Her hands were suddenly tearing at his shirt, pulling it open, then pressing warm to the skin of his chest, finding his own nipples to pinch. The surprise of it shocked him just an instant, then the pleasure of it kicked him into overdrive.
Her robe and shirt vanished. He barely spared a moment to take in her lush beauty before he tore off his own shirt and unfastened his jeans so they fell to his knees.
Then he swept her onto the couch and settled himself between her welcoming thighs. She was wet and open and welcoming, and as he plunged into her he thought he heard her say, "Yessss…."
But the driving need of his body was in control and he plunged again and again into her soft, hot depths, feeling the indescribable pressure building within him.
Distantly he heard her cry out. Then his own shout joined hers as with one last thrust, he emptied himself into her.
* * *
SWEAT-SOAKED SKIN CLUNG. BREATHS rasped quickly, gradually slowing. The world returned, dim, quiet, a counterpoint to all that had happened.
With some surprise, as he lay on her, Seth realized his jeans were still tangled around his knees. It could have been embarrassing, except that he couldn't feel embarrassed with this woman. Not when she still clung to his shoulders, not when her lips were pressing tiny kisses along his collarbone.
Slowly, he lifted his head, daring to meet her eyes. Daring to learn her reaction.
She smiled as she met his gaze. A smile filled him, too, and emerged at last on his face.
Sighing, happier than he could ever remember feeling, he touched his forehead to hers. "I must be crushing you."
"I'm loving it."
But reluctantly he withdrew from her. He had to struggle a bit because of his jeans, which made her giggle. He pretended to scowl at her as he fought the twisted denim and finally freed himself of it.
Then he lifted one of her feet and pointed to the fuzzy slipper. "I'm not the only one."
She went off into a peal of laughter, surely the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.
"I'm thirsty," she said suddenly. "Want something?"
All he wanted was her. Again. Right now. But he was more than rewarded for his patience when she rose from the couch and padded naked to her kitchen.
"Something warm?" she asked over her shoulder.
"Right now I'm as warm as toast. Maybe warmer."
She laughed. "You're naughty."
"I can get naughtier."
"Good." With an impish smile she disappeared.
But when she was no longer in view to distract him, he realized reluctantly that they needed to talk. So he pulled on the jeans he had just struggled out of and picked up her robe.
He followed her to the kitchen, where she was putting the kettle on. She turned with a smile that faded when she saw his jeans and what he was carrying.
"You're leaving?" she asked.
"Absolutely not. But, Maria, we need to talk. We really do."
She nodded slowly. "Okay." She sounded frightened.
Hell, he realized he was feeling frightened, too. He helped her into her robe, then sat at the dinette until she had finished making two cups of tea. He noticed that she sat across from him, not beside him.
"I'm listening," she said.
"I guess," he said slowly, "I should start with Darlene."
Her heart slammed and her hands tightened around her mug. She didn't think she wanted to hear this at all. "What about her?" she asked, then winced at the belligerence of her tone.
"Just that…" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he looked straight at her. "I saw her tonight. I talked to her."
"I know." She waited, suddenly fearful that now that he'd settled his business with Darlene, he'd leave.
"I said goodbye to her. I mean really goodbye."
"Goodbye?"
"Yes. I went in there and told her how I'd failed her. I apologized for keeping her on the edge of my life. I was able to do that because of you, Maria."
She wanted to wave that aside, but something told her to remain perfectly still and quiet for now.
"I was able to face up to who I was back then, and all the things I'd done wrong. And I told her I was sorry. And I walked out of that hospital feeling like I'd shed a hundred pounds of dead weight."
"I'm glad."
He smiled at her. "It was because of you. You made me see what the problem was. And more than that, by talking to you, I realized I could overcome it. I've shared things with you that I've never told anyone."
She didn't know exactly how to reply to that, mainly because she didn't know where he was heading. Was he about to say, Now that you've helped me figure it out, I'm going back to my life. Thanks, it's been swell?
