Homefront Holiday. Jillian Hart

shoulders and stared hard at a hairline crack in the concrete. “It’s good of you to let me see him, Sarah.”

      “Please don’t feel that way. I know you are a tremendous part of Ali’s life, and you should be. He’s alive because of you. He’s here because of you. You saved him. Can’t you see how grateful I am to you?”

      Grateful, huh? He never would have guessed it from the look on her face and the shadows in her eyes. Then again, Sarah Alpert had proven to him that he never had really known her. So it ought to come as no surprise not to be able to guess what was going on with her now. “Ali, you and me are hitting the pizza joint on Sunday. Deal?”

      “Deal!” Ali’s grin was back. “Pepperoni is my favorite.”

      “You don’t think I know that?” Holding on to his emotions, Mike ruffled the boy’s dark hair and winked. “Come tomorrow, you won’t forget about me and leave church without me, right?”

      “Nope. I cross my heart.” Ali made a big cross with his free hand.

      The lump in Mike’s throat felt the size of a boulder and he turned away before it could get any bigger. He strode off to his truck, calling his goodbye to the boy over his shoulder.

      Driving away from that little kid was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. And Sarah, oh, Sarah. He was hurting more than he could measure and a whole lot more than he would ever admit. He climbed in behind the wheel and backed the truck out into the street.

      Ali was waving wildly. Man, it had been great to see the little kid. Mike put the truck in gear and put his heart on neutral. There was Sarah with her furry cat cradled in her arms, looking sadder than he’d ever seen her.

      Too bad he was past feeling. He would do what he always did so well—brokenhearted or not—he would carry on. He concentrated on the road until the red and blue blink of the lights had faded from his rearview.

      “Sarah? Know what?”

      “What?” Laughing, she climbed from her knees and pulled back his covers.

      “Dr. Mike’s gonna teach me basketball.”

      “Yes, I heard that somewhere before.”

      “Oh, from me!” Laughing, Ali dove onto his bed and snuggled in, warm in his flannel jammies.

      “Yes, from you, silly.” Her heart swelled. She loved being a foster mom. She prayed that the adoption would work out. She smoothed the covers and tucked the sheet into place. “There. All snug?”

      “Yeah.” Ali pulled his Texas bear onto the pillow next to him.

      Dr. Mike. Would praises for the man ever end? Probably not. Sarah brushed Ali’s dark bangs from his eyes. The twice-weekly phone calls had hardly fazed her, but now that Mike was back in town—She squeezed her eyes briefly shut. Although it might be hard for her, Mike was important to her boy. She would simply have to deal with it. Somehow.

      She turned off the little bedside lamp. She prayed that no nightmares would haunt him tonight. “Sleep well, little one.”

      “I’m too happy to sleep.”

      “Then you just lie quietly and think about all the good things that happened today.” That usually did the trick. Sarah followed the fall of light to the shadowed hallway.

      “There were sure a lot.” Ali sighed, sounding content. In the dark shadows of his cozy room, she saw him give his bear an extra squeeze.

      Sweet boy.

      “You’re gonna stay close, right, Sarah?”

      “Right. I’ll be just out in the living room. Very close.”

      “Good.”

      She waited until his breathing slowed before she eased down the hall and into the light of the living room. Clean laundry tumbled out of the basket she had left on one of the couches. A stack of papers were on the coffee table, awaiting gold stars and smiley faces. She had so much to do, and where were her thoughts?

      On Mike. His eyes had looked almost haunted. He had felt so emotionally remote—more than usual. Something had changed him. Something happened in the desert. Her stomach twisted up so tight she could barely breathe. She sank onto the couch cushion. He might not have a drop of affection left for her, but she could not pretend.

      She cared. She would always care about Mike. He had been more than her fiancé. More than the man she wanted to build her dreams with. He had been her best friend. Her confidant. Her soul mate. She could not pretend that seeing him tonight hadn’t shattered her.

      Love was a powerful blessing. She pulled two of Ali’s tube socks from the basket and rolled them neatly. She had fallen in love so easily with Mike at first sight. He had been playing Frisbee on the tree-shaded common between their college dormitories with his buddies. The dappled sunlight had found him like grace as he leaped into the air, all powerful man and determination. He snatched the blue disc out of the air and he may as well have been grabbing hold of her heart.

      With the breeze in his dark blond hair and laughter in his hazel eyes, she had been rendered speechless. Her library books had slipped out of her hand. He had come to help her and the moment he smiled at her, the world felt right.

      Nothing had been right without him. She had to admit that. It was why she had decided to become a foster mom. First with Carlos, who had gone back to his biological mother five months before Ali had come into her life. Maybe part of her decision to foster had been a deep need to fill the emptiness that Mike had left. It was as if her soul knew that no matter how happy her future may be, something would always be missing. Mike would be missing. She would never be completely whole without him.

      It was time to face that. She pulled a T-shirt from the basket—an olive-green army shirt that Mike had given Ali—and folded it carefully. Seeing the past and feeling the broken pieces of her dreams with him was not good for her. He had chosen the army over her. He had wanted to be everyone else’s hero but hers. That wound would never stop hurting.

      After all this time, her feelings for him were just as strong, if a bit different. She pulled a towel from the laundry and gave it a shake. Clarence wandered in from the kitchen and gave her a rusty purr.

      Her life had gone one way. Mike’s had gone another. It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t what she had meant when she had asked him not to extend his tour of duty. She would pray on it tonight and she would trust that the Lord would show her the way.

      He hefted the last box from the back of his truck onto his shoulder and hoofed it up the walk. The post was a family neighborhood. The windows up and down the street were squares of light against the pressing darkness, and the colorful glow of Christmas lights blazed joyfully. Only his windows were dark. He was the only house without a single Christmas decoration.

      He kept his heart cool and his thoughts on the task at hand. If he wasn’t so good at self-control, he would be thinking about Ali right now and remembering the fun they had putting up those strings of red and blue lights. If he wasn’t a man who prided himself on his unyielding self-discipline, he might be remembering how sad Sarah had looked when he drove away.

      He shouldered the door open and stacked the box on top of the others. There. The stack was neat and tidy and relatively out of the way. He gave the door a slight boot, sending it gently closed. The faint light from the kitchen fell through the pass-through into the entry hall, casting just enough to see the empty rooms.

      His furniture would come first thing Monday morning. For now, he was content enough just to have a real roof over his head and a place to call his own. After sharing a tent with half a dozen other doctors, this modest little home seemed a luxury.

      The adoption papers he had carefully filled out were on the counter. He didn’t look at them as he picked them up and ripped them carefully in half. Just like that, his hopes were gone.

      Alone, he crossed to the refrigerator, refusing to listen to the hollow sound of his boots echoing