She was floating lighter than when returning from a long mission just as the dawn light presaged the day. She was going to marry the man who would stay beside her through the years. The man she’d grow old with.
The man she’d have children with.
That thought had her catching her breath. For some reason, she’d never really thought about having children. But now she could feel it inside her as if it was already real. Not yet. There was still too much flying to be done. But someday. A son. Or perhaps a couple of girls. It wouldn’t matter as long as the children were Mark’s. She’d be more than content, so much more.
She could feel the warm tears sliding down her cheeks, but couldn’t even raise a hand from clutching her bouquet of wild columbine to dab at them.
Then she heard a strange pause and began listening to Peter’s rendition of the wedding ceremony.
“If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace,” he prompted the crowd.
She’d given no thought to writing her own ceremony, her gift wasn’t with words. The Book of Common Prayer had served couples for four hundred years, she saw no point in changing a single syllable.
There was a respectful silence.
Then Peter spoke up, “I don’t know, Squirt. Are you sure this sad sack is up to your standards? After all, I heard about the whole cow-and-stream thing. Doesn’t sound like a very brave…”
Emily moved fast. She was a little limited by the gown, but not enough to worry her.
She grabbed the book from his hands, then pushed sharply against the center of his chest.
Peter stumbled back one step.
Two.
There was no third step. The President of the United States, in one of his fine three-piece suits, fell off the edge of the platform and tumbled backward into the lake.
She managed to dodge clear of the spray, but Mark was soaked all down one side, receiving the main shot of water.
“Not again!” Mark groaned as he attempted to brush the water off his uniform.
“What the hell, Squirt!” Peter never swore, but standing chest deep in the pond was apparently enough to prompt him.
“It was inevitable, Sneaker Boy.”
Peter turned to Frank. “I thought you were supposed to protect me.”
“I’ll take a bullet for you, sir. But that was just plain dumb, Mr. President.”
“At least you could help me out of here. I think I just lost a shoe in the mud.”
“But you’re all wet, sir.” Frank, too, had been fast enough to dodge the worst of it.
Mark just waved him to wade around the platform to the shore.
She handed the book to Michael. “If you would be so kind?”
“Will it be legal?”
“He can sign the official certificate later.” She waved a dismissive hand at Peter as he slogged ashore and sat on one of the many empty chairs on the groom’s side. He had indeed lost a shoe, which was even better than merely dumping him in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and soaking his new sneakers. “After Shoe Boy dries off.”
Michael was, of course, magnificent as the officiate for the rest of the ceremony.
Mark’s ring stole her breath away. He wasn’t just marrying her, he was marrying the Night Stalker in her as well. He’d even thought to purchase a matching simple band of black gold in his own size. If she could have loved him more in that moment, she would have.
“By the power vested in President Peter Matthews,” Michael concluded. “I now pronounce that you be man and wife together.”
And Mark’s kiss—albeit with a hug from just one side—brought all the sizzle a woman could hope for. It was a sizzle that promised to last a lifetime and she knew that Mark always, always delivered on his promises.
The 5th Battalion D Company roared out three cheers louder than all guns blazing.
She might be the only woman in the Night Stalkers, but that wouldn’t always be the case. Until that day she knew one thing for certain, male or female, she truly belonged.
Mark’s whispered, “Thank you for marrying me,” as he held her, told her that she belonged for life.
Christmas at Henderson Ranch (excerpt)
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“This isn’t right!”
Chelsea Bridges leaned forward to see what Emily Beale was looking at. Chelsea didn’t see a thing wrong, but then she’d never been to central Montana before. Out the small plane’s front windshield were miles and miles of rolling green prairie. Streams crisscrossed the grassland in a bewildering maze. The backdrop was the foothills of the Rockies breaking the skyline with their snowy peaks and conifer-clad sides. The westering sun silhouetted the hills, but lit their tops with gold.
“It’s absolutely gorgeous!” Then she clamped her mouth closed. She was trying to reel it in. Emily was always so even-keeled and understated that Chelsea was constantly stumbling to be less…Chelsea. Emily was this perfect woman with a drop-dead handsome husband and about the cutest kid on the planet. Chelsea had only been their daughter’s nanny for a few months, but she’d seen the deference and respect that everyone at Mount Hood Aviation’s firefighter airbase paid Emily. In return, the woman was kind, courteous, and utterly terrifying. Chelsea wouldn’t mind being all of those things.
Her husband Mark, who sat up front in the other pilot seat of the small plane, wasn’t much more effusive—except around his daughter. At least he had a sense of humor, though not as much a one as he thought he did; an observation Chelsea kept carefully to herself.
Chelsea looked over at Tessa who was strapped in beside her. She had her tiny version of her mother’s elegant nose pressed up against the window. “Green,” she announced. Out her window was nothing but the rolling grasslands of eastern Montana.
