Soldier On

by Erica Nyden

  So far, his wife had been more forgiving. Beyond grateful, William’s eyes began brimming as well, but she wouldn’t allow it. She cushioned the back of his head with her hands, protecting it from the jostle her lips caused when they tethered to his.

  Tears forgotten, he unfolded her legs and drew them around his waist. Between his gasps and quiet moans, he drowned in lavender. His desire for her ignited, and he pushed her back on the quilt. After giving her lips their due, his mouth journeyed down her throat before Olivia wrenched his head, demanding his mouth again.

  He was vaguely aware of his foot upending his half-eaten pasty and tossing over his tea. It didn’t matter—nothing mattered but the woman beneath him and the life they would finally have together. He forgot about the little girl in the grass and the aging dog beside her; the wandering convalescents and their caregivers vanished.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,” he murmured between nibbling her earlobe and grazing her face and neck with the tip of his nose, “and I will continue to say it, even when you tell me to stop. I—”

  “Jasper, no!” A shrill as high as a peacock’s sliced across the garden. “That’s my Daddy’s food!”

  William sat up, hair tousled and eyes boggled, searching for the origin of the chaos. Olivia rose more tolerantly. At their feet lay a rapidly diminishing pile of root vegetables and pastry, as Jasper lapped frantically at the gravy.

  Emily stomped toward the aging dog, fit to be tied.

  Mrs. Pollard appeared and whisked the little girl from her feet. “All right, that’s enough, young miss. You’ve yelled enough at poor Jasper.”

  “POLLY, NO!” Emily wailed, her arms thrashing as lustily as her legs. “He is a bad dog!”

  “Jasper is not a bad dog—and he’s your daddy’s favorite doggie. I’m sure your daddy didn’t mind sharing his lunch.”

  Annie had joined them, arms out, explaining that it was someone’s naptime.

  Emily twisted toward them. “Mummy? Will Daddy—”

  Olivia kissed the little girl’s face, which was still fixed on Jasper and the man petting him. “Yes, dove, Daddy will still come read to you. Let Annie get you undressed, and he’ll be up soon.” She wiped the blond strands from the child’s forehead. “We’ve talked about how you’re to speak to Jasper. He’s a good boy and he’s getting older, so we need to be even kinder to him. Yelling does no good at all. Do you want your daddy to think you’ve got a wicked temper?”

  Emily’s eyes grew round. “No.”

  “Brilliant. Be a good girl and do as Annie says. Daddy will join you shortly.”

  Through the open door of Emily’s bedroom, Olivia beheld a sight she once feared she might never see: her husband lying beside their daughter in blissful slumber. His left arm cradled the sleeping girl, her cherubic face resting in the bunched material of his shirt. The book they’d read had fallen to the floor next to William’s shoes, which were lined neatly beside the bed.

  William had come home, and he would stay home with her for good. Forever. Her greatest wish had come true, and yet his actual return seemed unreal. But happiness overran her disbelief, fierce and clamorous, buzzing inside her as she continued to review the irrefutable facts: Her daughter had a father. She wasn’t a widow. She and William would grow old together. Like a complicated jigsaw, the pieces of her splintered heart came together, each insight filling her with eagerness for the years to come. Answers to Where the hell have you been? and Could you not have sent one clue that you were alive? Just one? didn’t matter. He was home.

  She’d already phoned her parents to share the news. At first they were speechless, but once it sank in, their interruptions ran up against her limited information until she finally yelled “I don’t know!”

  “—yet,” she’d added sheepishly. “I wanted you both to know he’s alive, he’s home and”—the rest turned into a tight-throated, high-pitched whisper—“we’re so, so happy.”

