The Soldier's Valentine--A Clean Romance

by Pamela Tracy

  Daryl fitted the opener over the can’s metal line and cranked the turner. Approaching headlights glared through the window above the sink. His heart resumed beating when they swept by to the main house. “Ten cents,” he said lightly, careful to keep his tone neutral.

  Where was Leanne?

  “Nope! It’s five cents,” Emma announced, checking the answer in the back of the book.

  Five cents? What did he know about anything anymore?

  “Pa?” Noah mumbled around the pencil clamped between his teeth. “What’s a pie-mary source?”

  “A pie what?” Behind him, water hit the metal grate and hissed. In his hurry to whisk the kettle off the heat, he dropped the now open can of peas, splattering the floor with sticky fluid and preserved vegetables.

  His cheeks bulged, holding back a string of oaths. Heat burned from his chest to his ear tips.

  Emma flicked back her wispy blond bangs and stared. “Are you having a stroke?”

  “No.” He pulled the overflowing pot off the burner and the boiling water splashed his fingers. “Ow!” When his boot slipped on the bean mess, he crashed to one knee, biting his tongue.

  He forced himself to his feet and gave his gaping children an exaggerated bow. “Greetings from Clumsy the Clown,” he pronounced, donning the persona he’d created to make Emma laugh when she’d been teased for the orthopedic gear she’d worn to straighten her pigeon-toed gait.

  “Please, no.” Emma’s mouth quirked.

  Noah giggled. “Clumsy’s funny.”

  “He’s also not getting any younger.” Daryl rubbed his aching knee, then peered at Beuford. “Any chance you want to help me clean up this mess?”

  Beuford cracked open an eye, studied the mushy peas, then lowered his lid again, adding a loud snore for effect.

  “Man’s best friend my butt—er...” Daryl yanked open the broom closet and pulled out a mop.

  “Butt! Pa was going to say butt!” Noah grabbed the plastic jar on the end of the counter. “Now you have to put in a quarter.”

  “Two quarters,” Emma corrected. “And you owe them since you said butt. Twice.”

  “Well, so did you!” Noah fired back.

  “I did not!” Emma jabbed her pencil at Noah. “I repeated what you said, butt.”

  Noah spun on his swivel stool. “Now you owe two quarters, potty mouth!”

  “Take that back!” Emma screeched, lunging.

  Daryl grabbed Emma’s pencil inches from Noah’s eye. “Enough!” he thundered, then sucked in a shaky breath and started again. Slower. Gentler. “What’s the number one homework rule?”

  “Don’t get caught cheating?” Noah grabbed the counter edge and stopped the rotating stool.

  “The other one.”

  “Don’t feed it to Beuford?” Emma subsided back in her seat.

  “Nope. Pencils aren’t...” he prompted, waiting.

  Emma and Noah exchanged confused looks.

  “Weapons.” Daryl heaved out a sigh. “Pencils aren’t weapons. For the millionth, gazillionth time.”

  “Gazillion,” giggled Noah. “Who wants to be a gazillionaire?”

  “Aunt Jewel said she stabbed Uncle Justin’s hand clean through with a protractor once,” Emma supplied.

  “I believe it,” he muttered, picturing his petite, roughrider stepsister. Her mother, Joy, had married his father, Boyd, a year ago, blending the neighboring Cade and Loveland ranching families and ending their 130-year feud. Now Jewel was engaged to his brother Heath, their wedding set for Christmas Eve. Would Leanne attend it with him?

  If she came home...

  Noah pulled the tip of his eraser from his nose and sniffed. “Is the house on fire?”

  The smoke detector shrilled.

  “And what’s a pie-mary source?” Noah shouted.

  “It’s primary,” Emma answered as Daryl dashed to the stove.

  Black smoke billowed when he yanked it open, coughing. Inside lay the charred ruins of his famous cheesy garlic bread.

  “I’ll call 911!” Noah snatched up the phone.

  “I’ll get the extinguisher.” Emma hopped off her stool and raced to the broom closet.

  When it came to disasters, he and his kids were becoming a well-oiled machine. “Put down the phone and don’t spray the—” An explosion of white foam drowned out his next word.

