A Soldier Comes Home. Cindi Myers

across the strip of snow-covered grass between the two houses, cold wind nipping at her ankles and tugging at her coat. She stepped carefully up the icy walk, juggling the wine bottle and the plate of food, and knocked on the front door.

      She waited, the cold burning her cheeks, then knocked again, harder this time. In a few seconds, she heard heavy footsteps and the sound of a lock being turned. Then the porch light came on, and the door opened.

      Her first impression of him was of strength and height—muscles straining the shoulders of his dress uniform, his head bent to look at her. He had dark hair cut close at the sides, and dark eyes that fixed on her. “Yes?” he asked, his voice gruff.

      She cleared her throat, trying to find her voice. “I—I saw the light and…and wanted to welcome you home.” The words sounded stilted to her ears. Would he think she was merely nosy?

      He continued to stare at her, looking her up and down as if she were an escaped lunatic. Or a ghost. She could feel his gaze on her, burning her.

      She held up the bottle of wine. “I thought you might like something to eat, or drink.”

      He stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in.”

      She hesitated, then decided she’d look even more foolish standing on the porch in the cold. She stepped over the threshold and he shut the door behind her. “Let me take those,” he said, relieving her of her burdens.

      “I’m Christine Evans,” she said. “I live next door.” She followed him into the kitchen and watched as he found two glasses and a corkscrew.

      “Ray Hughes,” he said.

      “It’s good to meet you.” She’d seen a picture of him once before, one Tammy had carried in her wallet. The picture had not done him justice. It hadn’t given a true idea of the way he filled a room with his presence.

      He handed her a glass of wine. “Why don’t you take off your coat,” he said.

      “It’s a little chilly in here.” The house was like ice.

      “Sorry. I hadn’t noticed.” He walked into the other room. She followed and saw him turn up the thermostat. The heat kicked on, with the burnt-dust smell of a furnace that hadn’t been used in weeks.

      There was no furniture in the room except a coffee table and a recliner. Chrissie stared at the chair, frowning. Tammy must have taken the other furniture when she left. Why? Hadn’t she realized how cruel she was being?

      But no, Tammy was not one to think of the impact of her actions.

      Ray sipped the wine and studied her. “How long have you lived next door?” he asked.

      “Three years,” she said. Since six months after Matt had died.

      “Then you must have known my wife.”

      “Yes, I knew Tammy.” She sipped the wine and avoided looking at him. Yet she couldn’t keep her gaze averted long. There was something so compelling about his face, something that drew her to study the firm line of his jaw and the jut of his nose.

      At the mention of Tammy’s name, his face took on a closed-off look. “Did you say your name was Christine? So people call you Chrissie?”

      “Some people.” She hugged one arm across her chest. Tammy had called her that.

      “You were Tammy’s friend,” he said.

      She nodded. She had tried to be Tammy’s friend, but her brand of friendship was not what the young woman had wanted.

      He drained the wineglass, then rolled the stem back and forth in his fingers. “She wrote me about you.”

      “She did?” The words—and the chill in his voice—startled her. “What did she say?”

      “She said the two of you went out together. That you were single and a lot of fun.” His voice was clipped, louder than it had been.

      “We went out a couple of times.” Despite the heater, the air in the house was colder than ever. Chrissie forced herself to stand still, to not act afraid.

      Ray glared at her, a white line of muscle standing out along his jaw. “Instead of staying home with our son the way she should have, she was out running around with you. You probably introduced her to the guy she ran off with.”

      “No. I had nothing to do with that.” She shook her head.

      He hurled the glass against the wall. It shattered. She jumped, her heart racing, and set her own glass on the counter. Her hands were shaking so badly, she had to clench them into fists to keep them still.

      “Get out,” he said. “I don’t need you screwing up my life any more than you already have.”

      She opened her mouth to argue, to explain she had nothing to do with Tammy’s defection. But one look in his eyes told her he was in no mood to listen. She pulled her coat more tightly around her and walked past him to the door.

      Once outside, she broke into a run. Only when she was safely in her own house, the door locked and bolted behind her, did she realize tears were streaming down her cheeks.

      She walked to the sink and filled a glass with water, then took a long drink, waiting for her pounding heart to slow. She tried to tell herself Ray’s outburst didn’t mean anything. Of course he was upset; he needed someone to blame and she was handy.

      But his words still stung. She’d wanted this man, more than any she’d met in a long time, to like her. She’d felt the pull of attraction to him the moment he opened the door and stood, towering over her yet still vulnerable. The feeling had scared her, but she’d been determined not to run from it. Not this time. After three years, she was ready to move past the hurt. To allow herself to fall in love again. The idea was as thrilling as it was frightening.

      And for a few minutes there, she’d held out hope that Ray Hughes would be the one. The man who would help her move past the fear and hurt into something wonderful.

      A man who hated her now, before he even knew her. On the scale of things, most would say it was a minor loss, but it hurt all the same. She looked out the kitchen window, toward his now darkened house. Was he sitting there in the dark, brooding? Did he regret anything he’d said?

      Was there any way for the two of them to reach across the misconceptions and try again?

       CHAPTER TWO

      RAY TOOK A LONG SWIG of coffee and stared out the windshield of the rental car, fighting the fatigue that dragged at him. He was still on Baghdad time, where it was 2:00 a.m. At 4:00 p.m. in Lincoln, southwest of Omaha, the sun sat low in a gunmetal sky. He had the heater in the car turned up full blast but he could still feel the cold radiating through the windshield glass.

      He’d rented the car this morning at the Colorado Springs airport and set out for Omaha. While he’d waited for his turn at the counter, he’d thumbed through the phone book and found a furniture store and asked them to deliver a sofa, a television and a king-size bed.

      “Don’t you want to come down and pick something out?” the woman on the phone had asked, incredulous.

      “No. I want a brown leather sofa, a big-screen TV, and I don’t care what the bed looks like as long as the mattress is good and not too soft.” He’d given them his credit card information, told them where to find the house key, and they’d promised to deliver everything that afternoon.

      Later, he’d find a car lot and buy a new truck. The fact that before shipping out he had paid off the one Tammy had stolen galled him. He’d been looking forward to having no vehicle payments.

      That didn’t matter now. What mattered was that he was going to get his son, and he’d bring him home to a house that didn’t look like thieves had swept through it.

      He gripped the steering wheel at