A Soldier for Christmas (2 page)

But that wasn’t the truth. Guilt wasn’t why he was noticing her. Concern wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away. He was interested. He was stationed here for a short stint, that was all, and he wasn’t looking for anything serious—that was a scary thought.

No, he wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t have time for that. He wasn’t a teenaged kid anymore with an innocent crush, and by the look of things, Kelly’d had her heart broken. She probably wasn’t looking, either.

He’d come here to find a gift—nothing more—and he’d be smart to get to it. That was the sensible thing to do. He wandered back to the aisle of Bibles, determined to keep his attention focused squarely on his difficult mission: finding a suitable birthday gift.

The rustle of her movements jerked his attention back to her. He was at the end of the row, giving him a perfect view of Kelly. She’d hung up the phone and was circling around the edge of the long front counter. She was keeping her eyes low and intentionally not looking his way, but he kept observing her as he went on with his browsing.

He couldn’t say why he watched her as she padded to the far edge of the store. Or why he noticed how elegant she looked in a simple pink cotton blouse and slim khaki pants. It was a mystery. He wanted to attribute it to his training—the marines had trained him well and paid him to observe, but that wasn’t it at all. Not truthfully.

He couldn’t say why, but he listened to the whisper of her movements and kept listening…even after she’d disappeared from his sight.

W
as it her imagination, or was he watching her?

Kelly slipped the inspirational romance from its spot on the shelf. Her gaze shot between the open book bay to watch the hunky soldier’s broad back, which was all she could see of him. Mitch stood with his feet braced apart, browsing through the devotionals display midway across the store.

No, he’s not even looking my way, she thought, shaking her head and hurrying back to the cash desk. Besides, he seemed totally absorbed in his browsing as he set down one book and reached for another. He was the only customer in the store, and if he wasn’t noticing her, then no one was.

Okay, so she was nuts, but she still felt…
watched.
She remembered the impact of his gaze, and how tangible it had felt. She kept a careful eye on him as she returned to the front.

Although he didn’t lift his head or turn in her direction, she felt monitored the entire time it took for her to write Edith Brisbane’s name on a slip of paper, rubber-band it to the spine of the book and slip it onto the hold shelf.

I know what the problem is, she realized in the middle of shaking an aspirin tablet onto her palm.
She
was the one noticing
him.

Who could blame her? He cut a fine figure in his rugged military uniform, and back in high school she’d always had a secret crush on him. He’d always been a truly nice boy. It looked as if time had only improved him.

As she chased the aspirin down with a few swallows from a small bottle of orange soda, her gaze automatically zoomed across the floor to him. Head bent, he had moved on to amble through the gift section of the store, his attention planted firmly on the rows of porcelain jewelry boxes in front of him. There were two inspirational suspense books tucked in one big hand.

When she looked at him, she could hear his gravelly voice asking again, How’s Joe doing?

It wasn’t his fault, Mitch obviously didn’t know what had happened. But that didn’t make the raw places within her heart hurt any less.

She was no longer a girl who could dream.

She climbed back onto her stool and debated tackling more of her homework, but she wasn’t in the mood to face her math book. She knew that if she sat here trying to solve for x, her attention would just keep drifting over to the impressive warrior. To the past.

What good could come from that?

“Hey, Kelly.” Her boss’s solemn baritone cut through her thoughts, spinning her around to face him. Spence McKaslin pushed open the door on the other side of the hold shelf. He emerged from the fluorescent glare of his office, looking gruff, the way he always did when he worked on the accounts. “I’ll be in the back going through the new order. Katherine’s still out, so if it gets busy, buzz me.”

“Sure, but it’s been really quiet. Do you want me to start restocking or something?”

“No, we’re all caught up. Just watch the front until your dinner break. Study while you can. It could get busy later.”

“It never gets busy on a Friday night.”

“Don’t argue with me, I’m the boss.” He gave her an extra-hard glare on his way to the drawers beneath the till, but he didn’t fool her.

Spence was strong and stoic and tough, but also one of the kindest men she’d ever met. Her opinion of him had been pretty high ever since he’d hired her, which had saved her from losing her apartment when she’d been laid off from her previous job. Spence would have been her cousin, had things worked out differently with Joe.

A lot of things would have been different if she’d been able to marry Joe.

