by Ashe, Karina
Dear Soldier
A BBW Billionaire Holiday Contemporary Romance
By Karina Ashe
***
To her I wasn’t billionaire Ian Keller, prodigal son and heir to one of the South’s largest real estate empires. No, to her I was just a soldier. And she thinks that to me she was just a woman, but she couldn’t be more wrong.
Now I’m back home and ready to face the sins of my past and reclaim my future, but none of my sacrifices will be worth it if she isn’t by my side.
There’s just one obstacle standing in my way. She thinks I’ve shared everything about myself in my letters, but I’ve been keeping a secret from her. A very big, very important secret.
And when this secret comes to light, both of our lives will change forever.
***
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Chapter 1
July 3rd
Ian
Four years and not a thing has changed. It’s still the grandiose colonial on the hill with evergreen trim and a bright red door, surrounded by twenty acres of orchards, three ponds, and an ivy-covered stone wall that would seem more at home in the English countryside than the middle of Tennessee.
I don’t know why a part of me expected it to be different. The manor was the one thing in my childhood that was constant. Manicured lawns and groomed trees. Gardens overflowing with roses in summer and choked by barren, prickly stalks in winter. Rooms filled with family heirlooms and modern art, but no photographs.
Back then, I didn’t understand the true meaning of work. Still, I’d known pain, and the deep, all-consuming loneliness that this untouchable landscape seemed built to mock. I’d hoped that my father might change something when I left—that he’d be able to bury some of his guilt in his son’s absence, or at least would allow himself to grieve—but I knew even before I entered his office that he hadn’t.
My father’s eyes are glassy as he rises from the leather chair behind his ornate desk. It is strange seeing him again after so much time. He seems frailer. The lines in his face are deeper. And yet, despite the obvious difference in our ages, I see more of myself in him than I ever have before.
He hesitates when he reaches me. There is an awkward silence. Even when I was a child, we never hugged and rarely touched. “Ian,” he whispers, hand shaking as he pats my back. He wets his lips and opens his mouth, but says nothing. A moment later, he looks down.
It’s alright. I know what he wanted to tell me. I hadn’t expected to ever see him again, either.
He gestures to a familiar red-cushioned chair. “Sit.”
Briefly, I wonder if anyone else has sat in this chair in the past six years. I guess a few must’ve. He sometimes meets with business partners in this room, and I doubt he’d banished it only to bring it out of storage once I’d finally accepted his summons.
He paces in the narrow space between his chair and the marble fireplace as I take my seat. I regret holding onto my hatred for so long. Now, he’ll never believe it was my choice to come back because I wanted to see him.
Maybe I should try to make light of the situation. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
I regret asking immediately. It’s too close to things I said in the past. Like after I crashed the Benz, or took a piss in the pool while he was meeting with a client, or when he caught me fucking his mistress on that very desk that once symbolized everything I hated about him so much.
My father winces. “No.”
A familiar silence settles between us. I don’t know how to break it, or how to mend all the wounds that were allowed to fester because of it. I’m sorry feels so trite after all this time, especially when it will be accompanied with goodbye.
Well, I suppose I should get on with it. “I met someone.”
My father stops mid-stride. “What do you mean?”
“A woman. While I was in the military.”
My father grits his jaw. “Alright. My original question still stands, what do you mean?”
Here we go. “I mean that I love her. I’m going to marry her if she says yes.”
He frowns. It looks like the converging deep lines between his eyebrows will swallow his face. “How did you meet her?”
“She wrote me letters. I wrote back.”
“You wrote letters?”
“Yeah.” And I decide to tell him the whole story because a few minutes after I leave the room he’ll start running the background check. “It was part of some disciplinary thing. She tore down a few ROTC posters, and her punishment was me. Or maybe my punishment was her. Either way, it turned out for the best.”
“The best?” my father whispers. “I don’t understand—”
“Look, I know you’ve had me followed since I landed in New York, and I wanted you to hear this from me, not someone else. And also, I want to tell you that I’m not avoiding you. I’m done running.”
Briefly, his eyes soften. “Ian—”
“But I have to go. I’ve gotta catch a flight to Colorado.”
“What? No, you can’t leave. You just got here.”
I stand, sighing. “I know you don’t believe me. I mean, shit, what reason have I ever given you to trust my word? But I’ll be back in a few days, a week at most. And I’ll be bringing Lily with me.”
“Lily? That—that girl? That criminal?”
“A minor case of vandalism doesn’t make her a criminal. Pretty sure it’s common on college campuses. She just had the misfortune of getting caught”
“And now you’re making excuses for her? This woman you’ve communicated with primarily through letters. How many times have you—” his eyes go wide.
Oh shit. I was hoping he wouldn’t figure out this next part for another couple days at least.
“You haven’t been back in the states for four years. When did you meet her? Have you even—?” He glares at me until he finds the answer in my face. “Oh God. Ian, no.”
I start walking to the door. It’s easy. Only twelve steps.
“Ian, don’t you dare leave like this. Get back in here and explain yourself!”
