Uniformly Hot! Volume 1 from Harlequin: Letters from HomeBreaking the RulesComing Up for Air

by Rhonda Nelson

  “What?”

  “Your bed was always made.” She nodded succinctly. “You were tidy.”

  A hearty laugh rumbled up from his chest and he shot her a look that suggested she might have lost her mind. “I was tidy because I had to be. Dad would have tanned my hide if I hadn’t made my bed.”

  “You mean you were tidy because you had to be, that at heart you were truly a slob?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I was a slob, but I sure as hell didn’t make my bed because I wanted to.”

  She humphed, and lay back down. “Well, that’s it, then, she said resignedly. “You are no longer officially perfect.”

  That wonderful chuckle she’d gotten so used to hearing near her ear sounded again. “Surely there’s some way to redeem myself in your eyes,” Levi said, trailing his fingers over the top of her hip.

  “I don’t know.” She feigned concern. “I built a world of fantasies over this made bed.”

  His voice took on a husky timbre. “I’ve built a world of fantasies over you in my bed.”

  It had been the same for her, Natalie thought. “I got your letter today,” she confessed. It was so strange to read letters from him while he was home, to read them and realize that, at the time he’d written to her, he still didn’t know who she was.

  “I figured as much. You know, since you snuck into my bed.”

  She smiled. “Hey, that was a cool fantasy. I’m glad that you gave me something to work with. I’d begun to worry that you didn’t have any imagination at all.”

  He laughed. “No imagination?”

  “You’ve got to be quiet,” she said. “Your parents are going to hear us.”

  “Nah,” Levi told her. “Once Dad turns on that sound machine it’s game over for them until it automatically goes off in the morning.”

  Slightly mollified, Natalie nodded. “It still makes me nervous.”

  “Not nervous enough to keep you from getting naked in my room and waiting for me.” He gave her a squeeze. “That’s the best damned thing that’s ever happened in this room. Or in any room, for that matter. Thank you.”

  Warmth moved through her chest and settled like a blanket over her heart.

  “I’m glad I could do something for you. You’ve been giving me my fantasies all week.” She felt tears threaten again, but determinedly pushed them back. “You’ve been my dream come true, you know that?”

  He grew quiet, then said, “It’s been my pleasure.”

  Natalie looked at the digital bedside clock and sighed. She’d been here for hours. She really needed to go. “I guess I should crawl back out that window and head down to my place. You’ll have to get up soon.”

  “Don’t go yet,” he said. “Stay with me a little while longer.”

  And before she could utter a single word of protest, he was kissing her again, then positioned himself between her thighs, filling her up, emptying her out, taking and giving and making her long for things that would never be.

  Things like a life with him, morning coffee, walks on the beach, late-night dinners and making love. Like holidays and birthdays and little red-headed children with eyes the shade of toffee candy. Things like fighting and making up and sailing and holding hands.

  Things like…life. With him.

  Levi pushed into her over and over, almost desperately, as though he was trying to store her up for a rainy day, as though he genuinely cared for her the way she cared for him. He was urgent and reverent and relentless and she wanted desperately for him not to leave. For him to tell her that somehow they’d make it work.

  But she knew that wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He was about to go halfway around the world to fight in a war that could, quite feasibly, take his life. He could walk out of her life tonight and never come back.

  A sob rose in her throat, but she swallowed it, determined not to fall apart while he was here. He didn’t want that. It wasn’t fair. And her hero, her badass, her very heart, would feel terribly guilty because that’s the man he was.

  He was good, Natalie thought as release built up inside her once more. He was good and kind and wonderful and she absolutely loved him more than the air she was breathing.

  “Look at me,” he said. He threaded his fingers through hers and lifted them over her head, stretching her out. She felt raw and open and exposed and…loved, God help her. “I want to watch you,” he told her. “I want to see the look in your eyes when it happens.”

