A Soldier for Christmas

Mitch. Just thinking of him brought a smile to her face. He was back at his base by now. This was going to be different—interesting, but different—to have him for a friend.

She was actually looking forward to Sunday.

Chapter Four

Mitch scanned the light-veiled sanctuary, crowded with worshippers and loud with their conversations, searching for Kelly. To find her, he only had to follow the sunshine as it slanted through the glittering panels of stained glass.

Kelly. When he saw her, brushed with golden light and goodness, his heartbeat skipped. The sanctuary, full of light and sound and families getting settled, faded away and only the silence remained. She was sitting in a pew near the middle, her head bowed as if reading.

She hadn’t noticed him yet, so he took a moment just to drink in the sight of her. Her honey-gold hair was unbound and framed her heart-shaped face. The lavender summer dress she wore shaped her delicate shoulders and fell in a complimentary sweep to her knees. A book bag slumped on the bench beside her. Matching purple flats hugged her slim feet.

He liked the way she looked, so pure and bright. She made a lovely picture, sitting so straight, with her Bible open on her lap. It wasn’t too much of a hardship to look at her. He eased into the row and onto the pew beside her.

She jumped, and her Bible tumbled onto the polished wood bench between them. “Mitch! You snuck up on me!”

“Hey, I’m no sneak.”

“Then what do you call that? You didn’t make a sound. That’s sneaking in my book.” Her eyes twinkled like aquamarines.

Enchanted—he was simply enchanted. And she looked glad to see him. What was a helpless guy to do? He shrugged. “Sorry. It’s habit, I guess. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You are a scary man, Mitch Dalton.” Her smile said the opposite as he rescued her fallen Bible from the bench between them. “Do you have a chance to attend a service when you’re overseas?”

“Usually a chaplain holds service every Sunday. I attend whenever I’m in camp.” He studied the Bible in his hands. It looked like his, treasured and well-read. He handed it over. “This is some church. It beats a tent hands down.”

“A tent, huh?” Her fingertips brushed against his, feather-light and brief.

Wow. Her touch stilled his senses. As if from somewhere far away organ music began, and late worshippers hurried to find seats as the minister stepped up to his podium. The congregation rose.

Kelly stood, and somehow he was on his feet beside her. She was so small and feminine at his side. All he knew was that he liked being with her. Not a comfortable thing for the lone wolf he was. But not bad, either.

She went up on tiptoe to tell him something, and he had to lean so she could manage to whisper in his ear. “I’m wearing my shopping shoes. I hope you can keep up with me.”

That was funny. Little did she know what he was capable of doing in a single day. “Bring it on, little lady. I can do anything you can do.”

“Be careful. I just might drag you to a mall.”

“Hey, we had a no-mall agreement.”

“I made no promises, soldier.”

Kelly felt as light as air. Happy. She’d been working and studying so hard lately, she was glad she’d agreed to spend this time with Mitch. Besides, it was never a bad thing to have a handsome man—er, friend—sit beside you at church.

Mitch. She couldn’t help noticing he had a very nice singing voice and yet he didn’t attract attention to himself. His voice was quiet and his manner solemn. And he stood powerful and tall. Very masculine.

Not that she was wishing.

As she bowed her head for prayer, she caught sight of the Bible passage on the program. The typed words were the last thing she saw as she closed her eyes and the words from Isaiah emblazoned themselves on her eyelids. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”

It had also been the exact passage from her morning devotional. Coincidence? Probably not.

I’m trying, Lord, to follow where You lead.

But she was so adrift. Even with Mitch at her side. Even in the peace of God’s sanctuary with heaven’s light falling all around her.

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”

With the minister’s message in his heart, Mitch stayed at Kelly’s side as they inched patiently down the main aisle. Maybe this was a sign he was on the right path. A new one for him, considering his wariness of long-term relationships. And a strange one, because God’s plan for him was thousands of miles away, across an ocean.

