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Tom had an easy laugh. “Hey, I didn’t come up with the term. How about long-timers?”

“Fine. Count me in.” Maybe that’s what he needed to shake this off, a good, hard workout. “When and where?”

“Gym down at the rec center seven o’clock. Guess what I did?”

He could tell by the sheer happiness in the sergeant’s voice that he had popped the question to his long-time girl. “You didn’t. I thought you were smarter than that, Tom.”

“What are you talking about? I’m smart enough to know what I’ve got. She said yes, too. I’m officially an engaged man.”

“Congratulations.” Maybe things would go easier for Tom. “She’s a lucky lady.”

“Believe me, I’m the lucky one.”

Mike remembered feeling the same way. He had proposed to Sarah almost five years ago now. He had surprised her by going down on one knee when they were decorating the Christmas tree in her little yellow house. She had just closed on it and been so excited to put up the tree for the first time that she hadn’t realized what he had been doing at first.

In his mind’s eye he could still see her aglow from the tree lights and the happy shock on her face. He had been pretty happy then, too.

Sad, how things changed.

One day passed and then another. As Sarah cradled a bouquet of flowers in one hand and clutched Ali’s hand with the other, she had to admit her emotional wounds were not getting any better. As they stepped through the hospital’s automatic doors, she braced herself. She knew what was coming. Now, after she had humiliated herself so completely with her declaration of love to Mike, any mention of him stung.

“When’s Dr. Mike gonna call? It’s been long.” Ali glanced around the crowded entry area. “Do you think he’s here?”

“No. And as for him calling you, what did I tell you?” Gently, Sarah nudged him toward the bank of elevators.

“Uh, that I’m s’posed to wait?”

“That’s right.” She pressed the call button.

“But waiting is hard.” Ali flashed his dimple, quite aware she thought he was the most adorable little boy ever.

“Yes, but you have to think of Mike. He’s awful busy. I’m sure he was just as busy when you were hanging out with him in the MASH unit.”

“Yep, he was really busy.” Ali gave a heavy, disappointed sigh. “He worked and worked. I couldn’t even see him.”

“It’s probably like that now.” She hated that this was hurting Ali. What was the solution? Seeing Mike hurt her, and he didn’t want to see her. He was right about there only being one solution. Mike was going to ease away from Ali. What other choice did they have?

The doors slid open. Ali marched into the empty elevator. “Can I hit the number? Can I, Sarah?”

“Yes.” She gave him the floor number and watched over him to make sure he picked the right one. “Good boy. You are a smarty.”

“Not as smart as Dr. Mike.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. This is how it had been going over the last two days. Ali’s requests for his favorite doctor had gone up right along with his number of nightmares. Poor boy. She ruffled his hair, her throat too tight to say what she felt. The doors eased shut and the elevator lifted, chugging upward to a slow stop.

“I like escalators better,” Ali informed her as he tugged her into the corridor. “Know what, Sarah?”

“What?” The chances were one hundred percent it would be about Mike.

“I know what. I colored a picture for Dr. Mike.”

“You did?”

“He’s gotta see it.”

Fortunately they were approaching the nurse’s station and she didn’t have to say more on the subject of Mike Montgomery.

After leaving Ali with Lily, who was the mother of one of her afternoon kindergarten students, Sarah took the flowers down the hall. Whitney Harpswell had a private room. A soldier from the Prairie Springs army post, Whitney had been missing in action. The young soldier had been found and cared for by villager women and brought to Mike’s MASH unit. Whitney was now making progress, although she was still lapsing in and out of consciousness. She lay motionless, at her side was her husband.

He turned and stood from his chair at the sound of her footsteps. “Miss Alpert? It’s good to see you in person.”

“Please, call me Sarah. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you alive and well.” Sarah’s gaze fell to the unconscious young woman in the hospital bed. “I pray for her every day, John.”

