Merry Christmas, Baby(24)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

Her mother’s lips didn’t move but Teddy clearly heard her speak. “Teddy, don’t be afraid to love. Your life doesn’t have to echo mine if you love. And, darling, my life wasn’t a bad one. I had you girls, and I wouldn’t trade my time with you and Marcia for any career.”

In her dream Teddy could see the surprise on her own face. “You know I read your journals?”

Her mother smiled and continued to speak without actually speaking. “Of course I know, darling. Give him a chance. Give the two of you a chance. Falling in love doesn’t mean you can’t have a career, too.”

Before Teddy could speak again she awoke and her mother vanished as quickly as she’d appeared. Teddy lay in bed, her heart pounding—not from fear but from the exhilaration of seeing her mother, even if it was in a dream. If it had been a dream. Teddy wasn’t all too sure her mother hadn’t actually appeared before her.

And suddenly the fear she’d felt when Jared told her he loved her disappeared. All her anxiety over her feelings for him dissipated. She realized with a start that things felt so right with Jared she’d been scared, she’d been on standby, waiting for something to go wrong. And it was still a possibility, but she no longer considered it a probability.

Teddy slipped out of bed and padded across the room, opening her door. The couch was empty. Entering the room, she found Jared at the window overlooking town. He had to have heard her but he didn’t turn around. She knew she had hurt him. She approached him and slipped her arms around him from behind. Resting her cheek against his back, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Never apologize for being truthful.”

“Okay. Then I’ll tell you that I…well…I love you, too. I want to give us a chance to see where we go.”

He turned, his face cautious, and she didn’t blame him a bit given her earlier reaction. “You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.” She ran her fingers over his jaw. It was amazing how important he’d become to her in such a short period of time. But hadn’t she sensed she was a goner from the moment he’d landed on his knees in front of her? “But I don’t want you to stay in New York if that’s not where you want to be.” She’d never do that to another person and their relationship would never survive it.

He caught her hand in his and pressed his lips to her fingers. “Nick asked me on the way out here if I was having an early midlife crisis. All I knew was something was missing in my life. And I know now I’ve found what I was missing. You.”

“Oh, Jared.” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to cry or shout for joy, but instead she merely sighed and leaned her head against his chest.

“Teddy…”

“Yeah?”

“You think maybe we could go back to bed now?”

She laughed. Spoken like a true man. Her man.

HE’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Rhonda Nelson

A Uniformly Hot! Holiday Novella

To Vicki and Jen, my novella mates, for making this anthology such a joy to write. Merry Christmas!

1

MAJOR SILAS DAVENPORT knew the instant he pulled into the pebbled driveway of his parents’ beachside retirement cottage that something wasn’t right.

For starters, they weren’t there.

No cars in the driveway, no Christmas lights twinkling from the window, no tacky inflatable Santa Claus on the small landscaped yard. Hell, not even a wreath on the front door. His mother was one of those people who typically had her Christmas shopping done by mid-July, so the idea that they were merely out shopping wasn’t likely. Dinner then? he wondered. Somehow he didn’t think so. There were two newspapers on the front step and the mailbox had been rubber-banded shut, presumably to keep the mail from tumbling out.

His spidey senses started tingling.

He sighed heavily and let himself out of the car, thankful that he recognized the fake rock by the sidewalk that held the hide-a-key. It had been at their old house—the one he’d grown up in—as well.

Well, hell. So much for his surprise, Silas thought, deflated.

He’d just spent the better part of twenty-four hours in transit. The idea of his family’s happy shock when he arrived unexpectedly on their doorstep for Christmas had kept him bolstered. His cheeks puffed as he exhaled mightily.

Instead, he was going to walk into an empty house, no warm greeting or hot meal, no smiling faces, no joyous reunion, no Christmas music playing in the background, no mulled cider warming on the stove.