Kelly introduced him to the minister, who warmly thanked him for coming. As they followed the departing worshippers down the front steps and out into the bright sunshine, he stayed at Kelly’s side, protecting her from any jostling from the crowd.

“Well, soldier, are you ready for your mission? Or do I leave you to survive shopping as best you can?” Her smile was as sweet as spun sugar.

He liked it. “I’ve already confessed that I’m retail-challenged.”

“A big tough guy like you? C’mon, soldier up.” She winked, and couldn’t help laughing. “I expect a marine to be tougher than that.”

“I’ll survive with a pretty girl like you watching my six.”

“Your six? Oh, I get it. Watching your back. You’re going to need it where I’m taking you. Peril and danger abound.”

“I live for danger.”

“That makes two of us.” Kelly liked the look of worry crinkling his forehead. She guessed he was only halfway kidding her about having mall-phobia. “At ease, sir. I spent some time thinking of a few good ideas for your mom. And we don’t have to set foot inside any mall.”

“I’m gonna owe you big-time for this.”

“No way. What’s a little favor between friends?”

Mitch frowned. He had to set the groundwork for date number three. Something gave him a clue that she wouldn’t make it easy for him.

He’d just have to wow her so much, she’d want to go out with him again. Maybe even call it a date next time. A man could hope. “You wanna grab a bite first?”

“I didn’t think you soldiers took detours when you were on a mission.”

“Right, but I’m gonna need fuel. No way can I shop on an empty stomach. Oh, wait. I get it. You don’t date. And you’re afraid that eating together twice would make it look like we’re dating.”

“It could look that way, but it’s not. Right?”

Was that a shadow of fear he saw in her gentle blue eyes? Why would she be afraid? Then in a blink, it was gone.

He stepped off the curb, looking for traffic, but there were no cars headed their way. He fished his keys from his pocket. “Don’t even worry. Friends go out to eat together sometimes.”

“I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I know you’ll be leaving in a month or so—”

“Exactly, so don’t sweat it. We’ll do whatever you want.”

“I’ve got the best shop to show you. I really think you’ll find what you want there.”

“You mean this could be a one-stop deal?”

“It might even be painless.”

She was doing her best to thwart his plans for their date. He was going down in flames. Not good. This had to be about Joe. What had happened? What had he done to her? He hadn’t known the guy except as a name back in high school.

Whatever had happened, it had sure made Kelly afraid to try dating again. As he unlocked the passenger door, a mild breeze whispered through the maples overhead and shifted the lemony sunshine over them. In the dappled mix of shadows and light he opened the door and took Kelly’s hand to help her up.

She dodged him, as if too independent for such a gesture, but he sensed it was something more as she slipped past him. Her cotton dress gave a whispering rustle, and the vanilla fragrance from her shampoo scented the air between them.

Unaware of how she moved him, she climbed into the passenger seat and settled her book bag on the floor at her feet. She sat there in a swirl of lavender summer cotton and dappled sunlight and sweetness. Feelings came to life within his heart and weren’t like anything he’d felt before. They were soft and warm, and as soothing as prayer. Tenderness lit him up from the inside out. He felt every inch of his six-foot-two-inch frame as he closed her door and circled around to his side.

Her smile was calm, her blue eyes bright and friendly. “It’s not far from here. If you can pull a U-turn and avoid the traffic jam up the street?”

“Inciting me to break the law, huh?” He winked as he started the engine and belted in. “I’m shocked. A sweet girl like you.”

“Ah, the things you don’t know about me.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture. A hard-working college student who goes to church every Sunday. Yep, you’re trouble.” He checked the mirrors and the pedestrian traffic before turning sharply out from the curb and down the narrow tree-lined residential street.

Then he saw the sign, allowing U-turns in the wide, turnabout intersection.

“No more trouble than you are, I bet. Sunday service and then dinner at home with your parents.”

