Free I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming Page B

paper bags. It wasn’t until she produced her driver’s license and checkbook that he smiled at her. “Reverend Fergusson!” He clutched her license with both hands, his eyes shifting from her picture, to her, and back again. “I didn’t recognize you, with all these soldier clothes on.” He gestured up and down, taking in her desert camo battle dress uniform. “We haven’t seen you in here lately! Now I can tell Mrs. Napoli why.” He took her check,
tch
ing. “The army. Is that any place for a sweet girl like you?”
    Clare remembered, too late, that she had also been avoiding appearing in public in uniform. Too many explanations. She smiled flirtatiously. “Now, Mr. Napoli. You’ve seen my birth date.” She slid her license off the counter. “I’m hardly a girl anymore.” While he was gallantly defending her right to be juvenalized two months shy of her thirty-seventh birthday, she extricated herself with a promise not to be “a stranger.” Bumping out the door with a bagful of booze, she reminded herself to take her civvies with her next time she reported for Guard service, and change
before
she got in her car to go home.
    Russ Van Alstyne was standing beside his big red pickup in the parking lot.
    Staring at her.
    She swallowed. Hugged her paper sack closer to her chest. Her first thought was,
Was he always that tall
? Her second thought was,
He’s lost weight
. He was in his semi off-duty uniform, tan MKPD blouse tucked into a pair of jeans that had seen better days, an official windbreaker balancing his salt-stained hunting boots.
    Then she realized where he was. Her eyes widened. His did, too.
    “What are you doing at a liquor store?” she asked.
    “What are you doing in uniform?” he said simultaneously.
    They both paused. His dismay—at getting caught?—was plain on his face. “Are you drinking again?” she said. Her clashing emotions—concern, not wanting to be concerned—made her voice harsher than she intended.
    He blinked. Frowned. “What?”
    She waved a hand at Napoli’s plate glass windows, advertising specials on Dewar’s, Bombay gin, and all Australian wines. “What are you doing at the liquor store?” She took a step closer, not wanting to shame him by shouting his problem to any shoppers within earshot. “Please don’t tell me you’ve started drinking again.”
    He closed his eyes for a moment. Opened them. When he spoke, his voice was tight with control. “I am not drinking again. I’m here to get Napoli’s latest bad check report.”
    Her mouth formed a silent O.
    “Now, would you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing in BDUs?”
    She shifted one shoulder so he could read her New York State Guard patch. His hand came up and touched his collar, where, like her, insignia told the world his rank. “Where’s your chaplain’s cross?”
    She mirrored his movement, touching her captain’s bars. “I’m not in the chaplaincy. I’m in the 142nd Aviation Battalion. Combat support.”
    “You’re what?” He crossed to her in three sharp strides. “You’re in combat support? Are you insane? There’s a goddamn war on! Who the hell volunteers for front-line duty with a war on?”
    She looked up at him. “I don’t know. You, maybe?”
    He hissed through his teeth. The secret he might have taken to his grave, if he hadn’t shared it with her. Suddenly, she felt ashamed, as if she had used a cannon to counter a flyswatter. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I haven’t told. I wouldn’t ever tell.” That, contrary to what everyone else believed, Russ Van Alstyne had not been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He had enlisted—volunteered.
    “Christ, I know that. You think I worry about that?” He shook his head. “At least I had an excuse. I was eighteen and dumb and desperate to get out of town. What possible reason could
you
have?”
    She shifted the paper sack on her hip. “The bishop and I had several lengthy conversations after… after…” She