In retrospect, rather than trying to surprise his family, he probably should have gone ahead and told them that he’d been granted leave. Silas imagined that every soldier in Uncle Sam’s Army had applied for leave over the holidays and he’d been no exception. But actually getting it was rare, so he hadn’t expected he’d have the opportunity to come home. He’d been prepared to spend another miserable Christmas in Iraq, surrounded by men he loved and admired, but who weren’t actually his family.

This was the first time in two years he’d been state-side for the holiday and he’d been looking forward to his mother’s orange rolls and his dad’s homemade wine. To listening to his mother lament his little sister’s newest boyfriend—she was currently backpacking across Europe with him, much to their horror—and catching up on all the family gossip. Who was pregnant? Who was engaged? Who was divorcing? The typical grist running through the family gossip mill. It was those little things that made him feel as though he still belonged with his people, was still a member of the tribe, so to speak.

Silas pulled his duffel bag from the backseat of the rental car, then quickly found the key and let himself into the house. It was quiet, as he’d expected, but a pair of women’s shoes sat by the front door, as though they’d just been toed off, and he caught the faint sound of music and splashing water.

He frowned, intrigued. “Mom?” he called. “Dad?”

Nothing.

Silas set his bag aside, noting the faint scent of oranges and yeast, and started toward what was actually the key selling point to any beachfront property—the back porch. The house’s layout was simple enough. A central set of shotgun rooms—living room, dining room, kitchen—with two master suites on either side of the kitchen, but accessed through short halls off the dining room. Another bedroom, his, was upstairs and had the best view of all. Between the crash of the surf and the scent of his mother’s homemade Danishes rising over the kitchen, it was a little piece of heaven—one that he’d been particularly looking forward to.

For whatever reason, he got the grim premonition that he could forget about the orange rolls and usual holiday treats. The fudge, the breakfast casseroles, the ham. The house was chilly, which meant that whenever his parents had left they hadn’t anticipated being back for a while and had turned the thermostat down. Secondly, things were too tidy, not lived-in and, though he hadn’t seen Cletus—his parents’ most recent rescued cat—yet, fresh food was in the bowl.

Were that not enough to clue him in, he’d identified the sound of splashing water coming from the screened-in front porch—the hot tub, specifically—and the music? Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble,” accompanied, quite badly, by a woman singing along in a terribly off-key voice.

“Trouble…”

Silas grinned. He’d give her points for being heartfelt, even if he could skewer her performance for technical accuracy.

He carefully opened the back door, spied the clothes on the floor—sweater, jeans, red lacy panties and matching bra—and felt his previously low spirits rise accordingly.

So the mystery woman was nak*d. In his parents’ hot tub.

If she was pretty, too, then maybe his Christmas wasn’t going to suck so much after all.

He had a nanosecond to notice curly black hair, a pair of startled cornflower-blue eyes and lush raspberry-red lips…before her mouth opened in a bloodcurdling scream.

DELPHIE MOREAU’S FIRST instinct was to jump out of the hot tub and run for her life, but she was nak*d and evidently—she’d have to truly think about this later—saving face was more important than saving her life. Clearly something was wrong when a woman would rather die than die of embarrassment. She clasped her hands over her bare br**sts and wailed for all she was worth.

Seeming startled, the extraordinarily good-looking potential murderer held up his hands in a peaceful gesture and, instead of attacking her, laughed softly. It was a low, intimate chuckle that made her middle go squishy and warm.

“I’m Silas Davenport,” he said above her screams. “This is my parents’ house.”

Ah, Delphie thought, her eyes rounding, the terror dying swiftly in her throat. She paused to look at him and felt a chagrined blush flash across her cheeks. That explained the military garb and the strong resemblance to Charlie Davenport. This man was a taller, much more muscled version of her retired neighbor. Where Charlie’s black hair had turned white, his son’s was still inky and still very thick. If she hadn’t been so startled she was sure that she would have recognized him from the photos in the living room.

So this was the legendary Silas. In the flesh. And what very nice flesh, indeed. Evidently his mother hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d extolled the physical virtues of her son. Delphie had imagined that every mother thought her son was handsome and—though he’d certainly looked nice in the pictures she’d seen—occasionally photos could lie.