A Soldier's Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas / Presents Under the Tree / If Only in My Dreams

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.”