“Do you?”
“I miss you, Sharlene. I miss our visits, even the ones in the middle of the night. I miss my friend. And I trust you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes but she refused to let them escape. “I miss you too.”
“Were you really a sniper or were you just saying that to get a rise out of me?” he asked.
She set the beer down with a thud. “I was really a sniper. I still have the nightmares to prove it.”
“How many?” he whispered.
“Nightmares? Every night except when I slept with you,” she said honestly.
“I didn’t mean how many nightmares,” he said.
“I made myself not count so I really can’t answer that. Enough that the dreams haunt me.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I’m good at it. I did a job so that hopefully there won’t be another nine eleven. That’s what the captain told me when he gave me the pep talk for reenlistment.”
He sipped at the cold beer. “You didn’t want to make a career of it?”
“No, one stretch and two tours was enough for me. You sure you trust me?”
“With my life, yes I do.”
But not with your heart, she thought. That would take a hell of a lot more than your life, wouldn’t it?
She changed the subject. “Where are the kids tonight?”
“Gloria and Chad wanted to play parents tonight. They called this afternoon. They’d finagled four tickets to Disney on Ice in Dallas tonight. Then they had a hotel room rented with an indoor pool and were ordering out pizza. They’ll play in the morning until they have to check out at eleven and then they’ve got appointments at a bridal shop to have the kids fitted for a tux and a fancy dress. Want to have a barbecue at the beach house up the road at supper time with all of us?”
“Why, Holt Jackson, are you asking me for a date?” she flirted.
“I guess I am,” he said.
“I’d love to,” she answered. “What can I bring?”
“Dessert?”
“As in food or something else? And are we talking about tomorrow or tonight?”
“Food. Tomorrow. Bartending is tough work. As beautiful as you are, I don’t think I’m up for dessert tonight,” he said.
“Me neither. Why are they fitting kids for a tux and a fancy dress at a bridal shop?”
“Gloria and Chad are getting married the last day of December in Wichita Falls. Big church foo-rah with all the trimmings. Waylon is ring bearer. Judd is the flower girl. Kent is best man. Bennie and I are groomsmen,” he explained.
“When did all this happen?”
“He gave her the ring a couple of weeks ago. He thought they’d have a six-month engagement. Gloria says not.”
Sharlene set her empty bottle on the table and put her feet on the floor. “Where are they going to live?”
“We’re working on an idea. We’ll have the jobs finished here and it’ll be semester break for the kids so a move wouldn’t be so difficult. Did I tell you that Kent is planning to propose to Loralou at Thanksgiving? Wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t married by the end of the year too,” he said.
“What idea? And where are you going with my kids?” she asked.
“I’m not discussing either one with you tonight while we are both worn out, my lady,” he said.
She stood up. “I’m starving. Want something to eat? This is my normal breakfast time. How about western omelets and hot biscuits with sausage gravy?”
The way to a man’s heart might be through his stomach and the way to get him to talk is along the same pathway. Before he left she’d know where he was moving and how often she could still see the children.
He set his beer bottle on the table and his feet on the floor. “Lead the way.”
She locked up, turned off the lights, and went from the Tonk to her apartment with him right behind her carrying his boots. She pointed toward the sofa. “Remote is somewhere between the cushions. Make yourself comfortable. This won’t take long.”
He’d been in her apartment before when he was gathering up kids at the end of the day. It had a leather sofa on one wall, an entertainment unit with television and stereo on the opposite side of the room, a rocking chair in the corner, and tables filled with pictures of Sharlene’s family. The tiny dining area and small galley kitchen was to Holt’s right.
“I’ll never get used to seeing this table and chairs!” he exclaimed.
She raised an eyebrow. “Remind you of anything?”
“You’re not a bit afraid of color, are you?” The chairs were painted in the same colors as the ones in his house. One each of yellow, purple, hot pink, and turquoise.
She took eggs, sausage, frozen biscuits, and milk from the refrigerator. “I’m not afraid of anything except nightmares. What are you afraid of?”
“Bad choices. I’ll help. I can grate the cheese,” he said.
She handed him a bag of cheese. “I do a pound at a time so I don’t have to wash the grater but one time. That is pepper jack. You got a weak stomach? Why are you afraid of bad choices?”
“Not me. My stomach is lined with steel. I can eat anything but habanero peppers. Those are grown in hell and not fit for human consumption. Because my sister made some bad choices and it might be genetic. My parents were older when they had us kids. Maybe that’s because they made bad choices,” he said.
“Habaneros are so hot even Lucifer couldn’t eat them. Actually, they are grown in the backyard of a church house. They were invented by a preacher who was proving his point about how hot hell really was.” She crumbled a fist full of sausage into a small iron skillet and handed him a wooden spoon. “You keep that stirred and I’ll whip up the eggs and chop onions and peppers. Your sister’s bad choices could have been because she was so young. And you have no idea about your parents’ choices in their youth so they might have been as upright as a priest. So stop worrying or being afraid.”
“That’s easier said than done,” he said.
“Sure is.”
