A Holiday to Remember

by Helen R. Myers

  “You frustrating, sweet man! Thank you,” she added softly. She kissed him tenderly, only to be crushed against him as he turned the kiss into a seduction that left her clinging to him.

  She should have guessed what he’d been doing. The potential for it had been in his every look and touch since he coaxed her to join him here at Last Call. And there had been other benefits to his attentiveness—she’d actually been sleeping more, and had only had one bad dream, which Mack had quickly brought her out of, soon convincing her to focus on other things. Him!

  “I found some shrimp in the freezer and planned to make us a shrimp salad for lunch,” she told him, nuzzling his jaw and the side of his neck. “I thought if I fixated on pampering you as much as I just did Tanker, that would ESP you wherever you were and you’d come back.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” he mused, fixating himself, as he caressed her hips. “Did I happen to mention that it should be illegal for you to wear shorts anywhere but in here with me?”

  With a brief, breathless laugh, Alana tried to lose herself in his caresses, but something kept nagging at her. “Mack...what am I missing? Correction, what aren’t you telling me?” There was something. She could feel it like a tiny fruit fly buzzing around her head.

  He paused, only to exhale and lean his forehead against hers. “You were supposed to let me make love to you first, so that you’d be replete and accepting when I told you.”

  Despite the inviting images, an invisible fist clenched Alana’s heart. “Tell me.”

  “I’m going back.”

  All she saw was vast space, thousands of miles between them. Bad rides on worn-out airplanes. A shortage of supplies on the battlefield. Unbearable cold. Unbearable heat. Loneliness. Danger.

  “Alana, love...I meant only back to Virginia to deal with the damned medal.”

  For a second, she couldn’t breathe as emotion strangled her. Then, abruptly, she started to sob. She didn’t know whether it was from soul-deep relief, or too much dread at the thought of having to put up a stoic front as he returned to doing what he thought was all that he was good at. Of course, if that’s what he asked of her, she would have somehow managed, she knew that as well as she knew she could never be with anyone else but him. He’d not only won that commitment from her, he’d earned it by selflessly being there for her.

  “Ally. Baby.”

  “Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know where that’s coming from.”

  Without a word, Mack lifted her into his arms and carried her to the shadowy room where they’d shared heaven for two days and nights. Laying her on the neatly turned covers where blues and greens created a pool of cool serenity, he wrapped her into his arms.

  “Do you know what it does to me to know you care that much? Ally...it’s the same for me.”

  As he stroked her hair, she searched his face. The green and silver fire she saw flickering in his eyes wasn’t only desire. Maybe he couldn’t say the words yet; after a childhood where he’d endured a dreadful deprivation of human kindness, let alone love, it was natural for him not to recognize it when it was being offered to him body and soul. So she would show him with every breath in her body, until he believed.

  “I’m here, sweetheart,” he assured her. “This is home from here on, regardless of what happens.”

  “I’m so glad,” she whispered, needing to get closer. She kissed him as he had her, with a gently fierce need that could have only one ending.

  With a soft groan, Mack rolled onto his back and drew her over him, cupping and caressing her hips and rocking her against him. Then he slid his hands up to the outer swells of her breasts, and back down again in an urgent attempt to soothe as much as possess.

  Alana felt the same eagerness and plucked at the buttons of his shirt in order to touch more of him and feel his heart race beneath her lips. Despite the cool, air-conditioned room, his body grew feverish and damp under her roaming fingers. But it was her soft bites and kittenlike licks that soon pulled another guttural sound from him.

  “Do you know how crazy that makes me?” he asked, stroking her hair. “I go to sleep still feeling your mouth on me. I wake up praying for your mouth on me. I dream of that sweet mouth on me.”

  As Alana unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, she whispered, “Good. Because I love the taste of you.” This was the man she wished had been her first lover. She’d never felt freer to be herself or more desirable. However, before she’d barely begun to bring him the pleasure he’d shown her, Mack drew her back up into his arms, his entire body tight with anticipation.

