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  “I thought you said you couldn’t cook?” Kit said from across me at the kitchen table. “This is delicious.”

  It actually wasn’t bad, and I was proud of myself. I had baked the chicken breasts that Kit found in the freezer, and served it along with broccoli and potato salad. Though I had to ask Kit for help in the kitchen, I did most of the work on my own.

  I could feel him watching me the whole time, as if what I was doing was nothing short of astounding. Okay, I might have exaggerated my skill, a bit, but it was nice that he was impressed by me.

  Kit was not much of a talker, but I was happy for us to eat with only the fury of the wind howling outside.

  Finally, Kit pushed his plate away, and sighed with satisfaction. “That was really good. I don’t remember the last time I was this stuffed.”

  I grinned happily. “Good! I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  I finished my last bite and pushed my plate away, too.

  “I’ll wash up,” he said, getting up.

  “I’ll help.”

  I brought the plates to the sink. He washed and I dried in companionable silence. We worked well together. It was domesticated and cozy. When the last spoon had been dried, and put away, I turned towards him. “Want me to read some more? We’re almost done with the book.”

  “No, why don’t we have coffee in the living room? It’ll be more comfortable, and you can curl up on the couch with a blanket.”

  I followed him into the living room where the howl of the wind against the windows was more pronounced. I curled up on one side of the couch as Kit knelt at the fireplace and stoked the flames. When he was done he walked across the room and returned with a thick, soft blanket. He pressed it into my hands.

  “I’ll go make the coffee. You bundle up,” he said. “The house doesn’t have much in the way of insulation, so it gets pretty damn cold even with the fire.”

  I sat listening to the fire crackle and the wolves moving around outside on the porch. It sounded as though there were dozens of them out there, gathering close to each other for warmth. They were hunkering down, much like we were, to ride out the storm.

  Kit came in with the coffee, his footsteps muted. I curled my hands around the hot mug and took a sip. It was done just right with two sugars. He settled himself into the armchair opposite me and we drank our coffee together. The warmth of the fire had relaxed him, making him more talkative. He told me about his mother and how he hadn’t been home for close to a decade.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t be the hero she wants me to be.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

  He made a soft sound of regret. “She was so proud when I enlisted. She told all the neighbors and put up a flag outside the house. She thought I’d be going home decorated with medals. It didn’t happen that way. PTSD is not a medal she can boast about in her garden club.”

  “I think you’re wrong. I think your mother loves you no matter what and wants you back.”

  “You don’t know my mother, then. At least, if I don’t go back she can still pretend to her friends that I’m some sort of hero. No one but her will know about her misfortune of having the kind of son I have turned out to be.”

  “I think she is so lucky. You are still alive. So what if you didn’t win any medals?” I cried passionately. “I would give anything to have my father and brother back. I wouldn’t care if they wore medals, or were suffering from PTSD. I just want them back. No matter what.”

  Kit’s voice was quiet. “What happened to them?”

  That old ping of pain was back, right in the center of my chest. I pulled the blanket closer around me, feeling suddenly cold, despite the roaring fire. “My father was killed by an IED in Afghanistan.” My voice sounded husky. “And my brother was shot in Iraq. At first they thought he would make it. They even flew him back, but he died in the hospital.”

  Kit drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “In a way, losing my brother was even harder. My Ma and I went from terror to hope and then to complete loss. He was so young. It was not right. Nobody should die that young.” A shiver went through me. “He had so many dreams. For a long time, I hated the Military and I couldn’t even bear to be in the same room as a soldier.”

  I stopped and blinked back the tears.

  “And now?” he asked, his voice filled with some unknown emotion.

  “Now I’ve come to terms with it a little. I know Pa and Brad made that choice willingly. They were proud to serve their country. Just like they made their choice, I’ve made my decision too. I will never ever become involved with someone in the military.”

  He made a strange sound in his throat.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind if he had been in the military. I just can’t do active military duty,” I added, and felt my neck and cheeks becoming hot. I hoped I wasn’t being too obvious that as far as I was concerned he wasn’t on my NEVER EVER list.

  I rushed on with more words. “It’s just that being married to a soldier takes a certain strength that I do not possess. I would spend my whole life terrified of losing him. I know what my mother went through. Losing her men broke her. After that she was never the same. Even when she was diagnosed with cancer she wasn’t interested in healing herself. She went for one round of chemo then she just gave up. Before she died she apologized to me. She said she knew she was being a terrible mother to me, but she just couldn’t go on anymore. So you see the army took my whole family away from me.”

  There was a long silence before Kit spoke again.

  “Have you got no other family?” he asked.

  “My grandparents from my mother’s side are still alive. They moved to Florida when I was a small child, but we’re not close. They just send me a present for Christmas, usually books.”

  “I respect your decision, but just to play devil’s advocate. Not having someone you love in the army is not a guarantee that you won’t lose him. You could lose him in any way. A car crash. A plane goes down. Even a slip and fall at home that happens at just the wrong angle. That’s what happened to my grandfather.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Kit.”

