Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming (7 page)

BOOK: Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming
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Sully sent a dark glance down the wooden stairs before entering. “That’s quite a habit to have.”

“We grew up in Garden Court. We might have had a roof over our heads, but it’s still a stigma here in Bitterthorn. It makes you protective of your own.” On her way to where the box of cookies sat on the kitchen island, she glanced back over her shoulder. “Do you remember what Garden Court is?”

“Strangely enough, I do. I just don’t remember that you grew up there.”

Surprise
,
surprise.
“You and Coe have always been bristly around each other, so don’t take it personally. It’s just a matter of two alpha dogs being within snapping distance of each other.”

“It could be that. Or it could be something else entirely.” He looked through the industrial-style windows to the street below, then around the room. “You don’t have any Christmas decorations up yet. Have you been too busy supplying everyone with your sugarcoated version of Christmas crack?”

“You’re the only one who’s gone crazy for the Pfeffernüsse this year. Last year was busier.” And they’d been together this time last year. Trembling on the edge of the end, but still together.

“A tree would look great right about here. If you put it right up against the window people would be able to get a glimpse of it from below. And with this high ceiling, you wouldn’t have to worry about size.”

“I’m giving Christmas a skip this year.”

“Why?” Then his expression changed, became guarded. “Is it because of me?”

Yes
. “I just don’t have the Christmas spirit. Coe says I’m making elves explode with my bah-humbug attitude, but I’m thinking Christmas will get along just fine without me having to deck my halls or jingle anyone’s bells.”

“Do me a favor and don’t mention your pal Coe again. At least not in the same sentence with jingling someone’s bells.”

Lucy gaped, shocked at the suddenly hostile tone. If she didn’t know any better—and she did—she would have thought he was jealous. “He’s like my brother. Trust me, he feels the same way.”

“You might think that, but I know better.” He joined her at the island, leaned a hand on it and brought their faces close enough for her lips to be feathered by his breath. “Guys don’t have women like you as buddies.”

Things would get complicated fast if she melted right there at his feet. “Women like me? I think you’d better explain that one before I get huffy and show you my killer ninja skills.”

“Beautiful. Funny. Talented.” He tilted his head, a motion that had her pulse tripping over itself. “Sexy as hell.”

“All that, plus sexy?” She bit her lower lip, struggling to unplug her emotions and simply enjoy the physical rush of having him near. “First a kiss, and now flirting. Did you eat your Wheaties this morning?”

“I polished off the last of your cookies, actually, and their scent is almost exactly like yours.” He lifted her chin, and she heard him take a savoring breath. “It makes me so crazy, I can’t begin to explain it. All I can think about is taking a bite out of you. So...I think I will.”

Chapter Six

Lucy was certain he could hear her heartbeat as the warmth of his hand dissolved any hope of holding on to her sanity. The pressure of his thumb on her chin freed her lower lip from her teeth in time for his mouth to close in on it. He kissed her with a bold confidence that was staggering—as if he had every right to, as if he could remember the way he’d always kissed her. Though she tried to keep past and present separated, they jumbled together as need devoured whatever common sense she had. She’d
missed
this—being held by him, loved by him, filled with him. The yearning for Sully was always there, a low hum she could almost ignore if she kept herself busy enough. But when he touched her it uncorked the stopper she’d slammed over her aching need, unleashing her hunger until it was all she knew.

A rough sound grated deep in his throat as her lips opened under his. Gently he bit at her tongue before he licked away the teasing pain, then ground his hips into hers. The growing bulge behind his zipper was impossible to miss, a clear statement of his raging lust. His hands slid down her body to fill his palms with the swell of her bottom, pulling her against his lengthening hardness. Her breath caught while the emptiness between her legs grew molten with the slick heat of desire. It had been so long since she’d been in his arms, so long since he’d left her alone. To have him back where he belonged was better than any dream.

“I want you.” His mouth left hers to nip along her jawline, as if he wanted to devour her. “I don’t know if it’s been as long a dry spell for you as it has been for me, but if I don’t get inside you now I feel like I’m going to explode.”

For a full second the words had no meaning. They slid along the lush desire blanketing her mind, before slowly sinking in. The shock wave that came with belated understanding sent an arctic blast over the fiery hunger, snuffing it out as if it had never been. She was just so stupid to keep getting caught in these pitfalls of believing she could snap her fingers and get back the life she’d had. The
man
she’d had. The old Sully would never have tolerated the idea that there were other lovers in her life. But this new Sully shrugged it off as no big thing, because...

He didn’t care.

At first he didn’t seem to be aware she no longer responded. But when she pushed against his chest and turned out of his arms he at last surfaced to search her face with eyes so hot she could all but feel the burn along her skin.

“What, Lucy?” His breath was as rough as she felt, but she took no pleasure in hearing it. With his words echoing in her ears—words her Sullivan never would have uttered—she couldn’t feel anything but a terrible, invasive despair. “What’s wrong?”

