With Every Letter (29 page)

Seemed strange that Annie knew Kay Jobson, of all people. Annie just said they were acquainted and stationed near each other. Once again, he entertained a wish that Annie and Mellie were the same person, but Annie had never mentioned flying or planes. However, she had given him one clue—she was stationed near Algiers.

Tom gazed down the shore, as if he could see down the hundreds of miles of coastline.

Anonymity seemed wiser than ever. With his history and
faults, why did he think she’d want a romance with him anyway? Her last letter had a sober tone and reminded him of the importance of strength as a foundation for kindness.

Annie claimed another reason for anonymity. She said most men didn’t find her attractive and she apologized for not telling him sooner. He’d never pictured her like a cover girl, but he couldn’t erase the exotic image he’d formed in his mind. How much did looks matter to him? He wanted to say he didn’t care, but he wouldn’t really know until he met her.

Tom traced a stick figure in the wet sand. “Guess we both need anonymity awhile longer.”

Sesame yipped and dashed up the beach. A wave soaked Tom’s legs, up to his waist.

He pushed himself to standing. “Aren’t we a pair? You’re afraid of water. You’re made of water, know that? And I’m afraid of . . . well, I’m afraid of what I’m made of too.”

He crossed the sand to a goat path through the gray-green scrub that coated the dunes. He hadn’t brought a towel. The heat would dry him fast, and the air tingling on his damp skin felt great.

Sesame romped through the brush and nosed around, searching for something edible.

A shot cracked the silence, splintered the peace.

Tom dropped flat to the ground. His heart thumped against the sand. What on earth? They’d cleared Axis troops from this area ages ago. The Allies were on the march. The Americans were supposed to plow into Bizerte that day, the British into Tunis.

Laughter rang out about a hundred feet ahead. “You call yourself a good shot?”

Tom’s eyes slipped shut and a sigh leached out. Americans. Stupid Americans out for a hunt. He racked his brain for the current parole and countersign. “Fibber McGee!” he yelled.

“What?”

“Fibber McGee!”

“And Molly.”

Tom got to his feet and brushed sand off his chest and swim trunks. “Before you shoot, make sure there aren’t any men around.” A sharp edge sliced through his words.

Two officers stood on top of the dune, carbines in hand. Reed and Quincy.

Quincy laughed. “I don’t see any men around.”

“Funny.” Tom marched up the goat path, head down.

Something rustled in the brush about twenty feet to Tom’s left. A curly white and brown tail popped into the air. Sesame dug after some unfortunate rodent.

“There’s one!” Reed leveled his carbine. At Sesame.

“No! Don’t shoot!”

Quincy pushed out his lower lip. “Afwaid we’ll hurt a widdle bunny?”

A flash from Reed’s gun. The whine of a flying bullet.

Sesame yelped.

Tom sprinted to him. “That’s no rabbit. That’s my dog! Sesame!”

Sesame yelped, writhed on the ground, and tried to nip his tail. His red tail.

“Sesame!” Tom skidded to his knees. Sesame’s beautiful tail didn’t curl. It formed a jagged, cruel, red angle.

“It’s okay, boy. It’s okay.” Tom scooped Sesame into his arms. “Come on, boy. I’ll get you some help.”

He hurdled bushes, back to the path, up the dune, past Reed and Quincy, not meeting their eyes.

“Hey, Gill, I’m sorry,” Reed said. “I didn’t know.”

“You should’ve listened.” Tom sprinted up the path, which led to the northwestern corner of the airstrip. The pierced steel planking was great for planes but not for bare feet, so
Tom ran beside the runway toward the tents of the 10th Field Hospital.

Sesame twisted in his arms.

Tom tightened his grip. “It’s okay, boy. I’ll get you some help.”

He passed three C-47 cargo planes on the runway, and he slowed his pace. Tabarka had opened for medical air evacuation that day. Another reason Tom had escaped to the beach.

How could he worry about seeing Mellie Blake when Sesame depended on him?

His bare feet protested the beating, but he ignored them and pressed on to the main tent closest to the airfield.

He shoved through the tent flap like a linebacker.

“Whoa!”

He smacked into someone who blocked him with small cool hands to his bare chest. A woman. A dark-haired woman. Mellie Blake.

Of all the people in the world.

“Tom?” Her eyes went round.

Like looking into two warm cups of coffee and he wanted to drink them right up. “Mellie,” he said over his thick tongue.

