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She’d have to protect her heart from making the same old mistakes. She couldn’t let her guard down right away. For all she knew, he had moved on, had totally forgotten about her. Maybe he’d even changed and was no longer the tender, noble man she’d once loved. War could certainly alter people. So it wouldn’t do to let him get too close, too quickly. She had to keep up some walls, had to be cautious and go slowly. Mostly she had to avoid falling hard and fast and irrevocably in love with the man again.
Until she figured out whether she could trust her feelings for him, her heart was under lock and key. And the future remained as uncertain and elusive as it had since the day they’d said goodbye all those years ago when he’d gone off to war.
But for the first time since that New Year’s Eve three years ago, she began to feel something that resembled hope. Hope for a future she’d been absolutely certain was forever lost to her.
“Okay, Rafe,” she finally said. “I’m in.”
* * *
RAFE WASN’T SURE what he had been thinking to offer Ellie a ride to Chicago. He’d never been a masochist, never enjoyed testing himself with pain the way some of his fellow soldiers did. So why on earth would he inflict emotional torture on himself for a good eighteen hours? Because sitting in this small car—they called it a subcompact, but considering the way it skidded and slid all over the damned highway, it should have been called a sleigh—with her for eight hundred miles was sure to be torturous.
You can’t abandon her in an airport so far from home. Not on Christmas.
Maybe not. But did he really have to suggest she ride with him? The last time he’d seen her, Ellie had been engaged and happy, planning her September wedding with her nice-guy fiancé. Rafe had spent the past three years picturing her at that wedding, dressed in white lace, smiling and joyous. He’d tormented himself with mental images of her and her perfect, nice husband. Had mentally seen her painting their house in the burbs, adding a nursery when she became round and pregnant.
He had kicked himself whenever he let his imagination go down that road. But in the darkest nights, when he was bone tired and missing life in the States so bad he swore he’d go crazy if he had to inhale another mouthful of sand, she was all he thought about.
Conjuring up a vision of Ellie always brought him coolness, quiet, comfort. Which was really funny, considering he’d always been so hot for her. Like, seriously, couldn’t-keep-his-hands-off-her hot for her, when they had first gotten together.
He still was. Of that, there was no doubt. Just sitting in the car with her, hearing her tiny gasps whenever they hit a particularly icy patch of road, or her soft sighs when they found a smooth stretch, was agony. Watching the dashboard lights play across her beautiful face, physically pained him. He wanted her so badly he would be willing to drive the rental into the nearest snow bank if only he could pull her over onto his lap and kiss her until the taste and feel of her mouth were imprinted on every cell of memory he owned.
She was lovelier than ever, if that was even possible. Marriage apparently agreed with her. Gone was the girlish roundness to her face. Those blue-green eyes seemed bigger than before, her lush mouth more mature and so much more alluring. Her body was all curve and slope, begging for a man’s hands and mouth. His hands and mouth.
No. She’s off-limits.
He might have done some things he wasn’t proud of in his life, but he had his own code. And stealing another man’s wife was strictly forbidden.
“It’s going to be a very long night, isn’t it?” she mumbled as he spotted a patch of black ice just a second before it was too late to ease off the gas to avoid fishtailing all over the road. Get your head in the damn game, man.
“Yeah.” He sighed heavily, reaching for the foam coffee cup in the holder next to his seat. The coffee was cold; they’d grabbed it on the way out of the airport. Since then, they’d driven for four hours but hadn’t even made it out of New Jersey. At this rate, the bloody blizzard would be ahead of them by the time they got to Pennsylvania.
“I’d be happy to drive. I don’t imagine you’ve had much snow-driving experience lately.”
“You might be surprised.”
“But you’ve been in Afghanistan, haven’t you?”
“It gets cold as hell in some parts of the country in the winter. And hotter than Satan’s frying pan in the summer.”
She shuddered in distaste. “I can’t wait for you to get out of there for good.”
Finally a subject he could smile about. “It’s done.”
“What?”
“That’s why I’m so anxious to get home to Chicago. My Christmas present is telling the family that I’ve finally rotated out of active duty. My last year in the rangers will be spent training recruits, stateside.”
God knew he’d earned it. His visits home over the past seven years had been few and far between, every rotation out of a hot zone quickly rescinded when violence flared up again. But this time, it was official, signed and sealed. He was to report to Benning after the first of the year. One year in Georgia, then he’d be free to return to his real life.
What his real life was, he had no idea. He just knew it would include home and family. Maybe not the one he’d once dreamed of having, considering the woman beside him was married to another man. But he couldn’t deny he was looking forward to being a Santori again, rather than a captain in the rangers.
“I can’t believe it. I’m so happy for you...and for your family. This will be the best Christmas present your parents could have asked for.”
