A Soldier's Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas / Presents Under the Tree / If Only in My Dreams

3

THEY HAD NO LUCK finding a room in Columbia. Everybody else had apparently gotten off the highway, taking up all the available hotel space. Ellie would bet half the people at these places were the ones who’d rented cars at JFK and hurried out of the city ahead of them.

Although all the restaurants and drive-throughs were closed because of the storm, a clerk at a small hotel where they’d struck out on a room had let them refill their coffee cups. The middle-aged woman had spied Rafe, so sexy and heroic-looking in his fatigues, and almost burst into tears because she hadn’t been able to accommodate a “real American hero.” They’d promised her the coffee would be enough and resumed their room hunt, both of them already doubting things would be much different at any of the nearby places.

“Okay, it appears we’re going to have to white-knuckle this a little longer,” he told her as they got back in the car after striking out at their last motel option in Columbia—a place that had seemed more likely to rent by the hour to locals than to overnight out-of-town travelers. Not that she would have complained if they’d had a vacancy. “Stroudsburg is a pretty big place. We’ll get out of Jersey and try there, okay?”

She nodded, growing more tense as he steered the small car up the exit ramp, which had at least two inches of untouched snow on it. Fortunately, though, as they reached the actual highway, they saw a plow proceed slowly ahead of them, spitting road salt in its wake.

“Follow that truck!” she said, quickly pointing as relief washed over her.

“Done.”

With the New Jersey truck clearing the way, they traveled deeper into the night and closer to home. The combination of freshly brewed hot coffee and the plow truck made the next few hours of their drive a whole lot more pleasant than the last few had been. They didn’t exactly set any speed records, but they definitely put some miles behind them, even after they lost the benefit of the New Jersey truck when they crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. They didn’t have an escort in this state, but they hadn’t missed one by long, because things remained pretty clear.

That was fortunate, considering they weren’t any luckier finding a room in Stroudsburg than they’d been in Columbia. They got off at the next two consecutive exits, asked at every establishment, and continued to hear there was no room. But at least they again got fresh coffee and more gas before they got back on the highway.

Luckily, the snow had lightened up a little. It now fell in large plops rather than nonstop plinks against the windshield. The wipers were actually managing to keep up. Ellie wasn’t quite as afraid they were taking their lives into their hands by plodding on.

But that left her with too much time to study Rafe’s profile, to recall how that mouth had felt against various parts of her anatomy and to realize that she’d made a big mistake by dropping her hand onto his leg. Before that, she’d been doing a pretty good job of telling herself she could resist him and keep up her emotional walls until they got to know each other again.

Now that she’d touched that muscular thigh, though, she couldn’t stop imagining tearing his clothes off and touching every inch of that amazing body.

Think of something else!

“So, where will you be stationed during this next year?” she asked when the roads seemed clear enough to risk a little neutral conversation.

“Fort Benning, Georgia.”

“Georgia, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Do they even allow Chicago Italian boys in Georgia?”

“Guess I’m going to find out in a couple of weeks.”

“And what about after that? After Georgia?”

“After that, I’ll be in the reserves, but considering the amount of front-line duty I’ve pulled, that should be okay. I’ll be free to move home and pick up the pieces of my life.”

“Do you have any idea what you want to do?”

He hesitated.

“Come on, you can tell me.”

“You’ll think it’s crazy.”

“No, I swear, I won’t.”

He waited a little longer before finally admitting, “I’m actually considering teaching in an inner-city high school.”

Of all the things she’d expected him to say—private security, cop, bodyguard—high school teacher had never occurred to her. Her mind was truly boggled. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. My degree’s in mathematics. I could take enough courses to get my teaching certificate in about a year.”

“Wow,” she said, still mentally reeling.

“I’ve experienced enough of the world to realize that American kids are falling behind in math and science. I want to get high school kids into learning. I think I’d be pretty good at it.”

“I have no doubt you’d be good at it,” she said, meaning it wholeheartedly.

No, she’d never imagined such a life for him. And no, most people who saw him in those fatigues, with that haunted look in his eyes wouldn’t be able to picture it, either. But now that he’d said it, she could. She really could.

Rafe had been soaked in blood and violence for many years. He’d seen the worst humanity had to offer. So it made perfect sense to her that he would want to change gears completely, to try to make a difference. Why wouldn’t he long to be around young people who hadn’t yet been completely jaded by life? Why shouldn’t he set an example—help them stay on a path toward learning rather than fall helplessly into the gang culture that so gripped Chicago? She couldn’t imagine many teenagers having the balls to mouth off to him, and instead could easily envision them respecting him.

