Free The Songbird and the Soldier by Wendy Lou Jones

heads up.
    Your picture is up on the wall by my things. I am looking at it right now. Can you feel it? Look at my photo guilt free and write back soon.
    Your Andy x
    PS you could send me an e-bluey instead, to make sure I get your answer before I leave here. Or both!
    Sam read the letter through again. It was real. He did still like her. The poor guy had been ill and working hard. He was nothing like Dean. She had been foolish enough to follow her childhood fantasy and had been quickly caught up in the abundant charms of Dean. But his attentions hadn’t lasted long and now she had the chance to get it right. Andy had come to mean more to her in the short time since they had been writing to each other than Dean had ever been. And now he was about to walk up to her front door and be there in the flesh.
    She looked over at the picture of Andy, in pride of place, beside her bed in her new bedroom. Andy was coming here to see her, to her tired old house, badly in need of an injection of colour and life. Sam looked at the calendar – eleven days. She shifted nervously. How she hoped it would go well between them. It could so easily be awkward. He may be a rubbish kisser, she thought. No. She could be a rubbish kisser? Yikes, that was a far worse thought. What if she was a disappointment to him? How awful would that be? It was the scariest first date ever.
    Sam decided to think logically. He liked her. He had seen her and met her and spent a little time with her and he still wanted to see her again. And she liked him. She may not have given much thought to the guy before they were deployed, but she was increasingly aware that she was falling at considerable speed for the man in the picture, whose words had melted her heart and whose distant voice had turned her body to jelly.
    Now it was her turn to plan a military manoeuvre. She had to be looking her best. She checked again. He was due a week on Friday. What if she found him on her doorstep when she arrived home from school all sweaty and helmet headed? No. It would be the end of half term. Oh why couldn’t he come earlier, then she could spend half term with him? No matter, she thought, at least that gave her a few clear days to prepare.
    Sam walked into the room that would one day be her office; until then it was a box room that was certainly living up to its name. She cleared the desk and opened up her laptop. Damn, she remembered she had no internet access for a few more days. School would be all right to send an e-bluey, she thought, and so she wrote a note that she would never need, to remind her to send a message in the morning. And then she wrote a letter too, for good measure, ending it with:
    I hope you won’t be disappointed when you get to know me better. Please like me.
    I am looking at you right now. Can you feel it?
    Come home soon.
    Sam
    Returning from a patrol, Andy found a group of his men back from a secondment after a joint operation. The lads reunited with friendly banter and talk of their various encounters.
    Spike saw Dean first. “Romeo, how’s it hanging?”
    “Ready as ever.”
    “You don’t know anywhere round here I could get a burger and fries, do you?”
    “Sorry, mate, but we did get some fresh supplies in today, so who knows? Is Evans with you?”
    “Yeah. He’s over there with Miller and the Prof.”
    “I’m glad to see you kept my space warm for me,” Dean said, having found his old spot still free.
    “It’s right where you left it,” said Spike.
    They walked into the building inside the compound and Spike laid down his kit underneath several very suggestive pictures of a blonde woman. Dean sat down opposite and picked his photos off the little ledge in the wall where they had been balancing.
    Spike lifted an eyebrow. “What’s up, Romeo? Trouble in paradise?”
    “Bloody women,” Dean said. “Had the two of them nicely simmering, waiting for my R&R and they go and fucking meet up, don’t they?! Turns out they’re only half