One Man's War

by Lindsay McKenna

  Rubbing his hands together worriedly, Pete whispered, “I hope you’re right, Dany. God, I hope you’re right.”

  There was hurt in Gib’s voice. “She came back because of you,” he pointed out, “not because of me.” He shook his head. “But that doesn’t matter. At least Tess is home, now.”

  “It doesn’t mean Tess doesn’t love you,” Pete said quietly. “She was afraid you wouldn’t understand how she was feeling. Hell, I’m not sure she’s clear on what she’s feeling.”

  “If only…if only we’d talked. I tried to talk to Tess when she was in D.C., but she made excuses about being busy and said she would call back. She never did.”

  “The wounds we carry,” Pete offered, “aren’t always visible ones, Gib.” He held out his hands and watched them tremble. “There are times I feel like a bomb ready to detonate.” With a sigh, he stood. “Maybe I’m partly responsible for Tess’s actions.” He studied them in the silence. “There’s a confession I have to make.”

  “Oh?” Gib asked.

  Guilt weighed on Pete as they looked expectantly up at him. He’d told no one about getting the orders cut to have Tess sent home. In essence, he’d triggered all her problems with that decision. It was hell living with that knowledge every agonizing second. Spreading his hands wide, Pete rasped, “When I get done telling you what I did, I won’t blame you if you never want to see me again….”

  Dany was the first to speak after Pete explained his actions. “What you did for Tess wasn’t wrong. You were the only one who saw she was suffering from battle fatigue in the first place.” She glanced tenderly over at Gib, who was holding his head in his hands, shoulders slumped. “Gib was too busy running the squadron and had too little contact with Tess to see what was happening to her.” She gave Pete a look of admiration. “But you saw it, that’s what’s important.”

  Pete stood uncertainly, waiting for Gib to accuse him of wrongdoing or to become angry. As Gib raised his head and sat back on the couch, he held Pete’s gaze.

  “You did the right thing, Pete,” he said unsteadily. “I blame myself for this. At least you recognized Tess’s condition. I didn’t.”

  “Look, Gib, we were in a war situation,” Pete said, hearing the culpability in the man’s voice. “It was no one’s fault. Even Tess didn’t realize what was happening to her.” He swallowed hard. “You aren’t upset I took things into my own hands?”

  With a soft snort, Gib shook his head. “How can I be? No, I’m grateful.” And then he managed a slight smile. “You’re one hell of a scrounger, do you know that? I didn’t know you could pull strings clear up to the Capitol.”

  Pete shrugged painfully. “Maybe I did the wrong thing. I’m still not sure.” He glanced down the hall where the bedrooms were located. “One of these days, I have to tell Tess what I did. It’s eating me up inside. If I hadn’t wrangled that transfer to D.C.—”

  “Tess could be worse off than she is now,” Gib interrupted heavily. “I’ve seen American advisors who have been over there for two or three tours. They’re shot emotionally.”

  “I think you got Tess out just in the nick of time,” Dany added softly. “You saved her life, Pete.”

  Pete wasn’t sure, but he didn’t say anything. “Look, I’ll get a motel in Midland and come out and visit Tess tomorrow morning if it’s okay with you,” he began in a strained voice. What Pete really wanted was to be with Tess twenty-four hours a day, but he didn’t have the right to make that kind of decision. He saw Gib glance up sharply.

  “You’re staying here, with us. For Tess,” Gib said. “You love her, don’t you?”

  “With my life,” Pete whispered huskily.

  Gib nodded. “Then it’s settled. You take the guest bedroom opposite Tess’s room. If she needs you, you’ll be close at hand.”

  Grateful beyond words, Pete stood awkwardly. “This kind of situation is different for me, you know.”

  Dany tilted her head. “What is, Pete?”

  “Well,” he hedged softly, “family and all. I never had one, a real one, that is.” Pete managed a bashful, one-cornered smile and lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know much about how a family operates in circumstances like this. I’m afraid I’ll screw it up.”

