Not that she had reason to send him anything.
He had a feeling he was lucky to get two words in an email from her.
“My wife left me after my first deployment,” Pony said.
Lance shot a look at his buddy. “You were married?”
“Not long. I reconnected with a high school girlfriend and eloped to Vegas. Knew it wouldn’t last when her care packages pissed me off. She sent crossword puzzle books and a photo album of her dog.”
Lance grunted. No wonder Pony didn’t talk about his ex-wife.
“Got one from a family friend once though.”Pony sliced open the first of his seven boxes. “Oreos, Lucky Charms, and a stack ofStar Warsbooks. Looked her up when I got home. Was ready to propose, but she was dating someone, so I just said thanks. Funny thing. She wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, but when she smiled…” He shook his head. “Sometimes the chicksgetus. And there’s a connection. But we’re too late.”
Lance glanced at his tablet again. “Or we picked the wrong career.”
“Fuck that excuse. I got thirteen years in. Seven more, I can retire. She loves me? We’ll make it work.”
“I’ve got six in, and I’m sticking around until they put stars on my shoulders.”
“You take a three-year tour in the training squadron and a four-year follow-on at Gellings, you’ll be in as long as I am now. Difference, though, is you got a girl you miss who’d be happy at Gellings for anotherseven years. All I have is a job.” Pony lifted a pair of socks decorated with mustaches and grimaced. “And a bunch of family with weird senses of humor.”
“You think this is just a job?”
“It’s more than a job. But it’s not enough to be my entire life.”
Lance picked up the box from Cheri and balanced it on his knee.
Did he want a job in the training squadron?
Itwouldmean staying in Georgia. Teaching and training and mentoring more kids like Juice Box.
Whom Lance actually missed, in a little-brother kind of way.
But staying in Georgia, even for a job that sounded appealing, meant he’d be close to Kaci.
There were plenty of women in the world who made good wives to military members. Plenty of women who wouldn’t write him offbecause he deployed, because he moved every few years, because he might not come home one day.
But none of those women who would’ve loved him despite his job were Kaci Boudreaux.
And even here, halfway around the world, weeks after he’d last seen her, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
21
On a blustery Saturday afternoon in late March, Kaci took her Physics Club kids back out to the fairgrounds to test their improvements to Ichabod. After her last disaster with launching pumpkins, she’d called in advance to make sure the field was open and that they could use it for test-firing.
She’d also asked Tara to pass along to Lance’s roommate that she was firing pumpkins, just in case she aimed the wrong way and put their squadron bar in danger again.
Tara had found it hilarious. Apparently Nikki and Devon-slash-Juice Box had too. And so the message had been passedalong, and Kaci had asked Zada to take the lead in making sure they were aiming away from the houses when they arrived at the field this morning.
A small cluster of Civil War reenactors were also set up on the firing line. And instead of a catapult, they had a cannon.
Her redneck heart gave an indignant squeak. She’d always wanted to fire a cannon.
“Aren’t they a little far south?” Zada whispered. “I didn’t think there were any Civil War battles in this part of the state.”
“Love of the Confederacy isn’t always tied to a battleground,” Kaci murmured back.
Her six students went to work setting up Ichabod.
