Time to Run

by Marliss Melton

  “Sixteen, sir,” Chase confirmed.

  “You’ve had thirty-eight kills as opposed to a career average of nineteen.” Was that a flicker of respect in the man’s murky eyes? “One shot, one kill. What happened with Faisal Fashanu?” he inquired.

  The fucking Nigerian. The man had opened his eyes and looked at him, that’s what’d happened. “I hit a wall, sir.” It had taken three shots to make him close his eyes forever.

  Montgomery grunted. “I see you reenlisted in August, but now you want to be rotated out of sniper detail?” He sent Chase a vaguely disappointed look.

  “Yes, sir,” Chase confirmed.

  “We’ll have to scrounge to come up with a replacement,” the commander groused. “It’s not easy to find a man with your experience, not to mention your language skills.” He flipped through the pages of Chase’s personnel files, noting the many commendation letters. “Are you sure you want to give up what you do best, Chief?” the man inquired.

  Chase didn’t hesitate. “I am absolutely sure, sir.”

  Montgomery studied him, his eyes as hard marbles. Chase stared back. He would make no excuses for the way he felt. “You tell him,” Montgomery said to Lieutenant Renault.

  “Ever heard of Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, Chief?” Jaguar asked, his eyes far warmer than the commander’s.

  Startled to hear the name of his home state, Chase sat straighter. They couldn’t have . . . “Of course, sir.” Camp Gruber was an hour’s drive southeast of Broken Arrow. “It’s a training base, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You’re not,” Jaguar confirmed. “It trains National Guardsmen and law enforcement personnel, primarily. They’re looking for an active duty, field artillery expert to instruct the trainees. You’d fit that billet, wouldn’t you, Chief? It’s a four-year assignment, which would put you at twenty years, eligible for retirement.”

  Chase could scarcely hear him through the humming in his ears. The room seemed to fill with sparkling dust as he regarded his colleagues in stunned silence.

  “Merry Christmas, Chase,” said Luther softly.

  His buddies had gone to bat for him, Chase realized, feeling his heart expand. They hadn’t just rotated him away from sniper duty, they’d eased the pain of long-distance love by securing orders for him at a base, commuting distance from Broken Arrow. Hot damn! “I’d sure as hell fit that billet, sir,” Chase replied with feeling.

  “Good,” said the CO, slapping the folder shut. “You’ll PCS to Oklahoma over the holidays and start work there the first of the year. You’ve given the teams a good sixteen years,” he added, with unexpected fairness. “There’s no shame in that.”

  Chase leapt to his feet, his opinion of Montgomery soaring. “Thank you, sir!”

  “Don’t thank me,” the commander retorted, heading for his coat. “Your superiors, here, have badgered me nonstop for two weeks. They wore me down,” he confessed.

  “Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

  Montgomery punched his arms through a Navy-issue trench coat and headed for the door. “Turn out the lights when you leave,” he said, considerate enough to give them all a moment alone.

  “God damn,” Chase said, eyeing his teammates. “I don’t know what to say. I fucking love you guys.”

  Lieutenant Renault chuckled. “Well, that pretty much sums it up, and we fucking love you, too, don’t we, Luther?”

  “Absolutely,” Luther replied. “We’ll toast to your new job at my place tomorrow, starting at 1600. Hannah’s been planning this party for a while.”

  “Oh, damn,” swore Jaguar, glancing at his watch. “I told Helen I’d stop by the store and pick up confectioner’s sugar on my way home.”

  “Food Lion’s open twenty-four hours,” Chase divulged. “Ya’ll go ahead. You’ve got women waitin’ for you. I’ll get the lights.” He didn’t have the heart to turn down Luther’s invitation. Tomorrow at 1600, he’d be in Oklahoma.

  The thought warmed him as much as it terrified him.

  “Say hey to Hannah for me,” Chase called, as the two men left the room before him.

  “You may have more than that to say to her,” he thought he heard Luther mutter.

  Chase stuck his head out of the door. “What’s that, sir?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Luther shot him his best Boy Scout smile.

