Swapping houses for Christmas vacation

Brought a gift she never imagined

While Fort Hood, Texas, isn’t exactly the City of Lights, Major India Woods discovers its hottest attraction—Major Aidan Nord—lives right next door! And they happily enjoy a little no-strings mischief under the mistletoe. Until India discovers Aidan is seeing other women—his adorable twin girls, that is! After a lifetime of globe-trotting, India wonders if this little family could be her biggest adventure.

Despite a no-nonsense background as a West Point graduate, army officer and Fortune 100 sales executive, CARO CARSON has always treasured the happily-ever-after of a good romance novel. As a RITA® Award-winning Mills & Boon author, Caro is delighted to be living her own happily-ever-after with her husband and two chil-dren in Florida, a location that has saved the coaster-loving theme-park fanatic a fortune on plane tickets.

Also by Caro Carson

The Captains’ Vegas Vows

The Lieutenants’ Online Love

How to Train a Cowboy

A Cowboy’s Wish Upon a Star

Her Texas Rescue Doctor

Following Doctor’s Orders

A Texas Rescue Christmas

Not Just a Cowboy

The Maverick’s Holiday Masquerade

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Majors’ Holiday Hideaway

Caro Carson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07833-7

THE MAJORS’ HOLIDAY HIDEAWAY

© 2018 Caroline Phipps

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

This story about a family is dedicated to my family.

Many military families must spend some holidays

apart. I know I’m very lucky to have never spent a

Christmas apart from Richard, Katie and William.

May all your Christmases be bright.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

It began with the note taped to her door.

Or rather, the note was the end.

Major India Woods, US Army, stood in the hallway outside her apartment in Belgium and read the note. Her feet were killing her after a ten-hour day in black, high-heeled pumps, but the note was taped right at eye level, so she read it on the spot.

Her boyfriend, Gerard-Pierre, had very neat handwriting. His words, lovely loops of black ink that formed perfectly parallel lines across the white paper, spelled the end of their relationship.

He just didn’t know it.

He’d written in French, of course, although his English was nearly as good as hers. Ostensibly, he preferred to use French when communicating with her because she’d once said it was her weakest language and he was, therefore, helping her. Considering her English, German, Dutch, Flemish and Danish were better than his, she believed he preferred to use the one language that made him superior—but she’d known that for almost as long as she’d known Gerard-Pierre. It wasn’t the language in which he’d written that signaled the end of their relationship.

They needed to talk tonight, Gerard-Pierre had written. He had to work late, but he’d be home after dinner. This was Europe; after dinner could mean ten or eleven at night. India was an American and an army officer to boot; her workday started as early as six in the morning, something Gerard-Pierre had always considered uncivilized. His schedule as a university teaching assistant might be more sophisticated than hers, but expecting her to wait up for him tonight was a thoughtless way to treat a woman who had to get up before dawn to run three miles with her military unit.

But that wasn’t why she was going to have to bring things to an end, either.

It wasn’t her boyfriend’s insistence upon communicating in French, and it wasn’t the fact that his hours conflicted with hers far too often. It wasn’t the fact that they hadn’t found the time to take any of the weekend excursions around Europe that they’d once planned. Heck, they hadn’t found the time to take an excursion to the bedroom for months.

Months? India frowned, trying to remember the last time they’d had sex. Yep. Months.

Still, India wouldn’t have called off the relationship. Maybe things had cooled down between them, but they got along just fine. At long last, they were going to take one of those excursions and catch a train to Paris over Christmas. If that didn’t revive any passion, India knew she would have let their relationship drift along into the new year, maybe indefinitely—after all, sex wasn’t the be-all and end-all of a relationship—but now...

She jerked the note off the door. Now, she had to take action.

India used her hundred-year-old, oversize brass key to turn the old lock in the door. The moment she was in her apartment, the first action she took was to kick off her pumps. Since her current duty assignment required her to work in an office in NATO headquarters, she wore the army’s service uniform every day, a blue suit with epaulettes on the shoulders and military insignia on the lapels. In a straight skirt that was tailored precisely to midknee, India worked in her dream position, using her linguistic skills while living in a European capital, but sometimes she longed to be stationed back in the States, where nearly every soldier wore the roomy camouflage uniform and comfy combat boots, even in an office setting.

Still wearing her sheer pantyhose, India scrunched her toes into the Turkish carpet she’d lugged from, well, Turkey, which had been her last duty station. She’d worn her blue service uniform daily in the embassy there, as well. She missed combat boots. She missed...

She looked at the French writing on the page and felt something like homesickness. How irrational of her. This apartment, created out of a few rooms in a building that had existed for a hundred years longer than the United States itself had existed, was her home. There was no childhood home back in the States to miss. Her mother was a nomad, a happy nomad who had circumnavigated the globe by sea and rail and camel caravan twice in the eleven years India had been serving in the military. Her mother was on round three, somewhere in Australia at the moment.

It was tomorrow in Australia, around four in the morning. India plunked her messenger bag onto her little high-top table, which served as her dining room and work desk in one corner of the apartment. She took out her cell phone, opened an app that enabled international video chats for free and pinged her best friend in the United States. It was before noon in Fort Hood, Texas. Maybe Helen was on her lunch break.

Captain Helen Pallas answered, all smiles at her desk in the brigade headquarters of the 89th Military Police Brigade. The camouflage collar of her uniform was visible. And, as she waved into the camera, so was the diamond band on her finger.

That vague feeling of missing something turned into a sharp longing, a sudden stab of pain that took away India’s breath. It couldn’t be homesickness, but it couldn’t be jealousy, either—India wasn’t in the market for a husband. She must be feeling envious of that comfy camouflage.

But gosh, Helen sure had looked happy for the past year as a newlywed.

“What’s up, roomie?” Helen asked. They’d been roommates as young lieutenants. India had been a first lieutenant who’d already completed two years of service when Helen had been commissioned as a new second lieutenant. They’d split the rent on a two-bedroom house outside of Fort Bragg for a while, until promotions and assignments had sent them off to different corners of the world. Now India was a major and Helen was a captain, just a couple of years away from being a major herself. They hadn’t been roommates in the past seven years, but the roomie nickname still stuck.

“What time is it in Brussels? After dinner?”

“I wish. Hang on for a second—I’ve got to set the phone down. Enjoy the ceiling.” India put the phone faceup on her table and shrugged out of her suit jacket. Her rows of hard-won medals and badges clinked in a muted, metallic way as she hung the jacket over the back of the bar stool. She picked up the phone. “Okay, I’m back.”

“I love your ceiling. Those beams look like they belong in a medieval castle.”

“This was a medieval stable, I think, before they divided it into apartments.”

“Still cool. There’s nothing like that in Texas. There’s nothing like that on this continent. So, what’s up? You said you wished it was after dinner. Is your man taking you out on a hot date? Do you wish the meal was over and it was time for a little somethin’-somethin’ else?”

Her man. That sounded kind of sexy, to have a man. India pictured someone strong, someone tall, dark and handsome—even devilish. Devoted. Maybe even protective. While she was at it, someone her age, early thirties; maybe an American, for a change. Someone financially independent, with a career. Someone...not Gerard-Pierre.

“No hot date. My, uh, boyfriend—” India winced. She couldn’t bring herself to call him her man, but boyfriend sounded so crushingly juvenile. “My boyfriend wants to have a big talk after dinner tonight.”

“A big talk? Like, the big talk? This is so exciting. You’re finally in love, and I’m finally going to see Europe because I will not miss your wedding. You’d better invite me.”

“Actually, I need to break up with him, ASAP.” India kept her expression pleasantly matter-of-fact during the pause as the phone app sent her words from Belgium up to a satellite in outer space and back down to Texas.

