To Have and to Hold

by Fern Michaels

  Trancelike, she moved toward him. When she was standing next to him, she realized how tall he was, towering over her so he had to tilt her chin with the tips of his fingers so he could look into her eyes. He was going to kiss her, and she didn’t want to stop him. Her eyes closed of their own accord as she waited. His lips, when they touched hers, were soft, giving as well as taking, persuading her gently to respond. She could feel his arms cradle her against him. He felt strong, and she felt safe and natural in his embrace. His fingers touching her face were tender, trailing whispery shadows over her cheekbones. Having him kiss her felt like the most natural thing in the world. It was a kiss. A tender gesture, tempting an answer but demanding none.

  Also by Fern Michaels

  (Published by Ballantine Books)

  ALL SHE CAN BE

  CINDERS TO SATIN

  DESPERATE MEASURES

  FOR ALL THEIR LIVES

  FREE SPIRIT

  SEASONS OF HER LIFE

  SERENDIPITY

  TENDER WARRIOR

  TO TASTE THE WINE

  , VALENTINA

  VIXEN IN VELVET

  The Captive series

  CAPTIVE PASSIONS

  CAPTIVE EMBRACES

  CAPTIVE SPLENDORS

  CAPTIVE INNOCENCE

  CAPTIVE SECRETS

  The Texas series

  TEXAS RICH

  TEXAS HEAT

  TEXAS FURY

  TEXAS SUNRISE

  The Sins series

  SINS OF OMISSION

  SINS OF THE FLESH

  Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.

  TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

  A NOVEL

  FERN MICHAELS

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Fern Michaels

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  The CAPTIVE

  The TEXAS

  Copyright Page

  PROLOGUE

  All during their lovemaking she cried.

  And when it was over, she sobbed in his arms.

  “Shhh,” Patrick whispered. “It’s only for a year, honey. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Kate sobbed harder. She snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm, her nest of comfort and safety.

  Patrick nuzzled her neck, inhaling the scent of her hair. Lemon and vanilla, something she splashed on her hair before she dried it. It teased his nostrils. Something to remember. Something to think about while he was away.

  Kate was the best thing that ever happened to him. All his friends said so. She was the world’s best cook, the world’s best mother, the world’s best manager, the world’s best wife. For one brief second he wondered about the order of Kate’s capabilities.

  Patrick continued to stroke her hair, crooning familiar words. She always calmed under his touch. It was amazing how well he knew his wife. It had to have something to do with the fact that they’d known each other from childhood. Grown with each other. There were no secrets between them.

  She was like a small child, rather like their daughter Betsy now, succumbing to his hypnotic words and gentle stroking. The power he had over his wife never ceased to amaze him. With a word or a look, rarely an explanation, she would do or say whatever he wanted. She was perfect, a shining example of himself.

  He thought then about what he was leaving behind. His little family. Other guys worried, but not him. Kate had come to California with him, from Westfield, New Jersey, where they’d both grown up. Kate was his friend, his lover, his wife, and mother to his two little girls. Kate was his. When someone loved you with the whole of their heart, you didn’t have to worry. Kate would never betray that love.

  His fingers plucked at Kate’s sleep shirt, so worn and soft it felt like an old friend. He’d given her the shirt himself for her birthday, overlarge, trailing down way past her knees. Even the lettering—USAF TEST PILOT SCHOOL. EDWARDS AFB, CA—was faded. He wondered if she’d ever wear the sexy, slinky gown he’d ordered for her from Frederick’s.

  Almost perfect, but then no one was perfect.

  “Promise me tomorrow, Patrick,” Kate whispered.

  “All the tomorrows for the rest of our life. I’ve never broken a promise to you, Kate. Honey, I’m the best of the best, the Air Force says so,” he said, with no sense of false modesty. “That means I’m going to go in, do the job I was trained to do, and come home.” His voice grew stem. “No more tears, Kate.” He felt pleased when she drew in a deep breath, pressing her body even closer. Her skin felt wet, slick against his own.

  Patrick craned his neck to see the small clock next to the bed. Eleven minutes till he had to get up. He inched away from her, their skin making a smacking sound. He couldn’t get it up again if he tried. “No,” he whispered huskily. He brought her closer again, their bodies touching. A deep breath swooshed from his lungs. Sex might be the greatest pastime in the world, but flying had it beat by a mile. He felt a surge of adrenaline when he thought of himself flying missions in Southeast Asia. If someone said to him, right this second, What do you love more than anything in the world? his answer would have to be flying.

  He was born to fly; all his instructors said so. He said so. A natural-born pilot. Up there he was supreme, one of a kind. Zack Heller, his wingman, was good, but not his equal. As far as he was concerned, he had no equal in the air.

  This year away from Kate and the girls was going to be good for all of them. Kate would tend the home fires, and he would finally do what he’d dreamed of doing all his life. Serve his country, get his ticket punched, and come home a fucking hero.

