LITMIR.BIZ

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of course, knew without asking what was in Red’s pocket. “You still writing to Bertie?”

      Red grimaced. “She’s been doin’ most of the writing.” Especially the past few weeks.

      His sweet Bertie had a heart as tender and beautiful as spring violets, a face to keep a man alive through the worst of war, and a voice as warm and spicy as hot apple cider.

      But he couldn’t keep thinking like that…not about her bein’ his.

      “That little gal had a regular letter campaign going, you know,” Ivan told him. “She had all her friends writing to me, and any time I’d mention a buddy who hadn’t received mail in a while, sure enough, in a week or so he’d get a note from some stranger out of Culver City, California. Our Bertie’s all spunk. If she was president, this whole war would already be won.”

      Red felt a quick rush of pride. “She’s kept me going, that’s for sure.”

      “How’s Miss Lilly been getting on without you?”

      “You know Ma,” Red said. “She says she’s doin’ fine, but it’s hard to tell ’cause she never complains.”

      Ivan chuckled. “Strong as a Missouri mule and the best cook in Hideaway.”

      Red returned his attention to the scenery sliding past the window. Now that Ivan had brought up the subject, Red remembered that he had someone else to fret about.

      Until he was called up, he’d helped his mother run the Meyer Guesthouse in Hideaway. It had been a family operation since his pa’s death.

      Lilly Meyer never let on about how hard it was to keep the place going without Red’s help—but he knew business must’ve gone slack without him to serve as fishing guide, hunting guide and storyteller, along with all the other chores he’d done for her every day.

      Fishing along the James River had been a popular sport among their best and wealthiest customers, many of whom returned to Lilly’s guesthouse year after year for the fishing. These guests had gotten the Meyers through the depression.

      But how much of the work could Red do now?

      Ma’s letters were mostly filled with the goings-on in town, until this last one. Even the handwriting seemed to lack her usual pizzazz. Kind of shrunk in on itself, hard to read.

      Red couldn’t quite figure it. Seemed like Ma was trying to avoid the subject of Hideaway altogether. Maybe Drusilla Short was telling tales again. That woman was the orneriest old so-and-so in the county, exceptin’ for her husband, Gramercy. Last time Red had been home on leave, Mrs. Short had the nerve to spread the rumor that Red was AWOL.

      Ma, of course, had nearly come to blows with the old gossip about it—and Ma wasn’t a fighter, unless someone tried to hurt one of her kids. Then, she could whup a mad bull, and she was big enough to do it.

      Red glanced out at the peaceful countryside, at the cattle grazing in a valley. Pa had actually taken on a mad bull twelve years ago—and lost. That ol’ bull had been raised on the farm as a pet, but then had turned mean, and caught Pa in the middle of the field where he couldn’t get away in time.

      Ma had been left to raise Red and his brother and sister alone.

      What was up with Ma now?

      And how was Red going to break his news to Bertie?

      Chapter Three

      Bertie thought about her father as she held the fine sandpaper to the gear shaft turning in the lathe. She moved the paper back and forth to wear the metal of the shaft to smooth, even perfection—to ten thousandths of an inch of the final recommendations.

      She couldn’t help feeling, again, that something wasn’t right back home. At seven o’clock, on the second Sunday night of every month since she’d come out here, she’d telephoned Dad. If she couldn’t reach him right away, he would phone her, and every time except once, he had been sitting beside the phone, waiting for her call. By the time their short talks were over—long distance cost too much to talk more than a few minutes—half of Hideaway knew what was happening in her life.

      Everyone on their telephone party line got in on the call. It aggravated Dad half to death, and he wasn’t always polite to the neighbors. But that didn’t stop the townsfolk from picking up their phones, even when they knew the specific ring was for Dad and not for them. They were always “accidentally” interrupting the conversation.

      Last night Bertie had tried four times, with no answer from Dad. He never called back. She’d talked to the Morrows, the Fishers and the Jarvises, but not to Dad. Nobody seemed to know where he was. Mrs. Fisher did tell Bertie that a couple of Dad’s best cows and five of his pigs had gone missing two weeks ago. Bertie had heard Mr. Fisher in the background, telling his wife that if Joseph Moennig wanted his daughter to know about the lost animals, he’d tell her himself.

      Mr. Fisher was one of the few people in their Hideaway neighborhood who believed in minding his own business. His wife, poor thing, held a dim view of her husband’s antisocial behavior.

      Why hadn’t Dad mentioned the animals in his letters?

      Mr. Morrow didn’t have much to say about the matter, which struck Bertie as unusual. He’d never lacked for opinions before.

      If Bertie didn’t know better, she’d start getting a complex. First, no letters from Red Meyer for six weeks, and now even her father wasn’t answering her calls.

      She’d written Red’s mother, but though Lilly Meyer’s reply had been chatty and filled with news, she hadn’t given Bertie any useful information about Red, except that he was “takin’ a few weeks of rest from the battle.”

      But where was he doin’ his resting? And if he was getting rest, why couldn’t he write to her? Was he having so much fun on his rest that he didn’t want to waste time on her?

      Bertie heard news about the war from everyone but Red.

      Until VE Day last month—Victory over Europe, May 8, 1945—which would always be a day of celebration, Bertie and Edith had kept up with the news from the European front through their favorite magazine, Stars and Stripes. They had especially loved war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who’d informed readers about all the things Red never wrote about—such as the living conditions of the men who were fighting so desperately for freedom.

      How she missed those articles now that Ernie was dead. How the whole country missed him!

      “Roberta Moennig, you know the boss is tough on daydreamers.” Emma, the utility girl, came by with more parts to work on the lathe.

      Bertie’s hand slipped, fingers rapping against the shaft, and she yelped when she accidentally did a quick sanding job on her fingertips.

      “Hey, you all right?” Emma asked.

      “Yes, I’m fine.” Bertie had too much on her mind right now. She’d developed too much of a worry habit.

      Emma hefted the parts onto Bertie’s table. “What’s got your goat? Keep this up and Franklin Parrish’ll be chucking you out the door.”

      Bertie grimaced and picked up a shaft. She placed it in the lathe, tightened it in, and started polishing it. Today her concentration was about as sharp as a possum hanging from a tree limb.

      “Got another letter from my soldier last night,” Emma said, leaning her elbows on Bertie’s worktable, obviously of a mind to gab a while, in spite of the whine of the lathe’s motor, and her own just-issued warning about Franklin.

      Bertie nodded, wishing Emma would leave it at that, hoping the noise of the lathe would keep the conversation short.

      “You heard from that man of yours lately?” Emma asked, raising her voice.

      Bertie frowned. “Not for a few weeks. You know how the mail gets bundled up for days at a time, then a bunch of letters comes at once.” Even to her own ears, the excuse

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