Mercenary's Woman ; Outlawed!

by Diana Palmer

  “No. I just don’t get asked out.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not kidding.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes and looked at him with a touch of defiance. “Guys just don’t see me that way.”

  “You sure you’re not putting up some kind of vibe against being approached?”

  She cocked her head, then nodded decisively. “That, too.”

  “You’re not putting out that vibe with me.” He let his hand curl into her hair again, and a whiff of flowery shampoo floated his way.

  Lord, help! He wasn’t going to be able to stop if he started kissing her.

  “I’m not putting out that vibe because... I’m drawn to you.” Her words were so quiet that Carlo had to lean in to hear them.

  He shut his eyes, still holding on to her. Lord, what do I do now?

  But he already knew the answer: back off. Fern was an amazing woman, one of a kind, and she deserved much better than someone as damaged and bad at relationships as he was. Someone who was, even now, withholding the truth from her. She deserved a real chance at love.

  He slid his hand out of her hair reluctantly, and put it on her shoulder. There, that was good. That was friendly and impersonal. “We’re both vulnerable. It’s been a long couple of days.” He swallowed hard and let his hand drop. Made himself lean back away from her.

  Her eyes widened with an expression of utter betrayal. “You made me tell you I’m attracted and then... Really, Carlo?”

  “I’m sorry.” His body was still at a fever pitch and he’d used up every ounce of his store of human kindness and patience and self-control. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “You’ve got that right.” She scrambled to her feet and spun around. “I can trust you to watch the fire, at least?” Her cheeks held high spots of color and her voice sounded shaky.

  “Um, sure.” Clearly, he’d done something wrong. He’d been trying to do the right thing, and he’d screwed up. At least with her, but maybe not with God, because backing off from romance, given the major secret he was keeping, was definitely the right thing to do.

  But keeping his emotional distance wasn’t easy, and he needed physical distance to do it. “I’ll handle the fire,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended. “Go on up to bed.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “MAMA FERN, MAMA Fern, there’s trucks outside! And it’s sunshining!” Forty pounds of excited four-year-old landed on Fern’s stomach.

  Fern squeezed her eyes against the bright light and wrapped her arms around Mercedes, turning on her side to snuggle the child close. “You’re my sunshine, sweets.”

  But inside, she felt as if one of those snowplows—which she could now hear scraping and grinding gears out on the road—had run right over her.

  After Carlo’s abrupt rejection, she’d tossed and turned much of the night. She’d replayed it over and over in her mind: the way he’d gotten her talking, the things he’d shared, how close she’d felt to him, how comfortable. Had that been false?

  She’d actually told him she was attracted to him. Hot embarrassment flooded her chest and neck and face even now.

  “Let’s go tell Mr. Carlo!” Mercedes wiggled in her arms and, when Fern let her go, bounced upright.

  Fern couldn’t face him, not yet. “Mama needs to shower and get dressed. You can go tell him.”

  “Okay!” The child jumped down to the floor and ran out, yelling, “Mr. Carlo! Mr. Carlo! There’s trucks!”

  It was just another stab, how quickly Mercedes had gotten attached to Carlo. She’d expect them to stay friends, would want to see him.

  Fern drew in deep breaths, a calming strategy she’d learned from a social worker way back when she was a kid and something awful happened. Just get through the next hour, the next week. Pretty soon the snowplows would break through, and they wouldn’t have to see each other every hour of every day.

  After that, Angelica would come home and Fern’s vacation would be over. She could go back to her small life in her little house down the street from the library. She could focus on Mercedes and her job and her children’s books. No more pretending that she could make it in the normal adult world of happy, promising relationships.

  She wrapped her arms around her hollow-feeling stomach and trudged to the bathroom, but even a long, hot shower didn’t lift her spirits.

  Breakfast felt strained, even punctuated by Mercedes’s happy talk and the sound of the plows and a few other vehicles driving by outside. Apparently, the county had gotten the road clear. Fern broke her own rule about keeping her phone away from the table and texted John Allen Bunting, who plowed the farm roads and driveways. From him she learned it would be another hour or two before they were fully out.

  Before Carlo could leave.

  Oh, she wanted him gone. It hurt to look at him. Because like a fool, she’d gone further than getting attracted to him. Somewhere during the past three days of snowbound privacy, she’d lost a piece of her heart to the man.

  To avoid him, she washed the breakfast dishes by hand, looking out the window into the blindingly sunny, snowy world. When would John Allen and his plow come? When could she escape this torture of being stuck in the house with the man who’d broken through the walls around her heart just so he could crush it?

  “Hey.” He touched her shoulder, a tiny taste of the fruit forbidden to her. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” That came out harsh, so she tossed him a fake smile to soften it. Trying to be subtle, she eased her shoulder out from under his hand.

  Instead of letting her go, he clamped his hand down tighter. “No. Uh-uh. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong!” She spun hard away from his hand and from that patient, patronizing tone in his voice. As if she were Mercedes’s age. Come on, John Allen, get your plow out here.

