The Soldier's Seduction

by Anne Marie Winston

  Wade blinked, but before his gaze slid away from hers, she caught a glimpse of a haunting pain. “Battlefield mistake,” he said. “They found my dog tags but not my body. By the time the mistake was corrected, word had already gone out that I’d been KIA.”

  She put a hand to her mouth, fighting the tears that desperately wanted to escape. All these months she’d thought he was dead….

  “I was injured,” he said. “In the chaos that followed the explosion, a friendly Afghani hid me. It took the guy three days to make contact with American troops, and it wasn’t until then that the mistake was caught. The fellow who died whom they’d assumed was me had already been shipped to Germany for autopsy. They’d have caught the mistake eventually, but I sure gave a lot of people a shock. And just for the record,” he added, “Mom and Dad didn’t actually have a funeral. It was planned, then canceled. I guess you didn’t attend or you’d have found out.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again and simply shook her head. She still wanted to cry. Badly. I was having your baby at the time was so not the thing to say.

  She risked a glance at him and was almost undone by the pain in his eyes.

  Unable to bear being the cause of that pain, she said, “I couldn’t come back for the funeral.” She turned away and settled on the porch swing. “It took every penny I had to move here.” Well, that wasn’t a lie. She’d been lucky to find this place, luckier still that, although she had few assets, her credit history was good and with the teachers’ credit union behind her, she’d been able to qualify for a mortgage. It hadn’t hurt that the cost of living in California was so much higher than it was here. She’d never have been able to afford even this modest little home if she’d stayed on the West Coast.

  “Why did you move?” he asked suddenly. “All the way across the country? I know you don’t have any family to keep you in California, but that’s where you grew up, where your roots are. Don’t you miss it?”

  She swallowed. “Of course I miss it.” Terribly. I miss the cobblestones on the beaches and the freezing cold water, the balmy days and cooler nights that rarely vary. I miss driving down to Point Loma, or over to Cardiff, and watching whale migrations in the fall. I even miss the insanity of driving on the freeway and the fire danger. Most of all, I miss you. “But my life is here now.”

  “Why?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Why what?”

  “What makes rural New York state so special that you have to live here?”

  She shrugged. “I’m a teacher. I’ll have tenure in two more years and I don’t want to start over again somewhere else. The pay is good here and the cost of living is more manageable than in Southern California.”

  He nodded. “I see.” He joined her on the swing, sitting close but not touching. He placed an arm along the back of the swing and turned slightly toward her. “It’s good to see you.” His voice was warm, his eyes even more so.

  She could barely breathe. He was looking at her the way she’d dreamed of for years. Years when he’d been too old for her to do more than dream of, years when he’d been her sister’s boyfriend, more recently when she’d thought he was dead and she was raising his child alone.

  “Wade…” She reached out a hand and placed her palm gently against his cheek. “I’m so glad you’re alive. It’s good to see you, too, but—”

  “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  “I can’t.” Fear infused her voice with a touch of panic. She started to withdraw her hand but he covered it with his, turning his face into her palm, and she felt the warmth of his lips whispering against the tender skin.

  “Tomorrow night, then.”

  “I—”

  “Phoeber, I’m not taking no for an answer.” The silly childhood nickname gave the moment an even deeper intimacy. “I’m not leaving here until you say yes.”

  She stepped back a full pace as he finally released her hand. Dinner was a bad idea, given the way her heart still pounded at the mere sight of him.

  She’d grown up in the months since she’d become a parent. She no longer believed in the kind of love she read about in romance novels. At least, not mutual love that was returned. And she’d stopped allowing herself to believe that what had happened between Wade and her that day at the cabin had been anything but his reaction to the shock of her sister’s death.

  Now Wade was here, back from the dead, untying every neatly packed-away detail in her memories. Confusing her, rousing feelings she hadn’t let herself feel in more than a year, the warmth of possibilities in his eyes scaring her to death.

  She wanted to go back an hour, to come home as always to an empty porch and no tough conversations.

  But she had to tell him about Bridget.

  It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had to. A few weeks before she thought he had died, she’d realized she couldn’t keep Wade’s child from him. Telling him in an e-mail or on the phone was unthinkable, however. She’d been planning to visit him, wherever he was stationed, as soon as she could travel again, and a promise was a promise. Even if it was only to herself.

  But not yet. She could hardly just invite him in, not with the bassinet and high chair, the board books and infant toys, unmistakable signs of a baby in residence. And anyway, Angie had class tonight so she wouldn’t be able to stay much longer. Phoebe needed to get rid of him, plan the best way to tell him of his fatherhood.

  “All right,” she finally said. “Dinner tomorrow night because I have something to tell you.” The words nearly choked her.

  Wade raised an eyebrow in question, but when she didn’t elaborate he made no comment. All he said was “Shall I pick you up at seven?”

  “I’ll meet you,” she said quickly. “Are you staying in town?”

  As it turned out, he was staying at a hotel on the other side of town. Attached to it was a restaurant that she knew had somewhat secluded booths along the walls, so she suggested they meet there. Then she stood on the porch and watched as he walked to the gray sedan.

