A Soldier's Christmas Read online

  "Hold on, kid."

  The boy gestured furiously toward the bridge and launched another passionate appeal. His sister's name came up so often and so desperately he convinced Abby.

  "I'm going across."

  Her terse pronouncement cut through Constantine's urgent pleas and earned her a rapier look from Dan.

  "We're going across," he countered grimly. "Slowly and carefully."

  One look at his face told her it would be a waste of breath to argue. Shrugging, Abby checked to make sure her radio was clipped securely to her shoulder, then stuffed several packs of Meals Ready to Eat and the first aid kit into her pockets. She didn't have any idea what they'd find on the other side of the bridge, but she'd learned to go into every situation as prepared as possible.

  "Wait here," she instructed Father Dominic. "Keep Constantine with you until the major and I make sure the bridge wall will bear our weight."

  Arguing her fewer pounds, Abby insisted on taking the lead. Dan would follow a few paces behind. Close enough to grab her if she slipped on the slick stone. Far enough back that his weight wouldn't combine with hers to overstress the damaged area.

  That was the plan, anyway.

  Her heart in her throat, she walked onto the bridge ramp. She kept the flashlight aimed at the stones. Despite Father Dominic's assurances and the boy's vociferous protests, she found herself searching for the glint of a trip wire or a loose stone that might hide a pressure mine.

  Sweat pooled under her heavy fatigue jacket. The misty fog stung her cheeks and formed tiny icicles on her lashes. Step by cautious step, she approached as close as she dared to the gaping hole in the center of the bridge.

  "Time to take to the wall," she muttered to the man behind her.

  With Dan gripping her hand, Abby climbed onto the stone ledge. It was only about six inches wide. Her fingers locked in Dan's, she leaned over and looked down. Way down. Below the bridge, a thick coat of ice crusted the river close to its banks. Dark water coursed through the narrow center channel. The swift, rushing current looked all too eager to suck her in.

  "Got your balance?"

  As much as Abby wanted to hang on to the lifeline of Dan's hand, she loosed her clawlike grip.

  "Yeah," she answered, in something too close to a squeak for her liking.

  Gulping, she planted one boot in front of the other. Inch by inch, stone by stone, she began a slow, shuffling walk.

  Dan climbed onto the wall behind her and followed her into the swirling mist.

  * * *

  THEY HAD INCHED THEIR WAY PAST THE damaged support column and were more than halfway across when a sharp crack rifled through the night.

  Abby just about jumped out of her boots. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to dive for that skimpy six inches of stone. She dropped into a crouch instead, hunching her shoulders up around her ears.

  "Was that a shot?" she screeched to Dan.

  Before he could reply, another crack spilt the night. A desperate shout from Father Dominic rode the echo of that awful sound.

  "The ice!" the priest yelled. "She breaks!"

  Her pulse pounding, Abby shot a look downward. The sight of a great chunk of ice ripping away from the river's crust sent her heart plunging to her boots. The swift water in the channel picked up the mini-iceberg and sent it straight for the damaged support column.

  Abby didn't have time to calculate the speed or the force of that swift-moving projectile, but she had a good idea of its impact on a structural support already weakened by a mortar strike.

  "It's going to hit the support behind us!" she shouted to Dan. "We have to go forward. Fast!"

  Like a tightrope walker with the rope about to snap under her feet, she threw out both arms for balance and raced for the far bank. Her boot soles skittered and slipped on the icy stone. Her heart banged against her chest. Straining to hear the thud of Dan's boots over her thundering panic, Abby made it to the far side.

  Almost.

  She had less than three yards to go when the slab of ice crashed into the stone column. The weakened support crumpled on impact. Bricks and mortar tumbled into the black, rushing water. Inevitably, the arch supported by the column also began to fall. Like dominoes, the stones quarried and fitted carefully into place more than two thousand years ago splashed into the river.

  Abby felt the wall beneath her boots give way and knew an instant of sheer, unadulterated terror. Then she was sailing through the air, propelled by a hundred and ninety pounds of determined male.