  “Kiss me,” he said, his hands already busy removing the last barriers of clothing between them. As she immediately offered him her mouth, he slid his hand into her opened shorts and beneath her panties, until he found her warm, moist center and beyond.

  The sensations drew a gasp from her and she closed her thighs around his hand. “Oh, Mack...it’ll be over too soon.”

  “I want to watch. I love being able to make you lose control.”

  And she did. Riding and writhing the hand that was performing exquisite torture on her, she soared quickly to a sharp climax, and that had her crying his name and clutching his shoulders. Then, shuddering, she buried her face against his neck, tasting him as she waited to regain control of her love-weakened body.

  “I bet you’re proud of yourself,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek against his before meeting his intent gaze and wholly masculine smile.

  “I am,” he replied, already starting to free her from the rest of her clothes.

  His gaze was dark and possessive as he swept his hand down her body, before rolling onto his back and lifting her over him. It didn’t surprise her that this was the most natural position for her; she’d loved the unique feeling of freedom and control since she climbed on her first pony at the age of three. But maturity definitely had its benefits, she thought, as she slowly took Mack into her body.

  “That is one mischievous smile,” Mack noted, his voice sounding like a big cat purring.

  “I was just thinking how wonderful it is that we like the same things.” As she began a languid rocking, as though taking Tanker on a lazy morning ride, their eyes met and held.

  “Wonderful,” he murmured, filling his hands with her breasts, then caressing her with his thumbs, until her nipples hardened and pebbled. “And I have the better view.”

  Alana would challenge that, but the words locked in her throat, as Mack shifted his hold to her hips to encourage her to take him deeper. She loved watching his face as focus and desire battled: his eyes growing low-hooded, a muscle in his cheek flexing as he ground his teeth together, his Adam’s apple rising and falling. She would be terrified of him and for him on a battlefield, but here she’d never felt safer or more cherished.

  “Don’t stop, Mack. It’s too perfect.”

  He didn’t. He only made things better, as his thumb sought and found the nub that would compel her to find release again, and propel him to his.

  As he did climax, he drew her down to him for a slightly desperate kiss that peaked as they drank each other’s cries of completion.

  * * *

  “Come with me.”

  Alana had been lying in Mack’s arms as still as if she’d drifted off to sleep, but Mack knew she wasn’t. Like him she was just relishing the aftereffects of them finding a new truth and closeness with each other.

  Stroking the delicate line of her jaw, he added, “It will be easier for me to do this if I can have you there.”

  That had her lifting her eyelids, albeit reluctantly. Mack understood; she was afraid for him. Beneath her dark, dense lashes, her brown eyes gauged his seriousness.

  “I don’t want you to go. Now you’re asking me to be an accessory to...I don’t know what.”

  “It’s not like they’re going to lock me up.”

  “Really? You know this?” Alana rolled onto her tummy, and studied him with aching concern. “You walk out of the hospital claiming to have signed enough papers
to make that okay, but you were undoubtedly on pain medication, so how do you know for sure? They may have you listed as AWOL or something.”

  “I’d weaned myself off most of the meds,” he replied patiently, “and flushed the things down the commode. There may be goldfish and baby alligators swimming in the sewer system feeling no pain, but I was done with being turned into a pill popper.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring,” Alana muttered, although she returned to playing with his chest hairs. “You decided to walk across the country with a clear head. You could have overdone it. You could have injured yourself and internally bled. Died!”

  “But I didn’t. Instead, I found you.”

  Although her tempting lips were fighting a smile, she amended, “So much for your clear head, mister. I’m the one who found you.”

  And now he didn’t want to be without her even for one day. “Duke is making you take some time. A change of scenery might do you a world of good.” Unable to resist temptation, he brushed his thumb over her nipple, despite knowing he wasn’t playing fair. But then he was playing for keeps.

  “When was the last time you left Oak Grove?”

