll show up with my tuxedo and have faith it will all be perfect.”