Her hands. How could such cool little hands shoot fire through his chest?

He stepped back.

She looked at her hands, suspended in air, and dropped her gaze. Then she gasped. “Sesame?”

Tom breathed. Yes, Sesame. He’d come for Sesame. “He’s hurt.”

Mellie’s hands went to work, stroking, probing over the dog’s fur. Much too close to Tom’s skin. “What happened?”

“He was shot. Some idiots out hunting.”

“Just the one wound? His tail?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thank goodness. He’ll be all right. Follow me.” Mellie strode down the aisle of the tent hospital past rows of men on cots. “Dr. Sayers?”

Tom followed and cooed to Sesame.

“Dr. Sayers?” Mellie tapped the shoulder of a tall, skinny man. “We have a dog that’s been shot.”

“A dog?” The physician eyed Tom. “Put your clothes on, get your gun, and put the beast out of its misery.”

“Sir!” Mellie cried.

Tom stepped forward, and steam expanded his chest. He hadn’t stood up for Larry, but he’d stand up for Sesame. “Excuse me, sir, but it’s just his tail.”

Dr. Sayers walked away and waved one hand over the cots. “Do I look like a vet? I have real patients. Get that cur out of here before you give these men fleas.”

Tom charged forward. “Sir, all I need is—”

A small hand clamped onto his arm. Mellie swung around and stepped into his path. “Tom, wait.” She looked up at him with the strangest expression, her eyes narrowed and probing.

His jaw hardened. “I will not fail him. He depends on me.”

Mellie’s gaze melted, the sweetest curve turned up her lips, and she swayed closer. Just a bit, but his pulse pounded like a jackhammer.

“I have—” The words turned to powder in his mouth. Why couldn’t he function in this woman’s presence? He swallowed hard and moistened his lips. “I have to help him.”

She gave a few slight nods, then looked to the back of the tent where the doctor had gone. “I’ll see what I can do. Wait for me outside.”

Tom nodded. He couldn’t speak anyway. He headed outside, back into the fresh hot air. Sesame struggled in his arms. “Ssh, boy. It’s okay. We’ll take care of you.”

A few minutes later, the tent flap rustled, and Mellie came
out with a white bundle. “Come with me.” She walked at a brisk pace toward a C-47.

“A doctor over there?”

Mellie shook her head. “Dr. Sayers is the only one working today. I’m not a surgeon, not a vet, but I’ll see what I can do.” Her voice wavered.

Tom caught up and looked hard at her until she turned her gaze to him. “I trust you. I know you’ll do your best.”

Her smile twitched in a vulnerable way. “Thank you.”

He winked, anything to relax her. “Don’t you have
real
patients?”

She shook back the black waves of her hair to reveal a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Sesame isn’t real? I didn’t know you had imaginary friends.”

Nope, anonymous friends. And he’d better watch himself.

Mellie climbed through the cargo door of the C-47, and Tom followed. She unrolled a bundle of towels wrapped around a canteen of water and an olive drab canvas pouch. Then she opened the chest in the back of the plane. “They weren’t ready for us when we landed. We won’t load patients for two hours, so I have plenty of time.”

“Okay.” Plenty of time. Up to two hours. The thought frolicked in his heart, then skidded to a stop in his brain. He jerked his gaze to the hurting little dog in his arms. “It’s okay, Sesame. Everything will be okay.”

“Absolutely.” Mellie laid a towel on the floor of the plane. “Lay him here, but keep a good grip on him.”

Tom did so. Sesame’s legs scrabbled around, but Tom held him down and cooed at him.

Mellie poured water over the wound and worked away dirt. “His tail is broken.”

“You’ll put a cast on it?”

One side of her mouth bent up. “No. It’ll have to come off.”

“Come off? His tail? You can’t do that.”

Mellie leveled her gaze at him. “It’s broken clean through. Only a hinge of skin and soft tissue holds it in place. If I don’t cut it off, he’ll chew it off.”

Heaviness pressed on his chest. He rubbed Sesame’s head. The dog panted and looked up at him with trusting eyes. “Poor boy.”

“He’ll be fine. It could have been much worse.” She dabbed the wound with an iodine-soaked gauze pad.

With one hand firm on Sesame’s head, Tom stroked his shoulders. Tawny fur covered his back and sides and the top of his tail, while the underside of his body and tail were white. His tail used to swirl like cream being stirred into coffee. But no more.

