When the Clouds Roll By by Myra Johnson Read Free Book Online Page A

Annemarie again. Dear God, she was even more beautiful than he remembered!
    Dear God, give me the strength to give her up.
    After days on the train, Gilbert was none too happy about the ambulance ride, three wounded veterans crowded into the back of the small vehicle. At least it was only a few blocks to the hospital.
    At least it got him away from his doting mother.
    For a while anyway. It didn’t take long for her to find him once he’d been admitted. Her strident voice carried throughout the ward as she kept insisting her son simply must have a private room.
    “There are no private rooms available, ma’am,” a nurse patiently explained. “I assure you, your son will get the best of care right here on the ward.”
    “But he’s an officer. Are you certain something can’t be arranged—”
    “Mother. Stop. Please.” Gilbert sank deeper into his pillow and closed h is eyes. Tired, so tired. If they’d just let him sleep . . .
    “Gilbert?”
    The soft, sweet voice ripped a hole in his heart. He slid open his eyes to find Annemarie at his bedside, the same unruly tress creeping across her right temple. At the depot he’d scarcely had two minutes to soak up her beauty, her longing gazes, the tender touch of her hand, until Mother insisted if he sat there a moment longer, he’d “catch his death.”
    Death. If the woman only knew how many times he’d faced death on the battlefield, how many times he still faced it in his own dark thoughts.
    Annemarie stepped closer and ran a finger along his forehead, nudging aside a lock of hair. He hadn’t had a haircut in weeks, hadn’t shaved for at least two days. He’d seen the stunned look in her eyes when she first glimpsed him at the depot. Wounded, unkempt—how he must look to her! Heaven help him, this was not how he’d envisioned his homecoming . . . at least not before a whizzbang from a German 77mm field gun took his leg, tore his arm to shreds, and left him with the mother of all headaches.
    Suppressing a groan, he edged higher in the bed and reached for Annemarie’s hand. “What are you doing here? This is no place for you.”
    She glanced at their surroundings—rows of beds marching down each side of the ward, trays of medical supplies on steel carts, nurses moving quietly among the patients with cups of water, bowls of broth . . . hypodermics filled with morphine.
    A physical craving curdled his belly. He tugged his hand free of Annemarie’s and clenched a fist. How much longer before they’d bring him another injection?
    Annemarie was speaking. He swallowed, his mouth tasting like cotton, and shifted his glance to her face. “What did you say?”
    She gave a gentle laugh. “I just asked, if I shouldn’t be here, then where should I be?” She bent over him, one arm encircling his head, her breath like gossamer against his cheek. A tear pooled in the corner of her eye. “Oh, Gilbert, I’ve missed you so much!”
    “My, my, my!” His mother appeared at his left, hands clasped at her bosom. “How long I have waited to see the two of you together again. Gilbert, dear, I will leave you in Annemarie’s care while I find your doctor to discuss your course of treatment. And see what can be done about a private room.”
    “Mother, I told you—”
    “No arguments, my darling. Only the very best for my son the war hero.” Dropping a kiss upon his forehead, she bustled out of the ward.
    Before Gilbert could apologize to Annemarie for his mother’s interruption—not to mention her usual high-handedness—a nurse approached. “Visiting hours are over. I must ask you to say your good-byes and let our patient have his rest.”
    Annemarie cast Gilbert another longing gaze as she stroked his forehead. “I’ll come again tomorrow, as soon as I can break away from the factory.”
    This was his chance to tell her not to return, to never see him again. That’s what he’d planned, anyway, all the way across the ocean, then the long train ride home. But