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As for him? Well...whatever his feelings had been for her, they hadn’t been as strong as his desire to go off to war. He’d joined the army, his goal to become a ranger. Before leaving, he’d told her that since his military obligation would last a minimum of eight years, he thought it best if they just remained friends. She should move on with her life and not wait for him.
She’d waited. Of course she’d waited.
But after a year, his letters had grown scarce, the video chats even more so. Until finally he’d said he didn’t feel right about keeping the lines of communication open at all. She suspected he’d realized that even those tenuous strings had bound her to him, making it impossible for her to even look at another guy, much less give one a chance. And Ellie, knowing in her heart that he meant it, had done what he’d suggested and moved on.
So how rotten was it for Rafe to come back into her life now, of all times, when she’d just made a serious commitment to another man?
“Happy New Year.”
“You said that,” she replied.
“Are you going to say it back?”
“Sure,” she mumbled.
He laughed softly. “You still didn’t say it.”
“Happy New Year, Rafe,” she said, meaning it, hoping he had a lovely, wonderful, safe year—far away from her.
“You look great.”
“Thank you.”
Silence. What did one say in a moment like this? Other than, What the hell are you doing here? Are you intentionally trying to mess up my life again?
“No, not great,” he said, that intense stare never leaving her face. “Beautiful.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can. And you have to. It’s been years, Rafe, you can’t just stroll up to me at a party and act as though we saw each other last week.”
“I’m sorry. I just...I guess I’ve thought about you so often, it feels like we did see each other last week.”
He thought about her? As much as she thought about him?
Damn him for saying that. For suggesting she might have made a mistake and given up too soon. For waiting to tell her until it was far too late.
“Would you like to dance?”
She shook her head.
“Come on, El,” he said, and she knew he was asking for more than a dance. He wanted her to give him a chance. To do what, she wasn’t sure. Nor was she going to let herself find out.
“I can’t dance with you.” She swallowed and stiffened her spine, staring directly into his eyes. She knew what she had to say, knew she had to nip this whole unexpected reunion in the bud before she made the mistake of doing something like dancing with him. Rafe Santori’s arms might be the most wonderful place in the world...but she had no business being in them.
“Why not?”
A moment’s hesitation. There would be no going back from this. But of course there was no other way to go.
“Because my fiancé should be here soon. He got called away on an emergency but I expect him any second.”
His whole body stiffened and the small amount of color he had fell out of his face. She saw those dark eyes flash with emotion, saw him physically withdraw a half step, as if his feet had forced him to move away even before his mind had caught up with the new reality of this situation.
“You’re engaged.” His voice was toneless, his expression completely unemotional.
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
“Nobody you know. He’s a vet.” His brow furrowed, and she immediately clarified. “I mean a veterinarian.”
“When did you...”
“We met last year and got engaged last month.” It had been a happy day, and saying yes had been the right decision. She had believed it then, she believed it now.
But noting the shock and possible dismay on Rafe’s face suddenly had her asking questions a newly engaged woman had no business asking. Like, Why didn’t you come back sooner? Why didn’t you stay in touch? Why wasn’t I enough...why was the army so much more important?
Why did you come back into my life when I’d finally gotten over you?
“When’s the happy day?”
“September.”
“I see.”
Rafe’s whole body, already so tall and strong, went even straighter, and his jaw pushed out. He was putting up a wall, respecting her status, ready to back away. She wasn’t surprised. Rafe’s sense of honor had been one of the things she’d found most attractive about him.
“I suppose he wouldn’t be happy if you were dancing with another man.”
She replied without thinking. “He wouldn’t mind. Denny is the most easygoing, laid-back person I’ve ever known.”
Her fiancé was a good guy. A very good guy with a big heart, a great sense of humor and a genuine love for animals. Most of all, he was here. He was stable. He wasn’t half a world away, putting up barriers between himself and anyone who loved him, refusing to allow anyone to get close...or to wait.
“Oh. So you just don’t want to dance with me?”
“You mean the invitation’s still open?”
“Of course.”
A sigh escaped her mouth. “It’s not that I wouldn’t...”
“Ahh, I get it.” The tiniest of smiles appeared on those lips. “You don’t trust yourself, huh?”
“I see that ego of yours hasn’t gotten any smaller.”
“For old times’ sake, Ellie,” he said, lifting a hand and brushing the tips of his fingers across her cheek. “I’ve dreamed about having you in my arms again. Spent long, miserable nights clinging to that dream.”
She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. He dropped his hand, as if realizing he wasn’t playing fair.
“Now that you’re engaged, one dance is the only chance I’ll ever have to make my dream come true. For auld lang syne, and all that. Whaddya say?”
She tried to resist, but that sexy voice, the need in his eyes and the hint of true emotion—as if he were mourning for something they’d had and lost—made her finally lower her guard.
One dance. One more time in Rafe’s arms.
Then she’d put him out of her mind—and her heart—forever.
“All right, Rafe,” she said, breathing the words out through closed lips. “For old times’ sake, I’ll dance with you.”
* * *
HE SHOULD HAVE let it go. Should have let her go.
The minute Ellie Blake had told him she belonged to another man, Rafe should have swallowed his disappointment, ordered his heart to go back into the hibernation in which it had existed for the past few years and walked out of the party.
But he just couldn’t do it.
