Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance)

by Marisa Carroll

  “She’d have a fit if she knew I was here.”

  His dad was still holding the big piece of quartz—tightly. His knuckles were white. When he saw Brian look at his hands, Adam put the rock down, then walked behind the desk and gazed at the snow falling in huge, wet flakes outside the window. “Why didn’t you tell her you were coming to see me?” he asked.

  “Christmas break doesn’t start till the end of the week. I...left early.”

  “She won’t like that.” Adam turned and spread his hands flat on the teak surface of the desk.

  “That’s why I didn’t tell her.”

  Adam frowned at his reply, accentuating the harsh new lines around his mouth. Jeez, Dad’s looking old. He hadn’t looked like that when he saw him last at the end of the summer. Was he sick? Did he have cancer or something? Or had he caught some weird disease in Vietnam? Is that why he’d come home almost two weeks before he was supposed to? Brian hadn’t lived with his dad since he was eleven, but he loved him. He didn’t want anything to be wrong with him.

  “Why did you come here, Brian?”

  Worries about his dad’s health were forgotten for the moment. It was now or never. Adam had just asked the million-dollar question and he had to answer it. “I don’t want to be an investment banker. I don’t want to go to work for Elliot at Carlton, Lieberman and Carmichael. I don’t want to go back to Harvard.”

  “Have you told your mother this?”

  Brian snorted. “Are you kidding? She’d have a stroke. She’d have me committed.”

  “A lot of other mothers would feel the same way.”

  Brian stood up again and started pacing the width of the office. “I’ve given it a year and a half, almost. It’s not for me.”

  “Math has always been your strongest subject.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to be a banker or, God help me, an economist.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “I don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life, Dad, but I know it isn’t following in Elliot’s footsteps. I’m dropping out of Harvard at the end of the semester. I need some time to think things through. I’d like to come here and live with you. God knows Mom and Elliot would make my life miserable if I stayed in Boston.”

  “Brian, I don’t know what to say.”

  Adam’s hesitation hit Brian like a fist to the gut. He hadn’t let himself believe his dad would turn him down. “It’s okay, Dad,” he made himself say. “I’ll find somewhere else to live if you don’t want me at your place.”

  Adam was silent for a long moment. “Why don’t you try sticking it out until spring?”

  “I’ve made up my mind, Dad.”

  “I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “Maybe I am, but I’ll never know if I don’t give it a try. That’s all I’m asking. The chance to make my own mistakes. I can live with the consequences.” His dad had been a Marine in Vietnam when he was nineteen. All Brian wanted to do was figure out his own path in life. Surely he had a right to do that.

  “Okay. Call your mother and break the news to her. I’ll back you up.”

  Brian pushed away from the credenza, his heart beating madly in his chest. He wanted to give his dad a hug, but the desk was still between them, so he held out his hand, instead. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Adam didn’t take his hand right away. Brian held his breath. Then his dad leaned forward and clasped Brian’s hand in both of his. “I’m not giving you a free ride. You’ll have to get a job, and you’ll have to promise me you’ll consider going back to school next year.”

  “I’ll start looking for a job first thing tomorrow.” He couldn’t stop the grin spreading over his face. “Thanks, Dad. I knew I could count on you to see my side of this.”

  “I’m not looking forward to talking to your mother.”

  “Neither am I, but I might as well get it over with. Can I use your phone?”

  “Dr. Sauder?” His dad’s secretary opened the door between their offices and stuck her head inside.

  “Yes, Camilla?”

  “There’s a young woman here to see you.”

  “I don’t have any patient appointments scheduled for this afternoon.”

  That was odd, Brian thought. His dad always had patients scheduled on Wednesdays. He operated on Tuesday and Thursday, and saw patients on Monday and Wednesday. At least he always had.

  “She’s not a patient,” Camilla said. “She says she’s a friend. Her name is Leah Gentry.”

  “Leah?” The way his dad said the name caught Brian’s attention.

  “Leah Gentry,” Camilla repeated. “Should I tell her you’re busy?”

  “No.” Adam ran a hand through his hair. His expression didn’t give much away, but Brian could have sworn he saw his hand shaking. “Send her in.”

  “You have a meeting with Dr. Fenimore at twothirty, don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  Camilla opened the door wider. His dad was staring at it like he expected a ghost to walk through it. Instead, a very ordinary young woman with dark brown hair in a French braid entered the room. She was wearing a military-issue parka, and she had a lime-green backpack slung over one shoulder. The backpack had a picture of Minnie Mouse on it, just like the one his little sister had. Her nose was red from the cold, and there were pale blue shadows under her eyes, as though she’d been awake for a lot of hours in a row.

  “Hello, Adam,” she said stopping just inside the door.

  “Hello.” His dad came out from behind his desk and took a couple of steps toward her.

  “It’s good to see you again.” She held out her hand.

  “It’s good to see you, too. Welcome home, Leah.” His dad came just close enough to take her hand. He held it for a long moment, and they stared at each other like they’d thought until that very moment they’d never see each other again.

  Brian cleared his throat. The woman turned her head in his direction. Her eyes widened momentarily. She had very pretty eyes, all kind of green and gold mixed together.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Adam dropped her hand and retreated behind his desk. “This is my son, Brian.”

