The Sergeant's Christmas Mission

Shane handed the kitten to her. “I’ll drive,” he said.

“Are you sober?” The question flew out of her mouth, which was unusual for her. She’d grown up with a father who tied-one-on every couple of weeks, and she could spot a hangover on someone from a mile away.

Shane opened the door for her and let her walk out first. “Yes.”

“Sorry.” She cradled the kitten in her arms. “I had to ask.”

“I don’t blame you.” Shane pulled the door shut. “But I’m good.”

They rushed out to his refurbished antique candy-apple-red Chevy truck. Recon took his position on the middle part of the bench seat and she climbed into the passenger side.

“What if they can’t take us?” She rubbed the top of the kitten’s head with her thumb, trying to comfort him.

“They will,” he assured her. “I’ve known these folks for a long time.”

It was a tense ride; she prayed all the way to the vet’s office. Shane periodically glanced over at the kitten and repeated the same phrase, “Hang in there, little guy. We’re almost there.”

Chapter Two

Ever since he was a kid, Shane couldn’t stand to see an animal suffer. He also hated to see Recon, who was still faithfully watching over the kitten, so worried and upset. They were lucky that Dr. Harlow could get them in after only a few minutes of waiting.

“I tried to give him water. He couldn’t drink anything,” Shane explained to the vet.

Dr. Harlow, a woman in her midfifties with frizzy, short salt-and-pepper hair gently handled the kitten.

“It’s a she,” the vet informed them. “When did you find her?”

“He’s a girl?” Shane asked.

“She’s a girl, yes.” Dr. Harlow sent Shane the smallest of smiles.

“This morning,” Rebecca told her. “Under my front porch. I have no idea how she got there. I didn’t see a momma kitty or siblings anywhere.”

“Unfortunately—” Dr. Harlow manipulated the kitten’s belly “—she could have been dumped. Or her mother and siblings could have been killed.”

“I thought of that.” Rebecca frowned.

“She’s severely dehydrated and malnourished. And she has an eye infection and an upper respiratory infection.”

Shane instinctively put his hand on Recon’s head, as much to comfort himself as the dog.

“Will she survive?” he asked the vet.

Dr. Harlow’s slow response to his question raised his level of anxiety. The kitten’s survival wasn’t guaranteed.

“I’d have to draw some blood to know what’s going on with her liver and her kidneys. We can treat the dehydration and infections,” the vet told them. “Other than that, I need the blood work.”

“Can I ask,” Rebecca asked with a concerned expression in her pretty hazel eyes, “how much would all of that cost? The fluids and antibiotics and the blood work?”

“I’d have to get the front desk to figure out a total for you...it could be as much as four hundred, five hundred dollars.”

The minute the vet gave them the total, Rebecca’s eyes started to tear up. Shane didn’t know her, but he’d been in some financial binds in his life. He knew he was looking at a woman who wanted to help the little kitten but didn’t have the funds. Shane looked down at Recon; the dog hadn’t taken his eyes off the kitten on the exam table.

The room was silent for a moment while Shane thought about his next move. In the silence, the kitten opened her eyes, stared up at him and made the most pitiful little high-pitched meow he’d ever heard. It was as if she was pleading with him to save her life.

“Do whatever you need to do to save her life,” Shane told the vet. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

“We’ll be keeping her here for several days.” The vet nodded with a smile for him. “I’ll call you then, Shane, with the results of the blood work? We’ll talk about next steps then.”

“Okay.”

Dr. Harlow gently picked up the kitten and handed her to an awaiting technician. “Does she have a name?”

The ex-soldier didn’t know how he’d managed to acquire a kitten, but that’s what had happened.

Shane looked at Recon, who looked back at him with an anxious whine.

“Her name is Top.” He sneezed. “Top Brand.”

* * *

Rebecca opened the front door of her inherited two-story home and surveyed the work. What she really wanted to do was curl up on the couch to take a nap. But to get to the couch, she would have to create a path through the boxes. And as good as a nap sounded, she had to push herself to make progress on the unpacking while her boys were at school. Once they got home, there would be dinner to make and homework to check. Rebecca knew that this was a big adjustment for Carson and Caleb; the sooner she got this house feeling like a home, the better it would be for them.

