Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance)

by Marisa Carroll

  “I’m sorry for what I said back in the yard,” Leah told him. “It was thoughtless of me. But when you walked into the break room this afternoon, it was as if...I don’t know, as if you weren’t really there. What happened at the clinic today?”

  “That’s not material to the conversation.”

  “On the contrary, it’s the center of this conversation. Something drove you inside yourself. I want to know what it was.”

  His fist came down hard on the steering wheel. “Dammit, Leah. If I had the answer, don’t you think I would have told you by now?”

  They were silent for the rest of the drive into town. Adam reached her house and turned into her driveway. Leah unfastened her seat belt, but Adam was quicker. He was waiting to help her step down out of the Cherokee when she opened the door.

  “I’ll walk you to the house,” he said.

  Inwardly she cringed at the lack of emotion in his voice. Aurelia was wrong. She couldn’t help him do battle with his demons if he wouldn’t even admit to their existence. She opened the screen and unlocked the door while he watched. When she took a step inside, Adam reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

  “Adam, please. I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

  “Don’t turn away from me, Leah. We haven’t settled anything. We haven’t made any plans. We can’t go on like this from hour to hour, day to day, with nothing settled between us.”

  “There’s no hope for us, Adam—not as long as you refuse to admit you even have a problem. Because if what happened to you all those years ago in Vietnam isn’t why you are the way you are, then it’s even worse. I fell—” She pulled herself up short. Telling him she’d fallen in love with him was one weapon she would not give him.

  Thunder rumbled overhead as the storm moved farther into the valley and gathered strength and speed. The sky was black, the spring day only a memory. Adam reached out and took her by the shoulders. “Please, don’t go.”

  “I have to.”

  “Caleb told a woman she was going to die today,” he said suddenly. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done that?”

  “Adam, what are you trying to say? Surely you’ve had patients you couldn’t help.”

  “I don’t tell them they’re going to die, Leah. I have a chief resident to do my dirty work for me. On the rare occasion I have to deliver the news myself, it’s the robot you saw this afternoon who tells the patient or the grieving family their worst fears have come to pass. Caleb is still the kind of doctor I always thought I would be—caring, compassionate, involved, even when he knows it’s not in his best interest. I saw today how far removed from that ideal I am. There’s nothing left of that part of me. Nothing that can feel another person’s pain or happiness. I’m just a shell. It’s been getting worse for a long time. But going back to Vietnam—” He stopped talking so abruptly she heard his teeth snap together.

  “Going back made it worse,” she said.

  “Far worse. It’s with me night and day now. Before, it was easier to shut away, but no longer.”

  “Have you gotten help?”

  He shook her, not gently, but with restraint that showed in the locked muscles of his jaw and the tenseness of his shoulders. “I’ve tried everything, Leah. I’ve talked for hours to a psychiatrist who’s never been closer to war than sitting in the front row to see Saving Private Ryan. I’ve seen therapists. I’ve tried hypnosis and medications that made me think I was losing my mind even faster than I’m managing to lose it on my own. The nightmares are still there when I close my eyes. The past is still too real. God, Leah, don’t send me away. You’re my last hope of ever being free of the past.”

  “You can talk to Brian. Or to B.J.” The words forced themselves past the tightness in her throat.

  “No, Leah, only you. You understand without my telling you. There’s too much locked up inside me. If I let it loose...” He shuddered. “My only hope is to forget it. I’ve done it before. For more than ten years I was as normal as anyone else, then Brian got hurt. He ran his bicycle into a mailbox. His face was a mess and it was as if—” Once more he stopped talking with an abruptness that left silence hanging between them.

  “And that’s when it started again for you?” Leah said at last.

  “Yes, and all the old nightmares have been with me ever since. But I fought it to a standstill once. I can do it again—with your help, Leah.”

  She had wanted him to say with your love.

  “But you’re wrong. I can’t understand what you won’t explain to me.” The emptiness in his voice frightened her. His voice was shaking. He was shaking all over. She pushed aside her own panicked warnings of self-preservation. Leah is always picking up strays. But this one had stolen her heart. She could make him whole again. She knew she could.

  “If you let me stay with you, I can pull enough bits and pieces of myself together to be a husband and father. I asked you to marry me before. Today, I’m asking you again. I’m offering you all of myself that I can give. Isn’t it enough?”

  It was a question she couldn’t answer, but it was a plea she couldn’t refuse. He hadn’t disappeared today after the incident in the ER the way he had in Vietnam. But that was so little hope to build on! For herself she might take the chance, but with the baby to consider... “Oh, God, Adam. I can’t take the chance on you deserting us someday.”

  “I can’t say I love you, Leah. I don’t think I know what it means anymore. But I’ll cherish you and the baby. I’ll be faithful until the day I die.” He lowered his mouth to hers and she let her response to the desperate kiss answer without words.

  If she hadn’t been lost to him before his mouth touched hers, she was when it did. When the kiss ended she was shaking as badly as he was. She led him straight to her bedroom, listening not to the warning voice in her brain, but to the love in her heart.

