Homecoming

I want to thank Techsan for editing my first submission. I hope you aren't tired of me already because I have some more for ya. Cheers. All, this is the very first submission I have ever entered. I appreciate any and all comments and criticisms. I am trying to get into the realism of interracial relationships in the south in the 1940's so its going to take me a while to get used to the vernacular and such. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

Ste-Mere-Eglise, France, June 6, 1944

He had to live through this. He had to live. Live.

The only thoughts racing through Daniel's mind were of this: life, by any means necessary. There were no other thoughts clouding his mind at this moment—not of his pain-wracked body, his right leg shattered and torn; not of the agonizing sounds of death, his comrades, with whom only hours before he had nervously joked about French women and their insatiable appetite for American G.I.s; not the terrifying sounds of the two German soldiers in the next room of this small French cottage at the end of the city center of Ste-Mere-Eglise. Life was all there was.

As he fought waves of nausea and the onset of shock, Daniel Carven willed himself not to look at the damage to his shattered leg, knowing that to know would do no good. Right now, it was better to concentrate on life, on getting through this alive.

He imagined that the night sky he was staring at through the bedroom window of this humble sanctuary was the sky over his mother's house in North Carolina—clusters of diamonds set in a deep blue velvet swath of midnight sky. The apple blossoms carrying their sweet fragrance from the French orchards outside in the fields through the open window were transformed to the ambrosia-like aroma of the blossoms in his family's peach orchard. And for those few precious seconds, he was home.

There was no shattered bone and torn flesh forcing its way through his dampened pant leg. There was no iron-tainted smell of his own blood soaking through his fatigues and spilling onto the cottage's modest stone floor. There was just Daniel Carven, son of Joshua Carven—and her.

She was his best friend. He had to live to tell her this. She was his confident and he needed to share this moment with her. This was the moment when he knew for the first time in his 24 years who he was, who he was meant to be, and with whom he was meant to share his life. He had to live for her.

The hysterical voices of the French villagers who owned this cottage drifted in and out of his consciousness. They were bravely confronting the German soldiers, desperate to conceal their unexpected ward from his inevitable execution. Daniel understood what he had to do. He couldn't let these good people, who had seen him parachute down from the heavens and land directly in the middle of their enemy-infested town square, die. He had come there to liberate them. Now they were protecting him at risk to their own lives. He had always been a "fixer" and now he had to fix this...and live through it.

His determination doubled in the wake of the deafening silence that followed the sound of a single shot from a Lugar, abruptly ending the angry discourse between the cottage's middle-aged male inhabitant and preceding the agonizing wails of the Frenchman's wife.

He understood both German and French. His mother had been fluent in both languages and spoke to him often in these tongues; he understood that the two German soldiers, who were determined to search the modest home, had grown weary of the farmer's tongue-wagging and decided to settle things once and for all. The shot was all the motivation Daniel needed.

Ignoring the searing pain in his leg and the bruises he'd acquired during his drop, Daniel dragged himself to the bedroom door, which its occupants had left cracked rather than closed shut in order to draw suspicion away from the offending room. Daniel was a sharp shooter with the 505th, part of the United States Parachute Infantry that was supposed to drop down on this target, Ste-Mere-Eglise, on this fateful day, June 6, 1944—D day.

As a sharp shooter, steady eyes, hands and nerves were the tools of his trade. Any other man in his condition wouldn't have been able summon the fortitude required to do what he had to do this moment. As luck would have it, his targets this night were mere feet from him, not hundreds of yards. His skill as a marksman wouldn't be taxed or compromised by his injuries.

As he reached the bedroom door, his belly on the cold flagstone floor, his teeth gritting to ward off the screams of pain stuck in his throat, Daniel reached for his sidearm, a Colt M1911 service pistol. He drew the weapon. Fighting the blurring veils of pain dancing before his eyes, he took aim.

The first shot caught the younger of the two German soldiers between the shoulder blades and exited just below the man's Adam's apple, shattering his windpipe and spraying blood in the face of his surprised comrade, who had not expected the attack. He dropped to the floor in a vain attempt to staunch the flood of his essence from this mortal wound.

