The Soldier's Seduction

by Anne Marie Winston

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay? Angie is just one street over if you need her,” Phoebe told him for at least the tenth time on Monday morning.

  “We’ll be fine,” Wade said. Again. “I’ll call Angie if I need anything. And if anything happens, I’ll call you immediately.”

  “All right. I guess I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  “Bye.” He held the door open for her. “Don’t worry.”

  She stopped on the verge of descending the porch steps and looked back at him, a wry expression on her face. “I’m a mother. It’s in the job description.” Then she heaved a sigh and headed for the car as he closed the front door.

  It had taken some fast talking on his part, but yesterday she’d agreed to let him keep Bridget this week without anyone stopping by to check on him. And even better, she’d informed him that she’d worked out her schedule so that they could go to see his dad in just a few weeks. She had to clear it with the principal of her building, but she hadn’t anticipated any trouble. So he’d make the plane reservations as soon as she came home and gave him a green light tonight.

  His dad. How in hell was he going to explain this to his father? From the time he’d entered adolescence and his dad had sat him down for their first big “talk,” the watchwords of the day had been responsible behavior and protection. Not to mention morality.

  He’d never mentioned his feelings for Phoebe to his parents, never really had the chance, given what had happened with Melanie’s death. And then, after the funeral, after things had gotten so wildly out of control, he hadn’t had the chance. He’d had to leave the next morning. And Phoebe hadn’t answered her phone, although he’d tried half the night to contact her.

  He could have simply walked down the street and banged on her door. Should have, he amended. But he’d known she was grieving, and he’d felt he had to respect that. And he’d felt guilty, taking advantage of her trust when she’d been so vulnerable. He should have stopped her.

  In the end, he’d given up, promising himself that he’d get in touch with her in a day or two. But he’d been deployed to Afghanistan earlier than expected, with barely twenty-four hours to prepare and he hadn’t had time or opportunity to do anything more than think about her.

  A month or two later, he’d learned from his mother that she’d left town, that no one seemed to know where she’d gone. The East Coast, someone thought, so he’d made up his mind to visit her the next time he came home. He’d e-mailed her at the same address he’d used for years now—and to his shock, it was returned as undeliverable. And then his mother had had the stroke and all Wade’s phone calls and e-mails with his dad had been filled with medical concerns. He’d only been home twice during that hectic time, once not long after his mom’s first stroke, the second after her funeral.

  He’d come home for that on a three-day leave and gone right back again afterward. He wouldn’t have had time to look up Phoebe if she’d just moved to the next town, much less across the continent. Just days after that, he’d watched one of his buddies die when he’d stepped on an unexpected land mine. Others had been dragged away by insurgents operating out of the Afghanistan mountains. He’d barely been able to conceal himself, but he’d managed it. And then unexpected help in the form of an Afghan villager had saved his life and gotten him back to his own troops. On a stretcher, but alive.

  He’d had plenty of time to think about her then, while he’d been recuperating. He’d needed her, had finally admitted to himself that he wanted to see if there was any chance that they might have a future together. He’d considered trying to find her, but he didn’t really want to call her and tell her he was lying in a hospital bed. So he’d waited until he was well enough to look for her in person.

  But he’d never stopped thinking about her, about any of the all-too-brief time they’d spent together. The revelation of his feelings—and hers, he was pretty sure—at the dance. Which had promptly been put on indefinite hold when Melanie had been killed.

  And then Melanie’s funeral. Or more specifically, what had occurred right afterward. God, if he’d relived that once he’d been through it a thousand times. And that was probably a conservative estimate. He would never forget making love to Phoebe for the first time, no matter the circumstances….

  “Are you okay?”

  Phoebe looked up, clearly surprised. She’d been sitting on the swing under the rose trellis at one side of her uncle’s home. Just sitting and staring.

  Her eyes were red and puffy as she looked at him, and Wade realized what an inane question it was.

