Excerpt of One True Heart by Jodi Thomas

Rick Husband International Airport

Amarillo, Texas Late August

Chapter 1

Millanie McAllen used the backs of the airline seats to hop her way from the tiny toilet to the exit as the flight attendant pulled out her crutches from the front storage.

“Sorry, Captain McAllen, I thought everyone was off.” The girl apologized with a quick smile at Millanie.

“No problem. I needed a few minutes to change.” Millanie’s army jacket rested over her arm. Her name bar and ribbons sparkled in the plane’s lighting. She traded the attendant her uniform for the crutches as she read the girl’s nametag. “Trudi, would you mind folding this into my bag? When I walk off, or rather limp off, this plane and into Texas, I’m no longer in the Army.”

While the attendant did as requested, Millanie tried to straighten the wrinkled long-sleeve blouse and gathered prairie skirt she’d changed into. They weren’t her style, far too lacy, but when she’d bought them at the airport in Dallas all she’d been thinking about was something easy to get on over the cast on her right leg.

“I could call for a chair.” Trudi looked at her with trained sympathy in her eyes. “This time of night they’re never busy.”

“No, thanks. I can handle this.” After four plane changes, an all night layover at La Guardia with a leg hurting like they’d left shrapnel in it, simply walking out of the last airport seemed a piece of cake.

“What time of night is it?” Millanie guessed she sounded a bit crazy but she’d lost all track of time flying from halfway around the world.

“Almost eleven. The airport will be closing soon. We’re the last flight, I think.”

Looping her purse over one shoulder so it was out of the way and wrapping the bag strings around the long strap, the newly decommissioned Captain McAllen hobbled off the plane.

She refused to look back and take one more glance of sympathy. She’d had enough to last a lifetime.

The air was different here in West Texas. Unlike anywhere in the world. Thin and pure with the smell of the earth spiced in by the wind. She hadn’t been back to Harmony for six years, but she swore she could smell cattle and oil circulating in the air conditioned breeze even inside the terminal.

Part of the crowd who’d come to stand and wave flags and cheer for hometown warriors returning on her flight were now milling around, picking up streamers they’d thrown and rolling up flags. She’d heard soldiers talking when they’d waited at the USO in Dallas. One had been told about the welcoming group that would be waiting for them when they landed in Amarillo.

All the men got excited to be going home to a place where they would be welcomed by a crowd of friends, family and fellow veterans.

Millanie had limped her way down half a mile of crowded gates at DFW to find a clothing store. It sold the gaudiest western clothes in Texas. Her choices had been jeans with rhinestone crosses on her butt or a gathered skirt that looked like it had been hanging around since the sixties. Her choice was made simply on which would go over her cast.

Looking down at her attire, she decided her great-great-grandmother probably wore the same kind of outfit when she climbed off the covered wagon almost a hundred and fifty years ago to homestead. Patrick and Annie McAllen hadn’t been much more than kids when they’d helped start Harmony. Maybe that was why, no matter where she traveled, the little town would always be home. Her roots were here and maybe, somehow, she’d find a life here.

She took a deep breath and smiled. Two more hours and she’d be able to rest. She’d be in Harmony.

By the time she made it downstairs to luggage claim everyone else on her flight was long gone, and she’d sweated so much her brown curly hair lay plastered as if it were a swim cap.

Her army issued duffle bag was circling like a homely drunk after last call.

I can do this, she set her mind. Grab the bag. Drag it the thirty feet to the rent-a-car booth. Somehow she’d manage to get her right leg in the car and drive with her left.

The thought crossed her mind that she was an idiot for not calling Major Katherine Cummings or one of her dozen cousins in Harmony to come get her. But Millanie, as always, had to prove she could handle everything on her own. She’d been that way since she was nineteen and lost both her parents within a year.

Besides, the major had married the local funeral director and had a baby since they’d seen each other and Millanie had no idea what her married name was. They weren’t really friends, just two soldiers who had a town in common. Millanie had listed Harmony as her hometown and Katherine had been going there when she retired.

And now I’m returning, Millanie thought. Something she figured she’d do after twenty or thirty years in the army, not after twelve. One stranger in a crowd outside an embassy one night had changed all her plans and ended her career. Nothing personal. She was just in the wrong place when he wanted to kill himself.

Correction, the wound not only ended her career, but every plan she ever made. Now she had no direction, no life, and no future in a job she loved. She was simply drifting and any direction, even Harmony, Texas, seemed a good place to go.

As she reached down trying to balance on one leg while she grabbed for the duffle bag, the strap of her purse slid forward causing her to miss the handle.

