Unforgettable Christmas Dreams: Gifts of Joy

by Rebecca York

  “Wait! Don’t go!”

  But the demand came too late. He was already gone. And Simon was moving to the headstone he’d touched, had obviously wanted Simon to see.

  A deep, arctic cold suddenly surrounded Simon and then the breath was knocked out of him as he stopped in the spot where the wraith had disappeared. Looking down, Simon understood why Lexie believed he was dead and buried. The headstone bore his name and the dates of his birth and of his supposed death on Christmas Eve thirteen years before.

  Not a man who easily believed in what he couldn’t see, Simon had no doubts about who had led him here. Or who was buried in his grave. He was certain the boy he’d seen shot had taken his place.

  Thirteen years ago and his ghost still wandered, unable to rest, Simon thought.

  How many ghosts inhabited this area?

  How many souls were denied eternal rest?

  He reached out to touch the headstone as if he could communicate more easily with the dead. The stone was icy, but if he’d really thought he could bring back the ghost or otherwise resurrect him, he would have been sorely disappointed. Nothing happened. No surprise.

  Of one thing he was certain. The boy he’d shot had been buried in his stead. How had they pulled that one off? They looked nothing alike. A closed coffin, then? How had he supposedly died so that no one would have raised the alarm? Who had been in on his supposed death?

  More questions that needed answering.

  Another reason for him to stay undercover awhile. So he could find the answers.

  Did ghosts seek retribution? he wondered.

  Considering the evil that had stalked the town unchecked, probably not.

  But now the town had to deal with him.

  Heart heavy, Simon headed for his truck and a short while later drove past the mass grave. Still no cop, so he drove all the way to the fishing shack and did the best he could to hide the vehicle on the camp’s far side.

  Had he really returned to Jenkins Cove to seek revenge for what had happened to him? Simon did want to identify the one responsible and learn the reason behind it, did want that person brought to justice, but somehow he wasn’t as energized by the thought as he had been when the news about the mass grave had hit the media.

  Then he’d convinced himself that’s why he needed to come back, to expose everything associated with his own abduction, but the doctor responsible for harvesting organs was dead and his business ended, so what could he really accomplish? No doubt many secrets had died with the doctor, including ones that had to do with him.

  Drake Enterprises had been implicated in the modern-day slave trade, but the authorities had barely begun their investigation. According to a newspaper article, the Drake connection didn’t seem to hold water. There simply was no evidence, just the word of a man who was not only dead, but who had been crazed with grief at the loss of his wife, another victim.

  Simon still wanted answers, certainly, and he wasn’t above exacting retribution, as well.

  But more than either, he wanted Lexie Thornton.

  After seeing her, Simon faced the truth: He’d been lying to himself all along.

  Even though he knew she wouldn’t want him once she learned the truth about how he’d spent the last thirteen years, Simon admitted he’d come back to Jenkins Cove so that he could reclaim the woman he loved.

  As he approached the shack, a crack like a twig breaking underfoot froze Simon to the spot. Someone was there, on the other side of the camp. The cop who should have been at the mass grave?

  Silently backing up, Simon was about to step behind a tree when he spotted the silhouette of the intruder.

  A silhouette he would know anywhere.

  What the hell was Lexie doing out here?

  ***

  Agitated by the attempted robbery and even more so by knowing that Simon wasn’t really dead, Lexie hadn’t been able to settle down for the night. She might not be able to do anything about the assault, but she sure as hell could do something about Simon. She could get the truth out of him. Then just maybe she would tell him about his daughter. Above all, she had to think of Katie. She no longer even knew this man who was her daughter’s father, but she had to give him a chance to explain himself.

  With that in mind, she’d left the house yet again and had driven to the spot where Katie had been conceived. Somehow she’d known Simon would be here. The moment she saw him, her pulse picked up and her breath shortened.

  “What are you doing, Lexie, wandering around in the dark and after being attacked?”

  Not exactly the welcome she’d hoped for, but then why should she have expected him to be any friendlier than she had been when she’d thrown him out. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark and there was just enough moonlight to see his mouth set in a straight line.

  “We have some things to settle,” she said.

  “Such as?”

  “The last thirteen years.”

  “I’d rather forget them.”

  “I can’t forget, Simon. What happened? Why did you leave without me?” She’d been going over and over the possibilities and only one thing had occurred to her. “The kid who was buried in your grave… Was there some kind of accident?”

  “Don’t you mean, was I responsible for his death?”

  Lexie shuddered. She really didn’t want to know the answer if it was yes, but she couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Were you?”

  “No.”

  His answer was flat, emotionless, like his expression. Lexie believed him. She sensed that he was closing himself off from her. Once that happened, he would never tell her anything, so she moved closer and tried to connect with him by placing a hand on his chest. His heart immediately sped up and she felt him soften toward her, despite the determination she remembered so well.

  “Please, Simon, I need to know the truth.” Touching him made her a little breathless. She stepped in even closer, looked up into his face, now only inches from hers. “When they told me you were dead, I wanted to die, too.”