Feeling as if she’d been sucker-punched, she tried hard not to let the pain show. She didn’t know how something so powerful would ever go away, but she did her best to tuck her grief down deep inside. Her gaze strayed to where Mitch still browsed, looking like everything good and noble and strong in the world.

But she also saw memories. And she wanted nothing to do with the past.

Spence grabbed the key ring from its place under the counter and studied her in the assessing way of a good big brother. “Did you manage to fit in lunch today?”

“Well, I ate a granola bar while I was stuck in traffic in the big parking lot on campus.”

“I knew it. Take your dinner break at five, and I’ll go when you get back,” he ordered over his shoulder, already marching away.

Mitch watched the older man pass by the gift section and disappear through a door in the back. It was less than an hour before her dinner break. Interesting. He couldn’t say why, but he felt out of his element. And it wasn’t because he was in a store full of flowery knickknacks and breakables.

A plan hatched in the back of his mind, and it had nothing to do with his shopping mission.

Kelly remained in his peripheral vision. She made a lovely picture, sitting straight-backed with her head bowed over a book. The math text was still in the stack, so she must be working on another subject. Absorbed in her reading, she tucked a strand of rich honey-blond hair behind her ear, revealing a small pearl earring and her bare left hand.

While he was at home creeping through enemy territory in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan or the deserts of the Middle East, his extensive training did not include what he was about to do.

He kept her in his line of sight as he approached the register. The light from the window seemed to find her and grace her with a golden glow. She kept her head bowed over her book as he approached, but her shoulders stiffened with tension. Telling. But he continued his approach, taking in other details. The soda bottle, her nearly worn-out leather watchband, the pink barrette in her hair that matched the tiny flowers on her blouse. The two sociology textbooks stacked neatly at her left elbow.

He wondered about her life. Did she like being a college student? Did she live on campus in a dorm room or in a nearby apartment? Alone, or with a roommate?

When she looked up from her reading, her smile was cordial but he didn’t mistake the sadness, like a shadow, in her dark-blue eyes. He felt a tug of sympathy from his heart. “You look pretty busy,” he noted, easing the books onto the counter by her register.

“It’s the life of a college student. I have a test on Monday.” As she leaned to scan the books, her hair bounced across the side of her face, leaving only a small sliver of her profile visible. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I found more.” He wasn’t talking about the books.

“I do that all the time.” Her gaze didn’t meet his and her polite smile was too brief. She turned her attention to the cash register. All business.

Okay, he got the signal, but he didn’t let it deter him. “How long ’til you get your degree?”

“After this summer, I have two semesters left.” She paused to study the cash register and searched for a key.

“It’s gotta be slow going, working your way through.”

“It’s taking twice as long, but at least I don’t have a major loan to pay back when I’m done.”

“That’s one perk of enlisting. My college will be paid for.”

At least he wasn’t mentioning the past or Joe again, Kelly thought thankfully as she totaled the sale. Her chest was still clogged tight, like the fallout of an avalanche still pressing her down. “Twenty-one ninety-three, please.”

Mitch held out his credit card.

When her fingertips caught the other end, she felt a flash, like a shock of static electricity in the air. The sunlight changed to a bright piercing white. The floor rocked beneath her feet. It lasted only for a second. Then the earth steadied, the sunlight turned golden and there was Mitch, unmoved, looking calm and as cool as steel.

That was
so
not a sign from heaven. Just the pieces of what remained of her dreams, longing, in the way faint embers from a fire’s flame could glow briefly to life when exposed to air. Her fingers trembled as she swiped his card and plunked it back onto the polished counter between them.

If there was a way to breathe life back into her dreams, she would ask the Lord to show her how. But she didn’t bother. Some things really were impossible. “I still can’t believe you’re a soldier. What happened to your pocket protector?”

“No place for it on this uniform. I love what I do.”

“What exactly do you do?”

“Well, I started out at oh-six-hundred with a ten click—kilometer—run in full gear and spent the day mountain climbing to five thousand feet.”

“You get paid to climb mountains?”

“That’s not all. I get to do things like scuba dive, parachute, drive around in Humvees and play with explosives.” He said it all as if it was no big deal, just in a humble day’s work. “Keeps me out of trouble.”

“Seems like that would get you
into
trouble.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

Wow, Kelly thought, as she bagged the books. He’s grown up into quite a man. “See, my day is a piece of cake by comparison.”

“Except for the math.”

