A Soldier's Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas / Presents Under the Tree / If Only in My Dreams. Leslie Kelly
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been insatiable for each other, and no woman he’d been with, before or since, had ever made him lose his mind and be willing to give up his very soul to have her.
It had been about more than sex, though. She’d been the first woman he’d really loved. Make that the only woman. She’d been his rock when they’d been together, and his steadying fantasy once he’d forced her away. He couldn’t count the number of times the thought of her had calmed him in a moment so tense he’d been sure he’d snap.
And now, she really was out of his life. For good. Forever. No going back, no changing things, even though he wished he could erase that last conversation, when he’d told her he wouldn’t be calling again.
He’d done his job all too well and she’d taken him at his word. That was probably the best thing for her. Unfortunately, acknowledging he should be happy for her, that she was better off, didn’t stop his gut from churning or his muscles from clenching.
“Good band,” she said.
“I guess. If you enjoy this kind of music.”
He didn’t, usually, preferring classic rock to the jazzy, blues-type stuff the musicians had been playing tonight. But he had to admit, this was a lot better to dance to...if the object of the dance was getting as close as possible to a woman who drove you crazy.
“I do,” she said, turning to face him as soon as they reached the edges of the swaying crowd, though neither started to dance. “I guess I’m old-fashioned. Remember? We went to that techno club one night and I ended up getting a migraine and we had to leave?”
He remembered. A smile tugged at his lips. “I believe that was because of the Long Island iced teas.”
Her brow furrowed as she remembered. “Oh. Right.”
She sounded sheepish and appeared embarrassed by the memory. Not to mention cute as hell.
“How many was it...six? Seven?”
“Four,” she snapped. “They tasted just like regular iced tea.”
“You were such an innocent.”
“You weren’t. You let me drink them.”
“Sorry. I regretted it when I realized how sick you were.”
“You regretted it more when I threw up on the way home.”
He lifted a hand to her hair, unable to resist fingering one of those flaming strands. “I held your hair out of the way.”
“Not one of my finest moments.”
Maybe not. But what he most remembered about that night was how strangely good it had felt to take care of her. He’d never experienced that with a woman before, that desire to make sure she was safe and healthy.
That night, he’d made a resolution to never do anything to hurt her, if he could possibly avoid it. And stringing her along while he was in Iraq...that had hurt her, and would continue to hurt her. Which was why he’d forced himself to let her go.
“Well?” she said, holding her hands up. They’d been standing there talking as dancing couples moved around them.
He hesitated, aware that taking her in his arms would simply cement his certainty that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life in letting her go.
The song fell somewhere between slow and fast. And this wasn’t the type of place for the arms-around-neck, hands-on-butt, bodies-crammed-together type of movement he was used to from the old days, when he’d done things like going to parties or clubs and finding a hot girl to hook up with.
Christ, those days seemed to belong to somebody else’s mental scrapbook. They were so far removed from the life he lived now.
Ellie, though? Ellie was connected to just about every good thought he’d had during the long, lonely, dangerous years he’d spent in a far-off land where everyone was either friend or enemy and there was often no real way of telling them apart until it was too damned late.
“I’m not the best dancer,” she said, as if noticing his hesitation and interpreting it as a lack of confidence in his dancing ability. Not in his own sanity at having shoved aside the one perfect relationship he’d ever had.
“You’re talking to the king of two left feet, remember?”
“I suppose you must’ve gotten more nimble.” Her smile was faint, but there was a searching concern in her pretty green eyes.
“I suppose.”
Yeah, he’d done some dancing in Iraq. Considering it seemed the entire country was mined, any soldier who wasn’t quick on his feet risked losing them.
He thrust off those thoughts. He only had the length of one song to build up a lifetime of memories with the woman he’d never been able to forget. And what he’d feel in those moments seemed worth any lingering regrets later.
He drew her close, resting one hand on her hip, the other twining with hers at their sides. They began to sway, and he found it easier than he’d figured. Maybe because he wasn’t concentrating on his feet or even on the music. Only on how it felt to finally be pressed against her soft body, remembering the first time he’d made love to her, in his crappy old apartment. They’d been insatiable, locked together, naked, hot and hungry...for hours. He’d buried himself inside her body, sure he’d never felt anything as good as being wrapped tightly in all that heat. He’d lost himself in her, and hadn’t ever wanted to find his way back out.
Now, looking down into those eyes, into that sweet, heart-shaped face, he lost himself again in those moments, as if the past four ugly years hadn’t even happened.
“I’m glad to see you, Ellie,” he murmured, meaning it. He couldn’t regret finding her, even if it meant coming face-to-face with the reality that he’d never be with her, that she really had moved on and fallen in love with another man. That she would wear someone else’s ring and have someone else’s babies.
Rings and babies hadn’t been on his mind when he’d left Chicago four years ago. War had. Fighting and adventure and adrenaline and patriotism. Living up to some standard of manhood that Hollywood and boasting friends said every guy should.
Tonight...holding her in his arms, knowing she’d never be there again—he didn’t think he would ever stop wondering if he’d made the wrong decision.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” she finally replied, her voice soft, hesitating, as if she was unsure what to say. Maybe she figured admitting she was glad to see him, too, would have been disloyal to her fiancé.
Her fiancé. His stomach churned at the word and every muscle in his body tensed.
He was envious of a man he’d never met, and would never meet. Envious of the years that man would have with Ellie, of the future they’d build. Jealous as hell of the nights they’d sleep side by side and the mornings they’d wake up bathed in sunlight as they listened for the little footsteps of their children.
Around them, the voices of the crowd began to swell. The announcer was saying something, the band had segued from smooth jazz into a raucous celebration. He faintly heard someone calling off the numbers, counting down from ten. The revelers were ticking off another year, consigning to the past everything that had come before this particular minute in time.
He and Ellie stopped dancing, remaining very still in the middle of the floor, staring at each other. He saw so much in those aquamarine eyes—from love to anger to fear to longing—that part of him wished he’d left her alone, just walked away when she’d told him there was someone else.
“Happy New Year!”
Voices rang out, happy shouts, and the band began to play “Auld Lang Syne.” All around them, couples stopped to kiss in the New Year, expressing hope for a wonderful, happy future.
This was the end of all he and Ellie had ever been and all they would ever be. He’d