Daniel was lucky. The second soldier had not expected his adversary to be lying on his belly, taking aim at him. Before the soldier realized from where the shot had come, Daniel fired again, catching the second man between the eyes, the force of the blow knocking the soldier backwards. He fell on his back, mere feet from the front door.

The farm woman had not expected this avenging angel to have survived his fall from grace, let alone come to her rescue. She stared on in shock and amazement at the events that had only taken seconds to unfold before her eyes. Her husband was dead; the men who had killed him—dead. The young man who should have been dead by all accounts lay sprawled in the doorway of the bedroom, his firearm still clutched in his bloody hands, a trail of blood leading from the middle of her savior's hiding place to where he now lay, seemingly helpless once again.

"Mon Dieu," the woman muttered, a mixture of shock, sadness and surprise superimposed over her lined and weary farm-worn face.

Her gaze shifted from the soldier in her bedroom doorway to the three bodies on the kitchen floor and then back to the young man. "He must live through this day," she prayed silently as she realized what she must do to save him.

As if reading her thoughts, Daniel offered a weak smile and a raspy "merci" before passing out from the pain and loss of blood. Through crimson sheets of agony, he dreamt of home and Lula.

Raleigh, North Carolina— June 30, 1941

"Daniel, if you don't get yourself in here right now and wash up for dinner, I'm gonna feed your dinner to Britches and you can fend for yourself tonight. Your mother and I didn't stand on our feet all day long cooking this Sunday dinner for our health."

Daniel looked up from the skeletal remains of the tractor he'd been attempting to diagnose and grunted in acknowledgment of Caroline's admonishment. The middle-aged black woman had always intimidated him even more than his own mother and he was careful to show her just as much respect. Caroline, or "Mama Corning" or simply "Mama" as he affectionately called her, was in many ways his second mother.

Caroline Corning and Emma Carven, his own mother, had been the closest of friends even though Mama had been in his mother's employ for more than twenty years. There had been only one time in his life when he had dared back-talk his second mother, and that had earned him a pop in the mouth from both his mother and his mama. He had learned not to test the limits of motherly discipline after that. Now it was, "yes, Mama," or "yes, Mom," depending on who was doing the talking.

"I'll be in directly, Mama," Daniel replied, trying to suppress the irritation in his voice.

He'd been working on the damn tractor all day long and it still couldn't figure out why it refused to start.

Cursing under his breath for fear of incurring Mama's wrath should she hear such blasphemy, he began throwing his tools in his father's love-worn tool box, stopping only a moment to wipe his greasy hands on an old piece of cotton rag that used to be one of his father's favorite work rags. Sometimes he could swear that he still smelled his father's hands, oil-stained and wreaking of gasoline, on the rag even though the hundreds of washing the piece of cloth had withstood would have made that impossible.

"Oh and, hon, please tell Lula its time for dinner," his own mother called after him as she replaced Mama's considerable frame in the kitchen doorway, wiping her own hands on her blue gingham apron tied around her slight frame.

"Oh, geeze, Mom. I don't know where that girl is," Daniel complained instantly, looking after Lula was always a source of knee-jerk irritation to him. "What the heck do you want me to do - send out a search party for the girl? You heard Mama. She wants me in the house right now. If I stop to look for Lula, it'll be midnight before I sit down to eat. Let her take care of herself for once. I don't have time to look for her and do what you two tell me to do."

Before the elder Mrs. Carven could respond, Mrs. Corning interrupted, her tone scathing, "Now you do what your mother tells you and go get Lula. The two of you should have stayed close to the house in the first place. You knew that we were almost ready to eat. I don't want to hear you talking back to your mother...you hear? And stop using that tone with her. It's not fitting. Now git."

Daniel caught a glimpse of Mama's shadowy frame standing behind his mother and instantly felt guilty for challenging his mother's "honeydew" request.

Upon receiving his marching orders from Mama and Mom, Daniel turned on his heels, grumbling obscenities under his breath and walking in the direction of the pond. He'd known where Lula had scampered off to all along; he just didn't feel like looking for her.