He could change lives. Of that she had no doubt.

“You think it sounds crazy?”

“No,” she said, hearing her own vehemence. “It sounds absolutely wonderful.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I’ll remember you said that the first time some punk slashes my tires when I fail him.”

“I’ll remind you I said it the first time a valedictorian thanks you for helping him get into Stanford.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

She suspected he might experience both kinds of students if he taught in some of the neediest schools, but she also suspected that was exactly what he wanted out of life. To go somewhere where he could really make things better.

She fell silent, wondering what the Rafe of seven years ago would say if he could hear his future self talking this way. He’d probably have scoffed, never envisioning such a quiet, tame life for himself. The Ellie she had once been might have reacted the same way.

They’d changed. Both of them.

She’d worried that Rafe’s wartime experiences might have altered him—maybe dug away some of his kind, optimistic streak. And perhaps they had. But in its place, had they left an even deeper well of empathy? Maybe the changes she was already sensing were for the better— making him an even more amazing, lovable man than he’d been before.

No. Stop with the love!

She wasn’t going to let herself fall in love with him again so easily. After seven years away—seven years spent in hell—Rafe was still something of a stranger to her. She would never have fallen head over heels for a stranger she’d met today at the airport, and she couldn’t let herself fall for Rafe again, either. Not without making sure of who he was, not without being certain the man she’d once loved still lived within that weary, jaded frame. Or at least making sure the man he’d become was someone she could trust enough to love. And who would love her back.

Finally, figuring he was probably worried at her silence, she said, “So did I mention I spent a year in Africa working on an animal preserve?”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to gape at her. “Seriously?”

“Yep. I enrolled in a special international cooperative—kind of like Doctors Without Borders, but for veterinarians. I spent a year in Kenya, helping the locals boost the elephant population.”

“Isn’t your specialty small animals?”

“They’ll take any help they can get.” She grinned. “And baby elephants are small.”

“Not quite as small as a Chihuahua.”

“No, I suppose not. But they’re just as cute.”

He continued to consider it, seeming genuinely surprised.

“What, you assumed I’d be diagnosing parakeets losing their feathers and neutering strays for the rest of my life?”

“You can do anything you set your mind to, El,” he said, his tone serious—and complimentary. “I’m not at all surprised you wanted to go out and make a difference somewhere.”

“Thank you. I guess I was just trying to say, I really do understand where you’re coming from.”

“I guess you do. What about now?”

“I work for a small-animal hospital in the city. No elephants, but one of my clients has a pretty feisty ferret.”

“Are there any other kinds of ferrets?”

“Good point.”

They’d fallen into an easy conversation, and she remembered that it had always been easy to talk to Rafe. They’d spent hours talking about a lot of nothing in the old days, and she’d never been bored. He was one of those people who listened and never judged or needled. Rafe was easy to be around...a strange quality for a soldier, she imagined.

She had a million more questions she wanted to ask, mainly about what his personal life had been like for the past three years, but the storm suddenly decided to pick up some steam. The snow that had been falling in thick, lazy plops, returned to its stinging pellets, and the windshield wipers struggled to clear it. Within mere minutes, the road became a slushy, icy mess. Rafe required his full concentration to keep them on the highway and they both fell silent.

There were a few dicey moments when the car tried to fishtail around one poorly marked curve. But he kept things under control.

“There should be a few hotels at the next exit,” she finally said, hoping they’d come far enough that there would be something available. “Maybe we should try again?”

“Good idea.”

They got off at the next exit. They’d already moved well past the Poconos, but judging by the billboards for rooms with heart-shaped beds and champagne-glass hot tubs, this place was competing for the honeymoon crowd, too. She lifted a brow as they passed some signs advertising places with names as dubious as The Little Love Nest.

They struck out at the first two chain places they tried. Then, at the third establishment, a no-name, local motel, they found someone else who spied Rafe’s fatigues—and his fatigue—and wanted to do something to help out a G.I. trying to get home for Christmas.

“You say you’re going to try to make it all the way t’Chicago tomorrow?”

“That’s right,” Rafe replied. “We’re trying our best to get home to our families for Christmas.”

“How long’s it been, young man?”

“I haven’t seen my folks for Christmas in three years.”

The elderly man frowned and shook his head. “Holidays...they was always the worst. I don’t usually do this—rentin’ out our best room without reservations—but I can see when a man’s been about wrung out. I suspect you need a good night’s sleep more than I need that vacant room.”

“Really?” Rafe asked, sounding hopeful for the first time in hours.

“Really. I don’t think anybody’s out there gettin’ married tonight who might want our honeymoon suite.”

