Heart of a Hero: The Soldier's Seduction / The Heart of a Mercenary / Straight Through the Heart

“They come up here and clean it out before hunting season each year. They stock it and add a couple of towels and blankets.” She rubbed an absent circle in the dust on the table. “We used to play up here. Thought it was the best playhouse in the world.”

We, he knew, meant she and Melanie. He imagined to two little girls it had seemed pretty grand. But he didn’t know what to say now that she was talking about her twin again, so he didn’t say anything.

“One time Mel got her finger pinched pretty badly by a big crawfish we found in the stream,” she said, pointing through the open door down the hill to where the pretty little brook wound its way through the dappled shade and rushed over the rough rocks. “And I saw a snake on that rock another day.” She smiled a little. “I don’t know who scared who more. I screamed. He couldn’t move out fast enough.”

She stepped back a pace, forcing Wade to move back against the bunks. Even so, her body brushed lightly against his and he was annoyed with his instant reaction. Relax, he told himself. This is not the time to be thinking of sex.

Phoebe didn’t seem to notice that he was getting hard just being close to her. She was looking at the back of the door. When she went still, he put his hands on her hips and moved her a shade to one side so he could see what she’d been looking at.

There, cut into the scarred wood on the old door, were initials. PEM. MAM. Phoebe Elizabeth and Melanie Adeline. He almost smiled thinking about how much Mel had hated that middle name. She’d always complained that Phoebe got the pretty one.

“We did that,” she said softly, “when we were about ten. I remember how daring we felt. It was Melanie’s idea, of course.” She reached out and traced a finger over the rough-hewn initials. “I never told anybody, and I don’t think she did, either. It was our big secret.” Her voice wavered. “We said we would bring our daughters up here someday and show them.”

Her breath began to hitch, and his desire died instantly, submerged beneath concern. He turned her around, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him like a little animal burrowing into a safe place as she started to sob.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Phoebe. Honey.” Finally he gave up and just stroked her hair as she cried. His own eyes were a little damp. He’d known and loved Melanie, too. Even though she’d been a brat occasionally, she’d been a part of his life since he was just a kid. She’d been more important than anything else in his life for a short while, until he’d realized that they had very little in common, that he’d never be happy with her. So he’d cut the strings.

He never should have agreed to go to the reunion, but he’d thought it might be fun. Instead, it had been…a revelation. He hadn’t anticipated what had happened with Phoebe that night.

How the hell could he have missed it? For so many years, she’d been right next door…and he hadn’t seen that the woman of his dreams was right under his nose. No, he’d even dated her sister and still he hadn’t realized that Phoebe was the right one for him.

He’d figured it out that night at the dance. Unfortunately, so had Melanie.

Mel hadn’t been unkind, he reflected. Just self-absorbed most of the time. She would never have reacted so badly to the sight of Phoebe and him if she hadn’t been drunk. He should have realized how out of control she was. But he’d been too wrapped up in Phoebe to care.

And her death was his fault.

Phoebe stirred then, lifting her head. She pressed her mouth to the base of his throat and he felt the moist heat of her breath sear him.

“Hey,” he said. A guy could only take so much and he had just reached his limit. He doubted if she even realized how erotic the action had been. He took her arms in a light grasp and tried to step back. “Maybe we should head back.”

“I’m in no rush.” She spoke against his skin and, this time, she pressed a very deliberate openmouthed kiss in the same spot. And holy sweet hell, her arms were still around his waist, holding him tight against every soft inch of her.

“Phoebe?” His voice was hushed. “Ah, this isn’t such a good idea—”

She kissed the underside of his jaw and then his chin. As she strained upward on her tiptoes, her full weight slid against him. He exhaled sharply. He wasn’t going to look down at her. If he did, there was no way he’d be able to keep from kissing her. And if he kissed her, he wasn’t going to be able to stop with just a few kisses. Not the way he felt.

He stared straight ahead and set his jaw—

And then she sucked his earlobe into her mouth and her tongue played lightly around it. He dragged in a rough breath of raw desire.

And looked down.

Six

Holy hell.

Wade realized he was still standing at the front door. Which, thankfully, he had already closed, since no one passing by could possibly miss his body’s reaction to that memory in the clinging sweatpants he wore. He shook his head ruefully. His system had been at full alert ever since he’d seen Phoebe standing in front of him on her porch Wesnesday afternoon.

It had only been five days ago that he’d found her, he realized with a jolt, and only two since he’d moved in. And yet in some ways it felt very familiar, very comfortable, as if they’d been together a long, long time. Pretty weird considering that they’d never really even dated, much less lived together.