She heard Helen’s voice a second before the video showed her friend wrinkling her nose in disappointment. “Oh, India. What’s wrong with Jerry-Perry?”

“Gerard-Pierre. But close.”

“It sounds better when you say it. I can’t keep up with your exotic European men. But seriously, hasn’t he been your only exotic European man for forever?”

It was India’s turn to wrinkle her nose. “Only a year. Just about as long as you’ve been married. Happy anniversary, by the way.” She knew the satellite would beam her a delayed image of a much happier expression on her friend’s face.

It did. A second later, there Helen was, beaming like a new bride. “Thanks. It’s flown by. We still haven’t gotten a chance to take a honeymoon.”

“But the new house?”

“We just moved in. There’s still some work to be done, but it’s livable. I love it so much. We’ve got acres of land. It’s so quiet, you can hear the babbling brook. The dog is in heaven. Now stop trying to distract me. What did Gerard-Pierre do?”

“He wrote me a note.”

“Uh-huh.”

India held up the note.

Helen leaned into the camera. “You’re going to have to help me out here. Number one, this video isn’t clear enough for me to read it, and number two, I bet it isn’t in English.”

“It’s French.”

“The man’s name is Gerard-Pierre,” Helen said dryly.

“He knows English, though. He just refuses to use it. I bet your man writes you notes in English.”

“Well, yeah, but his name is Tom Cross, and he’s an American. Are you breaking up with Gerard-Pierre because he wrote you a note in French, or is it because he said something awful in French?”

“He wrote...” India scanned the note. “That he wants to talk to me tonight after dinner—that’s after his dinner—because he just found out that his parents and his sister and his nieces are going to be here for Christmas. He says this affects our holiday plans.” India waited as the satellite in space did its thing.

And she waited some more.

Helen tilted her head, and looked like she was waiting, too.

“Is our connection frozen? Did you get that?” India asked.

“No, I only heard that his family is coming for Christmas.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“What is?”

“That’s why we need to break up. I can’t do the family thing.” India tugged at the black tab tie at her throat until the Velcro closure gave with a satisfying little ripping sound. She unbuttoned the top button of her white blouse. “No family. It never goes well.”

Helen shook her head slowly, like she felt sorry for India. “It could go well. His family could love you. You could love them.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

“No family scenes for me. I have to call it off. I’m just better at being alone.”

* * *

Major Aiden Nord stared at the note in his hand. He’d never felt more alone.

He hated being alone.

Once upon a time, he’d been happy enough to be on his own, swaggering his way through the army as a bachelor officer, spending time with women who enjoyed spending their time with him. He vaguely remembered being free to schedule his off-duty hours without worrying about anyone else’s wants or needs, without worrying about whether or not anyone else liked what he’d chosen for dinner, or whether or not he was staying up too late and the volume of his television was keeping them awake.

Whether or not the fairy book had been read more times than the puppy book.

Whether or not the sandwich should be cut into triangles or squares.

Aiden was a family man now. Four years ago, his wife had given birth to their fraternal twin girls, and Aiden hadn’t stopped worrying about other people’s needs since. Two years ago, his wife had died—the unfairness of her shortened life still maddened him, would always madden him—so he shouldered all those worries himself. Were his daughters hungry? Tired? Happy? Scared? It all mattered now, far more than his own wants and needs mattered.

Aiden worried about Poppy being on the small side of the pediatrician’s height-weight chart, although his wife had been petite, and the doctor thought Poppy was simply taking after her. Aiden worried about Olympia, who was turning out to be tall with darker coloring like his, but who would surely stunt her own growth by refusing to eat practically every food in existence. He worried about things he’d never known parents worried about until he’d become one himself. It was constant. It was exhausting.

He loved it.

He loved them, and he loved being with them, but the note in his hand included the address of the vacation beach house where his sister had taken his daughters for the week to visit with his parents. An entire week lay before him without constant negotiations, constant questions, constant little fingers reaching for things they weren’t supposed to touch. An entire week without his children.

In black ink on white paper, his sister had written “Enjoy being a bachelor for a week.”

Not likely. He didn’t remember what it was like to chug milk straight from the carton rather than pouring it into purple sippy cups. He didn’t remember how to swagger through work without keeping an eye on the clock and the day care center’s hours in the back of his mind. He didn’t remember what it was like to take a woman out on a date without checking his watch to make sure he still had time to get the teenage babysitter home before her teenage curfew.

He didn’t want to remember. He wanted his family.

* * *

“Would it really be so awful to meet Gerard-Pierre’s family?”

India unbuttoned another button on her blouse and cleared her throat. “It’s hard enough to tell someone that you no longer want them in your life. It kills me when I’ve met the family. Do you remember the guy I dated in Germany? His oma made me a whole cake to take with us when we left her house. His baby sister drew me a birthday card. It was awful.”

“India, that’s not awful. That’s a loving family.”

“When I broke up with him, I had to reject a sweet grandmother and a cute little girl, too.”

“You had to talk to them? They were there?”

“No, but he reminded me how much the whole family had loved me. I told him his family was wonderful, but that only made the breakup harder for him to understand.”

That wasn’t exactly true. It had made things easier for him to understand. India could still see Adolphus standing there, handsome in his quiet way, hands in his pockets and tears in his eyes. I see, he’d said. My family is wonderful, but I am not wonderful enough to make you want to be part of us. They will be very disappointed in me for losing you.

The guilt had just about killed her. She still thought about it sometimes. Somewhere out there, a little old lady with a Bundt pan and a girl with crayons thought she had rejected them personally. She wasn’t going to add Gerard-Pierre’s probably adorable nieces to her list.

“It’s better when I date a man to keep things just between the two of us.”

“But people have families. That’s life.” Helen leaned a little closer to the screen and lowered her voice. “Tom’s family isn’t easy to deal with, I have to say, but my parents love Tom and he loves them. He says that’s icing on the wedding cake. He gets an extended family along with a bride. You’ve been with Gerard-Pierre for a year. Why not meet his family? If you love someone, you’ll probably love the family that made him who he is.”

Ah, Bernardo. Before Adolphus, there’d been Bernardo. He’d been loud but affectionate, and when she’d met his family, she’d immediately seen why he was the way he was. The Italian language had stormed all around her as his extended family talked over one another, cheered for one another, cooked for one another. They’d been appalled she was an only child, but they’d lovingly demanded that she bring her parents with her on the next visit. Since Italian wasn’t one of her languages, she’d awkwardly and accidentally said she’d become an orphan that year, when what she’d meant was that her mother had left her for her first trip around the world that year. Bernardo had cleared up the misunderstanding, but his family had kept their real concern whether or not a girl who had no family would know how to make a family with their precious son. Bernardo had started worrying, too.

They were right. I wouldn’t know how.

“I enjoy being just two adults who share some time together, you know? Nice and simple. Meeting the family is always the kiss of death. I’d rather not go there with Gerard-Pierre.”

“It’s just sad that you’re breaking up with a man you enjoy sharing time with just because his family is visiting for Christmas.”

“We haven’t shared a lot of time. Not lately. We were going to try to get to Paris for the holidays, but now that his family’s here, I’m guessing that’s off.” She waved the note again. “That’s probably what he wants to talk about after dinner, which could be midnight, by the way. I wish he’d just say he has to cancel Paris. It’s not a big deal.”

In fact, it was a relief. The prospect of reviving their sex life in a hotel near the Eiffel Tower had been a little intimidating. She didn’t know why he’d lost interest, but she’d had a feeling Gerard-Pierre was going to use this trip to list all of her shortcomings as a sexual partner—neatly, and in French.

