Chapter Four
H e’d earned this Friday morning trip, Logan thought nearly a week later. It had been one of his busiest weeks, including making a special, protective shoe for one of the Rafferty horses who’d injured a hoof. He’d worked almost nonstop for the first four days of the week, and he hadn’t wanted to do this on a weekend when the crowds would arrive. They capped the number of people allowed in at once, but the number was too high for him. He didn’t mind a few people, but crowds were another matter.
He headed toward the Fort Sam Houston Quadrangle. The oldest part of the fort, it contained the flocks of ducks, frequent deer residents, of course the peacocks—the birds he often thought could be an army in themselves, at the least an early warning system with their amazingly loud squawks—and the limestone clock tower that he was zeroed in on now.
He always liked to stop at the Quad on his way to the museum. It was such a peaceful place, especially given the history of the fort, which had stood here in one form or another since 1845. Now part of Joint Base San Antonio, which also included two Air Force bases, Lackland and Randolph, it was a unique combination of history and the future. He’d never had time to get here when he’d been briefly stationed at Lackland, but this would be his third time since he’d been out. And each time he picked up on something he’d missed before.
And this time he had something else added to the list. Something he’d wanted to do anyway, but now had a bigger reason. His next stop after the museum would be the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. Because the Medal of Honor winner they’d read about in Fredericksburg was buried there.
They. He winced inwardly as he realized she’d invaded his thoughts again. Which she seemed to do no matter what barriers he put up in his mind.
He’d originally planned a weekend visit to the Espada Aqueduct that was also here in San Antonio, the oldest aqueduct in the country, built in 1731 by Franciscan friars to irrigate the land around their mission. But instead he was here. And there it was, hammering at him, the stupidity of letting the feeling that he and Trista Carhart had…bonded somehow last Saturday in Fredericksburg drive him to come here instead. It was one of the more stupid thoughts he’d ever had, and he’d had a few in his thirty-six years.
He felt an odd sort of twitch at the back of his neck. He turned to look, to see the peacocks—such an interesting choice for this of all places—were still checking him out, to see if he’d brought them treats as so many did. As he had, on his last trip. But his mind had been elsewhere this time, and this morning he’d almost forgotten he had to get his visitor’s pass. Fortunately he’d been early enough there wasn’t a long wait, plus he had his old military ID and the staff at the base remembered him, so he was through the vetting process fairly quickly.
So now he’d spend the time waiting for the museum to open at ten here in the Quadrangle, communing with the creatures who had populated the place uninterfered with for well over a century.
Peacocks. Who’d have thought it?
That twitch happened again, and this time when he turned around he knew the first one had had nothing to do with the peacocks.
“Logan?”
She sounded as startled as he felt. “Tris,” he said. “I didn’t…what are you doing here?”
“My usual weekend exploration. Visiting the museum, and this time the cemetery. Because…” Her voice trailed away, as if she were embarrassed.
“Because the man behind the Medal of Honor at Fredericksburg is buried there.”
He wasn’t sure how he knew, why he was so certain, but he was. And the surprise that flashed in her eyes confirmed it.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I’ve been here before, and to the Nimitz many times, but I never thought to look up where he was buried.”
As he looked at her, standing there in a pair of nicely snug jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt the color of her eyes, his mind went suddenly blank. There were words, zillions, and he knew a lot of them, but none of them would float together in a comprehensible sentence for him.
Then a peacock rescued him. He walked up to her, in that stately head-bobbing, one foot in front of the other way they had, and not so politely poked at her hand.
“Oh!” She gave a little jump. “Sorry, let me open this.”
She’d obviously fed some change into the dispensers that put out feed that was safe for the birds. His brain re-engaged as he wondered how much money the military made off that little vending operation. They had to buy the stuff in bulk. But even if they only broke even, it was worth it. This was a wonderful spot for a little peace, and some inter-species interaction.
And with his brain functioning again, something else registered. “No school today?”
She glanced at him, while still holding out her cupped palm full of seeds for the sleek, multi-colored bird with the incredible tail feathers trailing behind him. “My students are on a field trip to Austin. To the capitol.”
A place he avoided completely. But he was curious, so asked, “You didn’t want to go?”
“I didn’t have to, thank goodness. I’ve been there, and this is much nicer.”
He let out a chuckle and smiled at her. He’d smiled more at this woman in the maybe three hours total they’d been together than he’d smiled at anything in years. There was just something about her… Maybe he was just trying to be cheerful around a woman who’d been through hell.
“This is…where I was when your nephew went missing in that storm. I headed back right away when I got the call, but by the time I got back, he was safe.”
He wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to explain that, but he had.
“Thank you. That’s why I love Last Stand,” she said simply. Then, with a smile of her own she added, “Well, that and the history of it. Like most of Texas. If you hadn’t guessed.”