But that was going to change.

He didn’t do such a bad job for a novice on his first day alone with Bridget. Phoebe had shown him the whole diapering deal, and had prepared bottles and baby food for lunch. She’d told him that Bridget did well as long as she was kept to a reliable schedule, so he made sure he followed the instructions she’d left for him.

He’d gotten up early with Phoebe and they’d eaten breakfast while she went over the directions she was leaving for him. And then she’d left.

He knew it had been hard for her to walk out the door and leave them alone. If she’d said, “Call me at school if you have any problems,” once, she must have said it ten times.

He took Bridget to a park at the end of the street in the morning, then brought her home and gave her a bottle. He didn’t even have to rock her, just laid her down in her crib, since her little eyes were practically shut already. Then, while she was sleeping, he opened and dealt with a large envelope of mail that he’d brought with him in case he had time to kill sitting in a hotel room.

Bridget woke up again about two hours later, so he laid a blanket on the living-room floor and played with her there until time for lunch. Phoebe had told him he needed to feed Bridget promptly if he didn’t want her to get cranky.

God forbid the kid should get cranky. He’d hate to have to call Phoebe for help. So he heated the mushy-looking stuff Phoebe had left in a small dish and opened up some pureed apricots to mix in with the cereal Phoebe had left out, all of which Bridget devoured as if she hadn’t had a square meal in a month. Which he knew was a crock because he’d watched her tuck away a similar mushy mess for breakfast. Not to mention the bottle he’d given her before her nap.

After lunch, he walked around the yard with her in his arms, and they played a little more before she went down for her afternoon nap. When she awakened, he brought her out to the backyard to play until Phoebe got home.

“Hello there!”

Wade glanced away from the sandbox. An elderly woman in a faded brown dress covered by a stained gardening smock stood at the fence between the two yards. She resembled a tiny elf, with white hair twisted up in a messy bun and twinkling eyes that crinkled as she smiled at him.

“Hello.” He got to his feet, lifted Bridget from the sandbox and covered the few steps to the fence with his hand outstretched. Before he could elaborate, the elf clasped his hand in a surprisingly firm grip and pumped his arm up and down in vigorous welcome.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Merriman. I’m Velva Bridley, Phoebe’s neighbor. She’s a dear, dear girl and that little one is too sweet for words.” She poked a gnarled finger into Bridget’s tummy, eliciting the now-familiar squeal. “Phoebe’s never talked much about you. Are you back for good now?”

“Ah, yes. I was in the army in Afghanistan. But yes, I’m here to stay.” He figured he’d better get a word in edgewise while he had the chance. Later he could decide whether or not it had been the right word.

“That’s wonderful! Just wonderful. Bridget’s really at that age now where she needs to have her daddy around. I bet it about killed you to be overseas when she was born. I know it would have done me in for sure, if my Ira had missed an important event like that. Here.” She reached into the basket hooked over her arm without even taking a breath and came up with a handful of some kind of pink flowers. “Last snaps of the season. I was going to bring them over after Phoebe got home but you can take ’em in and set ’em in water. Might earn you some points, you know?”

“Snaps?” She’d lost him a few sentences back.

“Snapdragons. I always start mine indoors. Never bring ’em out until the twentieth of May on account of late frosts, my daddy always said, so I start ’em in the house and set ’em out bright and early on the twentieth. Got the first ones in the neighborhood, and the last ones, too,” she added proudly. “Mine are hardy.”

“That’s, ah, that’s nice.” He cleared his throat. “So you’ve known Phoebe since she moved in?”

She nodded. “Sweet, sweet girl. I brought her my raisin cake that I always take to new neighbors, and we hit it off right away. I was a teacher a long time ago, before I married my Ira, and my goodness, it’s amazing how things have changed in fifty years.”

He smiled. “You sound just like my father. He’d happily go back fifty years to what he calls ‘the good old days.’”

“Not me!” Velva shook her head. “Give me the age of technology any day. I love being able to instant message my grandchildren and find out what they’re up to right that minute.”

He almost laughed aloud. As it was, he couldn’t hide his grin. “Computers sure have made communication easier.”

“My great nephew is in Iraq,” Velva told him, “and getting e-mails a couple times a week really helps his wife to stay strong. I guess you and Phoebe know all about that, though.”

“Hello there!”

Wade spun around. Phoebe stood on the back porch of her little house. “Hey,” he called back. To Velva, he said, “It was nice to meet you, ma’am. I hope to see you again.”