“Canceling plans for a romantic trip to Paris is no big deal to you? I’d be weeping.”

“It’s only a train ride from here. Maybe an hour and a half. Maybe a hundred bucks. I didn’t really want to go.”

“Honest, roomie?” Helen pointed at her through the screen, wagging her finger in warning. “Are you telling the truth? I don’t have to worry about you being lonely at the holidays?”

“Honest, roomie.” But as India looked at the extra sparkle in her friend’s eyes and that sparkle on her ring finger, that pang of longing for that something sharpened.

* * *

Aiden folded his sister’s note and slipped it into one of the pockets of his camouflage uniform. Two pennies in the pocket jingled together, one from Olympia, one from Poppy. He used to carry a penny from their mother. There would never be another penny from her; it made the other two pennies all the more priceless.

There would never be another penny from any woman. He dated now and then, when there was some event that was clearly for adults only: a rock concert, a wine tasting. But he couldn’t imagine loving another woman enough to turn his little family of three into a family of four. She’d have to be so special, impossibly special, someone he wanted very badly, someone who loved his daughters as much as she loved him.

He stood and shoved in his desk chair, then left his office to head for the battalion headquarters conference room.

He couldn’t imagine it...but if he could, what would that be like?

The pang of longing that hit his heart was sharp.

Unexpected.

There was plenty of love in his life. He’d be a greedy man to want more.

He strode into the conference room, tossed his binder onto his seat near the head of the table, then headed for the window. He had four minutes to get his mind back on work before the battalion commander arrived and expected him to conduct the meeting.

The view was boring: square army buildings on flat Texas land. The grass had turned brown for the winter, but there was no snow. They never got more than flurries in Central Texas. It was just as well; there was nothing to remind him how close to Christmas they were.

The reason his sister had been able to take his daughters for a week of fun was that her employer had given her the time off for the Christmas holiday. The reason Aiden had watched them leave for the airport without him was because he was an officer in the army; he didn’t get to decide when he got time off with his family.

That came with the job. In his twelve years of service, he’d missed family holidays before, twice while deployed to combat theaters. But today, it chafed. The reason he had to be parted from his family wasn’t something critical, like combat overseas. It wasn’t an essential task, like security or law enforcement here on post. There was no natural disaster to respond to, no citizens who needed immediate help.

Instead, Aiden was looking at a week without his girls because of a training exercise. A pretend deployment. That was what the army did when they weren’t at war: they pretended they were at war.

Bad attitude, Nord. Check yourself.

They rehearsed their wartime missions.

Better.

But the week before Christmas was just about the worst time to schedule a monster-sized training exercise that could have been scheduled for any other week of the year.

That’s not a bad attitude. That’s a fact.

It wasn’t his call to make. The schedule had been set by someone much higher up. He would stand at this window and get his head in the game because today’s meeting mattered. It was their last opportunity to fine-tune their plans before the simulation began tomorrow at dawn.

Those plans were Aiden’s responsibility. He was the battalion operations officer, known as the S-3. The S-3 wrote the orders. The S-3 designed the training that kept the entire battalion in readiness for future missions, and the purpose of this week’s exercise was to test that training.

The battalion consisted of four military police companies here at Fort Hood, including the 584th MP Company, where Aiden had first served as a young lieutenant. Back then, he’d led a platoon of thirty soldiers. Now, twelve years and six other posts later, he was once more at Fort Hood, serving as the operations officer for roughly six hundred soldiers.

Out of six hundred soldiers, the order of command responsibility went from the battalion commander to the executive officer to him, the operations officer. The CO to the XO to the S-3. Put bluntly, if the commander and the executive officer were to die, Aiden took over command of the battalion. That had never happened, never come close to happening in real life, but during these training exercises? Yeah. They’d pretend to kill off the CO or the XO at some point, and Aiden would take over the battalion.

In other words, he had to be here.

His children did not. It was better for them to go have fun with his sister than it would be for them to stay in the house with a sitter, wondering why Daddy didn’t come home for ninety-six hours straight. He’d done the right thing by letting his sister take them away.

Aiden looked out the window at the dead grass and jingled the two pennies in his pocket.

Chapter Two

“Okay.”

“Okay?” India asked, just to be sure Helen meant it.

“I agree you should break up with Gérard-Depardieu-Pepé-Le-Pew, but not because he wants you to meet his family. It’s because you can live without going to Paris with him. That is proof that he is not a man with whom you will ever be madly in love. You might as well end it now.”

“Thank you very much for your approval.”

“It’s what you called me for, isn’t it?”

India was startled into silence. Maybe it was.

“I should go,” Helen said. “We’re starting a monster-sized training exercise tomorrow. I won’t see daylight for a while. Show me the view before I hang up. Pretty please. Make me jealous.”

This was the traditional way they ended their calls. Helen was crazy for all things European. Ironically, her friend was also one of the few soldiers whom the army had never stationed in Germany—not yet, at least—so she used India to get a little peek at Europe now and then.

India held her phone up as she walked toward her window, a rectangle cut out of stone walls that were almost two feet thick. The square beyond was a mix of old and new, eighteenth-century spires soaring into the sky with the flashing green cross of a modern pharmacy sign below. It was a great view. If India squinted to block out the modern traffic that rolled over the old grey stones, she could imagine herself living in a past century, looking out this same window.

Undoubtedly, other women had looked out this same window in past centuries. Other women would do so for a century after India left, too. She was just a brief visitor, one who would leave nothing behind. Buildings lasted. People disappeared. She was just passing through.

India stood by the two-foot-deep stone casing and felt small.

“Bye now,” Helen said. “Fun talking to you.”

“Wait. I just—I just—” India’s heart was beating a little too fast. She felt so insubstantial. Insignificant. But everyone was just passing through, weren’t they? Everyone looked out their window and felt a little...untethered.

Not her friend. Helen was part of something.

“I want to see your view for a change.”

“Mine? A boring army base in Central Texas? It’s just brown in December.” But Helen obligingly turned her phone so that India could see out of Helen’s second-story, modern office window. The view of brown grass and miles of flat land was anything but boring to India. Soldiers in camouflage and absurdly comfortable-looking combat boots were walking on the sidewalk below. A civilian pickup truck drove by on the smooth asphalt road. Then another pickup truck. Another. Texans sure drove a lot of pickup trucks.

India felt herself beginning to smile. She’d forgotten just how big American trucks were compared to European vehicles. She hadn’t been home—or rather, back to her native country—in four years.

Helen turned her phone back around. “It’s pretty sad compared to a medieval town square, isn’t it? I swear, India, I’m going to show up on your doorstep with Tom one of these days and surprise you.”

“I’d love it, but I don’t know where you’d sleep. My place isn’t even big enough for two people.” Not that Gerard-Pierre had let that stop him from moving more than a few of his things here. He kept clothes here, toiletries. Books. A laptop. He liked to work at her high-top table and enjoy her view of the old city square. He liked her television. Since her job meant she always needed to go to sleep before he did, he’d stay out on the couch and watch shows. More often than not, he’d fall asleep on her couch. In the mornings, she had to tiptoe out of her own apartment with her pumps in her hand, so she wouldn’t wake the man who found her apartment more convenient than his own.

She looked at the note again. It had been written on her notepaper. It had been taped to the door with her tape. The tape dispenser had been left on her high-top.

Her man was a mooch.

“Actually, if you wanted to visit, you and your husband could take the bedroom. It won’t hold a queen-size bed, but I do have a full in there. I could sleep on the couch.”

Because Gerard-Pierre will no longer be sleeping on it.

“I couldn’t put you out like that.”

“Three would be a crowd for a honeymoon, wouldn’t it? But the offer stands.”