  He smiled at her over the roof of the car before he climbed in. “See you tomorrow night.”

  She nodded, her heart stuttering at the warmth in his eyes, even though she reminded herself it wasn’t anything more than friendship she saw there. “See you then.”

  But as she watched him drive away, she wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to vanish, the way people in the witness protection program did. Anything had to be easier than telling Wade he was the father of a child. Her child.

  Memories bombarded her….

  She was twelve. Her twin sister Melanie perched beside her on a pink bike exactly like Phoebe’s purple one, and they both watched the neighborhood boys playing baseball on the local park’s grassy ball field.

  “I’m gonna marry Wade when I grow up,” Melanie announced.

  Phoebe frowned. “He’s going to be grown up before we are. What if he marries somebody else?” The thought of Wade Donnelly marrying anybody made her feel all twisted up inside. Wade lived across the street from them, and he was four years older than they were. Phoebe had had a crush on him since before she could remember.

  “He won’t marry anybody else,” Melanie said confidently. “I’m going to make him love me.”

  And she had.

  When they were seniors in high school, Melanie had initiated her move. Phoebe went to the prom with Tim DeGrange, a friend from her Latin class. Melanie had asked Wade, even though he had just graduated from West Point that year, and to Phoebe’s shock he had said yes. Prom night had been long and miserable. Melanie had clung to Wade all evening. He’d looked so handsome in his brand-new dress uniform that he’d made Phoebe’s heart hurt, and she’d been suddenly so shy she could barely force herself to talk to him.

  That had been the beginning. Melanie and Wade had dated through the early summer until his leave had ended and he’d headed off for his first assignment at a training school. It had been hell for Phoebe, seeing them together. But it had grown much
, much worse when Melanie had begun seeing other guys while Wade was away….

  “We’re not exclusive, Phoebe.” Melanie’s voice was sharp as she responded to the censure in her twin’s eyes.

  “Wade thinks you are.” Phoebe was certain of that. She’d been all too aware of Wade’s devotion to her sister throughout the early weeks of the summer.

  “I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to just sit at home while he’s gone,” Melanie said. “It’s not like he’s on a short vacation. He’s in the army.”

  “If you’re going to date other people, you should tell him.”

  But Melanie hadn’t listened. Which was nothing new. Melanie had never listened to Phoebe’s words of warning since they’d been very small girls.

  It hadn’t taken Wade long to realize that Melanie’s affections for him were…something less than he clearly wanted. And it had wrung Phoebe’s heart when he’d come home on leave to find that Melanie wasn’t waiting for him. The two had had fight after fight. They’d finally broken up for good a year and a half later, after Christmas of the girls’ sophomore year in college. Phoebe only knew the details from a distance, since she’d gone to school at Berkeley, hours north of their home in Carlsbad, California. Melanie had stayed closer to home and, although the sisters had stayed in touch largely through e-mail and instant messaging, Melanie hadn’t volunteered much about Wade. Phoebe, always terrified her attraction to him would be noticed, had never asked.

  After Wade and Melanie had broken up, Phoebe had noticed Wade came home less and less often over the next few years. His parents, who lived two doors down the street, had occasionally mentioned his travels to her mother, but they never shared enough information to satisfy Phoebe’s hungry heart. And after her mother had passed away at the end of her junior year at Berkeley, she’d heard even less.

  Then came her high-school class’s five-year reunion. Melanie had invited Wade…and everything had changed forever.

  Two

  The following evening, Wade was ready a full fifteen minutes early. He went down to the bar in the restaurant and took a seat facing the door. And barely ten minutes later, Phoebe arrived. Also early.

  He took the fact that she was early as a good sign. Did she still want to be with him the way he wanted her? Yesterday’s conversation on her porch had been confusing. One moment he’d have sworn she was about to fall into his arms; the next, she seemed as distant as the moon, and only slightly more talkative.

  How had he missed seeing how beautiful Phoebe was all those years they’d been living on the same damned street?

  Wade knew the answer as he watched her come across the room toward him.

  Both Merriman sisters had been pretty, but Melanie’s dramatic coloring had always drawn more attention. Melanie had been a strawberry redhead with fair, porcelain skin, and eyes so blue they looked like a piece of the sky. Phoebe’s darker, coppery curls and deeper blue eyes were equally lovely but her quiet, reserved personality kept her from joining her exuberant, vivacious sister in the limelight. Which wasn’t a bad thing, he decided. Melanie had been volatile, her moods extreme, her desire for attention exhausting sometimes. Hell, most of the time, if he were honest.

  She had had a sunny, sweet side and, when she was in a good mood, she was irresistible. But she’d always been excited about something, always looking for something to do.

  Phoebe was calm and restful. And capable. She had always seemed very self-sufficient to him. If Melanie had had a problem, Phoebe had been the one to whom she’d turned.

  Melanie. He’d successfully avoided thinking about her for a very long time. It seemed inconceivable that she wasn’t leading some man in a merry dance somewhere in Southern California. Instead, she was locked forever in his memory at the age of twenty-three.

  The same age Phoebe had been when he’d realized he had been chasing the wrong twin for several years.

