DONNA ALWARD - The Soldier's Homecoming

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. Still so young, full of energy and determination to be the best shot in the Army. Then he’d gone to Edmonton, and who knew where he’d been since then. Who knew how long he’d be stationed here? Despite his injury, it was obvious he was staying in the military, not looking to be discharged. That meant more moving around.

“And where would that be?”

He smiled but it seemed grim, a thin line. “Here and there. Doing what I do…what I did,” he corrected himself. “I went where I was needed.”

The very level of danger she’d worried so much about lent a sense of the mysterious to him, and Shannyn felt a glimmer of awe. He would have performed each task as it was assigned, no questions. For some strange reason, despite his aloofness, she knew what she’d always known. There was something heroic about Jonas Kirkpatrick. Something that made her feel safe. That was odd, because right now he was her biggest threat and he didn’t even know it.

“What are you doing on base now? When you left you’d just finished sniper school.” She looked up into his eyes. That had been a bone of contention in the end, too. An extra degree of danger that he’d relished and she’d feared. And it looked as though she’d had good reason to worry. He was only wounded. How many hadn’t come back alive?

His jaw hardened, only slightly but enough that she saw it. Saw his eyes cool until they seemed to shut her out completely. In a matter of a few seconds, he had fully withdrawn into himself.

“I’m back at the school.”

“More courses?” She couldn’t imagine what else they would want him to do; he’d already accelerated through basic and had set his eyes on Special Forces. He’d obviously done his job and done it well.

“I’m instructing, sniping and small arms.”

Her eyebrows lifted. Now he was in charge of training the next generation of sharpshooters? No more active duty? Had his injury caused that? How had it happened? She had so many questions and no right to ask. No right to pry. They were exes only, as far as he was concerned.

And truth be told, curious as she was, even though she still felt that pull to him, she knew it would be better for everyone if they kept things very impersonal. Getting involved in his life meant he’d get involved in hers, and she couldn’t let that happen. For all she knew instructing was a temporary position until he could return to active duty. The last thing she needed was Jonas temporarily involved in anything and then leaving. She’d been through that enough in her lifetime.

“Do you like the new job?” She asked the question to fill up the awkward silence that had fallen.

His eyes didn’t warm, just seemed to assess her distantly.

When they’d met six years ago, he’d been outgoing, fun, ebullient and full of life. It was hard to reconcile that energetic youth to the hardened man before her. The gulf between them now was wider than it had ever been.

“It has its good points.”

Despite his earlier attempt at lightening the atmosphere, it was clear Jonas wasn’t in a social chitchat sort of mood anymore, and it was just as well.

“Then I’m glad. I should get home.”

“See you around.”

She gripped the pizza box with one hand and looped her key ring around the index finger of her other. “Goodbye,” she replied, surprised to feel her throat tighten.

It would have been easier if he’d just stayed away. She could have kept the memories of their idyllic months together untarnished. Now they were bookended with an image of a colder, harder man who seemed familiar yet a stranger.

She didn’t need a man. She’d proven that. But if she were to choose one, it would be someone devoted, dedicated and, above all, present. Committed.

She couldn’t imagine Jonas as any of those things.

The leg press moved smoothly, up, down, up, down. Jonas grimaced at the weight on the bar. Ridiculous. It was half of what he’d been able to press only a year ago. He had enough reminders of what had happened to him without dealing with his body giving out.

He set his teeth and stubbornly added five more reps to his set, until the muscles quivered all the way up to his hip.

Tomorrow was his next physio appointment, and he was determined to have made progress. Everyone said his expertise and experience were beneficial to the training program here. But he knew the real reason he was back. He could no longer work out in the field. People called him a hero. He knew better.

He knew it was his fault.

Jonas slid off the black vinyl seat and sat on the mat, his legs spread out in a vee. Slowly he leaned forward, stretching out the muscles he’d just worked, gritting his teeth against the pain.

He hadn’t expected to see Shannyn, that was for sure. Even so, he’d done nothing but think of her as the transport flight came in on final approach. He’d only been here in the Fredericton area for basic training, then sniper school. A small wedge of his life so far. But during that time…Shannyn had been a big part of that, and he wasn’t immune to remembering happier days. She’d never been far from his mind.

But that was before. Before war, before deployment, before everything. Before the pervading taste of dust and blood. He could offer her nothing now, and he didn’t want to. That part of his life was over, and he was moving on in the only direction he knew how. Within the Army. His home.

He lay down on his back, crossed one ankle over his knee, and drew the knee in, stretching out his hip. They’d run into each other twice already, and he’d been back less than two weeks.

Switching legs, he sighed. Tomorrow he’d go to his appointment, and then he’d see about switching therapists, go to another office. The less they saw of each other the better. For both of them.

JONAS arrived for his appointment a few minutes early, providing the blond receptionist, who wasn’t Shannyn, with a letter before seating himself in the waiting room.

“Shannyn?”

Shannyn, just entering reception, shook her head, diverting her gaze from the back of Jonas’s head to the cheerful face of their receptionist, Melanie. “What is it?”

“It’s Sgt. Kirkpatrick’s letter. He wants his file sent to another clinic. He wants to switch therapists.”

Shannyn took the file. “Thank you, Melanie. I’ll take care of it.”

Her even tone betrayed nothing of what she felt. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure of it herself. Part of her was disappointed he wanted to go somewhere else, but mostly she felt relief that she wouldn’t have to see him on a regular basis. The more she saw him, the more likely she was to be reminded of how she’d cared about him. Cutting down the risk of bumping into him could only be a good thing, right?

Then why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?

Shannyn unfolded the paper and stared at the writing. When she reached the end she looked over at him in the waiting area. He turned, meeting her eyes, his face unreadable. She wondered if they taught them how to perfect that look in the Army. In his letter, he hadn’t offered any explanation for the switch. But then he didn’t need to, did he. She got the message loud and clear. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her.

The question she did have, however, was the one that she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind. What had happened that made him only a whisper of the man he’d been six years ago? Where had that gung-ho, save-the-world optimist gone? Where had Jonas left him behind?

His file was already pulled for his appointment, and she went to retrieve it. It might be her only chance to discover what had really happened to him, and more than anything, before their brief contact was cut off, she wanted to know.

She opened the beige cover, staring at the documentation. So little information, just facts and figures and terminology that said very little about what had happened to the man.

He’d sustained his injury eleven months ago, but his file didn’t say where or under what circumstances. The absence of data only made her more curious. He’d been stabilized, but the location had been blacked out. She’d had no idea there’d be such secrecy, and she looked up again at him sitting in the waiting room.

Where have you been, and what have you been doing that’s so dangerous it has to be classified?

She continued reading. The file only stated that he’d been airlifted to Germany where he’d had surgery for a broken femur. Spent time there before being sent home to Canada for recuperation and rehab.

She read further, absorbing notations about the complicated operation to repair the bone and also about an infection that had delayed recovery.

He hadn’t had an easy go of it.

It was probably enough to change a man. If combat hadn’t changed him first. She couldn’t shake that nagging thought from her mind.

“Sgt. Kirkpatrick?” Even now the name seemed that of a stranger. She took a deep breath. “May I see you for a moment?”

His uneven gait carried him back to the counter. “Yes?”