Rhonda+Nelson+-+The+Soldier (15 page)

had to prove that he was normal. That he could be the same guy.

And that same guy had never

planned on this.

On Winnie.

As if he’d called her name, she stirred behind him, slid her knee further between his legs and

cuddled closer. He knew the exact moment when she awoke because her breathing changed—

hitched a bit—then settled back into rhythm.

He put his hand over hers and squeezed. “Morning,” he said, his voice rusty.

“Hmm,” she agreed sleepily.

Unable to help himself, he turned to face her. Morning light gleamed over her messy, black curls

and painted her skin with an ethereal glow. Her lips were soft and pink and a wash of color

stained her cheeks. If he’d ever seen anyone so beautiful in his life, he couldn’t recall it.

Adam smiled at her. “You’re gorgeous, you know that?”

Her dark blue eyes widened with surprise, then the color deepened. She lowered her lashes,

looking away. “Thank you.”

He blinked as a thought occurred to him. “I’ve never told you that before, have I?”

She bit her bottom lip and gave her head a small shake. “Not that I can remember, no.”

And she would have remembered, he knew. Adam tsked under his breath and shook his head.

“I’m sorry. I’ve always thought it, you know? Even before the night we shipped off last year.”

And he had. While admittedly he’d never been romantically interested in her until then, he’d

always been aware of how finely she was made. She had an interesting face. Wide forehead,

heavily lashed blue eyes with a slight slant that neatly harmonized with her cheekbones. Smallish

chin and the mouth…A mouth that was what wet dreams were made of. It was shockingly sexy.

Seemingly intrigued, Winnie peered over at him. “You did?

Really?”

“I did.”

“Hmm.”

What sort of hmm was that? Adam wondered. He frowned. “What do you mean hmm?”

“You never said anything.”

“I was a fool.” He smiled. “And at the time I was a lot more interested in getting a hit off your

knuckle ball than looking at your ass.” He reached down and filled his hand with a cheek.

“Which is also especially fine.”

She chuckled wryly. “Yes, well. I’m sure there isn’t anything I can tell you that I haven’t told

you before.”

He’d certainly had the advantage there, Adam thought. While she’d never been particularly

vocal or forthright with her feelings, Adam had never had to wonder about how Winnie Cuthbert

felt for him.

She’d loved him for as long as he could remember.

He’d said it to her a minute ago, but it beared repeating. “I was a fool.”

Winnie ran the pad of her cool finger along his jaw. “Yes, but you’ve always been my fool.”

And he was a fool for her now. Too little too late.

Evidently sensing the change in his mood, she cuddled next to him once more. “So…what’s on

the agenda today?”

“You mean aside from going up to McKinney Point and having my wicked way with you so that

we can fulfill one of your secret wishes?” He looked down at the floor. “I’ve, er…” He hated to

bring this up, but it couldn’t be avoided. “I need to go home for a couple of hours and pack.” His

mother, the saint, had been doing his laundry for the past couple of days in preparation.

Winnie went utterly still. “Pack? You mean you’re not coming back tomorrow afternoon?”

Damn. He should have mentioned this sooner. “No,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’m relatively

certain of the outcome. I’ll get new orders. There will be a bit of paperwork that will need to be

taken care of on base, so to expedite matters I’ll stay there until I go back to Baghdad.”

“Oh.”

One word and it slayed him.

“I…see.” Winnie sat up and looked away from him. “Excuse me a minute,” she said, her voice

hoarse. “Erm…Nature calls.”

Dammit, he’d made her cry, he thought as she darted naked to the bathroom. The sound of the

faucet rang out like a gunshot in the quiet house. Behind him, Fido meowed loudly, twitched his

tail, then dropped from the bed and went in search of Winnie.

A few minutes later, her lashes a bit wet, she donned an off-center smile and came back into the

bedroom. “So when were you planning on going home today then?”

“Winnie you don’t have to pretend for me, okay? I know you’re upset.” He felt like a first-class

bastard.

Her smiled slipped. “I am,” she admitted. “You know my heart as well as I do, Adam, so I don’t

have to explain why.” She drew in a bracing breath. “But I agreed to your terms—happily,” she

emphasized, her voice breaking. “And I’m not wasting a single moment that I have left with you

crying over the fact that you’re leaving. You’re here now,” she said. “And for now, that’s all that

matters.”

“Are you sure?”

A sad smile touched her lips. “You know better than to even ask me that.”

He blew out a breath. “I actually thought I’d head over this morning and get everything put

together.”

He had another errand too, one that he was desperately determined to see to now. He wanted to

get her something, a small token of his gratitude. If she hadn’t barged into his bedroom two

weeks ago, who knows what might have happened to him? Winnie had dragged him from the

edge of the unknown and set him back on the path he was meant to tread.

She nodded once. “Okay. So you’ll be back later, then?”

“Most definitely. I’m yours until…”

Another sad grin. “Until you have to go,” she finished.

He nodded once more, dreading that moment more than he had anything else in his entire life.

WINNIE DROPPEDADAMoff at his house and, with a sinking heart and the sound of the clock

ticking loudly in her mind, reversed out of the drive and made her way back to her own little

cottage.

Into her garage, specifically.

Though she’d taken Adam’s parking spot sign down when he’d gone away to college, she’d

been unable to throw it into the trash. Too many hours spent agonizing over the paint and

thinking about the girls he’d taken up to McKinney Point had made it nearly impossible to chuck

into the garbage like any normal woman would have done.

But Winnie was not normal.

She’d been neurotically in love with the same guy for more than a decade. That feeling had

never shaken, waned or wavered. Not once, in spite of the fact that he’d never returned those

feelings.

Or at least he hadn’t…until now.