She bumped into him several times and felt the effects every single time her skin brushed against his arm or her rear end against his side. Without thinking she looked up at his mouth.
“What?” he asked. “I tasted the cheese when you weren’t looking. Do I have some on my mouth?”
“I wouldn’t care if you did,” she said.
He bent forward and brushed a light kiss across her forehead and then one on her lips.
“I was just checking out the merchandise. I didn’t ask for a free sample,” she teased.
“Wouldn’t do you a bit of good to ask or to demand. I’m too tired,” he said.
“So a little bartending wore you completely out, did it?”
“You askin’ me to take you to bed before or after we have breakfast?”
“Neither. I just want to eat, take a shower to get the smoke off me, and go to sleep. You want to stay? You can sleep with me, as in shut your eyes and snore.”
“Can I have a shower first?” he asked.
“It’s mandatory if you get between my sheets.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
“Wow! You are so romantic tonight.”
He chuckled. “Hand me the flour.”
“You better not mess that up. I get real testy when my gravy is scorched.”
He shook four tablespoons of flour into the sausage and kept stirring. “Right back atcha, darlin’. You get that omelet too dry and I’m an old bear.”
The gravy and the omelet turned out perfect and the biscuits fluffed up just right. They helped their plates right off the stove and sat down together at the small kitchen table, him in the turquoise chair, her in the hot pink one.
“Tell me about Holt Jackson,” she said.
He laid his fork down. “I was the high school football star at Mineral Wells. I could’ve gone to high school at Strawn or Gordon but my dad had retired by then and wanted me in the bigger school system. Later, he wi
shed he’d have sent me to Gordon but it had nothing to do with me. If I’d been in Gordon then Callie would have gone there and that would have separated her and Ray and things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Ray’s parents moved that summer and I was a senior so I could take Callie with me every day. It was the easy way but not necessarily the good way looking back on it.”
“College?” she asked.
“Couple of years but not because I wanted to go. Dad and Mother wanted me to have a degree so I was appeasing them. I’d taken some carpentry classes in high school and loved the work so I concentrated on drafting in college. Got an associate’s degree in two years but by then Chad and Kent and I were already working summers on small jobs. We met Bennie on one of those jobs and the four of us formed a loose knit company. Then Mother and Dad died and left me and Callie a little inheritance. Not much, but enough to buy some equipment and we went into business for ourselves.”
“What did Callie do with hers?”
“Bought a brand new car. Blew the rest on God knows what and before the year ended it was all gone.”
“I hear bitterness,” she said.
“You’ve got that right. I’m raising her kids. Much as I love them, it’s not what I had in mind for my life at this age.”
She slathered a biscuit with butter and orange marmalade. “What did you have in mind?”
“At almost thirty? Maybe a serious relationship that could go somewhere. A house of my own with some property to raise a few head of cattle on the side. Time to date a beautiful woman when I want instead of just seeing her when I can fit in a few minutes every few weeks or when she shows up on my porch,” he said.
She smiled. “Want to buy my house and get the kids the goats they asked Santa to bring them? It’s a big lot with a garden spot already in place and room for a goat pen out behind the tool shed. I’ll make you a great deal on it if you promise not to paint it some old dull color like white or gray.”
He shook his head. “No thanks. I couldn’t sign a contract unless it had a codicil that said you’d paint it within thirty days of payment. And you’d have to dig up Waylon and bury him somewhere else. I wouldn’t buy something with a cemetery attached to it.”
“You are a cold hearted SOB, Holt Jackson.” She yawned.
“Let’s get these dishes washed up. I get first shower,” he said.
“Let’s pile these in the sink until morning and I get first shower.”
“Thank you for breakfast. You go wash the smoke off and I’ll load the dishwasher. You’ll be asleep by the time I get done and I’ll lock up behind myself,” he said.
She looked up at him. “Stay. Please.”
They locked gazes across the table. His heart raced. His palms went all sweaty. “You sure?”
She nodded. “The invitation is for sleep only, though.”
“I didn’t bring my jammies.” He smiled.
“Hank left a pair of flannel bottoms when he stayed over with Larissa. Meant to take them back to him but keep forgetting. I’ll put them in the bathroom. You can borrow them tonight. And I won’t be asleep when you get to bed.”
“Okay, but don’t wake up in the middle of the morning and attack me in my sleep,” he teased.
“I won’t if you don’t,” she sing-songed on her way to the bathroom.
He was on his way down the hall when she came out of the bathroom, a towel around her body and a separate one around her hair.
“Love the outfit,” he said.
“I’m so glad. I picked it out of the towel stack just for you,” she said.
He kissed her lips hard before she could say anything else. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”
“Goodnight, Holt.”
He took a long time in the shower, letting the hot water beat down on his tired muscles and wash the tiredness and smoke from his body. Sharlene might sleep but he wouldn’t. No way could he even nap with her that close. He turned off the water, stepped out of the small shower, dried off, put on the soft flannel pajama bottoms, and padded quietly down the hall.