  Simon grabbed her by both arms. “Lexie, don’t ever say that. You don’t know anything about death.”

  She could feel every one of his fingers leaving a print on her flesh. Energized from the contact, from the wanting he stirred in her, she asked, “And you do?”

  “Too much.”

  “Now you have to tell me or my imagination will just make things up.”

  “Reality can be worse than anything you could imagine, believe me.”

  “My God, Simon,” she whispered, moving into him and laying her head on his chest as she used to. Tears filled her eyes as she asked, “What terrible things happened to you that you can’t even talk about them?”

  But suddenly knowing didn’t seem as important as her being close to him. He wrapped his arms around her, pressed her to him so that she could hardly breathe. Her heart fluttered and a gasp escaped her.

  How could she be so susceptible to him after so long? She felt exactly as she had thirteen years ago. Exactly as she had dreamed of ever since. She’d ached for this feeling that she’d had with Simon alone. She couldn’t let it go. No other man had so stirred her emotions. Or her passion.

  So when he kissed her, she couldn’t resist.

  And when he picked her up and carried her into the old shack that was barely more than half-rotting boards with a single window, she didn’t protest.

  And when he placed her on the sleeping bag near the cast-iron stove and covered her with his body, she didn’t stop him.

  Simon was a bigger man, weighed more than he had the last time —the only time they’d made love – but Lexie reveled in the difference, felt as if she couldn’t get enough of him pressing against her, kissing her.

  His kiss went so deep, she swore it touched her soul. She could drown in it. In him.

  Closing her eyes, she let herself float, let herself dream. When he touched her through her clothing, she couldn’t stand it, wanted to feel his flesh against hers, and so she pushed
him back and sat up so she could pull off her coat and sweater. He did the same, and by the time the sweater was off her head, she saw him stripping down, the moonlight from the single window making his flesh look like silver-blue marble.

  Even in the moonlight she could see that the marble was not without flaws. For a moment, she froze, staring at the network of scars that started on the right side of his chest, slithered partway down his abdomen, and picked up halfway down his thigh.

  She gaped at the souvenirs of whatever nightmare he had endured, then vowed to help make him forget it when he was with her.

  Her fingers fumbled with the hooks of her bra and the next thing she knew he was kneeling and pulling off her boots, then her jeans. She was nude but for the damn bra, and he leaned forward and swept that off as easily as he had everything else.

  “I’ve waited for you for so long,” she whispered, running her hands on either side of his head. His hair prickled her palms and the sensation spread down her arms to her breasts.

  He groaned and ground his mouth against hers as he swept his hand down her middle to her center, already wet with wanting him. He stroked her lightly, each time his fingers entering her more deeply, each time her legs spreading wider until she was fully open and arching up into him.

  He found her as easily as if she was home to him. Their union felt like home to her, as well. She closed her eyes and arched harder so that he could go deeper. Her fingers clawed his back as though she could bring him closer, somehow make him part of her, somehow make it impossible for him ever to leave her again. Too quickly he propelled her to another place where the dark sky inside her mind lit with pinwheels of light.

  Only when her cry softened to a sob of contentment did he let himself finish, riding her hard and deep, coming only after she dug her fingers into his buttocks and cried, “Now, Simon, now!”

  Then he collapsed on her and she took his weight with gratitude. She felt as if all was right in her world, and hoped that this time, it would last forever.

  Lexie had always known she would love Simon forever, and now she was convinced of it.

  ***

  As dawn streaked through the cabin window after a night of continued abandon and little sleep, Lexie allowed her doubts to creep in.

  Still snug in the sleeping bag with Simon wrapped around her, as if he never meant to let her go, she looked around the shack and noted what appeared to be the same rickety wooden table and two chairs, the cot with the same thin mattress they’d used last time. Nothing had changed.

  No, everything had changed.

  Simon’s eyes were open, glued to her face. She pushed him until he let go of her, then found her clothes. Luckily sometime during the night, Simon had stacked the stove with wood and there remained embers to keep her warm as she dressed. Simon watched her every move without rising, without saying a word. His expression had closed again, as if he thought she was going to give him her back and walk out on him.

  Not likely. Not until she had what she’d come for. The truth.

  Suddenly Simon rose and got something out of his supply bag. Coffee. Nude, he set about making a pot on the wood-burning stove. Lexie’s breath caught in her throat as sunlight revealed the full beauty of his body. His muscles looked as if they’d been sculpted, his abdomen was flat, his waist trim, his shoulders massive. And his butt — her favorite part of him — was rock hard. Blushing when he turned her way and she noted that wasn’t the only part of him that was hard, she amended his butt to her second favorite body part.

  “Are you going to have some coffee before you go?” he asked as if she were someone who’d simply stopped by rather than the woman he’d made love to half the night.

  “I was hoping for more.”

  “Let’s see, I have beef jerky. And—”

  “Not food. The truth, Simon,” she said, pulling on her socks. “I was hoping for that.”

  His expression tightened. “You don’t really want to hear it.”

  Or he really didn’t want to tell her. “Let me decide for myself. How, for example, did you get those scars?”