  One person she hadn’t phoned was Peder. It’d been eight months since his stay at Keldor. In that time Olivia had strived to return their friendship to its original ease by visiting when she could and pretending he’d never alluded to William’s likely infidelity should he return from war. The charade worked—maybe too well. In April Peder proposed again. It was the last time she’d been to Tredon, and she was no longer accepting his telephone calls. His disregard for her word—that “no” meant no—wounded her deeply. William, if apprised of the situation, would be furious. But she’d not interfere with their old friendship. She’d keep the last year’s events involving Peder to herself, for surely William’s reappearance alone would knock the madness, if not the breath, out of his oldest mate.

  She glided into Emily’s room and laid a hand on William’s broad shoulder. Still a light sleeper, he stirred at once. New lines he’d accumulated reappeared, and his eyes searched until they found her amused face. He kissed the top of Emily’s head, then looked dubiously at his imprisoned arm.

  “Will she wake?”

  She shook her head. “She may be a little grumpy when she wakes up to find you’ve gone, but she’ll get over it.”

  “Should I stay?”

  “Absolutely not,” she whispered, holding out both hands. “Come with me. It’s my turn.”

  Chapter 44

  “I think she was as tired as me,” William said as Olivia eased Emily’s door closed. “She fell asleep not two pages into the story. I watched her sleep until I surrendered myself. I was worried it would take her more time to warm to me, but it’s like we’ve been friends all along.”

  “Are you joking? Of course she warmed to you. I’ve spoken of you every day since she was born.”

  The smallest movements Olivia made captivated his attention, from the careful manner in which she closed the door to the way her eyebrows rose at its soft click. She’d replaced her garden dress with a satin dressing gown—and heaven help him, nothing else.

  “Come.” She took his hand and led him down the corridor.

  She got to their bed first and untied her dressing gown. The subtle curves of her breasts and hips were more luscious than he remembered. Overwhelmed, he stood drinking her in whilst she unbuttoned his shirt.

  The assault of her soft breasts on his chest sent his eyes to the back of his head. She guided him down onto a mass of pillows, where her delicate hands overran his neglected body. She delivered tiny, concentrated circles to his shoulders and chest, focusing solely on his pleasure.

  His urgency waned and he rolled onto his back, steeped in Olivia’s healing caresses. His dream of survival had come true; years of tension and uncertainty rolled off like a distant nightmare. The laughter of his adorable, accepting daughter and the loyalty of his beautiful, clever wife were just the beginning.

  He hadn’t been there for Emily’s first words or steps, but he’d be there on her first day of school. He’d walk her down the aisle when the time came, too. And there’d be more children—many more, if Olivia was willing. The chatter of their family would fill the rooms and corridors of Keldor with vitality and joy. They’d teach their children to embrace every day, even the bad ones, for he’d learned that sometimes a string of bad days could lead to a life happier than one could ever imagine.

  He might even attend church again. He smiled, picturing their brood filling an entire pew. And he’d pursue his woodworking. The first thing he’d build was a vanity for Olivia, in time for her birthday—but he’d keep it a surprise, although he wasn’t sure how, since he had no intention of leaving her side even for a few hours. And every night he’d make love to her—during the children’s naptime, too, like today. A perfect routine, allowing them their well-deserved time alone.

  The kisses had stopped. He cracked open an eye to see Olivia climbing on top of him. She bent forward and smothered him with her hair, giggling as she effortlessly joined her body to his.

  He was paralyzed.

  Unperturbed by his stillness, she placed a crown of kisses across hi
s forehead. “Relax.”

  “Whatever you say,” he murmured, nuzzling the breasts that lingered above his mouth.

  Olivia let him indulge for a short time before rising. She moved above him, naked and goddess-like in her determination to please him—until he remembered how he’d envisaged this reunion: not like this.

  He seized her waist and rolled her back onto the mattress.

  “What—”

  Nestled between her legs more properly than in the garden, he devoured her with his eyes.

  “I’m making love to my wife the way I’ve always imagined I would these last three years,” he responded with a forceful thrust.

  This silenced her words, but not the moans of pleasure filling the space between them. Fully entranced, she opened her arms in surrender. Pleased with his coup, he hovered above her, waiting for her eyes to open. And then they were locked with his, shimmering with delight.