  He took a step backward, hands up. “Whoa. What’s going on? Are you upset about last night?”

  “Just...leave...me...alone.” She ground out the words through clenched teeth and turned back to the sink, plunging her hands into the warm, soapy water.

  He started to walk away and then turned back. “No. No, I’m not willing to leave it like that. The plows will be here soon and I—”

  “Let’s hope,” she interrupted and then stared down at the suds, taking deep breaths. “Where’s Mercedes? Would you mind keeping her busy for a little while?”

  “She’s playing with her dolls. She’s fine.”

  And indeed Fern could hear the chirp of Mercedes’s pretend voices from the living room.

  Get a grip on yourself. At all costs, she had to avoid letting him see into her soul again. Had to protect herself from more of the hurt that had kept her awake all night. Staying inside herself was safer.

  No fighting. That was too passionate. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked brightly, grabbing a cup and plunging it into the soapy water.

  “Fern. That’s already clean.” He reached in and pulled the cup away from her, and their hands touched in the soapy water, slippery and warm.

  Something like electricity shot through Fern’s hand, up her arm and straight to her heart. Carlo’s spicy aftershave tickled her nose.

  He sucked in his breath. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  She pulled away from all the feelings and shook her head.

  “Last night, I felt we were getting so close. And now you’ve shut me off.”

  “You shut me off!” The words burst from her and she clenched her jaw to keep from saying more.

  He was still standing so close, half behind her, and he leaned sideways to see her face.

  She tucked her head down, but heard his soft exclamation.

  He moved away and the space where he’d been felt cold, as cold as the icicles that hung outside the windows, sparkling and dripping in the sunlight.

 
And then he was back with a dish towel. He took her ever so gently by the elbows and pulled her away from the sink. Turned her around as if she were a child—and she was, size-wise, compared to him—and dried her hands. “Come on,” he said, pulling her toward the table. “Sit down. I have to talk to you.”

  She didn’t want this, didn’t want to get into some long discussion of her own inadequacies. Clearly, he felt bad. “It’s... I have a lot to do before the plows come. And you do, too. You have to get your stuff together.”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I know, but I think we’ve got ten minutes for a conversation, right?”

  She looked at the clock on the wall, an absurd teakettle with a face. “I’m not going to get out of this, am I?”

  “No, Fern. We need to talk.”

  She jerked out a kitchen chair and sat down. “So talk.” She was behaving like a sulky teenager, but it was better than being a lovesick idiot.

  He raised an eyebrow and spun another chair around so he could straddle it, leaning his arms on the chair’s back as he faced her. “I’m sorry I let those romantic feelings build last night. Is that what you’re upset about?”

  Let him think so. Let him think the mousy librarian was offended by his miserable joke of a pass. “Sure.”

  “I... I try to live a good Christian life, but of course I fail a lot, like every other human. You’re pretty and real and warm. I got attracted to you, and I let it show.”

  She nodded without looking at him. He hadn’t gotten all that attracted, apparently; he hadn’t even kissed her.

  He ran a hand over his hair. “In that kind of situation, when I’m feeling stressed or pressured or tempted, I try to grab on to God. He helps me, but it’s not always pretty.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sure you’ve been in that kind of situation a lot.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Lots of emergencies, yeah.”

  “Lots of women, too, I’m sure.” Why was she talking about this? She sounded like a jealous fool.

  He shook his head slowly. “Not so many women. I was thinking more of other kinds of danger. You get good at those battlefield prayers.” He studied her. “No, I haven’t felt like that about a woman in... Well, ever.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s true. There’s a, I don’t know, some kind of spiritual dimension to what I—”

  “Look, why are you trying to flatter me? It was crystal clear that you didn’t want to kiss me, and I understand that. There’s no need to pretend otherwise. In fact, it’s kind of insulting.”

  He reached out and put a hand on either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. “I’m not lying. I really wanted to kiss you.”

  Was it true? Could it be true?

  “I wish...” He broke off, shaking his head.

  “What?” He looked so concerned and so vulnerable that her hurt feelings floated away. Borne by that line he’d started to say... What was it? That there was a spiritual dimension to what he felt for her?

  Could a librarian and a mercenary be soul mates?

  He flashed a smile that just about devastated her. “I wish we could stay here awhile longer. Just the three of us.”

  And then he unstraddled the chair, stood and pulled her into a hug.

  She wanted to protest. Needed to protest, needed to stop this. But the truth was his touch felt wonderful. The careful and respectful way he cradled her against his chest made her feel safe, safe in a way she never had felt before in her life.

  She remembered seeing other kids held by their parents like this, cuddled lovingly but with nothing malicious in the intention, no worries that things were going to go in a wrong direction. The only times she’d been hugged or held, that she could remember anyway, there’d been an accompanying smell of liquor on the breath and hands where they shouldn’t have been. Those times, she’d struggled to get away.