I clench my hands into fists and take a deep breath. He’s only worried about you. You dropped a lot of shit on him at once. You’re better than this, now. Calm down. Slowly, I look over my shoulder back at him. “I love her.”
“This is insanity. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“No, I am. This is what I want.”
My father’s face crumbles. I feel something snap in my chest. My stoic father always seemed so untouchable. Cruel, I used to call it. He’s an unforgiving bastard. But that was just my naivety talking. My father wasn’t unfeeling. In fact, he felt a lot. Too much, some would say. I was a lot like him in that way. It was why we never got along.
“You’re doing this to hurt me,” he whispers.
My throat tightens. “No. I’m not.”
“You still…You still can’t forgive me…I’m so sorry.”
There was a time when a comment like that from him would have driven me into a rage. When I would have shouted back, Why do you care what I think? When have you ever cared about what happens to me? Get out of my life! Now, it just made me sad.
“I’m not mad at you anymore,” I tell him.
He gulps.
“I shouldn’t have been mad at you in the first place. You know what she said to me the day she died?”
My father’s face goes white.
“Forgive him. He loves you. We both do.”
My father shuts his eyes and covers his mouth
with his left hand.
“That was her last request, and I was too full of anger to honor it.” I let out a long breath. “But better late than never, right? I’m sorry, dad. I shouldn’t have done any of those stupid things to hurt you, and I have no one to blame for what happened but myself.”
Chapter 2
July 4th
Lily
I don’t usually dress up this much. I’m more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal. Sure, I own dresses and a few pairs of adorable shoes I can’t walk in. I’ve got hair gel in the back of my bathroom cabinet my sister’s stylist talked me into buying it about a year ago, and I’ve even tried using it once. Let’s just say that the product of my efforts wasn’t exactly professional and leave it at that.
Normally, I was okay with this. While I wasn’t raised in a barn, I liked barns. And I liked to think I rocked that girl-next-door look…if said girl owned a motorcycle and had a mane perpetually composed of one part wind-blown tresses and one part helmet hair. That was sexy, right? Usually I could convince myself it was. However, today was not a normal day, and when one of my oldest friends said she wanted to come over and make me look like a fairy tale princess, I’d said yes. Because, more than anything, I wanted to look special.
Just…not this special.
I look away from the mirror. “Kate, we gotta talk.”
“What?” she says, careful not to disturb the bobby pins sandwiched between her clenched teeth.
I sigh. How do you say it looks like I’m trying to be every single 90’s Disney Princess simultaneously nicely? “I feel like I’m trying too hard to impress him.”
Kate spits out the bobby pins and frowns. “What?”
Alright, time for a more direct approach. “You see this thing I’m in? It’s a ball gown. We’re meeting at a coffee shop that smells like patchouli.”
“So what?”
“So I’m going to be surrounded by chicks who have dreads, don’t wear bras, and don’t shave their pits.”
She winks. “Yeah, you’re gonna stand out.”
I point at the purple, frilly, wing-like…oh hell, I don’t even know what to call it…trailing from my shins. “No shit!”
“You’re like a mermaid.”
“I’m on land, Kate. Mermaids live in the water.”
She waves this observation off. “Then you’re a beached mermaid, and he’s the sexy soldier who will carry you back to sea!”
What reality was she living in?!? I rub my temples. “Alright, I think I’ve identified the problem. Casual first dates do not require themes, especially when only one of the parties is aware that there is a theme. In fact, this is actually a really good way of ensuring there will be no future dates.”
She shakes her head wistfully. “I think I get it.”
“I really don’t. I don’t want him to take one look at me and think to himself, beached mermaid. Wait, scratch that. I don’t want him ever look at me and think—”
She puts her hand on my shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”
“I’m breathing just fine.”
She rubs my shoulder and breathes into my ear with such exaggerated slowness that I start to feel lightheaded. “You’re just nervous.”
“Look, I’m not nervous! I just don’t want him to compare me to a fish!”
Kate kneels next to me and pulls me into a hug. “Yes, you are nervous.”
I scowl and continue, “A fish that’s flopping around on the ground and needs to be picked up and carried back to the ocean…Jesus, how do you even come up with these scenarios, Kate?”
Kate squeezes me harder. “It’s okay, Lily. On days as big as today, you’re supposed to be nervous.”
As she rocks me back and forth, I suddenly remember the other reason I let Kate come over. She’s the only one who thinks my correspondence with Ian is romantic. Everyone else thinks it’s a little fucked-up.
“I can’t believe you finally get to see him!” Kate continues. “And after all this time, he’s finally going to see you, too!”
So, yeah. This is why people think this thing I’ve got going on with Ian is messed-up. We’ve spent two years exchanging letters, chatting, and talking. We know pretty much everything there is to know about the other person…except what the other one looks like.
Chapter 3
Ian
There’s only one woman at The Happy Pot that has a red rose splayed across her table. I notice her immediately, but not because of the rose. I see her because she’s the first thing anyone who walked through the door would see. In an ocean of granny square ponchos, oversized sunglasses, and bad Christmas sweaters, she stands out like a fish out of water.
