A Soldier for Christmas (13 page)

Well, there was nothing to do but to keep at it. He wouldn’t stop calling until he reached her. Until he could hear her voice, all heart and goodness, because he needed some of that.

He needed her.

In the silence of Amy’s living room, Kelly snapped her book shut, the sound as startling as a gunshot in the sleeping house. The kids were asleep. The scents of crayons and SpaghettiOs lingered pleasantly in the air. With the fire crackling in the hearth, she should feel peaceful. It was a perfect studying climate. But could she concentrate? No.

Lexie had called about an hour ago, while she was clearing supper dishes from the table, to tell her that Mitch had called and left a message. Ever since, she’d been keeping her silent cell phone close just in case Mitch tried again.

She resisted the urge to hop online and check her e-mail account. That would make it obvious, even to herself, how eager she was to hear from Mitch. And if she was going to hold tight to her stance and to her vow to keep her feet on the ground when it came to Mitch, then she couldn’t go around acting as if she wanted to fall in love with him, right?

Right.

The living-room walls felt as if they were pressing in on her until she couldn’t draw a single breath. She wanted to blame it on studying too hard, but she
always
studied hard. That was no excuse. The real explanation was something she didn’t want to think about.

And somehow, she had to make sure she stopped thinking about Mitch and kept every thought of him from her mind. Maybe it was better that he hadn’t called. Maybe this was a sign, this pattern of missed communications. Maybe, she thought desperately and with hope, it was a sign from above reminding her she was looking down the wrong fork in the road.

Her cell phone rang. Surely that wasn’t a sign, either. She checked the screen—an out of area number. Mitch, her heart hoped wildly before her common sense kicked in and she let it ring a second time. Then a third.

Now she was
definitely
in need of therapy. First she couldn’t wait for him to call and now that he probably was, she didn’t want to answer the phone. For some reason it felt like a monumental decision as she pressed the button to accept the call, which made no sense at all. At the back of her mind, she worried this could be her mom calling, too. “Hello?”

“K-Kelly.” Above the crackle of static in the long-distance line, she heard his voice.

“Mitch.” His name was on her lips, as if straight from her heart, and her voice betrayed her. Joy blazed within her. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she’d missed him. How much she’d worried over him. His voice might be her most favorite sound on earth. “I can’t believe it. It’s really you.”

“No imposter this time. You’re a difficult lady to get a hold of lately.”

“Not as difficult as you are, mister. Are you okay?”

“Right as rain, or maybe I should say snow this time of year. Are you all right? When you answered, you sounded like were hesitant to talk to me. You’re not at work, are you? It’s okay that I’m calling?”

Please, let it be okay. Mitch gripped the phone tightly.

“Y-yeah, it’s absolutely okay, I’m just babysitting. It’s just that your number came through as ‘out of area’ and with an area code I didn’t recognize. I was afraid it was my mom using a calling card from jail.”

“She does that a lot?”

“No, I’m just always cautious. But you didn’t call to hear about that. How is your friend doing?” There was her heart, unmistakable in the warm tones of her voice.

Man, it was good to hear. His chest twisted tight, so strong it was a physical pain that came from missing her. “Haven’t heard about Luke yet. He’s been flown to a hospital in Germany.”

“He must have been hurt pretty badly.”

“Y-yeah.” He cleared his throat. He’d save thinking about what had happened, seeing his friend shot and defending him while their corpsman worked frantically to save his life, along with the rest of them. Their ambush on the enemy had been a success, and their mission was completed—but at a personal cost. As always. “All we can do is wait. And pray.”

“I’ve been keeping him in my prayers, and Lexie has, too. I let her read your e-mail. Was that all right?”

“Sure.”

Emotions tangled emotions like a knotted rope yanked hard, because he had her on the phone, he was listening to the sound of her lovely voice and yet she felt so far away. He closed his eyes, shutting out the officers’ hootch and the clatter of the heater working hard in the mountain cold. He fought to bring a picture of her into his mind.

What he saw was her that first day in the bookstore, when she’d been awash in the bright, cheerful light of summer. Her hair had glinted like pure gold and fallen in a soft swoop around her lovely face. Her rosy complexion looked as satin-soft as a rose’s petal.