  Then he and the XO disappeared down the hall murmuring confidences under their breath. Chase narrowed his eyes as he locked the door. He sensed a conspiracy, but he was too tired to guess what it could be.

  Sixteen minutes later, he dismounted his Harley before his small, white, bungalow-style house and unstrapped his duffel bag to carry it inside. The scent of woodsmoke hung in the air. Christmas lights twinkled on the facades of every house on the street but his. It wasn’t the first time he’d come home to a house plunged in darkness, colder than a witch’s tit.

  With his senses dulled, he inserted a key into his front door before noticing the amber glow behind his drawn curtains. By habit he reached uselessly for the SIG that was stowed in his duffel bag. Who the hell is in my house?

  At the sound of a key jiggling in the lock, Sara jerked awake. She was slouched at the foot of Chase’s utilitarian couch, while Kendal lay along the length of it, fast asleep. At last, following hours of agonizing uncertainty, Chase was back.

  She’d paced the floors of his modest, one-and-a-half story home, reviewing Hannah’s reassurances and wondering, but what if the woman was wrong? What if Chase took one look at her, and said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  She was about to find out. Her heart trembled with mixed anticipation and dread.

  The door swung open, there stood Chase, looking stupefied, clutching a sea bag to his chest. “Sara!” he breathed.

  Oh, God, he looked gorgeous, with his sun-streaked goatee and glinting earrings.

  His bag hit the floor. “What are you doing here?” he asked. A low murmur from Kendal drew his gaze. “You’re both here!”

  “Is that okay?” Sara wanted to stand up, but there was no way her legs would bear her up right now. “It was Hannah’s suggestion. She mailed us airline tickets and met us at the airport. We can leave if you—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, he’d crossed the room and pulled her to her feet. The rest of her words were cut short as he crushed her to him, so that every inch of their bodies touched. “Stay,” he said in her ear. And in the next instant, he was kissing her, with such fervor that any misgivings Sara still harbored evaporated.

  At last, he lifted his head. “You came for nothing,” he rasped.

  “What?” Her misgivings returned.

  “I was gonna fly to Oklahoma tomorrow,” he explained, with laughter in his blue eyes.

  “You were?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Why? Because I wanted to say, ‘I think I love you, Sara.’”

  Her breath caught at the confession.

  “No, in fact, I know I love you. And I wanted to ask you if you’d wait for me. But now I don’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?” The contradictions pouring out of him confused her.

  “I just got reassigned.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, to Fort Gruber. It’s right down the road from the ranch—a bit of a commute, but it beats the hell out of goin’ overseas.”

  “How’s that possible?” she asked, her head reeling.

  “Luther and Lieutenant Renault,” he answered with a grin. “They went to bat for me.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she whispered.

  “Think you can stand to have me around?” he asked. “Bet you got used to bein’ there alone, just the two of you.”

  “I don’t think I would ever have gotten used to it,” she answered honestly.

  “Me neither. Don’t know how you did it, Sara, but you got to me like no one ever has.” His eyes turned suspiciously bright. “I could never go back to bein’ who I was before.”

  “Oh, Chase.” This was all happening so
fast. She was dizzy with euphoria.

  He drew her hand from his shoulder to the center of his chest. “Feel this?” His heart beat with a steady thump-thump. “This is for you,” he added.

  Her eyes welled with tears of joy. “I can’t believe this. Wait till Kendal hears. He’s going to be thrilled!” If anyone adored Chase as much as she did, it was her son.

  They turned their heads to look at the boy. He slept so peacefully, one hand tucked beneath his chin. “Should we tell him?”

  “Yep,” said Chase, “but not yet. I’ve been dreamin’ ’bout you for two months. Just give me half an hour with you alone,” he begged.

  Like teenagers, they slipped into the darkened kitchen and up the crooked stairs, giggling. Under the eaves of Chase’s sloping roof, on a bed that creaked outrageously, they made love.

  “You know what makes me happiest?” Sara said afterward, stroking the soft whorls of his tawny chest hair.