“Damn,” she mumbled.

A laugh came from just behind her.

She straightened and turned slowly, shifting her weight to regain her balance. No matter the injury, she’d be ready to fight. Twelve years as a soldier didn’t wash away overnight.

As she’d been trained to do, she sized up the man standing a few feet away. Tall, lean, in his mid-thirties with hair too long to be stylish and intelligent eyes behind his dark framed glasses. A teacher or an accountant by the way he dressed, unarmed of course, and single she’d guess. Men who had a woman in their life gave it away in more than wearing a ring.

She relaxed and faked a smile.

“Sorry.” He waved his hands in front of him as if erasing his outburst. “I shouldn’t have laughed, but for a moment you looked like you were playing some kind of strange game people waste their money on at the county fair. Reaching for the impossible.”

“You hang out at a lot of county fairs?” she asked thinking this guy didn’t look like he ever left the library, or study, or lab, or wherever geeks like him hide out. She could almost picture a tiny hoarder’s apartment with stacks of books serving as tables. He probably drove one of those compact cars that could almost serve as a paperweight when it wasn’t puttering along.

“I hang around them all the time. Can’t stay away from the great fried food.” He lied of course. “How about I grab your bag when it comes around again as my apology?”

She nodded her thank you, guessing he wouldn’t be able to lift her bag. But she wasn’t a captain in the army anymore; maybe she shouldn’t be so critical. She must simply look like a woman, poorly dressed and stranded in an airport. Maybe she’d play the role all the way to the rent-a-car counter. Then she’d say thank you and he’d leave thinking he’d done his good deed for the day.

The bag circled and, to her surprise, he picked it up.

Without lowering her one piece of luggage to the ground, he said, “Where you headed? I’ll carry it for you.”

She smiled, thinking this plan was too easy. “I’m going to a bed and breakfast in a little town called Harmony but that’s too far for you to carry my bag. How about just dropping it at the car counter over there?”

They both started toward the far end of the terminal just as the light above the last car booth blinked twice and went out.

“Great,” Millanie muttered. “Now I’ll have to find a cab and stay in Amarillo tonight.”

The professor type next to her spoke. “You could ride with me. I’m heading that direction and would be happy to give you a lift.”

No was already on her lips, but when she looked at him she almost laughed. The man couldn’t look less like a serial killer. Odds were he’d be a safe driver who never traveled more than five miles over the speed limit. Her mother’s warning of not getting in cars with strangers surely didn’t apply to this geek.

When she didn’t answer, he must have felt the need to testify. “You’re in no danger, miss. I have a cabin out near Twisted Creek. It’s no trouble to drop you in Harmony on the way.” He didn’t seem to be trying to talk her into the ride, just stating facts.

“I wouldn’t mind paying for half the gas,” she offered.

“Oh, no. I’ll be happy for the company. A little conversation will keep me awake. I make this flight to visit my mother in Chicago and this last leg on the road home always seems endless when I’m driving alone.”

Now she knew she was safe. He’d been to visit his mother. How sweet. He’d have to live near Harmony if he knew about Twisted Creek and everyone out there knew everyone else.

“I’ll hike out to the far parking lot and get my car. You wait here by the side door. I’ll be right back.” He shoved her duffle bag by the side entrance and disappeared.

She blinked, then had to force her eyes to stay open. The endless traveling without sleep was catching up to her. The stillness of the empty terminal offered her nothing to focus on, nothing to help her stay awake.

She wasn’t sure which way the professor type had gone. Between the pain in her leg and the lack of sleep, she might have drifted off while still on her feet, suspended like a fashion nightmare of a scarecrow between two crutches.

Moving through the side door, she welcomed the cool air of the panhandle plains night.

Since she’d been injured, her life had gone completely to hell. The doctors patched her up, but she’d had no close family to call. She could handle this part of the recovery on her own. Her one brother lived in New York and would have just complained that she should have listened to him and not joined the army anyway if she’d bothered to call him. Or worse, want her to come to New York until the cast was off.

Millanie needed peace, not people. She needed time to find a direction, to find a life.

Breathing deep relaxing breaths, she stared up at the full moon. In a few hours she’d be back to where she’d spent the first ten years of her life. The day before she’d turned eleven, her dad got transferred to Dallas. The family moved to a bigger house, her father made more money, but she’d never felt she belonged there. Dallas was just where she lived for a while; Harmony would always be home. Harmony was a place where all the world seemed balanced, even if it was mostly just memories in her mind.