“Not until six tonight. Until then, I’m a reckless man on the town.” A gray tabby cat paraded off the sidewalk about ten yards up the residential street, and he slowed to a stop.

“Yeah, reckless. I see that.”

He could feel her gaze like the softest brush against the line of his profile. He’d like to know what she thought about him. Come September he’d be on a bird out of here and he wouldn’t be back this way again except for a rare, quick family holiday.

He wanted…he didn’t know what he wanted. But he liked being with her.

Once the cat was safely across the street, he hit the gas. A four-way stop was ahead. “Which way?”

“Right. And take the first parking spot you come to.”

“It’s that easy? I can’t believe it.” He whipped the Jeep over to the curb and parked. “I just might make it out of this mission without a casualty.”

“No casualties, remember? I’m watching your six.”

“Then let’s do it.” He killed the engine and released his seat belt.

Kelly took a deep breath and tried to steady herself, to just breathe. What she couldn’t explain was why he’d affected her like this. Why he’d slipped through her defenses as if they were nothing.

She didn’t have a clue. He was already out of the Jeep and slamming the door, moving with an easy, latently powerful bearing around the front of the vehicle.

Why was she watching him? Because it was impossible not to. He looked like everything good in the world, honorable and strong. He made the broken places within her heart feel less cracked. He made her laugh and smile.

It was hard not to like him a little more for being a gentleman as he caught the edge of the door when she opened it with his big powerful hand. Golden flecks twinkled in his eyes as he grinned at her. “This might not be a date, but I’m getting the doors for you anyway.”

“You’re going to spoil me, and then where will I be?”

“You’ll be treated the way you deserve.” He held out his big hand, palm up and waiting.

She hesitated. He was simply being a gentleman, nothing more, but that’s what scared her. There was danger in taking even the first tiny step in leaning on anyone. When you started leaning, you started hoping.

And in the hoping, dreaming.

The pieces of her broken heart ached like shattered bone. Friendship was one thing, but she could get out of the Jeep on her own, thank you very much.

As she tipped off the edge of the seat, his hand shot out, caught her forearm, the tricky guy. His grip was iron-strong and commanding. The warmth of his touch, and the strength of it, rocked through her.

Instead of feeling afraid, peace ebbed into her heart. Even into the broken places.

Her feet hit the concrete sidewalk, jarring her back into reality. Mitch let go, and shut the door with a thump. This gave her the opportunity to step away from him.

That rare, warm peace ebbed away like a tide rolling back out to sea. Although the sun blazed already hot on her shoulders, she shivered, as if with cold.

“I can see the campus from here, just down the street.” Mitch pocketed his keys, his movements confident and relaxed as if he hadn’t felt a thing. As if this hadn’t affected him this way. “Do you live in the dorms?”

Somehow she managed to make her feet carry her forward as though nothing had happened, as though she were perfectly fine. Her voice came as if from far away. “No, the dorms are too expensive. I have a little apartment three blocks from here.”

“Any roommates?”

“Just one.”

“An apartment sounds good to me. Right now I have the luxury of living in the barracks.”

“The luxury?”

“And so much privacy. Not. I’m happier in a hootch—”

“A hootch?”

“A tent—” he supplied, “in a camp somewhere overseas with my team. Give me a cot and I’m home. Better yet, I’d rather be sleeping out in the bush.”

“Really, on the ground? You like that?”

“Sure. It’s like camping, except for the grenades and C4 explosives. I grew up in these mountains.”

“Really? The math whiz I remember from high school didn’t look like the outdoors type.”

“Looks are deceiving, and I was at an awkward age. Okay, a very awkward age. My dad is a forest ranger. We’re gonna take one of these weekends I have free—if I get a whole one free—and hike up into the Bridger Mountains. Spend the night. Camp. Cook river trout over a fire.”

“Sounds very rugged. I’m more of a stay-away-from-the-mountains kind of girl.”

“You just haven’t been properly exposed to the wilderness.”

