Holiday Defenders : Mission: Christmas Rescuespecial Ops Christmashomefront Holiday Hero (9781460341254)

by Bailey, Jodie; Sleeman, Susan; Giusti, Debby

“When?” If she let him talk, she’d cave, fall back into that incredible moment when she didn’t stand physically alone. When, for the shortest second, she’d known what it meant to be someone else’s whole world.

  “As soon as you’re ready.” His voice held something that sounded like regret.

  “Now. I want to go now.” Kelly stepped away, into the room, started shoving her clothes into her bag. “It’s over.”

  * * *

  It’s over.

  Tyler groaned and leaned back in his desk chair, its squeak of protest grating on his raw nerves. The sky outside his office windows pinked slightly through gray clouds, promising a glorious Christmas Eve sunrise.

  He turned his back to the window, feeling every ounce the Scrooge. All he had to look forward to in the next two days was chow hall cooking and opening a couple of presents from his mom under his pathetic little tree in his cramped apartment. The silly present he’d gotten for Kelly mocked him from across town. He’d bought her an umbrella after he’d seen her hand hers over to a grieving widow at a funeral.

  How stupid had he been to think even for a moment that he could spend the holiday with Kelly Walters. He’d kissed her, and she couldn’t get out of his arms fast enough.

  Proof positive that he needed his knee healed because he sure didn’t belong anywhere but the battlefield. He wasn’t a lick of good here. Kelly was sure to start keeping her distance from him now, and the small amount of joy he’d found in rear detachment was snuffed.

  “You know, when word gets out about the past couple of days, you’ll be a hero.”

  Tyler sat straight up at the voice, feet thumping to the floor with a knee-jarring rattle.

  Captain Shorter stood in the doorway, looking as worn-out as Tyler felt. He aimed a finger at the couch on the other side of the desk. “Mind if I sit? I’m warning you. I might not get up again for a few hours.” At Tyler’s nod, he dropped onto the fake leather. “If I start to snore, throw your stapler at me.”

  Tyler sniffed. “I’ll be over here drowning you out. What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you left when they took your terrorists in.”

  “I did.” Shorty stretched out his legs and leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “Came by to tell you the kid we grabbed let slip that they were hired by a cell out of Nashville. This is going to pull down an entire sleeper cell. I also wanted to make sure EOD had a handle on the explosive so you can get your truck and go home.”

  “They finished yet?” Nothing sounded better than driving his truck back home and racking out for a whole day, maybe forgetting that Kelly would probably never speak to him again after that kiss.

  “Not yet, but I can run you to your place if you need a lift.”

  “Nah.” The thought of going home to an empty apartment left him cold. Tyler stretched his leg out, knee protesting. He winced against the pain.

  “How much longer have you got before you’re healed up?” Shorty must have seen the look.

  Tyler shrugged as he mechanically flipped a challenge coin between his thumb and index finger. The same thumb that had brushed Kelly’s lip an hour ago. He pressed the cold metal of the coin against his skin, trying to annihilate the warmth of her touch. “Another month or so of physical therapy, as long as I didn’t mess anything up with my running tackle tonight. I’m trying to speed them up, though. It’s time for me to go back, put in some time with my guys.”

  “Think they’ll send you back with only four months left?”

  “I’m persistent.”

  The couch squeaked as Shorty shifted positions. “All I can say is this, man. It’s a God thing that you were here for everything that’s gone down this week.”

  The coin stilled in Tyler’s fingers. “Come again?” He bent his knees gently, sitting up to face Shorty. The coin dropped to the desk with a clang. “Why do you say that?”

  Shorty sat forward, elbows anchored onto the gray of his ACU pants. “Kelly Walters wouldn’t be seeing this sunrise if you hadn’t been here.”