  Kit cleared his throat. “I was just a baby. I didn’t know him. He tripped on something in the barn and hit his head hard on the corner of the old plow. And that was it …”

  I nodded. “I know my view doesn’t seem logical to you, but hurt is not logical. My view isn’t logical at all, but to my heart, it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  There was a long moment of silence.

  “You must understand. You lost that woman friend you were so impressed with.”

  “Yeah, I understand. Sometimes things happen that make no sense at all.” His voice was suddenly low and sad. He shuffled his feet. The couch moved a bit as he shifted around to his side. Outside, the wind dropped to a low moan. A branch scratched incessantly at the window. Inside, it was warm, safe, and intimate.

  “What was her name?” I asked.

  Twenty-three

  Lara

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqIxCtEveG8

  “Valerie. Valerie Pearlman.”

  “Tell me about her,” I asked softly.

  “There are a lot of guys who claim they’re cool with women in the military, but when it comes down to brass tacks, they really aren’t. They can’t help feeling that somehow they’re going to have to cover or compensate for her. After all, there’s no escaping from the fact that women are physically weaker than men.”

  Kit snorted. “Well, they never met Valerie Pearlman. Damn if that woman didn’t run circles around all of us. She was tougher than tough. She showed every one of us! Whatever biases I might have had vanished after my first tour with her. She was, well, she was just something else. I don’t know whether it was because she was the bravest person I ever met or the most foolish, by the end of the tour she had become my strongest ally.”

  “What happ
ened to her?”

  “Valerie was killed by an insurgent during a mission in Mosul,” he said quietly.

  I sucked in my breath. Another life snatched away too soon.

  “Three of my buddies were killed that day, but Valerie … she was the only one who chose to die.”

  I heard him sigh.

  “We should never have been there. We were sent out because of wrong intel. There was nothing in the building. I knew it was a trap even before we stepped out into that compound, but there was no other way out. We were already halfway across when the grenade fucking landed right in the middle of our group. We started to scatter, but my boot got caught on something sticking out of the ground. I went down. Valerie turned around, looked at me and …” Kit took a long breath. “She threw herself on the grenade.”

  “Oh, my God!” I whispered.

  “It was so simple, Lara. I tripped. That was all. A piece of something on the road, maybe just a tree root, and I fell. Because of that Valerie died.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Somebody once said life is a series of accidents so is death.”

  “Oh, Kit, I am so sorry,” I said quietly.

  The past became alive in that room. I could tell he was barely holding himself in control. I wasn’t helping him much, because tears were running down my cheeks.

  Kit stood up and paced around the room. “Wow, we got into some heavy shit here, huh?”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “Can I see you?”

  Kit paused in his pacing.

  I held out my hands. “Can I … can I feel your face? I have always wondered what you look like.”

  “Why now?”

  “I’d like to see the face of the man I will be spending the night with.”

  For a long moment he stood frozen, then he spoke, “Valerie saved my life by taking the brunt of the blast, but not all of it. I have horrible scars, Lara.” He sounded wary and distant, as if he expected me to shrink away from wanting to feel his face.

  “Don’t we all? Yours are just more visible than most,” I said quietly.

  “You sound like a shrink.”

  I didn’t say anything and dropped my head, embarrassed that I had asked him for something so personal. I had never done something so bold before.

  Then I heard his footsteps come towards me. Quiet, but determined. He knelt on the floor in front of the couch. “I’ll let you see my scars if you let me see your eyes.”

  I took my glasses off and held them in my lap.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your eyes. Why do you hide them?” His voice was warm and deep.

  “My father bought them for me. I think he was afraid someone would say something hurtful about my eyes.”

  “Hurtful?” He sounded surprised. “They are different,” he paused. “But they’re not unattractive. They’re you and so they are as beautiful as milky blue marbles. When you are with me, I would prefer if you did not wear your glasses again.”

  I nodded speechlessly. No one had ever told me my eyes were beautiful. Not even Ma, and I know, no one loved me more than she did.

  His hands were warm as they closed over my fingers. Slowly, he lifted my hands to his face, to his forehead. The skin on his face was even warmer than his hands, as if he was flushed with heat.

  Gently, I ran my fingertips over his hot skin. His forehead was broad. Straight, silky hair fell over it. His eyebrows were thick and lush His nose was strong and high. It may have been broken once. His eyelashes were surprisingly stubby and craggy. His cheeks were raspy with shadow. In contrast, his lips were surprisingly soft and full, especially the bottom lip, and his scars: I found them on the left side of his face. From the outer corner of his eye right down to his chin. They were smooth and raised, etchings of pain and suffering. I found myself fascinated by them as I lightly traced them with one finger.

  At first Kit flinched as I touched them, but I cupped his face in my hands. “The scars suit you. A man living by himself at the edge of a mountain should have such a face,” I said. “It’s like your story is written on your face in a language only you can understand.”

