WW13 Christmas at His Command

by Catherine Mann

  “I wanted more time to gather intel,” he gently corrected.

  “Let’s go over what we do have.”

  “As I said, both groups are in their infancy, but looking to make a statement. The one we believe sprouted out of Rubistan has yet to lash out.” He scratched a hand over his five o’clock shadow. By the bed, the digital clock’s glowing little red numbers silently shouted out a reminder of the lateness of the hour—12: 13 a. m. “They’re still training and posturing.”

  “Unless today was their opening act.” Her eyes slid from the masculine cut of his jaw to his salt-and-pepper hair, trimmed short to military specs. The sprinkles of gray spoke of experience and wisdom. Strength. All of those things made him more appealing, especially on a day when she desperately needed a strong protector at her side.

  Damn it, she didn’t want the heartache of another serious relationship. Why couldn’t he do something totally obnoxious? She forced her mind to stay on the task at hand. “And the other group?”

  “Has risen from the ashes of the suppressed People’s Revolutionary Council in Cantou. They like to dabble in nuclear weaponry. They’ve already tried to park a bomb in a duffel bag at a German train station. Luckily, the bomb was defused.”

  “Then they’re equal opportunity offenders.”

  “Apparently so.” He cricked his neck from side to side, the white uniform shirt open and displaying a tempting hint of chest. “We have our normal assortment of call-in and write-in threats that come with every event. I wish I had the stack in front of me so I could review—”

  “Hank, you know it takes weeks, sometimes months to trace through all of those reports. It would be a duck shoot, hoping we lucked into the right one in time for it to make a difference tonight.”

  “Instincts count for something when you go duck hunting.”

  “Do you still think they haven’t told the kids about us being missing?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  She stretched her legs in front of her, cracked her toes, then felt the weight of Hank’s gaze on her calves again. The logs in the fireplace snapped and popped.

  Hank’s chest expanded in his uniform shirt. “We’ll need to get back on the road the minute the weather breaks.”

  “Of course.”

  “You should turn in now and nab as much rest as possible.”

  Go to bed? Did he intend to get off the mattress before she stretched out? Or was he going to sleep, too?

  She couldn’t imagine he would give up his watch even though he should snag a couple of hours of shut-eye.

  “Uh, I’m going to put my clothes back on first, in case we need to leave quickly.” She would simply suffer through damp underwear.

  She sprinted for the bathroom and slid back into her clothes, minus the panty hose and high heels. If she’d been alone, she could have slept in the camisole and tap pants…She couldn’t resist the grin that thinking of how that would surely make Hank stop in his tracks brought to her face.

  “Ginger,” his voice called through the wall. “We’ve got an e-mail.”

  Chapter 4

  Hank jostled the weight of the BlackBerry in his hands as well as the weight of the message in his mind. Could he trust the simple text on a day when shots appeared to have come at him and Ginger from allies? Maybe even from within their own camp?

  Ginger sat beside him on the edge of the bed, her fresh-washed hair damp and tousled and tempting right beneath his nose. “Do we trust the all clear to come in?”

  “It’s not as if we can leave yet with the snowstorm. Once the weather does cooperate, we really don’t have a choice but to take this one cautious step at a time.”

  “Basically, then, the e-mail changes nothing tonight.” Her bare toes curled into the carpet, a sexy temptation, a woman’s bare feet and a stretch of naked leg leading into the red skirt.

  “Afraid not.” He pulled his attention back onto the BlackBerry, a much safer place to look at the moment. “We’re still captives of the weather.”

  She scratched the top of one naked foot with the toes of her other foot. Damn, he was developing a foot fetish.

  Hank rose from the edge of the bed, dimming the lights one after the other on his way. “I’ll sit over here and see what other information I can milk out of this BlackBerry. You should try to sleep while you can.”

  “All right. I know it’s senseless to insist you need sleep as well.”

  “I’ll rest, catch catnaps. I’m used to pulling long shifts.”

