Love Comes Home by Ann H. Gabhart Read Free Book Online

Some kind of machine?” Sarge glared at Jay. “I’d be a fool not to be scared when bullets start flying or we have to step our way through a minefield.” He tipped his canteen up for a drink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “A man tells you he’s not scared, you give him a wide berth. He’ll get you killed straight out.”
    “All kinds of ways to be afraid.” Jay chewed on one of the hard biscuits in his rations and thought about Rosey Corner food. A man missed real food. And a woman’s arms around him. He looked over at Sarge. “You’ve been married a long time, haven’t you, Sarge?”
    Sarge let out a snort that was half laugh. “You sure are jumping around today, Tanner. You thinking of home?”
    “Who isn’t?” Jay said.
    “You aren’t lying there. Me and the old lady, we’ve been married since I was twenty. Going on fifteen years now.” He narrowed his eyes on Jay before he went on. “What’s the matter? You get a bad letter from the wife?”
    “No, no, Kate’s great. Busy. Full of what we’ll do when I get home.” Jay finished off the last of his rations.
    “You not wanting to do what she’s wanting to do?”
    “It’s not that.”
    “What you got stuck in your craw then, Tanner?” Sarge sounded impatient.
    “It’s just thinking about being married.” Jay rubbed his hands off on his pants.”We weren’t together but a few weeks after we tied the knot and now it’s been years.”
    “You get a pile of letters every mail call.”
    “Yeah, but that’s just words on paper.” Jay stared off down the road where the artillery boomed. The noise didn’t seem to matter any more than a train rattling past. It ought to matter. Somebody was probably dying.
    Sarge leaned over and stared him in the face. “You’re sounding like you’re scared of being married?”
    With a self-conscious grin, Jay dropped his head down to stare at the ground. “Maybe I am.”
    “You’re an idiot, Tanner. A certifiable idiot.” Sarge grabbed his pack and gun. “Come on, soldier. Time to go down the road and see if we can get ourselves killed. I figure the two of us are on borrowed time already.”
    Without another word, Jay got up. He didn’t know what it was about Sarge that had him always talking about things that might be better kept inside. Sarge was right. He was an idiot.
    The other men in the unit were falling in behind them when Sarge looked over at Jay with a sideways grin. “Idiot or not, you’ve got a pretty good handle on what being married can be. It’s God’s own truth that a good woman can put a scare into a man if he don’t do right. You just make sure you do right for that girl and you’ll be fine.”
    The screech of the train brakes jerked Jay back to the present. As he climbed down from the train, he looked around at the crowded platform. No way would Kate be there, but she’d be in his arms soon.
    Perfect love casteth out fear. The verse ran through his head again as he walked away from the train station. He might not be perfect, but he did love Kate. And she was only a few blocks away. His heart started pounding. Not with fear, but anticipation. He picked up his pace, hating the very air that held him back and kept him away from her.
    He found the newspaper building easy enough. He stared at it, wishing she’d look out and see him. He thought about throwing something up at a window. Like Romeo getting Juliet’s attention. But he had no idea which window.
    Instead he went inside to the front desk where a girl with sausage curls was on the phone. She hung up and smiled at him. “Can I help you, sir?”
    “I hope so. I’ve got this story. A big story.” He flashed a smile back at her and color bloomed in her cheeks. Maybe he hadn’t lost all his charm in the Army. But he wasn’t interested in charming her. He had another girl on his mind.
    “I’ll call someone down to talk to you.” She reached for the phone again.
    “I’m not giving my story to anybody but this