  Natalie arched against him, meeting him thrust for thrust, desperate for the same sort of connection. The same promise of something special. She wanted to see the look in his eyes when he let himself go, when he came into her.

  He pushed, once, twice, a third time and then…

  Bliss. Together.

  They lay in the darkness for a few more minutes, then before she could change her mind or do something stupid, like beg him to change his life to accommodate her, Natalie quietly slipped from the bed and got dressed. She climbed back out through the window, then turned and propped her arms on the sill and rested her chin against them.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said, though it wasn’t enough, paled in comparison with the total devastation of her heart. Breathe, Natalie. Just breathe.

  He traced her face with his gaze, then slid the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  “Thank you,” she managed to say. “For everything. The past several days have been…” She sighed, searching for the right word. “Incredible.”

  He nodded. “The best damned leave I’ve ever had,” he said. “You’re wonderful, Nat.”

  “Be safe.”

  He smiled at her. “Always.”

  This was it, Natalie thought. Time to go. Time to leave. She managed another wobbly smile, then leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss. “G’night.”

  She wouldn’t say goodbye. Couldn’t. It was too permanent. Too final.

  She started to go.

  “Hey, Nat,” he called quietly.

  She turned, hoping that he couldn’t see the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Yeah?”

  He gestured wordlessly, then managed a smile. “Write.”

  A broken laugh came apart in her throat and the tears she’d been stemming for hours suddenly slipped past her lashes. “I will,” she promised.

  13

  Dear Levi,

  I don’t know quite how to say this, but I’ve decided that I’m going to have to hate you. Loving you is too hard. I know that may sound irrational, but…it is what it is…

  “YOU READY to go, Dad?” Natalie asked, filling her water bottle from her father’s kitchen faucet. Though her heart wasn’t exactly into combing at the moment, Natalie nevertheless couldn’t bring herself to skip a day. That perfect piece she might miss haunted her, even when her heart was broken.

  “I think I’ll pass this morning, hon. I’ve got some things to do around here.”

  Stunned, Natalie stood glued to the spot. Pass? He hadn’t passed in five years, not a day since her mother had died. “O-okay,” she said, because she couldn’t manage anything else.

  Sitting placidly at the kitchen table, as though he hadn’t just dropped a bomb onto her already shattered world, her father rattled his paper. “I did a bit of thinking while I was at your uncle Milton’s house and I realized that I’ve been smothering you.”

  “No, Dad, you—”

  He dropped the paper and his sad eyes met hers. “Yes I have. I know it. Have known it.” He swallowed. “After I lost your mother I was so angry at the sea, so fearful of what it could take from me. I even considered selling this house and moving away.”

  This was definitely the morning for shocks, Natalie thought, as his comment bolted through her. “You did?”

  He nodded. “Do you know why I didn’t?”

  “No,” she said, swallowing, because it was a lie. He’d stayed for her. Because Bethel Bay was her home.

  “Because you love it her
e, Natalie, and I couldn’t bear to be away from you. The ocean and your art—” He shrugged helplessly. “—it’s who you are. So I knew that I couldn’t leave because that would mean leaving you. That’s when I decided that if I couldn’t move away, then I could at least keep you safe. It didn’t matter that you were a strong swimmer. Like your mother,” he added. “Or that you rarely ventured into more than a foot of water when we’re combing.” He smiled, though the grin was anything but amused. It was so sad it made her chest ache. “Nothing mattered but making sure you were okay.” He sighed heavily. “It became my mission, you see. I had to protect you. Because if I was focusing on protecting you, then I wouldn’t have to face my own life, deal with my own loss. Your mother and me, we were supposed to grow old together. We were supposed to take RV trips and spoil grandchildren. I was robbed, you see, and I didn’t want to face it.”

  Her throat tightened. She joined him at the table and took his hand in hers. “Oh, Dad.”

  “I know that you’re hurting right now, Natalie, and you miss your man. But you haven’t lost him, honey,” he said, in a weary voice that held a wealth of meaning. “You’ve only lost if you give up. Don’t give up, honey. Love, when it’s real, is worth it.”