He hadn’t planned to seek her out during his holiday leave, which would end the day after tomorrow. His situation hadn’t really changed. He had another four long years in the army, several of which would be in active combat. Iraq had been hell, but his next stop on his round-the-world tour of war zones, Afghanistan, was going to be even worse. So when his cousin’s wife had told him she’d run into Ellie, he should have just ignored the information. Should have pretended Noelle hadn’t mentioned Ellie was attending a New Year’s Eve fundraiser for abused animals at a downtown Chicago hotel.
He just wished his cousin’s wife had heard the tidbit about Ellie’s engagement.
But it was too late to retreat now. One and done. He’d dance with her, build up the memory bank and then get out of here, spending the next two days with his family and returning Ellie Blake to the deepest corners of his mind and of his past.
He turned toward the dance floor, placing the tips of his fingers against the small of her back. Even through the shimmery fabric of her dress, he could feel the tiny protrusions of delicate bone, and couldn’t help remembering how it had felt to drop his hand lower and cup the soft curves of her ass. Her whole body had always been so perfectly fitted for his, those curves driving him crazy whether she was wearing casual jeans or nothing at all.
The nothing at all was especially nice to remember.
God, he’d been crazy about her. Physically and emotionally. What kind of idiot had he been to let her slip away?
“I was wrong. You have changed a little,” he told her.
“Oh?”
“You don’t look like a co-ed anymore.”
“I’m all grown up now. Eighteen months left of vet school, then I’ll be out there doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
Saving living creatures. That’s all she’d ever wanted to do. What a funny couple they’d made, considering he’d wanted to go off to fight and kill.
He pushed that out of his head, not wanting dark thoughts to intrude on what might be his very last moments with Ellie.
He looked down at her, staring intently, saving the vision for all the days to come when he’d have to rely only on memories to conjure her face. She was, indeed, all grown up. Her auburn hair was pulled back, a few long strands dangling around her pale, bare shoulders. He remembered scraping his lips across that collarbone, inhaling her sweet fragrance, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her skin as they moved through the crowd.
He and Ellie hadn’t been involved for long, just a couple of months, but she’d been the one woman he had never gotten out of his system. The sex had been explosive—they’d been insatiable for each other, and no woman he’d been with, before or since, had ever made him lose his mind and be willing to give up his very soul to have her.
It had been about more than sex, though. She’d been the first woman he’d really loved. Make that the only woman. She’d been his rock when they’d been together, and his steadying fantasy once he’d forced her away. He couldn’t count the number of times the thought of her had calmed him in a moment so tense he’d been sure he’d snap.
And now, she really was out of his life. For good. Forever. No going back, no changing things, even though he wished he could erase that last conversation, when he’d told her he wouldn’t be calling again.
He’d done his job all too well and she’d taken him at his word. That was probably the best thing for her. Unfortunately, acknowledging he should be happy for her, that she was better off, didn’t stop his gut from churning or his muscles from clenching.
“Good band,” she said.
“I guess. If you enjoy this kind of music.”
He didn’t, usually, preferring classic rock to the jazzy, blues-type stuff the musicians had been playing tonight. But he had to admit, this was a lot better to dance to...if the object of the dance was getting as close as possible to a woman who drove you crazy.
“I do,” she said, turning to face him as soon as they reached the edges of the swaying crowd, though neither started to dance. “I guess I’m old-fashioned. Remember? We went to that techno club one night and I ended up getting a migraine and we had to leave?”
He remembered. A smile tugged at his lips. “I believe that was because of the Long Island iced teas.”
Her brow furrowed as she remembered. “Oh. Right.”
She sounded sheepish and appeared embarrassed by the memory. Not to mention cute as hell.
“How many was it...six? Seven?”
“Four,” she snapped. “They tasted just like regular iced tea.”
“You were such an innocent.”
“You weren’t. You let me drink them.”
“Sorry. I regretted it when I realized how sick you were.”
“You regretted it more when I threw up on the way home.”
He lifted a hand to her hair, unable to resist fingering one of those flaming strands. “I held your hair out of the way.”
“Not one of my finest moments.”
Maybe not. But what he most remembered about that night was how strangely good it had felt to take care of her. He’d never experienced that with a woman before, that desire to make sure she was safe and healthy.
That night, he’d made a resolution to never do anything to hurt her, if he could possibly avoid it. And stringing her along while he was in Iraq...that had hurt her, and would continue to hurt her. Which was why he’d forced himself to let her go.
“Well?” she said, holding her hands up. They’d been standing there talking as dancing couples moved around them.
He hesitated, aware that taking her in his arms would simply cement his certainty that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life in letting her go.
The song fell somewhere between slow and fast. And this wasn’t the type of place for the arms-around-neck, hands-on-butt, bodies-crammed-together type of movement he was used to from the old days, when he’d done things like going to parties or clubs and finding a hot girl to hook up with.
Christ, those days seemed to belong to somebody else’s mental scrapbook. They were so far removed from the life he lived now.
Ellie, though? Ellie was connected to just about every good thought he’d had during the long, lonely, dangerous years he’d spent in a far-off land where everyone was either friend or enemy and there was often no real way of telling them apart until it was too damned late.
“I’m not the best dancer,” she said, as if noticing his hesitation and interpreting it as a lack of confidence in his dancing ability. Not in his own sanity at having shoved aside the one perfect relationship he’d ever had.