  She smiled, and he smiled back. He couldn’t help himself. “Hi,” he said.

  She held out her hand again. “Hello, Brian. Your father told me a lot about you.”

  “Leah was my anesthetist in Dalat,” Adam explained.

  “Nice to meet you,” Brian said.

  “I...I just got back to the States. B.J. and I were the last to leave. I have a four-hour layover.” She turned back to Brian. “So I thought I’d look up your father and make sure he’s okay. He left the mission so hurriedly I...I didn’t get to say goodbye.” A tinge of color stained her cheeks.

  “I’m fine,” Adam said, and his voice was suddenly cold and hard.

  “I can see. I’m sorry I barged in on you this way. I...I should have called, I guess.”

  She looked uncomfortable. So did his dad. There was something going on here, undercurrents he couldn’t understand. This might be a good time for him to make an exit. “I have a phone call to make. It was nice meeting you,” he said again, smiling at her once more, hoping she’d smile back. She did.

  “It was nice meeting you, too, Brian, but please, don’t hurry off on my account. I truly did only stop in to see if your father was all right, and to thank him.”

  “For what?” Brian asked. He wasn’t flirting with her, not really—she was too old for him. But it was hard not to want to coax her to smile again.

  “For seeing that Vo and My Lei found sponsors here in the States.”

  “Vo and My Lei?”

  “Yes, a Vietnamese man and his daughter. Your father operated on the little girl—”

  “I’ll tell you about them later, Brian,” Adam broke in. “Don’t you want to make your call?”

  “Yeah, sure I do.” He tried one more smile, but this time she didn’t smile back, only nodded a little dis
tractedly. “I’ll use Camilla’s phone to call Mom.” Brian left the room wondering just what had gone on between his dad and this woman in Vietnam. Maybe if he worked it just right, he’d find out, but he doubted it. His dad never talked about his love life—if he had one, and besides, right now Brian had more important things on his mind—like changing the entire course of his life.

  THE DOOR CLOSED behind Adam’s son, and Leah wished she’d left the office with him. Why had she .given in to the impulse to come here and see for herself that Adam was all right? He obviously was. And he obviously wasn’t happy to see her. She said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Your son is a very good-looking young man. Very nice, too.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “I’m sorry I interrupted your visit.”

  “It’s okay,” Adam said. “Can I get you something. A cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She wanted to refuse, but he might think it odd—their love of coffee was one thing they had in common. But she wouldn’t have more than a swallow, not now. Because now she was pregnant

  She’d bought a pregnancy-test kit as soon as they landed in Frankfurt and confirmed what she’d suspected almost from the moment she’d awakened alone in her bed that morning. She should never have made love to him without protection when she knew she might be ovulating, but she hadn’t been thinking with her head that night, only with her heart.

  Adam walked to the credenza on the far wall. He slid open one of the paneled doors to reveal a wet bar and an insulated carafe and cups. “You like cream, as I recall.”

  “Yes.”

  He turned back with the coffee. “I’m sorry. I should have offered to take your coat.”

  “I prefer to keep it on. I haven’t adjusted to the temperature change yet. It’s snowing, you know,” she said, making a little joke of it. He didn’t smile and she asked, “Do you know if the others all reached home safely?”

  He took her backpack and set it on the floor, then gestured her to a seat in the big leather chair in front of his desk. She sat because it was more awkward to stand. Then he handed her the coffee mug and leaned one hip against the side of the desk.

  “Roger Crenshaw sent me an e-mail a day or two ago saying as much. He’s elected himself unofficial social secretary of the group.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “And why did you stay behind?”

  “B.J. asked me to help move Ahn Lyn to a hospital in Saigon. A friend of his there has promised to get her permission to go to Paris for therapy on her leg.”

  “I imagine that permission cost B.J. a bundle.”

  “I imagine it did.” She looked down at her coffee cup, then made herself meet his eyes again. “And you must have been busy pulling strings and unsnarling red tape to get Vo and My Lei asylum so quickly.”

  “There are all kinds of places to go for help. You just have to know where to look.”

  He didn’t seem to want to talk about Vietnam, so she changed the subject to one he was probably no more willing to discuss. “Are you really okay? Your hand was shaking like a leaf when you handed me my coffee.”

  He scowled down at her. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

  She refused to be cowed by the anger she heard in his voice. There was too much at stake. “I’ve been worried about you. You left without a word.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I walked until the sun came up and then I hitched a ride to Saigon and wrangled my way onto a flight home.”

  “I’m impressed. That must have taken some doing.”

  “It did.”

  “And you’re really okay?”

  “Yes. And sorry as hell for what I did to you.”

  “You didn’t do anything to me.” That was a lie, a bald-faced lie, but Adam wasn’t the only one avoiding the truth at the moment.

  “I took advantage of your kindness and your generosity.”

  “Adam, please. Don’t trivialize what happened with platitudes and clichés.”

  “God, Leah, I didn’t mean to sound that way. You saved my life that night, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  Inside she was in turmoil, but she refused to let him see how deeply he had wounded her with his cool words. “I know. Your life is here. Dr. Adam Sauder soon to be chief of neurosurgery.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “B.J. told me.”

