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

That had been the beginning. Melanie and Wade had dated through the early summer until his leave had ended and he’d headed off for his first assignment at a training school. It had been hell for Phoebe, seeing them together. But it had grown much, much worse when Melanie had begun seeing other guys while Wade was away….

“We’re not exclusive, Phoebe.” Melanie’s voice was sharp as she responded to the censure in her twin’s eyes.

“Wade thinks you are.” Phoebe was certain of that. She’d been all too aware of Wade’s devotion to her sister throughout the early weeks of the summer.

“I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to just sit at home while he’s gone,” Melanie said. “It’s not like he’s on a short vacation. He’s in the army.”

“If you’re going to date other people, you should tell him.”

But Melanie hadn’t listened. Which was nothing new. Melanie had never listened to Phoebe’s words of warning since they’d been very small girls.

It hadn’t taken Wade long to realize that Melanie’s affections for him were…something less than he clearly wanted. And it had wrung Phoebe’s heart when he’d come home on leave to find that Melanie wasn’t waiting for him. The two had had fight after fight. They’d finally broken up for good a year and a half later, after Christmas of the girls’ sophomore year in college. Phoebe only knew the details from a distance, since she’d gone to school at Berkeley, hours north of their home in Carlsbad, California. Melanie had stayed closer to home and, although the sisters had stayed in touch largely through e-mail and instant messaging, Melanie hadn’t volunteered much about Wade. Phoebe, always terrified her attraction to him would be noticed, had never asked.

After Wade and Melanie had broken up, Phoebe had noticed Wade came home less and less often over the next few years. His parents, who lived two doors down the street, had occasionally mentioned his travels to her mother, but they never shared enough information to satisfy Phoebe’s hungry heart. And after her mother had passed away at the end of her junior year at Berkeley, she’d heard even less.

Then came her high-school class’s five-year reunion. Melanie had invited Wade…and everything had changed forever.

Two

The following evening, Wade was ready a full fifteen minutes early. He went down to the bar in the restaurant and took a seat facing the door. And barely ten minutes later, Phoebe arrived. Also early.

He took the fact that she was early as a good sign. Did she still want to be with him the way he wanted her? Yesterday’s conversation on her porch had been confusing. One moment he’d have sworn she was about to fall into his arms; the next, she seemed as distant as the moon, and only slightly more talkative.

How had he missed seeing how beautiful Phoebe was all those years they’d been living on the same damned street?

Wade knew the answer as he watched her come across the room toward him.

Both Merriman sisters had been pretty, but Melanie’s dramatic coloring had always drawn more attention. Melanie had been a strawberry redhead with fair, porcelain skin, and eyes so blue they looked like a piece of the sky. Phoebe’s darker, coppery curls and deeper blue eyes were equally lovely but her quiet, reserved personality kept her from joining her exuberant, vivacious sister in the limelight. Which wasn’t a bad thing, he decided. Melanie had been volatile, her moods extreme, her desire for attention exhausting sometimes. Hell, most of the time, if he were honest.

She had had a sunny, sweet side and, when she was in a good mood, she was irresistible. But she’d always been excited about something, always looking for something to do.

Phoebe was calm and restful. And capable. She had always seemed very self-sufficient to him. If Melanie had had a problem, Phoebe had been the one to whom she’d turned.

Melanie. He’d successfully avoided thinking about her for a very long time. It seemed inconceivable that she wasn’t leading some man in a merry dance somewhere in Southern California. Instead, she was locked forever in his memory at the age of twenty-three.

The same age Phoebe had been when he’d realized he had been chasing the wrong twin for several years.

As she drew near, he drank in every detail of her appearance. Her hair was longer than it had once been, and she wore it up in a practical twist. She had on a khaki-colored pencil-slim skirt with a sweater set in some shade of a pretty green-blue that he didn’t even have a name for. Although she probably thought it was a modest outfit, the skirt ended just above her knees, showing off her slender, shapely calves and ankles, and the sleeveless top beneath the outer sweater clung enticingly to her curves. Tendrils of curls had escaped from the twist and danced around her face in the light breeze.

