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  This is the Wonder

  By Tracey Ward

  This is the Wonder

  By Tracey Ward

  Text Copyright © 2015 Tracey Ward

  All Rights Reserved

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to the brave men and women of the United States Military.

  It is dedicated to my husband who served both his country and our family unfailingly.

  But most importantly, this book is dedicated to the families.

  To the wives, husbands, children, and parents of our enlisted.

  To those who stay behind.

  Who wait and worry.

  Who love and endure.

  To those who sacrifice silently.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “The toilets are flooding! The toilets are flooding!”

  I look up to see Mel standing in the doorway to our compartment, her face flushed with panic and disgust. “What is that? Is that like ‘The British are coming’?”

  She frowns. “What? No, it’s like the friggin’ toilets are friggin’ flooding.”

  “Number One if by land, Number Two if by sea?”

  “I don’t think that’s how it goes,” Ben comments, propping his sunglasses up on his head and into his black hair. He winces at the bright morning sunlight pouring in the window of the train. Promptly he pulls his glasses down again.

  “Like it matters,” I tell him. “It’s toilet humor. I have artistic license here.”

  “Anything goes? Like in international waters?”

  “Is that a toilet joke too? ’Cause I don’t get it.”

  “We can’t all be as clever as you.”

  “Anyway,” Mel interrupts emphatically, “I was coming back from the bar car, which is packed, by the way. Seriously, an absolute madhouse. Took an hour to get a drink so I stuck around and drank it while I waited in line for another one.”

  “Why didn’t you just buy two at once?” I ask.

  “Can we stop talking about alcohol?” Ben complains.

  We ignore him and his hangover.

  “Because they don’t let you,” Mel whines at me. “It’s like they’re trying to keep people from getting too drunk—which is insane because everyone is smashed already. Did I mention it was a madhouse in there and the bathrooms are destroyed?”

  “What do you expect? It’s literally called ‘The Party Train to Oktoberfest.’ It should not be experienced sober.”

  “Or hungover,” Ben groans.

  “Shush it!” Mel shouts at him, making him wince and visibly cower in his seat. “We told you to stay behind at school. You should have listened.”

  “I thought I could rally.”

  “How’s that working out for you, Rally Queen?” I ask him, poking him in the stomach.

  He grabs my hand hard and glares at me through his Ray-Bans. “You’re the devil.”

  I smile sweetly at him.

  “And don’t call me ‘Queen,’” he continues. “People will think I’m gay and I’ll never nail a hot foreign chick.”

  “Technically, you’re the hot foreign chick here,” Mel reminds him.

  “Stop talking to me like I’m a girl.”

  “Then man up and stop acting like a bitch,” I snap, poking his stomach again.

  He groans and lurches across the cramped compartment toward the door. I note the panicked look on the faces of the strangers sitting across from us and I feel a little bad. We are loud, obnoxious Americans through and through today. We’ve all been together on this train since five this morning and they have yet to speak to each other. I don’t even know if they speak English. If they do, we’ve probably made them wish they didn’t.

  Mel quickly opens the door for Ben. “Where are you going?”

  “To the bathroom to throw up!”

  “But the toilets are flooding!”

  “I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,” I chuckle at Mel. “It’s melodious somehow.”

  “He’s going to be sorry he went in there.”

  “I think he’s sorry about a lot of things right now.”

  “How much longer till we’re there?” she asks, sitting back down beside me. She smiles politely at the strangers. They don’t respond. I’m not sure they’re real humans. “I need to keep this buzz going until we get there or I’ll crash.”

  I check my watch, hissing sharply through my teeth. “Four more hours.”

  Mel throws her head back against the seat and sighs heavily, devastated. “That’s too long.”

  “Take a nap. Then it won’t matter if you crash ’cause you’ll wake up revived and ready to go.”

  She rolls her head to look at me, her blond hair fanning out over the seatback. “Are you going to take a nap too?”

  “Oh, hell no.” I grin, pinning my own brown locks high on the back of my head. “I’m no punk.”

  “Oh it’s like that, is it? You think you can hang better than me.”

  “Think? No, I know I can. I’ve seen you drink. You dove in too deep too fast on this one. You’re one Heineken away from drooling on Ben’s shoulder and waking up confused by life, mumbling ‘Where are we?’”

  “Fuck you! No. That’s not how this is happening. I’m staying awake with you the whole way, then I’m getting drunk and finding myself a hot-ass German guy to make out with.”

  I snort a laugh.

  “What? What are you laughing at?”

  “Nothing.” I shrug. “Just be careful what you wish for.”

  “What are you talking about? Have you seen these guys? A lot of them are gorgeous.”

