Have Yourself a Marine Christmas (Always a Marine) by Heather Long Read Free Book Online

promise.”
     
    ***
     
    Noel gave him a week. Time to pick out some personalized items for his apartment, settle in to his new living arrangements, and to adjust to his new routine. According to Lieutenant Essex, Rebel was the worst Christmas prankster of his unit. His mother said much the same thing. She’d sent down two full boxes of hoax gifts and decorations, but Noel hadn’t delivered them.
    Rebel’s anti-holiday stance had only gotten worse. She’d arrived early one morning for a planned coffee to find him ripping a Christmas wreath off his door. He’d put the crossed flags into place, but the ribbon and ornament bedecked pine ended up stuffed in a black trash sack that he walked out to a dumpster. Remaining out of sight, she studied the emptiness in his expression as he returned to his apartment.
    When he failed to even mention the event, she knew it was time to take the bull by the horns. Because something was wrong….
    Very wrong.
    Late afternoon and only two weeks from Christmas, she staged her intervention, choosing a different route to walk to his apartment. Temperatures had plummeted from balmy fifty-five degrees at midday. The icy air burning her nostrils suggested that the sunset would bring even chillier weather.
    “Where are we going?” He ran his fingers through his lengthening hair.
    “Hmm, just a walk.” She dug her hands into her pockets and wished she’d brought gloves.
    “To where?” Rebel’s pace slowed, but more because he studied their route than from any obvious physical distress. The alterations to the sockets on his prosthetics had been worth the effort. Despite a normal amount of expected fatigue following a workout, he was more comfortable, and it showed.
    “Around.” She kept right on walking even when he stopped. Apprehension threatened to turn her knees to jelly, but he followed after a couple of steps and she let out a relieved breath.
    “What’s up, Noel?” The words were husky and demanding in the quiet. He was alone with her but, being a Friday, most people probably headed to dinner or the mall, or out with friends—most, but not all. Still more worked their regimens, received their treatments, and focused on recovery.
    “Debating how to approach a topic with you.” Sometimes it was better to lead with the truth. She’d wrestled with it all week long, but after the incident with the wreath—a decoration similar to so many others cropping up on the apartment doors, along with tinsel and twinkle lights—she couldn’t keep putting it off.
    “Ask.” He bumped her arm lightly, almost playful. The nervous flutter in her belly picked up speed.
    “You’re right, I should simply ask. But asking might light a match and I guess I’m wary of the explosion.”
    “Well, when you put it that way, you should still just ask me.”
    She could almost hear the verbal eye roll in his words, and she didn’t fight the smile curving her lips. “Okay.” Pausing, she turned to face him. “Why don’t you like Christmas anymore?”
    Rebel sobered—withdrew. All traces of playfulness vanished, his expression barren of anything friendly. “Is that really what you wanted to ask me?”
    “Yes.” She shivered and not from the wind. “Everyone told me how much you love this season, how much you played, and all the jokes you used to do. Did you really put a singing Tweety Bird in your drill sergeant’s room during basic?”
    “It was a long time ago.” He turned away and resumed walking, and she had to hurry to keep up with him.
    “One year, you set up an elaborate tree, presents, everything—and you nailed it all to the ceiling.” No reaction. Nothing. “What about all the personal letters from Santa you sent to the kids of the men in your unit—and to the guys in your unit about their kids? You went out of your way to do something really special.”
    Rebel shrugged. “What about it?”
    “How do you go from that kind of love for Christmas to hating the sound of the