She was looking down at the floor rather than at him and he had a sudden moment of doubt. She’d been all he’d thought about since the last day he’d seen her. Even when he’d been in combat, or leading troops, he’d carried the memory of her deep in the recesses of his mind, where everything he couldn’t afford to think about in the heat of battle lived.

Guilt—and being deployed halfway around the world—had kept him away from her in those months after the funeral, but nearly losing his life in the mountains of Afghanistan had made him realize how sorry he would be if he walked away from the possibility of a life with Phoebe.

Had he waited too long? It had been fifteen months since the fateful class reunion that had changed their lives forever, since Melanie’s death and their unexpected intimacy after the funeral.

Did Phoebe regret that? Or even worse, did she blame him for Melanie’s death? That niggling little fear had lodged in his brain months ago and, despite the memories of Phoebe’s shining eyes at the reunion and the sweet way she’d kissed him a few days later, he couldn’t shake his worry. It didn’t help that deep down, he knew he was to blame. He’d been Melanie’s date that night, he’d known how possessive she could be and yet, when he’d taken Phoebe in his arms on that dance floor, he’d forgotten everything but the wonder of what had suddenly flared between them.

After her initial shock had faded yesterday, she’d been a little too distant for comfort. She’d always been reserved, but never with him. He’d enjoyed drawing her out and making her laugh, even when they’d been young, but he’d never realized just how much he took it for granted that she relaxed around him.

On her porch last afternoon, she hadn’t been relaxed.

Maybe she had a serious relationship, even though she wasn’t married or engaged. He knew because one of the first things he’d done was check out her ring finger. And besides, her name hadn’t changed. She had been listed as Merriman in that phone book. I have something to tell you, she’d said. It had sounded ominous and he’d had to struggle not to react. He sure as hell hoped she wasn’t going to try to brush him off for some other guy. He’d been a clueless idiot when they were younger, had failed to realize what a treasure she was. But he knew now, and any man who thought he had a claim to Phoebe could think again.

She was going to be his.

“Hello,” she said. “Is my lipstick smeared or something?”

He jolted and smiled wryly. She’d caught him staring. “No,” he said honestly. “I just couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

Phoebe blushed as he rose and came around the table to seat her. To his astonishment, her entire pretty face turned pink.

Returning to his seat, he said, “You look beautiful. That sweater makes your eyes even bluer.”

Her face was still chair. “You don’t have to say that,” she said. “Melanie was the beautiful one in our family.”

“One of the beautiful ones,” he corrected, studying her expressionless face. “Melanie drew attention to herself and people noticed her. You did the exact opposite and managed to make yourself practically invisible most of the time. Quite a feat for a woman as beautiful as you are.”

Her gaze flew to his. Finally. “Thank you,” she whispered. And when their eyes met, he felt again that sudden shiver of knowledge, a “we are meant to be” moment unlike anything he’d ever felt with any other woman. He’d felt it yesterday when she’d first noticed him; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been here now.

He could remember the first time he’d experienced it as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Funny that he and Phoebe had grown up in the same neighborhood, had known each other all their lives, but suddenly one night, everything had clicked into place, and he’d recognized the woman he wanted to spend forever with….

He stood by the bar and finished his soda, watching his date. Melanie sat at a table across the room on some guy’s lap. She was shrieking with laughter and as Wade watched, she tilted a glass to her lips and drank. She listed to one side and nearly fell off the man’s lap, and Wade suddenly realized how drunk she was. Why had he ever thought she was what he wanted?

Because you were listening to the brain in your pants, dope.

He’d been stupid to say yes when Melanie had asked him to accompany her to her first class reunion. He knew her well by then, well enough to know that Melanie didn’t really want him so much as she wanted the effect she had on people when she walked in with a man in uniform. It didn’t bother him anymore the way it once had, but he wasn’t going to stick around here and wait for her for the rest of the evening. Phoebe had driven Melanie to meet him here, so he wasn’t obligated to get her home.