Mellie sprinkled powder on the wound. “Sulfanilamide, to prevent infection.”

“Uh-huh.” The men carried sulfanilamide in their first aid packets, although few could pronounce it.

“You’ll need to hold him down.” Mellie filled a syringe. “I’m giving him something to sedate him, maybe make him sleep so he won’t chew out his stitches.”

“Okay.” Tom sat with his full weight on his left leg and threw his right leg over Sesame’s haunches. His bare, hairy leg. Why did this have to happen when he was half-naked?

Mellie drew her lips between her teeth. “Medications don’t always have the same effect on animals that they do in people. I guessed on the dose, based on his weight, but I honestly don’t know how it’ll affect him.”

Tom’s hands dug into the fur over Sesame’s shoulders and neck. What would he do without his dog? He cleared his throat. “But he needs it.”

“Yes.” She sent him a tentative glance.

He nodded his permission.

She injected the medication. Sesame yipped, and Tom exerted steady pressure to restrain him.

Mellie unrolled the canvas pouch and lifted a pair of gleaming scissors.

Tom jerked his gaze to the side. “It’s okay, boy. I’m right here.”

Scissors snipped. Tom braced himself against the sound and held his dog in place.

Sesame looked up at him with wild, questioning eyes. His tail. His beautiful tail.

Tom stroked his dog’s head. “What will he do without his tail?”

“Excuse me?”

“He loves his tail. It’s who he is, his identity.”

Mellie stayed quiet so long, Tom shot her a glance. He must have sounded stupid. She gave him a soft, sweet look, full of understanding. “That’s not all his identity, is it?”

“I—I don’t know.”

She bent down to her stitchery. “You love him and he loves you. Isn’t that a big part of his identity?”

Sesame’s gaze fixed on Tom, seeking guidance and protection and answers. “Yeah.”

“And he’s got his—” She frowned. Her forehead bunched up. “Well, does he do anything around here? Any roles, any jobs?”

“Yeah. He does a lot around here, carries messages, things like that.”

“He doesn’t need his tail to do that, right? He’s loved. He has a purpose. He’ll be fine.” She gave him a penetrating look and the subtlest of smiles.

As if she’d seen. As if she understood.

Understood that his question about identity didn’t apply just to Sesame but to him.

31

Tabarka Airfield
May 13, 1943

“Everything looks great.” Mellie tugged on the litter rack in the back of the C-47.

Sergeant Early huffed. “I know what I’m doing.”

She gritted her teeth, then relaxed her jaw so her voice would come out softly. “I know. I’m impressed with all you men do.”

“The feeling ain’t mutual. You dames do nothing but get the men hot and bothered.” Early jumped out the cargo door and marched away.

She lowered herself out of the plane. It was almost time to load patients. Over the last few days, the Allies had swept over the German and Italian armies in Tunisia. Yesterday they had signed an official surrender, effective today. The hospitals teemed with patients, both Allied and Axis, and air evacuation ran in earnest.

Mellie crossed the runway, careful to walk the seams of the planks so her shoe heels wouldn’t fall through the holes that perforated the steel like ticker tape. Tom said the holes made the planks lighter, helped in drainage, and provided
grip for the planes’ wheels. She smiled. Had Tom touched this plank? Why, she could almost hear his voice in her head.

“Thanks, Grant. Appreciate it.” About two hundred feet away, one man addressed another. He sounded like Tom. He looked like Tom.

“No problem,” the other man said. “Any excuse to see Kay.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks again.”

Mellie’s breath caught. She’d witnessed Tom pass a letter for her. Even better, he walked in parallel with her.

Her heart angled her path toward his. When he looked her direction, her tongue froze, but she raised her hand in a tentative, ridiculous little wave.

He tipped his hand to the rim of his helmet, nodded, and continued on his way.

Mellie halted and gaped at him, her heart as pierced as the planks. He didn’t want to talk to her? The man she loved didn’t even acknowledge her? She was a fool, a deluded fool.

She strode toward the hospital tent. Maybe he didn’t recognize her from that distance.

Yet she recognized him, the way he walked in his gray-green herringbone twills, the way he held his shoulders and chest. She knew how those shoulders felt in her arms. She knew the feel of his bare chest under her hands, the heat and strength.

Her cheeks warmed. He’d pulled away from her that day, and now he didn’t even say hello.

Who was she kidding? He could never love her.