“It’s sweet of you, but we won’t put you out anytime soon. To actually take a honeymoon, we’d have to be done with the contractors in the house, and we’d have to find someone to watch the dog for a couple of weeks, and—hang on.” Helen tapped on a keyboard. “Got an urgent message from the brigade CO. Let me read this real quick.”

India marched the three whole steps from the window to the sofa. Gerard-Pierre’s red sweater was thrown over the arm. Feeling like she was reclaiming her home, she whipped it off the sofa. It left red lint on the creamy-beige upholstery. A bit of teal peeked out from between the cushions, too, Gerard-Pierre’s shirt or scarf or something. He favored flamboyantly fashionable French scarves with his winter wear.

She yanked on it. The cloth turned out to be a strap. The strap turned out to be part of a lacy, teal bra. It was darling and daring and so very French.

It wasn’t hers.

She sank down onto the beige cushions, a little dazed. A little nauseous.

Helen’s voice penetrated her thoughts. “Oh. My. God.”

“I know, right?” India said, but her voice sounded funny. “Talk about three’s a crowd...”

“This is the single best message I’ve ever read in the United States Army. That monster training exercise? Canceled. They decided the planning phase was a success and canceled the execution. We’re standing down. A training holiday has been granted instead. Wait until Tom gets the word. Hang on—he won’t get the word if I don’t pass this memo down to battalion.”

India stared at the lacy bra. Gerard-Pierre was cheating on her. They hadn’t had sex in months, but he’d had sex. In her apartment.

“India? Hello? Can you still hear me?”

“Fine.” Why would he put so much effort into it? He wasn’t very exciting in bed. He’d take a fine glass of wine over a round of sex.

“Are you okay?”

He’d wanted her to cancel her holiday vacation so he could present her to his parents as his accomplished, multilingual girlfriend. And then what had been his plan? To take up with his side piece again in January? To keep cheating until he got caught?

Of course.

Then, when his infidelity caused their breakup, India would have known there was another family out there wondering why she’d decided to break up with their son after they’d had such a nice visit. Hadn’t she liked them? Had they scared her off in some way?

The shock was quickly being replaced by anger.

There was an even worse scenario possible. Tom loves my parents, Helen had said. What if India had spent Christmas with Gerard-Pierre’s family and loved them? She would have lost them when she lost her cheating boyfriend.

She clenched the bra in her fist. This was why Major India Woods, US Army, was thirty-two and single. She didn’t do families. She didn’t do complicated. She didn’t do any of this.

“You’re looking awfully serious,” Helen said.

“I...” She dropped the bra on the floor. The truth was too humiliating. She lied. “I reread that note while you were sending your message. There was more to it. I’m really, really ticked off.”

She was ticked off at herself. This was her home, an impermanent rental unit, but the only home she had, and she hadn’t protected it. She’d let someone use her home, she’d let someone use her and now—

India stood up. She didn’t want to sit on the couch. She didn’t want Gerard-Pierre’s stuff to be in her apartment. Most of all, she didn’t want to be here when Gerard-Pierre came over tonight. He didn’t deserve an audience for his excuses or his accusations—and that was all there would be. Certainly, he’d offer no apology. He’d still probably expect her to play hostess for his family, anyway. It wouldn’t be civilized to cause a scene so close to the holidays.

“I want to go somewhere,” she told Helen. “My leave was approved. Just because Gerard-Pierre decided not to go, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a Christmas holiday, right?”

“Right. Where do you want to go?”

Home.

The pang was strong enough to cut through her anger. She wanted to go home, to a place where she was part of something. To a place where she belonged.

It didn’t exist.

“I want to come back to the United States,” she said, the words surprising her even as she spoke them.

It would feel familiar. There’d be all the foods and the stores and the street signs she’d grown up with. She’d be surrounded by American accents and oversize vehicles. She wanted to eat in a McDonald’s that did not serve gazpacho or koffiekoeken, in a KFC that served tea on ice without asking, because they didn’t even sell hot tea.

Her friend laughed. “The grass is always greener on the other side of the pond, then. You want to come to the United States, and I’m dying to go to Europe.”

There was a pause, and then, despite the satellite’s relay delay, the old roomies spoke in unison. “We should swap places.”

India seized on the idea. “We really could do that. We could swap houses.”

“Now?” Helen asked.

“Yes. You could spend Christmas here.”

“My reflex is to say ‘No, I couldn’t,’ but Tom and I just got extra days off. Minutes ago.”

India looked at the bra on her floor. A lot had happened in the past few minutes.

“It’s like fate,” Helen said, half-serious.

India pressed her point, trying not to sound frantic. “It would be perfect for you. My place could be your home base for your honeymoon. From here, you could catch trains to Paris or Rome. You could take a ferry to England. You could drive to Amsterdam or Luxembourg.”

“Stop, stop. I’m sold. I’ve been sold since you first pointed that phone out your window last year.”

Thank God. India really needed to get out of here. What she wanted was...

Well, it wasn’t here. What she wanted was time away, time to herself to decide what she wanted.

Helen was apologetic. “It’s great for me, but what would you get? An unfinished house and nobody to talk to except our goofy dog.”

“Do I have to meet the dog’s family?”

“No.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

* * *

This is going to be hell.

Aiden brooded at the brown, barren view. He’d been through worse, of course. Combat tours, with their eternal stretches of boredom flavored by the underlying knowledge that monotony could explode into a life-or-death situation at any second of any hour. There’d been the extreme sleep deprivation for months at Ranger School. The steady, prolonged pressure of four years at West Point. Those had each been their own sort of hell, but he’d made it through each one because he’d had a sense of purpose during them.

He also hadn’t been a father during any of them.

He wasn’t feeling particular purposeful this week. Nobody in the battalion seemed to be. As the staff arrived one by one, Aiden glanced at the array of expressions: resignation, anger, glumness. Plain old bad moods—and this was the senior leadership. The barracks full of eighteen-and nineteen-year-old privates must be a real barrel of laughs. Dragging an unmotivated unit through an unnecessary exercise? Yes, that counted as a kind of hell, when it took his children away from him.

He’d survive it, of course. He could survive anything, and he’d learned that not overseas or in a Georgia swamp or in the granite-walled environs of a military academy. He’d learned that in a hospital, by his wife’s bedside. He could survive anything, even if he didn’t want to, even if it was grossly unfair of the universe to expect him to take another breath.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the brown flatness, and missed the unsullied joy of his daughters. They gave him breath. They gave him purpose. They gave him happiness. They were gone until Christmas Eve. He rubbed the two pennies between his fingers.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” The battalion commander entered the boardroom with energy, clapping his hands together and rubbing them in anticipation. It was entirely too much cheer for the start of a three-hour meeting.

Aiden turned away from the window and took his seat.

“The preparations for this exercise have been executed in an outstanding manner,” the battalion commander said, then he turned to Aiden. “Major Nord, well done.”

“Thank you, sir.”

It was an unexpected way to open a meeting, but Aiden supposed he couldn’t ask for better than that. The commander went around the table, congratulating each staff officer and each of the four company commanders, including Tom Cross, Aiden’s new neighbor. Captain Cross and his wife, Captain Helen Pallas, had bought the acreage adjacent to Aiden’s. Their new house was not quite complete. They’d moved in about a month ago, anyway.

“Which brings me to the highlight of this meeting.”

Aiden exchanged a look with the executive officer, who raised his brow and shrugged. Neither of them had been informed there was going to be a highlight of this meeting.

“The powers-that-be have completed their review of the plans and preparatory work we’ve submitted. They are certain that we have prepared for every contingency.”

A few of the officers and senior NCOs gave appropriately restrained, indoor hoo-ahs in response.

