Men Out of Uniform: 6 Book Omnibus

by Rhonda Russell

  Unfaithfulness was sort of a deal-breaker in his book.

  It was all for the best really. He’d been trying to find the kind of love his parents shared and had known deep in his heart that the connection wasn’t right with Sabrina. She’d been an ill-planned substitute. Since then, though it left him feeling a bit hollow on the inside, Levi had given up on the idea of marriage and family. He’d decided it simply wasn’t in his cards.

  He heaved a silent sigh and made a mental note to check in with Adam, his little brother, who was also currently serving in Iraq. Not that he necessarily needed to check in on him. Only two years younger than himself, Adam was a crackerjack soldier, one that Levi knew would always have his back. But old habits died hard and, though it was unreasonable, he couldn’t seem to shake the pervading feeling that he needed to protect him. That, even after all these years, it was still his job.

  Shaking off a bit of unease, Levi unfolded the letter and felt a smile roll over his lips as the familiar feminine writing--neat and a bit loopy--filled the page.

  Dear Levi,

  I dreamed about you again last night. I dreamed you were home and, more importantly, mine. I dreamed you wanted me, really wanted me, that you walked through my front door, our eyes locked, and a second later you were on me, taking me hard and fast against the door.

  Sweet God, was she trying to kill him? Did this woman have any idea how these letters affected him? How therapeutic the ones he wrote back to her were?

  You kissed me as though you needed my breath to breathe, you took my breasts into your mouth and suckled the peaks until I almost came. You slipped your wickedly talented fingers into my panties and I rubbed myself against you, satisfied...but not, wanting more. Needing more. I’m hot and muddled now, remembering.

  Welcome to the club, sweetheart, he thought, chuckling darkly. At the moment his balls felt like they’d been hit with a blow torch, then tossed into a microwave.

  It was the sort of dream where I never wanted to wake up and when I did, I still tingled with release, imagined I could even still feel you there, deep inside of me. I ache for you in places I scarcely recognize, most notably...my heart.

  Imagination was an interesting thing, Levi thought, and in this regard she definitely had the advantage. She was imagining him. Obviously knew him. She’d cited too many little things in previous letters--including local gossip--not to know him and his brother, for that matter, relatively well.

  Meanwhile, his under-informed imagination had just enough sexy information from her to have him cocked, locked and ready to rock with a few strokes of her pen, but no face to put with the vision. Not exactly true. He’d put a face with the vision. An image of dark red hair, big brown eyes and a mouth made for sin suddenly materialized in his mind’s eye. He sucked a breath through his teeth and gave his head a small shake.

  Off-limits, he told himself. Don’t go there.

  It couldn’t--wouldn’t--be her.

  He desperately wanted to know Ms. X’s identity, but until she slipped up--or he went home to investigate, which in his present situation was out of the question--he was completely at her mercy.

  Levi McPherson didn’t like being at anyone’s mercy, but after the Sabrina fiasco, when he’d looked and felt like a damned fool, particularly a woman’s.

  Furthermore, while the sexy nature of the letters was a stoker, there was something more at work here. He felt a strange sort of connection with his anonymous letter-writer. She got him. Truly got him. And that was more of a turn on than anything she could write.

  I know I should probably stop sending you these letters, but I just can’t seem to help myself. I’m bleeding my fantasies of you right onto the page--albeit anonymously--and it feels good to finally give voice to my feelings. My desires. I’ve wanted you...forever, and telling you in detail is the next best thing in absence of the courage to actually admit who I am. Cowardly, I know, but...

  “Levi?”

  Levi looked up and saw a couple of his unit mates standing in the doorway. The grave look on their faces made his heart rate skip into a frantic rhythm and a cold sweat break across his shoulders. And they’d used his given name, not his “Remington”--as in Steele--nickname he’d been given in Jump School. Paper crackled in the wretched silence as his fingers involuntarily tightened.

  “It’s Adam,” Will Forrester told him. “Another damned IED.”

