“When?” Nadine asked.
“Does it matter? There’s no school tomorrow.”
“I know, but—”
“Don’t worry, Nadine. They’ll be home in a little while.”
A few hours later, Sam was true to his word. He brought the boys into the house and dropped their overnight bags in the middle of the living room. His face was red and his eyes a little glazed from too much partying. Snow melted off his boots and clung to his collar.
“Hey, Mom, there’s already presents under the tree!” Bobby said, his eyes as round as saucers.
“A few from me.”
“Any from Monroe?” Sam asked, his eyes as cold as the December storm.
Bobby was already checking the brightly colored packages. “Santa’s still gonna come, isn’t he?”
“You bet. I baked some cookies today and you and I will make a special batch tomorrow.”
“Aw, Mom, there’s no such thing as—” John started to protest, but Nadine cast him a sharp look that shut him up.
Sam lingered, taking in the cozy room and frowning. “The boys say you’re pretty thick with Monroe.”
“We’ve seen a little of each other.”
He lifted his hat and rubbed his head. “You might as well know that I don’t approve.”
“I figured that,” she said, bristling.
“And don’t tell me it’s none of my business.”
“What I do with my life—”
“I’m talkin’ about the kids, damn it. They’re seeing entirely too much of the guy.” Sam was getting angry, and the drinks he’d obviously consumed had begun to affect his speech. He waved one arm wildly to make his point. “That son of a bitch is gonna close the mills—”
“He wouldn’t do that, Dad,” John said.
“What would you know about it?”
“I like him. He’s a good guy.”
“What he is,” Sam said, weaving a little, “is a no-good, pampered rich bastard, and I don’t like him buying fancy things for my boys.”
“It’s not like that, Dad,” John argued.
“You back-talkin’ me?” Sam asked, lunging a little as he caught John by the collar.
“Let go of him!” Nadine stepped in front of her son as if to use her body as a barrier. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on him,” she warned.
But Sam was suddenly mad at the world. “You’re too easy on the kids. Git out of my way.” He tried to push Nadine aside, but she held her ground.
“You’d better leave.”
“Why?” He rolled back on his heels and smiled sickly. “So you can entertain your rich boyfriend?”
“That’s enough!”
Sam’s glazed eyes narrowed in hatred. “So have you given it to him yet? You always wanted to. Don’t think I didn’t know it. Every time we were in bed, you were thinking about him, imagining that I—”
“Stop it!” she cried, marching to the door and opening it. Cold wind crept in and the fire stoked higher. “Go on, Sam. Go sleep it off.”
“I think I’ll stay here. Too dangerous for me to drive.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“Come on, Nadine. Let me stay. For old times.” His grin turned into a leer and he started for her, but tripped on the edge of the rug. “Goddamn it,” he said, reaching for anything to keep his balance. He stumbled over the coffee table, caught hold of the branch of the tree and grabbed on, but the little Christmas tree was no match for his weight. It toppled to the floor and one branch fell into the fireplace. With a rush of air, the dry needles ignited and flames consumed them.
“Oh, God! Sam, watch out! Boys, get out quick!” Nadine cried, and when her sons stood immobile, she screamed. “Now! Outside, run over to the Thornton’s, have them call the fire department!”
Trying to get free of the tree, Sam was screaming. Both boys took off through the front door and Hershel gave chase. Nadine ran to the kitchen, grabbed the fire extinguisher and started spraying, but it was too late, the fire had caught on the rug and curtains. Flames leapt high in the tree and though Sam was free, his clothes were on fire. He was screaming horribly.
She didn’t hear him arrive, but suddenly Hayden was there, shouting orders, yelling at her to go outside to the lake, kicking at the tree with his boots and dragging a writhing Sam from the conflagration.
Adrenaline pumped through Nadine’s bloodstream, she grabbed a photo album and her purse from a table, and then she, in horror, helped Hayden drag Sam outside, down the rise in the ground, toward the lake. They yanked off his clothes, leaving him in his underwear. His screams filled the night and snow melted on his skin.
Nadine glanced frantically around for her boys in the darkness, but they and the dog had disappeared and her little cottage, her pride and joy, the only possession she held dear had become an inferno and reflected in bloodred shadows on the snow.
“You’re gonna be all right,” Hayden said to Sam.
“Help me. God Almighty, help me.”
“Help’s coming.” Hayden took Nadine’s hand. “Stay with him but give me your keys.”
“My what—?” But she was already digging through her purse. In the distance, she heard the first wail of a siren.
Hayden stripped the keys from her shaking hands and ran toward the house. She screamed at him until she saw him climb into her little Nova, back the car as far from the conflagration as possible and park.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, still searching the night for her children. “John? Bobby? Please, please—” They wouldn’t have run back into the house, would they? Searching for her, the boys wouldn’t have gone into the kitchen through the back door?
Terror squeezed her heart and she heard Sam moan. Dropping to her knees she tried to hold his hand and comfort him, keeping snow against his skin as she searched the darkness.
Hayden jogged back to her as the first window exploded.
“Oh, God—the boys?” she cried.