He raised his glass and finished the drink, then straightened and headed for the exit.

“Wade! Wait!”

He turned at the sound of the husky female voice, his irritation fading. “Hey, Phoeber,” he said. “I’m heading out. Melanie’s going to catch a ride with someone else.”

“You’re leaving?” Her dismay was plain.

He nodded. Over the beat of the music, he said, “Yeah. I’ll see you before I leave again. Promise.”

“But…” Phoebe’s eyes were fastened to his and he thought for a moment that she was fighting tears. Had someone hurt her feelings?

Behind her, the band segued into a familiar slow song and couples began flocking to the dance floor.

Phoebe swallowed and licked her lips. “I was hoping you’d dance with me tonight.”

Because it was Phoebe, and because he sensed she wasn’t very happy, he turned away from the exit. “All right.” He took her hand and began to draw her after him to the dance floor. Whatever had upset her, he could worm it out of her while they danced.

He pulled her into the middle of the crowded area and turned to draw her into his arms. There were so many people they were literally pushed together.

Phoebe’s slender body slid against his and settled as if she’d been made just for him. He realized suddenly that he’d never danced with her before. Never.

Would it have been like this between them before now if he’d been smart enough to dance with her? His heart began to pound and arousal began to stir. Automatically, he began to move to the beat of the music, and she moved with him, her soft curves a shocking temptation beneath his hands.

It was heaven. He turned his head slightly and breathed in her scent, and his entire body tightened.

What the hell…This was Phoebe. His little neighbor.

Not so little anymore. She was the same age Melanie was, though he’d bet his paycheck she was far less experienced. Stunned, confused, he actually stopped dancing right there in the middle of the crowd.

“Phoebe?” He pulled back far enough to see her face, wondering if she was feeling as overwhelmed as he was.

She tilted her head back and her entire face was shining as if someone had lit a lantern inside her. “Yes?”

When she met his eyes, something clicked into place. Something precious and irreplaceable, something that filled a spot inside him that he hadn’t even realized was empty. He forgot everything he’d been going to say, everything in his head, everything in the world. Nothing else mattered because everything he needed was right here in his arms, her eyes telling him that she felt the magic they were making together as well as he.

“Never mind,” he said at last. He pulled her close again, then grasped her hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, and slid them up behind his neck. The movement increased the intimacy of their position and he had to fight the urge to shift his hips against the soft body plastered to his. This was crazy. He was crazy. Crazy about a woman he’d known most of his life without really knowing her at all.

Phoebe made a small sound and turned her head toward him, nestling against his chest. He bent his head to hers and set his lips against her ear. “The rest of the evening.”

A shiver rippled down her spine and he delighted in the knowledge that she was as aroused as he was. Her head came up and their lips were a whisper apart. “What?”

He smiled and dropped his head farther, then brushed his nose lightly across hers. He wanted to kiss her worse than he’d ever wanted anything, including his first brand new bike and his ranger tab. But when he kissed Phoebe for the first time, he didn’t want an audience, and he didn’t want to have to stop. “You’re dancing with me for the rest of the evening.”

She shot him a glowing smile, and he swore there were stars twinkling and sparkling in the depths of those blue eyes. “All right.”

Dinner was the most nerve-racking experience Phoebe had ever had in her life. In the back of her head a steady cadence hammered: I have to tell him I have to tell him I have to tell him.

It was so insistent that she couldn’t relax and enjoy these moments she’d thought were gone forever. But she couldn’t tell him here, not in a restaurant.

Fortunately, Wade didn’t seem to want to discuss serious topics, either. He asked about her teaching job and seemed honestly interested. He asked questions about the little house in which she lived and how she’d found it. He asked about New York and how it was different from California, but he didn’t ask her why she’d moved. Thank heavens. Maybe he simply assumed that she’d wanted to get away from all the memories.

He told her a little bit about where he’d been and what he’d done. A lot of it was classified, but he could share generalities.

They didn’t talk about anything important. Neither of them mentioned the reunion, or the magical moments they’d shared, or what had occurred between them after the funeral.