  Miserable road-side bombs, Levi thought as nausea clawed the back of his throat. A punch of panic landed in his gut, momentarily disabling his ability to breathe. This had always been a possibility--they were at war, after all, soldiers on the front line of the battlefield. But no amount of mental preparation had readied him for this. He swallowed, dredging deep for the courage he knew he was going to need.

  “Where is he?”

  “They’re bringing him in.” Will swallowed. Hard. “He’s in bad shape, Levi.”

  Yeah, well, bad shape was better than dead, Levi thought, relief flooding through him. He’d seen too many damned flag-draped coffins lately and putting his little brother in one was more than he cared to contemplate.

  Hang tight, bro’. I’m coming.

  CHAPTER 1

  Three weeks later...

  Dear Levi, I saw your boat on the bay today and wondered what it would be like to make love on the water. You rocking inside of me while the boats rocked along the waves...

  When Natalie Rowland’s assistant, in a bout of unusual efficiency, had mistakenly gathered up her private correspondence along with her art gallery’s promotional mailings and had stamped her return address onto what was supposed to have been--and forever remain--an anonymous sexy love letter, then had personally carried it all to the post office, Natalie had known a single blinding moment of panic when she’d belatedly realized that her private, God help her, no-longer anonymous letter had been posted.

  That gut-wrenching, miserable, hyperventilating, nausea-inducing panic paled in comparison to the news she’d just received.

  “Levi’s c-coming home,” she repeated, her voice a strangled croak. A familiar sense of unease made her stomach wobble in warning.

  Adam McPherson shifted, barely winced, and tossed the five of clubs onto the discard pile. Though she knew on some level that he had to mourn--and even resent, to some degree--the recent loss of his right leg below the knee, since returning home to his parent’s house in Bethel Bay a week ago from The Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, Texas--the nation’s premiere facility for amputee and burn victims--he hadn’t voiced a single complaint.

  She’d catch the occasional broodingly haunted expression, when she knew he was reliving the horror of the incident which had taken his part of his leg, but the minute he caught her looking at him, he’d blink away the expression and smile. But that was Adam. A stoic goofball with hidden depths, and one of her longest and dearest friends.

  She’d missed him terribly over the years and had looked forward to his visits home, but admittedly, this was not the sort of occasion she’d been hoping for. His mother had called her as soon as she’d heard the news and had kept her updated until Adam had made it back to town.

  Despite the fact that his surgery had gone well and he was healing nicely, recovery was still a long arduous road, but one she had every confidence he would tread with the same wry humor and determination he’d always had.

  Even if he had to do it with a prosthesis.

  His physical therapy was progressing well and, considering the recent advancements in prosthetic technology, he had every intention of returning to active duty as soon as humanly possible. Or so he said, and for his sake and sanity, Natalie certainly hoped so. Presently Adam was staying with his parents in their beautiful bayside home--just a few doors down from her own cottage--while recuperating.

  Speculation had run rampant during their high school and college years as to whether their friendship would ever develop into something romantic, but that had never been a possibility. She inwardly smiled.

>   Probably because she’d been in love with his older brother, Levi, for what felt like most of her life.

  Though she’d nursed a crush on him during high school--one that had started within a few days of them moving to Bethel Bay after his father had retired--Natalie could vividly remember the exact moment when she’d fallen in love with him.

  It had been another hot summer night at the beach, just one of many they’d spent gathered around a fire, listening to music and hanging out. A few yards down the beach a couple had been arguing and as time wore on, the fight escalated. Things hit a fever pitch, and the guy backhanded the woman across the face, knocking her to the ground.

  Without the slightest hesitation, Levi had raced down the beach and pummeled the hell out of the guy, who at the time had been at least twice his age. Show some respect, you weak bastard, he’d said.

  And she’d never forgotten it.

  Though that had been the defining moment for her, there’d been many more over the years. Levi was the type of guy who never missed an opportunity to do the right thing, even if it was hard. He was always the first to befriend the friendless, to champion the underdog. He was the kind of guy who walked little old ladies across the street, always stopped to help a stranded motorist change a tire and never failed to open a door for a lady. He was a rare combination, a dying breed of man--he was a gentleman and a hero, a beautiful badass who’d always made her heart sing.

