by JoAnn Ross
“Absolutely.” As he took her hand and settled her onto his lap, Kelli could feel his arousal and finally understood what had allegedly kept Adèle and Bernard Douchett together for half a century. She knew that she’d certainly never tire of making love to this man.
“Well?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to give me my candy cane?”
“You know how it works.”
“Well then.” She sighed. “I guess, since I can’t lie to Santa—”
“It would be ill advised,” he agreed.
“I’d have to say I’ve been bad.” She wiggled a bit, knowing exactly what she was doing to him. “So bad, you might even say I’m good.”
His answering grin was a wicked slash, like no department store Santa she’d ever seen. “That definitely calls for a special treat.”
“Oh, Santa baby.” She felt herself melting into a little puddle of need as his hand slipped beneath the flow of white silk and his wickedly clever fingers began trailing up her thigh. “I really do believe in you.” She thought about tossing out the line from the song about wanting a ring, but decided that would be pushing it. “Do you believe in me?”
“Why don’t you let me show you how much?”
And as he took her mouth, he proceeded to do exactly that.
19
He’d slept through the night. That was the first thought Cole had when he woke up to find Kelli’s head on his chest and her leg flung across his. He ran a hand down her back, skimming over the silk negligee she was still wearing.
Although he loved her body, even in those silly sweaters, flannel pajamas, and most of all, naked, when he could look and touch and taste at will, there’d been something about that nightgown that had enticed him to explore each little region of the delicious female territory that was Kelli Carpenter bit by bit. Piece by piece.
The feel of the silk—like a cool waterfall in the empty desert that his life had become—had proven an aphrodisiac, not that he needed one when he was with her.
For someone who moved so fast while awake, she roused slowly, stretching, sighing, her eyes the last thing to finally join the world. When she realized he was still lying with her, playing with her hair, which was splayed over his chest, those sea blue eyes widened.
“Merry Christmas. . . . You’re still here.”
“Yeah.” And he would have happily stayed there for the rest of his life. But having changed the dynamics of their relationship, he knew it was only fair that he be open. And honest. Which he hadn’t entirely been to himself. “And we need to talk.”
“Today?”
Her reticence suggested she expected the worst. And why shouldn’t she?
“Today,” he repeated. “Let me start the coffee.”
“That sounds ominous.”
Her hands were clutching the sheet like a lifeline. He uncurled her fingers and lifted each one to his lips. “There are things you need to know.”
“Like why you chop wood in the middle of the night.”
“That’s one of them.” Then he gave her a kiss that, while light and short, was one of the most heartfelt they’d shared over this stolen time apart.
• • •
He couldn’t be going to tell her it was over, Kelli assured herself. That being here together was only a stolen time that had no relation to their real lives. Because, all right, maybe this hadn’t exactly been a normal everyday existence. But it was real. And no way was she going to let him claim otherwise.
He was standing at the kitchen window, looking out at the snow, which had begun to fall again. Her long-dreamed-for white Christmas.
“If you’re planning to try to tell me that ‘what happens at Rainbow Lake stays at Rainbow Lake,’ I’m not buying it,” she said. “Because, whether you want to hear it or not, I love you.”
“Which is handy.” He handed her a mug of steaming black coffee that was, dammit, sweetened exactly the way she liked it. “Since I love you, too.”
That was so not what his grim face had her expecting. “Oh. . . . Well. Why do you sound as if your dog just got run over?”
That question clearly had them both thinking back to that day when he’d been the only person who could unbreak her heart.
“Remember when I broke my shoulder?” he asked.
Another surprise. “Of course.”
The only reason all those college scouts had come to Shelter Bay was to see the six-foot-three-inch quarterback who could throw bombs from the pocket and run like a sprinter. When his shoulder was shattered, any chance of a football scholarship had flown out the window. Even at nine years old, Kelli had realized what that had meant to him. And how devastated he must have been.
Refusing to indulge in any pity parties, before he could even rotate that arm again, he’d signed up for ROTC so Uncle Sam would pay his way in exchange for him risking his life in several deployments in two different wars.
“You baked me brownies.”
As sad as that time had been, she smiled at the memory. “Here’s where I confess that they were from a box.”
“It doesn’t matter. The important thing was you were the only person I could talk to about it. Even though you were still just a kid. It wasn’t really until this past year that I realized how unusual that was.”
“Not if I loved you. And you were destined to love me,” she suggested.
“Yeah. I thought about that a lot, too. About how much fate plays a part in our lives. Why one guy on a convoy gets blown up and another one, standing a few feet away, doesn’t even get a scratch. The randomness of life sucks.”
She wasn’t going to argue that.
“Are you trying to tell me you’re reenlisting?” She could live with the man she loved being deployed, Kelli decided. She wouldn’t like it. At all. She’d worry the entire time he was gone. But she’d understand that it was his choice. And living with fear every day for months on end trumped living without Cole Douchett.
“I was probably going to. Because I felt guilty about getting on with my life while leaving my brothers behind.”