“It’s wrong,” Mark agreed solemnly but turned enough to wink at Chelsea, or at least she presumed that’s what his cheek twitch was indicating at the lower edge of his mirrored Ray-Bans. “Not much snow in the hills. Means another drought year next summer.”
“That’s not the problem,” Emily responded. “Okay, drought is a problem. But that’s not the real problem.”
“What is, Emma?” Again the sassy wink that said he already knew what his wife was talking about. It was amazing that the man had survived this long. Chelsea would never dare tease Emily Beale; she could probably kill with a glance if she ever took off her own mirrored shades.
“It’s December,” Emily took one hand off the plane’s wheel—if she was on board, she was the one doing the flying—and waved it helplessly at the stunning scenery before them. “We came to Montana for a white Christmas.”
“I thought it was to see Mom and Dad.”
“It’s still supposed to be white,” she grumbled and set up to land the plane. It was as much emotion Chelsea had seen in her entire two months with them. Emily Beale was never unkind, but she was cold. Or at least chilly. But that wasn’t right either. The woman was frank and forthright, as much with her daughter as with her husband. Yet Tessa was often in her lap, welcome not as child to adult, but rather as a piece of Emily that was simply back in the place where it belonged. The mother and daughter weren’t close; they were simply one when they were together. It was about the most incredible thing Chelsea had ever seen. It made her ache for a family of her own; not a familiar feeling.
Again Chelsea strained up against her seatbelt to look down. A herd of horses startled and looked up at them as they passed by. They didn’t scatter and run, but they eyed the low-flying plane carefully.
“Horsies!” Tessa declared delightedly when Emily shifted her flightpath so that the herd was visible outside her daughter’s window. Not cold at all, just…inscrutable.
“Yes,” Chelsea encouraged the toddler. “Those are horses. Aren’t they pretty?”
“Pretty!” Tessa burbled, and they laughed together with delight.
Chelsea had never seen
a whole herd of horses before. There were at least fifty in the group of every shade imaginable: grays, browns, whites, blacks, and mixes in patchworks, dapples, and who knew what all. They were gone behind the plane too fast to distinguish more. She tucked away the trail mix snack they’d been sharing to make sure Tessa’s blood sugar was up.
Even after two months, Chelsea wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up in this situation. Not that she was complaining, Emily and Mark were great parents and it showed in their total sweetheart of a daughter. And flying with Mark over forest fires was often very dramatic.
It had started with Aunt Betsy who was a cook for the Mount Hood Aviation helicopter and smoke jumping firefighters. When Chelsea’s degree in psychology hadn’t led to any kind of a useful job, her aunt had asked if she liked to fly. She’d shrugged a yes because she’d flown in passenger jets any number of times to visit grandparents, and a trip to Nepal for a backpacking gap year.
She’d now spent most of the last two months sitting in tiny planes of six or eight narrow seats and been paid to enjoy the scenery and play with a baby girl. Best job she’d ever had by a long way.
Tessa was a fixture in Mark Henderson’s plane when he was flying as the Incident Commander high above the fire. What was surprising wasn’t that they’d added a nanny, but rather how he’d done the job for so long without one. Tessa was a pretty low maintenance kid, but she was also eighteen months old and quite intelligent.
It was a late fire season, Mark had said, and MHA had still been flying fire in the Southwest. But, finally released from the summer contract, they’d come north for a vacation and brought Chelsea along with them. She sure as hell wasn’t going home. They’d known that.
As they flew closer to the ranch, more and more fences became visible, cutting the prairie into smaller pastures and training rings. There were several barns, smaller residences, and cabins surrounding the main residence.
Emily flew once over the grand log-built ranch house and waggled the plane’s wings in a friendly wave.
Chelsea pointed to out to Tessa, “Isn’t it amazabiling?”
“’mazbling!” Tessa called out happily. Emily sighed audibly as she circled wide of the barn.
Chelsea wondered if Mark’s habits were rubbing off on her, but she couldn’t resist messing with Tessa’s rapidly developing language set. They landed on a gravel strip that ended close beside the house and a large out-building that turned out to be a hangar.
A big man strolled out to meet them, still buttoning up his sheepskin jacket. He was an older version of Mark; just as tall, just as broad-shouldered, his light hair going silver. But Mark’s face was different. Darker, broader, and his hair was thick, straight, and almost midnight black, sharing only his father’s gray eyes.
The clouds of mist puffing about with each breath of Mark Senior—Mac, she reminded herself, they’d said he liked to be called Mac—had Chelsea bundling up Tessa before the plane came to a halt in front of a hangar. The ground might be snow free, but it was far colder here than Oregon where they’d boarded the plane.
Doug Daniels had stuck his head out of the barn when he heard the plane come over low. The trademark gloss-black-and-red-flame paint job told him who was aboard. Some part of him had been alarmed that a client was in-bound for a ranch vacation even though they hadn’t taken any Christmas reservations this year. But it was just Mark and his knock-out wife. He liked Mark fine, but he had trouble speaking around Emily Beale. It wasn’t just the beauty, he knew how to talk to pretty women just fine; it was the fierce level of competence that she demonstrated at every turn.