  Levi McPherson. The mere thought of him made something besides her nervous stomach shift and warm in her middle.

  And he was coming home.

  “Yep,” Adam confirmed, much to Natalie’s commingled joy and horror. “Today as a matter of fact.” He paused to take a drink of lemonade. From their vantage point on the screened in porch, a couple of jet skis raced around the bay, kicking up a stream of salty spray. “Mom and Dad have gone to Charleston to pick him up. They should be back any minute.”

  Any minute? Levi? Here? She swallowed, trying not to hurl, a lamentable well-documented byproduct of her nerves. Other people broke out in hives or developed a tick. Not her--she puked. Sometimes on people, she thought, remembering that terrible choir incident in fifth grade.

  Natalie rearranged the cards in her hand, hoping to disguise the sudden trembling in her fingers and felt her mouth go bone dry. Her heart momentarily fainted, then thankfully regained consciousness. She picked up the five, made a run, and then discarded the Jack of Hearts.

  “Really? I, uh... I didn’t think he would get to come home.” Small understatement. It had never occurred to her that he’d be home before his tour was up. It hadn’t occurred to anyone else either, she knew, otherwise the city council--of which she was a part--would have already started planning their Welcome Home parade.

  “Me either,” Adam said, watching her closely. His eyes twinkled with a humor she didn’t altogether trust. “Ordinarily I would have had to have come home in a pine box for him to get leave--“

  She glared at him in admonishment, not finding the comment the least bit funny. He’d come too damned close to that very scenario. “Adam.”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking a bit repentant. “Bad joke. But I suspect the General pulled some strings. Retired or not, he’s still got some friends in high places and the one in the Governor’s office, in particular, has called recently.”

  Natalie had always gotten a kick out of how everyone--including their mother--had always called Jack McPherson “the General” instead of “Dad.” More than likely, though, Adam was right. American troops were stretched thin, so allowing a soldier home--particularly a Ranger like Levi--wasn’t the norm, even under these sad circumstances. No doubt their mother’s recent cancer scare had played a considerable part in the General flexing his influential muscle to bring Levi back to the States, even temporarily.

  She batted a wisp of hair from her eyes, wondering how Levi felt about it. She knew from his letters--the one’s he’d written to her via her PO Box--that he was very loyal to his unit and often talked about the brotherhood that existed in the military, particularly in times of crisis. Of course, watching Adam leave, who was also a part of his unit, couldn’t have been easy either. No doubt he was torn between the two.

  She cleared her throat, hoping that she sounded marginally nonchalant. “How long will he be home?”

  “Just a few days,” he said.

  Damn. That was still long enough for his mail to be forwarded, provided the evidence of her identity hadn’t already arrived. She didn’t think so, but...

  Honestly, when she’d realized that Lacey--her ordinarily inefficient assistant--had out’ed her with her return address stamp--damn that stern talking to she’d given her about being more proactive--the intestinal-knotting panic Natalie had known as a result of that knowledge had almost been enough to bring her to her knees. Little stars had danced behind her lids and the only thing which had prevented her from hurling--her usual coping-with-stress mechanism--was the fact that it was physically impossible to hyperventilate and throw up simultaneously. Small favors, she reminded herself now, as the panic and nausea made an encore appearance.

  Levi. Here. Any minute now.

  She still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. And, dammit, wouldn’t you know she looked like hell? Just her freaking luck. She and her father had been out beach-combing this morning for drift wood--the tool of her trade as a driftwood artist--and had planned to go back this afternoon for low tide. Rather than change clothes for she and Adam’s daily Tonk tournament, she’d worn her usual uniform of cut-off denim shorts, a bikini top and a tank. She smothered a miserable whine. She looked like a sea urchin.

  Oh, goody.