  Pivoting on her heels, she snorted, mumbling something he could have sworn sounded like “pigheaded men.”

  He turned away and tried not to listen to the sound of rustling sheets. Good God, how long would it take the woman to find a comfortable spot? A second before his sanity snapped, the sounds quieted.

  “Good night, Hank.”

  Her voice carried across the room with an unmistakable intimacy.

  He cleared his throat and forced words free. “G’night, Ginger.”

  He tapped keys on his BlackBerry and lucked into a solid Internet connection. At least he could do some research on the two terrorist groups that had made the death threats. Was there a significance in the date, this season of unity and hope?

  Or was he chasing shadows? He’d been so certain there had been gunshots coming at them from within the protective detail. Everything had happened so quickly, he hadn’t recognized each of the faces well enough to know if the shooters were from local forces or their own. He could have sworn at least two of the people who should have been protecting Ginger had been aiming at her.

  Hank kept tapping through his Internet search, fruitless though it might be, but at least he was doing something. Inaction wasn’t an option.

  Especially once those sheets started rustling again. And again.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Ginger thrashed in her sleep. Her feet kicked at the covers as a low moan slipped from her lips.

  Hell. No question, this day was the stuff nightmares were made of.

  Hank holstered his BlackBerry and shoved to his feet. Four long strides took to him to her side.

  “Ginger,” he said softly, cupping her shoulder in a careful hand, not wanting to startle her awake. “Ginger, honey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

  Her eyes stayed tightly shut, another moan slipping free. Apparently the nightmare had deep talons. He knew the sort well from years of combat.

  Waking her wouldn’t help. She would only remember the horrors all the more vividly. If he could soothe her back into a deep and peaceful sleep, with luck she wouldn’t remember the terror come morning.

  He hadn’t been able to take her to safety yet, but he would give her a serene night’s rest. He could help her ease the tight grip of her manicured hands on the sheets. Hank couldn’t help but stare at her bare ring finger where Benjamin’s family diamond set had once rested. Now she only wore a simple band on her right hand, a ring with her children’s birthstones.

  Right now he would sacrifice anything to lie there with her. His want warred with his need to continue researching on the Internet, hoping to luck in to some answer.

  Ultimately though, as she thrashed from side to side, her comfort was too damn important to him.

  Mission set, he stretched slowly beside her, his back against the headboard. He slid an arm along Ginger’s shoulders and sure enough, she curled against him with a sigh and stopped kicking. He couldn’t ignore how right it felt to hold her there, her soft cheek on his chest, her breath against his neck.

  He just wished he knew who she’d reached for in her sleep.

  Sunrise slatted through the small part in the brocade curtains. Ginger sat at the tiny table, surprisingly rested after only five hours sleep, and munched away at an apple from the complimentary basket. She’d also made use of the room’s coffeepot, but keeping busy did nothing to ease her nerves.

  Reality glared beside her steaming mug in the shape of an ugly black gun Hank had left with her while he
took his shower.

  She had no doubt that it would be the world’s fastest wash up.

  Sure enough, the bathroom door opened and Hank’s broad shoulders filled the opening. He wore his uniform again, just the shirt and pants, the jacket with its medals and his long overcoat were hanging in the closet.

  In the quiet moment before they had to go back out beyond the safe walls, the reality of all they’d been through—all he’d risked for her—crashed down around Ginger again. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” He scrubbed a towel over his short buzz of hair.

  “For putting yourself between me and the gunfire yesterday. For finding this safe place for us. For keeping watch so I could sleep.”

  “That’s my job.” He tossed away the towel as easily as he brushed aside her words.

  “I know, but you still deserve to be thanked.” She rose, leaving her uneaten breakfast, her nerves too on edge for her to put food in her tumbling stomach anyway.

  He retrieved his uniform jacket and overcoat from the closet. “You’re scared by what’s waiting outside that door.”

  Perceptive man.