She knew he wasn’t talking about Sax and J. T. Douchett. But his band of brothers. “Aren’t there always new Marines cycling into units?”
“Yeah.”
“Then when would you leave, Cole? Or do you intend to be the last Marine to leave Afghanistan in a flag-draped casket?”
His lips curved, but his smile held no humor. “You’ve never held back with me.”
“I did once. When I didn’t tell you that Marcia was all wrong for you. And I nearly ruined everything. For both of us.”
“I wanted to get married,” he surprised her by saying. “I came home and there was this one moment, when I had a flash of you and me together, and suddenly I knew I wanted the life our parents have. The life your brother has. A house and kids and a damn picket fence I’d have to paint and a big, stupid dog. And I wanted you.”
“What?” She’d been pacing the floor, but that stopped her in her tracks. “You wanted me?”
“Yeah. You’ve no idea how much.”
“You’re right about that. Since you proposed to Marcia Wayburn.”
He dragged a hand over his head. “I knew her in high school.”
“So, I hear, did half the guys in town.” She lifted a hand. “Sorry. That’s merely gossip.” After all, she had no proof that the woman was a slut. Though, actually, the way she had dumped Cole and, it appeared, even kept the ring didn’t do the woman’s reputation any favors, in Kelli’s opinion.
“She was someone familiar for me. She wanted to get married. So did I.”
“Uh, maybe you should’ve asked me.”
“Yeah. Matt told me you thought the ring was for you.” Another swipe over that Marine haircut. “I’m really sorry about that. I honestly had no idea.”
“You talked with my brother? About me? Last Christmas?”
“Hell no. He told me about it the other day. Before I came out here, when I asked if he’d have a problem w
ith me being with you.”
“You actually asked permission from my brother to go to bed with me?”
“No. Not exactly. Damn. . . . The thing is, he’d warned me, back when you turned sixteen, exactly what he’d do if I ever even looked at you.”
“Matt threatened you?” Color rose in her cheeks, waving like furious flags. “He had no right.”
“He had every right. You were sixteen years old, Kels. I was a twenty-four-year-old Marine. Hell, if I had a sister, or someday a daughter, you can bet I’d do the same thing.”
“I loved you!”
“Puppy love.”
“No.” About this she was very sure. “It was real. It was real when I baked those brownies, it was real when I was sixteen, and it was real last year. When, by the way, I was twenty-four years old. Which, last time I checked, is legal in all fifty states and probably every damn country in the damn world!”
“It felt weird, okay?” he shouted back at her. “I’ve known you almost my whole life.”
She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around their situation. “What makes this year so different?”
“I’ve had the past year to think about it, to figure out I was an idiot. That I was worrying about all the wrong things. Like wanting you to have a chance to fall in love with someone besides me.”
“Like that was ever going to happen,” she muttered. “You broke my heart last year, Cole.” She felt the tears filling her eyes and this time didn’t even try to hold them back. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to put all the pieces back together again?” But she hadn’t really succeeded. Because this man still held her entire heart in his hands.
“Yeah. Because mine was pretty much torn up, too. Like it had been hit with shrapnel. . . . It just took me a while to realize what I was feeling. And when I finally did, my grandmother advised me to take things slowly.”
“You talked to her, too? About me?”
“When she offered the cabin. She said that if I tried to push you into doing something, you’d only run the other way. That I should take my time to achieve my mission.”
That would be true. In any other case.
She put down the mug of cooling coffee and folded her arms. “So now I’m a mission?”
“That’s not what I meant. Not exactly. There’s this thing Recon Marines have. A creed.”
“A creed.”
“Yeah. I’m not going to recite the entire thing now, but the part that fits our situation goes: ‘Conquering all obstacles, both large and small, I shall never quit. To quit, to surrender, to give up is to fail. To be a Recon Marine is to surpass failure. To overcome, to adapt, and to do whatever it takes to complete the mission.’
“And then there’s some more military-type stuff. Until it ends, ‘A Recon Marine can speak without saying a word. And achieve what others can only imagine.’”
“So, how long were you going to give me to be overcome so you could complete your mission?”
“I hadn’t thought that out. That’s what coming out here was supposed to be all about. To come up with a plan.”
“I see. A plan that would convince me to marry you and have your children and put up with a big stupid dog burying bones in my garden without you having to say a word.”
He saw the trap. Too late.
“You want the words.”
She arched a brow, proving that Recon Marines weren’t the only ones who could speak without words.
“Okay.” He blew out a breath. “I love you, Kels. I think I always have, which is why, the past year, not having you in my life has been hell.”
His fault, she thought, but there was no point in rubbing salt into the wound. Not when she was so close to getting the Christmas present she’d wanted her entire life.
“I love you and I need you, and although I have to go through the separation process, I promise I’ll come back to Shelter Bay as soon as the military releases me. And I’ll build a fence to keep the dog out of your garden, and if you don’t want children—”
“I’ve always wanted children.” His children.
“Great. Okay. Well.”