  Though Natalie would love to belong to the don’t-worry-about-what-you-can’t change school of thought, regrettably she’d never been able to embrace the philosophy. That’s why she was active on her city council, participated in local charities and made sure to do her part to make the world--or at least her little part of it--a better place. In the grand scheme of things, logically she knew that Levi finding out that she’d been the one writing the letters wasn’t the worst possible thing that could happen to her.

  She’d already lived through that, thank you, she thought, swallowing tightly as a dear image of her mother rose in her mind’s eye.

  But the heart wasn’t logical, and the part of her that was responsible for pragmatic thoughts was currently trying to keep her breakfast from making an encore appearance.

  Would seeing him again under the circumstances be embarrassing? Oh, dear God, yes. Had she planned on facing him so soon? Certainly not. In fact, considering that he was deployed for another two months, she’d given herself that long to try and figure out how she was going to handle it. Ordinarily she was more of a take-the-bull-by-the-horns sort of person, but in this instance she just hadn’t been able to bear to think about it. Unfortunately, rather than the two months she’d thought she’d had to formulate a plan, she’d be lucky if she had two minutes.

  Sweet God, what was she going to do? Better still, what could she do? Provided she could even think of a way to intercept the letter--wishful, lunatic thinking at its best--tampering with the US Mail was a federal offense. While she’d been known to enjoy a prank or two, she’d never slid a toe over the strictly illegal line. Natalie released a small breath.

  He was going to find out that she’d written the letters.

  Every hot, depraved, totally uncensored one of them. It was inevitable, she knew. And then, this strange relationship--the only one she knew she’d ever have with him--would be over. No more letters. No more “talking.” No more...anything.

  Frankly, she’d long ago given up the hope that Levi would permanently return to Bethel Bay and, after the whole left-at-the-alter-thing Sabrina had put him through, she didn’t imagine he’d ever settle down.

  Least of all with her.

  Sad, but true. Oh, he’d always been nice to her. She and Adam had spent enough time together over the years that she’d been around
Levi--despite him being a couple of years older--a pretty good bit, but in all that time she’d never detected even the slightest bit of interest in her whatsoever. He was polite. He was kind. He’d crack the occasional joke, but never once had he intimated any sort of interest in her at all.

  Granted that had all changed with the letters--how many times had he written her back, wanting to know who she was?--but therein lay her present magic.

  Anonymity.

  He didn’t know who she was. The woman who he’d been exchanging correspondence with was the Mysterious Ms. X--his nickname for her made her smile--not Natalie Rowland, home town girl, little brother’s close friend and, most damningly, bride’s maid at his ill-fated wedding.

  Honestly, there had many times in her life when she’d seriously questioned her own judgment--using self-tanning lotion the night before Senior Prom (orange was not her color), allowing Adam to talk her into attaching a “Wide Load” sign onto the back of the high school principal’s car (detention) and more recently, trying to make s’mores in the oven rather than the traditional way around a camp fire (huge mess,) but allowing her father to talk her into agreeing to be one of Sabrina’s bride’s maid’s by far took the Stupid Trophy. As her cousin, even though she’d never particularly liked her, at the end of the day it would have been bad form to refuse.

  In short, she’d really had no choice.

  Despite the fact that she and Sabrina had never been close and she’d had no idea until Adam had told her that Sabrina had been having an affair, Natalie suspected she would always be guilty by association. Frankly, he hadn’t looked at her the same way since. On the rare but wonderful occasions she’d seen him since he’d always been a bit...distant. Removed.

  But better distant and removed than married to Sabrina, Natalie thought, remembering the abject heartache she’d suffered as a result of his original proposal to her shallow relation. Devastated didn’t begin to cover how she’d felt. Broken, ruined and beyond repair was a more accurate description. Though she knew that he’d been humiliated and hurt, Natalie had silently rejoiced when Sabrina had canceled the wedding. And she’d been equally happy when Sabrina had moved to Nashville to pursue her dream of becoming a country music star last year, Natalie thought, remembering her cousin’s horrible warble.