  Rather than answering immediately, he reached down, picked up his jeans and stepped into them, then said, “Human trafficking.”

  The breath caught in her throat. “Someone removed your organs?”

  “Worse. They removed my soul.” He didn’t sit; rather, he paced, barefooted, the short length of the cabin. “I saw one of the victims killed that Christmas Eve. He was just a kid, younger than I was. He’s the one buried in my grave. He was trying to escape and they shot him dead. I should have run. Maybe they would have shot me, too. That would have been better than what they did to me.”

  “What who did to you?”

  “I don’t know. I was knocked out, drugged, and when I came to, I was on a transport ship bound for Africa with a bunch of mercenaries working for a private army employed by the U.S. government.” He grabbed his sweater and pulled it on. “They had a contract saying I’d agreed to go with them, to work for them for the next five years. Only it wasn’t me who signed the papers.”

  “Work? You mean fight?”

  “If I hadn’t, I really would have died. Maybe I should have.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  Her heart thumped against her ribs and Lexie knew that she really didn’t want to hear and that she had to.

  “I had to do things that changed me, Lexie. Things you would never understand. I had no choice. I did as I was told and learned to use weapons and my own cunning to stay alive. It was a nightmare of a life — kill or be killed. I couldn’t escape. I had no way to get out, no money. My salary was put into a bank account I couldn’t access until my tour of duty was over.”

  “Five years, not thirteen.”

  How could he have stayed longer? How could he have chosen that life over one that he could have had with her?

  “After my contract was fulfilled, I knew I could never come back here and face you. How could I after the life I’d been forced into? So I re-upped. Believe it or not, Shadow Ops was a legitimate private military corporation, hired by the Department of Defense to do work for the CIA. They sent us to Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq.”

  “We could have been together for years, but you chose to stay in something you hated?”

  “I’m a different person than the one you knew.”

  “But you still have a soul or you wouldn’t have worried about who you might hurt coming back here.” Tension and doubt filled Lexie with confusion. She felt the same radiate from him. “We could have been together years ago, Simon. But you abandoned us.”

  “Us?”

  Realizing her slip, Lexie said, “Me… your dad…”

  “Why would you include him when you know how I felt about him?”

  “But after you died, after we thought you died, he cleaned up his act.”

  Simon’s gaze seared her. He didn’t believe her.

  Lexie knew she could go on lying, but he would no doubt eventually learn the truth. Torn between wanting to protect Katie and wanting to tell Simon they’d had a daughter together, she chose the latter and prayed it really was the right thing.

  “About six weeks after we buried you, I learned I was pregnant. We have a twelve-year-old daughter, Simon. Her name is Katie.”

  His shocked expression would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. Lexie’s chest tightened as she waited for his response. One that didn’t come. Why didn’t he say something? Didn’t he care that they had a daughter?

  Suddenly furious, meaning to get out now, she pulled on her shoes and grabbed her coat. Simon took hold of her arm and stopped her from heading toward the door.

  “Tell me.”

  “She’s a good kid. Smart. Smart mouth, too, sometimes. Old for her age. She’s had to be with only one parent who has to make a living to support her and take care of her. She looks pretty much like I did at that age, except for her eyes. Those are yours.”

  She gave him time to process the information. Minute
s ticked by and he didn’t respond. Didn’t say how happy he was to learn he had a kid.

  Maybe he wasn’t.

  Lexie pulled free, cursing herself for falling into Simon’s arms so easily when obviously the last thirteen years had left him devoid of normal human feelings.

  Chapter Six

  Simon moved fast, blocking Lexie’s access to the door. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

  Now all she wanted to do was get away from him before she dissolved into tears. “I’m talked out.”

  “Maybe I’m not.”

  “Maybe you’re too late, Simon.”

  She should have known better than to think he cared about a kid he’d never seen, never even knew he’d fathered. She should have known better than to think he cared about her. After all, he’d made no declarations of love during the night.

  It had been a mistake to tell him about Katie.

  “We’ll talk later, then, I promise,” he said. “At least let me take you home.”

  “I have my own vehicle.”

  “I’ll follow you, check the house before you go in.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure you’re safe.”

  “And how long can I count on your doing that?” she asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “For a few weeks? Days? Just this morning and then you disappear again for another thirteen years? Let me out. Now.”

  His expression tightening, Simon moved away from the door and Lexie left without looking back.

  What a fool she’d been to sleep with him! Driven by hormones and nostalgia, she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life. How had she imagined that Simon Shea was the same person he had been thirteen years ago?

  Lexie fumed about her stupidity all the way home. Only when she parked the SUV did her tension switch gears. The fog had lifted and the sun shone brightly. Nothing to alert her. Nothing to fear.

  Even so, she held her breath and moved fast and was inside her house in a minute flat.

  Only when she let go of her breath and turned from the front door did her heart begin to pound. Even with nothing but faint dawn light edging through the windows, she could see that the place was a mess. Cushions had been pulled from the couch, drawers from her desk. Papers were scattered everywhere. She was about to call the police, when a scraping sound coming from somewhere nearby stopped her.