  Dany rose and walked over to Pete. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “For the next few days, you’re going to find out what real family means, for Tess and for yourself. As for making mistakes…well, we all make them. In this family there’s no recrimination if you do—only support. We’ll all try to figure out the best way to undo the error.” She smiled gently. “We’re so glad you came, Pete. And more than anything, we know you love Tess.”

  Pete hung his head and stared at the hardwood floor. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I love her.” What bothered Pete most was the knowledge that he’d be leaving Tess soon. The hours were slipping away, and he felt a panic deep inside.

  “I just don’t want to lose her,” he admitted hoarsely, glancing at both of them.

  Dany nodded understandingly. “You won’t, Pete. Despite how Tess is feeling right now, she’ll never forget you came to her rescue. Your love for her is that strong. No, she’ll see your commitment regardless of what’s happened.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Pete said softly. Regardless of the consequences, in three short days he had to leave. It would be the most painful separation he’d endured in his entire life.

  *

  Tess stood at the pipe rail fence with one booted foot up on the first rung. A small herd of Hereford mothers and their new calves were kept within the confines. She looked over at Pete, who stood at her elbow, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. It was their last day together. Tomorrow morning, he would leave for Vietnam to finish his tour of duty. Dany was going to drive Pete to Midland to catch the flight that would eventually take him halfway around the world away from Texas.

  The sun’s long evening rays bathed her back, and Tess felt a peace that always came with Pete’s presence. A fierce love for him welled through her, and she fought back the tears. Pete didn’t need to see her tears now. He was as miserable over leaving as she was to see him go.

  Resting her chin on her hands, Tess admitted quietly, “I’m really going to miss you, Pete.”

  “It’s mutual, you know.” He barely twisted his head in her direction. Tess wore a long-sleeved plaid cowboy shirt to protect her arms from the sun, and a pair of jeans. Her hair, woven into a thick braid, rested across her shoulder. In the past few days, Tess had steadied emotionally. She had chosen a woman therapist, Dr. Sandy Lawton, in Midland, and had started therapy.

  Turning around, his back resting against the fence, Pete gathered Tess into his arms. He ached to make love with her, to seal how he felt, but now wasn’t the right time. Tess was too raw, too vulnerable to every emotion. Insisting on physical union might tip her fragile new balance. As she smiled up at him, leaning into the safe haven of his arms, Pete groaned.

  “Your weight always feels good against me,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to her hair as she rested her head beneath his jaw, her arms going around his waist. “I’m gonna miss this, you know.”

  “What?” Tess whispered back, aching to love Pete.

  “Holding you, squeezing you, kissing you. Small things—important things.”

  She managed a soft laugh. “Pete, you’re a glutton for punishment, then. You’ve got dark circles under your eyes from getting up at night with my nightmares.” Tess sobered. “But I’m so glad you’re there to hold me.”

  He grinned and squeezed her. “You gotta admit, it’s one hell of an excuse to be in the bedroom with you. It’s the only excuse the family would find respectable.”

  Laughing with him, Tess raised her head and drowned in the blue warmth of his gaze. “You never lose your sense of humor, you know that? It’s just one more thing I love about you.”

  Pete felt joy race through him as he drowned in Tess’s alert, shining gaze. Since coming back to the ranch, she hadn’t
touched a drop of alcohol, realizing why she’d drunk it in the first place. This evening, their last evening together, she looked almost like the woman he’d met so many months before in Vietnam. The fixed schedule of ranching was helping give her the necessary stability, a routine around which to begin to refashion her shattered life. And Dany Ramsey was an angel in disguise, Pete decided. She had an intuitiveness about what Tess needed and seemed able to guide both him and Gib in responding to Tess’s needs.

  “The past few days have been heaven on earth,” Pete murmured as he pressed a kiss to her brow.

  “More hell than heaven,” Tess joked weakly. Worriedly, she touched his shaven cheek. “You haven’t gotten the rest you need for going back to Vietnam, Pete.”