“I got the feeling,” he said. And you don’t want to know what other feelings I’ve got…
“And,” she went on, thankfully unaware of this unexpected response he was having, “I wanted to visit something else I’ve never seen, the monument over at Lackland.”
He immediately guessed. “The dogs.” She nodded. “Worth the effort,” he said. Again he hesitated, then said, hating how awful he sounded, “I could go over with you. Get you in faster. They know me.”
“At the gate?”
He nodded. “I was…stationed there, for a while.”
“Oh! I knew you’d served, but not much else.”
“Plane mechanic,” he said. “Sorry, no glamorous pilot.”
“There wouldn’t be any of them if not for the people who keep them in the air.”
He smiled at that. While he’d never enjoyed the time he’d spent in combat zones, keeping airborne assets airborne, he’d enjoyed the work. But the years of taking orders from sometimes arrogant senior officers had worn away any desire he ever had to tell anyone what do. Even with the horses, it was not a command and obedience thing. It was, as she’d said, letting the horse know he understood.
She’d gotten that very quickly. Some people never did, and preferred to think of what he could do as some sort of magical thing. To him it was no more magical than forging and fitting a shoe properly. It was just something he knew how to do.
Their visit to the cemetery was a solemn one. It became a lot more than just saluting the man they’d read about, became more of an acknowledgment of them all as they walked the rows. He wondered if she, as he, was giving a silent thank you to all of them. He had the feeling she was.
“There’s something about a military cemetery,” she said quietly when they got back into the truck.
“I know. Three men I served with are in the one at Fort Worth.”
Why had he told her that? He never talked about that. And she was just looking at him, so oddly…
“I have no words for that kind of sacrifice. Nothing can make it easier. The only thing I can say is I’m glad you’re not among them.”
And he had no words for that.
“I’d like to go there, too,” she went on in his silence. She gave him a smile he could only call shy. “Maybe we should plan these treks together, since we keep bumping into each other like this.”
The very idea sparked a longing in him he’d never felt before. Planning ahead, for days like this, spent with her, doing things that clearly fascinated them both… He felt a sense of longing that was almost overwhelming, and once more words—coherent ones, at least—failed him. But she didn’t push. Because, he was beginning to realize, Tris Carhart was not a pushy woman.
They headed for the gate to the Air Force base, in his truck because he thought the guards might recognize it from his trip here last month, to meet an old Air Force friend while he was passing through.
“It’s not the newest or cleanest,” he started to say as they got into his rather battered vehicle.
“Because you work and work hard out of it. That’s nothing to apologize for,” she said firmly. And, he had to admit, admiringly, and that gave him an odd feeling of satisfaction.
“They should recognize it or at least have heard about it,” he said as he started the engine. “I doubt they get a lot of trucks full of smithing equipment through here.”
That was when she asked, sounding merely curious, “You didn’t want to continue that work in a civilian capacity, when you got out?”
He reined in his gut reaction to the question. He’d been asked it often enough he should be used to it by now. And at least she’d sounded only curious, not critical. So his voice was level when he answered with a shake of his head and the admission, “Frankly, I like horses better than planes. And most pilots, for that matter.”
She gave him a sideways look then, and in the short glance he took he’d have sworn she was fighting not to laugh. And then she gave in and a delightful, only half-smothered snort broke through. And it made him laugh in turn, something that almost never happened.
“I get that,” she said when she was back under control. “My uncle’s a pilot, commercial, and he can be…kind of arrogant.”
“Which comes first, do you suppose?”
“The piloting or the arrogance? I think it depends on the person.”
“So some get arrogant because they became a pilot, and others become pilots because they’re already arrogant?”
This time she didn’t even try to smother the laugh. “Exactly.” The glance she gave him then was back to simply curious. “Were they all?”
“No, not all of them. Some even went out of their way to thank us personally. Not many, but some.”
“They’re the ones I’d want to know.”
And wouldn’t they just love to get to know you?
He slammed the door on that thought, and almost slammed on the physical brakes of the truck. Not because it wasn’t true—he was certain it was—but because the next sentence that formed in his mind was I would .
But then, how could he not want to get to know her better? The little he already knew had gotten to him. Especially that she was here, that she valued and respected history as he did, and visited the places that sparked her interest, just as he did. If he didn’t know better, didn’t know that he sucked at reading women correctly, he’d definitely want to dig in and learn as much as he could about her. Spend more time with her. Maybe even—
Only reaching the gate had the power to cut off his recalcitrant thoughts. By the time they were through and headed for the relatively new monument—which he supposed anything would seem compared to Fort Sam—he’d shoved those ideas back into the cave where they needed to stay. And stay they would. They had to. If nothing else she was his boss’s sister. One of his bosses, anyway. And that was a maelstrom he wanted no part of.
Whatever this spark was that he was feeling, it needed to die a quick death, and now.