  “No, I agree. A lot of them are. They also wear man-capris without shame.”

  She scrunches her nose. “Ugh.”

  “And they don’t wear deodorant.”

  “Ugh!”

  “And they bathe once a week.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “I’m just being honest.”

  “At least most of them speak English. My German is terrible.”

  I eye the woman and two men sitting across from us. “Yeah, they all speak a little English. Even the ones who pretend they don’t.”

  The woman raises an eyebrow at me.

  I knew it!<
br />
  The door to the compartment bursts open again and Ben stands there looking bedraggled. His shirt is blotted with either water, sweat, or something completely undesirable, and his eyes are mournful.

  “The toilets are flooding,” he hiccups pathetically.

  I hitch my thumb at Mel. “It’s funnier when she says it.”

  ***

  “Where are we?” Mel mumbles, raising her head from Ben’s shoulder and swiping a hand across her mouth.

  Right on time, I think to myself, loving it when I’m right.

  “Munich,” I tell her, then I grab her arm and shake her roughly. “Oktoberfest in Munich!”

  She sits up immediately, all memory of sleep gone. She turns to shake Ben but comes face to face with him already wide awake and looking at her.

  “Sleep well?” he asks, grinning like a cat.

  I look away and start rifling through my purse, but I know Mel is blushing. She’s had a thing for Ben since we met him at the start of this semester abroad. We’re all living, breathing, and slacking on our studies in the same building and I know it’s driving her crazy. He’s a good-looking guy when he’s not covered in questionable fluids, but he has severely questionable motives and intentions. She’s headed for heartache with that one, but good luck telling her that.

  We disembark the train in a mad, stumbling rush of bodies and excitement that floods into Munich’s train station. We’re instantly surrounded by a mix of all kinds of nationalities. I hear Italian, Japanese, French, and, of course, American and British accents. I don’t even know where we’re supposed to go, but I link arms with Ben while Mel does the same on his other side and we follow the flow of the crowd out into the streets. I’m sure someone in this herd knows where they’re going.

  “Are you feeling any better?” I ask Ben as we sidestep a couple making out in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Getting there,” he mutters, his eyes downcast.

  I worry for a moment, thinking he’s still really sick. I actually have some sympathy for him. Then I see what he’s looking at. The girl walking just ahead of us is wearing fishnets—honest to God fishnet stockings—in neon green. They disappear up her legs under a short skirt made of black tulle. She looks like a hooker ballerina.

  “You’re gross,” I mutter quietly.

  “What’s that? I can’t hear you over the sound of the crowd.”

  “You can’t hear me over the color of those fishnets.”

  Mel leans forward to look at me across Ben’s chest. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “The difference in the speed of light and sound,” I tell her.

  “Seriously? Why? Wait, is there a difference?”

  I shrug. “I’m a business major.”

  Mel frowns. “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s because there’s nothing to get. She’s drunk,” Ben interrupts, squeezing my arm against his side pointedly.

  I take my cue to shut up.

  Not surprisingly, the herd makes it to Oktoberfest where it joins the massively bigger herd of people milling around the grounds. This thing is huge, the largest fair in the world, and I feel a little claustrophobic being in this crowd. I know I’ll get used to it, especially after we visit the beer tents, but for now it’s kind of freaking me out.

  “Where to first?” Mel shouts above the din of music, people, and carnival sounds. I can see rides rising up in the distance at the end of the midway that’s made up entirely of food and drink stalls. Running parallel down the center is a string of booths selling crafts and souvenirs. This is only one section of the fair and we could spend hours walking through it just looking. But I didn’t come here to look; I came here to drink, eat, and be stupid, so I quickly point to the tall peak of one of the largest beer tents.

  “There!” I shout. I swing around and point to the peak of another tent across from the first. “Then we go there. And there. Then there.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ben stops me, nodding wearily. “We make the rounds. Got it. Let’s do this.”

  “Think you can make it?”

  He shakes his head as though to clear it, then leads us forward. “Only one way to find out.”

  The first beer for Ben goes down rough. I feel for the guy. When you’re hungover drinking water can suck, but alcohol? That’s a fool’s errand. But he muscles through it and by the time we hit the second tent he’s feeling… not exactly no pain, but significantly less pain.

  After two tents of all beer, we go in search of food. I quickly find out that the rumors of the Germans being magicians with bread is one hundred percent true. I’m going to gain fifty pounds living in this country for the next three months, because my new diet plan is to carbo load until I burst. Brot is my new best friend.

  “I have to pee,” I tell Mel and Ben as we leave the food stalls and go in search of our next beer.