  “I mean, I know you’re not okay, but I didn’t want to… I couldn’t leave without talking to you.”

  Her nod seemed to take enormous effort. Slowly, she said, “I just needed a break from it.” Her voice trembled. “I can’t go back in there and talk about her anymore.”

  The graveside service was complete; Melanie’s family and friends had gathered at her mother’s stepbrother’s home to console each other, to share memories and simply to visit. It was a terrible thing that it took a funeral to bring everyone in a family together again. Phoebe’s father had never been in the family picture, as far as Wade knew. And her mother had passed away the second year the girls were in college. Mrs. Merriman’s two stepbrothers lived in the same area, although Wade had never heard either Phoebe or Melanie talk much about their extended family; he’d gotten the distinct impression at the funeral that the family hadn’t really approved of Phoebe’s mother.

  He looked down at Phoebe and a fierce wave of protectiveness swamped him. God, what he wouldn’t give to go back to the night of the reunion. He’d almost said no to Mel when she’d asked him to go. If he had, they might not be sitting here today.

  But if he hadn’t, he might never have realized or appreciated his feelings for Phoebe.

  Wade cautiously sat beside her, waiting for her to tell him to get away from her. When he’d first gotten the news about the accident, he’d waited for his doorbell to ring. Waited for Phoebe to come scream at him for sending her twin sister off in such a rage that she’d wrapped her car and herself around a tree as she’d sped away from the reunion.

  But Phoebe hadn’t come. She hadn’t called. And he hadn’t dared to contact her. He could hardly move beneath the weight of the guilt he felt; if Phoebe piled more on him, he might just sink right into the ground.

  His mother had heard about the funeral arrangements before he had. And it never occurred to her that he might not be welcome. Wade didn’t have the heart to explain it all, so he’d gone with his family to the service and tried to stay as far away from Phoebe as he could. God, she must hate him now.

  Still, when he’d seen her alone, he’d known he had to talk to her, no matter how she felt about him.

  But she didn’t seem to hate him. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I wish it was last week again.” Her tone was forlorn.

  “Me, too.” She felt as fragile as she sounded. He put an arm around her.

  Phoebe sighed and he felt her warm breath through the thin fabric of his dress shirt and t-shirt. “Could we take a walk?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  He rose and held out a hand. When she curled her small fingers around his much larger ones, he felt like bursting into song. Entirely inappropriate—and insensitive—under the circumstances.

  He led her through the apple orchard and into the forest above the house, following a well-worn path that both wildlife and human had helped to create. They simply walked for a long time. When the path narrowed, he helped her over roots, up steep rises and around boulders, and across a small creek.

  They came to a small cabin, a tiny rustic structure. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “My uncles occasionally use it when they hunt up here.”

  Along one side was a large pile of wood that looked to him like a grand place for snakes to be hanging out. When Phoebe started forward, he stepped ahead of her, scanning the ground. Most Californians went th
eir entire lives without seeing a rattlesnake; he’d just as soon be one of them.

  He pushed open the door of the cabin and stepped inside. When Phoebe followed him, there was barely room for two people to stand in the small space. It held a woodstove, an ax in surprisingly good shape, two wooden chairs and a table-top that folded flat against the wall, a bunk bed with a mattress nibbled to shreds by squirrels or mice, and two shelves above the table. One shelf was crammed with an assortment of canned goods and a couple packs of matches. The other held a kettle, a large pot and a scant, mismatched pile of dishes with a few spoons and forks thrown in. There was no electricity, no light. An oil lantern and a bucket hung from pegs on the bunks.

  “Wow,” he said. “I guess this is just for emergencies. But it’s got everything you’d need.” Indeed, he’d seen much worse in some of the homes in the Afghan villages he’d been through.

  “They come up here and clean it out before hunting season each year. They stock it and add a couple of towels and blankets.” She rubbed an absent circle in the dust on the table. “We used to play up here. Thought it was the best playhouse in the world.”