“No rest for the weary.” She tossed her keys on the kitchen counter on her way to find the vacuum. The cereal explosion she had created was the first on her list of chores.

“What a mess.” She sighed as she leaned over to plug in her vacuum. The first outlet didn’t seem to work, so she went in search of another outlet nearby. The third outlet worked, but now Rebecca was concerned about the fact that the other two hadn’t.

“Oh, Aunt Ginny. What happened to your beautiful house?”

After vacuuming up the cereal, Rebecca avoided the boxes and headed to her sons’ room instead. Carson had been a protective big brother from the moment Caleb was born; he always wanted to hold Caleb and feed him. The two boys grew up as best friends in part because they shared a room. Now that they could have their own rooms in this big old house, they still chose to stay together. Rebecca made the beds, something she usually had them do in the morning before school, and then grabbed the hamper and dirty towels out of the bathroom on the upstairs floor.

She disliked doing laundry, and the fact that she was picking this chore over the boxes was a testament to her hatred of unpacking moving boxes.

“You know what you need to do, Rebecca?” she said aloud as she used her back to push open the squeaky screen door leading to the back porch. “You need to get your butt inside and unpack those stinking boxes. Quit procrastinating!”

She put the laundry basket down on the stained concrete porch floor with a sigh, trying to avoid dwelling on all of the things that needed attention on the property. Luckily, Shane had maintained the grass and shrubs while the deed to the house was being transferred to her, but she had inherited the house and all of its many belongings. And some of those belongings were just junk that needed to be collected and hauled away, like the rusted, broken lawn chairs littering the back porch.

“I think Aunt Ginny, God rest her soul, may have turned into a bit of a hoarder,” Rebecca mused as she loaded the washing machine.

When she went to retrieve the load of clothes she had washed the night before from the dryer, she found a ball of wet clothes that weren’t dry at all.

“I didn’t turn this on last night?”

She could have sworn that she had.

She turned on the dryer again and then went inside to begin tackling the boxes. With the trip to the veterinarian with the kitten, and her strategic avoidance, the day was frittering away. As she started opening the boxes labeled “Kitchen,” Rebecca rehashed her interactions with Shane Brand. He was a bit of an enigma; his look was rough, with the beard and hair down to his shoulders, but there was something so soft and honest about his aqua-blue eyes. When they weren’t red from lack of sleep and too much alcohol, she imagined that those eyes could make any woman take a second and third look.

For her, when she looked into his eyes, there had been a spark of familiarity somewhere deep inside of her that had flickered. She recognized him even though she had never met him before. Every now and again, she met a new person and it felt as if they connected on a soul level, as if they had known each other all their lives. That’s what it felt like with Shane; it felt as if she had known him all her life. And the way he took charge in the vet’s office and the mercy he showed that poor kitten put two additional points in the “plus” column to keep Shane on as a tenant. She had been so relieved when he stepped forward to help Top; now she didn’t have to worry about breaking terrible news to Carson and Caleb when they got home from school. Now she could tell them that, because of Shane, Top had a fighting chance to survive.

Rebecca spent several hours unpacking the kitchen boxes, and when she was done, her back aching from bending over and her legs tired from climbing up on the footstool to reach the higher cabinets, she felt proud of herself. For the moment, she was just finding spots in the kitchen to blend her items with Aunt Ginny’s. Eventually, she would have to thin out the stuff jammed into the drawers and cabinets. There had been many moments when Rebecca came across a favored bowl of her aunt’s, something that stirred a childhood memory. It was in those times that she missed her dear aunt the most.

With two more hours of work time left before she had to leave to pick up Carson and Caleb, Rebecca grabbed a piece of cheese and an apple from the refrigerator and downed a bottle of water before she headed out to the back porch. She was feeling good as she stepped outside; the sun was shining and it took the chill off the early-Spring temperature.

“What in the world?”

