“Oh, I can see why you’d fall for him, Lissa, that accent! And calling me ma’am. He certainly isn’t from Pine Rapids, at that.”

Elissa laughed, loving the curve of Nick’s smile. She couldn’t wait for their first kiss. And after that—who knew what might happen? Why, anything might, with the war on, and that look in his eyes!

Chapter 29

THE MICKELSON HOUSE
502 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
Saturday, February 27, 1943

As the family sat down to dinner that night, John Mickelson was fuming. John never had liked anyone to divert attention from him, and Nick had thoroughly charmed Wilma, Mary, and Elissa. While Elissa’s brother, JJ, had always been their grandma Wilma’s favorite, Elissa had always been closest to Grandpa John. But now Elissa was so caught up in Nick that she barely had a glance for him.

Watching Elissa, Jack realized that his daughter was clearly enraptured. What Jack had seen of Nick so far hadn’t set off any warning bells, but Jack couldn’t help but despise the situation that Nick was putting Elissa in. Nick had no idea what he was getting into, what war was like, what it could do to a man. Jack couldn’t understand why his mother, Wilma, especially, would accept this soldier with open arms, knowing full well what might happen to him, and to Elissa if she hooked her dreams on him.

It was pure selfishness, Jack thought, to get a girl’s hopes up and then go off to war to get yourself killed. Ruining her life for the sake of your vanity. Jack’s own brother Chase had done it to the woman Jack himself had finally married, Chase proposing to Mary in a letter in 1917, writing her from Parris Island that he loved her and it would sure make a heck of a difference to him to know that she was waiting for him when he came back. But if you say yes, Mary, let’s not tell our families, let’s leave it a great surprise for when I get home. Jack hadn’t known about it until long after Chase was dead; Mary had shown him the letter just once, a long time ago, but he’d never forgotten the raked-over-the-coals look in her eyes, and he’d be damned if the same thing would happen to his own daughter. Especially at the hand of some Southern kid who wouldn’t fit in the family to begin with. But, watching the way Elissa looked at Nick, Jack knew that Mary was right when she said there was nothing Jack could do to stop Elissa from feeling the way she did. She might get hurt, Mary said—but hadn’t they all been hurt, when they were young?