ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE
♫~♫~♫
A ROCK AND ROLL FOREVER
CHRISTMAS NOVEL
BOOK FIVE
~~~~
MARY J. WILLIAMS
© 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Mary J. Williams.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the Copyright owner and publisher of this book.
First E-book Printing, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Writing isn't easy. But I love every second. A blank screen isn't the enemy. It is an opportunity to create new friends and take them on amazing adventures and life-changing journeys. I feel blessed to spend my days weaving tales that are unique—because I made them.
Billionaires. Songwriters. Artists. Actors. Directors. Stuntmen. Football players. They fill the pages and become dear friends I hope you will want to revisit again and again.
Thank you for jumping into my books and coming along for the journey.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
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MORE BOOKS BY MARY J. WILLIAMS
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Harper Falls Series
If I Loved You
If Tomorrow Never Comes
If You Only Knew
If I Had You (Christmas in Harper Falls)
Hollywood Legends Series
Dreaming with a Broken Heart
Dreaming with My Eyes Wide Open
Dreaming of Your Love
Dreaming Again
Dreaming of a White Christmas
(Caleb and Callie's story)
One Pass Away Series
After the Rain
After All These Years
After the Fire
Hart of Rock and Roll
Flowers on the Wall
Flowers and Cages
Flowers are Red
Flowers for Zoe
Flowers in Winter
WITH ONE MORE LOOK AT YOU
One Strike Away
For a Little While
For Another Day
For All We Know
For the First Time
The Sisters Quartet
One Way or Another
Two of a Kind
Three Wishes
Four Simple Words
Five More Minutes (The Sisters Quartet Christmas)
Six Days (The Sisters Quartet Wedding)
Rock & Roll Forever
Almost Paradise
Almost Blue
Almost Everything
Almost Home
Coming Soon
Almost Like Being in Love (A Rock & Roll Forever Christmas)
Coming in 2020
One Pass Away—The Next Generation
Hurts So Good
Hurt Somebody
Hurt Me Now
Hurts Like Heaven
AUDIOBOOKS
More Books Coming Soon
ONE PASS AWAY SERIES
After the Rain – click here
After All These Years – click here
HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS SERIES
Dreaming with a Broken Heart – click here
HARPER FALLS SERIES
If I Loved You – click here
If Tomorrow Never Comes – click here
If You Only Knew – click here
If I Had You – click here
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
MORE BOOKS BY MARY J. WILLIAMS
AUDIOBOOKS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
COMING NEXT YEAR
CHAPTER ONE
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♥ TEN YEARS AGO ♥
MASTER SERGEANT JEDIDIAH Tillman—Tilly to his friends and anyone who wanted to keep a full set of teeth in his head—surveyed the rocky terrain with weary eyes. The twenty-fifth of December. Rather than parked by a warm fire surrounded by family, singing carols and munching on gingerbread cookies, he was ass deep in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. By choice.
First, Tilly’s parents died when he was a young boy, before the memories of holiday traditions were embedded in his brain. Second—most important—he was a proud soldier. Twelve years in, he saw the Marines as a career, not a stopping-off point between high school and the rest of his life.
Where his bosses sent him, Tilly went without complaint. He’d seen the world on Uncle Sam’s dime. Spent birthdays and holidays with bullets whizzing past his head and bombs exploding all around him.
Tilly was a man of action, born, trained, and eager to be in the thick of things. Cool as ice in any emergency, his nerves only jangled when he had nothing more exciting to do than sit on his ass and stare at the impossibly blue sky—and breathe in the scent wafting from the Marine to his right. Wild strawberries, unless he was mistaken.
Kai Northam. Beautiful, smart, wild blue eyes, and skin the color of rich cream. She had a wicked sense of humor, used an array of fruit-scented shampoos that always made his mouth water.
Most important, was Lieutenant Kai Northam. Ivy League graduate. His superior officer. And, completely off limits.
Kai took a sip from her canteen. When she offered Tilly a drink, he shook his head.
“Anybody missing you back home?” she asked. “Family? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”
“No, ma’am.” Tilly shook his head. “No one close enough to care one way or the other. You?”
“My parents. We’re close, I suppose. Though their hippy sensibilities were shocked when I joined the Marines. Still, Mom sends goodies every December.” Kai took a small plastic container from her pack. “Want one?”
“Gingerbread?” Tilly asked as he bit into a tree-shaped cookie.
“Old family recipe.”
Tilly was a big man. Tall, well-muscled. Tough as nails. Some might say the prototypical Marine—tattoos and all. However, if the military was his first love, baking came a close second. He collected recipes, adding a new one to his file when he deemed it worthy. Tilly’s standards for what qualified as special were exacting.