  “Somebody else would have—”

  “No way, Rainey. These guys were escalating. This last bomb? They meant it. I think when they figured out we’d locked down the unit and weren’t giving our guys any information about what was happening here, they decided to go in for the kill. We can keep everyday information from going to the unit, but we can’t hold back a death notification. The guys we caught this morning are talking. The goal was to take out the sergeant major’s daughter, like we thought, and stop the whole mission.” He shook his head. “I doubt Kelly Walters would have been so easily persuaded to go into hiding if you weren’t around.” He sat forward. “Think about it. You pulled her out of the way of that pistol round. They came back for her, likely to take her. Who’d have been there with her if you weren’t? Nobody. And after the false alarm at the Christmas party, she’d have blown off that package on her doorstep without you there. Rainey...” Shorty sat back and spread his long arms along the back of the couch, allowing one finger to stab in Tyler’s direction. “Not all wars are fought on the official battlefield. God needed you here. Kelly Walters needed you here.”

  Tyler picked up the coin he’d dropped to the desk and ran his thumb over the engraving of Afghanistan. The lieutenant colonel had pressed it into his hand before he’d been medevaced out of country, giving him an “atta boy” when Tyler hadn’t done anything more than bleed.

  Shorty cleared his throat. “It’s the Global War on Terror, Rainey, not the war in Afghanistan. You’re no less important here. I battled the idea of a stateside assignment myself until I saw how much work there is to do here. You’ll be where you need to be when you need to be there.”

  Tyler finally looked up. “You really believe that?”

  “I wake up praying every day to be right where God wants me to be. Sounds to me like you need to practice a little bit of surrender yourself, especially where a certain female is concerned. I’m no rose petal romantic, but there’s something there, and you’d better tell her before she gets the idea there isn’t.” His cell phone rang, and he inched up and pulled his phone from his belt holster, glancing at the screen. “My wife. She has this sixth sense about when I get off duty.” He pulled the phone to his ear and stood, throwing a half salute at Tyler. “Had to make a stop. I’m headed home right now.”

  Tyler flicked him a wave. What would it be like to have someone worried about when he came home? To have a meal together and talk about their day?

  As Shorty left, Tyler stared at the sunrise out the window, his friend’s words chasing the thoughts in his head.

  The heat of conviction nearly broke him out in a sweat. He wrinkled his forehead. Okay. So God always saw the big picture better than he did. Lord, let me be right where You want me to be. And let me be content to be there.

  The urge to see Kelly took over his thoughts. He stood, ignoring the protest in his knee, and snatched his keys from the desk as he headed for the door. Shorter was right. Before he went home, he had to tell Kelly to her face that he wasn’t ready for this to be over.

  SIX

  “Turn here.” Kelly pointed to the entrance that led to her apartment complex, then reached down and hauled her backpack onto her lap, pulling her keys from the front pocket.

  The female MP clicked on the blinker and made the turn. “I’m sure you’ll be diving straight into the rack after the week you’ve had.”

  “I got a little bit of sleep last night.” She looked away, feeling the heat creep up into her cheeks. Yeah. She’d slept all right, and probably drooled all over Tyler’s shoulder, as well.

  “I can go in with you to make sure the place is clear if you’d like.”

  “Hmm?” Kelly drew her attention back into the car as it slowed in front of her building. “No. I’m good. EOD cleared the place last night, and I feel confident nobody’
s come back. The men they caught seem to have followed me onto post.” The thought threatened to rattle her, but she pushed back the fear. Really, she wanted this to be over. No more sweeps of her house. No more crazy packages or gunshots. Just rest, then she’d get ready for her solo at the Christmas Eve candlelight service at Main Post tonight. She’d worry about tomorrow when the sun rose again.

  Her original plan, with her father gone, was to open the presents he’d left for her when he deployed and then spend the day at the chow hall on post, serving other families and talking them through the holidays without their loved ones. It seemed there was always someone who needed an ear, especially at this time of year. Wishing Tyler was by her side shouldn’t derail that plan.

  She reached for the door handle and flashed a smile at the young MP. “Thank you, Specialist Anderson. Have a Merry Christmas.”

  “You, too, ma’am.”

  Kelly shut the car door behind her, watching the MP drive away before she trudged up the recently cleared walk to her apartment.

