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She d needed it like she needed to breathe.
Jillian stood, lifted her two suitcases, looked over her shoulder
one last time and slipped quietly out of the room. The blanket
hanging in the doorway fluttered back into place, sparkles of dust
drifting lazily through the early morning rays.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
PART TWO
Detroit-Windsor, fifteen months later
It was warm for early June a sure sign of a hot and humid
summer ahead in the most southern part of Canada.
Logan flicked the sweat from her forehead as she glanced
again at the three-towered, dark glass and steel Renaissance
Center across the river. It was Detroit s signature building, and
while not the highest structure in the city, it was still the most
beautiful. Logan never got tired of looking across the river at the
cityscape. It was a little private joke among Windsor s citizens
that Detroit s skyline had been built to offer the best views from
the Canadian side. Thank you, Detroit, Logan thought with a
smile.
It never gets boring, does it? Logan s twin sister, Lisa,
matched her stride as they jogged their way along the paved
riverfront trail. Did you miss this?
Logan slowed to a halt to catch her breath. With college,
medical school, residency and then the service, it had been
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fifteen years since she d lived in Windsor, and it was about as
different from a military base as you could get. Yeah, I did.
She rested her elbows on the waist-high iron fence, her gaze on
the gray-blue water. Pleasure boats zipped around their watery
playground, keeping their distance from the occasional freighter.
I don t think I realized it until now.
It wasn t the architecture of the American skyline that
impressed her so much, but rather the peaceful co-existence
of these two countries that had fought only once, almost two
hundred years ago, and with much of the conflict taking place
right here. War. Such an abstract concept until you lived it. It was
ugly and evil. It treated lives as expendable and made chaos the
norm. It was hell on earth.
All she d really known about war when she d signed with the
military was what was in the history books. She d signed on to
help. Her profession and her intentions made her different from
the career soldiers, she d thought. Because she was all about saving
lives, not taking them. But it was semantics, really, because most
of those soldiers didn t want to take lives either, she d learned. In
a world of hate and violence and greed, they didn t have many
alternatives, though. She d learned early on that there was no
way to make sense of things in Afghanistan and no way to make
things right. Not in one tour of duty or even the two that she d
put in. She d never felt as useless and powerless in her entire life
as she had during her tours in Kandahar.
Deep in thought, are you? Lisa touched her arm lightly.
Since Logan had moved back to Windsor nine months
earlier, Lisa and her partner Dorothy had been particularly
attentive. Mother hens, more like. They doted on her constantly,
less because they thought she was fragile and more because they
were thrilled to have her around. But Logan knew they also
worried about her and how she was adjusting to civilian life. She
caught Lisa looking at her sometimes with her lips pursed and
that worried wrinkle between her eyes. Sometimes Lisa was more
direct, like now, probing her thoughts.
Just wondering why our two countries only went to war once.
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Lisa gave her a bewildered laugh. What on earth would make
you think about the War of 1812 and all those boring seventh-
grade history lessons?
I like history, remember?
Science and medicine were the sisters shared obsessions,
but Lisa hated history, while Logan loved to lose herself in good
books about different eras. It made her feel somehow connected
to her ancestors and to others who d once walked these same
grounds.
Yes, I know you do. People always thought you were smarter
than me because you could always produce those obscure dates
and events and stuff.
Logan laughed. It didn t exactly make me the life of the
party back in high school and college, if you remember.
True. It always seemed to fall on me to fix you up with
dates.
Logan punched her on the arm a little harder than she
intended. Lisa was nearly the same size, but softer and less
muscular. She was not half the athlete Logan was.
Ow!
Sorry. I forget how fragile you are.
That got the intended response, with Lisa screwing her
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