  “Now, now,” he chided, “I’ll catch Z’s on the flight to Nam, don’t worry.” Framing Tess’s face, he whispered, “What I don’t want to hear while I’m over there is that you aren’t getting better daily. Understand? I want you to go to Sandy every week. She’s a pretty savvy therapist, in my opinion. I think she can help you a lot, Tess.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And help around the ranch here as much as you want. Gib can use the extra pair of hands even if he’s too damned proud to admit it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tess breathed, smiling. How badly she wanted to love Pete, but she was afraid to ask, afraid that the love he spoke about wasn’t forever…. Would Pete walk out of her life permanently now that she was recovering? Had he remained with her out of guilt instead of love? Half her nightmares had been about that, but she’d been afraid to confide in Pete about them.

  “I’ve got something for you, honey,” Pete said, and released her for a moment while he dug into his jeans pocket. “Something,” he said with a tender look, “that I hope you like.” He held up his Marine Corps aviator’s ring, suspended on a gold chain.

  “What’s this?” Tess asked, intrigued.

  “Well,” Pete began hesitantly, “how’d you like to go steady with me?” He saw her eyes flare with surprise, and grew suddenly afraid that Tess might turn him down. A lump formed in his throat, but he blindly pushed on. “Remember in high school, how if you went steady with a guy, you always wore his ring on your finger or on a chain around your neck? The girls used to wrap the rings in white angora yarn to make them fit their fingers. Most of the time you’d see this chunk of fuzzy white hair on the girl’s hand before you ever saw the ring.”

  Tess laughed with him and cupped the ring and chain in her palm. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Did you ever do that?”

  “Go steady in high school?”

  “Yeah.” He watched her lips part as she gently stroked the ring. It was as if she were invisibly stroking him, and he bit back a groan of need.

  “Just once…Bobby Tyler gave me his ring to wear.” Tess shook her head. “I gave it back the next day.”

  “That was a fast steady,” Pete joked.

  “Sure was. Bobby beat up on one of my friends the same day. When I found out about it, I caught him at his locker after school and threw the ring back at him, in tears. No boy who professed to like me was going to beat up on one of my friends.”

  Pete smiled and rested his arms lightly against Tess’s shoulders. “If you accept my ring, you can’t throw it back at me twenty-four hours later, you know. I’ll be gone.”

  Lifting her chin, Tess drew in a ragged breath, the ring heavy in her hand. She was bathed in the tender blue of his gaze, and her heart lurched in her breast. “Wh-what does it mean if I wear your ring?”

  He felt her tremble and caressed her flaming cheek. “It means we’re serious about each other, that we love each other.” Glancing down at the gold ring, its red stone gleaming, he met her lustrous emerald gaze. “It means I want you to wait for me. And when I get back, honey, I’m going to ask you the most important question I’ve ever asked a woman.”

  Shaken, Tess’s fingers closed around the ring. Tears filled her closed eyes and she leaned her brow against his jaw. “I’ll wear it for both of us,” she quavered.

  “You’re my good-luck charm. You know that, don’t you?” Pete threaded his fingers through her thick red hair and entertained the thought of unbraiding it and making slow, delicious love to her.

  With a nod, Tess bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from sobbing. As if sensing her reeling emotions, Pete drew her against him and they stood in the dusk, holding each other. She could hear the slow, hard beat of his heart beneath her ear, a heart that would stop if he was killed in combat.

  “When I was a kid growing up, I always envied these men and women walking hand and hand down the street,” Pete said in a low voice. “I always wondered why they looked so happy, why they held hands. I wondered why the people I lived with never did that or gave the special looks to each other that I saw other married couples exchange.” Pete gently stroked Tess’s shoulders and back with his hand as she rested against him. “Now, I understand. The people I saw on the street from time to time were really in love. They weren’t afraid to touch, to look into each other’s eyes and smile or show their love. I didn’t realize it then, but I was seeing a hundred different ways of saying, I love you.” He leaned down and met her lovely gaze. “The time we’ve shared here has been a miracle for me, Tess. We’ve said ‘I love you’ in a hundred different ways. I understand what love means now. You were right—it’s more than just the bedroom scene. It’s about caring for another person more than yourself sometimes. It’s about being sensitive to someone else’s needs as well as your own.”