  Dan's flying tackle carried her clear of the causeway and into the frozen riverbank. She hit with a whumph that knocked the breath from her lungs. The flashlight flew out of her hands. The supplies she'd stuffed into her pockets dug into her hips.

  Dan came down on top of her. Shock held Abby immobile for seconds. Minutes. Hours, maybe, while his breath rasped in her ear and his body crushed hers. Finally, she dragged in enough air for a desperate gasp.

  "Dan! I…can't…breathe."

  Grunting, he shifted his weight to one side. Abby gulped in icy air and planted her hands palm-down in the dirt. Her muscles as wobbly as overcooked noodles, she squirmed around until they were chest to chest.

  "You okay?" he growled.

  "Yes."

  Aside from a few bruised ribs and permanently pancaked breasts.

  "How about you?"

  "I'm all in one piece."

  An agonized grinding of stone on stone whipped his head around. Abby lifted hers just enough to see another section of the arch give way. The pieces tumbled into the black waters, splintering the icy crust.

  "Looks like we can't say the same for your bridge," Dan said in the stunned silence that followed.

  "Looks like."

  Silently mourning the loss, Abby flopped back onto the riverbank. Her shock wore off gradually, slowly. As it did, her agile mind clicked into gear and she instinctively started thinking in terms of damage assessment and repair capability.

  If the villagers ever returned, they'd need some way to cross the river. Maybe Abby could convince her headquarters to send in a portable bridging unit with the Second Echelon Red Horse team scheduled to follow hers. The RH-2 would arrive with all kinds of heavy equipment. A bridge transporter didn't weigh as much as a front loader or bulldozer.

  Her head buzzing with thoughts of deployable rafts, ribbon floats and modular bridging sections, it took her a moment to realize she was still partially pinned under one very solid major.

  She brought her head around. Almost chin to chin with Dan, she couldn't miss the crooked tilt to his mouth. Or the glint that came into his eyes when they met hers.

  "What?" she demanded, suddenly ridiculously aware of his hip gouging her pelvis.

  "I can't recall many memorable Christmases in my life, but this is shaping up as one for the record books."

  "I'll certainly remember it," Abby agreed with some feeling.

  To her surprise, he lifted a hand and traced his thumb along her chin. The callused pad raised little shivers over every inch of her skin.

  "Just to make sure…"

  For the second time that night, he swooped in for a kiss. And for the second time in less than five minutes, the air whooshed right out of Abby's lungs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DAN ROLLED TO HIS FEET AND REACHED down to help Abby to hers. She wobbled upright, trying to decide which had shaken her more—almost riding a crumbling bridge into a frigid river or the crush of Dan Maxwell's mouth against hers.

  Given the way her lips still throbbed from his kiss, it was a no-brainer.

  "Captain Trent!"

  Father Dominic's frantic cry barely carried through the soupy fog and the swift rush of the river. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Abby shouted back.

  "I'm here. We're both here."

  "We made it across," Dan bellowed only inches from her ear.

  Wincing, she slipped her radio from its shoulder clip. To the faint echo of Father Dominic's ferv
ent "Thank the Lord!" she keyed the mike.

  "Red Horse base, this is Red Horse One."

  Her communications tech came on a few seconds later, backed by a rousing chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High."

  "This is Red Horse base. Go ahead, One."

  "Be advised Dervish Six and I have, uh, encountered a little difficulty."

  Most of the units supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan had adopted nicknames appropriate to their locations. Dan's Special Ops squadron labeled themselves the "Whirling Dervishes." Hence Dan's call sign, Dervish Six. Appropriate, Abby thought wryly, given the man's propensity for stirring things up.

  "What kind of difficulty?" her communications tech asked.

  "We're stranded on the far side of the river."

  "Come again?"

  "We crossed the river via the old Roman bridge and can't get back."

  "Why not?"

  "You'll see when the fog clears," Abby drawled. "Tell Sergeant Davis he's in charge until I return to the site." She caught Dan's hand signal. "Hang on, Dervish Six wants to talk to you."