She was a constant pain in his ass—not even a sister of his own flesh and blood, if he'd had one, could irritate him more than Lula. He was constantly put upon by both Mom and Mama to look after the girl; and Lula couldn't be bothered with him and defied him at every turn. If he told her that the "Moms" wanted her to come in to eat or they'd tan his hide, she'd refuse just to see him get into trouble.

"Daniel Joshua Carven, what was that you just said?" Mrs. Carven shouted after him, her hands on her hips and casting a dour look at his direction through the screen door. "You'd better not have said what I thought you just said or this homecoming dinner is going to be your wake!"

"Aw, give me a break, Mom. You know Lula's off somewhere not doing what she was supposed to be doing and I am going to be the one who gets into trouble if she doesn't want to come home," Daniel groused as he marched off the path that served as a driveway to the old plantation's spacious Georgian-style mansion and into the woods towards the property's pond.

"Good grief. I hate that girl sometimes. She's nothing but trouble and twice as ornery." he mumbled as he kicked at the dry earth, creating dust clouds in his wake.

As if to drive this point home, Daniel's foot nearly slipped on an empty bottle, the contents of which had only recently contained his mother's famous peach wine. The bottle was an indication that Lu had not only snuck off to go swimming when she should have been doing chores, but was also in all likelihood drunk as a monk and going to be twice a difficult. He'd keep this little tidbit of information to himself for blackmailing proposes, if that still worked on Lu.

By the time he'd reach the edge of the pond gracing his parents' property, he had worked up a full-steam of resentment for Lula. She was always causing trouble and never catching any herself. This time was going to be different. Daniel was determined to drag her out of that damn pond by her hair if she didn't come with him as ordered; he silently prayed that she had passed out drunk on the bank. What a bonus for him—coming back to the house with a drunk and unconscious Lu slung over his shoulder, smelling like one of the Hamden boys after a three-day bender.

No matter what state Lu was in, Daniel had already concluded that he'd be damned if his first night back from school would end with his getting yelled at by two imposing women while his "sister" stood in the shadows tittering and giggling at his predicament. Lula loved to see Daniel get into trouble; Daniel often wondered if his anguish was her sole source of pleasure. As he reached the clearing at the end of the path that lead to their swimming hole, Daniel stopped in his tracks as if stuck by a bolt of lighting.

He knew where Lu had gone and what she was doing, but he had forgotten just how she was going to be doing it. He had ignored the trail of clothes—worn overalls, a thread-bare long-sleeved shirt, mud-caked work boots, cotton underwear—that he'd had to step over as he negotiated the path through the thicket leading to the pond. He would have done the same if he was drunk, sweaty and anxious to jump in the cold spring-fed waters of their local watering hole.

What he had failed to remember was that in the four years that he'd been away at military school, Lu had grown from a skinny thirteen year old girl into a woman. This fact of life hadn't registered during his short visits at Christmas and spring-break, or even over his previous long summer visits, because the two had grown apart—Daniel opting to hang out with his own friends and chase after the girls who went to the summer socials he attended, and Lu gravitating towards her group of colored friends.

For two years now, she'd had strings of what he now realized were male suitors boldly venturing up to the house to pay their respects to Mama and ask if Lu could go fishing or to church socials with the rest of "the gang." He understood now why Mama had been so cautious with these boys, interrogating them like she was considering giving them access to the family's bank accounts. He had never understood the harsh tone Mama used with these boys, but he understood now.

Lu was not the little "pain in the ass" she used to be before he'd been shipped off to school. Lu was a woman, all curves and impossibly long legs that reminded him of his prized Arabian. Even drunk and disheveled, Lu was a vision, her once organized ponytail un-tethered, leaving her hair a mass of brown and copper Medusa-curls framing her cocoa face.

She was a vision; she was drunk; and, she was naked, her lean muscular body sprawled out on the bank with the cool waters of the pond licking her at her toes.