Out of the darkness behind the terminal building, Millanie heard movement and tried to focus her tired mind on reality.

The noise came again, muffled laughter, hurried footsteps. Custodians taking a smoke break? Teenagers painting the outside of the building? Huge rats? She didn’t really care. All she wanted to do was get to the room at the bed and breakfast she’d rented and sleep for three days.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw them. Three men advancing in the tall, dry grass. For a moment she was back on embassy guard duty. Listening. Standing ready. On alert.

Opening her eyes, and her ears, she took in her surroundings in the circles of light that she stood between. Amarillo, Texas. Not another country. Not a war.

Her vision adjusted. The three men were shadows now, crouched low, hiding behind the bushes made from pampas grass. They were keeping off the sidewalk, but she could hear their every move.

She knew the moment they spotted her. Halted footsteps. Lowered voices.

The one in front straightened and slowed his pace. The other two followed. Now, the men who’d been creeping closer appeared to be simply walking toward her. They were young, loose jointed probably due to drugs or too much alcohol.

“Hey, lady, that door still open?” the leader asked casually as if he couldn’t have easily guessed she’d just come out.

She nodded, her tired body feeling adrenaline begin to pump. They all three wore old ball caps and dirty, baggy jeans low on their hips. Druggies, early twenties, probably armed but untrained. Out of habit, her mind filed facts about each.

Only one came nearer and looked in the terminal. “No one’saround,” he whispered back to the others.

“Well, let’s grab it and go.” The second one moved closer, his whisper carrying easily on the wind.

Millanie kept her head down as if she were paying them no attention but their planning drifted to her in the midnight air.

“We could grab this woman’s purse,” one mumbled. “It’s probably got more cash in it than we’d get for that laptop Cherie left out.”

Millanie fought the urge to glance back and see which one of the rent-a-car counters had a laptop setting out. She’d bet it was the counter below where the last light had blinked twice.

The leader took off his hat and scratched his head as if to stimulate his thinking. Then he nodded and they all three advanced toward her.

“You waiting for somebody?” the leader shouted. “We could help you to your car, lady.”

She forced her body to relax as she shifted just enough that her purse slipped to the

concrete at her feet. The bag followed. “I’m fine.” She finally turned her full attention to the pack. “You boys don’t want to do this.”

“What?” the talky one said still edging closer. “We’re just offering to help a poor lady in distress. How about you let me carry that expensive looking purse you just dropped? I don’t mind taking it off your hands.”

“Step away,” Millanie said with cold calmness. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

All three laughed and showed their teeth like wild dogs.

“Step away,” she repeated just as the leader jumped forward, bending to grab the bag at her feet.

Reacting, trained into her muscles by practice and combat, fired her movements.

She swung her crutch, hitting the leader in the knee and sending him down hard on the concrete. When the second one advanced from the other side planning to grip one of her arms, she let the other crutch fall against the building as she delivered a chopping blow across his throat sending him to ground fighting to draw air.

The third man had crept forward, but hesitated when one of his friends gasped and the other began to cry as he whined that the bitch had broken his knee.

Millanie lifted her crutch as if it were a rifle and shoved it hard into the third man’s abdomen before he could react.

When he winced in pain she said, “Pick up your friends and get out of here. I’m too tired to turn you three in, but if I ever see any of you again, you’ll be sorry.”

Holding his middle, the coward of the group, and probably the smartest, helped his friends limp away. Within seconds they were no more than whispered swear words in the darkness.

Millanie leaned against the building and closed her eyes as the sound of a car pulling around to the side of the building reached her tired senses. She remained still as the vehicle stopped and the driver jumped out.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” an educated, low voice said as her professor/accountant approached her. “Oh, you’ve dropped your crutch. You poor thing. Let me help you.”

A strong arm circled her waist and helped her to a battered van. She made no protest as the tall man from Twisted Creek settled her into the passenger seat, carefully lifting her broken leg and locking her seat belt. His hands were gentle, a caretaker’s hands as he spread a blanket over her and propped her cast up with a huge stuffed toy unicorn.

Of all the questions she could have asked this stranger, the one thing she could think of after he loaded her duffle bag in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat was, “You carry a unicorn in your van?”

“It’s my little sister’s. She still believes in them.”

Millanie knew she was safe. No man who carries around his sister’s toy could be a threat to her. “How old is your sister?” she asked as he pulled onto the highway.

“Twenty-four. She’s a fortune teller at the bookstore in Harmony. For your own safety I’d advise you to avoid her.”

He continued but she was too far gone into sleep to think how strange his words sounded.