  "Contact my unit," he instructed after she passed him the radio. "They'll need to fly in a chopper to extract us when the weather lifts."

  "Roger that, sir."

  Terminating the transmission, Dan turned his back on the river and eyed the dilapidated dwellings perched precariously above its banks. Like the houses and barns on the other side, these, too, bore the scars of war. Shattered windows looked out on the night with dark, empty eyes. Roofs had collapsed, some completely, some partially. Wooden doors hung crookedly on their hinges.

  He scraped a hand over his chin. "Guess we should try to find the kid's sister."

  "That's what we came for," Abby agreed.

  Scooping up the flashlight, Dan aimed it at the ground and made a cautious trek up the cobbled lane. Abby followed, stretching her legs to walk in his exact footsteps. They both kept a wary eye out for trip wires and loose cobbles. Every few yards, she called out in English and the few Turkish phrases she'd picked up. She hoped the sound of a female voice would bring Constantine's sister out of hiding.

  No such luck.

  She and Dan poked through the houses, barns and sheds. They found scattered bits of clothing, crockery still on tables, and moldy vegetables in pierced tin containers—all evidence of the hurried departure of the residents—but no Maria. Thinking the girl might have glimpsed their uniforms and fled, they followed the twisting dirt road running along the riverbank as far as they dared.

  After two hours of searching and shouting, Abby's throat was raw and her toes had turned to Popsicles inside her boots. She didn't argue when Dan suggested a halt to the search until daylight.

  They chose the house nearest the bridge to set up camp. Most of its roof was still intact, but the frigid night poured in through shattered windows. Dan found blankets to drape over the windows. Abby, to her joy, discovered a stack of firewood beside the back door. Arms full, she hauled a load inside. Dan brought in more and piled together some kindling. Within moments, she'd plopped down in a rickety chair and was toasting her booted toes before a roaring blaze.

  "We'd better set up some perimeter defenses before we get too comfortable," Dan warned.

  "Right."

  Sighing, Abby dragged her feet away from the fire. She reminded herself that she wasn't at home in Philadelphia. She was high in the Taurus Mountains, in an area savaged by rebels and government forces alike. The Turkish government had posted spotters at both ends of the pass that cut through the mountains, but there was always the chance the small bands of armed irregulars could slip past them. Best not to take any chances.

  "We need to string some kind of alarm," Dan said when she'd dragged to her feet. "You poke around inside the house. I'll check the shed out back. See if you can find some string or twine."

  He came up empty-handed. So did Abby, until she remembered the packets of Meals Ready to Eat she'd stuffed in pockets of her bulky field jacket.

  "How about dental floss?"

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. "That should work."

  Hauling the MREs from her pocket, Abby dumped them on the table and ripped open a package of fiesta chicken. The vacuum-sealed container of chicken and Spanish rice tumbled out, along with a can of chemical heat to warm it. The package also included a minican of corn, a high-nutrition chocolate milkshake, crackers and a tube of jalapeño cheese spread.

  Abby's eyes lit up. The cheese spread was one of the most popular items among her troops, worth two tubes of peanut butter and three of strawberry jam in trade. She'd make sure she took it back with her—assuming Dan didn't gobble it down for a late-night snack.

  "Aha! Here's what we need."

  She scooped up a small Ziploc bag packed with plastic utensils, Wet Wipes, a folded toothbrush with the toothpaste already injected and a small container of cinnamon-flavored floss.

  Three MREs later, Abby had spread a veritable feast on the table and Dan was in possession of enough floss to rig alarms at strategic points on their perimeter. He and Abby stretched one bit of floss across the road, then popped the tops on two minicans of vegetables. Gulping the contents down cold, they threaded the floss through the pull-tabs. The cans bobbed and clanked merrily when Dan tested them with a boot.

  "Crude, but effective," he announced.

  By the time they'd strung the rest of the floss, Abby's toes were doing the Popsicle thing again. Once back inside the house, she dropped into the rickety chair and stretched her boots to the fire.

  "Aaah."

