He grinned, and pulled her even closer.

But just as Elissa sighed contentedly, about to lose herself in him, a stocky, dark-haired man tapped Buddy on the shoulder. “I’m cutting in, private,” he said.

Elissa was horrified.

Buddy scowled. “Sergeant, I ain’t even had a whole song with her.”

The sergeant hooked his thumb toward the edge of the dance floor. “Skedaddle, private, if you know what’s good for you,” he said, narrowing his eyes. He had apparently seen one too many James Cagney movies.

“I’ll find you later,” Buddy told Elissa, as the sergeant whisked her away.

Dancing backward, towing her along behind him, the sergeant grinned, showing discolored teeth. “Rank has its privileges, as they say,” he chortled. He looked ancient, in his late twenties at least. Of all the luck. There was no way she would be able to find Buddy again, in this crowd!

“I suppose,” she said politely, trying to keep the distance between them—a challenge, with the crowd pressing in.

The sergeant was dragging her far away from Buddy, toward the corner of the dance floor, and seemed to be trying to pull her closer to him, even as she strained to keep her distance. “If you don’t mind, sir,” she said, struggling to keep her balance.

Suddenly, he grinned, said, “Whoops!” and let her go. She stumbled backward, and bumped into somebody.

“Excuse me!” she said, turning to look over her shoulder.

The sergeant, fading into the crowd, called out, “You can thank me later, Overby!”

Just then, “The White Cliffs of Dover” ended, and, as the crowd broke out in applause, Elissa looked up into a pair of bright blue eyes that registered astonishment, then joy; then, flashing off to where the sergeant had disappeared into the crowd, irritation. Then they looked at her again and softened, and she had to catch her breath.

The soldier was tall, that was the first thing: When she’d bumped him, her shoulder had hit the middle of his triceps, and now that he’d turned around to face her, she had to tilt her chin up to look at his face. It was a good face: lean, with a strong jaw and straight nose, and a small mouth that just now was tilted in a half smile. There were little crow’s-feet at the outside edges of his blue eyes; he was definitely older and more worldly-wise than Buddy, though not nearly as old as the sergeant. Under his service cap, his hair was close-cropped, blond, and looked like it would be thick and wavy if given the chance to grow.

Suddenly, she was nervous. Was he examining her as closely as she was him? She bit her Crimson Blush lower lip, and fluttered her eyes at him, without exactly meaning to. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, as the applause for the band died down. “I seem to have been tossed at you.”