Letters Home
Authors: Rebecca Brooke
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Military, #Contemporary Fiction, #General Fiction
Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Brooke
Cover Design by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design
Editing by Ryn Hughes of Delphi Rose
Interior Design by Kassi Bland Cooper of Kassi’s Kandids Formatting
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
All rights reserved.
To the men and women who put their lives in danger to protect the freedoms that I hold so dear.
Where there is love there is life.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Words.
What are words?
In the most basic of terms, words are a bunch of letters put together…yet words can impact our entire lives. They can make us happy, they can make us sad. They can bring out the best and, unfortunately, the worst in people. Words have an impact like no other.
Sometimes words can help us see things.
Like what should have happened.…
That first moment when you know you’ve met someone special. Someone who could easily hold a place in your heart…
The boxes labeled “bedroom” sat all around me, waiting to be opened, but there was one box in particular I needed to find. It may have seemed trivial, but there was one thing I needed to make this place feel like home. I pulled the knife from my pocket and sliced the tape on the box closest to me, hoping to find what I was looking for. Unfortunately, that box was full of clothes. After opening a few more boxes, I finally found what I’d been searching for. On the top was a photo that had sat on my nightstand since my senior year of high school. It had been taken during prom, and just seeing it reminded me of the day we met…
I’d noticed him the moment he walked into the classroom. When you grow up in a small town it’s hard not to notice a new face, especially when it looked like his. He was tall with dark green eyes and blond hair, and definitely not local. Every girl in the room was watching the new guy as he went up and introduced himself to the teacher. Mr. Krinsky handed him his books and pointed to a seat at the back of the room. Slowly, he walked toward his assigned seat, and as his eyes glanced around the room they locked with mine and the whole world fell away. All I could see was him. In that moment, time seemed to freeze. It was as if there was an invisible string tying us together. A string that I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to be broken.
The clearing of a throat from right behind me made me jump and break the connection. The slight giggle let me know exactly who it was.
Marissa, my best friend since first grade.
Watching as the guy moved to his seat, Marissa leaned up from her seat behind me to whisper in my ear, “Better close your mouth before you catch flies.”
Completely embarrassed that I’d been caught staring, I turned in my seat to look at her. “Thanks,” I muttered.
“Well, he is hot,” she whispered back, while I stole a quick glance over at our new classmate. Since he was bent over, pulling his books out of his bag, it was safe to look. Melissa was so wrong. Hot wasn’t the word to describe him. Sexy as hell was a better description.
When he sat back up, I quickly turned around in my seat and, thankfully, Mr. Krinsky started class, giving me a reason to focus on the front of the room. Not that it mattered. My brain was still hopelessly focused on the new boy in the back.
What just happened?
The minute our eyes locked, I knew there was something different about him. It was an instantaneous attraction, not that love at first sight crap—because let’s be honest, that stuff is only true in fairy tales—but I couldn’t deny the connection.
Yet even after the way I’d reacted to him, I was desperately hoping to escape the room as quickly as I could when class was over, and pray that I wouldn’t see him again until the next day, giving me time to get myself together. Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t realized the bell had rung until Marissa tapped me on the shoulder.
“Come on, I can’t be late for gym again. Coach Steelman already hates me.”
As anxious as she’d sounded, being late for class had been the least of my worries. A quick glance over my shoulder and I realized he’d already left the room. Taking my first deep breath in what felt like hours, I quickly packed up my stuff, and even though a part of me was a little sad that I’d missed him leave, the rest of me was jumping for joy.
“Relax. We’re not going to be late—unless you plan on stopping every few feet to avoid going to gym like you normally do?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I just know a lot of people.”
“Uh huh.”
Again, it was kind of hard
not
to know everyone when you lived in a small town like ours.
“So the new guy,” Marissa said, bumping me with her shoulder as we made our way to the gym.
“Leave it alone, Marissa”
“What? I saw the way you were looking at him.”
There was no doubt in my mind that everyone in the room had seen the way I was looking at him, including him. I felt like such an idiot.
“He’s gorgeous, but the way I was staring at him he probably thinks I’m some kind of lunatic.”
“Are you kidding me? Did you fail to notice the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you either.”
“Hi,” a deep baritone said from behind us. A voice I didn’t know, but knew all the same.
With my stomach starting to flutter, I turned and there he was, leaning against the wall next to the classroom door. Oh God, how much of our conversation had he heard? My face flushed three shades upward of pink and right there, standing in front of him, taking in every inch of his muscular frame, I was rendered speechless. Thankfully, Marissa realized my predicament and covered for me.
“Hi, I’m Marissa. And you are?”
“Nate Lewis.”
He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to introduce myself. But my tongue still wouldn’t work. Marissa looked at me out of the corner of her eye and smirked. “And my mute friend here is Danielle.”