“Thank you. We need all the prayers we can get.” He was too young to have so much worry on his face. “Her prognosis is good, although she is struggling. I can’t tell you how much she enjoyed the card and letters your class sent us when we were serving overseas.”

“I’m glad. The kids and I have missed being able to write to you two. When you both disappeared—” Emotion jammed into her windpipe, and she couldn’t say the words. How many times had she feared the same would happen to Mike? She set her flowers down on the windowsill, squeezing it in between all the other bouquets. “I don’t know all what you went through, but our prayers were with you then and are with you now. You should know the kids and I care.”

“That means a lot.” He was a sincere young man, handsome and likeable. A courageous soldier who had sacrificed a lot for this country. “One day soon Whitney is going to be able to come tell y’all herself.”

“Any day now. As soon as Whitney is up to it, you two ought to come by. We will throw a cupcake party in your honor.”

“It’s a date.” John’s smile was strained. He looked as if he were tired and worried and struggling to hide it.

Her heart went out to him. She pulled a manila envelope out of her bag. “These are get-well notes and Christmas cards from the children. Is there anything at all I can do for you? I can sit here so you can grab a bite to eat? Fetch you a cup of tea? Run an errand for you?”

“That’s nice of you, Sarah. Thank your class for me.” He took the envelope, his eyes bright with emotion. “As for any errands, I’m good. All I need is right in this room.”

“My cell number is on the card with the flowers. You call me if you need help with anything.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I plan on checking up on the two of you—” She paused, hearing a familiar child’s voice down the hallway. It was Ali calling out for Dr. Mike.

Mike was here? Panic closed like a fist. She had to stay calm. She had to wrestle down the embarrassment busting to get out. She hoped what she managed was a polite goodbye. Her pulse thumped in her ears as she stepped out into the hall, turning toward him automatically.

He looked good. Powerful and confident as always in his white doctor’s coat. His stethoscope hung around his neck. He held a chart in one hand. He hadn’t noticed her yet, his attention was on Ali, who was chattering away a mile a minute. She couldn’t seem to focus on what the boy was saying, but she was close enough now to see the dark circles beneath Mike’s eyes. The hollows beneath his high cheekbones. The cut of strain on his chiseled face.

He didn’t look as if he had been sleeping well. Something bad must have happened to him over there. She knew it. But what?

“Sarah!” Ali spotted her, running toward her with a note of anxiety. “I waited and waited.”

“Everything is fine.” She held out her hand, smiling reassuringly. “I was gone five minutes tops. Are you ready to head home?”

It was best to take the situation in hand. Let Mike know she hadn’t been expecting to bump into him and now that she had, she would not be sticking around. He wouldn’t need to worry about that. She set her chin, grappling down the memory of his rejection. He no longer loved her. She had ruined any chance of happiness long ago. She had to accept that. She had to learn to look him square in the eye. Just not yet.

“Come on, Ali. Mike, we’ll get out of your way—”

“Sarah, you’re not—”

“Good night.”
Hold it together, Sarah.
She felt Ali’s resistance, he didn’t want to follow her down the hall, but she had to go. She had to get away from Mike because her eyes were stinging and her soul was cracking with grief.

Before, when he reenlisted against her wishes and got on that plane to the Middle East, she had been hurt and she had been mad, and those emotions had kept her from dealing with the absolute truth. Mike didn’t love her. He didn’t love her. There was nothing she could do to bring him back into her life. He was truly gone.

She jabbed the elevator button and willed the doors to open. They didn’t oblige. They remained staunchly closed, keeping her from escaping the knell of Mike’s approaching footsteps.

“W
ait a minute, Sarah. Don’t go. Not like this.” He hated that she was in such a hurry to escape him. Something was wrong, and he knew what. It wasn’t easy, but he gathered up his courage and as she faced him, he fortified his defenses. He had to stay remote and unaffected. He had to approach this like the professional he was. “I didn’t mean you had to avoid me.”

She winced.

