she was so tired, but Carmen never in her life dreamed that she’d own a home. Granted, the bank officially owned it for the next twenty years, but it was her house. She could decorate it however she wanted and paint the walls whatever color she wanted, and the military had no say-so.
She’d come from the wrong side of the tracks down south of San Antonio and had been working as a bartender when she met Eli. It had been love at first sight for her, but she’d always felt like maybe he’d married down. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that his mother felt the same way.
That evening, Tootsie had a table set up with beer and whiskey for the adults and a different one with chocolate milk, soda pop, and three kinds of juice for the children. They had country music playing from a CD player over in the corner, and the whole backyard smelled like charbroiled burgers. She liked the ladies she’d met that day—that they were army wives put an instant connection between all of them. She’d walked a mile, or maybe she should say thirty years, in their shoes.
“Happy?” Smokey stopped what he was doing and kissed her on the forehead.
“Very, very happy. I’m going to have good friends. I can feel it in my heart.” She rolled up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “And the little girls are precious. I hope that these families stay here for years and years.”
“Maybe they will,” Smokey said and then went back to his grilling.
Diana and her husband, Gerald, were the first to arrive that evening. Their daughter, Rebecca, the tallest of the three little girls, ran through the backyard gate ahead of them and went straight for the bean-toss game Smokey had set up in the yard.
Dark-haired Gerald was one of those men who made women turn around for a second look. Well over six feet tall, he had a confident swagger to his walk. Diana wasn’t short by any means. Tootsie guessed her to be five feet, eight or nine inches tall. She had red hair that flowed down her back and gorgeous mossy-green eyes, and from the way she carried herself, Tootsie wondered if she had modeling experience.
Diana handed Tootsie a box of doughnuts. “I’d have baked something, but my kitchen still looks like a thrift store. So I found a cute little bakery a couple of blocks away and got these.”
“You didn’t have to bring a thing, but thank you.” Tootsie put them on the dessert table with the chocolate sheet cake Smokey had made that afternoon. “First thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t cook. Well, maybe I should revise that statement. When Smokey was off to God knows where, doing what only God and the government knew about, I didn’t starve to death. I can survive, but Smokey loves to cook.”
“You may be the luckiest woman among us all,” Diana whispered.
“Hey, is this where the party is?” Carmen called out as she came through the gate with a box from the same pastry shop in her hands. She laughed when she saw one just like it on the table. “Maybe we should’ve had a committee meeting so we didn’t all bring the same thing.”
“What don’t get eaten tonight will be good for breakfast,” Tootsie said as she took the box from Carmen.
Eli went straight to the grill. He and Smokey were about the same height, which would put him just under six feet. He didn’t quite have the swagger or the good looks that Gerald had. His light-brown hair was cut military-style, and his green eyes set in a round face gave him a boyish, almost shy look. The way he looked over his shoulder at his daughter, Natalie, endeared him to Tootsie.
Before Tootsie could carry the box to the table, the gate opened, and Brett, Joanie, and their daughter, Zoe, brought in a third box from the pastry shop.
“I hope that those don’t have a lemon pie in them,” Joanie said as she handed the box off to Tootsie. “Looks like we’ve all been to the same place.”
“Which is fine by me,” Tootsie said. “It’s my favorite shop, and within walking distance. Maybe we can all four go for coffee and a girls’ morning out once y’all get settled.”
“Sounds good,” Joanie said.
She wasn’t as tall as Diana but certainly not as short as Carmen. They all kind of reminded her of a