1 Chapter 1

1

Dawn licked across the furrowed fields, capping the mounds of dusky earth in gold. They weren’t frozen yet in their winter sculpture, but soon. Temperatures in the Ohio River Valley had been below freezing for weeks, and reports said 1954 was going to end with a silent, icy scream. Everyone in town was already buckling down; Harvey Kramer saw it as just another winter to endure.

His bitter coffee scalded his tongue as he stood at the back door of his house and gazed out at the horizon. It was going to be a long day. He’d woken up at five-thirty, just like he’d done for the past twelve years, and it wasn’t until he was standing in the shower that he remembered he had the day off. Not by choice.

“I won’t have you working on the day we’re honoring what you’ve done for this country.” Ted, the owner of the garage at which Harvey was a mechanic, had stood firm on the subject. “If the President’s seen fit to recognize you and all the other veterans, the least I’m going to do is respect that.”

Harvey had wanted to argue that the day was still the same, that November eleventh had been a special day the year before, and the year before that, and all the way back until the first time Armistice Day had been created. Just because the folks in the government had it in their heads to change the name and call it Veterans Day didn’t make it all that different in his mind.

But nobody argued with Ted Garst. He was a bastion in the small village of Pomeroy. He’d grown up with Harvey’s father, and he’d given Harvey a job when he’d been shipped home in ‘44. Telling Ted he was going to work anyway would have been an insult of the highest order.

The unfortunate side effect of that decision, however, was Harvey now had the whole day looming in front of him. He had to go into town for dinner with the Garsts, but other than that, he had nothing to do. The window in the shed still needed to be fixed, but he’d hired two local boys to come out and help him with that, since the brace on his right leg made it too hard to get up and down ladders. It was a Thursday, though, and they were at school.

Harvey downed the rest of his coffee, ignoring the fresh burn in his throat. If he thought he’d actually sleep, he’d crawl back into bed to kill a few hours. He’d have to settle for puttering around the house.

The knock came when he was washing up the few dishes from breakfast. Frowning, he glanced at the clock on the wall. Nine-seventeen. It was too early for the mailman. His nearest neighbor was three miles north. The possibility that it could be Myrtle Garst coming around to try and drag him into town to celebrate him as their local vet made him wish he’d tried going back to bed anyway.

Another knock, this one sharper, came as he walked to the front of the house.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he called.

When he picked up his pace, his thick-soled shoe clomped heavily against the scarred wooden floor. Myrtle was going to get an earful for showing up without calling first.

Except it wasn’t Myrtle.

The man on his porch had hints of gray at his temples and above his ears, contrasting starkly against his black hair. His face had filled out a little, losing the harder lines of his youth, and there were deep lines on either side of his mouth. He stood straight and tall, not a single scar or memory of injury making him stoop or falter. It would take only a single glance to tell a person that this man was ex-military, one of the veterans being honored by the re-named holiday. If his clothes were anything to go by, the years after the War had been kind to him.

And it had been years since Harvey had thought of him, and even longer since he’d seen him, but the name quickly came to mind. Like it had never really left. Zach Jones.

The smile on his face was hesitant, but his eyes were warm. “Sergeant Harvey Kramer?”

He straightened on instinct, squaring his shoulders. Zach had a solid four inches on him. Standing next to him in line had always made it easy to pull himself to attention.

“Holy cow.” His arms itched to pull Zach into a hug, but too much time had passed apart to breed that kind of familiarity, even after everything they had been through together. “Well, you can’t be a ghost. You’re still too damn good-looking.”

“God, I’m so happy it’s you.” Zach obviously didn’t have the same compunctions. He pulled Harvey into a big hug, his arms strong as they wrapped around Harvey’s back. “I didn’t know how many Harvey Kramers there could be in Ohio…” He stepped back, his smile wider. “But I thought I was going to meet every single one of them before I found you.”

The tips of his ears burned. “You’ve been looking for me?” The quick embrace brought back a rush of tangled memories, most of them shadowed in darkness, all of them heated with emotions he’d long since buried. “Why?”

“Old time’s sake. I was always sorry that I lost track of you like I did.”

Old times. Over a decade since they’d last seen each other. Eleven years where each had moved along separate paths, and now they were converging again. Because of Zach and his initiative.