Christopher's Medal (39 page)
“I love you, Gracey.”
“I love you too.”
“You’re crying.” He touched her face.
“I’m happy.”
“So am I.”
Grace brushed the hair from his eyes and looked at him. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. All I’ve ever wanted since you came home is for you to be happy.”
“I am.” His lips lingered on her forehead and he grinned. “I know you had a hangover last Christmas. I have every intention of giving you an entirely different kind of hangover.”
“I can live with that.”
“You’ll have to, darling. We have a lot of lost time to make up for.” His voice was a purr. “I don’t intend to waste a minute.”
* * * *
They sat in the car in front of the little semi-detached house. Rain whispered against the windows and Christopher looked at the tidy garden, at the lawn and the net curtains.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Grace touched his cheek.
He loved her touch, never tired of it. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “Yes. As long as you’re with me, I want to.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the package, still in the brown envelope, still unopened. It was his medal, to do with as he pleased. He’d only earned it because he didn’t want to die. The man who really deserved it was dead. Christopher opened the car door and reached for his stick. The January rain gnawed at his bones. A year had passed and sometimes the pain was still raw and fresh.
The front door opened and a little girl, her hair bright in the gloom of the day, smiled and waved. Her mother stood behind her, a protective hand on the child’s shoulder.
Christopher stood and took Grace’s hand.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Christopher and I have something to give you.”
Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:
Blink of an Eye
Keira Ramsay
Excerpt
Chapter One
Scott Carnes was sick and tired of being a hero. Sick and tired of being put on display like a fucking show pony, with a chest full of medals to compensate for his missing left eye.
He shifted in his chair, listening uncomfortably to a list of his accomplishments as a Pararescueman in Afghanistan. Tuning out the announcer’s voice, he looked over the fundraiser’s dinner crowd. All were opulently dressed, fitting the elegant setting of the Oklahoma Governor’s mansion. At least he was home again, or almost home.
“…Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Airman’s Medal, Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. Ladies and gentlemen, our honoured guest, Senior Airman Scott Carnes.” The emcee, a burly lumberjack of a man shoehorned into an ill-fitting tuxedo, waved Scott to the podium.
He stood, experiencing the same wash of vertigo he’d had for the past few days, since he’d been allowed to walk out of San Antonio’s Wilford Hall Medical Centre under his own steam. They said it would go away as his equilibrium adjusted to the loss of sight, but it didn’t make life any easier in the meantime.
An hour later, he choked down the last of his gourmet coffee and frou-frou cheesecake and fled for the door.
Home. All he wanted was to make it home to Guthrie in time for his birthday tomorrow, lonely though it might be.
* * * *
Cassidy Thompson swiped a damp rag over the spotless linoleum counter and stared out of the big picture windows into the ominously still Oklahoma night. The comforting, rich smell of coffee and pastry swirled in the air around her, but even that couldn’t settle her jangling nerves.
Something was going down… She could feel it, and so could her customers, if their lack of attendance was any indication. She was glad she’d let her one full-time employee, Erica, take some extra time off. There wasn’t enough business to justify her pay tonight.
Hell, it was late August and the weather just wasn’t right for this time of year.
On a normal Tuesday night, Cassidy’s Cuppa Café would have been hopping with regulars and tourists who’d wandered out of the Main Street district, even this close to her nine o’clock closing time. Not so tonight. The locals knew better than to stray far from home during conditions like this, and the visitors seemed to be sticking close to their hotel rooms.
The bell above the door chimed, pulling Cass’ attention away from the window to her brave-the-elements customer.
For a brief moment, she allowed herself to examine the young man standing in profile to her. With strong, regular features, he looked like any other twenty-something Oklahoma college student. Probably ROTC, she thought, noting the strawberry-blond hair cut high and tight and the well-toned build only slightly camouflaged by faded jeans and an Oklahoma State University T-shirt.
Ah, if only I were ten years younger…
She took a closer look… Yeah, he had an athletic, yummy body, but there was something about the way he carried himself—almost as if he were cradling an injury—that was in direct contrast to the air of invincibility he projected. It was strange, because she’d seen the same look in the mirror more times than she could count over the years.
Cassidy liked to think she could tell a lot about people before they even opened their mouths. In this case, she was pretty sure she’d hit the nail on the head… This boy had suffered, was probably still suffering, as a matter of fact, but wouldn’t let a damned soul know about it.
Then he turned and the breath clogged in her lungs. One sky-blue eye assessed her in a decidedly tactical manner. The other was concealed behind a black eye patch that contrasted starkly against his pale skin. While she knew he could have lost the eye as a child, in a farming incident or car accident, something made her think it had been recent, very recent…and most likely ugly.
“What can I get for you?” Cassidy tossed the rag over one shoulder, happy that her voice hadn’t wobbled. The last thing this kid needed was someone feeling sorry for him. Not that he looked as if he’d take it.
“Regular coffee, black…and maybe a piece of pie.” His voice was deep and resonant, too resonant for a man in his early twenties. The impression of injury she’d sensed before was gone now, and in its place was certain, calm surety.
