Authors: Lindsay McKenna

One Man's War (26 page)

“C-can we be afraid,” Tess choked out, “together, Pete?”

A shudder worked through Pete, and he held her so tightly he was afraid he might crush her to death. “For the rest of our lives, Tess. I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife. Hell, you're my best friend already.” He kissed her repeatedly, kissing away the tears from her eyes and her warm, welcoming lips. “Marry me,” he pleaded huskily. “Marry me now. Today. This morning. I don't want to spend another night without you in my arms, Tess. I need you, honey. I need you so damn badly I can taste it....”

EPILOGUE

P
ete jerked awake, bathed in sweat. The darkness was complete. He wanted to scream, but he fought the clawing, desperate need. For one split second he felt that terrible alonenessâuntil he felt Tess stir at his side. Relief swept through him.

He eased back on the double bed and breathed raggedly, his heart slamming against his ribs.
Tess. Tess is here, beside me. Oh, God, I'm safe. Safe.

“...Pete?”

Tess's sleepy voice sheared through his panic, and the nightmare that lingered behind his tightly shut eyes began to recede. He felt her move, and then sit up in bed. The cool dryness of her hand skimming his sweaty chest took away some of the fear holding him captive.

“It's okay,” he heard himself gasp. “I'm okay now....”

“I know, I know,” Tess soothed and leaned across him to turn on a small lamp on the nightstand. Pale, soft light flooded their bedroom. The clock on the stand read 3:00 a.m. Pete always got his nightmares around this time. Tess gathered him into her arms and pressed herself along his length. He slept naked, and the silk of her nightgown absorbed the excess perspiration created by the terror he'd experienced in the throes of his nightmare.

“Come here,” she urged softly, and she got him to turn onto his side and lean against her. He groaned and buried his face in her shoulder and thick red hair.

“Damn,” he rasped, “I'm sorry, Tess. What a lousy way to spend a honeymoon.”

She smiled gently and began to stroke his taut shoulders and tense back. Just touching Pete helped ease the anxiety he lived with twenty-four hours a day. “I'm not sorry for anything, darling. Just lie here and let me hold you....”

The combination of light from the nightstand and Tess's touch eased the worst of the fear inhabiting Pete's gut and head. After a few minutes, he heaved a long, unsteady sigh. He inhaled Tess's sweet scent, inhaling life instead of smelling the stench of death that accompanied his nightmares. The strong silk of her hair was a cloudlike cushion for him to bury his face in, reminding him of her gentle, quiet strength. Most of all, her low, contralto voice flowed across his screaming nerves, releasing the rest of the nightmare from within him.

“I thoughtâ” he whispered, “I thought three weeks back in the States would make them go away. Instead, they're worse.”

Tess smiled softly. “Darling, when I started therapy with Sandy, my nightmares came boiling through me with a regularity that defied description. I thought they'd never stop. Sandy assured me it was naturalâthat when we tap directly into whatever we fear the most, those things quickly surface because we're consciously stirring them up.” Leaning down, Tess pressed a kiss against Pete's damp hair and tenderly stroked the side of his face. “You trust me enough to allow your fears to surface,” she whispered, “and what a wonderful thing that says about us.”

“Hell of a team, aren't we?” Pete joked weakly. “A hell of a situation.”

Tess nodded. She kissed his cheek and rested her head against his. “We're lucky, darling. There are so many men coming home to wives or families who don't understand. We've both been through it, and we've gotten help, so we're doing better than most of them.”

Pete eased his hold on his wife and propped himself up on one elbow. He guided Tess onto her back so that he could absorb her lovely natural beauty. It was the serenity in Tess's eyes that gave him such stability, and the love shining in their depths for him alone. “I wouldn't want to go through this kind of decompression with anyone but you, honey.”

She smiled tenderly and responded as he caressed the side of her breast beneath the silk of her gown. The nightmare was receding in Pete's eyes, replaced with banked coals of desire. “You're stuck with me,” she whispered.

“Glutton for punishment, aren't you?” Pete teased as he leaned down, sought and found her willing mouth. The way Tess trembled as his lips parted hers sent a fire through his body. Pete had never been happier or more frightened than he had been in the past three weeks. Loving Tess with the newfound fierceness of his open heart had brought him to the heights of heaven. And just as savagely, the nightmares had plunged him into the darkest depths of a living hell each night.

Smiling beneath his questing mouth, Tess gloried in Pete's weight as he covered her. She never ceased to marvel at his fierce, rising passion for her. Time melted beneath his fiery assault, and a part of her understood that Pete needed to bury himself within her not only to escape, but to heal, too. Loving someone was quintessential, a multilayered veil of reasons, needs, passion and desires compressed together in one heated moment. A softened moan rose up through her as he found the straps of her gown. The silk fell away beneath his exquisite assault, and she turned, pressing herself against him.

Her breath coming in ragged gasps, Tess hungrily found his mouth again, wildly exploring him, feeling his strength, his need and longing. As his hand caressed her breast, she tensed, wanting him just as badly as he wanted her. The moment his lips settled on the taut peak of her breast, a little cry issued from her throat. She threw back her head and drowned in the fire created by their contact. Darkness ceased to exist and lights exploded beneath Tess's closed lids as his hand sought and found the juncture of her thighs. As his knee settled between them, Tess shivered with anticipation, his hands reverently gliding across her until he captured her hips and brought her forward.