  “I’m human and that safe house seems far away. I want to see my children again.” She reached to stroke his jaw and couldn’t help but linger along his freshly shaven cheek. “And I don’t want anything to happen to you because you’re protecting me.”

  “I’m good at what I do and I’m lucky. Look at how old I am.” He winked before finishing buttoning his uniform jacket and donned his overcoat. He extended her long coat for her as well. “I’ve beaten the odds for years. Now let’s go.”

  He tucked the gun into his pocket, thrust her velvet bag into her hand and reached for the door. The wink and that twinkle in his eyes combined with all the adrenaline of the past twenty-four hours did her in.

  That—and the memory of the dent in the pillow next to hers.

  Ginger covered his hand with hers on the doorknob. “Hank. Wait. Before we go, there’s something I have to do first.”

  She couldn’t stop what had been building since the second he’d walked in on her yesterday as she stood in her camisole and she’d seen that flame in his eyes. Since she’d felt an answering heat stoke deep inside her. She saw the question in his gaze. Then the realization. Ginger arched up on her toes and, thank goodness, she hadn’t walked out on this branch alone because Hank’s mouth met hers.

  A first kiss. At her age, she’d thought she was past that teenage tingle of awe shimmering all the way to her toes. Apparently not. Her lips parted under his to admit the bold thrust of his tongue.

  Nothing teenage about that. He was a hundred percent mature and experienced man.

  She looped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him. She’d denied this part of herself for so long it seemed she’d stored a wealth of feelings that were now overflowing. So much so that she feared she might not be able to leave the room for a long time yet, a dangerous proposition for them—literally. They needed to leave.

  Ginger forced herself to slide her hands from around his neck down to his chest, drawing her mouth from his kiss, another, then a final nip away. “Okay, we had to get that out of the way or the car ride was going to continue to be really uncomfortable. Now we can go.”

  Her feet not nearly as steady as she would have liked, Ginger scooted past Hank out the door. She heard his muffled curse as he made tracks after her, which made her realize she was even more shaken than she’d realized since she should have let him check the halls first. Well, too late now.

  This whole “kiss experiment” had backfired on her. She’d hoped by getting it out of the way, the awkwardness would dissolve. Instead, she’d only made things worse because no way could she have predicted the power of her reaction. She couldn’t afford this kind of distraction.

  And there was a teeny-tiny part of her that was more than a little scared by the intensity of the moment. She really didn’t have the time or emotional energy to sort through all of this now.

  Her best bet for today? Pretend this hadn’t happened and try to regain their old footing as friends.

  So damn close.

  They’d almost made it to the safe house. Hank couldn’t believe that, after all his worries about gunmen and traitorous moles, they’d been stopped by a simple flat tire and a worn-out spare.

  Hank figured the best way to hide today would be to lose themselves in a crowd of shoppers while waiting for the Mercedes’s tire to be patched. He’d considered renting another car and hoping they made it to the safe house before the credit card could be traced, but the small village only had one rental place and it had been sold out for the holidays.

  And to think the safe house was just a few more miles down the icy road.

  His and Ginger’s day driving through small towns had been long and tense, but December twenty-third was close to over. He hoped this would be their last stop. No more nights alone together.

  He couldn’t let himself think about how damn good—how right—it had felt to spend the night with her tucked against him. He hadn’t been able to give up the chance even once she’d settled. Instead, he’d simply retrieved his BlackBerry and done his research while holding her.

  A bittersweet pleasure he’d thought never to repeat—except then she’d kissed him and now he didn’t know what to think, except that they had to get through this day.

  The tiny town overflowed with last-minute holiday shoppers clutching bags and the hands of small children. Old-fashioned cast-iron streetlamps adorned with wreaths and ribbons lined the street, ready to flicker to light when the sun went down in the next couple of hours.

  With his overcoat covering his uniform, he and Ginger could be locals even—as long as they kept their mouths closed. They actually blended in with the Christmas mayhem as snow flecked from the sky.