  “What’s that?” he asked on a sleepy note.

  “Knowing you’ll never be alone again.”

  He rolled up on one elbow to gaze down at her, his eyes lit with an inner glow. “You promise?” he asked her. “’Cause I tried that, and I didn’t like it.”

  “I promise,” she whispered, pulling his head down for a long, dreamy kiss.

  At this rate, telling Kendal was going to have to wait till morning.

  Epilogue

  Four months later

  Spring was a time when animals got restless, shaking off the lethargy of a long, cold winter. That was obviously the case on the ranch. Cinnamon, Kendal’s golden retriever, adopted from the local shelter, bounded across the field in pursuit of a hare. The pair of swallows nesting under the porch eaves darted in and out to fetch larvae for their young. And Sara, who watched Chase tinker under the hood of the truck as she washed their morning dishes, wondered if he’d ever get around to asking her to marry him.

  By all indications, he was about to set out on his Saturday morning atonement. He’d made a habit of visiting the victims of the skinheads because he felt, on some level, responsible for what had happened at the country club. With a clang, he closed the hood of the truck and headed for the house.

  He entered into the kitchen, catching and holding Sara’s thoughtful gaze as he approached the sink to wash the grease from his hands. “You want to come with me this mornin’?” he asked, with a speculative look.

  “Um,” she said, handing him a towel to dry with. He had more courage than she did, visiting victims of violence, some of whom were scarred for life. “Okay.”

  “Great,” he said, turning toward the rear of the house. “Let me just fetch somethin’.”

  He never said what he’d fetched as he joined her in the cab of the truck.

  They zipped past pastures, verdant with spring grass. Past the Goodner’s cattle, who swished their bovine tails at the early mayflies. Past the overpass to Highway 51 and the convenience store on the corner. At last, Chase pulled into a driveway, much shorter than theirs. They stopped before a brick rancher, an older home that looked a bit neglected.

  “Who lives here?” Sara asked him.

  “Melody,” said Chase.

  The little girl who’d lost both parents and now lived with her grandmother. Sara swallowed hard. She wished she were as strong as Chase when it came to life’s harsher aspects.

  He led her to the front door. “Bell’s broken,” he explained, lifting a hand to knock.

  A moment later there came the shuffle of footsteps, then a little old lady opened the door and blinked at them. “You brought Sara!” she exclaimed in delight.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Chase admitted.

  “I hope that means what I think it means,” the woman added, with a gleam in her eyes.

  Sara cut Chase a questioning look.

  “We’ll see,” he equivocated.

  “I’m Doris,” the woman said, extending a welcoming hand. “Melody’s been looking forward to this day.” She turned and let them into a house that was cluttered and worn.

  Sara reached for Chase. Melody’s shoulder, she recalled, had been so badly broken that she’d had reconstructive surgery and still required therapy to regain use of it. He squeezed her hand reassuringly.

  “Melody,” Doris sang out ahead of them. “Chase brought Sara to meet you!”

  They turned the corner, into a room filled with sunshine and stuffed animals. Sara met the girl’s bright blue gaze and faltered. She was struck by a sense of recognition.

  Chase pulled her toward the bed. “I brought you a surprise,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek.

  Melody leaned into him as if she’d known him all her life, but she kept her eyes on Sara. She couldn’t have been more than six years old, yet she struck Sara as an old soul, wise beyond her years.

  “Hello,” said Sara, glancing at Melody’s left hand, which lay unmoving on her lap.

  “You’re very pretty,” said the little girl.

  “Thank you. So are you.” From her flaxen head to her bare toes, she was ethereal, summoning the instinct to shield her from future horrors.

  The girl gestured for Chase to lower his head again, and when he did, she whispered in his ear.

  “Yes,” he said. “In a little while. How’s your therapy goin’?”

  “I can wiggle my fingers,” she said, showing him.

  “Atta girl,” said Chase.

  Sara watched with her heart in her throat.

  Doris slipped shoes on the little girl’s feet.

