and I intend to keep that promise.”
He shifted his heavy pack from one powerful shoulder to the other, and she couldn’t help appreciating the way the soft fabric of his fatigues hugged every ridge of muscle, from flexing arms down to thick, strong legs. He might be tired and careworn, but oh, God, was he still hot. The most masculine man she’d ever seen in her life.
This is not a good idea.
Being closed up in a car with him as they drove halfway across the country? It could take a whole day to reach their destination, and that was if they were lucky and got ahead of the worst weather. And every minute of the trip, she’d be trapped in a confined space with the one man she’d never been able to forget—the one whose very memory had cost her so much and had made her so drastically alter her plans for her life.
Could she really put herself through it?
“Come on, El. I could use the second pair of eyes, not to mention the company to keep me awake. Coffee might not cut it. I’ve been traveling for almost forty hours.”
“Couldn’t get them to fly you those last three, huh?”
“Don’t I wish. Military transport got me all the way from Kabul. I never imagined a bunch of damned snowflakes would stop me from getting the last eight hundred miles home.”
“Me, neither.”
“So, are you in?”
Another pause, another second to realize she would be making a huge mistake. But then there was one more thing. One more crazy thought whizzing through her head.
Maybe this was, instead, the luckiest moment of her life. It could be the chance she’d been waiting for...the one she’d feared she’d never have again.
The chance to discover if, after all these years, after time and distance and other relationships, she and Rafe Santori really were meant to be together after all.
She’d have to protect her heart from making the same old mistakes. She couldn’t let her guard down right away. For all she knew, he had moved on, had totally forgotten about her. Maybe he’d even changed and was no longer the tender, noble man she’d once loved. War could certainly alter people. So it wouldn’t do to let him get too close, too quickly. She had to keep up some walls, had to be cautious and go slowly. Mostly she had to avoid falling hard and fast and irrevocably in love with the man again.
Until she figured out whether she could trust her feelings for him, her heart was under lock and key. And the future remained as uncertain and elusive as it had since the day they’d said goodbye all those years ago when he’d gone off to war.
But for the first time since that New Year’s Eve three years ago, she began to feel something that resembled hope. Hope for a future she’d been absolutely certain was forever lost to her.
“Okay, Rafe,” she finally said. “I’m in.”
* * *
RAFE WASN’T SURE what he had been thinking to offer Ellie a ride to Chicago. He’d never been a masochist, never enjoyed testing himself with pain the way some of his fellow soldiers did. So why on earth would he inflict emotional torture on himself for a good eighteen hours? Because sitting in this small car—they called it a subcompact, but considering the way it skidded and slid all over the damned highway, it should have been called a sleigh—with her for eight hundred miles was sure to be torturous.
You can’t abandon her in an airport so far from home. Not on Christmas.
Maybe not. But did he really have to suggest she ride with him? The last time he’d seen her, Ellie had been engaged and happy, planning her September wedding with her nice-guy fiancé. Rafe had spent the past three years picturing her at that wedding, dressed in white lace, smiling and joyous. He’d tormented himself with mental images of her and her perfect, nice husband. Had mentally seen her painting their house in the burbs, adding a nursery when she became round and pregnant.
He had kicked himself whenever he let his imagination go down that road. But in the darkest nights, when he was bone tired and missing life in the States so bad he swore he’d go crazy if he had to inhale another mouthful of sand, she was all he thought about.
Conjuring up a vision of Ellie always brought him coolness, quiet, comfort. Which was really funny, considering he’d always been so hot for her. Like, seriously, couldn’t-keep-his-hands-off-her hot for her, when they had first gotten together.
He still was. Of that, there was no doubt. Just sitting in the car with her, hearing her tiny gasps whenever they hit a particularly icy patch of road, or her soft sighs when they found a smooth stretch, was agony. Watching the dashboard lights play across her beautiful face, physically pained him. He wanted her so badly he would be willing to drive the rental into the nearest snow bank if only he could pull her over onto his lap and kiss her until the taste and feel of her mouth were imprinted on every cell of memory he owned.
She was lovelier than ever, if that was even possible. Marriage apparently agreed with her. Gone was the girlish roundness to her face. Those blue-green eyes seemed bigger than before, her lush mouth more mature and so much more alluring. Her body was all curve and slope, begging for a man’s hands and mouth. His hands and mouth.
No. She’s off-limits.
He might have done some things he wasn’t proud of in his life, but he had his own code. And stealing another man’s wife was strictly forbidden.
“It’s going to be a very long night, isn’t it?” she mumbled as he spotted a patch of black ice just a second before it was too late to ease off the gas to avoid fishtailing all over the road. Get your head in the damn game, man.
“Yeah.” He sighed heavily, reaching for the foam coffee cup in the holder next to his seat. The coffee was cold; they’d grabbed it on the way out of the airport. Since then, they’d driven for four hours but hadn’t even made it out of New Jersey. At this rate, the bloody blizzard would be ahead of them by the time they got to Pennsylvania.
“I’d be happy to drive. I don’t imagine you’ve had much snow-driving experience lately.”
“You might be surprised.”
“But you’ve been in Afghanistan, haven’t you?”
“It gets cold as hell in some parts of the country in the winter. And hotter than Satan’s frying pan in the summer.”
She shuddered in distaste. “I can’t wait for you to get out of there for good.”
Finally a subject he could smile about. “It’s done.”
“What?”
“That’s why I’m so anxious to get home to Chicago. My Christmas present is telling the family that I’ve finally rotated out of active duty. My last year in the rangers will be spent training recruits, stateside.”
God knew he’d earned it. His visits home over the past seven years had been few and far between, every rotation out of a hot zone quickly rescinded when violence flared up again. But this time, it was official, signed and sealed. He was to report to Benning after the first of the year. One year in Georgia, then he’d be free to return to his real life.
What his real life was, he had
