Clara's Soldier, page 6
She had suffered through countless dreams that seemed as real as day, dreams when he came home, and they lived their happily ever after. Every one of those dreams had resulted in a day of hiding the stinging in her eyes and the feeling of death in her heart. Because every time she woke up, she lost him all over again. And this, by far, was the most tangible dream she’d ever had.
“Almost there.” James’s voice jarred her from her inner turmoil.
They were close enough to make out the sign, which said, The Red Lion. Light from the inside spilled through the red door. The thick beams inside were painted black against the whitewashed walls.
“Where are we?” She had to shout over the noise as they walked through the door.
“I can’t hear you!” He pointed at the piano in the corner, on which three or four people were banging at the same time, hollering Christmas carols at the top of their lungs. He pulled her away from the entrance, and shoved his way through groups of giggling women and shouting, laughing men to the bar in the back of the room. When they reached the bar, Clara was thankful to find that it was quiet enough she could hear herself think.
The barkeep stood behind the bar, a middle-aged man with gray hair and an unenthusiastic expression. His apron was dirty, and he was wiping down the far end of the counter.
“I said, where are we?” If she was going to be stubborn and refuse to wake up, she might as well make the best of it by soaking up as much of his voice as she could. Because tomorrow she would pay.
“England,” he said. “After we finished up in Sicily, we came back to England to prepare for Normandy.”
She stopped. “Wasn’t Normandy when—”
“Sit here.” He gestured to a stool and took the seat beside her. “We don’t know how long they’ll let us stay. Might as well get something to eat and drink while we’re here.”
She hopped up on the barstool. “Wait, what do you mean let us stay? And who are those men following us?” She shuddered again.
James scanned the crowd once more, but she noticed his eyes continually going back to the windows. “Nazis. But not the usual kind.” He straightened his shoulders and sat taller. “There’s been talk of Hitler’s… obsession.” He finally looked at her directly, and the weight of his clear blue eyes threatened to undo her nerves, which were precariously balanced between elation and terror. “Have they reported on it at home yet?”
“Hitler?” she echoed.
James nodded before returning to his surveillance. “Word has it that Hitler’s been getting into all sorts of dark stuff.”
She snorted. “Like trying to exterminate entire races isn’t dark.”
“I mean it. Things like witchcraft, and all other sorts of unholy things.”
Clara tried to laugh off the absurdity of his claim, but her giggle came out more strangled than convincing. “James, there’s no such thing as witchcraft.”
James leaned down and pointed to the window closest to them. “Then explain that.”
Clara was about to scold him for believing in such silliness when her gaze came to rest on a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring through the glass. They were trained on her.
She shrieked and threw herself at James, toppling off her barstool in the process. He caught her, despite the awkwardness of her leap, and once she was back on her barstool, he stood and wrapped his arms around her, pressing her into his chest. She leaned into him, trembling as he rubbed her back in fast, firm circles. His uniform was thick, but even through it, he was warm, and she snuggled even closer. When she was brave enough to peek at the window again, against her better judgment, the eyes were gone.
“What was that?” she whimpered, clinging to his shirt.
“Those are the Nazis I was talking about,” James said, still rubbing her back and as he held her against him. “No one else can see them but me.” His rubbing briefly slowed, then sped even faster. “And, apparently, now you.”
“But what are they?”
He shrugged without letting go of her. “Hitler’s creations is all I can guess. I can’t come up with any other explanation.”
“But the war….” Her voice faltered when she had the courage to lean back and look at him. “It’s over. Hitler’s dead.” Her statement came out like more of a question than a fact.
James let out a harsh laugh. “Is that what the news told you over there?” He motioned to the room full of American GIs surrounding them. “Does this look like the war is over? Because if it is, someone needs to tell all these boys they can go home.”
Clara looked around. He was right. Why were so many uniformed Americans in a British pub?
“I don’t know how,” James said as he sat down, still gripping her hand, “but they’ve managed to sneak into Britain, and no one, not the Brits or the Americans, knows about it but me.”
Clara drummed on the counter with her fingers as she looked around again. “What do you mean?” The soldiers around them were Americans, to be sure, but none of them seemed to sense the threat James did. Then it occurred to her. “Wait, how many times have you been here?”
He was eyeing the bartender. “Don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head.
She sat back and studied him. “Then, how long have you been seeing these Nazis?” What had he called them earlier? Rats?
“It’s hard to tell.” He frowned as though he hadn’t considered it before. “They don’t stay still very long. We move a lot.”
Clara stared at him, unable to make any sense of it. How could he not know how long he’d been running? Or how many times he’d been to England? Or even that the war was over? But then, maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense. After all, they’d just been transported across the Atlantic to a pub in England. This was all only a dream.
Her heart clenched up in her chest so hard it was painful.
