Read If You Believe in Me Online
Authors: Natalie J. Damschroder
Tags: #Afghanistan, #army, #surprise reunion, #small town, #special forces, #Romance, #soldier, #Ramstein, #wounded warrior, #Military, #holiday, #christmas, #Santa Claus
“What?” Kale pulled back, his turn to be shocked. “What do you mean, I’m alive?”
They spent ten minutes in rapid conversation, Kale in disbelief. He’d had no idea the government had told his family he was missing. That had to be an error, but holy hell, how long had they been left like that?
His parents had decided he was dead. Thank God they were on a cruise. His surprise reappearance could have given them literal heart attacks. He hated the thought of abandoning his goal when he was so damned close to success, but maybe it would be smart.
Danny shook his head at him. “Why didn’t you just walk into the rec center?”
Kale snorted. “Because I’m an asshole.” He confessed his grand, romantic plan, aware his concerns were revealed in his voice.
Danny said, “She never gave up, man. She’s never stopped loving you. Never stopped believing you’d be back. Go for it.” And he slapped Kale hard on the right shoulder, sending a shockwave down his side. Kale doubled over, still so taken aback by everything he’d just learned that he couldn’t hide his gasp of pain.
Danny came up with the speaker idea, and Kale practiced making his ho ho hos sound like his friend’s. He changed into the Santa costume and dragged the bag of presents out after him, unable to lift it so much as an inch off the ground.
The whole time he’d sat here, Amber had never looked at him. A couple of times she’d acted oddly, looking around or holding very still, and Kale thought she might be on to him. But then she went on with her job. Déjà vu. That short skirt flipping around her legs, the way she bent over to get the presents—she used to do it on purpose. Kale realized Danny had watched her last year and fought off a surge of jealousy that had him squeezing the baby on his lap until it giggled as if he were tickling it.
But Kale’s worries from the plane returned, and he got stuck in his fears. They were even stronger now that he knew she had no clue why he hadn’t been in touch with her for so long. He sat there, listening to lisping kids rattle off their wish lists, handing them presents, staring into the flash on the camera.
Sweating. Aching. And for the first time in his life, being a coward.
Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer. Every possible response had played itself out in his head, and he was close to vomiting with the weight of his inertia. The next kid was crying and pushing back against his mother, so Kale took advantage of the moment.
“Amber.”
She froze halfway across the red half-circle rug. Slowly turned away from the crying child and the helpless elf trying to tug him toward Santa. Amber’s eyes were huge, her mouth open a little. Kale didn’t want to move, knew changing positions would make his wound scream, but he had to do this right. He levered himself rigidly off the chair and onto the floor, his left knee down. He couldn’t help leaning on the right knee to take the pressure off his side, blowing out a breath of annoyance.
Amber stayed where she was, standing tall and strong and in what appeared to be complete immobility, while the room slowly went quiet around them. Kale ignored the murmured “Danny!”s and nervous throat-clearings. He slowly got his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out the ring he’d schlepped halfway across the world. Then he pulled off the Santa hat and beard. The gasp that went up made him smile, but he never took his eyes off Amber.
Fingers trembled as he tipped open the box. Amber’s eyes filled with…fury. In three strides she was in front of him. He looked up, his heart in his throat.
And then she punched him in the face.
Chapter Six
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Dazed, Kale held himself off the floor with one hand while Amber clutched him and peppered his jaw with apologetic kisses. It was kind of funny that she thought she’d hurt him. The jaw tap wouldn’t even leave a bruise, but the impact had been enough to make him twist, and the movement shot agony through his torso.
“It’s okay.” He’d gotten his breath back, along with a surge of relief at Amber’s secondary reaction. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and straightened. Her next kiss landed on his mouth and he took immediate advantage, cupping the back of her head to hold her in place while he drugged himself with her scent. She smelled so sweet, felt so soft, tasted so amazing. He was home.
Home
.