His throat ached as he remembered how dainty and sweet she’d looked in a pale-pink sleeveless blouse. But what he wanted was to see her now. To picture her in the solemn shadows of a November’s night, when darkness came early in Montana. He could not picture her. Frustration ate at him.

Kelly’s voice interrupted the static on the line. “Lexie said it best. She said that your e-mail put her life in perspective, and I felt the same way. The lists I sent, about all the little unimportant things in my day, probably didn’t help you much. It probably seemed trite and disrespectful—”

“No, you couldn’t be more wrong.” No Kevlar vest could protect him from pain like this. Just the thought of her not writing could nearly do him in. “You have no idea how much I appreciate your lists. So, what’s this about your mom?”

“Like I said, you didn’t call to hear about my mother.”

“I called to hear about you.”

There he went, trying to get beneath the appearance of things and into a deeper part of her life where she didn’t want him to go. “My mom is out of my life. End of story. Some people say that’s harsh, that she deserves a second chance, but the truth is that she’s on her six-billionth chance, and I just can’t take any more. How is your mom doing?”

“Nice change of subject.” He didn’t sound upset by it, he sounded amused. “Funny you should mention her. I got a pretty interesting e-mail from her. She wanted to know how long I’ve been seeing you.”

“No, that’s not true. She couldn’t possibly have thought that. I found her number in the phone book a while back—”

“And why would you do that?”

“Well, it’s a surprise. Let’s just say I wanted to send you something. As one friend to another, of course.”

“Sure.” He chuckled, as if he understood perfectly. “I bet Mom didn’t see it that way. It’s just wishful thinking on her part. It’s not me she cares about, she said she wanted a daughter-in-law to spoil. She’s never forgiven me for being a difficult kid.”

“I know that isn’t true. When I told her who I was and that I knew you, she went on and on about what a great man she thinks you are.”

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “She didn’t. Really? Now I have to disown her. I can’t have a mom embarrassing me like that.”

She heard straight through his facade to his big heart beneath. He came from a family like this one, she thought, as she looked around the loving home Amy had made here with her husband and kids. Happiness settled in the air like stardust through the windows. A hundred pictures hung on the wall or were mounted in fat photo albums or were overstuffed in a drawer, waiting for framing. Homemade cookies were fresh in a cookie jar on the table, and love and caring seemed to gleam like moonlight on the polished wood.

Did Mitch know how lucky he was? She thought he did. She hoped he did. “I talked to your mom for less than five minutes, but she seemed like a really lovely lady.”

“That would be Mom.”

Yes, she thought, he knew. She could hear it in his words. “I’m guessing that when you were growing up, she baked your favorite cookies before you had the chance to ask for them. It sounds like she is still your biggest fan.”

“Yeah, everyone needs that in their life. I am blessed with my parents, I know I am. I take it that your mom wasn’t the kind of mother who ever baked cookies.”

“No.” The wounds within her began to reopen, whispers of memories that she
had
to silence.

“Or ever baked a birthday cake?”

“Good guess.” She steeled her defenses. She could not let him in any deeper. “My birthday is coming up, and between that and the holidays, she often tries to contact me.”

“How much longer does she have on her sentence?”

“I honestly don’t know. I expect she’ll be out by the end of the year.” That’s all she wanted to say to him. One more word and she would have opened up too far. “Speaking of time, you should be about halfway through your tour, right?”

“Will she look you up?”

“I hope she doesn’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut, but that didn’t diminish the ugly voices of her past, murmuring in her mother’s voice. How she wasn’t good enough. Like mother, like daughter. How did she silence those memories? “The last time she got out of prison, she showed up pretending to have missed me, but she stole money out of my backpack when I went to make her some coffee. I’d just gotten paid and that cash was my grocery money for two weeks. I didn’t have anything to fall back on.”

“I’m sorry, Kelly. You’ve come a long way on your own.”

“I’m not alone.”

She touched him deeply, Mitch realized, beyond his comfort level and deeper still, where he’d never felt anything like this before. A fierce steely need to protect her anchored him, and he hated the miles that separated them. “When
is
your birthday?”

