Robert swung his crutches forward and leaned into another step. The fairgoers parted around him, some offering salutes as he passed.
A broken ankle was a small price to pay to leave the battlefield. The way things were going, the war would be over before he was healed and could be sent back.
At least he hoped so.
He’d joined the army to cure himself of loving Jolene Caplan. It didn’t work. But the horrific view of what family feuds cost when the warring parties were a German kaiser against his cousins, the king of England and the tsar of Russia, cured Robert of whatever nonsense stood between his parents and Jolene’s. It also cured him of wanderlust. He’d seen enough of the world. He wanted a home and family.
With Jolene.
Robert shuffled through the crowd until he found the Fisher Scone booth. Jolene’s sweet tooth would eventually draw her to the gooey goodness of a fresh-baked pastry filled with melted butter and sweet raspberry jam.
Unable to resist the delicious treat himself, he purchased a scone and ate it while surveying the area for the best place to wait. An entrance to the grandstand provided concealment. He wanted to surprise her, but he didn’t want anyone from his family or hers to find him before he was ready. When he reached the spot, he rested his back against the portico wall and eased the crutches from under his armpits.
Fear trickled down his throat.
What if she’d forgotten all about him? He’d told her to find someone new, someone more worthy. What if she had?
His hand fisted around the now empty scone wrapper.
A large white hat with a blue bow bobbed closer. Robert’s heart pumped like he was waiting for the command to advance. He tossed the wrapper in a nearby garbage can and pushed away from the wall, balancing his weight by angling both crutches in front of him.
The crowd parted enough for him to glimpse her face.
Jolene.
How he’d missed her!
She got in line to purchase a scone. He fitted the crutches under his arms and took a step toward her.
Look at me. C’mon, sweetheart. Look over here.
As though she heard his silent plea, Jolene turned and looked right at him. Her blue eyes widened and her pretty mouth dropped open. Her glowing beauty stole his breath.
“Robert?” She made her way through the crowd, picking up speed as it thinned.
“Hi, JoJo.”
She threw her arms around his neck, knocking him against the wall and bumping his ankle cast, but he retained enough balance to toss away one crutch and press her close.
Burying his face in her neck to hide unmanly tears, Robert inhaled her unique perfume of sunshine and gasoline.
“Robert. Oh, Robert.”
“I’m here, sweetheart. All in one piece.”
Her shoulders started to shake, and cool wetness soaked through his uniform.
Every doubt about whether or not she still loved him dissolved. “Marry me, JoJo. I was an idiot to think time and distance would change my love for you. Say you’ll marry me. I can’t be away from you again.”
She sobbed harder and tightened her hold around his neck.
He’d survived barbed wire, mustard gas, and mines on the battlefield, but he was going to die of strangulation if she didn’t ease up.
It was a good way to die.
He bent lower. “Say yes. Don’t think about what your parents will say or what mine will say, just say yes. I’d get down on one knee, but …”
A little hiccup of laughter rewarded him.
“At least let me go so I can kiss you.”
Her hold loosened.
He angled his head and captured her lips in a kiss. She tasted sweeter than a Fisher Scone and felt like heaven in his arms. He pressed her closer, deepening the kiss to fill his starving soul with her goodness. Dreaming of her—of this kiss—kept him sane and fighting through the inhumanity of war. He was never letting her go, not until death parted them.
The sound of rushing water roared in his ears.
Jolene pulled away and lowered her head. Was she hiding?
Robert looked around to see why. A grinning mob formed a semicircle around the grandstand portico, clapping and whooping like they were watching an auto polo match. A few people near the back turned to frown at something.
Robert swallowed.
Jolene’s dad and the French mallet man who’d ridden beside Theo Caplan the day Mitch died pushed their way through the crowd.
Hampered by his inability to stand on both feet, Robert did his best to shield Jolene while turning to face the enemy. “Look, sir, let me explai—”
Mr. Caplan swung a right hook. Robert’s head snapped sideways. Pain exploded along his jaw.