Winnie didn’t know what sort of change had come over Adam, didn’t know the exact moment

when he’d fallen for her, too, but she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had. She could

read it in every look, feel it in every touch. She saw it when those wonderful eyes went soft and

indulgent, felt it when he pressed an affectionate kiss to her cheek.

The tender way he tugged her

to him, the playful sling of his shoulders around hers. He was happy with her. Truly, genuinely

happy.

And this wasn’t a product of wishful thinking or false hope.

Adam loved her.

Whether he knew it or not.

Thankfully, years of observing his behavior had served her in good stead. She knew the best

possible thing she could do at the moment was simply be herself.

To take what he was giving

her.

Despite the excuse Adam maintained—the fact that he was leaving

—Winnie knew something

else was at play here. Things, she suspected, he hadn’t even admitted to himself. In many ways

he was the same old Adam, the confident, irreverent, driven boy she’d fallen in love with long

ago.

But in other ways—particularly since the accident—he was different.

There was a weariness around his eyes that never truly left, an occasional haunting expression

when she wondered if he was reliving the horrific event. Adam was clinging to the life he’d had

before almost too hard, as if the injury would swallow him whole if he made any concessions for

it at all.

Admittedly this morning when he’d told her that he wouldn’t be returning to Bethel Bay after

his meeting, she’d had a little meltdown. She’d thought that they’d have some time together

before he actually left for Iraq. More time to work him around to her way of thinking, to

convince him that he didn’t want to be without her.

No doubt Adam thought a clean break would be in both of their best interests—particularly

hers—and that was more than likely the reasoning behind his decision to remain on base. She’d

faltered when he’d told her because she’d counted on that additional time, had grown attached to

it even, and didn’t want to miss a minute with him before he boarded a flight bound for the

Middle East.

His change to her plans had thrown her into an emotional tailspin, and she’d suddenly found

herself on the verge of breaking into tears, which would have been unacceptable behavior on her

part. It would only serve to make him feel guiltier and all the more determined to go before

doing her further damage.

Noble idiot, she thought, stashing the sign and a rubber mallet in the back of her SUV. She slid

behind the wheel and made her way up to McKinney Point, found Adam’s old spot and replanted

the sign.

Ah, Winnie thought, as the mallet swung limply from her hand.

Now this is more like it. She’d

suffered endless hours of agony wishing that he’d been up here with her, desperately hoping that

she could be the girl in his arms, the girl who was helping him fog up the windows in his old

Chevy.

Weekend after weekend, hour after hour, girl after girl.

A slither of satisfaction moved through her veins. It was her turn, by God, and she had every

intention of taking it while she could. Furthermore, she was just competitive enough to want

their time together up here to obliterate the memory of any other girl in his head.

And if she had to act like a bonafide tramp to make it happen, then she would.

Winnie was staking her claim.

He might be determined to leave her and never come back, but dammit, she was going to make

it hard for him. Leaving her—leaving what they could be—would not be easy.

She wanted him to fight for her, to fight for them.

The fact that he could take his prosthesis off—an act that made him more vulnerable than

anything else—and spend the night in her bed ought to tell him that he was safe with her. More

specifically, that they were safe.

Last night when he’d settled onto the bed and started to remove his leg, she’d watched the

anxiety race across his face—the barest hint of fear—and tried to imagine herself in his place.

Tried to imagine the fear of needing to act in an instant, get up from bed…and realize that she

couldn’t. The thought absolutely terrified her. Granted he could be into the leg in less than ten

seconds, but that didn’t lessen the knowledge that he was completely vulnerable.

He’d been vulnerable with her and it was one of the most precious gifts he could have ever

given her. He’d allowed himself to be defenseless, because he cared enough about her to want to

stay, because he wanted to be with her more than he was afraid not to be.

Winnie got back into her car and released a shaky breath as she looked at Adam’s sign. Tonight

had been a dozen years in the making.

And she never imagined she’d have so much riding on the outcome.

13

ASWINNIE’S FINGERSthreaded through his, Adam wheeled her car—she’d insisted that he

drive, that it was an important part of her fantasy—onto the little dirt road that officially led to

McKinney Point. His eyes widened when the headlights swung onto a familiar piece of scenery.

“You didn’t,” he said, stunned. “You painted another sign?”

Winnie grinned. “Not another sign. That’s the sign.”

He pulled into the space and cut his eyes to her. “The sign? You mean the same one?”

“One in the same.”

He gave his head a bewildered shake. “You kept it?”

Winnie tuned the radio into a soft rock station and turned it down low. “Of course,” she said, as

though that were completely reasonable. “I put a lot of work into that sign and a lot of hours

wondering who you were parked in front of it with,” she told him.

“I couldn’t just throw it away.

It had too much history.”

He grunted. “Another sign is starting to make sense,” he said, still stunned.

She frowned and popped two buttons on the front of her shirt, momentarily distracting him with

her cleavage. “What sign?”

“The one above your back door.”

She chuckled and crawled over into his lap, straddling him. “You mean ‘I like my crazy’?” She

kissed the corner of his mouth, wiggled sensuously against him. “I do, as it happens.”

He couldn’t keep up, not when she was on him like this. Kissing him, rubbing against him,

making him hot. “What?”

She smiled against his lips. “Doesn’t matter. I thought we were here to make out. Did you talk

with all those other girls?”

Adam framed her face with his hands, angled her head and deepened the kiss. “I don’t

remember any other girls.”

Winnie smiled against his lips. “Ooo. Right answer.”

And then she was everywhere. Tugging at his shirt, slipping her small hand into his pants. Her

fingers slid around him and tugged expertly bringing him perilously close to ending this makeout

session before it ever really began. He slid his hands down her back, then up over her thighs

beneath her skirt and gasped when he found nothing but bare flesh beneath.

“No panties?”