  “Did I put it out, Pa?” Emma lowered the red canister.

  “Sure did.”

  “Then how come you still look upset?”

  He mashed his lids shut, counted backward from ten and wished like hell for Leanne...for an extra pair of hands even, since that was all they’d been to each other for a very long time, he realized, looking further back than just the past year and a half. He was lonely, and somehow, crazy as it sounded, it was harder to be lonely when you were with someone. He wasn’t making Leanne happy, and his family was falling apart. “Who’s upset? You saved the day, sweetheart.”

  “But what about dinner?” Noah pointed at the white goop dripping from every surface, including the pasta pot. “I’m hungry.”

  “How about grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup once I clean this up?” He filled a bucket, dipped a mop in the fluid and raked it over the sticky floor in quick, jerky half circles. Beuford’s tongue flicked out to sample the foam. “So now you’re helping?” Daryl growled.

  “You don’t make them as good as Mama.” Noah’s lower lip trembled. “How come she’s not home?”

  “Does she still love us?” Emma warbled.

  The mop clattered to the floor and, in three quick strides, Daryl caught them in a tight hug. “She loves you very much.”

  “Because she’s our mama?” Noah buried his head in Daryl’s shoulder.

  “Yes,” he affirmed, though that hadn’t been his experience growing up. He fought to provide his children the happy, loving and stable home he’d longed for as a kid before the Lovelands adopted him...the reason Leanne’s erratic behavior tore him up. The children hung on each of her rare smiles and called out a good-night to her, even when she wasn’t home to hear it.

  Long ago, he’d messed up and sealed his and Leanne’s fate...though he’d never regret the impulsive action that’d created Emma. He’d lost the future he’d wanted with another, a woman he’d never been able to forget, but he’d committed to this marriage, this family. Leanne made him content, if not truly happy, and deep down, he wondered if she sensed this, if his inability to give her his heart fully drove her away.

  She’d rebuffed all his attempts to reconnect. When he’d signed them up for ballroom lessons, she’d gone line dancing with friends instead. The new saddle he’d tooled with their initials and wedding date gathered dust in the stable. She was miserable, and the children suffered because of it.

  Where are you?

  Come home to your family...

  A loud knock broke up their family hug.

  “Mama!” Noah flung himself at the door, sliding on his stocking feet in his haste. When he wrenched it open, his brother Travis stood outside wearing his gray sheriff’s uniform. Noah’s face fell. “I thought you were Mama.”

  Daryl’s heart beat faster at Travis’s somber expression. “Come inside.”

  Travis doffed his hat and mashed it between his hands. His jaw was set as if to control some powerful emotion. “Would appreciate a word with you outside if you have a minute.”

  Daryl struggled to lift his heavy feet from the floor, to move, to breathe even. Haziness made his head lurch and spin.

  “Daryl?” Travis prompted, his voice grave.

  “Yes. Uh—kids, get back to your homework and then I’ll take you out for pizza.”

  Travis’s stone-faced expression suggested Daryl had just made a promise he might not keep.

  “Yay!” Emma and Noah whooped.


  Once the door clicked shut behind them, Travis’s blue eyes blazed into his. Their sister, Sierra, huddled on the bottom step with her arms wrapped around her shivering body. Travis must have picked her up at the main house, then brought her here to...to... Daryl’s thought hit a dead end, unable, unwilling to complete itself.

  “Did you find...” His throat closed around his wife’s name, as if by not naming her, he’d shield her, protect her from whatever turned his siblings’ faces pale.

  “Leanne.” It was a whisper, and Sierra’s face contorted tearfully around it.

  Goose bumps raced across his skin like a squall through a hayfield. He swallowed and just that small physical reflex felt like an effort. He felt as if the blood had drained from him, and with it the strength that he had left, the fight.

  Travis gripped Daryl’s shoulder. “There’s been an accident.”

  Copyright © 2019 by Karen Rock

  ISBN-13: 9781488039706

  The Soldier’s Valentine

  Copyright © 2019 by Pamela Tracy Osback

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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