  In the breezeway, she stopped short, gripping her bag tighter.

  A slight figure huddled by her door, forehead resting on her knees, a crumpled sheet of paper dangling from her fingers.

  Kelly took a cautious step closer, recognition flickering relief through her. “Tasha?”

  Tasha’s head jerked up, deep creases marring her forehead. “Kelly.” She scrambled to her feet, shouldering her huge leather purse. “You’re here.”

  “How long have you been waiting for me? You could have called.” Compassion swept through her, shoving away the last vestiges of fear. The girl seemed distraught, broken, the wild look in her eye one of desperation and worry.

  “A half hour or so.” She held out the paper in her hand, and it trembled and rattled as her fingers shook. “I got this. From Chase.” She sniffed, never looking up from the printed words. “Some Christmas present.”

  Guns and bombs and domestic terrorists all faded as Kelly took the paper from the young wife’s hand and scanned it. The heading was a private email address bearing Chase Pope’s initials, sent two hours ago, late afternoon Afghanistan time. The email was terse, to the point. He wanted a divorce.

  Kelly sucked air between her teeth and scanned the email again. No explanation, just a two-line ending to a brand-new marriage. She dropped her backpack by the door and pulled the girl close as that mothering instinct surged, the one that often rose up when she dealt with these young wives, some still in their teens, who had no idea what they’d signed up for when they married a soon-to-be-deployed soldier. That didn’t make the bonds any less sacred, though. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “How?” Tasha pressed her chin into the muscle along Kelly’s injured shoulder, shooting pain through the arm.

  She tried not to flinch. Instead, she slipped away and rested her hands on the younger girl’s shoulders. “Come on inside. I’ll make some coffee. Chances are, he’s—” She cut herself off. Chances were high that Chase Pope was getting his first taste of what a real war zone was like and was shocked that it wasn’t as romantic as his childhood war games had made it seem. But she couldn’t say that to Tasha. The information Tyler had shared about the mounting offensive probably wasn’t common knowledge. “A lot of guys cut ties when the going gets tough, then when they adjust, they realize it’s possible to be a good soldier and a good husband, as well. Some soldiers think they have to be one or the other. It’s possible to be both.”

  And what about Tyler Rainey?

  Kelly gripped her keys so tightly that they dug into her fingers. Yes, plenty of soldiers had found that balance, and Tyler could, too. She’d been holding on to insecurities over her father’s issues, expecting Tyler to be the same as the man who’d raised her, unable to be two men at once. Over and over, Tyler had proven himself different, willing and able to be there when she needed him.

  And she’d pushed him away.

  “I feel like I’m going to be sick.” Tasha gripped her stomach, staring at the door to Kelly’s apartment.

  Fumbling with the keys, Kelly swung the door open and Tasha bolted inside, heading for the bathroom. Grimacing, Kelly shut the door behind her and followed the girl up the hall, tossing her keys on the counter before going to knock on the bathroom door. “Tasha? Do you need anything?”

  The door flew open so fast that the breeze sucked the fine hairs around Kelly’s ponytail forward. She took a step back as Tasha bolted from the small bathroom, pinning Kelly to the hallway wall and gripping her tight around the neck. “For you to be out of the way.”

  Kelly struggled, clawed, fought disbelief and a surge of fear as the world faded.

  * * *

  Tyler parked his truck beside Kelly’s car, glancing at the dashboard clock as he did. At least she’d stayed home and hadn’t headed out for who knew where. He hesitated. She’d only left post fifteen minutes ahead of him. Surely she was still awake. He’d knock lightly and, if she didn’t answer, he’d sit right here and wait until she woke up. There was no way he was going anywhere until he’d had a chance to lay everything out on the table and see if there was a way for them to make this work.

  It took a lot to keep his gait at a walk when he really wanted to run to her door, but a fall on the ice would only torque his knee and set him back even further in his physical therapy. He might be content to let God decide where he went, but he sure wasn’t going to be stupid about it.

