A Soldier for Christmas (11 page)

Kelly’s gaze flew to the wall clock. “Eight twenty-nine.”

He was going to call! Excitement at being able to talk to him had her heading to her room. “If it rings, I’ll answer the extension in here.”

“I’m glad you and he are
just
friends.”

Was that a hint of teasing she heard in Lexie’s voice? But the electronic jangle of the phone made her forget Lexie’s comment as she dashed the rest of the way down the hallway and into her room. She dove into her reading chair, snatched the receiver from its cradle and realized even as she said it, she was betraying her feelings way too much. “Mitch?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” His chuckle rumbled, wonderfully masculine and familiar, one of her very favorite sounds. “I’m glad I caught you. I thought for sure Lexie would answer and tell me that I didn’t have to call at exactly eight twenty-nine.”

Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d missed their friendship. That was nice, wasn’t it? She leaned far enough, and stretched the cord so that she could nudge the door closed. “So, you’re back all in one piece? No worse for the wear?”

“Well, I don’t know about that. There isn’t such a thing as a piece-of-cake mission, not on Force Recon, but it went like clockwork. Lasted longer than we thought. It’s snowing where I am and hard enough that we’re pulling snow-shoveling duty. I’m gonna need snowshoes just to get to the chow tent tonight.”

“We haven’t had a single flake here yet. What can you tell me about what you’ve been up to?”

“Not much, seeing as how it’s classified, but I can say that I continue to win the best-cup-of-C-4-coffee honor in the team, twelve missions running. Luke thought he came close this time, but there’s a talent to it he lacks.”

“You’re just naturally gifted, huh?” That made him laugh, warmed her heart, right down to her soul. “First I have to ask. What is C-4 coffee?”

“It sounds like extra-explosive caffeine, doesn’t it? Nah, we can’t have a fire to cook on, the smoke would definitely give us away, thereby ruining the stealth aspect of our mission. So we light teaspoon hunks of C-4 on fire and cook over the flame. It takes a lot of practice to make that perfect cup of morning coffee.”

“You’re kidding me, aren’t you? You can’t cook with explosives. Can you? It doesn’t sound sane.”

“Now I never said I was sane.” That made him laugh. “I’m telling you the truth. It’s how we heat our cans out of our MREs, Meals Ready to Eat. It makes whatever is inside the can—no one can tell for sure—taste almost edible. But when you’re hungry enough, you don’t really care.”

“That’s why you were so interested in my pizza when we were instant messaging.”

“There’s a lot of things I miss when I’m over here.” Pizza was the least of those things. She’d gone right to the top of his most-missed list. After spending the last two months hunting down terrorists, a physically and mentally tough duty, being able to hear the goodness of her voice was a true luxury. “I’m already running out of things for my warm-thoughts list.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Yep, I don’t want to be forced to head out on my next mission with a diminished list.”

“Wow, that would border on a crisis.” The smile was in her voice.

Mitch’s chest twisted tight. “Help me out, would ya? You could send me suggestions in e-mail. That way I could fortify my puny list with all kinds of real-life details.”

“Trust me, my real life isn’t all that splendid.”

“Hey, I think so. Besides, I had a long list prepared, and I’ve gone through it already.”

“It must be pretty rough and pretty cold where you are right now. You know I’d be happy to do anything I can for you. Be-because you’re such a good friend.”

He loved that hitch of emotion in her voice. Yeah, he thought, he had the same problem. He was starting to care way too much for safety’s sake. And that was all right with him.

“Friends ought to help each other when they can.” Her heart was in her voice.

He liked that. “I’d like to hear about all the good things in your life that shouldn’t be taken for granted. For instance, the heat in your apartment.”

“It’s a lovely thing. You turn on the thermostat and the place warms right up. So, are you sure you want to hear about all the warm blessings in my life? I’ll probably bore you.”

“Not a chance.” Caring like this was nice, but it was also a little like watching a grenade roll toward him, closer and closer, about to go off and there was nowhere to escape. All he could do was brace himself for it to blow.

“Then I’ll send you an e-mail every day and tell you about the good things in my life, if you do the same.”

