Chapter 1

December 22, 2007

I saw her from across the huge department store — beautiful, and tall, with shoulder length blonde hair. The place was decked out in the kind of Christmas excess that American department stores are known for. Beautifully decorated white Christmas trees on high pedestals flanked the crowded aisles. Having been away for the last five Christmases I reveled in the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas in a big store in a wonderful city that held so many memories.

All my life I had been blessed with 20/15 vision. That meant I was always the first to spot a beautiful girl. It also had saved my life more times than I cared to think about. Taking the king's coin meant that over the last five years I had been in harms way more often than not.

I was in Chicago on my way home from Iraq, a newly minted first lieutenant in the Marines. I hadn't been home for Christmas in over five years and the only reason I was on my way home to Decatur was because I was recovering from wounds received in Iraq — actually that wasn't quite correct, I received my wounds in Syria, although officially I had never been there.

I had just been released from a short stay at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. My parents knew I was going to be home but not exactly when. I decided to spend a couple of days in Chicago visiting old college friends and doing some Christmas shopping for my family. I had just finished my last purchase, a cashmere sweater for my younger sister Beth, and I was walking through the huge store just taking it all in like some farm boy from the sticks — which I was. I had always loved coming here when I was a kid — Marshall Fields on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. Now it was called Macys and owned by some conglomerate call Federated Department Stores. My mother refused to set foot in it since the sale a couple of years ago.

Anyway, my parents would load the four kids into the mini van and make our annual pilgrimage to the big city. We would drive the 183 miles north, out of the heart of Illinois farm country to spend a weekend before Christmas shopping and taking in the sights. My parents owned a farm and they grew corn and soy. The farm had been in our family for generations and provided a good living. Farm is kind of a misnomer; actually it encompassed over a thousand acres of flat black earth, and was part of what is called agribusiness. In fact the largest agribusiness company in the world, Archer Daniels Midland, is located in little old Decatur, population 81,000. My mother had worked for ADM for over twenty years.

The beautiful woman was across the store from me, slowly heading my way through the crowded aisles. She was magnificent with legs that just wouldn't quit. Dressed in a gray suit with a skirt that came to her knees and a red silk blouse, and very high heeled black pumps, she looked like she had come from the runway in Paris or Milan. She had a red and green sunburst broach on her lapel. In 28 years I had seen a lot of beautiful women but she topped them all. She had two other women with her, a striking brunette in a black skirt and sweater, and a redhead in a clingy dark green wool dress. They would stop at a display and the beautiful blonde woman would point to something that needed correcting and one of the others, actually the stunning redhead, would scribble notes in a leather folio. The tall blonde was obviously in charge and carried herself with an air of confidence and authority.

I just stood there and watched as they approached, enjoying the sight of three beautiful women. As I focused on the blonde the long suppressed memories flooded my mind - memories of warmth and love and memories of arguments about stupid little things. We had once been engaged for six months. We were young. She had been my Jess, and I had made love to every inch of her and had thought we had a future together. I was mistaken.

How long had it been since I'd seen her?

I knew exactly ... it had been June 2002 and it was at our graduation party from the University of Chicago. We had been engaged since Christmas Eve 2001. I had loved her like no one before or since. Our love-making had a passion that bordered on feral ferocity. But it hadn't been enough.

Then one night it had all come crashing down and she broke up with me in a very loud and public way. I was crushed and humiliated and gained a four-inch scar that ran from my hairline to my right eyebrow.

I packed up and left Chicago and instead of heading for Silicon Valley and my new job I found myself on my way to San Diego for Marine Corps boot camp. One of my Marine friends called it America's Foreign Legion — just like in those old black and white movies where the jilted hero joins the French Foreign Legion to forget, and to become a man. The Marines had certainly made a man out of me but I had not been able to forget Jessica, despite my best efforts.

Since then I had only heard from her once — in the fall of 2004, a letter of apology and sorrow at our parting. I read it on a wind-swept ridge in Afghanistan and three weeks later, just before Christmas, I had answered in what I thought was a very calm manner, but also in such a way that I knew would hurt her greatly.

As I watched her make her way toward me I wondered if she hated me, or even if she cared at all. It occurred to me that she could be married. And why wouldn't she be married? She was beautiful and intelligent ... and I had to admit utterly fantastic in bed.

The brunette headed off to do whatever she was sent to do and now just Jessica and the redhead moved toward me.

I figured after all this time I should at least say hello.

Jessica pointed to something on the other side of me and her eyes swept across me, perhaps only seeing a man in a dark green uniform in the crowded aisle carrying several packages.