“It’s the best one I’ve ever gotten, believe me.”
“I see them sometimes, you know.”
“My parents?” He glanced over, surprised. Although they’d only been together a few months, he’d brought her around the clan enough to show them she’d really meant something to him. Funny that none of his family’s letters or emails had hinted that they’d seen her.
Maybe because the family was big on fidelity. She was a married woman now. He needed to keep reminding himself of that.
It could also be because all anybody wanted to talk about lately was the fact that Leo was going to be a father. His kid brother apparently had a new fiancée and a baby on the way. Their mother might be big on marriage and fidelity, but she was out of her mind with excitement over being a grandmother. She wasn’t complaining one bit about the fact that Leo hadn’t yet wed this Madison woman he’d met just a few months ago.
Leo, married. And a father. He had a hard time imagining it. Of course, considering Leo’d had a near miss when he’d almost married a barracuda last year, Rafe could only imagine he was going to love Madison...if only because she wasn’t Leo’s ex.
“My place isn’t far from your cousin Tony’s restaurant,” Ellie was saying. “I get carryout from there all the time.”
Son of a bitch. And Tony had never said a word.
“You and your...husband, do you go in there a lot?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say anything, the tires hit a slick spot and the car began to slide.
“Damn it,” he snarled. Gripping the wheel in his clenched hands, he steered into the skid, not fighting it and not braking, knowing that would send them spinning wildly. The road might be nearly deserted, but the guardrails wouldn’t do much to keep them from going down a steep embankment on one side if they drifted too close to it.
He managed to get the skid under control and eased the car back into what he figured was his lane. It was nearly impossible to make out the yellow dividing line. The snow was coming down so hard the plows and salt trucks just couldn’t keep up.
“This isn’t going to work,” he told her, cursing himself for bringing her out here in weather this bad. Jesus, he could get them both killed if he kept on. It was crazy to keep driving. “Maybe we should pull off.”
“And go where?”
He’d seen signs for a town called Columbia, and an information billboard indicated there were some hotels at the next exit, which should be coming up within a few miles. “Let’s see if we can get a room....” He cleared his throat. “I mean, a couple of rooms for the night. We’ll try again in the morning after the plows have done a better job.”
“Aren’t we going to be following the worst of the storm then, rather than staying ahead of it?”
“We’re going to be stuck on the highway if we don’t stop,” he said. And while the gas tank was still half-full, no way did he want to spend an entire night out here, stranded, with the gas slowly running out and the heat going right along with it. “I’m really sorry, Ellie. I guess this wasn’t a great idea.”
She reached over and squeezed his leg, just above the knee. The touch shocked him and sent heat rushing through his entire body. It was all he could do not to flinch hard enough to send the car into another skid.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I trust your judgment. Let’s get off the road, Rafe. We’ll get up as soon as it’s daylight and make up a lot of time.”
Right. Early in the morning, which was about eight hours from now. They just had to find a room—two rooms—and get through one night together.
He’d spent seven years in one violent, death-filled pit after another. Surely he could spend one night with the woman he’d once loved beyond reason, who was now lost to him.
One night. And in the morning everything would be much more clear...from the roads to his own head.
3
THEY HAD NO LUCK finding a room in Columbia. Everybody else had apparently gotten off the highway, taking up all the available hotel space. Ellie would bet half the people at these places were the ones who’d rented cars at JFK and hurried out of the city ahead of them.
Although all the restaurants and drive-throughs were closed because of the storm, a clerk at a small hotel where they’d struck out on a room had let them refill their coffee cups. The middle-aged woman had spied Rafe, so sexy and heroic-looking in his fatigues, and almost burst into tears because she hadn’t been able to accommodate a “real American hero.” They’d promised her the coffee would be enough and resumed their room hunt, both of them already doubting things would be much different at any of the nearby places.
“Okay, it appears we’re going to have to white-knuckle this a little longer,” he told her as they got back in the car after striking out at their last motel option in Columbia—a place that had seemed more likely to rent by the hour to locals than to overnight out-of-town travelers. Not that she would have complained if they’d had a vacancy. “Stroudsburg is a pretty big place. We’ll get out of Jersey and try there, okay?”
She nodded, growing more tense as he steered the small car up the exit ramp, which had at least two inches of untouched snow on it. Fortunately, though, as they reached the actual highway, they saw a plow proceed slowly ahead of them, spitting road salt in its wake.
“Follow that truck!” she said, quickly pointing as relief washed over her.
“Done.”
With the New Jersey truck clearing the way, they traveled deeper into the night and closer to home. The combination of freshly brewed hot coffee and the plow truck made the next few hours of their drive a whole lot more pleasant than the last few had been. They didn’t exactly set any speed records, but they definitely put some miles behind them, even after they lost the benefit of the New Jersey truck when they crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. They didn’t have an escort in this state, but they hadn’t missed one by long, because things remained pretty clear.