  “I should have known.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “I’ve worked hard for this position.”

  “Chief of neurosurgery at St. Barnabas is a long way from a small practice in Slate Hollow, Kentucky—almost a different world.” Why had she said that? It sounded almost as if she was asking him...for what? To leave all this behind and go there with her? Deep down, wasn’t that what she really wanted? For him to make a commitment to her—and to the baby he didn’t even know she was carrying? She looked around for a place to put her coffee mug. She was shaking so hard she was afraid she’d spill it. Finally she set it on a corner of the desk. When she looked up again, Adam was staring across the room at the door.

  “Leah, Brian is coming to live with me. We just made the decision. I want to make sure he gets his feet under him. We’ve been apart for a long time. This might be my last chance to make up for the lousy father I’ve been in the past. I have to concentrate all my energy on Brian.”

  His energy, not his love. His words took her breath away. Adam wanted no more human contact than that. He would never allow himself to feel another’s anguish—or joy—as long as he suffered from PTSD. He would never open himself to love and to being loved. Not by Brian, or her and certainly not by their baby. The thought sent a stab of pain from her brain to her heart and lower to her womb, and once more she realized how close she was to caring too much for this man. The decision she’d agonized over for the past ten days was made for her in an instant.

  “I understand,” she said. “I really have to be going now.” She couldn’t be in the same room with this stranger any longer. She grabbed her backpack from beside the chair and stood up. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

  “Leah.” Adam set his mug down so hard coffee splashed onto the polished wood. She jumped as if a gun had gone off next to her. He pushed away from the desk and reached for her hand. “If there’s ever anything I can do...”

  Leah took a step backward, avoiding his touch. She wasn’t made of stone, even if he appeared to be. “There’s nothing you need to do for me.” Or our baby.

  No, she thought frantically, the reality of the situation finally hitting home. My baby. Mine alone. “I’ll be fine. Goodbye, Adam. God bless.”

  Leah. Wait. He didn’t say the words aloud, but he wanted to. He wanted to shout down the corridor for her not to leave. He should go after her. She was serenity and bedrock in a world edging closer and closer to chaos. He could talk to her, tell her things he’d never told another living soul. He couldn’t just let her walk out of his life—the way he’d walked out of hers.

  Adam made it as far as the chair where she’d been sitting before he stopped himself from following her out the door. He wasn’t so lost in his misery that he didn’t know right now he wanted her for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved to be loved and cherished for herself alone, not because she could buffer him from the terrors of his past and the uncertainties of the present. It was better this way. A clean break.

  He could only deal with one problem at a time, and Brian had to come first, before his own wants and needs. On that thought his son entered the room.

  “I saw her leave,” Brian said, closing the door behind him. He ran his fingers through his hair, hair the same dark brown as his own. “Can you give me a hand here, Dad?”

  Adam pulled himself together. Leah Gentry was gone out of his life. “Is it your mother?”

  Brian nodded. “She’s on the phone in Camilla’s office. I told her what I’m going to do.
She’s...she’s crying. Would you talk to her? Calm her down enough so I can explain this is the right thing for me?”

  “I’ll do my best.” Denise Carlton wasn’t going to be easy to convince. She wouldn’t take kindly to him getting involved in their son’s life now, when he’d been a long-distance father for the past eight years. And she had a point. Hell, since Brian was ten he hadn’t been there for him at all, but maybe she would understand he wanted to change that.

  Years ago, before she’d pulled up stakes and gone to Boston, Denise had stuck it out until he’d drawn so far inside himself no one could reach him. But she knew he loved Brian with all his wounded heart, even if he didn’t always show it, and because she was a good woman, he hoped she’d give him one more chance to be a father to their son.

  He turned back to his desk. “I’ll put her on the speakerphone. We’ll both talk to her at once.”

  A look of relief spread over Brian’s face. “Thanks, Dad. I knew you’d come through for me.”

  Adam picked up the phone. Leah’s coffee mug was still sitting on his desk, a faint smudge of lipstick visible on the rim. He turned his back on the mug and sealed away any lingering thoughts of the woman who had so recently held it in her hands.

  She was part of his past now, just another painful memory. But he had a suspicion she would be equally hard to forget.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LEAH REACHED UP to rub the tight muscles at the back of her neck. She had another headache, a dull, throbbing pain that circled the back of her head. She’d taken a couple of Tylenol, but it hadn’t gone away, and it wasn’t likely that it would unless she could relax and put her feet up. Even standing in the bright April sunlight flooding through the window did nothing to unwind the tension in her arms and shoulders, or lessen the pain.

  “You’re hurting again?”

  “Just a little headache.” Leah moved across the small room to the high tester bed where the old woman lay. Sixty years ago, Aurelia Cade had probably been a very attractive woman; now she was as brown and wizened as a winter apple. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, her hair, what was left of it, was gray and wispy, and her body little more than skin and bones. Aurelia was dying of cancer. Leah and Aurelia had been friends since Leah had first come to Slate Hollow. Now she visited her as often as she could.