The clothes in the dryer were still in a damp ball and were starting to have a faint odor of mildew. This time, she knew that she had turned on the dryer. The darn thing was broken.

She threw her hands up in the air. “Doesn’t anything in this stupid house work?”

She fiddled with the dryer, pushing buttons, and then turned it back on. It sounded like it was working, but it wasn’t. Frustrated, Rebecca kicked the dryer, but instead of hurting the dryer, she hurt her foot. In response to the injury to her foot, she began shaking the dryer in frustration. Slightly out of breath from the exertion of fighting with the household appliance, Rebecca stood quietly, hands on hips, feeling better for having told the dryer a thing or two. This day had been a mixed bag, and it was only half over.

“Lord.” Rebecca pulled the ball of damp clothes out of the dryer and dumped them into the laundry basket. “I deserve a glass of wine. I really do.”

* * *

After the trip to the vet, Shane and Recon took a nap together on the bed. It had taken some doing to get the dog to leave the kitten; he’d never seen Recon behave this way before, but there was no accounting for love, he supposed. Recon loved that kitten and that was the end of the discussion.

“Let’s go outside, buddy.” Shane grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, feeling like his daily routine, which had been disrupted by Rebecca with the pretty eyes, was back on track. It was after noon and he was heading outside with a beer in one hand and the keys to his Indian Motorcycle in the other. He played music at night, slept the morning away and then worked on restoring his motorcycle in the late afternoon. That had been his routine for years, and that was how he liked it.

On his way to the detached garage, Shane heard Rebecca’s voice drifting his way from the back porch. He didn’t pay it any mind, determined not to get sidetracked, but a loud banging sound, as if she were getting in a fight with something, made him change directions, with a sigh, and head toward the back porch.

“You okay?”

Rebecca spun around at the sound of his voice. “The dryer isn’t drying. I cleaned the vent. That didn’t help.”

Damn. So much for getting back to my routine.

He only used to see Ginny about once a week; he could tell that Rebecca was going to command much more of his attention and his time than her aunt had.

“Aunt Ginny always used to have a clothesline in the backyard,” she said to him after she started the washing machine. “Any luck it’s still around?”

“Let me take a look at it before you go to all that trouble.”

Her pretty eyes widened in surprise at his offer and then she smiled at him. “Thank you.”

Shane went to get his tools so he could open up the back of the dryer. On his way to the porch, he checked the air vent to make sure it wasn’t blocked or an animal hadn’t made a nest in it. Once he confirmed that the outside air vent was clear, he rejoined Rebecca on the porch.

“I really appreciate you trying to fix this for me,” she said. “My sons make a ton of laundry.”

“Boys tend to do that.” Shane pulled the dryer from the wall.

“Yes, they do.”

Before he opened the back of the dryer, Shane pulled the discharge line—the large silver tube hooking the dryer to the vent—out of the wall. “Well, here’s some of the problem.”

“Oh, my gosh.” Rebecca peeked over his shoulder. “Is that all lint in there?”

“It’s packed.” Shane began to pull the tightly packed lint out of the line.

“You know, I had a brand-new front-loading washer and dryer, but I sold them because there was a washer and dryer listed in the will. I had no idea that they were the same washer and dryer that Aunt Ginny had when I was a kid.”

“Your aunt liked to hang on to things, that’s for sure.” The memory of Ginny brought a brief smile to his face.

Shane sneezed several times, and once the discharge line was unclogged, he pulled some tissues out of his pants pocket and blew his nose. He was still sneezing from Top and his eyes were driving him nuts because they were so itchy.

“Is that from the lint or the kitten?”

He sneezed again. “I’ve never been allergic to lint.”

“Shane.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen your eyes?”

“No.” He blew his nose again. “But they itch like crazy.”

“They are swollen. And red.”

“That explains it, then.” Shane pushed the dryer sideways so he could remove the back.

“I’m going to get you some over-the-counter allergy medicine. I always have some on hand because of Carson.”

“No need to bother.” He knelt down by the dryer. Rebecca heard him, but ignored him. She disappeared into the house while he unscrewed the back of the dryer.