  Pete brushed an errant strand of red hair from her damp cheek. “You can cry, honey. Tears don’t bother me like they used to. I understand now how good it feels to cry.” Pete’s smile deepened as he touched her flushed cheek. “I love you, Tess Ramsey, with every cell in my body. When I leave tomorrow morning, I’m going to be counting the days until I can see you again. I’ve never been a great letter writer, but you can count on one a week from me. You’re my lifeline, my hope of getting out of there sane and in one piece. All I need to hear from you is that you’re getting better in some small way every day. If I know you’re getting well, I won’t worry, and I’ll keep my focus on my job.”

  Leaning down, he slipped his fingers beneath her chin and guided her lips to his. Gently, as if Tess were some fragile flower that could be easily crushed, he monitored the amount of pressure he brought to bear upon her parting lips. A softened moan rose in Tess’s throat as he deepened their mutual kiss, and he felt her returning fire, the quiet passion that burned like living coals just beneath her surface. He lost himself in the lush texture, sweet taste and scent of Tess as his woman—the woman he wanted for his wife, as the mother of his children, for the rest of his life. As he hungrily gave and took the fire of life with Tess, the only fear that hung in the back of his spinning mind was that someday—before he could ask Tess to marry him—he had to tell her the truth about what he’d done to her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  January, 1966

  “Pete! Pete!”

  Exhaustion pulled at Pete as he stumbled to a halt just inside the air terminal at the Midland airport. He wore his summer marine uniform, a short-sleeved khaki shirt and matching slacks. His garrison cap sat at a rakish angle on his head. It was early evening, and he smiled tiredly as he spotted Tess among the small crowd, wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt and jeans. She ran toward him. The last three months had been utter hell without Tess’s smile, her spontaneous warmth and laughter.

  Dropping his leather satchel, Pete opened his arms and grinned as she came running up to him. The change from the last time he’d seen her was heart-stopping. Encouraging. Her red hair was loose and free, a crimson waterfall across her shoulders. The life in her eyes made his heart pound double time. But most of all he cherished the welcoming smile on her lovely mouth—for him alone.

  “Tess…” Pete whispered, and he caught her full weight as she pressed herself against him. A groan started deep inside him as she threw her arms around him
and kissed him repeatedly, like a wildly happy puppy. Pete couldn’t get enough of Tess, meeting, molding his mouth repeatedly to hers, inhaling her wonderful feminine scent—the fresh, clean Texas air, the sunlight—everything.

  Moments sheared to a halt as Pete lost himself in the startling, welcoming sensations of Tess against him. Never had he wanted to make love to a woman more. Never had he wanted to love as fully as now.

  “Oh, Pete,” Tess whispered as she framed his face with her hands and looked deep into his weary blue eyes. “How I’ve missed you. I love you—I love you so much!” And she kissed him hotly, deeply.

  The months melted away beneath her torrid welcome, and Pete wanted nothing more than to stand with Tess in his arms. Finally, both of them breathing raggedly, unwilling to let go of each other, they separated a bit. Tess rested her brow against his cheek and squeezed him.

  “You’re real,” she gasped. “You’re really here. You’re home.”

  A lump formed in Pete’s throat, and he could only nod silently. His hands wouldn’t remain still, touching, smoothing and gliding across Tess’s shoulders, back and waist. As she caressed his face and her hands came to rest on his shoulders, Pete managed a crooked smile.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, honey.”

  Tess grinned and kissed his cheek, nose and, finally, his wonderfully shaped mouth. As she broke the kiss, she whispered against his lips, “I missed you so much, love you so much.”

  Pete held her tightly against him. “I love you, too,” he rasped, the words finally working their way around the constriction in his throat. How could he tell Tess how beautiful, how natural she looked? Inhaling deeply, Pete could swear he smelled the sunlight on Tess. The coarse thickness of her red hair felt wonderful against his cheek. Pete ached to tunnel his hands through that living mass of fire. Dread filled him. Despite Tess’s happiness, her love for him, Pete knew he had some things to clear up with her first.