Jolene screamed. Robert staggered back, nearly taking her down with him. Hands gripped her upper arms. Dragged her away. Twisting and turning, she couldn’t break the hold. “Let me go!”
“Hey!” A group of men pushed through the gawking crowd. The Montgomery Marauders Auto Polo Team. All four of them, in matching blue shirts.
Jolene was tossed sideways. Pierre rushed to meet the men’s upraised fists. She stumbled into the crowd. “Help me stop them. Please.”
Her voice was drowned by shouting—calls for the police clashed with hollers of encouragement to the combatants.
She pushed against bodies to get to Robert, but a group of men stood, backs to the fray, arms spread wide. An impenetrable line.
Jolene jumped, ducked, and kept pressing forward to catch glimpses. Robert lay on the ground, hands and body curled to protect his white cast. His crutches too far away for him to grab. Two Montgomery team members had pulled her father away, holding his arms while a third punched him in the stomach. The fourth Montgomery and Pierre traded blows. Was Robert bleeding? “Oh, please! I need to see!”
This was all her fault—kissing Robert in public!
They’d been so careful before, always finding somewhere public enough that their love for each other didn’t lead to impropriety yet private enough to keep from being discovered by either of their families. Until the day Theo discovered them holding hands … a discovery that led to such heartbreak for them all.
Jolene shook the thought away. She’d spent the last seventeen months wondering and worrying without a single letter from Robert. And now he was here, she needed to touch him. To reassure her arms and hands that he wasn’t a ghost. To hold him close and smell his skin and feel his sandy-colored hair prickle against her palm.
Shrill whistles cut the air. The crowd parted for a couple of uniformed officers rushing forward. The two men holding her father let go. He slumped for an instant then stood tall, his jaw clenched.
Jolene rushed through in the police officers’ wake. Robert sat up. Other than the beginnings of a swollen lower lip, he looked remarkably undamaged. She knelt down and held his hand close to her cheek. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but his lips were rimmed in white.
“Miss, please, move away.” One of the two police officers held out a hand and helped Jolene stand. “We need to take some statements, so you’ll have to wait until we’re done, if you please.”
She didn’t please, but she nodded and stepped to the side. Her father grabbed her arm, keeping her from retrieving Robert’s crutches.
The taller officer turned to the crowd. “Can anyone tell me what happened here?”
A chorus of voices answered, their shouted words mingling together into unintelligible babble.
“You there”—the officer pointed to a distinguished-looking gentleman in a derby hat—“what say you?”
“As best as I could tell, the soldier was kissing his girl when that one”—he pointed to her father—“came roaring up and decked him. Then those four in the blue shirts jumped in and were pummeling that one and that one.”
A few voices called out affirmations of the version.
The officer turned to Jolene. “Are you the girl?”
She nodded.
“Then you’ll have to come down to the station with us, too.”
At that, all four of the Montgomery Marauders started defending their actions and pleading with the officers that they couldn’t leave the fairgrounds because they had an auto polo match in a few hours.
“Then you shouldn’t have started a brawl.” The tall officer tapped a finger against the black billy club hanging from his belt.
“If I may …” Her father tipped his head sideways with a touch of deference. “The fight was a publicity stunt that got slightly out of hand. No one in the crowd was hurt, as you can see.”
“Except this soldier here.” The shorter officer, his girth and height nearly proportionate, hoisted Robert to his feet. “What say you, Corporal? You want to press charges over this … publicity stunt?”
“Of course he doesn’t.”
Mr. Montgomery pushed through the crowd and stood next to her father. A casual observer might not detect the hatred between the two men, but Jolene saw it in the raised tendons running down her father’s neck and Mr. Montgomery’s tight smile.
The tall officer took off his hat, his bald spot shocking on a man so young. “And who might you be?”
Mr. Montgomery extended his right hand. “Charles Montgomery. And this is Mr. Oliver Caplan. We own the two auto clubs that are competing at three this afternoon.”
Her father stepped forward and shook the officer’s hand as well. “Yes, folks, if you want to see a real fight, you just come for the match and we’ll show you a good one.”