Thunderous applause and cheering penetrated his awareness and he slowly ended the kiss but kept her close. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “But I think I’m going to pass out.”
Amber shouted for help, and Danny and some other guy hurried over to get Kale off the floor. Amber led them outside and down the hall to an office with a sofa, and Kale let them lower him to it, as much as he wanted to stay on his feet.
“I look like a fuckin’ pussy,” he muttered.
“No,” Danny corrected. “You look like a conquering hero. He’s hurt,” he told Amber. “You should get someone to look at him.”
“Thanks.” She dismissed the guys and turned her attention immediately to Kale’s jacket, undoing it and pushing it open to examine his side. In moments, they were alone.
“This so isn’t how I imagined it,” Kale said. He watched her anxious eyes as she lifted his shirt and peeked under the bandage. Her hat was askew, barely held to her silky hair by some kind of pins. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” She smoothed the tape back over his ribs. “I think it’s okay. It’s oozing a little. Danny’s right, you should see someone. But you won’t die if it’s not today.”
Kale didn’t miss the clipped tone or the roughness when she said “die.” He caught her hand and pulled her off the floor to sit next to him. He had to keep her close, touching. It was so surreal to be here. The white-painted cinderblock room, with its battered, cheap metal desk and ripped-and-taped couch, wasn’t unlike some field offices he’d been in. But Amber was here, tucked against him, her hands roaming up and down his torso and brushing across his face as if she, too, thought she was dreaming.
Thank God he hadn’t lost her. Thank God she was still his.
“What happened to you?” she asked softly. Her hand landed on his injury, but instead of hurting, it soothed.
“I can’t tell you.” He pressed his mouth to the top of her head. “Bad guys. We won.”
She didn’t seem pleased but didn’t push, either. Kale didn’t fool himself that that was the end of it. She’d ask again, or about other things. She’d want to know what had filled his life while he was away from her, and he couldn’t tell her much. They’d argue.
But not today.
“God, I’ve missed you.” He couldn’t hold himself back. He nudged her chin up to kiss her again. Her mouth opened immediately, letting him in, and he swept inside, reveling in her taste, her slick heat. He hardened, need pounding through his blood, and before he knew it he had her on her back on the sofa, her lush breast filling his hand.
She ripped her mouth away from his with a gasp. “Kale, we can’t.” But her fingers tightened in his hair and she widened her knees to cradle him. “There are kids out there. No lock on the door. They can—”
He cursed and levered himself off her. He didn’t care about any of that, but he didn’t want her to think he’d become an animal. Even if he felt like one.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “It’s been…a very long time.”
“I would hope so.”
He winced and gave her another apologetic look. She shifted to her knees and ran her hand through his hair again. He closed his eyes to enjoy the stroking. He never wanted it to stop. With luck, it never had to.
Wait. His eyes popped open. “Where’s the ring?”
Amber’s mouth dropped open in horror. “Oh my God. You dropped it when I slugged you.”
Kale jumped up. “Shit. All those kids out there, someone probably pocketed it. Or stepped on it. We—” He stopped. Amber knelt on the threadbare cushion, holding the ring up at him with two fingers. “You had it all along. You little tease!”
She ignored that. “Kale Riker, you bastard. You have a lot to make up for. Will you marry me next week and get started on that, please?”
“Fuck, yeah!” He hauled her carefully into his arms and kissed her breathless again, this time making sure her hand, with the ring, was wrapped inside his so it didn’t go anywhere.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Kale held her long enough to slip the ring on. It was loose, but Amber closed her fist to hold it in place. “Come in!” they called together.
A swarm of people flooded the office and dragged them back outside so the town could welcome Kale home. He tried to resist, but Amber nudged him into their arms, her eyes full of promise that she’d be there when he was done.
…
It was hours before they could break away and go home. Amber knew as soon as they walked into her little house that living in it would never work. It wasn’t just Kale’s size, though he seemed to fill the room and leave none for her. His force of personality had grown enormous and now took up as much space as his body did.
