All I Want For Christmas Is You by Jessica Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

you to deal with on your own.”
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
Chapter Six
     
     
     
    I t was almost noon when he woke up.
    His heart slammed against his ribs, his blood pounded in his ears as the panic receded, leaving him in a cold sweat.
    The nightmare slipped through his fingers, leaving nothing but the echo of fear and terror. He frowned, tracing his thoughts, trying to remember what he’d been dreaming about and finding nothing but empty grey trails that led to dead ends.
    He didn’t have nightmares often. He couldn’t say what triggered them.
    But waking up in a strange bed in a strange room that felt a hell of a lot colder than it had when he’d crashed earlier was a way to do it.
    He picked up his phone, about to call Sam when he saw her text:
    Big storm coming in. Not going Christmas shopping.
    From two hours ago.
    Damn, he must have been tired. He never slept during the day. At least not for more than a few minutes at his desk before he got up and started slogging through the caseload yet again.
    He dropped his booted feet to the floor and cradled his head in his hands. He had the start of a massive headache. That always happened when he pulled twenty-four hour duty, too.
    Except he’d slept on the plane up. He shouldn’t be this tired.
    He palmed the phone and tapped out a message on the touch screen. What are you doing for dinner?
    He supposed he could drive back out to Nancy’s house. Not give Sam the chance to avoid him. Maybe if he hadn’t given her space in the first place, they wouldn’t be in this situation.
    He snorted. Yeah, he should have gone all eight–hundred-pound gorilla on her. Because women totally thought cavemen were sexy.
    He shook his head. He’d backed off when she’d clearly needed him to.
    He remembered feeling off-kilter the first time he’d come home from war. But that was three tours ago. Now, he was used to it—and those strange feelings were nothing but a distant memory.
    Still. He’d thought giving her space had been the right thing to do.
    What the hell was he doing? He hadn’t flown all the way to Maine to sit in a rented room with his daughter and the woman he still loved a few miles away.
    “Now, that’s a good use of airline miles,” he muttered.
    He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the tiny shower. He wasn’t sure it was actually big enough for a hobbit, but he managed to get everything reasonably clean before damn near busting his ass on the bare floor.
    Clearly, someone was new at the bed and breakfast thing because there was one hand towel and a tiny bath towel. He supposed it could be worse. He could be drying off with a washcloth.
    He scrubbed his hands over his face then dug through his overnight bag for clothes.
    And discovered that he had nothing to wear. Literally.
    He sighed heavily. “And this is what packing while drunk gets you.”
    “Do you always talk to yourself?”
    The door to his room eased open, and he spun around. Sam stood in the doorway, arms folded over her chest. Her chestnut hair was pinned to the top of her head, her cheeks flushed.
    But it was her eyes that he noticed. In the deep blue eyes, he saw a spark of life that he hadn’t seen in…since before she deployed. The emptiness was still there, the darkness still filling them.
    It was a spark. A small one.
    But it was there.
    He dragged the tiny towel over his hips. “Doesn’t this place have locks?”
    She shrugged. “Why are you naked?”
    “Isn’t that a question normally reserved for Natalie?”
    Sam’s eyes sparkled. “You’re the one standing there in a towel.”
    He ran his tongue over his teeth. “So I didn’t really pack the right clothes for the trip.”
    Her lips almost twitched. “Did you forget underwear, too?”
    A flush crawled up his neck. “Maybe.”
    “Were you drunk when you packed?”
    The flush got a little hotter. “Maybe.”
    She shook her head slowly. “So what do you have?”
    He laid everything out on the bed. “A grand