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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Get your head in the damn game, man.
“Yeah.” He sighed heavily, reaching for the foam coffee cup in the holder next to his seat. The coffee was cold; they’d grabbed it on the way out of the airport. Since then, they’d driven for four hours but hadn’t even made it out of New Jersey. At this rate, the bloody blizzard would be ahead of them by the time they got to Pennsylvania.
“I’d be happy to drive. I don’t imagine you’ve had much snow-driving experience lately.”
“You might be surprised.”
“But you’ve been in Afghanistan, haven’t you?”
“It gets cold as hell in some parts of the country in the winter. And hotter than Satan’s frying pan in the summer.”
She shuddered in distaste. “I can’t wait for you to get out of there for good.”
Finally a subject he could smile about. “It’s done.”
“What?”
“That’s why I’m so anxious to get home to Chicago. My Christmas present is telling the family that I’ve finally rotated out of active duty. My last year in the rangers will be spent training recruits, stateside.”
God knew he’d earned it. His visits home over the past seven years had been few and far between, every rotation out of a hot zone quickly rescinded when violence flared up again. But this time, it was official, signed and sealed. He was to report to Benning after the first of the year. One year in Georgia, then he’d be free to return to his real life.
What his real life was, he had no idea. He just knew it would include home and family. Maybe not the one he’d once dreamed of having, considering the woman beside him was married to another man. But he couldn’t deny he was looking forward to being a Santori again, rather than a captain in the rangers.
“I can’t believe it. I’m so happy for you...and for your family. This will be the best Christmas present your parents could have asked for.”
“It’s the best one I’ve ever gotten, believe me.”
“I see them sometimes, you know.”
“My parents?” He glanced over, surprised. Although they’d only been together a few months, he’d brought her around the clan enough to show them she’d really meant something to him. Funny that none of his family’s letters or emails had hinted that they’d seen her.
Maybe because the family was big on fidelity. She was a married woman now. He needed to keep reminding himself of that.
It could also be because all anybody wanted to talk about lately was the fact that Leo was going to be a father. His kid brother apparently had a new fiancée and a baby on the way. Their mother might be big on marriage and fidelity, but she was out of her mind with excitement over being a grandmother. She wasn’t complaining one bit about the fact that Leo hadn’t yet wed this Madison woman he’d met just a few months ago.
Leo, married. And a father. He had a hard time imagining it. Of course, considering Leo’d had a near miss when he’d almost married a barracuda last year, Rafe could only imagine he was going to love Madison...if only because she wasn’t Leo’s ex.
“My place isn’t far from your cousin Tony’s restaurant,” Ellie was saying. “I get carryout from there all the time.”
Son of a bitch. And Tony had never said a word.
“You and your...husband, do you go in there a lot?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say anything, the tires hit a slick spot and the car began to slide.
“Damn it,” he snarled. Gripping the wheel in his clenched hands, he steered into the skid, not fighting it and not braking, knowing that would send them spinning wildly. The road might be nearly deserted, but the guardrails wouldn’t do much to keep them from going down a steep embankment on one side if they drifted too close to it.
He managed to get the skid under control and eased the car back into what he figured was his lane. It was nearly impossible to make out the yellow dividing line. The snow was coming down so hard the plows and salt trucks just couldn’t keep up.
“This isn’t going to work,” he told her, cursing himself for bringing her out here in weather this bad. Jesus, he could get them both killed if he kept on. It was crazy to keep driving. “Maybe we should pull off.”
“And go where?”
He’d seen signs for a town called Columbia, and an information billboard indicated there were some hotels at the next exit, which should be coming up within a few miles. “Let’s see if we can get a room....” He cleared his throat. “I mean, a couple of rooms for the night. We’ll try again in the morning after the plows have done a better job.”
“Aren’t we going to be following the worst of the storm then, rather than staying ahead of it?”
“We’re going to be stuck on the highway if we don’t stop,” he said. And while the gas tank was still half-full, no way did he want to spend an entire night out here, stranded, with the gas slowly running out and the heat going right along with it. “I’m really sorry, Ellie. I guess this wasn’t a great idea.”
She reached over and squeezed his leg, just above the knee. The touch shocked him and sent heat rushing through his entire body. It was all he could do not to flinch hard enough to send the car into another skid.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I trust your judgment. Let’s get off the road, Rafe. We’ll get up as soon as it’s daylight and make up a lot of time.”
Right. Early in the morning, which was about eight hours from now. They just had to find a room—two rooms—and get through one night together.
He’d spent seven years in one violent, death-filled pit after another. Surely he could spend one night with the woman he’d once loved beyond reason, who was now lost to him.
One night. And in the morning everything would be much more clear...from the roads to his own head.
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