  Adam undressed her quickly and set her on the bed. His own clothes followed hers and then he stretched out beside her and took her in his arms. He bracketed her face with his hands and kissed her again and again, as though he couldn’t get enough of her. He settled himself between her legs, resting his weight on his elbows and entered her with no more foreplay.

  Leah was surprised by her own readiness. Their bodies merged, their movements synchronized, and the storm they created with their lovemaking matched the storm raging outside her window. When he climaxed she followed him with her own shattering release. Time ceased to exist for Leah. She didn’t know how much later Adam rolled his weight from her and pulled the covers over them both. He held her in his arms and she listened to the beat of his heart slow to normal as he slipped into sleep beside her.

  LIGHTNING FLICKERING through her bedroom window awakened Leah. Another storm was rolling down off the mountain. She lay quietly waiting for the thunder. When it came it was still faraway, muted, like Adam’s heartbeat beneath her cheek. She was still wrapped in his arms. His hand rested on her stomach.

  Leah laid her hand over his and closed her eyes against the awareness that flowed from his skin to her womb. It had taken place while she was unaware, that connection between father and child that she had fought to keep from happening. It didn’t matter what she wanted or thought she wanted anymore. Adam was going to be a part of her life for better or for worse. He was trying, she told herself. Today he’d struggled to stay with them, not to lose himself in his nightmare memories. She couldn’t refuse him any longer. She didn’t want to. She loved him. It was too late to turn back.

  She had tried very hard not to move, not to make a sound, but some involuntary response must have alerted him. “You’re awake,” Adam said, his breath tickling her ear.

  “Mmm. It’s going to storm again. The lightning awakened me.”

  “Me, too. It’s a long way off. Maybe the storm will miss us altogether. Why don’t you go back to sleep? It’s hours until dawn.”

  She drew her fingers along the back of his hand. “I don’t think I can. There’s so much we
have to talk about.”

  “I’m withdrawing my name from consideration for the head of neuro at St. B’s.”

  Leah’s heartbeat quickened at his words, and the baby stirred restlessly inside her. Adam grunted in surprise at the movement, hesitated, then tightened his embrace.

  “You’ve worked your entire career for that position, Adam. You’d be the youngest head of a major neuro unit in the country. Don’t dismiss it so casually.”

  “It’s not a casual decision, Leah. It’s one of the most important I’ve ever made.”

  But was he making it for the right reason? Because he wanted to be here in Slate Hollow with her and their baby? Or because he couldn’t face going back to the high-stakes, high-profile medical specialty he’d trained fifteen years to qualify for? “What will you do here?”

  “I’m a pretty good mechanic, if I do say so myself.” There was a note of gentle self-mockery in his voice that broke her heart.

  “Adam, don’t make light of this.”

  He sighed, moving his strong fingers in gentle circles over her skin. “I am serious, Leah. Right now I don’t know what I want to do with my life, except that I want to do it here. I have to find peace in my own mind before I can take a scalpel in hand to cut into another human being’s brain. If there’s anyplace on earth I can accomplish that it’s here with you.”

  “I’ll be here for you.” Leah turned in his arms. Surely they could have this night to celebrate the miracle of the baby they had made together. Working out the day-to-day details of a life she was now committed to share with him in some degree of intimacy could wait until tomorrow. For a few hours more, Leah was content to let herself be wanted and desired, loved by his body if not his heart. It was not enough for all the tomorrows that stretched before her, but for now it would have to do.

  IT WAS DAYLIGHT when Adam awoke again. It took him a moment to realize where he was—in Leah’s bedroom, in Leah’s bed. When was the last time he’d slept so soundly and so well that he’d lost track of his surroundings? Not for a long, long time. Not since those few, precious hours he’d spent in Leah’s arms in Dalat.

  And when she had awakened that next morning, he had been gone.

  This morning the tables were turned. He was alone in Leah’s bed.

  A smile curved his lips. She hadn’t deserted him as he had her. He could smell coffee brewing and smiled more broadly. That much at least they had in common. An addiction many people shared, but one small brick of compatibility to add to the foundation of their life together.

  He pulled on his pants and shirt, and glanced at the bedside clock. Half-past six. Leah was an early riser. He expected to find her in the kitchen, but instead, she was standing in front of the little desk near the fireplace reading her mail. She was dressed for work in white leggings and a long, mint-green sweater that nearly reached her knees.

  She looked up when she heard his footsteps on the hardwood floor. Her hair was held by a large clip on top of her head, tendrils still damp from her shower curling around her cheeks and throat. He couldn’t stop looking at it, remembering how last night he had combed the soft tendrils free of her confining braid and buried his face in its silkiness. A slight blush stained her skin, and he knew her thoughts had followed his to the night just past.

  “Good morning,” she said, not quite meeting his gaze. “You were sleeping so soundly I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He wanted to tell her that was a miracle in itself, but the words wouldn’t force themselves past the emotion that clogged his throat. “I wish you had. Your neighbors are going to be waking up to the sight of my truck in your driveway. Exactly where it was when they went to bed last night.”