And they didn’t talk about Melanie.

Melanie, for whom Wade had cared deeply for years before one evening of dancing…

“Phoebe, you’ll never guess who’s coming to the reunion with me.”

“I give.” She smiled as Melanie breezed into the living room of her small apartment on the weekend of their first class reunion. It had been nice to move away from home and get away from her sister, but it also was nice to see her from time to time. Melanie was lovable; she was just…too much sometimes. “Who?”

“Wade!”

Phoebe froze. She’d been expecting her sister to name a classmate, probably a male one, knowing Melanie. “Wade didn’t graduate with us,” she said carefully.

“I know, silly.” Melanie shook her head in exasperation. “I invited him.”

“But…”

“He’s going to wear his uniform.” Melanie waved a hand as if she was fanning herself. “I can’t resist a man in uniform.”

Neither could Phoebe, if that man was Wade. But she couldn’t say that to Mel.

The doorbell rang then, saving her from making a response. Melanie said, “That must be Wade. Let him in, will you? I’ve got to finish getting ready!”

Phoebe resisted the temptation to salute as she reluctantly moved toward the door and opened it.

“Wade.” It wasn’t hard to smile as she lifted her arms. It was much harder not to appear too thrilled. “It’s great to see you.”

“You, too.” Wade’s arms came around her and he kissed her lightly on the cheek before she backed away. “How’ve you been, Phoeber? You look terrific.”

He released her and stepped back a pace. “Seriously terrific,” he added, as he scanned the simple navy-blue dress she’d chosen.

“Thank you.” She knew she was blushing, and not just because of the admiration in his eyes. The feel of his hard arms around her had been overwhelming to senses that had been starved for even the sight of him. To suddenly be in her version of heaven was too much. She took a deep breath. “You look good, too. The army’s agreeing with you?”

He nodded. “And you’re enjoying teaching.” It wasn’t a question; they had stayed in loose touch by e-mail once or twice a month since she’d graduated from high school and headed off to Berkeley. As badly as she longed to hear from him, Phoebe always forced herself to wait at least a week before e-mailing him back. The last thing she wanted was for Wade to realize how she felt about him.

She nodded. “I think I told you I’m switching from first grade to fourth next year. It’ll be an interesting change.”

He grinned. “Yeah, the boys will have gone from being mildly annoying to thoroughly bratty.”

She laughed. “Hmm. Sounds like personal experience speaking.”

“Fourth grade was the year I got sent to the principal’s office for putting a tadpole in Miss Ladly’s Thermos of iced tea.”

“I’ve heard that story before. Guess I’ll be checking before I take a sip of anything.”

They smiled at each other and a companionable silence fell for a moment. But then she broke the mood. “How long are you home for, and where do you go after that?” He probably had no idea that she could recite every move he’d made in the nine years since he’d graduated from high school.

Wade’s face suddenly seemed guarded, his gray eyes darkening. “I have a few more days left of my two weeks’ leave and then I’m being deployed to Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan. The fear she’d always lived with rose, almost choking her. “Oh, God, Wade.”

“I’ll be back,” he said. “Who would come around to bug you once in a while if I didn’t?”

She forced herself to smile. “Just be careful.”

He nodded, reaching out a hand and rubbing her arm. “Thanks. I will.”

“Hey there!” Her sister’s voice singsonged a flirtatious greeting Phoebe had heard her employ dozens of times before. And just like many of those other times, Wade’s head swiveled around and Phoebe was instantly forgotten.

Lowering her eyes, she stepped away and busied herself gathering a few items for her evening bag while Melanie threw herself into Wade’s arms and gave him a loud kiss.

For the rest of the evening, she avoided looking at Wade and her sister as much as she could. It was just too painful.

Not long after they arrived at the reunion, she lost herself on the other side of the crowd. Her best friend from high school, June Nash, had come. June still lived in town. She’d married a former classmate and was expecting her first child. Phoebe felt conspicuously alone as she looked around. Everyone seemed either to be married by now or to have brought a date.