“Where there’s no hot water, no plumbing and no electric blankets?”

“Those luxuries are highly overrated. Trust me.”

“I’m a little afraid to, with an attitude like that.”

When she smiled, sweet as candy, his emotions jumbled into a wedge in his throat. The palm of his left hand still glowed from where he’d taken hold of her arm to help her from the Jeep, and the brightness of her touch remained, calming and terrifying all at once.

Heaven was on his side, because Kelly chose that moment to pause in front of a store window. A striped yellow-and-white awning stretched overhead and he studied the way the hem ruffled in the breeze instead of figuring out what was happening to him.

At the back of his mind, he knew. He had a life, he had a calling, and he had eighteen months left on his contract. So how was this going to work?

“The lady who owns this shop is a good friend of the family—well, of Joe’s family.” Her voice broke on the sound of Joe’s name. “She takes antique gems and resets them in the most beautiful jewelry you’ve ever seen. I don’t know if you’d be interested in something like that for your mom, but Holly’s work is so beautiful, it’s like giving a little piece of love.”

Okay, that was the word he was trying to avoid.

“Do you want to go in and look? Or I have other suggestions. We can just go down the block and there’s—”

“No, let’s start here.” It felt like a definite step on an unknown path in the dark, when there was no light to see by. But he wasn’t bothered by the dark.

When he opened the door, he wanted to take her by the hand. But he figured she wasn’t ready for that. She breezed past him with a rustle of her cotton dress and the tap of her shoes, and he caught again the scent of vanilla and sweetness.

Impossibly, his heart tightened even more.

Chapter Five

Kelly couldn’t help leaning closer against the display case to study the brooch Mitch had taken out of its velvet bed. It was an elegant piece of lacy gold with a baguette-cut ruby looking outrageously fragile against Mitch’s broad, callused palm.

Stop looking at the man’s hand, Kelly told herself. She was supposed to be concentrating on the beautiful pieces of jewelry, right? Not noticing the deep creases in Mitch’s palm. Or how capable his fingers looked. The nicks and cuts and scars marred his sun-browned skin. Such powerful hands he had, just like the rest of him.

She so remembered the peace his touch had brought her, when he’d helped her from the Jeep.

“What do you think?” His hazel eyes met hers, and in those green and gold depths she saw glimpses of his big heart. He cared about the people in his life—and he cared about her opinion for some reason.

He’s just too perfect. If he wasn’t, then she wouldn’t feel this turmoil seizing her up. Hard lessons learned ought to be enough to make her step away and stay firmly on the path she believed in. The path where God had placed her over and over again.

Mitch waited for her answer, the delicate and expensive brooch resting rock-steady on his palm.

Don’t just stand there, Kelly. Say something. Her gaze shot to the other box he’d chosen from among the many in the display cases. Which one did she like better? The dainty necklace shimmered in the sunlight, the delicate swoop of wings and halo around a thumb-nail-sized fresh-water pearl made her heart stop. “It’s a pearl. What can I say?”

“You like pearls?”

She supposed he was looking for a woman’s opinion on jewelry. “I think your mom might like the ruby better, though.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Which question? Her mind wandered. No matter how hard she tried to stop the caring from creeping into her heart, she couldn’t. She liked Mitch Dalton. She liked him very much.

As a friend. She couldn’t dare think of him as anything else.

“Why pearls?” He studied her, waiting.

Oh, right. Pay attention, Kelly. “Pearls are so simple and unassuming. Everyone knows that a pearl starts with a tiny grain of sand, but to me, it’s like faith. We are like that grain of sand and it’s God’s grace that can cloak us and make us shine, if we are humble and faithful enough. In the end, it’s a thing of true beauty.”

“Yes, it certainly is.”

He wasn’t looking at the pearl. But at her. Somehow his gaze deepened and there he went, somehow feeling too intimate, as if he could see too much. But how could he look past the layers of defense in which she cloaked herself so carefully?