  “College,” she admitted, arching into his caress. “But it was in Texas, so that doesn’t exactly count. And the academy was in Dallas.”

  “So it’s time you see what’s beyond the Lone Star State’s borders and on the other side of the Mississippi.” He wanted a chance to spoil her a little. Wine her, dine her—and show her off. They hadn’t even had a proper first date yet!

  “You know we’d be asking a lot of Eberardo to watch over both properties,” Alana said with some concern.

  “I’ll give him a raise and tell him to hire someone to help him. This place alone can handle that.” His study of his father’s accounts showed that the old guy had been tightfisted, and while that wasn’t a bad thing, there were repairs and improvements to be made, and he needed time for that, so he wouldn’t always be available to be out helping Eberardo. Mack also had his own money—and his own plans. One included keeping Alana way too busy to do all the work she was handling herself. “Do you think he’d go for that idea? If he’s serious about that nurse you were telling me about, he needs a little corner of land of his own for that trailer of his. Or better yet, the new hand could take it over and I’d help him build a house or something.”

  “Mack!” Alana kissed him with a girlish enthusiasm. “That’s wonderful news! He’ll be so grateful and proud. It’s been so important for him to show you how dependable and trustworthy he is.”

  “I can see that he is.” But Mack circled back to his main priority. “So does that mean you’ll come with me?”

  She raked her teeth over her lower lip. “I’ll have to talk to Uncle Duke, although I suspect he’ll take all of thirty seconds to pack my suitcase and hand it to you.”

  “No, he won’t,” Mack replied, adding smoothly, “but I’d take it.” He watched her struggle with temptation and her sense of responsibility.

  “When do you think we’d leave?” she asked.

  “I have calls to make. But I’m guessing in a week, or two at the most. We can take our time driving up, and coming back. I thought I’d rent a car, so it will really feel like a vacation.”

  Looking bemused, Alana eyed him with increased speculation. “You’ve been giving this some thought.”

  Tracing his fingers down the seductive dip at the small of her back, he asked, “Want a preview of things to come?”

  * * *

  “That’s the Mississippi River?”

  Staring through the passenger window of the Cadillac Mack had rented, Ally thought of her romantic vision inspired by her schoolgirl readings of Mark Twain. There were no shorelines with trees draped with Spanish moss, no paddle boat in sight, or fishermen holding cane poles as they concentrated on trying to catch dinner. Old Man River was really a mud slick with some equally dirty and rusting barges cutting through it. Once she did spot one or two fisherman, she was concerned for their health. She would never want to eat anything they brought out of that water.

  “Disappointed?”

  Trying to be positive, she said diplomatically, “It’s been raining pretty heavily to the north. I’m sure that has something to do with conditions.”

  “So does constant dredging.” Mack reached over and gently touched her hands that were almost healed. “Are you hungry yet?”

  It wasn’t quite two weeks since Alana had agreed to come with him on this journey, and they’d been on the road since dawn driving in the black sedan that Mack had decided would be wiser for the trip. Fred’s truck had plenty of miles on it. Besides, Mack had explained to her, a comfortable sedan with all of the bells and whistles was more romantic. Who was she to argue?

  “I think I’m still digesting that big breakfast you bought me in Texarkana,” she teased.

  Alana knew she’d worried him for a while that she might back out at the last minute. Nervous to be leaving Tanker to Eberardo and the new hand, Antonio, she’d snuck over to the stable at Pretty Pines before their departure to bring Tanker an apple. Her uncle must have spotted her truck lights and came to give her a last hug.

  “You’ll have a good time,” Duke said, his voice gruff and his hug almost fierce. The words were an order, not a question.

  “I mean to try. I trust Eberardo to take good care of things in here, but it’s been several years since we’ve been apart for more than a few hours. Please take a moment to bring Tanker an apple or carrot once a day? He’ll get lonely.”