By the looks of disgust on several faces in the crowd, Jolene guessed many of them were planning to turn in their tickets rather than watch the match.
That would not be good, not when finances were already stretched thin.
Mr. Montgomery stepped close to Robert. “And my son here will be competing just to show you that there’s no real harm done.”
Robert snapped his jaw shut. Apparently it was too much for Dad to say, “Good to see you, son. How are you doing, son? How come the army sent you home early, son?”
The police officers huddled together for a moment before the taller, almost bald one said they wouldn’t make any arrests. “However, you pull another publicity stunt like this one, and we’ll clap you in jail faster than you can blink.”
Mr. Caplan whispered something to the Frenchman. He nodded, and the two men wrapped arms around Jolene’s waist, forcing her to walk away.
Since he had no desire to end up in a jail cell, Robert let her go.
For now.
His father smiled for the crowd, but his nostrils flared wide as if venting exhaust from an engine. He leaned his head close to Robert’s ear. “What your mother will say when she finds out you went to see a Caplan before coming to see her, I dare—”
“Don’t.” Robert twisted away from the staring strangers, gingerly balancing his weight by touching his boot cast on the ground. He didn’t care about preserving the facade of geniality, but this was private business. “I’m not some gullible spectator who will fall for a trumped-up dog-and-pony show to increase sales for your precious rivalry.”
“Trumped up?” Dad stooped to pick up the crutches and scanned the thinning crowd like he was trying to find their owner. “Your brother’s death may be old news to you, but it’s still as fresh as the day it happened for me. I’ll never forgive the Caplans for taking him from me. Never.”
Seventeen months and the hatred was still vitriolic. Robert gritted his teeth against the pain in his ankle, jaw, and heart. No amount of time or distance would ever make his father forgive him.
Robert held out his hand and waited until comprehension dawned on his father’s face. “You might have considered why the army sent me home before volunteering me to drive today.”
His father handed over the crutches. “Nonsense. You’re a better driver with a broken—what? Leg—?”
“Ankle.”
“—and one hand tied behind your back than the idiots I’ve got now.”
Jimmy, the mechanic and the only blue-shirted Montgomery Marauder Robert recognized, glanced their way and pressed his lips into a thin line.
Way to inspire the team, Dad!
Robert tucked the crutches under his arms and swung his good leg forward. “Can we discuss this someplace more private?”
His face hard, Dad pointed to his left. “This way. Your mother will be anxious to see you.”
What was left of the crowd parted as Robert, his father, and the four team members headed toward the team camp. Soon, the uniformed Marauders were lost in the shifting sea of fairgoers.
Jaw and ankle throbbing, Robert’s palms slickened with the effort to remain upright.
Pop!
Robert ducked and threw his hands over his ears. Steel bands wrapped around his chest. He gasped in shallow bursts and clawed at the bands, the instinct to run shooting adrenaline through him. Need to run. Need to get away. Need to breathe. The steel bands held strong. A small voice struggled to be heard over the shouting inside his head. Safe. Safe. No guns. No artillery fire. Nothing to fear. Just a sunny day at a fair far away from the front lines.
“You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
The criticism jerked Robert upright. He filled his lungs with sweet air and blew it out with a shudder. Both crutches were lying on the ground, the padded armrests flung farther than the bottom tips so they formed a V with his feet at the center point. Pitying glances showed in faces all around him. He straightened. “My apologies.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should slap you or just keep hanging on, so I settled for something in between.” The steel bands released Robert’s chest as his father leaned down to pick up the crutches.
“Of course.” Robert touched his cast to the dirt for balance and lifted his chin to stare at the mighty Mount Rainier, grounding himself in the Puyallup Valley instead of the trenches of France. At Walter Reed, he’d been told that sudden noises could set off a reaction, but he’d ridiculed the warning—much to the doctor’s amusement. Now he understood those knowing smirks.
The padded end of a crutch bumped against his chest.
Robert grabbed hold and fit it under his armpit, repeating the process with the second one a moment later. He started forward without looking at his father.
“I’d like to see my mother now.”