An Army Air Forces officer climbed the stairs wearing an olive drab overcoat and a crushed service cap. The flyboys’ military courtesy tended to be as sloppy as their caps, but Clay presented arms smartly.

The officer didn’t look him in the eye as required, but he flapped his hand toward his forehead.

Tall, blond, broad shouldered, a familiar set to his chin.

Clay’s mouth fell open. It couldn’t be.

The man opened the door and stopped short. “Hoo-ey!”

Icy air snaked around Clay and into his soul.

Adler.

No. It couldn’t be.

But that voice. The way he pulled on his gloves and turned up his collar. Then he strolled aft, and his profile eliminated all doubt.

Clay’s hands coiled around his rifle, and everything inside him burned and ached. That night in the garage, Clay had told Adler if he ever saw him again, he’d kill him.

Now Clay was the one holding a firearm, not Mama.

As soon as the urge rose, it receded, and he shouldered his rifle. He didn’t want to kill Adler. He never had. That night he’d just wanted to banish him from home.

Now he just wanted to banish his brother’s image from his mind.

“Hiya, Pax. I’m relieving you.”

Clay startled.

“Are you all right?” Gene asked. “Thought you never got seasick.”

“Just hungry.” Clay looped his rifle strap over his shoulder and headed downstairs. Only the black-and-white MP brassard on his arm allowed him to tread sacred officers’ country. He rapped a fist on the brass banister.

On the promenade deck, one level down, Clay passed Frank Lyons standing sentinel, and he marched into the blue section and out onto the small area of open deck allotted to enlisted men. Only half a dozen GIs braved the cold.

He grasped the rail and heaved in lungfuls of frigid air. Gray waves spread out below the gray sky, meeting on the horizon in a dark haze.

Adler was alive and thriving. The draft had snared him, but his two years of college bought him an officer’s commission. Clay hadn’t had that opportunity.

The Army Air Forces, the glamour boys. Probably a fighter pilot if he knew his brother. Swooping around in a fancy plane, making girls swoon, not even caring about the girl whose life he’d ruined, not even knowing about the little boy he’d fathered.

He pounded his gloved fists on the railing.

Adler had sinned that day, trying to kill Wyatt, getting drunk, stealing Clay’s girl, and having his way with her. Who had been punished? Not Adler. No, never Adler.

Clay had been punished, and he was still being punished.

Adler was an officer. Clay a private.

Adler soared high and free. Clay was trapped low in a pit.

“Lord, how can I forgive?” he muttered.