  She didn’t doubt him, Natalie thought. She just didn’t know how to make it work.

  “HOW ARE things going over there?” Adam asked two weeks later, when Levi managed to get a call out to home.

  “The same as they were when I left,” Levi said. “One step forward, two steps back. Two steps forward, one step back.”

  “Yeah, well, so long as you stay a step ahead, that’s all I care about,” Adam said. “How are the guys?”

  “Fine. Wondering when you’re going to be back in business. Forrester says hi, by the way, and he’s glad to hear that you’re losing weight.”

  “Hey, shut the hell up,” Adam said, laughing. “I’ll have you know I’ve been hitting the gym every damned day.”

  “That’s good news, little brother.”

  “Damned Winnie. I still can’t believe she said that to me.”

  Though it officially sounded like a complaint, Levi could tell his brother was secretly pleased with Winnie’s candor.

  “That’s the hell of it when it comes to women,” Levi said, staring at a picture of Natalie that he’d stolen from Adam. “You never know what they’re going to say.”

  Adam sighed. “You miss her, don’t you?”

  He could ask who, but what was the point? Levi passed a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he admitted. “More than I could have imagined.”

  And he meant that.

  Honestly, he didn’t have any idea how these other guys did it. How they walked away from their families—wives and children—to do this job. He had a whole new appreciation for the guys who were here with loved ones back home. The ones who carried pictures of their children in their pockets and kept snapshots of their wives over their beds.

  He got it now. Truly, genuinely got it.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, she’s a wreck.”

  Levi straightened, alarm knifing through him. “Why the hell would that make me feel better?”

  “Because misery loves company, I guess.” Adam sighed heavily. “Of course, I warned you about this, so I hope you know that I’m going to kick your ass with my brand-new shiny leg when you get home.”

  Though he should have been more interested in the fact that his brother wanted to kill him, he was too distracted by the other part of the sentence to care. “You got it?”

  “It’s awesome. Seriously. I can hurt you with it. I’m going to knock your nuts up between your shoulder blades.”

  Though he knew Adam was just yanking his chain, there was a hint of truthfulness in the threat. Which only served to make him feel worse. He and Natalie were adults. They’d known how things would play out. But…

  “She’s that bad, is she?”

  “She’s putting on a brave face,” Adam said. “She’s still coming down and playing cards and I’ve been going combing with her the past few mornings. But there’s a sadness around her eyes that wasn’t there before and she’s not sleeping.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know her, dammit,” he said, exasperated. “She’s been staying up—working, if I had my guess.”

  Levi’s chest ached and let go a sigh. “I’d fix it if I could, Adam. But I don’t know how.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re going to have to figure it out,” Adam said, as though a plausible solution was just a good thinking session away, as if he could just drag a remedy from thin air. “I can’t stand to see her this way. And I sure as hell can’t fix it. Because I’m not you.” He paused. “I know phone time is hard to come by, but you’d better be writing her.”

  “I am,” Levi said. He’d written her every day since he’d left. Hell, he’d written the first letter while on the plane back over. He couldn’t stop thinking about her either. He woke up and he wondered what she was doing, he went to bed and he wished she was there beside him. And the things that happened in his dreams…they weren’t nearly as wonderful as the real thing.

  In short, he was a wreck, and if didn’t get a grip he was going to screw up and the outcome wouldn’t be pretty.

  As if reading his mind, Adam issued a warning. “For the time being, you just keep your head out of your ass and focus on what you’re doing. You can figure the Natalie thing out when your tour’s over.”

  “Adam, there’s nothing to figure out. She’s in Bethel Bay. Her career, her family, her life is in Bethel Bay. Mine’s here. I’ve been over it six ways to Sunday and this story just isn’t going to have a happy ending.”

  “Bullshit. You’re writing the ending. Make it happen.”