“I’ll be scarce, but when I’m in, I’ll send you my daily compilation. How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

Yep, that pretty much described how he felt, too.

As they talked through the two hours of his calling card, he couldn’t help feeling they became closer with each passing minute. It was nice. Real nice.

I
t was seriously late, nearly midnight on a Friday night, and they’d been slammed at the bookstore, and closed up nearly an hour later than usual. But Kelly wasn’t about to renege on her promise to Mitch.

As her laptop dialed in, she tiptoed around the kitchen and grabbed an orange soda from the fridge and a bag of iced animal cookies Lexie’s mom had sent. There was a sticky note on the bag that read, “Kel, eat these please, before I go up another pant size.”

Misery loves company, apparently, or at least the diet-challenged. While she munched on an iced elephant, she checked her inbox. There was an e-mail from Mitch.

Dearest Kelly,

Hiya. Here’s my list from today. One. Never take a small snowfall for granted. When twelve inches falls in a twelve-hour period, you learn what else to never take for granted.

Two. Your back remaining pain-free and limber.

Three. Food you recognize. They said it was taco-seasoned hamburger, but we were skeptical, as the refried beans looked the same.

Four. Never take for granted sleeping through the night.

What’s your list?

Keeping you in prayer, Mitch

That man sure could make her smile. Kelly sipped her soda and sat at the table, trying to stop the memories of their talk last night. He’d had her laughing for nearly an hour solid. He’d said nothing notable, he was simply being Mitch, and she loved his sense of humor.

He made her feel as if she’d been filled with stardust. Even now it was a wonder she didn’t glow like the Milky Way.

She started typing.

Mitch,

First on my list. Iced animal cookies. Not great for your warmthings list, but they go perfectly with any hot drink. Coffee. Tea. Cocoa.

Second. Sunshine on your face. It was a perfect late-autumn day today. You know how the mid-afternoon sun gets toasty warm, even though there’s a chill in the wind? The air smells woody and morning frost smelled like winter. And all day long there’s the crisp crackly frost on the ground.

How am I doing?

Third. The quiet right before midnight. When you’ve had a long hard day, and you sit in the shadows and let the peace settle around you. There’s a half moon mid-zenith, shining as orange-yellow as a harvest moon. It makes the glacier caps on the mountains shimmer like opals. It’s the perfect time for praying. It feels as if the angels are leaning over, listening extra hard.

Tonight, when I say my prayers, I’ll put you in them. Be safe.

Your friend, Kelly

Kelly hit Send. And because it
did
feel as if the angels were waiting, she bowed her head and prayed from her heart.

While racking a round into the chamber of his weapon in the base camp’s firing pit, Mitch felt a strange tug in his chest. Not like a kick of adrenaline, but this was a slow steady burn like a star winking to life in a twilight sky.

A snowflake brushed his cheek and as he cradled the familiar weight of the MP-5 in both hands, he knew that back home, Kelly was awake and thinking of him.

This relationship thing was still like driving in the dark, but at least he wasn’t alone.

Dear Mitch,

Hi. The list of good things continues: Fellowship. The college group at church. We’re too old for youth group and too young for the women’s groups, the women there are married, and if not, then they are at least adults with real lives. College is that sort of in-between place. So we stick together, firmly bound by worries over our studies, grades, professors and what-are-we-going-to-do-when-we-grow-up kind of things. We had volunteered to help with the autumn harvest festival, which we have for the kids’ Sunday-school groups on Halloween, so the kids have a good place to go for that evening. Our group is making the candy bags.

So, picture about twenty college kids sitting around the multi-purpose room talking and stuffing gallon-sized zipper bags with miniature packages of M&Ms and little Snickers and, my personal favorite, Whoppers. Sadly, some of the candy never made it into the bags. Needless to say, we were all extremely sugar-buzzed by suppertime and had to go out and buy more candy to replace what we’d consumed.

I’ll keep you in prayer. Stay safe.

Kelly

Dear Kelly,

Hey, I love Snickers and candy corn. I once ate an entire pound bag of them, and Mom had the biggest conniption. I was six, and after zipping around the house full-speed for thirty minutes, I got seriously sick. I learned my lesson. Sadly, I had many such lessons to learn as a little kid.