  And she’d learned to cross her arms and look away and keep her distance. She’d learned that getting close only led to something that felt ugly, a mockery of closeness. With a flash she understood why nobody ever asked her out: she’d learned to put out the “go away” signal, and she’d forgotten to let go of it after she was an adult and safe.

  Only Carlo had cared enough to push past that barrier, and he’d done it last night. He’d gotten her to talk, and touch, and feel. He’d told her of his admiration for her and he’d listened closely to how she felt.

  And when the time came for them to make a decision about where to go next, he’d backed off respectfully, choosing the wiser route for both of them.

  Fern was an independent woman and she never, ever relied on anyone except herself. But maybe, just maybe, Carlo was someone else she could rely on a little bit.

  He brushed back her hair and touched the corner of her mouth and looked into her eyes without smiling. “I still want to kiss you.”

  From a place inside her that she hadn’t known existed came a half smile and a warm feeling. “Why don’t you do it, then?” The words came out in a husky whisper, not sounding like a prim, shy librarian at all.

  His eyes went dark and he looked at her lips, then back at her eyes. “You’re sure?”

  She only nodded, staring at him.

  “Whatever else happens,” he said, “whatever you see or hear or think in the future, just remember one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Her voice came out a breathy whisper and she was warm, so warm. She leaned toward him, her tongue wetting her dry lips. She’d never kissed anyone before, not except for a quick peck at the end of a bad date, but for some reason she had no fear at all. She knew Carlo could guide her through this.

  She let her hand tighten on his arm, feeling the muscle bulge beneath his thermal shirt, and drew in her breath with a gasp.

  “I want you to remember, this is what’s real.” He touched her cheek with the tenderness she’d longed for her whole life.

  And then he proceeded to kiss her thoroughly.

  * * *

  NOW, WHY HAD he done that? As soon as Fern got up and walked wobbly across the room, leaned back against the counter and stared at him, hand to her mouth, Carlo started yelling at himself inside his head.

  You’re an idiot!

  She’s gonna be even more upset when she finds out the truth!

  Should have stuck with the program from last night!

  But kissing her had felt so very good. So perfectly right, and that was something he’d never experienced before. Kissing her, and not just that, but being here with her, felt like coming home. To a home he’d never had.

  He was feeling an urge to pull Fern and Mercedes to him and never let go, to stay on a snowy farm with them forever.

  And to do that, he needed to tell her the truth before the plows broke through. The idea of letting her know that he was almost for sure Mercedes’s father made him break out sweating.

  “We need to talk,” he said before he could chicken out. “There’s something I—”

  “Let’s play a game!” Mercedes came racing in, her hair a messy tangle of curls, still in her princess nightgown. She flung herself against Fern, looking up. “Please?”

  So adorable, and Carlo felt a surge of love for her that was qualitatively different from anything he’d ever felt in his life. He’d lived to protect kids—that was half of what he’d been doing, fighting in Central America—but his own child multiplied anything he’d ever felt before by a number too big to name.

  Even more important that he tell Fern, so that the two of them could work it out and figure it out, could do this right, in a way that made it good for Mercedes. “We’ll play in a minute, honey,” he said as Fern scooped the child up. “I have to talk to Mama Fern first.”

  Fern snuggled her face into Mercedes’s hair and then cut her eyes at him. “But sometimes Mama Fern doesn’t like to talk. Right, Mercedes?”
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br />   “That’s right,” Mercedes explained to Carlo, her face serious. “Sometimes Mama Fern’s ears hurt from listening and her mouth hurts from talking, and we have to be quiet.”

  Fern’s cheeks went the most perfect shade of pink. “And that’s because...” she prompted.

  “It’s not anything bad about you,” Mercedes said, reaching out to pat Carlo’s arm reassuringly. “It’s just the way Mama is made.”

  Carlo’s heart expanded enough to hold a little more love. God bless a woman who could explain instead of yelling or shutting down, who could make a talkative little girl feel supportive and understanding about her mama’s need for quiet time.

  Fern was an amazing mother. And an amazing woman. And he really, really needed to find a way to tell her the truth.

  “What game should we play, sweets?” she asked.

  “I’ll go get one of Xavier’s!” Mercedes ran into the living room. He heard cupboard doors flung open, boxes rattling as they crashed to the ground. “Sorry,” Mercedes sang as she banged the boxes around.

  “Fern—”

  “Looks as if John Allen just started on the farm road,” she said, flitting away from him, hurrying through the door and into the living room to peer out the picture window. “It’ll be a while until he digs our vehicles out.”

  He followed. “But just real quick—”

  “It’s an introvert thing.” She put a hand on her hip and mock glared up at him. “Don’t you get it? I need time to process things before I can talk about them.”

  “Let’s play this one!” Mercedes produced a game from the stack and hurried to the fire. “You come sit here,” she ordered, tugging at Carlo until he caved in and sat where she was pointing. “And, Mama, you sit here.”

  She’d positioned the adults on either side of herself, and they formed a little semicircle facing the fire. Facing away from the window, from the outside world.