Donut made her giggle.She tilted her head.If he’d been in uniform with a handy nametag on it, it would have helped, but he wore a pair of black jeans and a cabled blue sweater, neither of which did anything to help place him in her memory.“Lieutenant would be either Bragg or Landstuhl,” she said.“I made Captain right after I got here.”
He immediately removed his hands.“Sorry, ma’am, Captain, ma’am.Yes, Landstuhl.”He took a small step backward.“Imagine you met a lot of people coming and going there.”She searched his face, trying to place him.“I did promise to buy you a coffee.”
Mentally, she overlaid a beard onto his smooth cheeks and remembered.“Sergeant McBride,” she said with a smile.“Left biceps.Ran into an unfriendly friendly bullet, if I recall.Unofficially, of course.”
“Unofficially,” he confirmed.“Wow.How do you remember that?”
“Well, you left an impression,” she said, echoing his words from their last meeting.
A sudden blush rose in his cheeks, and he cleared his throat.“Well, uh, so you’re stationed here now, Captain?”
With a little shake of her head, she said, “Past tense.I’ve been out for a few months.”
Everything about him suddenly relaxed.He opened his mouth just as the band started playing.“I see.In that case, I’d love to see about that coffee.”
Something about him made her want to have coffee with him.Or tea.Or anything that might let them have some time alone just talking.“That would be great,” she said, then hesitated and did something she had never done before.“Meet me at the food court after service?”She paused.“Maybe lunch?”
The smile on his face lit up his eyes.“That’s a date, ma’am.”Anything else he might have said got interrupted by the worship leader beginning the service.
Olive slipped into her seat and tried not to sneak a glance behind her to see where he sat down, or with whom.Instead, she intentionally faced forward and tried to pay attention to the song.
AAFES Main PX
Fort Campbell, Kentucky
Ten years in the Army taught Jerry McBride one truth.Stateside Post Exchanges, or Base Exchanges—the military equivalent of department stores—looked like carbon copies: the same products, the same fluorescent hum, the same smells.Even the architecture may as well have followed a single master blueprint.Food courts, too.
He could almost always count on steak sandwiches, burrito bowls, or Louisiana fried chicken, irony not lost on him here in Kentucky.The competing aromas of grease and spice hit him as he stepped inside, scanning the Sunday crowd for that coppery red hair.He didn’t spot her—Lieutenant turned Captain turned civilian now—among the crowded tables.He hadn’t had a chance to catch her name before worship started.Something with a D, he remembered.He shifted around a sticky high-top, scanning the room.
He hadn’t lingered in Landstuhl.He’d gone straight back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina from Germany and finished his recovery in his barracks room, complete with regular visits from Osbourne and lots of physical therapy at Womack.
Running into the nurse at chapel hadn’t surprised him too much.This was a small army, and people usually crossed paths more than once.What did surprise him was the instant delight that spread through him at seeing her.
“Hey there, soldier,” she said at his elbow, soft southern lilt cutting through his thoughts.
He turned, a grin tugging his lips.“Snuck up on me.I was thinking about Germany.”
“I loved being stationed there,” she said, her smile making her eyes crinkle under faint shadows.“The work was hard, though.”She wore faded teal scrubs and a gray sweater.
“Expect so,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.“Major trauma center for—” He paused, dodging the prospect of uttering something possibly classified in this environment.“Well, you know.”
“Indeed.”She slipped her hands into her sweater pockets.“I’d like to think there’s less trauma here, but this morning, spent the better part of six hours with a 19-year-old and a gunshot wound to the chest, so today’s not the best day to talk about that.”
He studied her face, the shadows that came and went out of her eyes when she talked about her patient.“Image that takes a toll on you.”
She shook her head, “I’m tougher than I look.”
“Don’t know about that.You look pretty tough,” he said.“Did he make it?”
“So far.”
“So far is good,” he said, then tilted his head.“Please tell me your name.I tried to remember it at chapel, but I don’t remember much about my time there.There’s like a fog where details should be.”Other than green eyes and the smell of strawberries, he thought.
Her smile lit those eyes, bright as summer pines.She held out a hand.“Olivia Duncan.Olive.Nice to meet you.”
“Gerald McBride.Jerry.Pleasure’s mine.”He shook her hand, thinking how small it felt, and tested her name.“Olivia Duncan.”It rolled off his tongue, savoring the flavor of it in his mouth.“Very Irish.”
“Indeed,” she lilted, mimicking a brogue.“My gran’d approve uv ye.”She chuckled, voice softening, returning to normal.“Always been Olive, though.”