  “It will give them something to speculate about over their coffee cups,” she said nonchalantly, but the color in her cheeks darkened a shade or two. The good opinion of her neighbors was important to her. It had better become important to him, too, if he intended to make his home in this small, close-knit community.

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s probably best if you don’t spend the night again. I have trouble thinking straight when that happens.”

  “Trouble thinking about what, Leah?”

  “Everything.” She gestured toward the kitchen. “The coffee’s hot. It’s decaf—I hope that’s all right.” She went back to reading her mail.

  “It’s fine.” Adam went into the kitchen to pour himself a cup, but he had no intention of letting the conversation end with Leah’s cryptic remark.

  Her kitchen faced south. A big window, framed by yellow-and-white curtains, provided a view of her backyard and a garden already green and filled with spring blooms. It was a cheerful, crowded room with plants growing on the windowsill, copper pots and pans hanging from hooks on the wall, a thirties-style, chrome dinette set, and Depression glass plates arranged on a shelf along the wall.

  He found a mug sitting by the coffeemaker and filled it to the brim. He was hungry, he realized, and wondered if he could talk Leah into having breakfast with him at the diner. Maybe he’d give Brian a call and ask him to join them, early though it was.

  How long had it been since he’d planned ahead to eat a meal? Looked forward to sharing it with...his family?

  Leah and the baby and Brian. They were a family now, or would be as soon as he could talk Leah into agreeing to marry him.

  When he returned to the living room, she wasn’t there.

  “Leah?” She didn’t answer and his heart rate kicked up a notch. Had she left the house without him hearing her? Was she so upset by what had happened between them last night that she’d taken off for the clinic on her own rather than talk about it? He spoke more sharply this time. “Leah!”

  “I’m up here.” He looked up and saw her standing at the loft railing. “There was something I needed to do up here.” She disappeared from his view.

  He climbed the steep, narrow stairway to the loft and found her standing before the open door of a closet, a garment bag in her hand. On the quilt-covered bed lay her army uniform.

  She picked it up. “It came back from the cleaner’s the other day. I forgot to put it away. I just remembered it a few moments ago.” She turned her back and tried to slide the uniform into the garment bag.

  “You’re not this upset because you haven’t put your dry cleaning away. What’s the matter?” Adam came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

  She motioned to the letter he’d seen her reading earlier. “My unit’s been called up for three months’ duty in Bosnia. They’ll be leaving July first.”

  “Does your CO know you’re pregnant?”

  “Yes. My medical leave should be approved any day now. But it’s the first time I haven’t been ready to go when I’ve been called. I’ve decided to resign my commission.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m an expectant single mother, Adam. Our next deployment could come at any time. I could be called up for any number of emergency situations with only a few hours’ notice. I can’t leave my child for months at a time. It wouldn’t be fair to him or my parents. I can’t ask them to take on such a responsibility.”

  “You aren’t going to be a single mother.”

  “Adam, I’m not sure...”

  “What are you unsure of? Last night—”

  “Last night was a little unreal. It was hormones, maybe, or a nesting instinct.”

  “It was like that night in Dalat.”

  “Yes.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Except this morning I’m still here with you.”

  “It’s easier to see all the hazards in the road ahead in the full light of day.”

  He spun her around. “Is it because I can’t say I love you?”

  She choked back a little laugh. “It would help,” she said. “But no, it’s not that. I can’t say I love you, either.”

  “Then what is it? We both agree a child needs two parents. God knows I’ve learned that lesson the hard way with Brian—I miss
ed so much of his growing up. I don’t want that to happen with our baby.”

  “I don’t, either. I don’t want my child growing up with a hole in his heart where a father’s love should be.”

  “He’ll never have a moment’s doubt.”

  “You stayed away from Brian all those years.”

  “I told you I made mistakes. That was the biggest one.”

  “You’re saying you promise me you’ll be there for our child when he’s growing up? I won’t wake up some morning to find you gone?”

  “I won’t run away from you again. I’ll be there for you and the baby every day of my life.” He wouldn’t let the past push him away again. He would fight to stay with her, or die trying.

  She was watching him closely. He forced himself to return her steady gaze. “I believe you,” she whispered. She lifted her hand to his cheek, her fingers warm against his skin. Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears. “I’ll marry you because Caleb and Aurelia and my father are right—a child needs two parents living under the same roof. I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to make us a family.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WHEN JULIET TOLD ME a neighbor’s dog got into the henhouse, I didn’t realize we’d be eating the victim for Sunday dinner,” Brian said, grinning at his dad over the chicken-run fence in Aurelia’s backyard that they were strengthening against another possible attack.

  The dog hadn’t actually mauled the chicken or anything, Juliet told him when she called the Hideaway that morning, just run it to death. Juliet and Naomi Dunn, who’d been there to help with Aurelia, had chased the mongrel off in time to save the rest of Lancelot’s harem. Naomi had butchered the unlucky hen before she left for church, and Juliet invited Adam and Brian to help eat it.