  There was a long moment of silence as he contemplated that.

  “You make them sound almost beautiful.”

  “They are not beautiful. You are.”

  Under my hands, his jaw clenched. Then his hands came up to rest on mine. “Thank you, but that’s not true. I am a scarred and unattractive man. I make little children stare,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No. You’re wrong.”

  Something feral and primitive began to throb between us and I don’t know what possessed me, but I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.

  Kit drew in a sharp breath and jerked back. In that split second, I realized I might have misjudged the emotion between us. Perhaps I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Heat rushed into my face as I opened my mouth to apologize, but the air around me moved, and Kit’s lips swooped down on mine. He wrapped his big hands around my shoulders and pulled me in.

  He was so careful at first, so hesitant, as if he was afraid he could break me. The stubble on his face pressed against my chin, reminding me of just how virile he was. I suddenly wanted to touch all of him, not just his face. I slid my hand down his chest and that’s all it took for him to lose the tight control he was exercising.

  His tongue swept into my mouth ruthlessly, demanding and eager, stealing my breath away. His hands slid up to my hair. He wrapped his fingers into it and pulled gently, then harder, tipping my head back for better access to kiss me just how he wanted. The more eager he became, the more I gave it right back to him, until we were both on the couch, lying against each other, kissing so deeply that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

  Kit ground against me once, then twice. I felt his shaft, hard and hot through our clothes. Then I heard his breath catch in his chest. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it all through my body, especially right there in my center, right where I was melting from the inside out.

  Suddenly he pulled himself away from me.

  His absence left me cold, both literally and figuratively. I sat up and reached for him but he gently caught my arms and lowered them to my lap.

  “We can’t,” he said harshly.

  “Why?” I asked, my voice unrecognizable with confusion and lust.

  “You’ll just have to take my word for it that I can’t,” he muttered.

  I heard the steely control in his voice. Then he rose and strode away, his footsteps loud and fast, as if he was running away from me. He stopped at the door.

  “I’ll go and make your bed.”

  Then he was gone. I heard him take the stairs two or three at a time while I sat there, dumbfounded.

  What the hell just happened?

  Twenty-four

  Kit

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7XwK2ytJFQ

  I still couldn’t believe it.

  One minute we were just talking, and the next minute she was touching my face, then in the blink of an eye, we were kissing so hard it was like we were devouring each other.

  Hell, I almost lost my head.

  I was so wild for her I had to force myself to walk away before I threw her down on the floor, ripped her clothes off, and did all the things that I had been dreaming of doing since the first day I saw her.

  Even though my balls ached for her sweet pussy, I was glad I walked away. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but for once in my brutal life I did the right thing. I saw a delicate little flower and did not crush it under my boot. I was no good for her. She was a sweet, innocent little thing and as surely I was sitting alone in my sleeping bag, I would end up hurting her. Breaking her innocent heart.

  I stared into the fire and watched the glowing embers. I was not used to sleeping next to so much heat, but I wanted to keep the house warm for her. I had an image of her asleep in my bed. Immediately, the desire to go up to her pulsate
d in my loins. I had to stop thinking of her. The blizzard had stopped about an hour ago. Maybe I should go out and spend some time with the wolves. The cold will be good to cool down my heated blood.

  I took a few deep breaths. In. Out. Just breathe.

  Right when I thought I had things under control I heard a sound on the stairs. I stood up and froze. It was her. She was coming down the stairs. Another couple of creaks and she was standing at the doorway. She was so fucking still; she was like a statue.

  My eyes roamed her body greedily. She was so beautiful framed by the velvet darkness behind her. Her honey colored hair was loose down her back and it shone like burnished gold in the firelight. In the flickering light her face was that of an angel. Her feet were bare. My dick became rock hard. I wanted her with every fiber in my body. Every living cell in my body called out for the taste of her flesh.

  “Tell me why we can’t?” she asked softly.

  I didn’t move or speak, not that I could have, even if I wanted to. She caught the sound of my breathing and walked toward me. She didn’t have her cane, so she moved cautiously, one hand raised in front of her and testing the floor with every step she took. She kept going until her hand collided with my chest. She reached forward, sliding those clever hands up my arms, to my shoulders, until she cupped my face in her fingertips.

  “I just want to know why we can’t,” she insisted.

  I caught her hands in mine and swallowed hard. “I don’t want to do anything that you might regret, or that might end the friendship we have. It’s really good our … friendship, isn’t it?”

  Her soft lips parted in a silent gasp. “Yes, but I want more.”

  “Lara, honey.”

  “I like the way you say my name,” she purred. “It sounds almost exotic. I don’t know how you do that, but you do.”

  I cleared my throat and gently took a step back.

  “Lara …”

  “See? Just like that. You did it again.”

  She was so small I could crush her with my bare hands. “You know … we could ruin everything. And this is so damn good, isn’t it? I haven’t had a friendship like this in a very long time.”