“I keep forgetting you’re not you anymore.” Much to her horror, her voice cracked under the weight of unshed tears. So much for putting on a brave face. “Or, maybe I should say we’re no longer
us
. There’s a you and a me, but if I can’t get my head around the fact that there’s no us anymore, this whole thing is going to end in a huge train wreck.”

“How can you equate making out with a train wreck, especially when it’s this good? I’m so hot for you I might spontaneously combust, and if the way you were responding was any indication, you feel the same way.”

“That’s the problem. We don’t
feel
the same. Right now you’re horny as hell—”

“Damn straight.”

“—whereas I’m struggling because I’m still in love with my husband, Sullivan.”

For a moment he was the picture of a man who’d been hit with a brick, before he took a step back. Lucy’s heart sank. Damn. He may as well have hung a sign around his neck that proclaimed he was now searching for the nearest set of hills to head for.

“Okay. I get that.” He nodded, sounding almost reasonable. “The thing is,
I’m
Sullivan, so I don’t understand why you’re suddenly applying the brakes.”

“Do you really want me to still be in love with you? Do you want to hold my heart in your hands? Do you want the responsibility of not shattering it, and treating it as the only real gift I’ve ever given anyone? Answer honestly.”
Please say it’s what you want.
Please...

His mouth opened, his eyes flaring with an emotion she couldn’t read. Hope struggled to separate itself from the encroaching darkness.

He sighed in frustration and looked away.

Really, hope was such a useless thing. Why it kept trying to make her believe in miracles was beyond her.

“This road we’ve been made to walk,” she gritted through teeth that refused to unclench, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Regret tightened his face. “Lucy—”

“But it’s up to us to make the best of it. We need to take it one day at a time and not try to force things to go back to normal. There is no more normal to go back to. Falling into bed with each other when we’re more or less strangers isn’t going to change that.”

His brows pulled together. “Strangers? I used to be your husband.”


I
know that, but you don’t. Not deep down. You’ve been told this information, but it doesn’t mean anything to you.” She grabbed the cookie box, shoved it into his hands and headed for the front door. “Unfortunately, it still means something to me. Until I can remember you’re as much of a stranger to me as I am to you, I need to take a breather.”

“Stop calling me that. I’m not a stranger to you.”

“I am to you.”

“Then let me get to know you.” When she simply opened the door in dismissal, he headed toward her as if his feet were sticking to the floor. “What is it that you want from me?”

The futility of the question almost made her laugh. “Nothing, I swear. I never made demands of you before you got injured, and I’m not going to do it now.”

“A nondemanding wife. Now that kind of perfection I’d really like to remember.”

“I was far from perfect, and let’s not waste any more time trying to remember what no longer exists. Let’s just...enjoy the present and look to a better and brighter future. That’s what you told me when our divorce was finalized, right?”

“Yeah.” But he paused in the doorway, and the restless passion in his gaze made her flesh tingle. “Lucy?”

“What?”

“Was I a good husband?”

For a second her mind blanked with too many answers. Ultimately one surfaced above all others. “Being married to you brought me my greatest joys and my deepest heartbreak, and everything in between. And I’d be willing to bet every military wife would say the same. Good night, Sullivan.”

* * *

“Better late than never, right?” With a gusty sigh Lowell stepped back to stare at the tree he and Sully wrestled into the stand in front of the living room window. “Not too shabby, considering it’s only three days until Christmas and all the good trees are gone. It doesn’t seem to have too many bare spots, does it?”

“You definitely didn’t bring back a Charlie Brown tree.” And then he shook his head. “Damn. I remember that stupid cartoon, but I can’t remember the most important aspects of my life.”

His father clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, son. You’ve gotten back more than anyone ever thought you would, and you have your entire life ahead of you. It would be selfish to ask for anything more.”

That seemed like small consolation. “Lucy hasn’t put a tree up.”

Well, hell. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all.

Lowell’s bushy brows shot up. “Really? That doesn’t sound like her. Just last year she was putting garland around everything that stood still. She had this whole house ready for Christmas by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Every day in the month of December right up to Christmas, she was baking cookies. Though that was probably our fault. We kept sucking them up, so she kept having to replenish the cookie jar.”

“She said she’s giving Christmas a pass this year.”

“Ah.” Lowell contemplated the bare tree. “Well. I guess I’m not surprised, now that I think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you went through all sorts of hell, son, but you have to understand Lucy went through the trauma with you. But for her, it’s...different. There’s no treatment she can go through to heal her wounds. She didn’t receive any medals for her war injuries, and no one thanked her for all her sacrifices. No one told her she did a good job, though no one could’ve done it better. She’s probably endured more than we will ever know, so we shouldn’t expect her to be the same. She should be allowed to respond to her trauma in her own way, and we should respect her enough to give her the room to do it.”