“I shouldn’t have said some things to you.” She glanced at the elevator doors looking like she wanted nothing more than to escape him. Her beautiful blue eyes pinched with pain. “Just a little embarrassed about that, to tell the truth.”

Stay detached,
he ordered himself. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s forgotten.”

“Oh.” She looked down. Her shoulders slumped a little.

Too harsh, he realized. He hadn’t meant to brush aside her feelings. “I meant, we can leave that behind us. I don’t want you to feel embarrassed about it.”

“I see.” That didn’t help, either.

Maybe a little, he decided. He no longer knew. He had had a tough night and an even tougher day. “I’m pulling a double shift, so you’ll have to forgive me.”

“You’re short staffed?”

“We’re having more deployments, and you know what that’s like. Folks have so much to get done before they head off for a year.”

She nodded.

“Dr. Mike!” Ali hopped in place, all healthy little boy energy. Good to see.

“What is it—”
buddy,
he was going to say, but that wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. It was going to be tough for them both but for the best in the long run. The pain was back, throbbing like a wound.

“I forgot to tell you somethin’.” Ali grinned. “I colored a picture for you.”

Stay impassive, Doctor,
he commanded himself. “Nice.”

“I don’t got it with me. Soooo…” Ali drew out the word. “When can you come see it?”

He jammed his fists into his pockets. “I can’t. I’m real busy here.”

“Okay. Then how about tomorrow?” Hope filled those sweet brown eyes, full of innocence and trust.

“No.” It was the toughest thing he had ever had to do. “I can’t come.”

“Then the next tomorrow?” That hope flickered, fragile and pure.

“No. I’m sorry, Ali. I promise to see you before Christmas.” Christmas. There was a thought he couldn’t stand. When times were tough during his deployment, he had planned a lot of things for his future. Ali’s first American Christmas had been one of them.

“Ooookay.” The boy sighed, wrestling with disappointment.

Yep, I how know you feel, little guy.
The pain exploded. Best put an end to this agony. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.” Big soulful eyes stared up at him.

He was letting the little boy down. It destroyed him. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It had to be done. There was no changing that. He was Sarah’s little boy. The two of them would share Christmas together and all the good times that went with the holiday. The two of them would be a family, a real family.

He wasn’t part of that. Never would be. So he tucked away his own disappointments and secured the emotional perimeter.

Be in control, soldier,
he demanded as one set of elevator doors yawned open. He felt nothing, nothing at all as the woman he once loved and the child he did boarded the elevator.

He did an about face and marched away. If he was going to stay in control of his emotions, he had to keep going. He couldn’t take glancing over his shoulder as the doors were closing and seeing the sadness on Ali’s little face. Mike couldn’t take knowing he was the reason why.

At least she survived her run-in with Mike. Sarah looked up from her work. Today’s classwork papers were scattered across the dining-room table. Clarence lay curled on top of a back couch cushion snoozing. The TV was on for noise, tuned to a classic movie channel, and the living room was alight with a black-and-white glow from the screen.

Mike. He had looked exhausted. This last year had changed him. His deployment had obviously been a tough one. Had he had someone to turn to?

She stuck a gold star on Amanda Mayhew’s alphabet worksheet and added a smiley face.
She
had been the one Mike had turned to during his previous tours of duty. He was a man who kept to himself, who held in his emotions and disappointments, and she knew the pressures he worked under. He was a gifted surgeon, and he gave everything he had to his patients. She knew. There had been a time when she had wanted that kind of commitment from him, too.

She felt shame over that now. Mike’s sincerity and devotion had been one of the things she admired about him right from the start. His desire to save others, to serve others made him the right kind of man, in her opinion. She knew that desire could eat him alive, if he wasn’t careful. He tried so hard. He cared more than most.

Lord, please watch over him tonight. Help him find peace.
The prayer rose from her heart without premeditation or thought. She checked Josie Mayhew’s paper, fixed a gold star in the right hand corner and drew a smiley face.