“Oh, you
had
to mention that again. I was trying to forget for a while.” She hadn’t laughed out loud in a long time. “Where you get paid to do things that you think are fun, I pay out good tuition money to be tortured by algebra.”

“I’ll be in your boat in eighteen months.”

“That’s right. That math degree you’re going to get.” The machine spat out the charge receipt and she held the two-part paper steady while it printed. How her heart ached as those embers of old dreams struggled for life. She tore off the printed receipt and slid it across the counter. “I need your autograph, and then you’re free to go, soldier.”

“
Free’s
a relative term.” He grabbed a pen from the cup by the register. “My time’s pretty regimented.”

“I bet it is. Are you headed back to your base?”

“In a few hours. I’m free until then.” He scrawled his signature at the bottom of the slip.

Too bad she’d given up on dreams. She didn’t know if she felt relief or regret.

“I hope you enjoy your books.” She slipped his receipt into the bag and presented it to him. “I’m glad to see you’re doing so well. I wish you luck, Mitch.”

“You’re letting me go, just like that?”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do? Generally we let customers leave our store. We seldom hold them hostage.”

“I’m not talking about other customers. I’m talking about me. We could renew our friendship.”

“We were never really friends, you know.”

What did that leave him with? Renewing his secret crush on her? He took his bag, but the last thing he wanted to do was leave. She was still the nicest girl he’d ever laid eyes on. He could use a little nice in his world. It wasn’t something he saw much of.

“We could be friends now,” he suggested with his best grin.

“But you said you were headed back to California.” Sweetly, she studied him through her long lashes.

A mass of emotions struck him like shrapnel to his chest. Emotions weren’t his realm of expertise, but he felt strong with a fierce steely need he’d never felt before—to protect her, to make her smile, to make her every sadness go away.

Not really in his comfort zone, but a crush was a crush. What was a guy to do?

He tried again. “I’m not leaving for a while. We could still be friends.”

“I have enough friends.” Her eyebrow crooked up in a challenge.

So, she was giving him a hard time on purpose. “You get a dinner break, right?”

“Now and then they loosen the chains and let me out for a bit.” Kelly folded her arms in front of her, considering him.

“You get a dinner break, and I’m hungry for dinner. It’s a coincidence.”

Kelly couldn’t believe how he was just watching her with those intense, commanding hazel eyes of his, so wise and perceptive. She felt the impact as if he could see directly into her. “You’re asking me out, aren’t you?”

“No, not out. No. Of course not.” He held up his free hand, as if he were innocent. Completely guilt-free.

“That’s good, because I don’t date anymore. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, because I’m not looking for a date. I was asking you to help me out.”

“As if a big strong soldier like you needs any help at all?”

“Sure. I need a favor. I’m a lonely marine.”

“A lonely marine?” Oh, she was
so
not fooled.

“Sure. It’s only dinner.” Amusement quirked the left side of his mouth. “C’mon, you gotta eat.”

“True, but you probably have better things to do on a Friday evening.”

“I can’t think of one.”

It’s gotta be the uniform, she told herself as she assessed him carefully. “They must not let you out much if you think sharing my dinner break is your best option.”

“What can I say? I could use a friend. How about it?”

Kelly’s heart twisted hard. There was no mistaking the sincerity in his steady gaze. He meant those words. How could she say no? She knew a thing or two about wanting a friend. “You’ve got a deal.”

“Excellent. How do you like your hamburger?”

“With cheese and mayo, no onions and tomatoes.”

“I’ll be back in an hour. Thanks, Kelly. I’m glad I ran into you.”

“I’m glad, too.”

He was military-strong
and
nice. What a combo. She couldn’t help liking him. Who wouldn’t?

She watched him stride away, cutting through the long rays of sunlight and disappearing into the glare. She couldn’t help the little sigh that escaped her. The bell jingled and the door swished shut and he was gone.

The dying embers in her heart ached. Be careful, she warned herself, holding on tight to her common sense. A man like Mitch could make her want to believe. And it was the wanting that got her into trouble every time—the longing to belong, to be loved, to know that soft comfort of a loving marriage and family.

“Hey, who was that?” Back from her run to the bank, Katherine, Spence’s sister, swished behind the counter. “He looked like a very nice, very solid, very fine young man.”

“Oh, that was just a customer.”

“No, he was trying to ask you out. I happened to overhear. Accidentally, of course.” Katherine leaned against her closed office door, looking as if she’d just received the best news.