  As his foot hit the sidewalk, his phone vibrated at his hip. He started to ignore it, then thought better of it. Maybe it was Kelly, and she’d done some thinking of her own.

  The number was Shorty’s. He pulled the phone to his ear, dread seeping into his fingers. Something deep inside said this wasn’t over. “Rainey.”

  “Consider this a courtesy call. I got called back into work. Once the feds told them the stakes, the younger of our two guys started really talking, and it’s nothing like what we thought.”

  Tyler’s feet dragged to a halt. “What?”

  “This isn’t a terror cell. It’s an antiwar group. They want to stop the war, bring the troops home. Their goal is the same, though. Scare the families by bringing some aspect of the war here. Rainey, they knew every move we made.”

  “How?”

  The sound Shorter ground out over the phone was guttural and angry. “They’re a small group, five total, following some antiwar professor at a local college. The ringleader is a woman who came up with the idea of marrying a young soldier and working her way into the trust of the other wives. She volunteered with the FRG and got all of the inside info she needed.”

  What was that woman’s name? The one who always seemed to show up for Kelly at the right time? “Let me guess. Stephanie Anderson.”

  “Who? No. Tasha Pope. She married a Spec-4 out of Sergeant Major Walters’s battalion. While we’ve been focused on the two in custody, she’s been free to roam.” There was a pause. “I shouldn’t tell you any of this.”

  “She’s going straight for Kelly.” Tyler gripped the phone tighter and took off at a run that made his knee scream.

  “Stay back, Rainey. We’ve got a team en route.”

  Tyler clicked the call off and shoved the phone into his hip pocket, steps slowing when he entered the breezeway.

  Kelly’s backpack lay to the side of the door, but there was no sign of her.

  Adrenaline hit his heart so hard it hurt. Maybe she was tired and hadn’t wanted to bother bringing it in. Somehow, he knew not, especially at the sight of her phone peeking from the side pocket. She’d never leave that behind, fearful she’d miss the call of someone who needed her.

  Staying close to the wall, Tyler crept to the door and tried the knob. Locked.

  Careful to stay out of line of sight of the peephole, he listened, wishing he could mute the hum of cars from the nearby highway. For a mo
ment, there was nothing, then a scuffle, a grunt, a short shout silenced as soon as it started.

  Taking a step back, he raised his good leg and prepared to breach the door.

  * * *

  As the dark squeezed in, Kelly forced her lungs to pull in air even as her heartbeat roared in her ears, warning that unconsciousness wasn’t far behind. With her last ounce of strength, Kelly forced her good arm up. It was like swimming in syrup, but she managed to raise her hand, digging her fingernails into the younger girl’s temple and raking them down her face, drawing blood.

  With a shriek, Tasha pressed a hand to her cheek and fell back, allowing Kelly to pull in a deep breath. She fought the urge to bend low and gulp air. This fight was nowhere near over.

  Before Kelly could fully straighten, Tasha lunged again, fist crashing hard into Kelly’s injured shoulder, eliciting a whole new kind of pain. Kelly cried out and went to her knees, trying and failing to sweep Tasha’s legs from under her.

  With one more kick, Tasha caught Kelly between the shoulder blades and drove her to the floor, driving her foot into Kelly’s injured shoulder. Wet warmth trickled down her arm as the wound tore open. Before Kelly could process the pain, Tasha’s knee drove into her lower back, and the girl wrapped the strap of that huge purse around Kelly’s neck.

  She pulled tighter as Kelly gagged, leaning lower. “Never wanted to have to kill anyone, especially you. But if taking out one can save hundreds, the math’s not in your favor.”

  The world spun out in a whirl of color and a roar in her ears.

  But then there was a new sound. A crash. A splintering. The tightness around Kelly’s throat eased, allowing her lungs a breath and clearing her vision.

  Tyler stood in the doorway, broad shoulders drowning out the light, fists balled at his sides. His hard expression should have paralyzed Tasha Pope.

  From above, Tasha cursed and scrambled to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “Doesn’t matter. This time, it’s really finished.” Tyler’s voice held a finality that brooked no argument.