Literally.
Something sheer and fin-like fans from her calves and shoulders, sparkling like dew under the antique chandelier tacked to the cracked ceiling. The heels cutting into her ankles look so big to walk in it wouldn’t surprise me if she claimed she’d swum her way here. Aqua and purple sequins stretch over her curves like scales.
Now, I’ve personally never found scales very sexy. (I mean, really, what kind of freak would?) Which is why, as I stand in the middle of the small, dark room as hipsters discuss Kafka and the TPP over fair trade coffee, I begin to question my sanity. Because suddenly scales are the sexiest things I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life.
I want to run my hands over those scales. Hell, I want to run my tongue over them so I can taste every perfect, sparkling inch of her…
“What do you want?”
I blink, turning. A barista with bleached dreads and an Earth Crisis t-shirt frowns at me. “Your order.”
I shut my eyes. “Uh…coffee?” That is what they serve here, right? Curves…
The barista keeps talking. “What kind of coffee?”
“I don’t know.” Coffee’s the last thing on my mind. I glance back over my shoulder. God damn, those curves… “What kind of coffee do you have?”
She sighs, gesturing at the blackboard behind her. “Well…”
As she starts rattling off names, I realize my mistake. That isn’t some sort of weird tribal pattern decorating the board. It’s about a hundred types of coffee written in the smallest, most illegible handwriting I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Nevermind,” I interrupt. “I’ll just have what,” I glance behind me, smiling, “the sexy lady dressed as a fish is having.”
The barista frowns. “Lily’s having a dirty chai.”
“Perfect.” Lily + dirty anything sounded absolutely perfect.
Clouds of satanic steam puff around the barista as she gets to work. “So, you’re Ian?”
Has Lily been talking to people about me? I smile, unable to hide my ridiculous pride. “You’ve heard about me?”
“Yeah. You’re the creepy guy who’s been trying to get her to send you naked pictures of herself over the Internet for the past two years.”
My grin falters. Alright, maybe Lily’s been telling people a little too much about me. “In all fairness, I’ve only been trying to get her to do that for the last three months.”
The barista looks like she’s about to chuck the dirty chai she just made in my face.
Oh man, this is not going well. “Look, Lily means a lot to me. I’ve been dreaming of her for a long time.”
Her frown deepens. “Yeah? What kind of dreams have you been having?”
Shit. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
The barista’s fingers tighten around the cup. A line of foamy, dirty chai runs down the side of the cup over her white knuckles. Her blue eyes narrow, and I just know she’s weighing the consequences of drenching a customer with the satisfaction of putting an asshole in his place.
Reason wins out. She grabs a lid from the tower next to register, slaps it on the cup, and slides it across the counter. “I’m watching you. In fact, we’re all watching you.”
Who the hell was ‘we’? I drop a ten dollar bill on the counter. “Keep the change.”
She takes the money, flashing
a grin that could only be described as demonic. “You think you can buy me off with a big tip? Think again. You try any funny stuff, you’ll be hearing from me. You’ll be hearing from all of us.”
I look down to hide my smile and just barely resist the urge to toast her with my chai-stained cup. I didn’t know who this barista was, but I could already tell she was gonna be a future pain-in-the-ass. I couldn’t be too upset, though. It was obvious she loved Lily, and how could I fault anyone for that?
***
Lily is toying with the petals of the rose like they were dog-eared pages of a well-read paperback. Either she’s nervous, or she’s playing a sadistic version of the game “he loves me, he loves me not.”
Lifting the dirty chai to my lips, I allow myself a selfish moment to take her in. And, good lord, was there is a lot to take in.
I hadn’t spent much time thinking about what Lily might look like. When she refused to show me her picture, I figured it was because something had happened to her. That was fine with me. I’d been a shallow asshole before becoming a soldier, but my years in service had changed me. I’d watched my men who I loved and respected go through hell, and I watched their struggle to pull themselves out of that hell. Anything—one’s looks, limbs, and motor skills—could be stolen in an instant by a stray bullet, bomb, or fire.
These experiences changed me. I wasn’t the same stupid rich kid who wanted to take home a different girl each night. I wasn’t interested in using drugs and driving fast and recklessly endangering the people and freedoms I’d fought so hard to protect. I like to think I’m now above such things.
Which was why I’m so uncomfortable with the amount of raw, animal lust I’m currently experiencing.
You see, Lily isn’t just hot. She’s a cornucopia of sex. A sexcopia, if you will. Or cornusexia, or…
Fuck. I can’t think. Not when I’m getting such a good view of those curves. In fact, the only thing wrong with the view was that there was not more to see. Her body seemed to agree with me. Every time she moved, it looked like those sparkling sequins were gonna start popping off one by one. Her hair was a puzzle of curls and knots begging to be untangled. My fingers tingled. I wondered what it would feel like to run my fingers through that golden mess. I almost groaned when she bent forward and bit her lip.