Sharlene was curled up on her side with her arm thrown up over her head. She was whimpering and muttering with urgency in her voice. He crawled between the sheets and gathered her up in his arms.
“Shhh, it’s all right. I’m here. I’ll keep the monsters at bay,” he whispered.
She stretched out beside him, every part of her body pressed hard against him as if she were trying to melt her skin into his. He kissed her still damp red hair and rubbed her back until all the tension left her muscles. She mumbled something and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.
One minute the dream was there, the next it was gone and she was kissing Holt. He deepened the kiss, making love to her lips and mouth with his tongue. She moaned and melted tighter against him. He slipped a hand under her nightshirt and made wide lazy circles on her back with his fingertips. When he moved his hand around to the front to cup a breast, she shifted her position to accommodate him.
“Thought you were tired,” she mumbled.
He kissed the soft erotic part of her neck. Shivers danced all the way from her toes to the top of her head.
“My body is tired. My heart and soul have a different opinion,” he whispered.
Her arms were wrapped around his neck and her lips were on his but she opened one eye a narrow slit to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. They were about to make wild passionate love and she wanted to be fully awake.
She reached down and tugged the drawstring on his pajama bottoms.
He slipped the nightshirt over her head in one fluid movement. “You are so beautiful, Sharlene. So soft that I want to touch all of you at once.” He savored every inch of her body as his eyes tried to take her in by the light of the moon filtering through the window.
“Me too.” She skimmed his pajamas down over his hips and covered his body with slow, hot kisses. When she stretched back out on top of him he moaned. She nibbled on his earlobe and he wrapped his arms around her slim body.
“Oh no, cowboy, keep your hands laced together up over your head. It’s not your turn yet,” she whispered as she left his mouth after another hard passionate kiss that created a hurricane of desire in both of them.
He shut his eyes and everything but the touch of her soft skin and kisses disappeared. Nothing existed but the deep desire to please one another. After several minutes, he flipped her over and hung a thumb under her bikini underpants, slowly slipping them down over her hips and legs. They landed on his pajama bottoms when he tossed them out of the way and kissed each toe individually before he started back up.
She writhed but didn’t want it to end. She’d had sex before but no one had ever made long-drawn-out love to her body like Holt was doing. “God, that’s wonderful.”
“Darlin’, God doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he said.
“Then hot damn! That feels so good!” she said when he reached that soft skin right under her breast. She’d known about erotic zones and how a touch or a kiss could set her on fire, but Holt had found places that she never knew could make such intense heat. The inside of her thigh, the soft place under her breast, her wrist right where her pulse pounded, all of those virgin places now belonged to Holt Jackson.
“Yes, ma’am, you sure do feel good,” he drawled huskily as he found another spot on her neck that fanned the blazing fire, making it even hotter.
She gave her body, heart, and soul totally over to Holt and let him make all three hum. He strung kisses from her neck, across her cheeks, her eyes, the tip of her nose, and ended with eternally slow kisses on her lips until the only thing running through her mind was a continuous loop of his name and the word please.
“Now, Sharlene?” he asked.
“Two hours ago,” she said.
He moved on top of her and began a long, easy rhythm that erased every word from her vocabulary. Sex was sex. This was love making taken to new heights.
&n
bsp; Like a good country song, the crescendo built to a final drum roll of breathlessness so intense that neither of them could utter a word when the final thrust sent them over the top at the exact same moment. The sweet warm afterglow hung over them when Holt rolled to one side and continued to hold her tightly, his face buried in her hair.
“I wonder if they heard me moaning all the way up to Mingus?” she asked when she could speak again.
“No, but they probably see the embers of the fire still glowing out here and think the Tonk is on fire,” he said softly. “I could hold you like this until morning and never let you go.”
“Please do. It’s only when you hold me that the nightmares disappear.”
He wrapped his lean muscular body around hers and they both slept.
***
One minute she was on a hill looking down at a road where a suicide bomber waited beside an old jeep with a flat tire and the hood up. They’d gotten intel that the enemy would be setting up shop to stop a bus load of new troops coming into the city. She hadn’t expected it to be a teenage boy.
They’d gotten the information late in the day and dispatched her and Jonah in a hurry. He took stock of the wind, the distance and made calculations on his notebook. She adjusted as he whispered. They were so far away that the kid couldn’t hear them but protocol said they’d be as quiet as possible. He whispered frantically that he could see the bus and it was not more than two city blocks away. She had to take the shot now or they’d be so close that the effects could be disastrous.
She pulled the trigger and he let go of the pressure switch in his hand when he dropped. They barely heard the blast. The bus didn’t even stop. No doubt their orders had been that the threat had been eradicated, and to proceed with caution.
But then someone touched her on the shoulder and she knew she’d been discovered. She and her spotter would be captured and tortured for information. She shut her eyes and practiced saying name, rank, and number over and over as she felt the cold metal of the gun barrel against her cheek.
She looked up at the movement above her to find Holt Jackson floating down from the sky with a finger over his lips. The gun barrel flew away from her cheek and the soldier holding it ran away into the brush and sand behind her.
Honky Tonk Christmas Page 25