“But…” She shook her head. “I thought you were supposed to be jumping out of airplanes wherever the army sent you. Why are you following Nazis around? Or are they following you?” If this was a dream, she was ridiculously tired. Had she slept at all?
He gave her that funny look again. “Now that you ask, I’m not sure.” His eyes darkened, and he straightened his shoulders. “I don’t know, but I do know that this fight is between me and them. I came here to fight, and for them to drag me around the world is one thing. But to get you involved….” His jaw twitched. “They’ve gone too far this time.” He began to stand, and a silent alarm went off in Clara’s head. He had that same look in his eyes as the day he’d decked Arthur Smith in fifth grade when Arthur tripped Clara and made her cry.
“Wait.” She put her hand on his chest. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to take care of this.” His eyes were already on the door, and Clara panicked. Dream or not, she wasn’t ready to watch him get killed. She racked her brains for a way to keep him inside, and almost immediately came up with a solution. It was cowardly, of that she was aware. But it was something he wouldn’t be able to resist.
She grabbed his wrist as he began to go. “Please, don’t leave me!” When he turned back to her, she tried to shrink as small as she could. “I don’t know anyone here, I don’t know how to get home.” The tears she’d considered faking, however, suddenly felt quite real. “If something happens to you, what am I going to do?” When he still didn’t move, she whimpered. “At least finish telling me what you started.” Being alone, she could handle. Watching him die was another matter entirely.
His expression became pained and his jaw worked a mile a minute, the way it always did when he wasn’t sure about something. But finally, to her great relief, he nodded.
“Give me a minute to do something first.”
He went to the windows and began to pull their shades down. He’d finished half the pub before she realized what he was doing.
She glanced around. Would anyone be annoyed? But everyone else seemed too drunk or distracted to pay him or the covered windows any attention. When they were all closed, he came back and motioned to the bartender. “The usual for me. And a plate of whatever’s on the stove.” He looked at her. “What would you like, Clara?”
He had a usual? Once again her suspicions were aroused, but she did her best to smile at the bartender. “Just a rootbeer, please.” Then she looked back at James. “So at least tell me the last time you remember being with your division.”
James took her hand and played absently with the ring on her finger. “The last thing I remember… before all this at least,” he waved at the surrounding scene, “was when we were going to make a jump in France. The jump was a success. The battle started hard, but….” He shook his head. “After that, I woke up and found myself here in England. Along with the rats.”
Clara couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. “What did they want?”
He looked up at the old wooden beams stretching over their heads, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I could see the red on their uniforms even in the dark. That’s when I realized I didn’t have my gun, just my knife.” He lifted a pant leg just enough to show her the knife hidden beneath.
She shivered again.
“I fought for my life that night. There were three, maybe four of them. They nearly killed me, but thanks to all the crap the army put me through, I was able to fend them off.”
She gripped the edge of her chair so hard her knuckles turned white, but she didn’t care. “What happened then?”
James bit his lip, and for a moment, she was reminded of the little boy she’d loved since first grade. So much about him had changed. The way he carried himself. The way his eyes shone a little too brightly when he talked about the Nazis. The lines on his face that made him look ten years older instead of just three. But that expression reminded her that beneath the hardened soldier, the little boy still lived underneath. “They ran. I ran. We’ve been chasing each other ever since.”
Clara frowned. “Where?”
“Everywhere. Italy. Fort Bragg. Then England again.” He shrugged. “Always somewhere I’m familiar with at least. Going someplace I don’t know the layout of….” He shook his head. “That would be bad.”
“But if you’re going back and forth between continents, then how are you getting there?” She looked down at her shoes, remembering her own trip here. But this was just a dream. And yet, she wanted to know. She wanted to push him into thinking clearly like the James she knew. As if that might make him come back in real life.
Stupid girl.
This was the most specific dream she had ever experienced. It was also the cruelest situation her rebellious mind could have conjured up in her sleep.
James was quiet for a minute while he stroked her fingers. Dark stubble covered his angular jaw, but his lips looked warmer and more inviting than ever before, and as she watched them, Clara realized their first kiss hadn’t been nearly long enough. He’d been so busy dragging her away from the rats that there’d been no time for more. But the rats couldn’t get them, and with the windows covered, she no longer needed to worry about beady, yellow eyes watching them from afar. And she wanted more.
He must have been thinking the same thing, because the moment she moved closer, he was there, too.
“I’ve missed you, Clara Frost,” he whispered, brushing his mouth against hers. “I would have given up long ago if I didn’t have you to get home to.”
A thrill rippled through her stomach, and she closed her eyes in anticipation. But as soon as his hand had reached up to cup her jaw, someone cleared his their throat.
“If you’re going to be that familiar, you might as well go out there with all of them,” the barkeep grumbled. He nodded at the loud patrons gathered around the piano. “Where I don’t have to watch you.”
Clara blushed profusely and muttered an apology, but only when they were properly back on their own stools did the barkeep walk away.