  “Some lapdog you raised.” But Duke had gone soft as he eyed her white-and-black sundress. “Don’t you look like something to buy at the bakery? Is that new?”

  “I can’t face the secretary of the navy in blue jeans,” she replied, knowing first and foremost she’d shopped to make Mack proud of her. “Will you tell Bunny I’m sorry for abandoning her, too? Is she getting on okay with just Ed there on the evening shift?”

  “Funny thing is that she has company most nights—at least until almost midnight.”

  “Sam? Sam Carlyle has been keeping company with Barbara Jayne?”

  “That’s the word going around.”

  How wonderful for both of them, Alana thought. It had been sheer impulse to bring those two together. Now with more miles between here and home, and her cell phone remaining quiet, she was starting to believe she just might be able to relax and enjoy herself. At least until they arrived in Virginia.

  “Hey, daydreamer.”

  Mack’s voice drew Alana back to the present. “Sorry, did you ask me something?”

  “How far do you want to go tonight?” he asked her.

  “You’re driving. How tired are you?” Remembering the other reason he wanted a vehicle with the best seating, she asked quickly, “Is your back okay? Do you need me to take over?”

  “I’m a little stiff, which I’d be complaining about anyway after all these hours in one position. Why don’t we pull off now and look around Memphis? I took a quick glimpse on my way down to Texas, and thought I’d like to check it out again. You’ve never even told me if you like music, and what kind. Some of the biggest names in rock and roll and the blues are linked to this city—Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash—”

  “I loved his voice. His country-western ballads...”

  “Nobody did them better,” Mack agreed, “but he did a Nine Inch Nails song called ‘Hurt’ that gets me right in the gut every time I hear it. That man could cross all genres because he respected them all.”

  “I have that song on a CD. It’s incredibly moving.” Alana studied his profile. “Is this where I learn that you’re a closet musician?”

  “No way,” Mack replied. “Can’t play any instrument or carry a note to save my life. But there’s nothing like being on the other side of the world and hearing a song you wrinkled your nose at when you were a kid and suddenly it’s like hearing it for the first time—and sometimes it’s like the singer wrote it with exactly you in mind.”
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br />   Alana stroked his shoulder. “I wish we knew each other sooner. I would have written you during deployments, and sent you care packages.”

  Mack shook his head, his smile wry. “Sweetheart, if you were in my life then, I would probably be sitting in a cell today for going AWOL to get back to you. The temptation would have been too strong.” He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “It’s been...four hours since I kissed you, and I’m already feeling Ally deprivation.”

  With a soft laugh, Alana caressed his nape. “Well, take an exit and let’s get a room.”

  * * *

  The truth was that Mack had intended to stop here all along and had made reservations for them at the five-star luxury hotel The Peabody. Mack hadn’t wasted his time once Alana had committed to accompanying him on this trip. Fred’s laptop had gotten a good workout as Mack researched and made plans. The hotel was a mere block away from historic Beale Street where the likes of Louis Armstrong and Muddy Waters had gained prominence, and B.B. King’s Blues Club continued to flourish. One of the great attractions of the hotel was the Grand Lobby and the marble fountain, which was the playground to the world-famous Peabody Ducks.

  Alana was delighted when she heard this was the place. “Oh, my goodness, I saw this on TV on one of the morning shows. What time do they come out?” she asked the reservationist, as they checked in.

  “Eleven and five,” the young woman replied, nodding toward the fountain. “If you wait another two minutes before going up to your room, you’ll see them right over there.”

  Mack had to admit it was a cute scene, but better was Alana’s reaction to their elegant room with the king-size bed and view of the city. “I knew there had to be an ounce or two of typical female in you,” he drawled, as she gushed over the cream-and-coffee decor and the expansive marble bathroom. “After putting up with my blah bedroom, you deserve an atmosphere that does you justice.”

  Returning to him and wrapping her arms around his neck, she said, “What I’m most thrilled for is that you finally get a bed big enough to stretch out in.”