“In fact, they are so certain we’ll ace this exercise, they have decided not to hold the actual exercise.”

Silence.

The lieutenant colonel seemed to enjoy it. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, try to control yourselves. I know you were looking forward to ninety-six hours of no sleep and delicious MREs, but you’re going to have to find a way to cope with a training holiday instead.”

A training holiday? Time off without having it counted against his annual leave? Time off when he’d been expecting to work around the clock for days? Time off?

The stunned silence held. It was like they’d all just witnessed a Christmas miracle.

Aiden didn’t trust it. “The entire exercise, sir? The brigade as well as the battalion?” If the brigade was still a go, then he would still work. The brigade S-3 would want input from the battalion S-3.

“The whole enchilada. I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that, in addition to reviewing our plans, someone higher up also reviewed the amount of fuel the exercise would require and the amount of fuel budget they had left for the year. They don’t have a burning need to deploy hundreds of vehicles across Central Texas’s highways this week, after all.”

All around the table, faces were starting to smile.

The commander was openly laughing. “Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some of their spouses reviewed the calendar with them, too. This level of exercise being conducted this close to Christmas while all the kids are out of school was guaranteed to piss off some very important spouses—or entire organizations of spouses.”

No kidding.

Aiden’s surprise was wearing off. Anger was taking its place. Couldn’t they have foreseen the blow to morale among the military families? Couldn’t they have counted their damn money and their damn fuel and canceled the whole damn enchilada sooner? Before he’d promised his sister that she could have his girls for the week?

The three-hour meeting was over in five minutes.

The battalion commander stayed, wishing each person a happy holiday as the team cleared out with alacrity, everyone dialing their cell phones as they left to give their families the good news. Aiden was in no hurry. He had no one to dial.

Only one person came in the door instead of out, and that was Captain Helen Pallas, who’d no doubt sprinted over from the brigade headquarters building to see her husband.

They were both in uniform, so they could not share any newlywed hugging and kissing—thank God, because Aiden couldn’t leave before he gathered up the papers it turned out he didn’t need—but their high five, a hard slap of victory, made up for it. Just the sound of that clap made his hand sting.

“Pack your bags,” Helen said. “We’re going to Europe, baby.”

“We’re what?” Tom asked.

Aiden stacked papers and listened as his new neighbor explained that she’d set up a house swap with an old friend in Belgium.

“How long before I knew the exercise was canceled did you know?” The laughter and approval in Tom’s voice as he spoke to his wife gave Aiden another pang of...wistfulness. He remembered what that had been like, to have a coconspirator. A friend. A lover. Long ago—it felt like a million years ago.

Helen made a show of checking her watch. “About fifteen minutes.”

“You set all this up in fifteen minutes?”

She pretended to dust off her fingernails on her camouflage lapel. “That’s right. One European honeymoon, arranged in fifteen minutes. We’re already on the list for a Space-A flight to NATO headquarters tonight. If we don’t get a seat, then we’re going standby on a commercial flight to Amsterdam out of Austin, and we’ll rent a car and drive to Brussels. Colonel Reed already signed my leave form. Any questions?”

Tom looked past her to the battalion commander. “Can I get a leave form signed in the next half hour, sir? I hope the answer is yes, or else I’m apparently going to miss my own honeymoon.”

Helen turned to Aiden. “Major Nord, I hate to impose on you. My friend India will take care of our dog once she gets to our house, but there’s going to be about ten hours where we’re passing each other over the Atlantic. Could you come over and feed Fabio in the meantime?”

Aiden had already met Fabio, a golden retriever with long, flowing hair. Aiden and the Crosses had already exchanged house keys, too. Not only were they all in the same brigade, theirs were the only two houses along half a mile of road.

“If you’re not going anywhere yourself, sir, that is.”

“I’ll be home.” Rattling around an empty house.

“Great. Can I leave your name and number for my friend, just in case she has any questions?”

“The name is India?”

“Yes. I’ve known her a long time. She’s...well, she was my mentor, really, when I was first commissioned.”

“She’s some kind of weird savant with languages,” Tom offered.

Swell. A mentoring, motherly, older lady who studied foreign languages and took vacations alone, in houses that were out in the middle of nowhere.

“I doubt she’ll need you,” Helen said, “but just in case.”

“Sure. Give her my number.”

At this rate, a call from Tom and Helen’s house sitter would probably be the most exciting thing that would happen to him all week.

Chapter Three

She was running on empty.

International travel was always draining, but this trip had been especially so. India had only fallen asleep for little fifteen-minute, neck-straining naps on the plane, despite spending the hours before her flight not sleeping, but instead gathering up every single thing Gerard-Pierre had littered around her house. The books she’d stacked neatly in the hallway outside her apartment door. She respected books; they hadn’t done anything wrong. The rest she’d dumped into a pile in the hallway.

The bra she’d hung on the century-old doorknob. Explanation enough in any language.

India checked the pickup truck’s gas gauge. Her body wasn’t the only thing rapidly running out of energy. She’d found Helen and Tom’s pickup waiting for her at the airport, right where their text had said it would be. The tank had been almost half-full, surely enough to cover the distance from the Austin airport to the countryside beyond Fort Hood. She’d passed a dozen gas stations leaving Austin. A half dozen through Georgetown. More in Killeen...but when Helen had said her house was out in the middle of nowhere, India had forgotten how big nowhere could be in the States. She’d been driving for ninety minutes, enough to have gone to another country from Belgium, but she was still in Texas, driving past miles of land occupied only by grazing cattle and the occasional barn. Sheesh.

She had just decided it would be wise to turn around and head back to the last gas station she’d passed when she saw a mailbox, the standard American kind, a black metal shoebox with a rounded top, mounted on a wood four-by-four. When she’d been a little girl, she’d thought the shape looked like the Road Runner tunnels that the Wile E. Coyote was always trying to enter—with no luck. He was shut out, denied, every time.

Gold letters on the black metal read 489. Who opened this mailbox every day without even thinking about how easy it was? India slowed the truck as she passed the driveway. Its single lane of asphalt ran for at least a quarter mile, unwaveringly straight, to a classic two-story brick home. The colors of the bricks were distinctly Texan, though, gold and beige and cream that reflected the afternoon sun, which was bright even in December in this part of the world.

She didn’t need to turn back, after all. Helen’s house number was 490. Her mailbox was up ahead, a little sentry on the side of the road. India hit her turn signal, then scoffed at herself. Who was there to signal? Her truck was the only vehicle on the road. But as she slowed and started to turn, she looked down Helen’s straight driveway—and tapped the brakes.

Someone was there.

The garage door was open and, even though a red pickup blocked most of her view, India could see that someone was moving around. A thief.

She didn’t turn in, but kept driving. Tom and Helen had a dog, but Helen had texted her that the dog would be at the neighbor’s house, so India could sleep off her jet lag without having a dog wake her. A barking dog might have scared off a thief, but the house was empty.

Don’t be crazy, India. Why would a thief go to an empty house when the owners are out of the country?

Not so crazy. India could dial 911. Maybe. She’d turned off cellular data on her phone to avoid astronomical international roaming charges. Wasn’t 911 supposed to work from all phones, regardless? But she didn’t have an American phone. Maybe it wasn’t programmed for that emergency service. How long would it take a sheriff to get out here, anyway? The thief would have plenty of time to help himself to whatever he wanted and then drive away with a flat-screen television in the back of his pickup.

She stopped the truck on the road’s shoulder. Think about this, India girl; stay awake. She scrubbed her hands over her face, then dug in her bag for a peppermint. The bracing flavor woke her up. She turned the truck around and drove by one more time, slowly. The parked red truck was awfully nice, shiny and new, hardly the getaway vehicle of a criminal.