“Think your mom would share the family secret?”
“You want the Northam gingerbread recipe? Aren’t you full of surprises?” Kai grinned then shrugged. “No secret—far as I know. I’ll ask next time I get the chance.”
“Thanks,” Tilly said. “I—”
The sound of ricocheting bullets put a quick end to their cookie conversation. Kai tapped her headset. She rattled off their location, asking if they were under attack.
“Friendly fire,” Kai announced. “Couple of new recruits chasing their shadows.”
Shit, Tilly thought. Keeping an eye out for enemy combatants was one thing. Their fellow Marines? He sighed. Shit, indeed. He glanced at Kai.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
Frowning, Kai b
rushed a hand over her cheek. Her fingers came back red.
“Just a nick,” she said, smiling her thanks when Tilly handed her a clean, khaki-colored handkerchief. “Flying rock, I suppose.”
Kai shrugged off the minor injury as nothing. Tilly appreciated her attitude. Out here, where every decision could be the difference between life and death, the quickest way to lose your head was to lose your cool.
Tilly decided then and there that everything about Lieutenant Kai Northam was damn near perfect. In another place, another time, she’d be perfect for him. But she wasn’t simply his superior. She was completely out of his league.
Resigned to admiring Kai from afar, Tilly raised his gingerbread cookie.
“Merry fucking Christmas, Lieutenant.”
Laughing, Kai clicked her cookie to his.
“And a shove it up your ass New Year, Sergeant.”
CHAPTER TWO
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♥ EIGHT YEARS AGO ♥
KAI NORTHAM CHECKED her watch and sighed. She could think of a dozen places she would rather be than the lobby of a fancy-ass Chicago hotel, twenty minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve.
Then again, Kai could think of worse places. Hellholes she’d experienced and lived to tell the tale—barely.
Gold and silver ornaments filled every corner. Tinsel and glitter, as far as the eye could see. Pretty, Kai had to admit, glad the task of cleanup duty wouldn’t fall on her after the holiday merriment ended on the second of January. She never lived in one place long enough to buy and decorate a tree of her own. What was the point when other people all over the city—all over the world—did the job for her?
Kai smoothed a hand over her hair, tucking a stray strand behind her ear. As her long legs carried her across the room, the stiletto heels of her pricy pumps clicking against the polished marble floors, she noticed men admiring her.
The males of the species were so easy, she thought. When she was a teenager, all scraped elbows and baggy clothes, boys never gave her a second look. Not much changed when she leveraged good grades and a burning ambition to succeed toward a full-ride scholarship at Stanford and later, a career with military intelligence.
Kai was always one of the guys.
However, when she poured herself into an expensive dress that fit her curves to perfection and made a little effort with a pot of blush and a dab of mascara, suddenly, every man in the room considered her prime eye candy.
“Idiots,” Kai muttered under her breath.
Still, she had to admit the female uniform of heels and silk—so different from fatigues and Army boots—gave her a feeling of power. Though she preferred to use her brain—and in a pinch, the gun she had tucked inside her purse—to get her way, knew a mere crook of her finger paired with a winning smile, and she could make a man beg.
“Any word?” Kai asked, answering the buzz of her phone.
“Still waiting,” Forbes Branson said. “Where are you?”
Forbes was her boss and her friend. Like her, ex-military. For now, he ran point on an assignment destined to net their fledgling security firm a tidy profit. After weeks of preparation and long hours of groundwork, the mouse neared the trap. Kai was ready to move out the second Forbes gave the word.
“Headed for a drink. One only,” she promised. “I was going stir crazy stuck in my room.”
“Doubtful we’ll see any movement until tomorrow,” Forbes said. “Relax. Enjoy a drink—or two. You deserve some downtime.”
Kai wasn’t looking for companionship and felt a wave of satisfaction when she found the hotel lounge empty save for three women seated at a table near the back and a lone man at the bar. She slid onto a stool and ordered a whiskey, neat.
“Seems like I should throw out a quote from Casablanca,” the man four seats down said. “All the gin joints, and so forth. But my Bogart impression is sub-par at best. So, forgive me if I settle on a boring, Hello, Kai. How are you?”
When he started what Kai assumed was a lame pickup line, she rolled her eyes. By the time he finished, her lips had curved into a smile.
“Tilly?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jedediah Tillman. In a flash. Kai’s pulse picked up several beats. He looked good. Damn good. By far the sexiest man she’d ever known. With his hair grown out from his former Marine Corps-issue buzzcut, and his fatigues replaced by a tailored navy-blue suit that emphasized his still-impressive biceps, she was happy to find civilian life hadn’t turned his fine ass to mush.