“In December.”

“What day in December?”

“The second.”

Okay, he knew what to do. As he checked his watch, time was ticking away, and he was looking at a hard afternoon of training ahead. But he couldn’t hang up yet. He couldn’t say good-bye. There was so much he wanted to say, but he was afraid of scaring her off. Afraid of moving too fast. He still didn’t know where she stood, if she was moving away from him, or if he could pull her closer.

“Oh, I think I hear the baby.” Her heart was showing again. “Let me just whisper, because I don’t want to disturb her if she’ll fall back to sleep.”

He could picture her walking with care down a hallway, to check on a sleeping baby. “Who are you babysitting for tonight?”

“One of the McKaslin cousins, Amy. I’ve been babysitting for her since Westin, her oldest boy, was three.” She paused. “Oh, it looks like little Shannon just needs some comfort. Hello, sweetie. Want me to rub your back? Oh, she’s going back to sleep. I was dating Joe then.”

“After all this time, they must be like family.”

“Family of the heart, that’s for sure. Is that what your team members are to you?”

There it was, the depth of her heart in her voice. He felt the distance and the miles melt away. It was a little like being lost in the dark, and she was a beacon lighting the way.

“Like brothers,” he confessed. “We spend most of our time together. Sadly, I’ve got to go before they start without me. But before I do, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“Oh, you’re worried that I’ll be alone, aren’t you? Well, I’ve turned down Lexie’s offer, and Katherine and Spence’s offer and Amy’s offer to join them for the holiday. I’m going to volunteer again at the free dinner that the local church charities host, and then I’m taking a meal out to my aunt at the hospital.”

“I was going to have my mom invite you, if you weren’t doing anything.”

“That’s really nice. But I’m fine. Thanks. What are you doing?”

“I’ll be lucky to be here. There’s a rumor we’re actually getting real turkeys, but I’ll have to see it to believe it. I have to go.”

Kelly couldn’t believe how hard it was to say good-bye. “You’ll call again?”

“Count on it.” There was a click and he was gone.

Oh, that man could make her feel—make her come alive—like nobody ever had. And wasn’t that the problem?

It was as if he was able to see her bare to the soul, where there were no longer any shields, anything safe to hide behind. That left only the truth—of who she’d been and who she was now—and how much she longed to love again.

Longed to love him.

In the quiet of the living room she slipped her phone back into her pack. And thought of Mitch, so far away. Her heart tugged, impossibly, with emotion she could not let in.
Please, Father, watch over him, keep him safe.

The rain battered the black windows with renewed fury and the ghosts of the past, of the truths she’d spoken of tonight, seemed to whirl in the air around her. The heavens opened as rain hailed against the roof, pounding like a thousand bullets.

She hurried down the hall to check again on the baby, but Shannon was still lost in sweet dreams, safe and soundly asleep. Looking like the precious gift she was.

What a dream it would be to have one of her own, and a life like this. Kelly couldn’t help hoping, just a little, and it made the loneliness ache. Careful not to disturb the little one, she tiptoed out of the room and wandered back to her school books, which were waiting for her.

Okay, time to buckle down and concentrate on the attainable dreams in her life. She settled down to study, but every neuron in her head seemed focused on Mitch. On the big, mighty, wonderful, kind man he was.

If she closed her eyes and made a wish, it would look just like him. And wasn’t that the danger? Dreams weren’t meant for her. She knew that for absolute certain. But it was there, anyway. She’d fought so hard not to let a single hope take root, and it had—for a moment—but she’d dared to let in the smallest wish.

And wasn’t that the problem? You started small, with the purest, tiniest wish—and before you knew it, that wish bloomed into a full-fledged, all-of-your-heart dream.

I so want him to love me.

There came the wish, the smallest hope, alive inside her. She screwed her eyes shut against the hot blinding tears that rose. The memory of the day at the river, when Mitch had pulled her against him, protecting her from the current…she wished she had laid her cheek against his chest so she would have known how it felt to be held like that by him. She longed for his tenderness as the stars longed for the night.