Amber set aside her concerns long enough to welcome him home properly, grateful that she’d stuffed the king-sized bed into her modest master bedroom because a smaller bed would have made things…well, not impossible, but definitely less magical. Kale insisted he was cleared for sex. Amber didn’t believe him, but the first time took them both to the moon so quickly he didn’t have time to do any further damage.
The second time took longer, but was gentler, too, and she wept when they came together, wrapped tightly around each other, expressing their love in every possible way.
Afterward, they went down to the kitchen, where Amber scrounged for enough food to cook a healthy meal while Kale tried to call his parents.
“Voice mail.” He hung up her old-fashioned wall phone and reached around her to pick a carrot off the cutting board. “I don’t want to leave a message. They’ve been through enough.” He bent to kiss her and then grinned. “I can’t believe I’m here. Holding you.”
Amber twisted so he cradled her against his chest and kept chopping. He was so warm and solid. All the years without him seemed to shrink to minutes. “As soon as your parents are home, we need to do our Christmas dinner. It helped us through while you were gone, you know.”
Kale’s arm snugged around her waist, and he rocked them a little, not saying anything. She could practically feel the guilt radiating off of him. He was probably thinking of all the special events he’d missed.
The past was the past, and it didn’t matter right now. Amber didn’t want to spoil his homecoming with it. But she couldn’t avoid the gigantic, looming question hanging over their heads any longer. “What about your commitment?” She turned to face him and toyed with his dog tags, unsure why such a simple strand of metal made a man so masculine. She wanted to hate them, what they represented, but she couldn’t. “To the military?”
“I’m done,” he said unequivocally, locking his hands at the small of her back.
“Really?” She didn’t think it was going to be that easy. “When?”
His eyes shifted, and she sighed.
“Be straight with me.”
“I’m not actually… Shit.” He banged his head lightly against the cupboard behind him. “My assignments are classified. I can’t give you the details you need. But I am done, Amber.” He bent toward her, squeezing her hand around his tags. “My contract is terminated. I promise you.”
“No more separations?”
Another eye shift, but he didn’t try to evade this time. “I don’t know. I’ve developed business plans for a consulting group, but if I follow through, it would mean traveling. I thought maybe, with your degree, you’d want to work with me. We could do it together.” His eyes tracked around the kitchen, to the walls she’d filled with photos of her friends and the groups and committees she was involved with. “I don’t want to take you away from what you have here, though. We’ll have to—”
But Amber was so excited she couldn’t stand still. She didn’t need all that anymore. She could take her life off hold. “I love it. I don’t need to stay in Hempfield. It would take a little time to break away, but of course I want to work with you.”
He laughed. “Wait until you hear what the job is before you agree to it. I learned that lesson the hard way.” He sobered. “I won’t lie, it’s not going to be easy. There are gonna be a ton of adjustments for both of us, and I’ve known guys, families, who couldn’t do it.”
“I know,” she assured him. “The Internet is a great research tool. I’m not blind to what we’re going to have to get through. But Kale…” She laid her hand on his chest and drew a breath that shuddered from the pleasure of having him here. Alive. Within reach. Everything else would follow, even if they had to wrestle it into place. “I believe in you. In us. If you believe in me…”
If he says he does…
He kissed her hand, where she’d used string to hold the ring on until she could get it sized. “I do. I promise you, I will never give up. The way you never gave up on me.”
…
we’ll live happily ever after.
About the Author
Natalie J. Damschroder writes high-stakes romantic adventure, sometimes with a paranormal bent. Since 2000, she’s published 10 novels, 7 novellas, and 14 short stories, many of them exploring magical abilities, but all with a romantic core. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her perfect partner of a husband and two daughters who are so amazing, they’ve been dubbed “anti-teenagers.” Learn more about her at her website,
www.nataliedamschroder.com
, follow her on Twitter @NJDamschroder, or like her Facebook page at /NJDamschroder.