“Cut the ma’am,” Kai said, thinking with neither of them in uniform, he made her sound like his maiden aunt. “Mind if I join you?”
“Let me.” Tilly moved from his stool to the one next to Kai. “Small world.”
Close up, he was even better. She’d always been fascinated by the gold flecks fringing the irises of his dark eyes. Was she staring? Maybe. Lucky for her, Tilly was staring right back.
“I was surprised when I heard you didn’t re-up,” Kai said.
“Things change.” Tilly's mouth tightened. “I was sorry when I heard why you left the corps.”
A mission gone bad. Five members of her squadron dead. The reason? An incompetent commanding officer, a major who earned his gold clusters with old-boy connections and just enough success in the field to leapfrog the men and women who truly deserved the promotion.
Kai couldn’t continue to serve her country—fight what she believed in—when the people she trusted somewhere along the way lost the ability to do the right thing.
“Civilian life was an adjustment.” Kai shrugged. “I made the right decision. Do you miss it? The corps?”
“Sometimes.” Tilly sipped his drink. “After years of traveling the world, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the United States. No one to answer to. No need to settle in one place for too long.”
“Are you in Chicago on business?” Kai asked
“Visiting family. Distant relatives. Holiday fun.” Tilly chuckled. “Figured I was better off in a hotel, in case I needed to make a quick getaway.”
Tilly’s smile sent a shiver down Kai’s back, and she was reminded of the last time she saw him. And the time before that. He had a way of making her want to tear the clothes off his back—the hell with the time or place.
In the military, as his superior officer, Kai couldn’t act on her desires. But now, she thought of the big, empty bed eight flights up, and the image of Tilly’s big, naked body on those soft, white sheets made her blood hum with happy anticipation.
“Do you have a wife?”
“No,” Tilly said.
“A fiancée? A person you love more than life itself?”
Tilly was a smart man, quick on the uptake. Didn’t take him long to figure out where Kai’s questions were headed.
“I’m a free agent.”
“And I’m in room eight-twenty-two.” Kai held his gaze as she raised her glass to her lips. “Care to finish our drinks in private?”
“Lead the way.”
Kai waited while Tilly took out his wallet, and she felt her insides melt when he left two twenties on the bar. A man who looked like he could beat Thor’s ass with one hand tied behind his back and knew how to tip? My, oh, my.
Tilly tucked her hand in the crook of his arm just as Kai’s phone buzzed.
“Trouble?” Tilly asked, watching as she checked the screen.
“Bad timing.” Kai sighed. “Business. I can’t ignore it.”
“Wouldn’t be you if you could.” Tilly's smile was tinged with regret. “Maybe another time.”
Kai slipped a card from her purse and into Tilly’s hand.
“If you ever need a first-rate security expert, give me a call.” Turning to leave, she winked. “Or, just give me a call. Any time.”
“Merry fucking Christmas, Lieutenant.”
Smiling, remembering, Kai brushed a hand over his.
“And a shove it up your ass New Year, Sergeant.”
CHAPTER THREE
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♥ THREE YEARS AGO ♥
A BUSY AIRPORT terminal wasn’t the best place for a romantic rendezvous. As Tilly craned his neck, searching, he realized there was no such thing as a good place when the object of his desire believed their meeting concerned business only.
Tilly had no one to blame but himself. Over the past five years, each time he dialed Kai’s phone number—which he did every other month or so—he meant to make his intentions clear. He wanted her. Longed to follow through on what almost happened between them in Chicago.
Yet, when Tilly heard Kai’s voice, something inside him froze, caused by a fear of the unknown. What if she said no? If he didn’t ask, she couldn’t say no, couldn’t tell him she’d made a mistake, that she’d changed her mind. Rather than take a chance, he invented a different reason.
Sometimes, all they did was catch up. One friend talking to another. To mix things up, Tilly found a reason to take advantage of her security expertise. Genuine problems, but nothing he couldn’t have fixed on his own. He suspected Kai was on to his obvious subterfuge, but she kept her suspicions to herself.
To be fair, what Tilly wanted from Kai had changed and shifted over the months and years since the last time he saw her face to face. Somewhere along the way, she became more than the woman he wanted. More than a friend. He hadn’t planned to fall in love, but his heart made the decision without consulting his brain.
Kai Northam. The woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, Tilly had landed himself firmly in the friend zone and for the life of him, he didn’t know how to climb out.
“Hello, stranger.” Kai hugged Tilly tight.
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