He finished helping Logan pitch the hay into the stalls’ feedboxes before heading out to greet them. The air had a sharp bite to it, wholly different from the horse-and-straw of the barn, but no moisture. As he stepped out of the barn, he noticed that there wasn’t even a hint of cloud in the cobalt blue of the late afternoon sky. The temperature was already dropping though it was still an hour to sunset. It was going to get cold tonight.
Doug stuck his head back inside. “Hey, Logan. Open up the gates. If the main herd has any sense, they’ll be coming this way by sunset.”
“You bet, boss. Any horse that stays out there tonight needs his horse-sense meter checked.”
Doug went out to help stow the plane. There was room in the hangar because he’d moved the helicopter tight to the side after the morning’s flight to check the main herd and make sure there were no stray or injured. He hadn’t been able to get an accurate count, but it had felt low and that was bothering him. Happened all the time. Still, it worried him.
He ducked through the hangar’s side door, popped the release, and slid open the main door from the inside. It rattled and boomed in the cold air. A sharp squeal in one of the wheels had him adding “needs grease” to the infinite mental checklist that was running a working dude ranch.
Just emerging from the plane was a figure wrapped deep in a parka, with the fur-rimmed hood already raised as if it wasn’t a merely brisk day, but rather a north polar night. She, for there was no chance of a guy wearing such tight jeans and making them look so good, carried an equally bundled child.
He came up and stuck his nose right into the child’s hood, “Tessa, my love! Give us a kiss!”
“Kiss!” the little girl squealed and kissed him on the nose.
Then he rubbed noses with her until she was giggling before he pulled back. He’d ended up standing very close to the woman holding her. He could just see brilliant blue eyes, a freckled nose, and a bright smile in the narrow opening of the hood.
“Do you greet all the girls that way?” Her tone was light, almost musical.
“Sure.” Never one to back down from a challenge, he stuck his face right into her hood until their noses rubbed and cried out, “Give us a kiss!”
Unlike the little girl, there was no squeal. Instead, there was a quick squawk of surprise.
Way over the line, Doug.
But before he could retreat, she gave him a quick kiss. Unlike Tessa’s it didn’t land on his nose, but right on the mouth. There and gone, but the lips were warm, soft, and tasted of peanuts and chocolate.
Once he was clear of the hood, the gloved slap that he expected to follow, didn’t. He glanced again into the tunnel of the raised hood.
The bright blue eyes caught the low sunlight and weren’t round with shock or narrowed with anger.
“Well,” she blinked in slow motion, “okay then.”
He laughed, he couldn’t help himself.
Now that was his kind of woman.
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About the Author
M.L. Buchman started the first of, what is now over 50 novels and as many short stories, while flying from South Korea to ride his bicycle across the Australian Outback. Part of a solo around the world trip that ultimately launched his writing career.
All three of his military romantic suspense series—The Night Stalkers, Firehawks, and Delta Force—have had a title named “Top 10 Romance of the Year” by the American Library Association’s Booklist. NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for Romance Writers of America prestigious RITA award. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and fantasy.
Past lives include: years as a project manager, rebuilding and single-handing a fifty-foot sailboat, both flying and jumping out of airplanes, and he has designed and built two houses. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife and is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing and receive a free starter e-library by subscribing to his newsletter at: www.mlbuchman.com
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Also by M. L. Buchman
* sweet version also available
The Night Stalkers
Main Flight
The Night Is Mine
I
Own the Dawn
Wait Until Dark
Take Over at Midnight
Light Up the Night
Bring On the Dusk
By Break of Day
White House Holiday
Daniel’s Christmas
Frank’s Independence Day
Peter’s Christmas
Zachary’s Christmas
Roy’s Independence Day
Damien’s Christmas
and the Navy
Christmas at Steel Beach
Christmas at Peleliu Cove
5E
Target of the Heart
Target Lock on Love
Target of Mine
Firehawks
Main Flight
Pure Heat
Full Blaze
Hot Point
Flash of Fire
Wild Fire
Smokejumpers
Wildfire at Dawn
Wildfire at Larch Creek
Wildfire on the Skagit
Delta Force
Main Flight
Target Engaged
Heart Strike
Wild Justice
Henderson’s Ranch
Nathan’s Big Sky*
Love Abroad B&B
Heart of the Cotswolds: England*
Where Dreams
Where Dreams are Born*
Where Dreams Reside*
Where Dreams Are of Christmas*
Where Dreams Unfold*
Where Dreams Are Written*
Eagle Cove
Return to Eagle Cove*
Recipe for Eagle Cove*
Longing for Eagle Cove*
Keepsake for Eagle Cove*
Deities Anonymous
Cookbook from Hell: Reheated
Saviors 101
Dead Chef
Swap Out!
One Chef!
Two Chef!
SF/F Titles
The Nara Reaction
Emily's Wedding Page 4