  Mel grabs my hand and looks at me with wide-eyed seriousness. “What if the toilets are flooding?” She bursts into giggles and pulls me into a random hug.

  “Yeah, what if,” I mutter, rethinking whether or not I can get sick of hearing that. “Do you need to pee too? Are you good?”

  She pulls back and gives me two thumbs up. “I’m perfect.”

  “Good.” I look at Ben, hoping he’ll be my ally here. Mel is a lightweight and she’s been drinking all day. She’s like a toddler at this point. “You’ll stick with her. That’s not a question.”

  He nods hard and I wish his sunglasses were off so I could tell how glassy his eyes are. “You got it, boss.” He grabs Mel around the waist and pulls her hard up against his body.

  She squeals in delight and wraps her arms around his neck, nuzzling into his chest.

  “I’ll stick to her like glue.”

  “Awesome. I can’t see any of this going wrong. I’ll be right back.”

  If this were a horror movie, I’d be dead in five minutes just as punishment for saying something so stupid. As it turns out, an hour later I’m still alive but I wish I wasn’t. I’d rather be dead than standing in the longest line I’ve ever seen waiting to enter a filthy, overused public bathroom at a drinking festival with a full, screaming bladder. I’m literally bouncing from foot to foot by the time I get inside.

  I will not speak of the horrors that befall me in that little room. Not now, not ever.

  When I get out, I’m not surprised that I can’t find Mel and Ben right away. I was gone a long time and they’re drunk, impatient, and impulsive. I keep my eyes peeled for them as I make my way from the last place I saw them to the next beer tent we were planning on visiting. It’s one of the smaller ones, a little quieter and more subdued. I’m getting a little wiggy from the crowds and noise, so taking a small breather was my brilliant idea. But when I get there of course I can’t find them.

  “Shit,” I mutter, glancing around fruitlessly for the fourth time.

  “Miss,” an Italian accent calls to my right. I look over to find a guy about ten years older than I am with dark hair and warm eyes. He’s handsome in a very European kind of way. His clothes are tailored, his hair full of product and coifed, and I can smell his cologne from here, even in a tent full of people. It’s not bad—just a lot.

  “You are lost?” he asks me.

  I grin politely, shaking my head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you. Just looking for my friends.”

  “Ah, you have lost your friends.”

  “Seems so, yeah.”

  “I help you look for them,” he offers, moving to stand from the table where he sits with four other men in similar clothing who can only be his friends—or brothers, for how much they all look alike. They’re like a gang. A really suave, handsome gang.

  I take a step away from them. “No, that’s—no. Thanks, but no. I’m fine.”

  “No, no, no, no. I help you. Or you sit, you join us. You wait,” he says, gesturing to his now vacant seat. Four pairs of warm eyes and brilliant white smiles look up at me expectantly.

  What big teeth you have.r />
  One of the men offers a cup to me, open and brimming with frothing beer.

  I take a step back. “No. I’d rather not. I’m fine.”

  “Is too dangerous you be alone. You sit, you join us. We help you.” He takes two steps toward me as he speaks, crowding my space.

  I know Europeans have a much smaller personal bubble than Americans. I understand that his proximity to me is not necessarily threatening, not to him. Not intentionally. But for me, it’s too close.

  My eyes begin to swing around the room, searching for my quick solution out of this awkward moment. Luckily, I’m already saved. I just don’t know it yet.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey,” a deep voice hums in my ear. A warm hand touches me lightly on the arm. “Did you get turned around? We’re over here, remember?”

  I look at the guy standing beside me talking to me like he knows me, and I’m surprised to find it’s not Ben. He’s taller than I am by a few inches, probably about six foot two with heavy, broad shoulders, startling blue eyes, and close-cropped brown hair. The haircut has me pegging him for military immediately and the American accent and perfect English says U.S. military for sure. Put a football in his hands and he’s a thick slice of American pie that already has my mouth watering.

  “Hey,” I respond, trying not to sound as unsure as I am. I hope he’s trying to save me from the Armani Mafia, but I’m worried he’s just mistaken me for someone he knows.

  “Come on, I’ve got your beer waiting at the table.”

  I nod, giving him a small smile. “Thanks.”

  My new best friend (brot will need to step up its game to compete with this guy’s eyes if it wants the title back) puts his hand out toward the Italian still standing. “Thanks for steppin’ up to help her out, man.”

  Italy’s smile loses some of its luster, but the guy doesn’t hesitate to take American Pie’s hand. “It is no problem. I am happy she find you.”

  They shake hands quickly, then American Pie puts his hand on the small of my back and guides me down the row of tables.

  “Thanks,” I mumble to him. “That was nice of you.”