“They’ll be fine,” he said, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her forehead. “Thank God. Just hang in here. Be strong.” In a second he released her and was bending over Sam. “Help will be here soon.” And for the first time Nadine realized how close Sam had come to death. She heard her children running along the shoreline with the neighbors, and thankfully Jane Thornton, a nurse who worked at the county hospital and lived on the south shore of the lake was with them. She immediately tended to Sam as Nadine gathered her boys close.
Flames shot through the dry roof of the house, flickering red fingers reaching hellishly toward the black night sky, and tears began to fall from Nadine’s eyes. Everything was gone. Everything she’d worked for, every possession she’d held dear.
“You’re safe now,” Hayden whispered into her ear.
“But the cabin—”
“It can be rebuilt.”
“No, I—everything’s in there—”
“Not everything,” he said, his voice rough, tears glistening in his eyes. “You’ve got me. And the boys. Forever.”
She glanced up at him, hardly daring to believe him.
Sirens wailed closer. Firelight shone in his eyes. The stench of smoke filled the air. Trucks with firemen rolled into the yard. An ambulance slid to a stop and paramedics quickly took over, helping Sam. Within minutes they’d taken him to County Hospital after assuring Nadine that he would survive.
She watched for over an hour as the firemen doused the flames and her cabin was reduced to a dripping, blackened skeleton.
When the firemen finally left, tears drizzled from her eyes. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “It’s all gone.”
Hayden held her tighter. “I came here to ask you to be my wife, Nadine, and when I saw you in the fire, that there was a chance I could lose you, I...I knew I’d never live without you. Marry me.” He kissed her on the lips. “Please. Tell me you’ll be my wife.”
“I—”
“I love you,” he said, and his face was serious with emotions that burned deep in his
soul. “Make this Christmas our first as a family.”
She laughed and cried at the same time. Relief mingled with happiness as snow settled on the remains of a cottage where she’d brought her children into the world, suffered through her divorce and made love to Hayden.
Her gaze drifted over his shoulder, past the dark depths of Whitefire Lake to the lights glowing in the distance. Her new home. With Hayden.
Her throat so thick she could barely speak, she gathered her boys close. “I guess we get to start over,” she said, her eyes shining as she stared into Hayden’s eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
EPILOGUE
FROM THE LANDING on the stairs of her new home, Nadine tossed her bridal bouquet to the crowd gathered in her foyer. A scream of delight went up when Carlie Surrett caught the flowers.
Half the town had been invited to the hastily planned wedding, including the Surretts, in an attempt to mend all the old rifts. A pianist was playing love songs on the baby grand in the living room and guests mingled and danced, talked and laughed and sipped champagne.
As she descended toward the crowd, Nadine spied Hayden, dressed in a black tuxedo, his eyes as blue as a summer morning. “It seems to be some pagan tradition that we dance,” he whispered into her ear.
Nadine smiled up at him. In the living room, they started the dance, with a crowd of onlookers watching. Tiny white lights were strewn in the potted plants and twelve-foot Christmas tree in the corner. Eventually, one by one, other couples followed their lead. Heather Brooks, draped in shimmery pale blue, danced with Turner, who, dressed in a Western-cut black suit, his blond-streaked hair unruly as ever, winked broadly at Nadine. “I get the next dance,” he said, and Hayden grinned. “Not on your life.”
Rachelle and her husband, Jackson Moore, took a turn about the floor and Rachelle’s hazel eyes were full of a secret only a few people knew. In the spring, she and Jackson would become parents. She laughed up at her husband and he held her with a possession that bordered upon fierce.
“Everyone’s happy,” Hayden said.
“Mmm.” Even her father, sitting in the corner chair, was talking and laughing with Ellen Little, Heather and Rachelle’s mother, and Nadine’s heart warmed.
Only Ben seemed out of place. Grudgingly, he’d accepted Hayden as his brother-in-law. Since Hayden had decided to stay in Gold Creek and run the sawmills he’d inherited, not as his father had from a distance, but here, as a citizen of the town, Ben had decided he might turn out all right.
The fact that Hayden approved of his new wife’s career and was willing to help her get started with her wearable art had convinced Ben that Hayden wasn’t all bad.
Even John and Bobby were having a good time, though John spent entirely too much time at the punch bowl with Katie Osgood.
The music changed, and Hayden drew his wife through the French doors to the back deck. “Hey... What?” she asked, as he led her, running through the snow and dark night, down a lighted path to the shores of the lake. “Are you crazy?” she cried, as he pulled her to the ground and her dress was suddenly wet from the snow.
With a devilish grin, he scooped up a handful of the icy water and held it to his bride’s lips. “Drink,” he ordered, “and let the God of the Sun or whatever bless us.”
“I think he already has.” She sipped the water from his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “You’re going to be a father.”
“I’m what—?”
“John and Bobby won’t be the only children,” she said, and watched as he blinked rapidly.
“Oh, God.”
“Happy?”
In answer, he drew her into his arms and kissed her long and hard, but she pulled away, and giggling, offered him a scoop of lake water.
“Don’t be greedy,” she said, as he touched his lips to her palm and the water dripped through her fingers.