Since her big, bad, sexy Marine was actually looking more than a little out of his comfort zone, Kelli took pity on him and decided to help him out.
“However, I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “Plus, I like things in order. I realize that marriage isn’t imperative for having a family. But.” She shrugged. “As I said, I’m old-fashioned.”
“You want me to propose.”
“Unless you intend to wait until I do.”
“No. I mean I’m tired of waiting, and I’m old-fashioned enough to think it’s the guy’s thing. So . . .”
He squared his shoulders in a way that had him looking as if he were facing a firing squad. Her heart went out to him, but Kelli refrained from asking if he wanted a blindfold and a cigarette.
“Will you marry me, Kelli Carpenter? And live with me and be my wife. Forever and ever? Amen?”
She’d imagined this day so many times, Kelli had believed she’d known exactly what it would feel like.
She hadn’t come close.
“It certainly took you long enough.” With joy bubbling in her veins and her heart floating up to the cabin rafters, the future Mrs. Cole Douchett laughed and flew into his outstretched arms.
“Yes.” She kissed him. Then quoted the Randy Travis lyrics back to him. “Forever and ever. Amen.”
• • •
While they cooked the holiday dinner together, the way they both knew the crafty Adèle had planned for them to do, Cole admitted that he’d been diagnosed with PTSD. Another reason he’d been leaning toward returning to civilian life.
“But it’s not bad enough that I’m dangerous or anything,” he assured her. “Hell, I doubt anyone comes back from any war totally free of problems. In my case, it’s mostly just insomnia.”
Which explained that mountain of wood outside the window.
“Well then,” she said as she broke apart pieces of corn bread for the Douchett family’s traditional andouille sausage and corn bread stuffing. “I’ll just have to make sure you’re all worn out every night.”
“Works for me,” he agreed easily, feeling more relaxed than he had in months. Maybe years. “I also was going to ask, before you got me off track, what you’d think of being married to a fisherman.”
“As long as that fisherman is you, I love the idea.”
When he told her about his chance to buy Ernie’s newer, shinier boat, she agreed that was a great idea. Then she said, “As much as I’m enjoying this time together, I’m wondering if we should go back tomorrow.”
“For Grandmère’s Boxing Day party,” he said as he fried the sausage in the pan.
“Everyone went to a lot of thought and trouble to set this Christmas up,” she said. “We probably shouldn’t keep them wondering how things turned out.”
“Good point. Though, since they were so sneaky about it, there’s no point in giving them their satisfaction right off the bat.”
She turned from chopping the celery, onion, and bell pepper, which Cole had told her was the holy trinity of Cajun cooking. “We’d just go in for the day,” she suggested. “We could leave my car here and drive back to town together in your truck. Then you could drop me off at your grandparents’ house and go buy Ernie’s boat before someone else snatches it up.”
“While, meanwhile, you keep them guessing why I’m not with you.”
“Exactly. It’s going to be so much fun when we tell them they’ve been punked.” Kelli grinned happily at that idea. And they’d never suspect such behavior from responsible, serious Cole.
She loved the fact that although they were very different people, years of being friends had them so often thinking in the same way.
Like now, just when she was wondering why she’d never realized how sexy a man in the kitchen could be, he pulled the pan of browned sausage off the burner, turned off the gas, took the knife out of her ha
nd, and drew her into his arms.
“What would you say about having your dinner a little later than planned?”
She twined her arms around his neck. “Late dinners are fashionable.” Last summer she’d attended a teacher’s conference in Seattle and thought she’d starve to death before their banquet dinner was served.
“Terrific.” He scooped her off her feet and headed toward the bedroom. “Let’s be fashionable together.”
20
The Boxing Day party was in full swing when Cole arrived at his grandparents’ cliffside home. From the number of cars parked in front, it appeared his grandmother had invited half the town.
He smiled as he thought about how frustrated she must be at Kelli’s refusal to spill the beans about what had happened up at the lake. Fortunately, she was a good enough sport he knew she’d laugh at being caught at her subterfuge.
And speaking of surprises . . .
His nerves tangled a bit when he took the pink box from the passenger seat.
The buzz of conversation immediately stopped when he walked into the room.
“It’s about time you got here,” his grandmother complained as she caught sight of him. “We’ve all been waiting to hear about your Christmas.”
“It was okay.”
He had to bite back a laugh when his grandmother shot a frustrated look at his grandfather, who just shrugged.
With far more important things on his mind than their game, which he’d already lost interest in, Cole crossed the room to Kelli, who looked drop-dead delicious in a fluffy pink sweater that exposed her shoulders, a short gray pleated wool skirt, and black suede boots that went nearly to her knees. All gifts from her mother.
She’d told him, when she’d opened the boxes from the Shelter Bay boutique, that she suspected the women in their families had been trying to sexy her up, to which he’d answered that personally, he considered her just as hot in that flashing Christmas tree sweater or polar bear pajamas. Especially once he got her out of them.
Which had caused that cute pink color to bloom in her cheeks.
