Recipe for Romance

Chapter 1-2

Preston was cleaning up the morning dishes and glancing at the clock above the oven—another five minutes and he’d holler up at Abby to get a move on or she’d be late for school—when his phone dinged with an incoming email. It wasn’t a text message; the sound he had set for those was different. There was only one person who would send him a message so early in the morning.

Drying his hands on a dish towel, Preston leaned over the phone where it rested on the counter and tapped the screen. Sure enough, the display read, 1 new message from SPC Teresa Williamson. What time was it over in Afghanistan right now? He tried to do the math in his head, but couldn’t. Mid-afternoon, most likely, though with her, there was no telling. She sent messages when she could grab computer time, when she wasn’t on patrol or sleeping or eating. At least she hadn’t sent a Skype request.

Preston pulled up the email and scanned it quickly, which was easy to do—Tess’s messages were always super short. They all began the same way: How are you two doing? I’m still alive.

Which made Preston mentally respond, No s**t. If you weren’t, we’d get a telegram from the Army instead of an email. At least, he hoped it’d be a telegram, or someone knocking on the door, something tangible he could see ahead of time and anticipate, so he could steer Abby out of the room and prepare himself mentally for the news. The Army didn’t really notify next of kin via email nowadays, did they?

This message was like her others, brief and to the point. I can Skype on Saturday at 1530 hours my time. I know it’s early for you, but Abby should be up by then, don’t you think?

With a groan, Preston clicked on his clock app to check the time. Tess had been in the military for six years and he still didn’t know what oh-hundred this and fifteen-hundred that meant. Luckily the iPhone had everything at his fingertips. She wanted to Skype at 3:30 in the afternoon her time, which—checking the app’s world clock feature—meant an ungodly 7:00 A.M. in Virginia.

Holy hell.

Of course he’d be up—he’d be making Abby’s pancake breakfast and getting ready to dash off to work himself. He might get half a minute to wave at the computer screen before he had to leave Abby with Mrs. Schroedinger for his shift at the restaurant. But if he didn’t leave the house by 7:35, he’d be late.

Speaking of…

“Abby, come on!” he called out, pocketing his phone. He’d reply to Tess later. Chances were she wasn’t sitting at the computer waiting for a response, anyway; communications were crap over there, and he’d learned early on in her deployment that there was a serious lag between the time she sent a message and the time he received it. If the Skype call stayed connected for longer than ten minutes, he’d be surprised.

He scooped up his car keys and jangled them. “Abby!”

“Coming!”

She stomped down the stairs and emerged from above as he came out into the hallway. The jeans were gone, as was the nightgown. In its place she wore a My Little Pony jacket zipped up over some sort of flouncy dress. He couldn’t tell what it was she had on, really—the jacket obscured most of the outfit—but the skirt was made from a shimmery pink and purple material that flowed around her when she twirled at the bottom of the stairs.

“How do I look?” she asked, obviously proud of her appearance. Her hair flared out above her shoulders.

“Beautiful,” Preston declared. “Hurry up now or we’re going to be late.”

Abby turned so he could see the back of her jacket. “Look, Daddy. I’m wearing my wings.”

He gave her the briefest of glances. The jacket had some sort of silly wings sewn into it under the hood, he wasn’t quite sure why. He could barely see them under her bookbag, but they were the one reason why she loved the jacket, and she never failed to brag about them whenever she wore it. “Uh-huh, pretty. Come on.”

“I’m going to look like a fairy in my picture,” she announced. “Race you to the door!”

Preston laughed. “No running in the house.”

She ignored him as she ran ahead.