Free The Fourth Sunrise by H. T. Night

scratched the surface of the story.”
    “I know. We have two more nights.”
    So, I continued where I left off.
    “They got married December 18, 1968, in front of the old Baptist chapel and the whole town showed up and it was the nicest wedding that Delta, Colorado had ever seen.”
    “ Hold on, Joel. I have a question for you. So, why do you think she did what she did to you?”
    “ Did what to me?” I wasn’t sure if I understood the question.
    “ Not wait the appropriate amount of time for you,” Sharee answered.
    Now, this was interesting. “What do you think the appropriate amount of time would have been?” I asked.
    “From how you describe it, I’d say at least a year,” Sharee said smiled at me. It made me feel good that she thought that Christine got married too fast. That was one detail in the story that I never quite understood and wondered what the appropriate amount of time to have waited was, even after all these years.
    “ Maybe the romance was all just in my head,” I said.
    “ You can’t possibly believe that?” Sharee practically pleaded.
    Ultimately agreeing with Sharee, I said, “Things happen in a certain way that you never second-guess anything. If you think about it, what we shared was an innocent moment in time. We slow danced throughout the night and only kissed briefly.”
    “You said you kissed for nearly a half an hour. That is not briefly to me. That is full make-out session,” Sharee said. “What you need to realize is that love is more than physical interaction. What she experienced with you on that night was real. She wasn’t following what people wanted from her. She was living the way she wanted to.”
    “ I guess you can look at it like that,” I said. “All I know is I was broken in pieces. It takes a few years to build that back up.”
    “ A few years?” Sharee asked.
    “ Well, I had some help.”
    “ How so?”
    “ Well, with a little twist of fate, I was drafted in 1971 for the Vietnam War. I was sent to Hanoi Vietnam. And I was put in a platoon with my commanding officer being none other than Captain Benjamin Connelly. No one dared called him Benjamin over in Hanoi. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until months later did I even know his real first name. He was simply known to everyone as Captain Jack. Why? Because. That’s what happens in war. Weird nicknames stick and you would rather be called your nickname than be reminded who you really are and who you were forced to leave behind back at home. I think Captain Jack fell into that category.”
    Sharee’s face lit up. She was as stunned as I was the day I figured it out. “You’ve gotta to be freaking kidding me?”
    I laughed out loud. I never heard Sharee speak so frankly. “So, when I was first told who the commanding officer was to my area, I was told his name was Jack Connelly. Everyone called him Captain Jack. I remember thinking briefly that it was interesting that my commanding officer had the same last name as Christine’s husband. That was the extent of the thought. But at that time, the name Captain Jack was as foreign to me as Captain Ron or Captain Bob.”
    “ It’s just amazing. This part of the story is amazing. You see, I write in real life. This would be the hard sell to the reader. That out of all of the captains you could have had, you got Christine’s husband. It seems virtually impossible odds.”
    “ Unless it’s fate,” I interjected. “Unless something higher is controlling the universe.”
    “ I agree with you, Joel…. Go on. This story just got real interesting.”
    “ We had been in and out of the jungle for months. No one had a plan, but whatever you’re up against, it’s survive or be killed. We all had lost focus for what we were fighting for exactly. All we knew was, we didn’t want to die. No one had that attitude more than Captain Jack Connelly.”
    “ Wow,” Sharee said, her eyes riveted to my face. She nodded for me to continue.
    “ I’m not sure