Ellie’s eyes rounded. Honeymoon suite? She intentionally turned away, not wanting Rafe to see her reaction.

“I want you to get a decent night’s rest before you go back out into that storm.”

Rafe nodded slowly, eyeing the gray-haired, grizzled man. “So, Vietnam?”

“Korea,” the stranger replied. He walked out from behind the counter, and it was then she noticed his limp. “Left my right leg in the Chosin Reservoir, but got outta there alive.”

She fell silent, sensing an immediate bond of brotherhood arise between the two men. Both of them had been forged in battle, understood things about humanity that she and most civilians never would. The men obviously recognized in each other a kindred spirit.

“Thank you for your service, sir,” Rafe said, his tone utterly respectful.

“And thank you for yours, son.”

The men shook hands, connected in a way that few people ever would be with a stranger. Then the man handed Rafe a room key. “You folks have a good night, you hear?”

Ellie smiled at him and waited until they were back outside, battling the wind to get to the car, before she said, “Only one room, huh?”

She heard the nervousness in her own voice and hated herself for it. She sounded like some kind of hysterical virgin, as if Rafe couldn’t be trusted with her virtue for one snowed-in night. Which was pretty ridiculous, considering she’d spent the past several hours thinking about how desperately she wanted to seduce him. Just sitting beside him in the dark, inhaling his scent, all warm and masculine, made her want to bury her face in his throat and kiss her way down his neck.

Perhaps it was anticipation making her nervous. Because, oh, she did not want to do this wrong. People only had so many opportunities to right the mistakes of the past. If she and Rafe screwed this up again, they might never have another chance.

Of course, she wasn’t sure if he even wanted to try. All her thoughts and car fantasies were well and good, but if he wasn’t interested, she was going to be one disappointed, frustrated woman tonight.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said as he yanked open her door and helped her get into the car. He went around to his own side and got in, the clunky, old-fashioned room key dangling from his fingers. “I didn’t think to ask if you wanted to keep driving to try to find a place with two available rooms.”

“No, I don’t,” she said with a shudder.

“If it’s too uncomfortable for you, I’ll sleep on the floor. Wouldn’t be the worst place I’ve slept, and I’m so tired, I won’t even notice.”

“Let’s check out the room before we decide,” she said.

She didn’t add that the bed would have to be lumpy and disgusting for her to kick him out of it...and that, if it were, she’d go with him and sleep on the floor. It was a little too risky still to make it obvious she was thinking of seducing him tonight.

“I’m not sure about this place,” he said, eyeing the broken floodlight on the roof and the dilapidated sign.

The tired, roadside motel wasn’t going to win any diamonds from AAA, but it was the best they could hope for under the circumstances. The smart people had gotten off the road a few hours ago, when things started to get really bad. It certainly wasn’t Rafe’s fault that there was no room at the inn.

She chuckled.

“Something funny?”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so it’s somehow appropriate that we’ve found no room at any of the inns...Joseph.”

He caught her reference. “I hope the honeymoon suite isn’t in the stable.”

“Me, too.”

“Just don’t go giving birth tonight, Mary.”

The teasing note in his voice died even as the sentence left his lips. He cast a quick, curious glance down her body, as if checking to see if it had ever thickened with pregnancy. It amazed her that they’d spent so many hours together in a small car, yet she’d managed to avoid revealing much of anything about the life she’d lived during the past few years.

She suddenly wanted to. Needed to if they were to ever have another chance, not just for a sexual reunion but for an emotional one.

He was leaving the military. The wanderlust and hunger for danger and adventure had seeped out of him, along with some of his youth and optimism. He was home. For good. And so far the changes she’d noted in him seemed to have been for the better.

So maybe there would be room for her in his new life, and maybe she could allow him back into her heart. She still wasn’t ready to completely lower her guard and flat-out ask him if he wanted to try again, but she could at least set his mind at ease about a few things.

“I don’t have any kids, Rafe.”

He nodded slowly, steering the car around the building, carefully easing past a long line of cars parked haphazardly between snowdrifts. He never looked over, though. She knew he needed to concentrate, but she suspected it was more than that. In fact, she suspected he hadn’t wanted her to see how much her words had pleased him.

If those had, she couldn’t imagine how he’d feel about the next confession.

“Here we are,” he said as he pulled up outside the squat cement building, the headlights illuminating the door of room number 128. The car shuddered a little as it slid into the parking spot.

She nodded, taking a deep, relieved breath that they really had found a place to weather the storm. Once inside, she could tell him the rest—tell him she hadn’t married Denny, that their breakup had been one of the reasons she’d decided to go off to Africa, seeking some of the adventure he’d been so desperate to find.