Mitch

Dear Mitch,

You? I find that hard to believe.

Blessings, Kelly

My Dear Kelly,

Believe it. The most memorable lesson was the coronary I gave my mom when I was four. I climbed the rock wall of the living-room fireplace to the top—all two stories. My little sweaty hand-print is still on the cathedral ceiling. I can still hear Mom, over twenty years later, scolding, “Mitchell James Dalton,
what are you doing?
You get down here right this minute!”

Sending prayers, Mitchell James Dalton

Dear Mitchell James Dalton,

So, you’re telling me you were trouble right from the start? And your poor mom. She didn’t deserve that.

Kelly

Dearest Kelly,

That’s what she says, too. But I always tell her the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Mitch

Shivering from the morning cold, Kelly slid into her usual chair in the middle of the auditorium classroom, balanced her to-go cup of coffee on the desktop and lowered her backpack to the floor at her feet.

A glance at the clock over the door told her she had fifteen minutes before class started. Perfect! She’d had such a great time e-mailing back and forth with Mitch over the last few weeks, that she’d been collecting ideas for her list on the walk to campus.

She set her laptop on the desk and started a letter to send later, when she was on break at work.

My Dear Friend Mitch,

Eggnog lattes. I had the very first one of the season from the coffee shop at the corner of campus. Sweet creamy eggnog meets hot soothing coffee. Whoever invented this drink is a certifiable genius. It’s perfect on a crisp November morning to warm you clear through, which leads me to the next thing on my list.

Frosty wintry mornings, the kind where white frost has settled everywhere and on everything—tree branches, crisp fallen leaves, car windshields, and it glitters when the sun hits it. Little waves of evaporation rise up from the early-morning streets, and the blades of grass crunch beneath your shoes. The cold burns your face and your breath rises in cloud-like puffs. There’s a peaceful joy to walking to your first class on a morning like this—with an eggnog latte.

Kelly paused over the keyboard. It was an odd thing, how different she felt whenever she was thinking about Mitch, or writing to him, or simply hearing his voice. The shadows and difficult memories she hid behind lock and key faded away, and her heart felt whole.

A movement over the top of the screen caught her attention. It was Lexie, on her way to her class down the hall. She dropped into the empty seat next to Kelly. “Hey, roomie. You look studious. Oh, a letter to that soldier of yours. Nice.”

“He’s not mine. You know that.”

“Sure. Just friends. I get it.” Lexie rolled her eyes, good-naturedly. “Hey, I saw the note you left on the message board. I’m in. What time do you want a shopping buddy? And what are we shopping for?”

“Your mom’s care package inspired me. I want to send something like that to Mitch.”

“Great idea. Where is he stationed, do you know?”

“He only said it was a remote base camp, but I think the location is classified.”

“Cool. I’ve never known anyone before who was classified. Ooh, I’ll think of a list of stuff while I’m trying not to fall asleep in class. Which I’ve gotta get to. Adios.” She rose, hoisting her backpack onto her shoulder. “How about in front of the library, around eleven?”

“See ya there.” One glance at the clock and the students streaming through the doorway told her that she didn’t have time to write anymore.

But she was going to start a list of her own, too. He was going to get the most fun care package ever. She hated to think of all the hardships he lived with every day. By choice and by duty, she understood that, but still. It was a sacrifice to be so far from home, and she owed him a little happiness in return for what his friendship had given her.

Just when she’d thought her heart would be as if in shadows forever, Mitch had come along and unknowingly made her feel joy again.

Yep, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, she owed him. Big-time.

The medevac’s
whop-whop
faded into the silence of the high-mountain Afghan night and Mitch gave one last thought homeward as he moved out with his now three-man team. Luke had been shot during their ambush.

Not good. His team hadn’t been standing still for more than a couple of minutes while they’d loaded up Luke, but already they were all shivering.

“Pick up the pace.” They had to put in as much distance as they could as quickly as they could, because the helicopter was like a flashing neon sign to the terrorists, hey, look over here.

At least the storm blowing in would eventually cover their tracks. They had a long hard walk through thigh-deep snow. There was nothing like a fast hike with their packs on their backs to get the blood pumping again.