She pulled in the driveway of 489 to turn around and head back, feeling exceedingly stupid. She was just tired. And emotional—she’d failed to protect her own home. Hadn’t that thought been relentlessly circling in her head as she’d kicked out Gerard-Pierre? Well, kicked out his stuff, anyway. That was why she was thinking of homes being invaded.

Damn. She’d passed her own driveway again. With a sigh, she made a U-turn in the middle of the empty road. Helen’s house wasn’t finished yet. The truck probably belonged to the general contractor who’d been building the house, supervising all the subcontractors. The truck could belong to one of the subcontractors, too. Maybe to an electrician. A tile layer. Who knew?

She was getting so sleepy, she didn’t care. If it did turn out to be a thief, she’d at least get a license plate number as the truck drove away, before she fell asleep waiting for the sheriff to show up.

She drove up to the house and debated parking behind the truck to block it in, just in case this person had no reason to be here. But then she caught a better view of the man in the garage. His back was to her, but the width of his shoulders was enough to make her decide to park out of his way. She was a soldier, but she’d spent the last four solid years tied to a desk. She was super rusty when it came to close quarters combat. She wouldn’t want to take on this guy, anyway, not without a stick or a bat or something. Gee, I’m fresh out of ninja staffs.

He wasn’t a thief, anyway. He wasn’t moving in a sneaky, furtive way. As she parked, he walked calmly over to a refrigerator in the garage. She’d forgotten how Americans not only had giant fridges in their kitchens, but they often kept one out in the garage, too, the good old beer fridge that held the leftovers when holiday dinners called for a mammoth turkey. The man with the buff shoulders opened the door and took out a beer. He wore a leather tool belt around his waist, a hammer hanging from it. Someone in construction, of course.

She was an idiot and she wanted to go to bed, but she supposed she’d have to make small talk with this contractor and hope he was almost ready to leave for the day. She opened the door and practically fell out of the cab, dropping the foot from the cab to the ground, landing with all the grace of a tired elephant. She slammed the door. This man was all that stood between her and a soft bed with fluffy pillows.

The man in the tool belt turned around.

Oh, my.

India abruptly felt awake and alert. Just the sight of that man, that tall, dark and handsome man, sent a jolt through her system better than a whole roll of peppermints.

* * *

Aiden had shaken his head as he’d watched his neighbors’ pickup drive by, drive by and drive by again. She couldn’t read the numbers on the mailbox, maybe. Poor little old lady, he’d thought.

Aiden looked at the woman standing in the driveway.

Poor drop-dead gorgeous woman.

He didn’t let the beer bottle slip out of his grasp. That was something, anyway, but he sure as hell was knocked speechless. This woman was the definition of a knockout. Literally, the sight of her knocked the sense out of his brain—because she looked rumpled and sleepy, and all his brain could think about was that he’d like to be rumpled and sleepy with her.

Enjoy being a bachelor, his sister had written.

He’d thought about milk cartons and sippy cups.

He wasn’t thinking about sippy cups anymore. He was thinking about the brunette standing in front of him, looking at him with gray eyes. Gray. Beautiful. All grown-up and beautiful.

Okay. Right. He should speak now. Right.

“Are you almost done here?” she asked. “I’m dying to get in bed.”

The beer bottle in his hand slipped an inch.

Okay. Right.

She tilted her head at his silence. “I’m going to be staying here while Tom and Helen are on their honeymoon. Did they tell you that?”

“Right.” One word. He sounded like an idiot. It may have been a long time since he’d been a bachelor, but he was thirty-four years old and a battalion S-3, not thirteen and in middle school. He gestured toward her with the bottle in his hand. “Would you care for a beer?”

He’d meant there were more in the garage fridge since he’d just put a six-pack in there, but she huffed out a tired sigh and plopped her overnight bag on the concrete floor, then took the beer from his hand. “Actually, I would.” She wiped off the mouth of the bottle with a quick swipe of her sleeve, then tilted her head back and chugged the whole bottle right down that graceful, womanly throat with long, sure swallows. She finished it and gave him a polite, sleepy smile. “Thanks.”

Okay. That was...provocative. “I take it you like beer.”

She scrunched up her nose a bit. “Actually, that tasted horrible. I just ate a peppermint.”

He laughed.

Her smile turned a little more genuine, but still tired. “I needed the calories. I haven’t eaten much more than airplane snacks for the past twelve hours. That beer was my dinner, because I will be asleep in two minutes. I suppose Tom and Helen gave you a house key?”

“Right.”

She pondered that for a moment. “I won’t ask for it back, but could you make yourself scarce for the next ten hours?”

“Okay.”

“Make that twelve.” She turned her head away and put the back of her hand to her mouth and burped the tiniest, ladylike burp. “Sorry.”

He laughed—again—and took the empty bottle from her. She was all grown-up and beautiful, but also surprising and adorable. And rumpled and sleepy, which was a sexy damn look on her. Oh, hell yeah. It’s all coming back to me now.

She picked up her overnight bag. “I’ll be here all week, so even though you have a key, knock first. I’ll let you in.”

“Promise?”

“I—Oh.” She looked at him, startled.

He winked. Just joking. For now.

She looked away, but her lips quirked into a smile. She had just a touch of a dimple in one cheek. How easy it was to imagine her smiling at him as they shared a pillow.

“So.” She gestured toward his truck. “If you’re done here...?”

“I can come back. I just have to have this project finished by Christmas.” He nodded at the planks he’d stacked on the floor.

“What are those for?”

“Bookcases.”

“Nice. Well. Goodbye.”

But they stood there, staring at one another. He unbuckled his tool belt without breaking eye contact. She bit her lip.

He shook his head to himself a little bit as he turned away to set the belt on the stack of planks, trying not to be bowled over because a sexy woman had done a sexy thing like biting her sexy lip.

He’d been asked to leave; time to go. He stopped at the small security box on the wall just outside the garage and punched in the code that lowered the double-wide door. It started rolling down. He looked over his shoulder at her, savoring his last glimpse of rumpled and sleepy. “I’ll see you later.”

The chain and motor were loud as the door lowered, but Aiden could have sworn he heard a one-word answer: “Definitely.”

Chapter Four

The contractor was so hot. Like...lava hot.

Helen hadn’t even dropped a hint about that. Maybe she’d thought India would be heartbroken over Gerard-Pierre. She hadn’t sounded heartbroken when they’d chatted, had she? But fresh from a breakup or not, a woman would have to be dead not to notice that contractor. And he’d flirted with her.

She curled her toes into the plush carpet of the master bedroom. She felt great. She’d slept without the sounds of a TV coming from another room. She’d slept without having her service uniform all laid out on the chair by her bed, a fresh white blouse and sheer nude hose ready to make their demands the second her alarm clock went off. India wriggled her pantyhose-free toes. Without setting an alarm, she’d slept until seven in the morning in this time zone. Fifteen blissful, uninterrupted hours.

That would probably not happen again, though. She had to get the dog back from the neighbor’s today. She was no expert on dogs, since she’d never owned one, but she doubted any dog would let her sleep for fifteen hours without needing to go out. She wandered into the kitchen, where Helen had left her a long note with all the information she’d thought India might need. Wi-Fi password—check. Veterinarian’s phone number—check. Neighbor’s phone number—check—followed by a list of the workers that had already been scheduled before Helen had said it was fate that they could swap houses.

Helen had left the general contractor’s name and number as the person to call if anything went wrong with the house. Nicholas Harmon. The boss. Nicholas practically oozed testosterone. She had no doubt he could keep a bunch of subcontractors in line with ease. He was probably former military. He had that posture. The haircut, too.

