She woke sometime in the night and found Lily's cot empty.

She slipped out of bed and discovered Lily asleep on a chair between the two wounded patients with a book folded across her chest.

Their driver was dead, his empty eyes looking lifelessly out at her.

It took Nigel and Bug hours to dig a shallow grave in the hard earth of the church's little graveyard. They buried him before sunset The old priest said a few words in French as they all stood huddled around the grave.

Jordan found Lily there an hour later, crying quietly as she knelt on the frozen ground.

"I thought this would be fun. I was just supposed to smile and hand out cigarettes and chewing gum. No one was supposed to die." She broke down in fresh sobs.

Jordan knelt down beside her and pulled her into her arms as they both cried in silence while the sun sank toward the horizon.

Woody didn't come back. Jordan wandered outside several times that day, looking up and down the road for signs of him. Finally, she knew he would not be coming.

She had found a rosary tucked inside her duffel bag, and she fingered it that night in silent prayer as she lay awake in her cot. The low rumble of the incessant bombardment sounded closer than ever.

There was little to do the next day but wait. The solider who had been brought in the day before had managed to survive through the first night and the next. He was still drifting in and out of consciousness, but there wasn't much that could be done for him. She spent the day scrounging in the rubble for any items that could be useful: scissors, sewing needles. And waiting for Woody.

She had almost given up hope of seeing him again and had begun to fear the worse. She had come back in the church for the dinner they had managed to throw together from tin cans and C-rations when she heard the sound of a car horn.

She bolted down the front steps of the church. A jeep was careening around the corner. Seven G.I.s sat crammed into it, legs and arms spilling overboard as they laughed and waved. Woody was in the driver's seat, honking as they screeched to a halt in front of the church.

"I told you I'd be back," he said with a grin.

The soldiers spilled noisily out of the jeep and up the stairs. The little church was filled with the clamor of soldiers who had not seen civilization for weeks. It was infectious, and the black mood that had settled over the rest of them lifted immediately.

Lily laughed for the first time since they had buried their driver. She happily doled out cigarettes and candy and sympathetic smiles.

Garret and Jordan tended to the various wounds and ailments, none of them too dire. The frostbite and trench foot that some of them suffered wasn't serious. It was nothing that a dry pair of socks and some time by the fire wouldn't solve. Garret also prescribed an old WWI remedy -- a nip of whiskey to get the blood re-circulating. The old priest looked on disapprovingly.

Jordan stitched up the minor wound of a young red-headed soldier, and he looked up at her admiringly. "You're even prettier than Capt. Hoyt said you were, ma'am," he said bashfully.

"Is that so?" She blushed in spite of herself. "Tell me about Capt. Hoyt."

The young man grinned. "Well, he takes a little bit of a ribbing from the men sometimes. He's kind of an Eddie Attaboy-Boy Scout type."

"You don't say."

"But he's aces. We all think so. He knows how to keep morale up, and he's a great company commander. We'd all follow him anywhere." The soldier slid off the table. "Thank you, ma'am! It was almost worth getting nicked with a bullet to get it stitched up by you!"

Woody crossed to her then. "Thanks. For everything," he said sincerely. He nodded to where his men sat drying their feet by the fire. "This is like a vacation for us."

"You're welcome." She said simply. "How long have you had that cough?"

He waved her off. "It's nothing."

She picked up her stethoscope. "Why don't you let me listen to your chest?"

"It's getting better. I'm fine."

"You shouldn't let things like that go. Especially out in the field." She pulled playfully at the tail of his shirt. "Come on, let me listen."

"No, I'm fine." He brushed her hand away. "Please."

"Really, you should..." She reached out for his shirttail again.

"I said I'm fine." She still had the tail of his shirt as he took a sudden step back. The shirttail slipped out of his pants and several buttons popped off. She drew in her breath. A jagged line ran from his navel and disappeared below his waistband.

"I'm sorry, Woody..."

"Omaha Beach," he said quietly as he stuffed his shirt back into his pants. "I barely made it 50 feet up the beach before I was hit. They didn't think I'd make it. But not only did I survive, I healed up so quickly they sent me right back here. Lucky me, huh?" His face twisted into a bitter smile, and he crossed to look out onto the street through a chink in a shattered stained glass window.

She went to him and reached her hand out toward his back but then stopped. It was something she would not have hesitated to do for the Woody she knew at home, but perhaps it was too intimate a gesture for this man who barely knew her.

Finally, she dropped her hand on the center of his back. "I'm sorry. I didn't know." He nodded once. "Come on. Come with me."

She grabbed his hand before he could protest, and they headed back into the cold.

XXXXXXX

The midday sun was high and bright. It was the first break in weather they had had, but storm clouds loomed ominously in the distance. She had led him on an easy stroll down the street as they scrounged through the rubble for more useful items. They spoke easily and lapsed into comfortable silences. Like two people who know each other very well, she thought to herself.

"So, where you from, Jordan Cavanaugh?"

"Boston."

"Do you have a sweetheart back home in Boston?"

"Now, that's a forward question, Capt. Hoyt."

He stammered and held his hands in front of him apologetically. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it!"

"Kidding. I'm kidding." She smiled to herself. If only he knew the truth of the matter. "Let's just say...no. I don't have a sweetheart back home in Boston."

She caught his surreptitious smile from the corner of her eye. "Gosh, that's too bad."

"How about you? Where are you from? I'm guessing Iowa. No...Wisconsin."

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess. What do you do back in Wisconsin?"

"I'm a sheriff's deputy. I don't know...it's going to be hard to go back to a small town after all this." He swept his arm in front of him. This. The war, the destruction.

"Have you thought about what you might do instead?"

"Well. I've never been to Boston." He smiled at her, and then his foot hit against something metal. He leaned down to pick it up. "How about this? Can you use it at the hospital? It looks like a sewing kit"

She ran over and looked in the box. "Needles, thread, scissors! This is perfect. You are wonderful!" She impulsively leaned over and kissed him on the check.

He drew back suddenly, then blushed and looked away. When his eyes came back up to hers, all traces of boyish embarrassment were gone. He reached up to her and brushed her cheek with his fingers, searching her face for signs of protest. There were none.

She closed her eyes as he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, softly, hesitantly. Her body yielded against his as he drew her in with one arm, the embrace growing in intensity.

After two days of exhaustion and cold and fear, this felt right and good. She wanted to lose herself in it. She ached for the gentle touch of another human being. She ached for him.

Then the kiss broke suddenly, and he looked at the ground in shame. "I'm sorry. That was way off the beam. I shouldn't have..."

"It's all right."

"No, that was inappropriate, and I apologize."

"Woody..." She followed him has he turned and hurried back to the church. "Wait."

He turned toward her, and the pained look on his face stopped her in her tracks. "We can't, Jordan," he said quietly.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she bit the inside of her cheek to stop from crying. "No. I guess not."

The men were streaming out of the church and climbing reluctantly into the jeep.

"Have any plans for Christmas, soldier?" she said brightly.

"What...besides Midnight mass and a five course dinner with all the trimmings? No, I'm free." The smile came back to his face.

"You've always got an invitation here. All the Hershey bars and Life Savers you can eat."

He grinned. "Not even a war could keep me away."

He jumped in the jeep, and they screeched down the street the same way they had come in. She watched them go and then turned to take the steps back into the church two at a time.