  He searched the press of bodies around them, suspicious of each bump and jostle of every passerby. He focused on all the details on all the open-air stalls lining the thoroughfare. “Come on. Let’s duck out for the next half hour until the tire is ready.”

  He steered her past a stall selling mugs of warm gluhwein—mulled spiced wine. Pushing wide a jingling door, he nudged her inside a tiny shop, away from the crowd.

  Ginger stomped the snow off her feet, then glanced around, sighing. “A children’s store. This sure brings back memories.” She strolled past a display of toy dump trucks, her gaze lingering. “Of course, it’s different shopping now since they’re all grown up.”

  “Not that different for me now. I have a granddaughter, remember?”

  “Alicia’s daughter.” Ginger smiled, the day’s worry almost sliding from her features. “Yes, we should find something for her. And does Darcy know the gender of her baby yet?”

  His daughter had called just last week with the news. He’d been meaning to tell Ginger, but the grind of this tour had never given them time alone. How strange it had taken an attempt on her life to give them a moment to themselves. “Darcy and Max are expecting a boy.”

  “So you have one of each to shop for. Definitely fun. Congratulations!”

  “Thank you.” He’d been thinking of Jessica a lot lately, and how she’d missed out on seeing their grandchildren. Sharing these firsts with Ginger helped ease something inside him.

  Then a hint of guilt pinched, surprising him. It had been a long time since his wife’s death, twenty-four years. Must be the holidays making him sentimental, reminding him of holidays past.

  Damn it, Ginger was an important person in his life and he owed her better than half his attention. “What are you thinking about?”

  She nodded toward the back corner where a Santa in traditional long robes passed out chocolates to children. “Of the history of Santa Claus.”

  “Saint Nicholas?”

  “Yes.” She pulled her gaze away with a nostalgic smile, trailing her hand over a wooden train set. “I was thinking of when Jonah heard my Dutch grandmother refer to Santa as Sinter Klaus. He thought she’d
said Senator Klaus, because his dad was a senator, the word made sense.”

  She’d always had a soft spot for her youngest, Jonah. Hank understood well how tough it was to let the youngest leave the nest. His daughter Darcy reminded him often enough that he needed to quit looking over her shoulder. She was a totally qualified and safe aviator.

  Seemed like just yesterday he’d been shopping in toy stores for Santa Claus—or Senator Klaus—gifts for his children. “Kids make the holiday, no question. Mine were always very particular about having their own nativity set.”

  “I didn’t know that.” She glanced up at him in surprise. “Now that I think back, I don’t believe I’ve seen your house decorated for Christmas after Jessica…”

  “Right.” He shrugged past that guilt pinch again. “When they went shopping to pick out a crèche, it took them forever. Somebody didn’t like the sheep in one or the angel in another.” He paused by a shelf of toy planes. “I was TDY, and they about drove their nanny crazy searching. Then Alicia figured it out. Why buy a matching set? They each put together an eclectic nativity.”

  “I like that.”

  “We were never a family for the coordinated decorated tree. Alicia, my child of the unmatched flair, would have painted all the glass decorations different colors anyway.”

  “Then she definitely won’t want this little dirndl dress for her daughter. How about a polka dot fur jacket?”

  “Perfect.” He glanced at his watch and out the shop window. “Time to go.”

  “Of course.” Her face sobered as she passed the tiny coat to the cashier to wrap.

  He hated that this trip had turned so wrong. “I think it’s wonderful that you’re donating this crèche when it obviously means so much to you.”

  “It’s just a material possession.”

  “Just a thing? More like a priceless antique.”

  “You know I don’t like to talk about money.” She took the wrapped package from the cashier.

  “Spoken like a woman who has cash to burn.” He made a more than comfortable living as a general and had invested wisely over the years. But he didn’t have millionaire attached to his name like the Landis family—nor had he ever aspired to such. He’d always kept his eyes focused on missions rather than mansions.