“Noooooo. Noooooo.” Ali’s tortured cry echoed down the hall.

Sarah was on her feet, rushing toward his room. Not another nightmare. Poor baby. She padded into his room. Was he still asleep? “Ali?”

“Sarah!” He flew into her arms, sobs shaking him.

She felt hot tears against her throat as she lifted him into her lap. “It’s all right. You’re okay.”

“Okay,” he said through a sob. “My mama’s all gone.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She kissed the crown of his head, blinking hard.

Olga Terenkov, the grief counselor at the church, had assured her these nightmares were perfectly normal. There were so many emotions and anxieties children Ali’s age didn’t know how to verbalize.

“I dreamed that I l-lost her.” Ali’s voice went high and thin. “We was in a market and I looked and looked for her.”

“She’s in Heaven watching over you.”

“That’s what the pastor says.”

Pastor Fields. Sarah snuggled her boy a little tighter. “Our minister is very smart. I’m sure he’s right.”

Ali fell silent, breathing hard as he wrestled down his sobs. She started to hum a comforting tune, one her mother had sang to her when she was little. The child in her arms began to relax.

“S-Sarah?”

She leaned her cheek against his soft hair. “What is it, honey?”

“You won’t leave, will you?”

“No. I’ll be right here. I’ll always be here for you.”

“Okay.” Ali sighed, his arms wrapping tighter around her neck. “I think my mama would like that.”

Her eyes burned. The tears she had been holding back slipped down her face. She prayed for the woman she had never known half a world away who had been killed senselessly. She prayed for this child and for the children everywhere who were hurting. She prayed for the soldiers who risked their lives to protect all of them. Hours passed and still she held Ali, hoping her love was enough to keep his nightmares at bay.

The ground quaked beneath his feet hard enough to jar him and rock the monitors. Good thing he had braced himself. The overhead lights dimmed and brightened. The mortar strike had been close. Too close. Again.

“At least there aren’t any bullets this time.” Judging by his tone, Tom was grinning behind his mask. “It’s kind of funny how you get used to this.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” The real concern was getting this bleeding stopped. Liver wounds were tricky. “I’m not losing this kid. Carrie, how’s his pressure?”

“Steady for now.”

That hadn’t always been the case. His patient—Ben Sutton—was just twenty-one years old. Mike thought of his mother somewhere stateside who might not yet know he was gravely injured, Ben had been choppered off the battlefield. He thought of all the people back home who loved and cared about this boy. He thought of the long, good life Ben deserved.

You can’t let him die, Montgomery. The back of his neck burned from what was already a long night of work. The kid’s liver was a mess. “We’ve got to excise this half here. There’s no saving it. Then maybe he’s got a chance. Tom, grab—”

“Doctor, he’s dropping. Fast.”

The monitor flatlined. Just like that. “Don’t you die on me, Ben. C’mon—” But he stood helpless as his team burst to life around him. He was frozen in time, unable to move, unable to make a difference.

You have to save Ben, he scolded himself. Do something. Anything—

Mike shot awake, sitting up in the dark. Where was he? His harsh, rasping breathing echoed in the stillness. Sweat poured off him. His hands were shaking. He’d had the dream again, the one where he’d stood motionless, dreaming that he was unable to help, suspended in time.

That wasn’t how it happened, but the dream kept haunting him. Failure, dark and deep, grasped his soul. He hung his head and tried to still his breathing. He was home now. Gone were the blood-soaked scrubs and young Ben Sutton lifeless on his table. What lingered was the suffocating sense of failure.

I did everything right.
He pressed his hands to his face.
I did everything there was to do.

But it hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t been enough. He had fought for Ben’s life as if it were his own. No one could have done more. His team had reassured him of that. His commanding officer had confirmed it. Losing a soldier on his table made a piece of him die, too. There had been too many losses on this last deployment; too much of him was missing.