But June was genuinely delighted to see her, and they spent the mealtime catching up on the years since high school. Although they faithfully exchanged Christmas cards, their e-mails and phone calls had gradually slowed as their lives took different paths.

“So you’re teaching.” June smiled. “I bet you’re fantastic with children. I still remember how great you were when the student council helped with Special Olympics.”

Phoebe shrugged. “I enjoy it.” And the school district in which she taught was far enough from where she’d grown up that few people knew her as “the quiet twin.”

“That’s good.” June nodded her head in the direction of another group. “I see Melanie and Wade are an item again. I thought that ended a couple of years ago.”

Phoebe winced. “It did. But we’ve all stayed friends and Melanie invited him as her date tonight.”

Thankfully, the band began to play at that moment and she was spared any more discussion. June wasn’t dancing since her first child was due in less than two weeks and she said she felt like a hippo in a mud hole. But a group of girls Phoebe had known when they were all in the marching band dragged her up to the dance floor with them, and Phoebe decided she was going to enjoy what was left of the evening. She danced with a group of her classmates until the first slow song and then moved to another table to visit, forbidding herself to look around the room for Wade.

An hour later, she’d had enough. She’d seen the people she’d wanted to see, had danced and laughed and done her best to give the impression that life was treating Phoebe Merriman well. Melanie, as always, was the life of the party. She had abandoned Wade for a guy Phoebe barely remembered, and the two of them were knocking back drinks with a like-minded group.

This time Phoebe did look for Wade. He was standing alone by the bar and, as she watched, he set down his drink and approached Melanie. After a brief exchange, Melanie laughed and Wade turned and walked away.

When she realized he was heading for the door, she panicked. Plain and simple, she couldn’t bear the thought of Wade leaving without at least speaking to him one more time.

“Wade!” she called out. “Wait!”

Two little words. She could still remember them. Two little words that had altered her life. And not just hers. Three lives had been altered by that evening, four if you counted Bridget. If Wade had left the dance when he’d intended to, Melanie might still be alive. If Melanie were still alive, Phoebe and Wade would never have walked up to that cabin, would never have…and Bridget would never have been conceived.

Try as she might, Phoebe couldn’t regret those stolen moments of heaven she’d experienced with him. Nor could she imagine her world without her beautiful baby daughter in it.

“Would you like to go to a movie when we’re finished eating?” Wade smiled at her across the table. A movie. With Wade.

There was a time when she would have given an arm for that invitation. But things were different now. What she wanted and what was reality were two very separate things.

“Thank you, but no,” she said. “I have to get home pretty soon.”

He looked taken aback and, as she watched, the warmth in his eyes drained away. “All right.”

“Wade.” She leaned forward and took an irrevocable step. “I’d like you to come with me. There’s something I have to tell you.”

“You mentioned that yesterday,” he said, but she noticed he seemed to unbend a little. “Sounds scary.”

She couldn’t even smile. “I hope not.”

They left the restaurant and he followed her minivan directly back to her house. She’d offer him a glass of wine first, she decided, and then… then she’d have to decide how to tell him. But none of her opening lines sounded good. And now she had a new worry.

What if Wade didn’t want to be a father? What if he rejected Bridget and didn’t want to be part of her life?

Since yesterday, Phoebe had been trying to brace herself for sharing Bridget with her father when he came East. Which could be quite infrequently. After all, the man was probably going to be out of the country most of the time. If Wade didn’t want anything to do with them, their lives wouldn’t change appreciably.

But it would break her heart if he didn’t find Bridget as miraculous and irresistible as she did.

He followed her into the house at her invitation.

And it was then that she realized the flaw in her plan. Duh. How could she possibly explain the presence of a nanny?

Angie rose from the couch and gathered up her schoolwork. “Hi, Phoebe. Give me a minute to get organized and call my brother. I have an econ test tomorrow.”

Phoebe managed a smile. “Do you think you’re ready?”

Angie shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” She glanced at the ceiling. “Everything went fine this evening.”