That was fortunate, considering they weren’t any luckier finding a room in Stroudsburg than they’d been in Columbia. They got off at the next two consecutive exits, asked at every establishment, and continued to hear there was no room. But at least they again got fresh coffee and more gas before they got back on the highway.
Luckily, the snow had lightened up a little. It now fell in large plops rather than nonstop plinks against the windshield. The wipers were actually managing to keep up. Ellie wasn’t quite as afraid they were taking their lives into their hands by plodding on.
But that left her with too much time to study Rafe’s profile, to recall how that mouth had felt against various parts of her anatomy and to realize that she’d made a big mistake by dropping her hand onto his leg. Before that, she’d been doing a pretty good job of telling herself she could resist him and keep up her emotional walls until they got to know each other again.
Now that she’d touched that muscular thigh, though, she couldn’t stop imagining tearing his clothes off and touching every inch of that amazing body.
Think of something else!
“So, where will you be stationed during this next year?” she asked when the roads seemed clear enough to risk a little neutral conversation.
“Fort Benning, Georgia.”
“Georgia, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Do they even allow Chicago Italian boys in Georgia?”
“Guess I’m going to find out in a couple of weeks.”
“And what about after that? After Georgia?”
“After that, I’ll be in the reserves, but considering the amount of front-line duty I’ve pulled, that should be okay. I’ll be free to move home and pick up the pieces of my life.”
“Do you have any idea what you want to do?”
He hesitated.
“Come on, you can tell me.”
“You’ll think it’s crazy.”
“No, I swear, I won’t.”
He waited a little longer before finally admitting, “I’m actually considering teaching in an inner-city high school.”
Of all the things she’d expected him to say—private security, cop, bodyguard—high school teacher had never occurred to her. Her mind was truly boggled. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. My degree’s in mathematics. I could take enough courses to get my teaching certificate in about a year.”
“Wow,” she said, still mentally reeling.
“I’ve experienced enough of the world to realize that American kids are falling behind in math and science. I want to get high school kids into learning. I think I’d be pretty good at it.”
“I have no doubt you’d be good at it,” she said, meaning it wholeheartedly.
No, she’d never imagined such a life for him. And no, most people who saw him in those fatigues, with that haunted look in his eyes wouldn’t be able to picture it, either. But now that he’d said it, she could. She really could.
Rafe had been soaked in blood and violence for many years. He’d seen the worst humanity had to offer. So it made perfect sense to her that he would want to change gears completely, to try to make a difference. Why wouldn’t he long to be around young people who hadn’t yet been completely jaded by life? Why shouldn’t he set an example—help them stay on a path toward learning rather than fall helplessly into the gang culture that so gripped Chicago? She couldn’t imagine many teenagers having the balls to mouth off to him, and instead could easily envision them respecting him.
He could change lives. Of that she had no doubt.
“You think it sounds crazy?”
“No,” she said, hearing her own vehemence. “It sounds absolutely wonderful.”
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I’ll remember you said that the first time some punk slashes my tires when I fail him.”
“I’ll remind you I said it the first time a valedictorian thanks you for helping him get into Stanford.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
She suspected he might experience both kinds of students if he taught in some of the neediest schools, but she also suspected that was exactly what he wanted out of life. To go somewhere where he could really make things better.
She fell silent, wondering what the Rafe of seven years ago would say if he could hear his future self talking this way. He’d probably have scoffed, never envisioning such a quiet, tame life for himself. The Ellie she had once been might have reacted the same way.
They’d changed. Both of them.
She’d worried that Rafe’s wartime experiences might have altered him—maybe dug away some of his kind, optimistic streak. And perhaps they had. But in its place, had they left an even deeper well of empathy? Maybe the changes she was already sensing were for the better— making him an even more amazing, lovable man than he’d been before.
No. Stop with the love!
She wasn’t going to let herself fall in love with him again so easily. After seven years away—seven years spent in hell—Rafe was still something of a stranger to her. She would never have fallen head over heels for a stranger she’d met today at the airport, and she couldn’t let herself fall for Rafe again, either. Not without making sure of who he was, not without being certain the man she’d once loved still lived within that weary, jaded frame. Or at least making sure the man he’d become was someone she could trust enough to love. And who would love her back.
Finally, figuring he was probably worried at her silence, she said, “So did I mention I spent a year in Africa working on an animal preserve?”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to gape at her. “Seriously?”
“Yep. I enrolled in a special international cooperative—kind of like Doctors Without Borders, but for veterinarians. I spent a year in Kenya, helping the locals boost the elephant population.”
“Isn’t your specialty small animals?”
“They’ll take any help they can get.” She grinned. “And baby elephants are small.”