For seconds that seemed like hours, Daniel stood in dumbstruck silence. He hadn't been sure if Lu had heard his approach, but all indications seemed to the contrary. At first, he thought she was sleeping, her soft murmurs the vestiges of a drunkard's dream. Then, he noticed the placement of her hand, the long elegant digits disappearing between the smooth skin of her thighs, stroking and enticing, pulling those moans from her body like a snake charmer.

She was drunk and she was touching herself. That was all he needed to shake off his stupor, turn on his heels and disappear back into the brush as silently as his tall shaken form would allow. He didn't want to believe what his eyes were seeing. He didn't want Lu to know what he had witnessed.

"What if she thinks I was spying on her?" Daniel panicked, his rising fear mixed with a strange new sensation of arousal that he had yet to recognize let alone acknowledge.

From the safety of the bushes lining the clearing to the bank, Daniel was loathed and shamed to admit what he was doing: he'd became a voyeur, watching this water-nymph pleasure herself on the shores of the pond where both he and Lu had learned to swim as children. He had convinced himself that he would wait for her to finish and then make another loud entrance, announcing his arrival so as to allow Lu a modicum of modesty.

She would be pissed at the intrusion, but he argued with himself that this was the only way he could avoid getting his ears boxed for failing in his mission to retrieve Lu and maybe getting his ass kicked by his drunken childhood playmate. This is the lie he told himself as he watched the lithe form before him writhe in ecstasy, her nimble fingers deftly stoking the soft mound of ebony curls above the mouth of her entrance only to disappear deep between the thighs of those long brown legs, now glistening from the effects of alcohol-induced passion, the summer heat and her efforts to satisfy her need.

As she worked, he detected soft feminine mewls of pleasure being pulled from the back of her throat. Wordless sounds of satisfaction were being teased effortlessly from her lips as her soft, pink tongue darted out intermittently to moisten her lips. Every few moments, Daniel detected a spike of arousal taking possession of her body as she bit her lower lip and arched her back while trying to secure purchase to reality by gripping handfuls of grass beneath her with her free hand. He had never seen a woman so satisfied, so gripped in the moment of passion; her efforts had begun to take their effect on Daniel as he stood watching this enchanting spectacle.

For the few moments that he had stood there, watching...waiting, he hadn't noticed his breath quickening or his heart racing. He hadn't noticed the familiar tightness in his dungarees until he reached down from his hiding position to wipe his now damp and sticky palms on the thighs of his jeans. He had been too engrossed in what his "pain in the ass" had been engaged in to notice his own arousal.

And, if truth be told, he didn't want to believe any of this was happening. He didn't want to acknowledge that the knobby-kneed, pigtailed Lu had turned into this temptress before him, her flat chest replaced with generous, soft cinnamon globes of flesh adorned with what he inexplicably imagined to be licorice gumdrops, the gangly legs and arms now in proportion to her long smooth torso and the flat plains of her stomach where he detected the slightest silhouette of a six-pack, the result of over a decade of farm work and the athletic endeavors of a tomboy.

What surprised him even more than Lu's exhibition was his own reaction—the realization that she had aroused him. He had thought that the shame that flamed his cheeks as his unwelcome gaze graced the spectacle before him would have made arousal impossible—it hadn't. He had thought that the fact that this woman was the same person he had grown up with and teased as a child would negate any feelings his demanding manhood might muster if this circumstance had involved anyone else but Lu—it hadn't. Instead, his agony was plagued with both shame and arousal—want and regret—lust and recrimination.

He knew all these things and still reached for the zipper of his jeans to release the tension that lay waiting there. Hypnotized by this snake charmer on the bank, her realized he needed to ease his own need even as Lu was releasing hers. As her own fingers quickened their pace, stroking, kneading, pinching and deliciously abusing the tender flesh of her body on the bank at the edge of the pond, Daniel's hand was now also stroking and teasing the steel member that had taken possession of him.

His breathing was ragged even as he willed his lungs to silence the anguished ribbons of passion that fought to wrest control over him. He watched as her free hand wandered over the peaks and valleys of her own body, coming to rest on the soft mound of her left breast where she continued the ritual of kneading and teasing, her long fingers rolling the dark peaks of her erect nipple between them as she once again arched her back and allowed another spasm of pleasure to rip through her body.