Nicholas had the dark coloring of many Italians, the square jaw and strong bone structure that made her think of Germany, but he was unmistakably American. There was something about Americans that she’d never been able to put her finger on, but she could always spot a countryman without hearing their accent first. She herself was rarely mistaken for any other nationality anywhere she went, although she couldn’t say what, exactly, made her look American.

In short, he was perfect, this Nicholas. When Helen had said your man, this guy had been who India had imagined. Helen had also said, It’s like fate.

India felt her stomach twist.

She needed food. There was half a loaf of bread in the ginormous new pantry. She put a couple of slices in the toaster and pressed the lever. She glanced around the brand-spanking-new kitchen with its brand-new appliances, then she turned back to the toaster and stared at the bread. There was nothing else to do, nothing to distract her from her thoughts.

From thinking about the way he’d laughed. That wink.

Her stomach twisted a little more.

Fate seemed kind of heavy. It was more like a wish that had come true. A fantasy had materialized in her friend’s garage. A sexual fantasy, no mistake about it, which had awakened parts of India’s body and brain that she’d been content to let hibernate while she’d fallen into an undemanding, platonic routine with Gerard-Pierre.

Her body was making demands now. She wanted to see Nicholas again.

And then what?

Good question. She was only here for a week. On Christmas Eve day, she was going to drive three hours to San Antonio to a bed-and-breakfast. Helen had booked it for herself and Tom, and she’d insisted India use their reservation. San Antonio was a great little tourist town, Helen had assured her, with the Alamo to visit and the River Walk to mosey along for shopping and dining. The morning of the twenty-fourth, the contractor was having some polyurethane work done on the floors and grout, and they’d need to leave the windows open to let out the noxious fumes, even though it was winter. India would be warm in the B&B instead.

India would be stir-crazy after a week of isolation, anyway, and Helen had known it.

But first, India would be here for a week. A week wasn’t long enough to develop a relationship with a man. India didn’t sleep with a man unless she was in a committed relationship.

Really? Because you were in a committed relationship, but you still weren’t sleeping with Gerard-Pierre.

Things had cooled off with Bernardo after she’d met his family, too. And Adolphus? They’d slept together, of course, after a few months of coffee conversations in bookstores. He preferred Saturdays, when he could spend the night without worrying about making it on time to work the next day. They’d had some nice Saturday nights, but frankly, he’d been more excited about exploring the possibility that she was his intellectual soul mate than he’d been about actually being a bedmate.

It had been okay. Sex was not the most important part of a relationship. India was certain that was true, but...

She’d had enough relationships without any sex. What would it be like to have sex without a relationship?

Knock first. I’ll let you in.

Promise? He’d winked at her, six feet of masculinity with a wicked smile.

India stared at the toaster for a few more seconds before she realized it wasn’t toasting anything. Feeling ten kinds of stupid, she plugged in the toaster.

Nothing happened. She moved the toaster to the other side of the stove, where there was another outlet. That one was dead, too.

She went into the garage and took a quick peek at the fuse box. None of the switches had been tripped. That meant the electrical outlets were dead for some other reason, and the problem was going to require a professional to take a look at it. Like, say, the general contractor.

What a perfect twist of fate.

India went back into the kitchen and dialed the contractor’s number. Oh, Nicholas? Come over and knock on my door.

A woman answered, but she sounded like a secretary. Please be a secretary. “Could you ask Nicholas to stop by 490 Cedar Highway today? The electrical outlets in the kitchen are dead.”

Then India abandoned the cold bread in favor of a hot shower and fresh clothes and a touch of makeup, because her outlets might be dead, but her libido no longer was.

* * *

Fabio was trying to kiss him.

No—he was trying to make out with him, hot breath and slobbery tongue dragging Aiden out of his sleep.

Aiden pushed away the dog’s head. “No means no, Fabio.”

The dog backed up a step on the mattress but kept staring at him, panting.

“Don’t look so hopeful. I’ve never had a thing for blondes.” Hadn’t he been dreaming of a brunette? Aiden squinted at the clock by his bed. Nine o’clock?

He stared at the numbers a moment, as if they couldn’t be right. Aiden hadn’t slept until nine o’clock in...hell, in at least four years. Even when he was stationed stateside at a staff job, as he was now, the army required him to be up at an earlier hour. He was awake, dressed in his PT uniform and ready for PT—physical training—by six on most mornings. If there was no PT, he was in the office by seven. On the days he was off, Poppy and Olympia were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by seven o’clock, too, clambering onto his bed and chattering about whatever they were thinking about that minute, perhaps wondering if a teddy bear could be rainbow-colored or if Daddy could make pink grapes instead of green grapes. I don’t decide what color grapes can be.

Why?

They grow on vines. Daddy can’t make vines do things.

Why?

Because I’m not the boss of plants. Let Daddy brew some coffee.

Nine o’clock.

He’d forgotten about sleeping in. He hadn’t known his body was still capable of it—but it sure was. He rolled onto his back and ruffled the dog’s ear. It was the first silver lining of this week of enforced bachelorhood: sleeping late. He wouldn’t set an alarm for a week. He’d take the dog back to the neighbors’ house today and see if he slept later than nine tomorrow.

The neighbors’ house. India. Beautiful, gray-eyed India.

An awareness traveled over his skin, crossing his chest, his stomach, lower. He could call it lust, but it wasn’t anything as base as simply getting hard. It was a sense of electric anticipation, a sizzle of energy washing over all of his skin, waking up every inch of his body—his fingertips, his eyelids, his scalp. It was as if the image of her in his mind’s eye had all his senses reaching out, all the cells in his body searching for her.

He caught his breath at the foreign sensation. Too electric. Too aware. He sat up and pushed off the sheets.

The dog jumped off the bed and faced him, tail wagging in excitement.

“Let’s just call it lust, okay?”

Aiden could handle that. That, he remembered how to do. He’d taken a woman he’d known for a while to Dallas for a weekend...when? Months ago. She liked to say they were friends with benefits, but he’d still insisted on paying for the tickets to the Aerosmith concert. The dinner. The hotel room. Lust was basic—he could definitely handle that.

The dog barked once in approval. Aiden had sat up, so the dog wanted him to stand up. “I hear you, boy. Let’s get you fed and walked, and I’ll take you to meet your new house sitter.”

If anticipation prickled down his spine, touching each and every vertebra, it was simply lust.

He could handle it.

* * *

India was beside herself with anticipation.

She was on alert, ears tuned with almost painful eagerness to any sound in the driveway, until, at last, she heard the low sound of an engine, the slam of a door. Wait for it...

When she heard the metallic sound of a tailgate being lowered, she hit the button to open the garage door. Why make the man walk up the bricked path to knock on the formal front door? He was parked by the garage, and she was already certain he was going to want to test her fuse box. The question was, would she test her courage and flirt her way to a little more? A lot more? Would she? Could she?

The garage-door opener turned a heavy chain. The door lifted slowly, its new wheels rolling smoothly in their tracks. India hastily gave her hair one last fluff and tried to strike just the right pose: casual, yet sexy. She was wearing jeans, yet her hoop earrings were sized to be stylish, not subtle.

I can do this. Why not? Consenting adults, safe sex. I’ll never see him again after a week. No embarrassing scenes with a former lover. No awkward evenings avoiding each other at an embassy dinner. No running into him at a café as he dated the next woman. A perfect holiday fling, if Nicholas was willing and able.

The rising door revealed the toes of cowboy boots, then denim that bunched a little at the ankles. More denim—up, up, revealing that hot body inch by inch. The man had certainly looked able yesterday.

I can’t do this. Wasn’t this how porn movies started? The electrician came over and the lonely housewife greeted him at the door, her hair fluffed up and her lip gloss on? Oh, dear God, I’m imitating a porn movie. I can’t do a porn movie.