Once the back was off, Shane was sure he’d found a second cause of the problem. He had cleaned a large ball of lint out of the discharge line connection that was located inside of the dryer when Rebecca returned.

“That’s disgusting,” she exclaimed. “How has this dryer not caught on fire?”

“Luck.”

“Here—take these. Generic Benadryl.”

Shane decided just to go along with Rebecca; she had that motherly look on her face and he knew better than to fight those instincts.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do you think the problem’s fixed?”

“I’m thinking it is,” he said while he unscrewed a second cover that connected to the lint. “But I want to check this first.”

By the time Shane was finished, there was a large pile of lint, decades in the making, on the ground. He put the dryer back together, used a pair of her son’s jeans as a test garment and turned it on. Rebecca stood next to him, her fingers threaded together as if she was praying for a miracle. Standing next to this woman made him feel strong for some inexplicable reason; she made him feel capable. How could a stranger make him feel like the Shane he was before his first tour to Iraq?

Shane took a step away from his new landlady, not wanting to feel anything, much less the loss of the man he could no longer be.

Rebecca didn’t notice that he had moved away from her; instead, she was focused on the dryer. She opened the door and let out a happy noise, which signaled to Shane that he had successfully fixed the problem.

Rebecca turned to him with a broad smile on her face and her pretty eyes shining. She looked up at him as if he had done something amazing. He supposed for a woman with two boys and a basket full of dirty laundry, perhaps he had.

“Thank you, Shane.”

He liked the way her two front teeth crossed just a little, drawing his attention to her full rosy lips.

He nodded and began to gather up his tools. When he stood upright, she was looking at him as if she had something to say. So, instead of turning to leave the porch, he waited.

“What you did for me today—helping with the kitten and now this—it means a lot to me.”

“I always helped your aunt. I don’t see any reason why I can’t help you if you decide not to give me the boot.”

“I think we could all share the space,” she said, thoughtfully.

There was something she was hesitating to say to him—he could see it on her easy-to-read face.

“But there is something that is a deal breaker for me.”

He waited for her to continue; his fingers tightened on the handle of the screwdriver, but other than that, he didn’t show her how tense she was making him.

“I know that...” Another pause and a throat clear. “I know that cannabis is legal in some states now. But it’s not legal in Montana.”

Rebecca looked him straight in the eye then. “I won’t have my boys exposed to anything illegal. Do we understand each other?”

His fingers loosened their death grip on the screwdriver’s handle. “We do.”

His response got a nod from her and she seemed satisfied with the exchange. He said goodbye then and walked down the porch stairs. Rebecca finished loading the dryer and the washing machine and then headed to the screen door, where she stopped and called after him. Shane stopped walking.

“Hey. I meant to ask you. Why did you name that kitten Top?”

Something twisted in his gut and he had to swallow several times before he said, “Because that’s what I was. First Sargeant. My men all called me Top.”

* * *

After she said goodbye to Shane, the rest of the afternoon flew by for Rebecca. She only had time to get a few more boxes opened and organized by room before it was time to pick Carson and Caleb up from school. Caleb had already started to make friends; he had always been more outgoing than his older brother. Carson, on the other hand, seemed to have a dark cloud over his head all the way home.

“I want to start riding the bus.” Carson said his first words as they were pulling into the driveway.

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

Rebecca worked to keep the sadness she was feeling from showing up on her face as she parked her car by the house and turned off the engine. Driving back and forth to school had always been their time together. She arranged her work schedule around the twice-a-day event.

“What about you, Caleb?”

Caleb grinned at her, making her smile at the space where his front tooth used to be. “I go where Carson goes.”

She breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. “All right. I’ll go to the office tomorrow and see what I have to do to get you on the bus.”