  We, he knew, meant she and Melanie. He imagined to two little girls it had seemed pretty grand. But he didn’t know what to say now that she was talking about her twin again, so he didn’t say anything.

  “One time Mel got her finger pinched pretty badly by a big crawfish we found in the stream,” she said, pointing through the open door down the hill to where the pretty little brook wound its way through the dappled shade and rushed over the rough rocks. “And I saw a snake on that rock another day.” She smiled a little. “I don’t know who scared who more. I screamed. He couldn’t move out fast enough.”

  She stepped back a pace, forcing Wade to move back against the bunks. Even so, her body brushed lightly against his and he was annoyed with his instant reaction. Relax, he told himself. This is not the time to be thinking of sex.

  Phoebe didn’t seem to notice that he was getting hard just being close to her. She was looking at the back of the door. When she went still, he put his hands on her hips and moved her a shade to one side so he could see what she’d been looking at.

  There, cut into the scarred wood on the old door, were initials. PEM. MAM. Phoebe Elizabeth and Melanie Adeline. He almost smiled thinking about how much Mel had hated that middle name. She’d always complained that Phoebe got the pretty one.

  “We did that,” she said softly, “when we were about ten. I remember how daring we felt. It was Melanie’s idea, of course.” She reached out and traced a finger over the rough-hewn initials. “I never told anybody, and I don’t think she did, either. It was our big secret.” Her voice wavered. “We said we would bring our daughters up here someday and show them.”

  Her breath began to hitch, and his desire died instantly, submerged beneath concern. He turned her around, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him like a little animal burrowing into a safe place as she started to sob.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Phoebe. Honey.” Finally he gave up and just stroked her hair as she cried. His own eyes were a little damp. He’d known and loved Melanie, too. Even though she’d been a brat occasionally, she’d been a part of his life since he was just a kid. She’d been more important than anything else in his life for a short while, until he’d realized that they had very little in common, that he’d never be happy with her. So he’d cut the strings.

  He never should have agreed to go to the reunion, but he’d thought it might be fun. Instead, it had been…a revelation. He hadn’t anticipated what had happened with Phoebe that night.

  How the hell could he have missed it? For so many years, she’d been right next door…and he hadn’t seen that the woman of his dreams was right under his nose. No, he’d even dated her sister and still he hadn’t realized that Phoebe was the right one for him.

  He’d figured it out that night at the dance. Unfortunately, so had Melanie.

  Mel hadn’t been unkind, he reflected. Just self-absorbed most of the time. She would never have reacted so badly to the sight of Phoebe and him if she hadn’t been drunk. He should have realized how out of control she was. But he’d been too wrapped up in Phoebe to care.

  And her death was his fault.

  Phoebe stirred then, lifting her head. She pressed her mouth to the base of his throat and he felt the moist heat of her breath sear him.

  “Hey,” he said. A guy could only take so much and he had just reached his limit. He doubted if she even realized how erotic the action had been. He took her arms in a light grasp and tried to step back. “Maybe we should head back.”

  “I’m in no rush.” She spoke against his skin and, this time, she pressed a very deliberate open-mouthed kiss in the same spot. And holy sweet hell, her arms were still around his waist, holding him tight against every soft inch of her.

  “Phoebe?” His voice was hushed. “Ah, this isn’t such a good idea—”

  She kissed the underside of his jaw and then his chin. As she strained upward on her tiptoes, her full weight slid against him. He exhaled sharply. He wasn’t going to look down at her. If he did, there was no way he’d be able to keep from kissing her. And if he kissed her, he wasn’t going to be able to stop with just a few kisses. Not the way he felt.

  He stared straight ahead and set his jaw—

  And then she sucked his earlobe into her mouth and her tongue played lightly around it. He dragged in a rough breath of raw desire.

  And looked down.

  Six

  Holy hell.