How did he get the image of Ben Sutton out of his mind? Mike rubbed his eyes, threw back the twisted sheets and climbed out of bed. He didn’t know what he needed. He didn’t know what would help.

Just keep walking, Major.
He wandered down the dark hall into the kitchen. The ambient light from the microwave and stove clock cast enough glow for him to get a glass of water without turning on the lights. He didn’t want lights. He felt if he stayed hidden in the shadows, his failures would have a harder time of finding him. He knew it wasn’t true, but it helped him to get through the night.

He chugged down the fresh, cool water and tried to swallow another thought as well. There was another glaring reason he wasn’t doing so well this time out. He had an overwhelming need to pick up the phone and dial her number. Hearing Sarah’s voice and her gentle understanding could always soothe him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, set the glass on the counter and willed his mind to stop. He couldn’t allow himself to even think about reaching out to her. He was alone now. He had to deal. He had to stand on his own feet. It didn’t pay to lean on other people.

In the end, you were alone anyway.

Alone, he headed down the hall, knowing he didn’t have a chance in heaven to get back to sleep. Dawn wasn’t far away.

Saturday morning came too soon. Sarah had managed to grab some sleep on the other twin bed in Ali’s room and the rest of his night had gone smoothly, but she had kept waking up to check on him. She felt as if she were stumbling around the kitchen finishing up the breakfast dishes.

She had made Ali’s favorite breakfast of pancakes with a smiling strawberry jam mouth, two blueberries for eyes and chocolate syrup for hair. He’d been hungry and with his second stack, he made his own faces with the strips of bacon and chocolate chips. Not the most nutritious breakfast on earth, but at least he was smiling. His losses weren’t forgotten, but at least they weren’t weighing on him.

“Clarence loves me.” Ali sat in the middle of the living room floor with the cat on his lap, squeezing him with both arms. The cat lay limp, enduring the public display of affection. “I love him, too. He’s my friend.”

“Yes, he is.” Sarah rinsed the last of the silverware and dumped it into the dishwasher basket. “Only a true friend would let you hug him like that.”

“You know what?”

Uh-oh. She recognized that mischievous look in those sweet brown eyes. “What?”

“Dr. Mike’s my friend.”

Oh, boy, here we go again. She pushed the bottom rack in and closed the dishwasher door. “Mike is very much your friend, but you and I have another busy day.”

“’Cuz we’re seein’ Dr. Mike?” Ali gave Clarence a final squeeze and released him.

“Mike probably has a thousand things to do. He got back from deployment a week ago. Besides, the two of us have plans.”

“We do?”

As if she hadn’t told him yesterday. Thinking about seeing Mike used to have that effect on her, too, it made everything else unimportant. “We have the little matter of doing our shopping and picking out our Christmas tree.”

“We’re gonna put it here.” Ali skipped over to where one couch stood in front of the front window. He spread his arms wide, indicating the exact spot.

“That’s a good spot.” After she shoved the couch to the other side of the room, of course. “We can keep the blinds up at night so everyone going by can see the Christmas-tree lights, too.”

“That’s what Dr. Mike said.”

Somehow she was going to have to get used to the stabbing pains in her chest at the mention of Mike’s name. Ali was not going to stop talking about his hero any time soon. She had to learn to cope.

She grabbed the hand towel from the oven handle. “Turn the TV off for me, please. We’ve got to get started on our errands.”

“Okay.” Ali seemed particularly eager. He hopped over to the remote, hit it and dropped it back on the coffee table on his way through the room. He was moving at a good clip. He must be really excited about getting a tree.

Good. She wanted to make the day as easy as possible for him. Clarence wrapped around her ankles on his way to his water bowl. She ran her fingertips through his soft fur and was rewarded with a rusty purr. She made sure he had some dry food to snack on in his food dish before she gathered up her purse and keys.

Ali breezed into sight with a grin on his face. He had changed into the T-shirt and matching sweatshirt that Mike had sent him several months ago.