“Me?” His blue eyes sparked with an inner fire and his fingers twined in her hair, dragging her face to bare inches from his own. “There’s only one thing on this earth I can never get enough of, lady,” he vowed, his voice growing gruff with conviction, “and you may as well know that one thing is you.”
His lips found hers, and as an owl hooted softly in the trees, Nadine was certain she heard the ghosts of the lake whisper their blessing on the rich boy of Gold Creek.
* * * * *
He’s My Soldier Boy
Contents
Prologue
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
BOOK TWO
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Prologue
Whitefire Lake, California
The Present
CARLIE SURRETT!
That woman had been the bane of Ben Powell’s existence for over eleven years and he’d thought...no, he’d vowed he would never lay eyes on her again.
“Yeah, and you’re a damned fool,” he said to himself as he brushed off the snow that had collected around his collar. Still cursing his luck, he yanked open the door of his secondhand pickup and reached inside. A six-pack of beer was on the worn seat, and he slipped one of the longnecks from the carton. With a frown, he opened the bottle by placing the edge of the cap on a rusted fender and snapping down hard—a trick he’d learned ages ago when he’d first enlisted. The cap spun off into a snowbank and foam spewed over the lip of the bottle to run down his fingers as he lifted the beer to his mouth and took a satisfying pull.
Why couldn’t he get Carlie out of his mind?
Muttering oaths under his breath, he kicked the door shut and stared at the rubble that had been his sister Nadine’s lakeside cabin. Once charming, the cottage was now only twisted black metal, charred beams and a sagging soot-covered chimney. Ash and debris. Nothing worth saving.
Nadine had asked him to rebuild it. His eyes narrowed on the snow drifting on the cold pile of ash. Did she really want to give him a job or was her offer merely a handout to her only surviving brother, a man who had to start over in this shabby little town? After her wedding today, Nadine would be able to build a damned palace on this side of the lake. She could hire a bevy of architects, builders, and yes-men who would bow and fawn over the new Mrs. Hayden Garreth Monroe IV.
Damn! He should be pleased, he told himself. Nadine had struggled for years. But was marrying Monroe, that class-A bastard born with a silver spoon wedged firmly between his teeth, the break she deserved? Why not just sell her soul to the devil?
And why invite Carlie to the ceremony?
“Son of a bitch.” Angry at himself and the world in general, Ben picked his way over the frozen path to the dock. His knee hurt like hell, compliments of embedded shrapnel from that skirmish in the Middle East, and his pride had been bruised and battered over the course of the past decade, starting over a decade ago in this very town. With Carlie Surrett. Beautiful, seductive, treacherous Carlie. She’d managed to destroy Ben’s brother as well as rip Ben’s world apart in the bargain.
And now he’d have to face her again. All because of his sister and her insistence that it was time to let bygones be bygones. “Thanks a lot, Nadine.”
Through the snow swirling to the ground, he shot a glance across the angry gray waters of Whitefire Lake where lights glowed warmly from the windows of Monroe Manor—Hayden’s mansion on the lake. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney and twinkling Christmas lights, still glowing though the holiday season was long over, glimmered in the gloomy day. I hope you know what you’re doing, Nadine, he thought anxiously. She was the only person left in the world that he really cared about. He’d never forgiven their mother for turning her back on the family when the going got tough, and his father...well, the old man had never gotten over Kevin
’s death...which brought Ben’s thoughts back to Carlie again. Always Carlie. He scowled darkly, then took another long swallow from his bottle.
A north wind, raw as January, blew across the choppy surface of the water and sliced through his dress uniform.
Today was the big day—the day of reckoning, or rejoicing, of ignoring decade-old feuds and, in Ben’s opinion, of doom. He should be on his way to the wedding, but he couldn’t stomach all the small talk, gossip and curious stares his presence was bound to inspire. No, he’d wait until the last minute, then stand in the back and watch his sister make one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
He glanced at his watch. The ceremony was scheduled to start in less than an hour. His guts twisted just thinking about the fact that he’d probably see Carlie there. He’d been furious when Nadine had told him that Carlie was on the guest list.
“Are you out of your mind?” Ben had demanded of his sister. “It’s bad enough you’re going to marry Monroe—” He’d caught the mutinous set of his sister’s jaw and held up a hand in surrender. “Sorry, Nadine, but I never did like the guy and you know it as well as I do. I’m not gonna stand here and tell you that all of a sudden I think he’s a wonderful choice—”
“Enough, Ben,” she’d warned.
He’d plowed on. “But if that isn’t bad enough, you invite Carlie Surrett?”
“It’s time to bury hatchets, Ben. All of them.”
“You’ve really lost it, Nadine. First marrying Monroe, that’s... Well, it’s damned unbelievable. But inviting Carlie...”
“Just behave yourself,” Nadine had said, her green eyes glittering with an impish light that meant she was scheming again.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m the model of civility.”
“Yeah, right. And I’m the pope. Save that one for someone who’ll believe it.”
She’d turned the conversation back to rebuilding the cabin. The topic of her wedding had been effectively closed and she was going to have her way come hell or high water. Ben, like it or not, would have to abide by her whimsical, I’m-the-bride-and-I’ll-do-as-I-damned-well-please wishes.