  Levi felt his patience snap. “How? How am I supposed to do that? If I ask her to come with me, then I’m taking her away from what she loves.”

  “I think you’re underestimating just how in love with you she is.”

  “Now,” Levi argued. “But what about later? What about when she’s missing the beach and her father and all her friends and family? What about when I’m deployed and I’m not there for her?” He sighed heavily. “I’ve been over it. I’ve thought about it. It’s a no-win situation.”

  “You’d never consider coming out? Getting a different job?”

  “It’s not just a job, Adam. It’s who I am. Hell, you of all people ought to know that.”

  Adam’s silence echoed over the line. “You’re right. Shitty suggestion. I’m sorry. You know, bro, I just want you both to be happy. And I know that you’re happy together.”

  He knew it, too. But knowing it and making it happen were two completely different things.

  “She could always come back to Bethel Bay when you were deployed,” Adam suggested. “Would it be a conventional relationship? No. But it’s better than what you’ve got. Which is nothing.”

  Feeling like he’d totally screwed things up, Levi leaned against the wall and considered what his brother had just said.

  “Let me ask you something, Levi. No bullshit here, okay? Truth time. Gut-check, you understand?”

  Levi rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah.”

  “Do you love her? I don’t mean do you like her a lot or are you infatuated or do you want to have lots of sex with her. I mean, do you love her?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it, Levi realized. “I do.”

  Adam’s breath echoed over the line. “Then you’ll figure it out.”

  His brother certainly had a lot more faith in him than he did, Levi thought. Because he didn’t know what in the hell to do.

  NATALIE SAT cross-legged on her couch, a wad of tissue in her hand and little tissue balls lying all around her. An empty cookie container and soda cans littered her coffee table.

  Winnie stood just inside her front door, mouth hanging open, a lavender box of what smelled like petits fours in her hands.

  “What the hell are you
doing?”

  Natalie gestured wearily toward the TV and new tears filled her eyes. “I love this movie,” she said. “It has everything. Have you ever noticed that? It’s not just romantic love, but all kinds of love. New love, old love, love between friends, love between families, betrayed love, unrequited love.” She sniffed loudly. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful example of life.”

  Winnie looked genuinely concerned. “It’s called Love, Actually. What did you think it was going to be about?”

  “This is my favorite scene,” Natalie told her, aiming the remote control at the television. “Do you see what he’s doing? How he’s telling her that he loves her with those poster boards? How he can move on? Isn’t that r-romantic? Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Winnie batted a couple of tissue balls aside, then sat down, opened the pastry box and handed her a petit four. “Is this supposed to be symbolic of you learning to go on without Levi? Because I’ve got to be honest. You’re starting to make me sick.”

  Natalie almost choked. “What? Sick?”

  “Yes, sick. Honestly, Natalie, you knew that this thing between you was never going to be more than it was. You knew that he’d go back to Iraq, that he was just as firmly invested in his career as you are in yours. What did you think was going to happen when he left? Did you think you’d be the same? That things would just go back to normal?”

  Natalie blinked. “I thought it would be better. I thought I would be happier.” She gestured toward her friend. “I took your friggin’ advice, didn’t I? If it was wrong, then why the hell did you give it to me?”

  “I didn’t say it was wrong. I just said it’s time to accept things the way they are. Be happy for the time you had together. Be happy for the relationship that you had. It’s a damn sight better than the one on paper you started with.”

  Be that as it may, it wasn’t enough. She wanted him. Needed him in her life. Natalie slumped back against her couch. “I know that! You think I don’t know that?” She felt her bottom lip shake. “What I didn’t know was that it would be this hard. That I would miss him this terribly. I feel like a part of me is missing, a part that I’m not altogether certain I’m ever going to get back. I feel broken and I’m miserable and I’m lonely. I’m sorry if I’m not ‘bouncing back’ the way you think I should, but I can’t help it. And for the time being, I like feeling this way. It makes me happy.”