Sully stared at the tree while each word cut at him somewhere deep inside. From the moment he’d been injured he’d relied on medics, hospital staff, therapists, his father, friends and comrades to help him get back the shattered pieces of his life. But Lucy...she’d been alone. Her challenge to reverse their positions—to be the one who was forgotten and left stranded on the outside looking in—surfaced to punch him in the gut. The agony he must have inflicted on her by the simple act of not knowing her was incalculable, and the action of divorcing her had cut her off from any support connected with him. Who had been there for Lucy?

The image of her ponytailed friend Coe snapped into place so sharply he almost heard the click. Her brooding, ever-present watchdog. For a few seconds Sully tried to be happy Lucy wasn’t completely isolated, but another wave of burning frustration hit and he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from cussing out loud. Coe didn’t need to protect her from him. He might be Lucy’s ex-husband, but that didn’t make him untrustworthy or dangerous. He would never hurt her. At least not now, his mind supplied brutally. With his brain wiping her out of his world, he doubted he could have hurt her any more than that.

“I have no doubt that Lucy’s dealing with more than her fair share of scars.” When Sully realized he’d been standing there like a robot that had lost its energy source, he tried to get himself unfrozen by shrugging a shoulder. “And I’m not pressing her to be the way she used to be. Hell, I can’t even remember what that was. I just don’t want her to give up on something like Christmas, when it sounds like she really loved it.”

“Maybe she’s just not in the Christmas spirit this year, son.”

“She’s lost enough. There isn’t one hint of the holidays anywhere in that loft of hers.” That loft that was over Coe’s garage, where he seemed to be a permanent fixture. Sully jerked his head to the side, but the image of that hyper-protective jerk was like a pit bull. No matter what mental corner Sully turned, there it was—the thought of Coe and Lucy. Together. Twisted up in the sheets. His hands on her body. His mouth on hers. Making her writhe and cry out Coe’s name.

Not his.

He gritted his teeth as his stomach knotted in on itself, and the need to smash something,
anything
, consumed him. Logically he knew he had no right to feel proprietary over Lucy. But the memory of her smile haunted him from the moment he saw it as she’d passed by the diner window...and it had been for Coe. He dreamed about that smile, and he wondered to the point of obsession if she’d ever looked at him like that. If his brain knew the answer to that one, it wasn’t letting him in on the secret. That left him with one option—making her smile himself, like she was so happy with life she couldn’t contain it. Like she was bursting with joy and hope and all things good in the world. Like all her wishes had come true.

If he could give her all of that, his world would be complete.

And he’d start by getting her a tree, dammit. If she’d once loved Christmas the way his father described, she should at least have a Christmas tree.

“You saw Lucy’s place?” Clearly going for a subject change, Lowell picked up a coil of lights. “How does it look? The only time I saw it was right after she moved in this past summer, and it was nothing but a filthy storage space. I couldn’t imagine anyone living there.”

“It’s...welcoming. It’s like you know you belong there the moment you walk in, the way a real home feels.” Then his father’s word sank in. “Why the hell did you allow her to move out of the apartment if the place she was moving into was unlivable?”

“I know you don’t remember her, but no one
allows
Lucy to do anything. She’s as bullheaded as they come, and she’s used to taking care of herself. Nothing stops her once she’s set her mind, and nothing scares her. Well,” Lowell added thoughtfully. “Except moths.”

“Moths?”

“Yeah, it surprised me too. In fact, her fear of moths might be the reason she doesn’t want to put up a tree. You see, last year—”

“There were moths in the tree.”

Lowell paused in the process of winding the lights around the tree. “That’s right.”

“Lots of moths. Like a whole damn herd of them. I remember...” So close. It was so frigging close. “Screaming.”

“That would be Lucy. She ran out of here like her hair was on fire and wouldn’t come back in until—”

“We had to kill every single one of them.” His teeth snapped together as the memory hit his brain. But not one glimpse of Lucy. It was like she’d been edited out of existence. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why can’t I remember Lucy? Of all people, why can’t I remember my wife?”

“You’re trying too hard.” Lowell fiddled with the lights, his expression sympathetic. “You’ve been told you should have a connection with her, so you’re trying to make it happen.”

“Wouldn’t you try to get those memories back? Not just because filling in the blanks brings back the life I used to have, but because of Lucy Jax herself. She isn’t the kind of woman a man just throws away.”

“Lucy Crabtree now.”

A dangerous sound escaped Sully. “Crabtree doesn’t fit her.”

“But Jax does?”

“Better than Crabtree.”

“That’s another positive sign.” With the firm nod of a man who believed he knew what he was talking about, Lowell resumed twining lights around the tree. “You’re getting more back every day now that you’re in your home environment. That’s exactly what the doctors told you to expect, right?”

Yeah.” With the frustration building, Sully stalked over to the box of Christmas cookies and opened it to breathe in the scent. Yep, just like he remembered it. “They also told me I might not get everything back. This might be all there is, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

BOOK: Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming
7.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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