Chapter One
Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of every fallen soldier who protected it. ~UNKNOWN
Staring at thegarland-draped courthouse monument, Master Sergeant Zach Dawson’s own breath caught. Memories of his brothers—and sisters—in arms who had given their all threatened to buckle his knees. Unbidden, his right hand flexed. Just to the other side of the marble inscription, a flagpole’s halyard clanged from the crisp November wind. Heart pounding, Zach lifted his gaze to the red, white, and blue sashaying high above the courthouse lawn.
No one loved that flag and what it represented more than he did.
The Army had been his life for so long that almost two years after his medical discharge, Zach was still trying to figure out who he was in the civilian world. He longed to be where the action was, not on a forced vacation in the middle-of-nowhere, baseball-and-apple-pie, already-decorated-for-Christmas, Pine Hill, Kentucky. He’d had almost a year’svacationwhen he’d been lying in a hospital bed, then confined within a rehab facility. Being busy kept him sane.
Trying to shut out the chinking metal, Zach took a few deep breaths and glanced around Pine Hill’s revitalized town square. His stomach growled at the scents wafting from a mom-and-pop, oven-baked pizzeria. Garland with twinkling lights and shiny red bows framed windows and doorways. Trendy shops lined the streets, including the one his army buddy Bodie Lewis had disappeared inside to buy dog treats. Paw Parties? Seriously? Then again, Zach would cut his pal some slack since it was Zach who’d been helping Bodie’s wife make snowflakes that morning. Sarah had been so kind since his arrival a few days before that he hadn’t had the heart to say no when she’d needed help with a church project.
Across the square, an arm-laded blond stepped out of a shop with an artsy sign featuring a sewing needle with a string curling around to write,The Threaded Needle. Shifting her wares, she paused to speak with a granny wearing a red Santa sweater, candy-cane leggings, and black boots that came up to her knees. A large cloth bag with the store’s emblem hung from the blond’s shoulder and her hands gripped the box overflowing with shiny green and red fabric. Chatting only a moment, she smiled with genuine affection, then crossed the street to a gray sedan parked on the opposite courthouse corner from Zach. She reached for the door handle just as the wind’s greedy fingers pilfered a paper from the box she finagled on her hip. The breeze twirled the pale green sheet this way, then that, dancing its lifted prize to the noisy flag’s beat.
“No!” She shoved her bag and box into the car, then chased after the sheet, almost comically, as the wind toyed with her, appearing to let go, only to snatch it away just when the page was almost low enough to reach. She’d been too far away for Zach to readily help, but a strong gust zoomed the page across the courthouse lawn and would have plastered the sheet to his face had he not caught it.
The blond rushed to him. “Oh, thank you! I was afraid I’d lost that. How my list came out of my notebook is craziness.”
“No problem.” Zach met her blue-as-the-sky eyes.
Around him the wind calmed, but the otherworldly force blasting his body had his feet bracing to keep from being blown back. Stunned and thinking his reaction must have to do with how the inscription had gotten inside his head, he glanced down at what he held.Wedding Checklistheadlined a neatly written list bordered with colorful Christmas lights. Throat tightening, he looked up. “You’re getting married?”
Why his insides felt strangled at seeing a few items checked off made no sense. Nor did his desire to crumble and toss the list back to the wind.
“No. Definitely not me.” Laughing, she held out her hand. “Thank you.”
Zach should give her the paper and be done with little miss blue eyes. Instead, curiosity got the better of him. “If you aren’t getting married, why do you have a handwritten wedding checklist that you chased as if it revealed your deepest secrets? Better yet, how do you make your letters so perfectly shaped and sized? I’m not sure if I’m impressed or scared that this could have been typed.”
“There is nothing wrong with good penmanship.” Still holding out her hand, her gaze narrowed. “Do I know you?”
Zach’s lips twitched. “No, but you should.”
Rolling her eyes, she harrumphed. “I seriously doubt that, but you should definitely ask Santa for a new book of cheesy pickup lines because that one is so middle school.”
“Was I trying to pick you up?” he wondered out loud. Beyond the occasional dinner date, he’d not been interested in dating since prior to his accident. Even then, cheesy pickup lines had never been his thing.
“You said I should… oh, never mind.” Pink splashed across her cheeks. Then with obvious annoyance, she gave him a look worthy of the burliest drill sergeant. “Give me my list and I’ll be on my way so that you can attempt to impress someone else with your lackluster smarm.”
Give her the paper, Zach, then walk away. No need to rebut that lackluster smarm. Especially since she was right. His comment had been lackluster. He forced his fingers to release their hold.
“Thank you.” She didn’t meet his gaze, just stared at his chest, mumbled something under her breath, then, paper in hand, turned to leave. The wind acted up anew, slowing her trek to her car and plastering her clothes to her five-foot-four-ish frame. The gust pulled at her shoulder-length hair, making the strands dance about her, and tugged at the light purple number she wore loosely about her neck. Just as the scarf worked itself free, she grabbed hold and, in the process, lost her death grip, allowing Mother Nature to once again dance her list through the air.
His gaze zeroed in on the paper’s aerobatics, Zach leapt to action. Turning, seeing he yet again held her list, the blond lifted her chest with a deep inhalation.
“Lose something?” he teased, surprised by how glad he was that her departure had been delayed.
She was not similarly amused. Her fiery gaze shot daggers as she marched back. He was positive he died a thousand deaths in her mind and all of them painfully torturous.
With a frustrated huff, she snatched the paper. “Thank you.”
“If you want to spend time with me, Blondie, you don’t have to fake losing your list again. I’ll give you my phone number.” Usually only the heat of battle triggered the adrenaline rushing through him. “Ifyou ask nicely.”
Make that a thousand-and-one deaths he’d died in her mind.
“There you go not trying to pick me up again.” She placed her free hand on her hip. “Congratulations. You succeeded and completely failed to impress. Again.”
Her words might have stung, except something more than annoyance flickered in her gaze. Intrigue. Interest.Attraction?
Fascinated by both the fire in her eyes and the burn in his chest, Zach grinned. “Sorry about earlier. I’d take your advice about asking Santa for that book, but it wouldn’t do me any good. Would you believe Santa stuffs my stocking with coal each year?”