She tightened her grip on her mug even more.
"The thing is," he said, "I've become intimate with you in so many ways I thought I never could. And I realized tonight…well…I love you."
Shock froze her tongue. Her eyes were huge, but she couldn't speak a word.
Finally he asked tentatively, "Did I upset you?"
Mute, she shook her head.
"Maria?"
Finally it burst out of her, too. "I love you, Seth."
An instant later they were in each other's arms, laughing, and maybe crying a little, too.
* * *
A LONG TIME LATER THEY LAY IN HER bed holding hands, staring up at the darkened ceiling while the wind keened outside.
"I wanted to ask you," he said. "About our future. You want to travel. But I've got nearly four years left. Can we compromise so we don't have to be apart?"
"Compromise how?" she asked.
"Well, I could take a training position at Coronado. That's in California. Would you mind living in California for four years? Then we could travel the world. Together."
"Oh, Seth…" She rolled into his arms, amazed that all her dreams could come true in one night because of this one man.
"Could you handle it?" he asked. "I'd rather you not enlist, because we might not be stationed together."
"Oh, Seth," she said again. "Of course I could handle it. I'd love it!"
He sighed, then snuggled her closer. "I love you, Maria. I promise I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy. And if I slip, tell me. Promise you'll tell me."
"I promise," she said. "Just keep being you, Seth. The man I fell in love with."
"Will you marry me?"
"I wouldn't think of doing anything else."
He laughed. "I guess I finally found my way home."
She knew exactly what he meant. Home was in his arms.
Forever.
A BRIDGE FOR CHRISTMAS
Merline Lovelace
To the men and women I served with and who now serve. May the joy and peace of Christmas find you, wherever you are.
CHAPTER ONE
"YO! CAPTAIN TRENT!"
USAF Captain Abigail Trent barely heard the shout over the hip-hop version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" blasting through the boom box hung from the center pole of the mess tent.
"Over here."
A tall, rangy non-com motioned her toward the group clustered around a scrawny pine stuck in a barrel of sand.
"We finished the tree," Sergeant Davis announced. "What do you think?"
Abigail eyed the decorations hanging from the branches. Her Red Horse troops had gone all out. Highly skilled combat engineers and world-class scroungers, they'd strung red runway warning lights, shredded wire-thin copper tubing into tinsel, and hand-painted Christmas scenes on fat, round globes.
Abby's brows snapped together. Bending, she took a closer look at the globes. "Please tell me those aren't what I think they are."
Davis flashed a wide grin. "I told the guys we might as well get some use out of that carton of condoms headquarters sent in with our medical supplies. We sure won't be using them for recreational purposes."
He had that right. When Abby's sixteen-person combat engineering team had choppered into this remote site hig
h in the Taurus Mountains eight days ago, they'd found the village nestled along the river below deserted. Located in the hot zone between Turkey, Iran and Iraq, the area had been fiercely fought over in past years. Only the village priest remained, stubbornly refusing to leave his near roofless church and the band of ragtag orphans in his charge. The children had nowhere else to go, the bearded Greek Orthodox priest had explained. Father Dominic intended to keep them here, under his watchful eye, until the vicious guerrilla fighting in the area subsided and the scattered residents returned to the village that had straddled the banks of the river since ancient times.
Abby suspected the fighting wouldn't end anytime soon. There were too many factions, too many lingering hatreds. Greeks, Romans, Turks, Persians, Syrians, Russians—all had tramped through the high mountain pass on their way to conquer one another. The Republic of Turkey claimed the area at present, but the fiercely independent local tribes waged war against the central government almost as fiercely as they did against one another.
Now the Americans had arrived. Or would arrive, once Abby's Red Horse team finished its prep work for the Special Operations forward detachment scheduled to deploy in here just after Christmas. Dubbed Chargin' Charlies after the stomping, snorting stallion that was the unit's mascot, her sixteen-person Red Horse crew had hit the ground running. Working day and night, they'd completed their initial survey. Now they were laying out the site for the second-echelon construction team. This was their first break—a stand-down for Christmas Eve. To celebrate the occasion, they'd decided to throw a party for the orphans.