The pieces of her heart stung like salt in a fresh wound, and she felt so vulnerable and wide open. It was Mitch. He made her feel like this. So wouldn’t the smartest thing be to head for the door and never look back?

It would be the safest.

“I’ll take the ruby,” Mitch told Holly, behind the counter. “But could you put the other on hold? I’d like to think about it. Christmas will be here before you know it.”

“Sure.” Holly gladly set the pearl angel aside and took Mitch’s credit card with her over to the cash register.

They were done. Kelly let out a deep breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding. This was how worked up she was. But now Mitch had found his gift, and he’d be heading back to his base.

I’ll be back on safe ground.

She probably wouldn’t see him again. She didn’t want to see him again, right? It wasn’t as if she was looking for a man to love—not anymore. Not ever again. It didn’t make any sense.

“Mission accomplished.” The way he leaned both forearms on the counter, coming in close to her, made her want to hope—past the ache where no hope lived.

How impossible was it to start hoping? And for what? That kind of hope, that kind of dream, was not meant for her. She thought of what had happened with Joe, and it felt as if the shadows within her lengthened. No, this was her path and she would not step one foot off it.

She cleared the thick emotion from her throat. Somehow she managed some resemblance of a normal smile. “Your mom should love the brooch. I bet she’d love anything as long as it was from you.”

“Well, she’s biased, being my mom. But you, pretty lady, you saved my bacon.”

“Me? I just pointed you in the right direction.” Why did her heart flutter in her chest? Maybe it was simply the remnants of that old crush. Maybe. She couldn’t let it be anything else.

“I did nothing. You would have done fine by yourself, but I’m glad I could help. I wish your mother a very happy birthday. And you a safe journey back to the base tonight.”

She took a step in retreat.

“What? You’re leaving me? Just like that?”

“You were the one who said mission accomplished.”

“Well, maybe there’s another mission scheduled after this one.”

“Holly gift wraps, so you’re good to go.” She took another backward step to the door. “Bye, Mitch.”

“Wait.” As if he was going to let her escape. She was wrong, his mission wasn’t close to being completed. Mitch scribbled his signature on the slip the shop owner slid toward him. “Kelly, don’t run off on me.”

“I’ve got to study.”

“Flimsy excuse.” Done, he dropped the pen but Kelly was already heaving open the old-fashioned wood-frame door. The cowbell over the door clanked as she tried to evade him.

Emotion struck him hard in the chest, and he remembered the fear he’d seen in her eyes. “Ma’am, could you wrap this for me? I’ll be back.”

He hardly registered the owner’s agreement; he was already out the door and into the blinding burn of daylight. He turned toward Kelly instinctively, as if he could feel the tug of her spirit against his.

She’d gained some distance on him, he had to give her that. She speed-walked in those purple sandals as efficiently as if they were cross-trainers. The hem of her pretty dress swirled around her slender knees, and her long honey-blond hair swung with her gait, like lustrous liquid gold.

Yeah, she was in definite retreat. What had scared her? He puzzled over that as he bounded after her, cutting around a couple holding hands. She had that strict no-dating outlook on things. Was she bolting because he’d gotten too close? What he needed to know was what had happened with Joe. Otherwise, she was going to run off and he’d never see her again.

Maybe that was as it should be. Maybe it would be best just to let her go. His chest tightened. The tenderness and confused emotions inside him tangled up into an unbreakable knot.

What he did was dangerous. There was no denying it. He’d learned the value of making sure to start each day without regrets. To leave nothing unfinished.

If he let her go, he’d regret it. No doubt about that.

So he continued after her. He could have closed his eyes and found her by heart and by the cadence of her gait. In the reflection of a coffee-shop window he could see her profile, her soft mouth downturned, her chin set with determination. Then her slim shoulders tensed more as if she, too, sensed him behind her. She kept going.

There was a clue, but did he get the hint? No. He kept going. “Kelly? Did I do something wrong?”

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