“I can’t wait to get into a warm place and stay there,” she said, flexing her feet and her legs. They were practically numb, both from the cramped quarters and the cold, which had seeped in despite the car heater’s best efforts. It was very late. Between the snowy roads and the stops to look for a hotel, they’d been traveling for almost seven hours.

“Be careful, it’s very slippery,” he said. “Wait and let me come around and help you.”

Grabbing her carry-on bag from the backseat, she reached for the door handle. “Don’t be silly, you’re talking to a Chicago girl,” she insisted. “I eat snow for breakfast.”

“Hopefully not the yellow kind,” he said with a grin.

A real one. A sexy, old-Rafe, genuine one.

Oh, God, the man she’d loved really was lurking inside there, just wrapped in a more serious, introspective package.

Opening the door, she stepped out into the night, the icy snowflakes hitting her face in a painful little barrage. She threw a hand up to ward them off, and suddenly lost her balance. Her feet skidded, her warm boots doing absolutely nothing to keep her steady, and she began to fall. Grasping for the car, she tried to stop her descent, but her gloved fingers grabbed only air.

Rafe must have leaped over the hood because he was there, catching her in his arms, before she hit the ground.

“Holy crap,” she whispered, shocked at how quickly it had all happened—within a matter of seconds.

“I’ve got you,” he said, holding her tightly against his body. He’d skidded onto his own knees when he grabbed her, landing hard, but protecting her from harm. There might be several inches of snow on the ground, but it wouldn’t have provided much of a cushion if she’d slammed down on his hip.

“Maybe you should have practiced walking in snow rather than eating it for breakfast,” he said, those sexy lips quirking with humor.

“Maybe. I can’t believe you caught me. You must have flown over the hood.”

“You should have waited.”

“I’m sorry. Thank you.”

Their eyes met, their stares holding, despite the snow and the wind and the crazy location. His body radiated heat through the thick layers of clothes. She was closer to him than she’d been in years, sharing his breath, seeing the steady pulse beating in his neck.

Unable to help herself, needing to taste him to get one last, final confirmation that he really was here, she tilted her head and brushed her lips against his, not sure of where she got the nerve but not questioning the impulse.

He resisted for no more than a second, then drew her even more tightly against his body. He opened his mouth, thrusting his tongue against hers in a deep, hungry exploration that both shocked and thrilled her. Ellie kissed him back with fervor, loving the familiar taste of him, that unique Rafe flavor that she’d never experienced with any other man she’d kissed.

The icy snow pelted them and the wind blew so hard her ears hurt, but they kissed and kissed, turning their heads to take things even deeper, urged on by the desperation of so many long, lonely years.

A horn beeped somewhere, long and low, the sound echoing across the thick night. Startled, Rafe pulled away. He stared at her, opened his mouth to say something. No words emerged. Their stares held. Finally, he merely sighed.

“Let’s go inside,” she said, knowing he was thinking that she was a cheating wife and blaming himself for doing something so dishonorable.

“I’m sorry. I should never have...”

“Please, Rafe, take me inside,” she insisted. “We’ve got some talking to do. You’re going to want to hear what I’m going to say.”

She only wondered what was going to happen once he found out she was not only unmarried...but single and completely available.

Not to mention willing.

4

RAFE HAD NO IDEA what Ellie planned to tell him. What could she say that would make him feel any worse than he already did?

He’d broken the guy’s code. Decent men didn’t go around kissing other men’s wives. Even wives who had carved out a piece of your heart and held it in their grasp for seven years.

It had been the heat of the moment, that was all. Adrenaline. She’d almost fallen, he’d saved her from a nasty spill, she’d wound up in his arms.

One kiss. No big deal in the scheme of things.

Even if, in his heart, he knew that kiss had been a huge deal, if only because it left him with a hunger for more.

Saying nothing, he rose to his feet, staying grounded with not only his own weight, but hers. He didn’t immediately put her down, not ready to let her risk another fall. Or not ready to let her out of his arms. Which one, he couldn’t say.

Walking carefully, hearing the crunch of his thick-soled boots in the snow, he carried her to the door of their room and then lowered her onto her own feet. Inserting the thick key into the stiff, icy lock, he kept one arm on her shoulder to be sure her feet didn’t slip out from under her. Although there was an awning that extended the length of the building, the snow had drifted and icy flakes attacked them.

“One more second,” he told her as he jiggled the key, which resisted within the lock. He finally got it to disengage, grabbed the handle and twisted. Finding utter blackness within, he reached around the corner, groping for a light switch. Finding it, he flipped it up and the room gained a sickly yellowish tinge.