  “How’s she sleepin’?” Chase asked the woman.

  “Oh, ’bout the same,” Doris answered, wearily.

  Sara could only guess that Melody suffered nightmares.

  Chase turned his attention to the patient. “All set?”

  Melody nodded. Sara’d always guessed that Chase had a soft spot for children. But seeing him with a little girl in his arms, one who looked so much like their own child might, made her melt.

  He gestured for Sara to follow as Doris led them back down the hall and out the rear door. “Have fun,” the old woman called. She lingered at the doorway, watching with a bittersweet smile as they ventured into the overgrown yard together.

  Chase put Melody on her feet, and the girl ambled toward the tire swing to sit on it expectantly.

  Sara couldn’t take her eyes off her.

  “What do you think?” Chase asked her.

  “I’m speechless,” Sara replied. She’d had no idea that Chase was such a ministering angel, that he’d developed a special bond with this small child.

  “Go ahead and give her a push,” he invited, “but not too high.”

  Sara spent the next half hour playing with Melody, first on the swing, then at the wrought-iron table, where they enjoyed imaginary tea with Chase. It was deeply gratifying.

  “My mommy used to play tea with me, too,” Melody remembered with a sorrowful glance.

  “She did?” said Sara gently.

  “Yes. She looked a lot like you.”

  The observation made Sara’s heart clutch.

  “Would you like to be my mama?” Melody added very seriously.

  Startled, Sara glanced at Chase, expecting him gently to tone down Melody’s expectations.

  Instead, he smiled a little smile, his blue eyes watchful.

  “He has a ring for you,” the little girl divulged. “You want to see it?”

  The blood drained from Sara’s face.

  “Show her,” Melody urged, with a smile replacing her sorrow.

  Chase reached into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a velvet pouch.

  Sara nearly fell off the wrought-iron chair as he produced the loveliest diamond-and-sapphire ring she’d ever seen. “Figured you couldn’t say no if she asked you,” he admitted with a crooked smile.

  As if she’d ever say no.

  “You went through a lot with Garret,” he added, sobering. “I hope that didn’t put you off marriage.”

  “You have to be marrie
d if you’re going to take me home,” Melody explained.

  Sara reeled, and yet it seemed only natural that, having been adopted herself, they should adopt this little girl.

  “Her grandmother needs some help,” Chase explained. “You think you can handle all this?”

  Sara wanted to pinch herself. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected Chase to propose like this, certainly not with this added bonus. She shook her head, overwhelmed.

  “I already brought Kendal over,” he added, looking more and more worried by her continued silence. “He played with Melody last week. They got along great.”

  Knowing Kendal, he’d taken to the little girl instantly.

  Sara’s eyes grew wet. “Oh, Chase,” she said, last. “You don’t even need to ask. I’ve been yours since you rescued me. You’ve given me a whole new life,” she added, her voice quavering. Her gaze shifted to Melody, who looked delighted by her answer. “The least we can do is give Melody a new life, too.”

  “I love you, Sara,” Chase said, his own voice gruff with emotion. He held out the ring for her to put on.

  With a smile for Melody, whose face reflected hope for the future, Sara slid her ring finger into the circle of gold. It fit her perfectly, just the way Chase fit her. Just the way their little family was going to fit.

  About the Author

  Daughter of a US foreign officer, Marliss Melton enjoyed a unique childhood growing up overseas. As one of five children, she was encouraged to think creatively and wrote her first book at age thirteen. Following college, Marliss pursued her dream of publishing while teaching high school English and Spanish. A Golden Heart and RITA finalist, she writes both medieval romance and romantic suspense. Her husband, a warfare technology specialist, is her real-life hero. She juggles her writing career with the challenge of raising five children—hers, his, and theirs.

  Dear Readers,

  As the creators of potent military heroes, we authors would like to know if our warriors, both medieval and modern, surrendered to love in a similar fashion. Dante Risande from Lord of Temptation and Chase McCaffrey from Time to Run, both Warner Forever books published in February 2006, have bravely answered these very personal questions.