A wry smile on his face, James leaned back, but his eyes were hungry as he continued to hold her gaze, the intensity of his eyes drawing her like a moth to blue flames.
“Where is this again?” Clara asked, her face still hot from both the reproach in the older man’s face and the desire written clearly on James’s.
“This was one of my favorite places whenever we got time away from the base.” James signaled the barkeep. “I thought we ordered some drinks.”
The barkeep rolled his eyes, but he pulled a glass bottle from the shelf behind him and poured them each a drink in a tall glass.
Clara took hers and studied it. The liquid was brown, and the top was frothy. She sniffed it and grimaced. It smelled like burnt rubber. “I don’t think this is root beer.”
James gave her a wicked grin. “Just taste it.”
“This isn’t like when you tricked me into drinking a cup full of vanilla, is it?”
“You remember that?” He beamed.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Of course I do. It was awful!”
“Yeah, my mom was pretty peeved at me, too.” He took a long swig of the stuff in the glass. “I had to paint the entire fence to pay for all that vanilla.” He took another drink and grinned. “But it was worth it.”
Clara had a smart retort on her tongue when a group of pretty blonde girls caught her eye.
“What is it?” He followed her gaze to the girls, who were staring, unabashed.
“They’re rather brave.” She glared back at them. “They haven’t stopped looking at you since they walked in.”
“Well, over here, American GIs have somewhat of a reputation.” He looked at her glass. “You’re not going to drink that, are you?”
She shoved it over to him.
He took a swig and wiped his mouth. “You see, us American guys get paid over five times what these poor British boys do. And when you’re young and you’ve got no family to send money home to or responsibilities to pay for, it’s easy to be generous.” He shrugged and finished his second glass. “And the girls like that.”
Clara was sure she didn’t.
“Wait.” He put his drink down and studied her. Then a delighted grin lit his face. “Are you jealous?”
She huffed. “Why should I be jealous? We only went steady all through school, and you put a ring on my finger as soon as you could afford one.” She swished her hair at the posse of girls and turned back toward him, making sure her glare was deadly. “Why on earth would I be jealous?”
He laughed and took her cheeks in his hands, pulling her forward to place a kiss on her forehead. All of her irritation evaporated at the gesture, her heart lurching in her chest as she was reminded of just how good it felt. At the same time, the frightened little girl that lived deep inside her heart wondered how in the dickens she was going to wake up and continue living on as if this night had never happened.
He gestured at the four or five couples in the middle of the floor. Someone had cleared away several of the tables and created a space large enough for dancing.
“You wanna dance?”
“You don’t dance.”
“I do now.” He stood and straightened his green jacket with dramatic flair.
She twisted her mouth and quirked an eyebrow. “Since when? You wouldn’t even dance with me at prom.”
“Ah, but I had a good teacher.”
“I tried to teach you— ”
“Clara Frost, I love you, but you couldn’t lead anyone out of a box.”
Clara opened her mouth to argue, but he was right. She was a terrible teacher. She folded her arms instead. “All right then, who was this wonderful teacher?” She jerked her chin at the posse of blondes. “Was it one of those lovely ladies?”
When James left for the war, Clara made a deal with herself. She would never ask him about other women while he was gone, and she would never entertain the idea of him finding another. Because if she really sat down and thought about all the beautiful English and French girls he might encounter, or the very available nurses or USO performers he was likely to meet while he was gone, she would most surely lose her mind. As she watched the other girls now, though, she couldn’t help but wonder if such a decision had been naïve.
But James just laughed, that deep belly laugh she remembered so well. It was good to see him really smiling, even if he was aggravating her on purpose.
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you.” He gave her another wicked grin. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“James!”
“Look! It’s happening now! Your nose turns all red, and—” But before he finished, the smile melted from his face and he stared at something behind her.
Clara turned and followed his gaze to the door, and her heart faltered.
A shadow with yellow eyes was watching from outside the open door as a group of drunk soldiers stumbled out of the bar, laughing loudly as they went.
“All right, that’s it.” James growled deep in his throat as he glowered at the Nazi. “This ends now.”
“But you said—”
But James was already shaking his head, that look of immovable determination in his eyes. “I want you to wait here for me. If you need anything, ask the barkeep. He’s gruff, but a good man. And his wife is kind, too.”
“But this still doesn’t make any sense!” Clara reached for his jacket, barely managing to grab hold of his pocket. “Let’s just slow down and... and form a plan!”
The look he gave her wasn’t happy, but she took advantage of his pause.
“Look, something about this isn’t right—”
“Obviously.”
“Which,” she said, “means there has to be a way out. A... a loophole or an escape or something. Maybe that’s why I’m here! To change things!” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it. And from the look on his face, so did he. “Just don’t make me lose you. Not again.” Waking up would be hard enough. To wake up after watching him die, even in a dream, might be more than she could stand. Especially in a dream as real as this one.