They did their homework at the kitchen table, one of the only uncluttered areas, while she fixed dinner. The TV wouldn’t be hooked up with cable until the next week, so the boys played video games after they all worked to clear the table, clean up the kitchen and do the dishes. She made sure both boys took their showers, brushed their teeth and then got into bed for the night before she poured herself a glass of her favorite wine. On the second glass, she remembered the laundry and went outside, onto the back porch. There, she was captivated by the sound of an acoustic guitar playing nearby. Quietly, she went down the steps and leaned forward to look around the corner. Sitting in front of the garage apartment, a single yellow light overhead, Shane was playing his guitar. There was a sad, compelling quality to his playing and it made her want to hear more. Rebecca quickly gathered up the warm, dry clothes out of the dryer, shoved them into the hamper and took them inside. A few minutes later, glass of wine in hand, she sat down on the bottom porch step and let Shane Brand serenade her with his guitar.

Chapter Three

“Hold on,” Rebecca said to her eldest son. “Let me fix your tie.”

“It’s too tight,” Carson complained, tugging at the necktie.

“Hold still and I’ll fix it.”

“I don’t know why we have to go to church anyway. We never went before.”

Rebecca frowned at the memory. One of the major causes of conflict between Rebecca and her ex-husband was faith. Her childhood had been turbulent and the one place where she had found solace was the church. Tim, her now-ex-husband, didn’t have much faith in anything other than football and fishing.

“Well, we do now. This is a fresh start for us. Besides, church is a great place to meet new friends.”

Carson grumbled something unintelligible and Rebecca just ignored it with a smile and a quick kiss on her eldest son’s cheek. “You look so handsome in this suit.”

“How do I look?” Caleb asked, his sweet cherub face turned up to her.

She leaned down and made kissing noises in his neck until he started to giggle. “Handsome.”

Carson walked on one side of her and Caleb on the other, holding her hand. An older lady with short curly snow-white hair and a cotton floral dress greeted them at the doorway of the First Presbyterian Church.

“Welcome.” The greeter gave them a friendly smile, along with a program. “It’s always so nice to see new faces.”

“Thank you.” Rebecca returned the smile.

“Sit anywhere you’d like.”

Rebecca chose to sit near the back of the church, wanting to get the lay of the land before moving forward. She had no idea if this was the right church for her; all she knew was that this move to Bozeman was going to give her a chance to reconnect with her childhood faith.

“Don’t put your feet on the back of the pews.” She stilled her youngest son’s swinging legs.

She handed her phone to Caleb so he could play a game while they waited. She whispered, “Just until the service starts.”

As the church filled with people, Rebecca found herself smiling with happiness that was bubbling up from the inside of her body. For the first time since she had taken the drastic step to move her family to Bozeman, she felt as if she were home. One of the last people to arrive at the church was a petite, slender redhead carrying a fair-skinned baby girl. The baby girl, who was dressed in a flouncy lace dress, had the widest, brightest blue eyes Rebecca had ever seen. The woman looked around and spotted an empty seat in the pew in front of them. The redhead made her way to the spot and sat down. Rebecca waved at the baby girl and the little girl reached out her chubby hand and then quickly ducked her head into her mother’s shoulder.

Once the pastor began the service, his flock quieted. Rebecca was impressed with the sermon and she loved the singing. So many hymns that she had forgotten were jarred from the depths of her childhood memories when the choir sang. Carson half-heartedly joined the singing, but Caleb avidly followed along, singing off-key and loudly with her as she pointed to each word in the hymnal. After the choir finished its first set, the pastor asked that everyone present turn to a neighbor and shake hands. The redhead with the baby turned around and offered Rebecca her hand.

“Hi, there.” The redhead had dark green eyes and a lovely oval face. “I’m Savannah. And this little sweet pea is Amanda.”

“Rebecca Adams,” she said. “And these are my boys, Carson and Caleb.”

“Rebecca Adams,” Savannah repeated. “Why does that name sound so familiar to me? Are you new to Bozeman?”

She nodded. “This is our first full week here. I inherited a house from my aunt and I thought, why not give Montana a chance.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Savannah bounced Amanda a little to keep her smiling. “What was your aunt’s name?”

“Ginger Martin. Everyone called her Ginny.”

Savannah’s expression lit up like a light bulb had just gone off in her head. “That’s why your name is familiar. My brother-in-law is your tenant.”

“Shane?”

Savannah nodded. “I’m married to his brother, Bruce.”