  As she drew near, he drank in every detail of her appearance. Her hair was longer than it had once been, and she wore it up in a practical twist. She had on a khaki-colored pencil-slim skirt with a sweater set in some shade of a pretty green-blue that he didn’t even have a name for. Although she probably thought it was a modest outfit, the skirt ended just above her knees, showing off her slender, shapely calves and ankles, and the sleeveless top beneath the outer sweater clung enticingly to her curves. Tendrils of curls had escaped from the twist and danced around her face in the light breeze.

  She was looking down at the floor rather than at him and he had a sudden moment of doubt. She’d been all he’d thought about since the last day he’d seen her. Even when he’d been in combat, or leading troops, he’d carried the memory of her deep in the recesses of his mind, where everything he couldn’t afford to think about in the heat of battle lived.

  Guilt—and being deployed halfway around the world—had kept him away from her in those months after the funeral, but nearly losing his life in the mountains of Afghanistan had made him realize how sorry he would be if he walked away from the possibility of a life with Phoebe.

  Had he waited too long? It had been fifteen months since the fateful class reunion that had changed their lives forever, since Melanie’s death and their unexpected intimacy after the funeral.

  Did Phoebe regret that? Or even worse, did she blame him for Melanie’s death? That niggling little fear had lodged in his brain months ago and, despite the memories of Phoebe’s shining eyes at the reunion and the sweet way she’d kissed him a few days later, he couldn’t shake his worry. It didn’t help that deep down, he knew he was to blame. He’d been Melanie’s date that night, he’d known how possessive she could be and yet, when he’d taken Phoebe in his arms on that dance floor, he’d forgotten everything but the wonder of what had suddenly flared between them.

  After her initial shock had faded yesterday, she’d been a little too distant for comfort. She’d always been reserved, but never with him. He’d enjoyed drawing her out and making her laugh, even when they’d been young, but he’d never realized just how much he took it for granted that she relaxed around him.

  On her porch last afternoon, she hadn’t been relaxed.

  Maybe she had a serious relationship, even though she wasn’t married or engaged. He knew because one of the first things he’d done was check out her ring finger. And besides, her name hadn’t changed. She had been listed as Merriman in that phone book. I have something to tell you, she’d said. It had sounded ominous and he’d had to struggle not to react. He sure as hell hoped she wasn’t going to try to brush him off for some other guy. He’d been a clueless idiot when they were younger, had failed to realize what a treasure she was. But he knew now, and any man who thought he had a claim to Phoebe could think again.

  She was going to be his.

  “Hello,” she said. “Is my lipstick smeared or something?”

  He jolted and smiled wryly. She’d caught him staring. “No,” he said honestly. “I just couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  Phoebe blushed as he rose and came around the table to seat her. To his astonishment, her entire pretty face turned pink.

  Returning to his seat, he said, “You look beautiful. That sweater makes your eyes even bluer.”

  Her face was still chair. “You don’t have to say that,” she said. “Melanie was the beautiful one in our family.”

  “One of the beautiful ones,” he corrected, studying her expressionless face. “Melanie drew attention to herself and people noticed her. You did the exact opposite and managed to make yourself practically invisible most of the time. Quite a feat for a woman as beautiful as you are.”

  Her gaze flew to his. Finally. “Thank you,” she whispered. And when their eyes met, he felt again that sudden shiver of knowledge, a “we are meant to be” moment unlike anything he’d ever felt with any other woman. He’d felt it yesterday when she’d first noticed him; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been here now.

  He could remember the first time he’d experienced it as clearly as if
it had been yesterday. Funny that he and Phoebe had grown up in the same neighborhood, had known each other all their lives, but suddenly one night, everything had clicked into place, and he’d recognized the woman he wanted to spend forever with….

  He stood by the bar and finished his soda, watching his date. Melanie sat at a table across the room on some guy’s lap. She was shrieking with laughter and as Wade watched, she tilted a glass to her lips and drank. She listed to one side and nearly fell off the man’s lap, and Wade suddenly realized how drunk she was. Why had he ever thought she was what he wanted?

  Because you were listening to the brain in your pants, dope.

  He’d been stupid to say yes when Melanie had asked him to accompany her to her first class reunion. He knew her well by then, well enough to know that Melanie didn’t really want him so much as she wanted the effect she had on people when she walked in with a man in uniform. It didn’t bother him anymore the way it once had, but he wasn’t going to stick around here and wait for her for the rest of the evening. Phoebe had driven Melanie to meet him here, so he wasn’t obligated to get her home.

  He raised his glass and finished the drink, then straightened and headed for the exit.

  “Wade! Wait!”

  He turned at the sound of the husky female voice, his irritation fading. “Hey, Phoeber,” he said. “I’m heading out. Melanie’s going to catch a ride with someone else.”

  “You’re leaving?” Her dismay was plain.

  He nodded. Over the beat of the music, he said, “Yeah. I’ll see you before I leave again. Promise.”

  “But…” Phoebe’s eyes were fastened to his and he thought for a moment that she was fighting tears. Had someone hurt her feelings?

  Behind her, the band segued into a familiar slow song and couples began flocking to the dance floor.