“Comin’ right up. Pick a seat, any seat.” She waved a hand.
He settled onto a stool before her. “Slow in here tonight.”
She slid a heavy porcelain mug full of java in front of him and grimaced. “Yeah. Storm’s got folks twitchy. What kind of pie you hungry for? We’ve got apple, cherry and lemon meringue.”
He smiled, and it was a slow, beautiful thing that jump-started her pulse and set off a riot of butterflies in her stomach. “Apple, of course. Is there any other kind?”
Oh hell. This kid is waaaay too young for me.
“You got it.” She turned and took a calming breath before plating up the hottie’s deep dish.
“So…” She plastered on a bright smile and set the plate and a fork in front of him. “Who’re you visiting?”
“Pardon?” His forehead scrunched for a moment, drawing her attention back to his hidden eye.
“Well, I haven’t seen you before and I thought I knew everyone in town your age.”
He laughed at that. “Honey, my age hasn’t been an issue since I turned eighteen. Anyway”—he paused to take a sip of coffee—“I used to live here… Well, until six years ago. I’m revisiting my old stomping grounds and settling into a new job. But you’re new.” He looked around. “You’ve done a nice job in turning this place around. I remember when kids drank beer and smoked doobage in here, hiding out from their parents and the cops.”
She propped a hip against the counter. “Yeah, it was a mess when I bought it. Took a lot of work, but it’s been worth it.”
A gust of wind rattled the plate glass. “Guess the storm’s here. Yup, here comes the rain.” The window sheeted with the sudden downpour. Thunder boomed directly overhead, rattling the door on its hinges. She jumped, but her young customer didn’t even flinch.
“Well, so much for this kind of weather only rolling through in April and May.”
He smiled again, but this time his smile was cold. “I’ve lived through worse. If you don’t mind, I’ll just hang out here until it blows over.”
“Ummm, okay.” Cassidy busied herself with cleaning the already spotless counter, then turned up the radio, just enough to fill the tiny café with the twang of Tim McGraw.
Scott watched the woman, Cassidy, he assumed, putter behind the counter.
I wonder if my eye makes her nervous.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Watching her didn’t give him that impression. No, he got the feeling
he
made
her
twitchy. He stifled a wry grin and shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the now-foreboding night outside.
It looked like they were gonna be caught inside for a while.
“So, you’re Cassidy, right?”
She looked up and caught his eye. He liked the way she met his gaze without flinching and found himself looking, really looking at her. She was very pretty in a toned-down way, with laugh lines around her hazel eyes and a mouth that made him think she smiled early and often. Faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt that stretched the restaurant’s name across full breasts showcased a nice, rounded-in-all-the-right-places body. Her sandy-blonde hair was pulled up into a ponytail hanging halfway down her back.
In his job, he was used to making instant assessments, and he liked what he saw standing in front of him. Liked it a lot.
“Yup, and you’d be…?”
“Scott.” He extended his hand over the counter. She met him grip for grip and his awareness of her clicked up half a dozen notches. Damn. He held her hand for a moment too long, trying and failing to analyse the thrill of sensation jumping from her palm to his.
She was still looking him straight in the eye, but there was something else in her expression now, something primitive that hadn’t been there before. God. He felt it too and his cock stirred in anticipation. The air thickened between them, charged with far more than the electricity building in the air outside.
Cassidy pulled her hand back, fingers trembling faintly and cleared her throat. “Nice to meet you, Scott. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll join you with a cup of joe.” She turned to the coffee urn, mumbling good-naturedly under her breath. “Get a grip, you dirty old woman. He’s just a kid.”
Scott caught every word—maybe he was supposed to. He stifled a grin. He couldn’t imagine a better birthday present than a good cup of coffee, great apple pie and an even finer woman. And that’s what Cassidy was—a woman. He’d shuttled between Iraq and Afghanistan fairly continuously since eleventh September—special forces, especially PJs, didn’t get the same kind of rotation regular troops did—but he hadn’t forgotten the differences between girls his age and a lady like Cassidy. The good, ‘worth it’ differences. Then again, he wasn’t the same boy who’d left Oklahoma all those years ago.
That thought made up his mind. He could ignore her comment, finish his coffee and pie and go home to the comfortable, lonely bungalow he’d bought there three years ago on an infrequent trip home. Yeah, right. He’d take his chances on the lovely café owner and just see where things led.
“I may be younger in years, but not up here.” He tapped the temple next to his wasted eye.
The cup of coffee in Cassidy’s hand shook, sloshing scalding liquid over the side. “Oh shit. You heard?” She looked slightly embarrassed.
“Yeah. I thought about letting it go, but figured what the hell? So, Cassidy, what the hell?”
About the Author
S. A. Laybourn lives in Wiltshire and loves it. She’s partial to gin and tonic, loves to cook and watches cookery programmes when she’s not working, writing or reading. She writes m/m erotic romance as S.A. Meade.
Email:
[email protected]
S.A. loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.totallybound.com
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