  "Feet cold?"

  "Cold doesn't begin to describe it. I think I'm dead from the knees down."

  The fire had warmed the room enough for Dan to shrug out of his heavy bomber jacket. Dragging over another chair, he hooked the jacket on the back and settled in.

  "Let's get your boots off. I'll rub some circulation back into you."

  He'd made the offer casually. There wasn't any reason for Abby's pulse to skitter at the thought of his hands on her. Or for her throat to go bone dry when he lifted her left foot into his lap and yanked at the laces.

  The boot hit the floor with a thump. His strong hands took hold of her stockinged foot. Kneading and rubbing, they transferred their heat to the icicles that used to be her toes. When he went to work on her instep, Abby groaned and gave herself up to the pleasure.

  Laughter rumbled in his chest. "Feels good, does it?"

  "Let me put it this way. You've got a second career as a foot masseur waiting for you whenever you decide to leave the air force."

  His rich chuckle filled the room. "That's not going to happen anytime soon."

  She slumped in her chair, trying to ignore the close proximity of her heel to his crotch. "How many more years do you have to go before you can bail?"

  "As many as they'll let me serve," he replied, kneading her arch. "What about you? What are you going to do when you finish your hitch with the reserves?"

  "Go back to Philadelphia, I suppose. The company I work for is holding my position for me."

  "You work for an architectural firm, right?"

  "Not just a firm," she murmured, lost in the magic of his hands. "An institution. Peabody, Prescott and Benton, Incorporated. I think they designed half the state capitals and shopping malls in the Western Hemisphere."

  "Which do you work on? State capitals or shopping malls?"

  "Malls, mostly."

  "Sounds like a waste of your talent."

  The offhand remark took some of the edge from Abby's pleasure. She scooted upright in the chair and eased her foot from his hold. He let it go and reached down for the other.

  "Have you thought about staying in the air force?" he asked, tugging at the bootlaces.

  "Some."

  Make that a lot. She'd been vacillating for months. She loved what she did. Most days she felt part of something important. But the homesickness that hit every military member on remote tours increased exponentially around the holidays.
This past week, Abby had been struggling with the idea of spending more Christmases away from home, of missing her nieces' birthdays, her parents' anniversaries.

  "My boss offered me a promotion and command of an RH-2," she admitted, dragging off her stocking cap to thread her fingers through loose strands of her hair. "That's a second-echelon, heavy equipment Red Horse unit."

  "Yeah, I know. Are you going to take it?"

  "I haven't decided. I'm not sure my civilian firm will hold my job indefinitely."

  "So go regular and make the military a career. You're a natural leader, you know."

  "No," she returned, surprised by her second compliment of the night, "I don't."

  "C'mon. Your troops would walk through fire on their hands for you."

  "Yeah, well, I'd do the same for any one of them."

  The gruff response drew a smile from Dan. Fascinated by the way the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled, Abby let her heel settle onto his thigh. His very hard, very muscular thigh.

  His so-talented fingers massaged her toes and arch, then tugged down her sock cuff. When he went to work on her ankle, his touch generated a series of small electric shocks under her skin.

  "I hear a job isn't all that's waiting for you back in Philadelphia," he said after a moment.

  "Huh?"

  "Rumor is there's a high-priced architect waiting, too."

  A picture of Eric the last time she'd seen him flashed into Abby's mind. Handsome, sophisticated, more than a little annoyed that she'd actually followed through with her decision to join the reserves and was leaving Philadelphia for God knew how long.

  "He said he'd wait," she admitted, "although I told him not to."

  Dan's hands paused. He flicked her a quick glance, his eyes unreadable. He had the most arresting face, Abby thought. All those rugged planes and angles.

  Then he slid his fingers under her pant cuff, and her attention made a startled leap from his face to her leg. Slowly, he kneaded her calf through the silky thermal long johns her mom had insisted would keep her warmer than the government-issued version. Abby stood the erotic massage as long as she could without giving in to the insane urge to strip off every bit of her clothing and give Dan access to parts north of his present location.