Kelly. There she was, like a steady candle’s flame burning intractably against the dark. Right in his heart, and that light did not fade even as his every thought and his entire focus was on staying alive and completing his mission.

By the time this was over, he was going to forget what warm felt like. But he knew that light would still be burning.

The first frozen pellets of snow tapped off his shoulders. Yeah, it was gonna be a tough night.

With fifteen minutes to spare, Kelly pulled into a spot in the employees’ parking behind the store and slid to a careful stop. Gray skies spat freezing drizzle, and a fine coating of ice gleamed on everything.

But did she care? Nope. Her boots skidded as she stood, but she managed to keep her balance as she grabbed her backpack and the huge shopping bag full of Mitch’s stuff from behind the seat. It was heavy—she and Lexie had totally blown her budget—but she couldn’t wait for him to see all this.

Happiness filled her up and she hardly noticed the drip of ice against the back of her neck as she struggled past the door and into the warmth of the building.

“I’m glad you made it in one piece. It’s horrible out there.” Katherine looked up from her book, propped open on the lunchroom table before her. She looked elegant, as always, in a slim black blouse and skirt, and her eyes lit up with interest over the bag. “Hey, you’ve been shopping. Did you get anything good?”

“Lots of stuff, but not for me.” She dumped her pack on the floor by the employee closet and set the bag on a corner of the table. “Would you mind if I used one of the empty boxes from yesterday’s shipment? I’m sending this to a friend.”

“Sure. This wouldn’t happen to be for your marine, would it?”

“Oh, he’s not my marine.” Just saying that aloud made her feel…strange.

“You mean you aren’t staying in touch with him?” Katherine peeked into the bag. “We’re talking about that drop-dead gorgeous guy with the shoulders of steel, right?”

“That would be the one. We’re e-mailing now and then. And he called me.”

“Good.” Katherine seemed sedate as she rifled through the bag, but there was a subtle glint in her eye.

Kelly didn’t miss it or the meaning behind it as she removed her coat. “He’s just a friend.”

“Right. Of course he is.” Katherine didn’t look convinced. “Where is he stationed?”

“He’s overseas at a base camp. I’m guessing in Afghanistan or somewhere close to there. He said he couldn’t say. He’s on something called Force Recon.”

“Oh, I know what that is. I used to be engaged to a guy whose brother was a Force Recon marine. Those are the real stealthy guys. I know Trevor did everything from deep-ground reconnaissance to counterterrorism. The training is more extensive than for the SEALS, I think. That’s like, wow.”

Kelly was starting to have the same opinion about the man. “That would be Mitch.”

Katherine marked her page and put her book aside. “You know, we don’t have a single customer. The weather is keeping everyone away. Why don’t we start going through the store? I’m sure there a few things we can find that your marine would like. Some of the Christmas shipments have started to come in, and there’s a lot of fun stuff. C’mon.”

“He’s not my marine.” Why did the pieces of her lost dreams seem to ache when she said that? But Katherine apparently wasn’t listening, she’d already swept out of the room.

Katherine was right, there was a lot of good stuff. As they sorted through the boxes waiting to be inventoried and shelved, Kelly couldn’t get her mind off her boss’s words.
Your marine,
she’d called Mitch.

It was really strange, because Lexie had called him
that soldier of yours
earlier this morning. It was like a clue from heaven—except that was totally not possible. No way. It wasn’t what she wanted; it wasn’t what Mitch wanted. Not rationally, anyway.

But, in truth, her heart longed for more than friendship. The little girl inside her, always alone and wanting to belong, longed, too.

If only there was a way he
could
be my marine, she thought. It was a wish that came from her heart, where she could not afford to start wishing. Only pain came from that.

She’d lost enough. Mitch was her friend. When he was done with his tour of duty and stationed in California, which he called home, he wouldn’t be needing a friend. He wouldn’t be needing her.

It was best to be practical. It was the only way to protect her heart. She was alone.

And that was how it was meant to be.

But as she sorted through the new stock, which would be perfect for stocking stuffers or a care package, she couldn’t help the smallest hope in her heart that wherever he was, he was safe. And, did she dare hope that he was remembering her?