  Wade realized he was still standing at the front door. Which, thankfully, he had already closed, since no one passing by could possibly miss his body’s reaction to that memory in the clinging sweatpants he wore. He shook his head ruefully. His system had been at full alert ever since he’d seen Phoebe standing in front of him on her porch Wesnesday afternoon.

  It had only been five days ago that he’d found her, he realized with a jolt, and only two since he’d moved in. And yet in some ways it felt very familiar, very comfortable, as if they’d been together a long, long time. Pretty weird considering that they’d never really even dated, much less lived together.

  But that was going to change.

  He didn’t do such a bad job for a novice on his first day alone with Bridget. Phoebe had shown him the whole diapering deal, and had prepared bottles and baby food for lunch. She’d told him that Bridget did well as long as she was kept to a reliable schedule, so he made sure he followed the instructions she’d left for him.

  He’d gotten up early with Phoebe and they’d eaten breakfast while she went over the directions she was leaving for him. And then she’d left.

  He knew it had been hard for her to walk out the door and leave them alone. If she’d said, “Call me at school if you have any problems,” once, she must have said it ten times.

  He took Bridget to a park at the end of the street in the morning, then brought her home and gave her a bottle. He didn’t even have to rock her, just laid her down in her crib, since her little eyes were practically shut already. Then, while she was sleeping, he opened and dealt with a large envelope of mail that he’d brought with him in case he had time to kill sitting in a hotel room.

  Bridget woke up again about two hours later, so he laid a blanket on the living-room floor and played with her there until time for lunch. Phoebe had told him he needed to feed Bridget promptly if he didn’t want her to get cranky.

  God forbid the kid should get cranky. He’d hate to have to call Phoebe for help. So he heated the mushy-looking stuff Phoebe had left in a small dish and opened up some pureed apricots to mix in with the cereal Phoebe had left out, all of which Bridget devoured as if she hadn’t had a square meal in a month. Which he knew was a crock because he’d watched her tuck away a similar mushy mess for breakfast. Not to mention the bottle he’d given her before her nap.

  After lunch, he walked around the yard with her in his
arms, and they played a little more before she went down for her afternoon nap. When she awakened, he brought her out to the backyard to play until Phoebe got home.

  “Hello there!”

  Wade glanced away from the sandbox. An elderly woman in a faded brown dress covered by a stained gardening smock stood at the fence between the two yards. She resembled a tiny elf, with white hair twisted up in a messy bun and twinkling eyes that crinkled as she smiled at him.

  “Hello.” He got to his feet, lifted Bridget from the sandbox and covered the few steps to the fence with his hand outstretched. Before he could elaborate, the elf clasped his hand in a surprisingly firm grip and pumped his arm up and down in vigorous welcome.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Merriman. I’m Velva Bridley, Phoebe’s neighbor. She’s a dear, dear girl and that little one is too sweet for words.” She poked a gnarled finger into Bridget’s tummy, eliciting the now-familiar squeal. “Phoebe’s never talked much about you. Are you back for good now?”

  “Ah, yes. I was in the army in Afghanistan. But yes, I’m here to stay.” He figured he’d better get a word in edgewise while he had the chance. Later he could decide whether or not it had been the right word.

  “That’s wonderful! Just wonderful. Bridget’s really at that age now where she needs to have her daddy around. I bet it about killed you to be overseas when she was born. I know it would have done me in for sure, if my Ira had missed an important event like that. Here.” She reached into the basket hooked over her arm without even taking a breath and came up with a handful of some kind of pink flowers. “Last snaps of the season. I was going to bring them over after Phoebe got home but you can take ’em in and set ’em in water. Might earn you some points, you know?”

  “Snaps?” She’d lost him a few sentences back.

  “Snapdragons. I always start mine indoors. Never bring ’em out until the twentieth of May on account of late frosts, my daddy always said, so I start ’em in the house and set ’em out bright and early on the twentieth. Got the first ones in the neighborhood, and the last ones, too,” she added proudly. “Mine are hardy.”