  “We’ve outlived the war’s worst days, Olivia, the three of us a proper family. I’m—” Unexpectedly, his eyes welled. “I’m so happy.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers. He wanted to ravish her with passion and romance, not with the sentimental reflections of an aging veteran grateful for the woman in his arms.

  With a coy curl of her lips and a gentle squeeze at his hips, Olivia reminded him they were still joined.

  He hadn’t forgotten.

  A long kiss, enlivened by his wife’s coquettish submission, reestablished his reign. In one hand, he gathered her honeyed locks whilst subjecting her to his heightened need. Husband and wife occupied the familiar soul of the other, crowding fear with love, sorrow with joy, and war with celebration until his cries matched hers.

  On their sides, she twined her arms and legs around him as they became servants to exhaustion and bliss.

  “Never again will I leave you,” he said, lazily tickling her back.

  “I know.”

  “Were you told I was missing first?”

  She nodded against him. “A telegram came on the fifteenth of December. A letter from Colonel Adams followed—a nice letter, reassuring me that ‘missing’ didn’t mean ‘dead.’ ”

  “How long before they told you I’d been killed?”

  “Not until May. I knew you were still alive, though, because—”

  “The scarf? Surely that gave you an inkling.”

  “The scarf?”

  He sat up. “Your orange scarf. I took half of it with me to North Africa. I asked a nurse to send it to you when I was recovering in Tunis. Did you never receive it?”

  She frowned. “I only received the bit that came in a box with your effects. I’d wondered why it’d been torn.”

  He rolled onto his back, annoyed. Nurse Baldwin, his primary caregiver in the desert, had held firm to the directive that he have zero contact with anyone outside the agency—even his pregnant wife. For weeks, he’d protested the cruelty of the deception until she finally yielded. She agreed to send only the well-loved remnant of Olivia’s scarf. No note, no return address.

  He hoped the post had failed and not the nurse.

  “What were you recovering from?” she asked.

  “A bullet wound. To my leg, here.” He pulled the linens down, revealing an ugly scar on the outside of his left thigh.

  She tried examining it as though he were one of her patients, but he shuffled her hands away and readjusted the bed covers.

  “There was a skirmish a few miles from my former prison camp, if you can believe it. We’d been ambushed and were brutally outnumbered. I don’t remember anything after I went down. Many were killed and even more taken prisoner. Those assumed dead were—”

  “Burnt.”

  “Yes,” he said, surprised she’d been given such details.

  Hot air, dust, shouting, machine-gun fire—it had been so long ago, but he’d never stop reliving the chaos. He still wasn’t sure if his memories of Wirth and the prison nearby had jostled his nerves and caused him to fight like an inexperienced cadet that day. Carelessly received or not, the injury had saved his life.

  He stirred. “I awoke two days later, hundreds of miles away. Those at my bedside assured me I’d been rescued by a reliable organization, people who’d never leave me for dead and who’d utilize my talents in ways the army never could. They knew all about me: my prior undercover work for the SIS in Cairo, my escape in ’40, even you and the imminent arrival of our child.”

  He’d never lived through a more infuriating day, when strangers had informed him that he would live—but until the war ended, it would be as someone else. Officially, Major William Jack Morgan had died on 9 December, 1941, along with seven other men at the enemy’s hands.

  “But why? Why couldn’t I know? I wouldn’t have done anything to muck up their plans—”

  He held up his hand and shook his head. “No one could know. Not the colonel, not my men, not even you.”

  The disorder of war had easily concealed the five identities he’d inhabited, some good, some evil. Concealed, too, were his exploits. He’d been to every corner of occupied Europe, sometimes living in luxury amongst shameless Nazi bureaucrats and other times crawling on snowy forest floors, unsure of when his next meal would come. He came close to death twice and was saved by the enemy once—unknowingly, of course—the aftermath of which put a price on his head higher than that of any other agent.