  He eyed the Baby Ben, groaned for Kate’s benefit, and leapt from the bed. A moment later the shower was pelting his lean body with a vengeance. The force of the water gave him an instant erection, one he massaged with soap and his hand. He closed his eyes and imagined he was driving into his wife, the Frederick’s nightgown hiked up around her neck.

  He groaned.

  When Patrick entered the kitchen fifteen minutes later, Kate was in the tidy room with the fringed place mats on the varnished oak table. She was flipping pancakes in her old chenille robe, her long blond hair brushed and pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a red ribbon. It was the same kind of ribbon she tied in Betsy’s and Ellie’s hair, but for some reason he didn’t think it looked cute. Her eyes were red-rimmed. He could see the quiver in her lips as she turned the pancakes. Blueberry.

  He took a seat as Kate placed the griddle cakes in the middle of the strawberry-patterned plate. Then she stepped back and said in a barely audible voice, “Patrick, how is this?” She opened the belt of her robe.

  Patrick’s eyebrows shot upward as he chewed. In a teasing voice he said, “If you weren’t clenching your teeth, I suppose it would look better. I made a mistake, honey. Frederick’s isn’t for you. Toss it out or give it to Zack’s wife.” He went back to his panca
kes. Kate tied the sash of her robe so tight that she gasped.

  “Good breakfast, honey. As always. I’m really going to miss your cooking.”

  “I’ll send you cookies and whatever else I can pack up. The girls love to make cookies.” Kate choked back a sob as she dipped the frying pan in the soapy water, swishing it, and then let it fall back into the water, her shoulders shaking.

  “Kate, you promised you weren’t going to do this,” Patrick chided gently.

  “I didn’t think it was going to be so hard. I miss you already, and you haven’t left.” Her shoulders continued to shake.

  “Is this the memory you want me to take with me?” Patrick demanded, irritation creeping into his voice. Kate heard it.

  “No. No, of course not.” She forced a smile to her face.

  “Guess that’s it. I feel free as the breeze. That was a good idea Zack had last night, taking all our gear to the flight terminal in his pickup. Do you want to say good-bye here or at the door?”

  “I wish you’d let me go with you. It’s not right, saying good-bye like this.”

  “Yes, it’s right. You’ll carry on and cry. I don’t want to remember a scene like that.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t cry,” Kate whimpered.

  The edge was back in Patrick’s voice. “You’re crying now, and you promised not to. Kiss the girls for me.” He blew her an airy kiss before he strode from the room.

  Kate stood in the kitchen doorway watching her husband as he settled his cap firmly on his head and fired off a snappy salute to the reflection in the mirror. She watched him open the front door, step outside, and then kick it closed with his heel. He didn’t miss a step and he didn’t look back.

  Kate slipped to the floor in a huddle, crying heartbrokenly, over and over, “Just promise me there will be a tomorrow for us, Patrick.”

  Outside in the crisp, early morning air, Patrick walked to the comer bound by apartment complexes to meet Zack Heller. The moment he saw him, he gave him a thumb’s-up salute.

  “This is it, Heller!” he called.

  “You ready for this, Captain Starr?” Heller asked, a slight catch in his voice.

  “I’ve been ready for this since I saw my first airplane. I think I was three years old. The only thing I can’t figure out is why God made me a mere mortal instead of a bird. Man, I was meant to fly. I don’t ever want to do anything else. How about you?”

  “I’m dedicated, Starr. You’re fucking obsessed.”

  “You got that right. It’s my life.”

  “No, it isn’t. That family you left back there is your life.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but after flying. Hey, I’m readyyyyy.”

  Patrick tipped his cunt cap to a rakish angle, jammed his hands in his pockets, and started to whistle.

  “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, climbing high, into the sky . . .”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The sewing machine had a sound all its own, the needle jumping up and down through the bright pink felt square. Two pairs of eyes focused on what was almost a finished product. With her head bent to the intricate stitches the needle was making, Kate Starr could still see the telegram on the little table where she’d dropped it earlier, unopened. Patrick had only been gone ten months. She shouldn’t be getting a telegram.

  It was supposed to be yellow. Everyone said it was yellow.

  “Is this going to be the prettiest dress you ever made me, Mom?” Betsy asked.

  “Me too, me too! I want one just like it. Betsy and Ellie looked like Mommy,” Ellie babbled around the thumb in her mouth. She pointed to a dress draped over the back of the sofa, her own Christmas dress.

  Kate watched as a frown started to build on six-year-old Betsy’s face. “Does Daddy want us to all wear the same dress?”

  Kate cut the thread and double-knotted it beneath the swirling skirt. “Well . . . yes, I guess so. Daddy . . . always smiled when we paraded in front of him in our mother-daughter outfits. Remember how he always took our picture?” God, her voice sounded so shaky, so ... fearful. One look into Betsy’s eyes told her the child was aware that something she didn’t understand was going on.

  “I want mine to be different,” Betsy said, fighting tears.

  “Oh, honey, why?” Kate said, her own eyes misting.

  “Want mine different, too,” Ellie whined.

  Kate stared at the appliqués on the skirt of the dress, refusing even to glance in the direction of the telegram.