India held her breath. Flirting. She was just going to flirt a little, see where it went. That, she could handle.

As the garage door rose, the denim got a little wider at the waist. The shirt covered a little bit of a paunch...

Wait. No.

The rising door revealed narrow shoulders, a weathered face and a white beard. A friendly smile. “Mornin’, ma’am. I’m Nicholas Harmon. Pleased to meet you.”

“Nicholas Harmon,” she echoed, her voice a little high-pitched as arousal and disappointment stretched her nerves to the limit. “Of course. Nice to meet you, too.”

“Let’s see what’s going on in the house.”

Nothing.

Glumly, she followed him into the kitchen after he pulled a toolbox out of his truck bed. It was a good thing she hadn’t been trying to recreate a porn movie; she would have given the man a heart attack if she’d been standing there in lingerie.

Lingerie. Good one. She didn’t own any lingerie. She wore skin-tone bras with lightly padded cups to ensure her nipples never showed through the white business shirt of her uniform.

The memory of a lacy, teal bra sent a little lick of anger through her system, shaking her out of her glum state.

Nicholas stuck some kind of metal probe into the outlets, informed her they were dead—yes, I’m well aware of that—then started unscrewing outlets.

India leaned against the marble kitchen island and read Helen’s note again. A landscaper was coming two days from now to plant a pair of cypress trees, one on either side of the front door. That couldn’t be her man; hers had been working on bookcases. The same day, a shower door was going to be installed in the hallway bathroom—allow three hours. A gutter hadn’t been installed correctly on the west side of the house. They were coming to reinstall it three days from now. Helen had written that India didn’t need to be home for that one.

India ran down the list, frowning. There was no mention of bookcases, no trim carpenter scheduled to spend a day this week. Maybe he was supposed to have finished yesterday, before she’d arrived.

After Nicholas fixed the wiring and screwed the outlets back into the wall, she walked him out to the garage and gave her best nonchalant nod to the stack of planks. “When does the carpenter come out to finish the bookcases?”

“I don’t know anything about bookcases. There’s nothing in the plans about built-in bookcases.”

“But the carpenter was here. Yesterday.”

“He wasn’t one of my subcontractors.” His friendly face got a little less friendly. “I’ll be calling Tom and Helen about that. There aren’t supposed to be any workers in here that I didn’t hire. That’s very clear in the contract. I hire all the subcontractors.”

Great. Some house sitter she was, getting the general contractor all riled up so he’d call the homeowners on their honeymoon. “They must not be built-ins. That was my assumption. I’m sure Tom and Helen didn’t hire anyone to work on the house behind your back.” Then she pinned him down with her don’t-screw-with-me glare. She was, after all, an army officer. “Tom and Helen aren’t the kind of people who’d dishonor a contract with you, are they?”

He looked away first. “You’re right, you’re right. Well, I’ll be off now.”

“Thank you for coming out so quickly.”

Nicholas left.

India returned to the kitchen.

The silence settled in, broken only by the hum of the fridge as it cycled on. A kitchen clock with an art deco pendulum ticked steadily.

She sat on a bar stool at the cool marble countertop. Thank goodness she hadn’t laid out a little Bloody Mary station here. She’d considered putting out the Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce that she’d seen in the fridge, the tomato juice and the vodka, so the hot bookcase man could make his drink as hot as he liked it.

Oh! Do you like Bloody Marys? I was just going to make myself one when you drove up. Help yourself to whatever you want. In her mind, she sounded like a seductress. Show me what you like.

In reality, she wasn’t that kind of seductress, and she knew it. Fortunately, before Nicholas had arrived, she’d decided to put away the two glasses she’d placed rather obviously by an outlet. At least she hadn’t had to awkwardly offer a glass of tomato juice to a general contractor who resembled Santa more than a hot guy in a tool belt.

The clock kept ticking.

India had already unpacked. She’d showered. She’d eaten. She had time on her hands, time to be alone with her own thoughts. It was what she’d thought she wanted, but now it didn’t seem like much of a holiday. A holiday was supposed to be a change from one’s normal life, something different, something exciting to explore. But she was alone and, as she stared out the kitchen window at empty land, she realized that was nothing new.

Brussels was such a lively city, it was easy to feel like she was connected to people. She was surrounded by people. She ate at sidewalk cafés that jammed little chairs so close together, she sat shoulder to shoulder with people. She went to the market with a crowd of people. She crammed into the elevator with other people at NATO headquarters. She had a boss. She had subordinates. She even had a boyfriend.

But she’d been alone, just as alone as being the only human for miles, sitting in an empty four-bedroom house on acres of empty land. She had no one to share her thoughts with here, but she didn’t share her thoughts with strangers at sidewalk cafés, either. The only thing she talked about at the market was the price of endive. At work, she addressed her superior as “sir.” Her own team called her “ma’am.” Her boyfriend was awake while she slept, and now she knew that when he slept, it was with someone else.

Her stomach churned.

Was she so desperate for a human connection that she would have offered sex to a stranger this morning? A total stranger?

She dropped her face into her hands and wallowed in her own foolishness for a moment.

Foolish—but she’d been undeniably excited as she’d waited for him to arrive. So alive with hope for...something.

Whoever he was, he’d said he’d come back to finish before Christmas. He might not return until Christmas Eve day, when she’d be on her way to San Antonio and the house would be full of cold air and noxious fumes. Nicholas had said the workers wanted to get started by seven in the morning, so they could finish by lunch, what with it being Christmas Eve and all, ma’am.

The week stretched ahead of her, six more nights. Helen had warned her there would be nothing to do here, hadn’t she? It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and India was already feeling stifled in a house big enough to hold four of her apartments.

She supposed she could start perfecting her own Bloody Mary recipe. Sure. Drinking alone wouldn’t be depressing at all. She could add some salty tears in there for flavor. Ha ha ha.

Outdoors, the weather was about ten degrees warmer than Brussels, but the sunshine was ten times as bright. Texas was known for blistering hot summers, but that meant it had sunny winters, too. India checked the coat closet and found Helen’s red, double-breasted peacoat.

She might as well go out and be lonely in the sunshine.

Chapter Five

The only sign of civilization was a bridge.

The house sat on two acres, India knew from all the conversations she’d had with Helen this past year, but the view from the flagstone patio sloped away for miles beyond the property line. The undeveloped land really did look the way Texas looked in cowboy movies. The ground was mostly brown; the sparse trees were struggling to hold on to their green despite the approaching winter. India wasn’t certain what sagebrush actually was, but she assumed it was the random shrubs that dotted the landscape. There was a single tumbleweed, too, off in the distance, a slow-rolling ball of sticks that could have been a movie prop.

The open land under the blue sky would give a person a sense of serenity, perhaps, if that person wasn’t her. She was feeling small and lonely. Wilderness didn’t exactly chase that feeling away.

India headed for the bridge. The classic wood structure was only wide enough for people on foot, like her. It crossed a creek than ran down the length of the property. The golden-beige brick house stood somewhere beyond the other side of the bridge, she was certain. Helen’s note said the neighbors had taken the dog overnight to give India a chance to sleep off her jet lag. That meant the neighbors must be experienced with jet lag themselves—and must be very kind, as well. How lucky for Helen to live near people like that. How lucky for India last night.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t rare luck. Maybe neighbors like that were common here. There were a lot of ex-military people in an army town, and military folks understood travel, deployments, hardship tours. They understood how far a kindness like watching a pet could go. At home, India was the only soldier in her apartment building. If she lived here, she would be surrounded every time she went into town by military and former military—like the bookcase guy.

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