  Telling Olivia none of this felt as grave a sin as hiding a mistress from her.

  He took her briskly into his arms. “My reward is being here now with you. I was promised I’d be sent home for good once the Nazis surrendered, and here I am. I have dozens of reports still to write, but I’m finished with the war. I’m done living a lie and doing as others bid me. I’m retiring completely from the military. From here on, I plan to live a quiet life with you. The only ruckus afoot shall be issued from our ridiculously happy children.”

  He kissed her forehead and nose, hoping to reach her mouth before her questions resumed.

  “But—”

  He relented. “But what?”

  She lay still. “Nothing. I know you can’t say. I understand.”

  This was a first. Was she not going to ask for details of his whereabouts? Or criticize the way his life had been manipulated in a way that could’ve done irreparable damage to their marriage? Would she not even hound him for information regarding his psyche and his ability to cope with previous traumas whilst creating new ones?

  “Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Though I lived as someone else for all that time, in my mind, I was still your husband. Thoughts of you were like a distant holiday I knew I’d eventually enjoy, even though it was years away.”

  Her face softened as though all she needed was confirmation that he still loved her.

  Of course he did.

  Chapter 45

  The hammering of toddler feet approached rapidly down the corridor.

  “Daddy?”

  The high-pitched voice drew closer and closer to their bedroom. William countered Olivia’s smirk with a grin.

  She inched out of his robust embrace. “I look forward to resuming this later.”

  The door burst open, and a crown of golden tresses atop two big blue eyes peered upward, followed by giggling like Olivia had never heard from her daughter.

  “She enjoys laughing, doesn’t she?” William asked.

  “That she does.”

  She helped Emily onto the bed. The child jumped and bounced until she tumbled against her daddy in fits of laughter as a result of his gentle tickling.

  Olivia pulled on her dressing gown and held out her hand. “Shall we go see Polly about this afternoon’s tea party, madam?”

  She herself had not been invited to the father-daughter engagement. Her job was to help Mrs. Pollard prepare the meal and deliver it to the garden shed, now a proper playhouse—cleaned, spruced up, and according to William, hardly recognizable. As her most reliable servant, William was to assist Emily in gathering her favori
te teddy bear and dollies. The occasion would provide him with an opportunity to get to know his daughter on his own while giving Olivia time to catch up on neglected paperwork.

  Once she was alone in the library, she sat staring at the files.

  William’s life over nearly four years would forever remain hidden from her.

  And it didn’t matter.

  He said he was leaving it all behind; why shouldn’t she? Not to say that his slumbering demons (if indeed they slept) wouldn’t rear their ugly heads from time to time. And maybe he’d carry on like other veterans she’d become acquainted with, those with a knack for arranging events in their lives as one might items in a desk: fond recollections that remained nearby where they were easily retrieved, regrets and torments hidden well away, buried beneath mundane memories like a drive to the grocer’s or choosing which shoes to wear.

  She closed her files. It’d only been thirty minutes, but already she missed William’s hands, his mouth, his body on hers. She longed for his smile, his confident shoulders, and even the new hitch in his gait, which only added to his appeal.

  Laughter burst from her lips, sudden and sharp. What was she was waiting for?

  Outside, birds sang in the afternoon’s warmth. Patients who could were out and about, and she spotted Cora walking hand in hand with her new beau, a lieutenant from North Wales. Spring was well underway, the promise of summer and its bounty seen in every new leaf, blooming flower, and amorous couple.

  It had been a long winter for Britain. Each family had weathered their own cold snaps and blizzards, and as with any storm, the survivors were left at the mercy of its aftermath. Though he seemed as robust as ever, trauma would live within her husband forever. It was a part of him, as much as his dark hair and slate-blue eyes, his dashing smile, and his undying love for her. But together, and with gratitude, they would weather the squalls, for without their existence there would be no Olivia and William.