  Betsy scuffed at the worn carpet. “Daddy isn’t here. He won’t see us,” she said. “I want my dress different.”

  “Me too. Make it different. Make it like Betsy’s,” Ellie chortled.

  “No! I want mine to be mine. Mommy, don’t make hers like mine.”

  “All right, Betsy. I’ll give you a belt buckle and make a bow on the back of Ellie’s dress. Do you want pockets?”

  Betsy pointed to the telegram. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a telegram,” Kate said, her voice sounding desperate. “A telegram is ... it’s a ... quick way to send ... news.” Bad news, she should have said. Terrible news. She wanted to cry, to shred the telegram.

  “Is the news about Daddy?” Betsy asked, the dress momentarily forgotten. “Maybe Daddy is going to be coming home for Christmas. Open it, Mommy, and see if he is.” She marched over to the little table, picked up the telegram, and thrust it toward her mother. Kate recoiled, almost toppling the chair she was sitting on.

  “Put that back. Now! Do as I say, Betsy,” she said in a voice the child had never heard before. Betsy scampered away to obey her mother’s orders, then, eyes downcast, scuffed at the carpet.

  Kate refused to look at either of her daughters. Instead she bent her head to peer at the stitches she was ripping out. Things were starting to change already, and she hadn’t even opened the damn telegram. When a stitch refused to budge with the stitch ripper, Kate yanked at it, ripping the material at the seam. A tear fell on her index finger.

  She was losing control, frightening the children. I’m not going to open the telegram, she thought. Not now, not ever. “Oh, God, Patrick, you promised me tomorrow, and now I have a telegram,” she muttered under her breath.

  Kate looked at the appliquéd Santa Claus on the pocket she’d just ripped off Betsy’s dress. She had to say something to the child, look at her and not see Patrick reflected in her little face. Patrick always called her a miniature replica of himself. And he said it so proudly. She rummaged in her sewing box for a buckle that would match Betsy’s dress. Needle and thread whipped in and out of the soft fabric.

  “Want to try this on now, honey?” Kate said in a voice so choked with emotion, Betsy ran to her and put her arms around her in a tight bear hug. Not to be outdone, Ellie wrapped both her arms around her mother’s leg.

  She needed to be strong. Tough. Little Miss Homemaker, who didn’t have the faintest idea how to be strong and tough. All she knew how to do was be a mother and wife. Patrick took care of everything else.

  “I think,” Kate said quietly, “we’re feeling out of sorts because it’s almost Christmas and Daddy won’t be here to help us open presents. So tonight we’re going to write a very long letter and tell him how much we miss him and how we’re going to make Christmas cookies. We have to be brave and . . . and carry on. Daddy will be disappointed if we don’t go ahead with things. Now, let’s see a big smile from everyone.” She stretched her own facial muscles into something resembling a smile, then watched the girls scurry off with their dresses. The moment they were out of sight, she crumpled, her eyes again on the telegram.

  It had been delivered an hour ago, just as she was getting ready to sit down at the sewing machine. Soon the notification officer would arrive. A chaplain and accompanying officer would probably knock on her door next. “I damn well won’t open it!”

  The girls were back, prancing back and forth in front of her in their new Christmas dresses. She made all the right comments, smiled, hugged them, and then
ordered them to take off the dresses so she could hem them.

  There was a glint in Betsy’s eyes when she said, “I don’t want to wear the matching panties, Mommy. That’s baby stuff. I don’t like to show off my undies.”

  “But honey, the pattern calls for matching panties.” Suddenly she felt stupid, ignorant. Was it possible Betsy was right and six-year-olds didn’t wear matching panties?

  “I want mine to match.” Ellie giggled, bending over to show her plain white panties.

  “She’s a show-off,” Betsy grumbled. “Boys laugh at you when they see your underwear.”

  “All right, plain white for you, Betsy, and matching ones for Ellie. We compromised. That means it’s fair for everyone.”

  “Yippeeeee!” Ellie squealed.

  Betsy scowled. “When are you going to open your news letter? We’re supposed to share. Daddy said so.”

  “Later, honey. Change your clothes and bring the dresses back so I can hem them. Then you can play Chinese checkers if you want to.”

  Betsy wasn’t about to be put off. “When you open the news letter later, are we going to share it?”

  “Yes,” Kate said, because there was no other answer that would satisfy her daughter.

  Now. She should open it now. But if she did that, she would be breaking a promise to Betsy. There was every possibility the telegram was from Patrick’s father or her own parents. But no. She knew who’d sent the telegram and she knew what it said. THE SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE REGRETS TO INFORM YOU . . .

  “You wasted your money, Mr. Secretary of the Air Force, because I’m not going to open your hateful telegram,” Kate said through clenched teeth.

  The girls were squabbling over where to play their game of Chinese checkers. A moment later they were in front of her, demanding that she make the decision for them.

  “I have an idea. Why don’t you play the first game in Mommy and Daddy’s room. Right in the middle of the bed. You can play the second game in the bathtub, and the third game in your own room.”