A cry of pleasure mingled with a ripple of heat as she met and felt him sink deep into her welcoming body. The rocking rhythm reminded her of a primal dance that created heat, fire and scalding pleasure in every nerve ending in her body. She heard him growl, his hands tightening, gripping her by the shoulders, and she arched upward, drawing him as deeply as possible into herself. As they strained together, a powerful explosion rocked through Tess. She clung to Pete, her face pressed against his corded neck, and she felt the steel-cable tension within him snap.

With a groan, Pete relaxed and felt Tess's arms grow tight around his body. He held her against him, breathing raggedly, feeling the darkness turn into blinding, beautiful sunlight as the tidal wave of pleasure spread like soothing balm through him. Whatever fear and anguish had been left from the nightmare was burned up in the heat and desire of their love for each other. As Pete lay there for long moments afterward, sweat running in rivulets down his temple and along his jawline, he quivered. The beauty of Tess, of her loving heart and giving body had once again healed the wounds he still carried within him. Maybe the wounds were psychic, not physical, but it didn't matter.

As Pete weakly raised his head and pressed a kiss to her pouty, glistening lips, he whispered, “I love you, woman.”

His words caressed Tess as she lay languidly in his embrace. “I know you do,” she whispered raggedly, and lifted her hand to touch Pete's cheek, his beard prickly beneath her fingertips.

Pete reached over and turned out the light, plunging the room back into darkness except for the streetlight outside the hotel. Both of them had wanted to honeymoon in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Even in the tiny mountain town of Vail, streetlights reminded them of civilization. Picking up the sheet, Pete pulled it across them, then brought Tess back into his arms.

With a sigh, Tess snuggled against him. She was content to be held, kissed and touched. “I don't want this week to end,” she murmured, resting her hand against his damp chest.

“Me neither.”

She opened her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the darkness. “Your orders are for El Toro?” It was a Marine Corps air base near Los Angeles, California.

“Yes.”

“I just worry they'll send you back to Vietnam if this war keeps escalating.”

Pete snorted and kissed her hair. “No one's taking me away from you. I don't want to go back over to that mess.”

Relief flowed through Tess. “How much time do you have left on your six-year obligation?”

“One year.”

She licked her lips. “Will you sign back over?”

Pete heard the tremor in her voice. “If I do, I'll be sent back to Nam.”

Fear jagged through Tess. “What will you do?”

“Find a job as a civilian chopper jockey.”

Tess whispered, “Thank God....”

Pete propped himself up on his elbow. Tess's face was drawn with concern; real fear was mirrored in her eyes. “Honey, once is enough for you
and
me.” He brushed several errant strands of hair off her wrinkled brow. “I've got an idea. A real off-the-wall idea, but I think it might work.”

“What's that?”

“I was thinking of putting a sales pitch together for some of these big hospitals in the metropolitan areaâtrying to talk them into contracting me and a helicopter that I'll get a loan to buy once I get out of the corps. I can fly to the scenes of accidents and take the victims back for surgery. I got the idea in Nam with the guys who fly the medevac choppers. Time saves lives, Tess. I saw it happen so often.”

Hope thrummed through Tess. Although Pete was proud to be a marine, she didn't want him to sign over again. Even though she would lovingly support whatever decision he made.

“That sounds wonderful!”

He shrugged. “I'm not sure, Tess. Maybe it's just a crazy idea.” And then he grinned, some of his old cockiness resurfacing. “I gotta have some kind of job to support us. The way we're making love almost every night is gonna guarantee a baby in no time at all.” He leaned down and pressed a warm, tender kiss to her lips. Smiling, he whispered, “Besides, you're going to make one hell of a great mother. I've just got that feeling.”

Giggling as he captured her in his arms, Tess felt herself being rolled on top of him. Her hair flowed like a crimson waterfall across his chest as she opened her eyes and drowned in his happy gaze. “We've got each other, that's all that counts. And if a baby comes along, I wouldn't mind that, either.”

“Gib and Dany can hardly wait until their baby is born.” Pete slid his fingers through her hair in a gentle motion and grew sober. “I want that same kind of happiness for us, Tess. I know we can have it.”

“We'll have to work for it just as we do now, Pete.”

“I know that.”

“We believe in each other. That's what really counts.”

Whispering her name, Pete drew Tess down to kiss her long and hard. “From now on the only place I'm running is to your arms, honey. No more shadows on our lives. We've got a lot of wartime things to work through....”

“We'll do themâtogether,” Tess whispered, resting her lips against his. “One day, one hour, at a time.”

As Pete captured Tess and lost himself in the splendor of her welcoming kiss, he knew their internal wounds, their memory of Vietnam, would wane but never completely die. As he brought her to his side to make love to her once again, he prayed that their children would never have to experience war as they had. What had brought them out of it, what was helping to heal them, was their love for each otherâforever.

* * * * *

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