"Just don't tell Father Dominic those decorations are, uh, medical supplies," Abby begged the still-grinning Sergeant Davis. "He has his doubts about us as it is."
"Not to worry, Cap."
Leaving Davis and his committee to admire their handiwork, Abby checked on the mess sergeant. When in the field, her team subsisted primarily on MREs—Meals Ready to Eat. But Christmas called for turkey and all the trimmings. Since the weather was expected to turn nasty later tonight and preclude flights, headquarters had choppered in special containers of real food earlier this afternoon. Abby's troops had taken a vote and decided to share their feast with Father Dominic and his charges this evening instead of waiting for tomorrow. The tantalizing aromas emanating from the containers had set stomachs growling all afternoon. Abby's added to the chorus as she peered over the shoulder of the lanky Texan who doubled as their mess sergeant.
"Everything under control, Oakes?"
"Roger that, Captain." He pried the lid off another container. The tangy scent of cranberry sauce joined the other delicious aromas. "Those kids are really gonna chow down tonight."
Nodding, Abby hitched up the collar of her field jacket, tugged her knit stocking cap down over her ears, and braced herself. The moment she stepped outside the heated mess tent, a blast of frigid mountain air hit her like a slap to the face. The wind caught a loose strand of her auburn hair and whipped it free of her cap. She hooked it behind her ear and stood for a moment, drinking in the scene.
The Taurus Mountains rose all around her, jagged peaks of granite capped with snow. Far below, the river that had carved a gorge through the mountain untold millennia ago glinted under a thick crusting of ice. Only a small channel remained open in the river's center, the current fast flowing and clogged with chunks of ice that had broken free upstream.
Hunching her shoulders against the wind, Abby peered down at the ancient Roman bridge spanning the river. Its two square support columns still stood, as did the arch connecting them, but the causeway had taken a direct hit in the recent fighting. The engineer in her wanted to weep at the sight of the gaping hole smack in the center of the causeway. That bridge had stood for more than two thousand years, a monument to Roman engineering and the durability of the voussoir arch.
The Romans weren't the first to utilize the arch in construction, of course. They'd stolen the concept from the Etruscans. But they'd perfected the art of distributing weight and stress across a geometric half circle capped with a center keystone. That technique had allowed them to build such glorious structures as the many-arched Coliseum in Rome and the Pont du Gard in southern France. The same technique had led eventually to the vaulted medieval cathedrals that stole Abby's breath every time she walked into one.
She was still mourning the damage to the bridge when the raucous hip-hop blasting through the speakers inside the tent gave way to the far more mellow strains of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas." Instantly, Abby's thoughts veered away from Roman architecture. A wave of homesickness hit her, so swift and sharp she almost doubled over.
Like bright shining ornaments, vivid images tumbled through her mind. Pine garlands festooning the windows of the town house in Philadelphia's historic Chestnut Hill district where she'd grown up. Her mom, elegant in red wool and pearls. Her dad in the plaid smoking jacket he wore only on Christmas Eve, when the family gathered around the tree. Her sister and brother-in-law and two lively nieces, their eyes round with wonder and delicious anticipation.
And Eric, Abby's would-be fiancé. The handsome architect had attended the Trent family gathering last Christmas Eve. He had fit right in. He'd also joined the chorus of dismayed protests when Abby announced her decision to join the Air Force Reserves. She'd tried to explain that she needed to do more than sit behind a desk. That 9/11 had stirred a desire to serve her country and help in the war against terrorism in her own small way.
Of course, Abby didn't know then her reserve unit would be called up for active duty a few short months after she joined. Or that she'd spend her next Christmas thousands of miles away from Philadelphia, sharing an airlifted turkey dinner with sixteen rough-and-ready combat engineers.
