The Soldier's Homecoming. Donna Alward

You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

      At that moment Geneva Malloy’s voice came through the far door. “Sgt. Kirkpatrick? I’m ready for you now.”

      Jonas stood, and without a backward glance at Shannyn’s desk, went through the door with his physiotherapist.

      “Hey…‘Kirkpatrick’.” Carrie paused, then pierced Shannyn with a questioning look. “Isn’t Kirkpatrick the name of—”

      Shannyn confirmed it with a twitch of her eyebrow.

      Carrie grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it close, plopping down. “Then it is a ghost.”

      “He’s very real, I’m afraid.” Shannyn took Mrs. Gilmore’s file and handed it over, torn between wanting to talk about it and wanting to pretend he wasn’t back at all.

      “Did he even recognize you?” The file went forgotten in Carrie’s hand.

      Maybe it would have been easier if he hadn’t recognized her, although after all they’d shared there was little chance of it. It might have been easier to take, though, than the cold reception she’d been given.

      “Oh, he knows who I am. He just doesn’t seem to care. Which is just as it should be.” She tried hard to be glad Jonas had been so cold. If he wasn’t interested in her now, it made her life a whole lot easier.

      Carrie looked at her watch. “I wish we could talk. I’ve got to run or I’ll be behind. We’ll chat later, okay?” Carrie reached over and gave Shannyn’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

      There was nothing for them to talk about, not really. Jonas would move along soon enough, and she’d still be left behind. After his impersonal greeting this morning, it was very clear he didn’t hold any lingering feelings for her at all. That was for the best. Dreams were well and good, but reality was a whole other ball game. She’d learned that the hard way a long time ago. Everything would be much easier this way in the end.

      Shannyn sighed. Anything with Jonas would be temporary, no matter how much she’d never been able to completely let go, no matter how tempted she was to go there again. But temporary wasn’t good enough. Not anymore.

      Shannyn attempted to go back to her monthly reports but her heart wasn’t in her work. She kept picturing Jonas’s limp and wondered what he was going through with his therapy. Wondered what had brought him to this point in his life.

      Questions she had no right to ask.

      After an hour had passed, Jonas reappeared at her desk. She looked up at him over the counter. Goodness, he was tall. It was one of the things she’d always really liked about him. Jonas was easily six-one, and seemed to stand even taller after his physio session.

      “I need to book my next appointment.”

      “How frequently are you supposed to have sessions?” Shannyn tried to keep her voice professional and light.

      “Once a week, for now.”

      She opened up the schedule. This was ridiculous. They were talking over appointments as if they were complete strangers. Yet she’d tried already to bridge the gap, make it personal, and he’d been cool and dismissive. She straightened her shoulders. “Next Thursday, two-thirty in the afternoon is all I’ve got.”

      “That’s fine.”

      She wrote it on a card for him and started to hand it over the gray counter. But when his fingers closed on it, she knew she couldn’t let him go without asking one question.

      “Jonas…your leg. It’s all right?”

      “My leg’s fine.”

      “How long are you on base, then?” Her heart stopped as she finished her second question, unable to help herself.

      For a moment, just the space of a breath, his eyes spoke to her, delving in, acknowledging that he wasn’t as cold as he seemed. But then he shuttered them. Shannyn knew she hadn’t imagined the look. There was still a connection. Perhaps only the memory of what had been, but it was there, and she wished it wasn’t. Her life would be much easier if she felt nothing at all.

      “This is my station. I have no plans to be going elsewhere in the foreseeable future.”

      Here, for good? She swallowed. A short visit would have been better. Certainly less risky. But she also knew that “for good” was a relative term. No one in the military was ever in one place for long.

      “All right, then,” she replied dumbly.

      He turned crisply and went to the door, his limp slightly less pronounced than it had been before his appointment.

      He left without looking back.

      He was really good at that. And she’d do well to remember it.

      Shannyn left work on Friday and stopped for pizza. Every payday she stopped for a takeout meal, a biweekly extravagance. Last payday it had been chicken strips and fries. Tonight was Hawaiian pizza, with extra cheese.

      She was leaning against the takeout counter when a door slammed just outside and she saw Jonas getting out of a battered four-by-four truck.

      What were the chances?

      Obviously pretty good. She took a deep breath and turned her attention to the teen behind the counter who was getting her change. As the glass door opened, she tucked the money in her wallet and slid to the side to wait for her order.

      “Pickup for Kirkpatrick,” he said to the girl in the red-and-white visor.

      He dug out his wallet and turned with the box in his hands, stopping short when he saw her waiting to the side.

      “Shannyn.”

      “Small world, huh?” She attempted a faint but cool smile.

      “Bachelor’s supper,” he replied civilly, lifting the box a little to illustrate.

      “Friday-night treat,” she replied. Perhaps the initial shock of seeing each other was over, or the casual atmosphere of the pizza place helped, but he seemed slightly more approachable now than he had at his appointment. Which still didn’t say very much.

      “Ham and pineapple?”

      “Still my favorite,” she replied, feeling ridiculously flattered that he’d remembered that tidbit of information.

      They stood there like statues, exchanging the most basic of pleasantries, an air of discomfort between them.

      “Miss? Your order is ready.”

      She took the box, shifting her hands from the hot bottom to the sides. “Fresh from the oven.”

      And still they stood awkwardly, until Jonas chuckled.

      She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she let it out at the sound of his soft laughter.

      “This is a hell of a thing, isn’t it.”

      “It is.” She started for the door and he followed her. It was easier for him to relax, she reasoned, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned. He wasn’t the one carrying a secret around.

      “There was a time when we weren’t uncomfortable with each other at all. I don’t know why we are now. That’s all in the past. I didn’t even know you’d still be here after all this time.”

      His words contradicted his cold manner of their first meeting and she wondered at it. “I stayed,” she answered, hitting the door with her hip to push it open.

      Jonas held the door and then followed her out, putting his white pizza box down on the hood of his truck. “I just go where they tell me.”

      Shannyn paused, the heat from the pizza warming her fingers. That had always been the problem. He was at the mercy of wherever his superiors sent him next. He’d done his training here, at Base Gagetown, finished when he was twenty-two.