Correction, she thought, catching sight of the tall, square-shouldered figure making his way toward her. Make that sixteen combat engineers and one hardheaded Special Operations pilot.
Squaring her shoulders, Abby braced herself for the next skirmish in her private, ongoing war with Major Dan Maxwell. Maxwell had been on her case almost from the day they arrived. As Special Ops liaison, he was here to advise Abby on his unit's operational needs while her team laid out the site. Unfortunately, the major tended to confuse "advise" with "do it my way."
Like Abby, the pilot was bundled up against the biting wind. Instead of camouflage BDUs and a heavy, hooded field jacket, though, Maxwell wore his Nomex flight suit and a fleece-lined bomber jacket. The wind ruffled his short black hair and put blades of color in his lean, tanned cheeks.
"I understand your troops are standing down for the rest of the day," he said by way of greeting.
"That's right."
"I also heard you invited the village priest and his charges up to the site for chow."
His tone implied she should have consulted with him first, or so it seemed to Abby. Bristling, she lifted her chin.
"Yes, I did. Do you have a problem with that, Major?"
His eyes narrowed. She felt the impact of that ice-blue laser stare all the way to her boot tops.
"No problem," he answered after a long moment. "I just wanted to contribute to the festivities."
"Oh." She couldn't quite bring herself to apologize. Shrugging, she offered an olive branch of sorts. "All contributions gratefully accepted. What do you have?"
"Over here."
Curious, she followed him to the pallets stacked outside the tent that sheltered their supplies and equipment. Her troops had stowed all the controlled items, but hadn't had time to stash the rest of the stuff airlifted in with their Christmas dinner earlier. Shifting from boot to boot in the cold, Abby waited while Maxwell pried the lid off a crate stenciled Special Ops—Priority.
"I radioed base when I heard about the party," he informed her. "They scrounged up toys and candy for the kids. Also some warm clothing."
Well, darn! Here Abby had cast the major firmly in the role of Scrooge. Why the heck did he have to go and spoil the image?
Not that he looked
anything like a Scrooge, she admitted silently. With his jet-black hair, to-die-for blue eyes and linebacker's shoulders, he came closer to a hulked-up Pierce Brosnan.
She wasn't the only one who'd noticed the resemblance. Senior Airman Joyce Carmichael, the only other female on the team, swore her temperature spiked every time Maxwell came within ten yards. Abby had been forced to remind the irrepressible Joyce that there would be no fraternization or fooling around in the ranks.
Although…
There were moments when Abby had glanced up, met Maxwell's gaze and felt her skin go all prickly.
Moments just like this one.
More than a little annoyed by the sensation, she masked it behind a cool smile. "Thanks for getting into the spirit of things. I'll send Sergeant Davis and the guys out to haul this stuff into the mess tent. They might be able to scare up something to use as wrapping paper."
"Good enough."
Folding his arms, Dan leaned a hip against the crate and let his glance linger on the captain's backside until it disappeared around the corner of the supply tent. Not even the baggy BDUs could disguise her trim curves.
Grimacing, Dan tried to loosen the kink the woman put in his gut every time he laid eyes on her. He was here to do a job. So was Trent. Neither of them had time for distractions. Or they hadn't until this afternoon.
It was the stand-down, he thought wryly. That, and the Christmas music pouring out of the boom box. With a few hours of unexpected time on his hands, Dan had started thinking all kinds of crazy things—like finding Captain Abigail Trent under his tree Christmas morning, wrapped in a big red bow and nothing else.
Yeah, like that was going to happen! Rumor had it she was all but engaged to some high-priced architect back home. Word was she intended to finish her reserve hitch and scoot right back to Philadelphia, the boyfriend and the six-figure job she'd left behind.
Dan, on the other hand, was in for the duration. Raised by a drunk of a father, he'd worked his way through high school and college, then joined the air force at the start of the first Gulf War. A brief, disastrous marriage had convinced him the military was the only family he needed.
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