Kitabı oxu: «Sgt. Billy's Bride»

Chapter One

In the sinking afternoon sunlight, Technical Sergeant Bill Hays pulled out of the parking lot of his apartment complex. As he drove onto Highway 98, he glanced at the clock on the new dashboard and frowned. Eight o’clock.

Surely the clock hadn’t been properly set before he’d taken possession of his new Jeep. He glanced at the government-issue dive watch on his wrist and muttered a curse. He was running even later than he’d thought.

It was bad enough that the two-week field exercise with his Special Tactics Squadron’s Silver Team had made him miss his regular trip to his family home in Alabama, but a maintenance problem on the C-130 transport plane bringing him back yesterday had delayed his departure for a week’s leave by yet another day. And the long debriefing had made him even later.

Hurlburt Air Force Base might have been the closest Special Tactics Base to his home in Mattison, Alabama, but he might as well have been at his last assignment in California, as difficult as it had been to get home lately. Since he’d been in Florida, it seemed as if circumstances had contrived to keep him away from home.

His late start would keep him from arriving before his mother went to bed. And the fifty miles or so of country road he had to traverse before he crossed the state line would make it impossible to save time. The roads wound and twisted enough in the daylight, but in the dark they were treacherous. He’d traveled these roads plenty of times, but as night had fallen, a thick, clinging fog had formed, making visibility next to nothing.

Hoping that each curve in the road would reveal a break in the fog and clearer conditions, he inched along.

Just after Bill drove into Alabama, he rounded a curve in the road and had to swerve sharply to avoid hitting something barely visible through the mist.

Muttering a curse, Bill slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt some twenty or thirty feet beyond the apparition. He blinked and looked back over his shoulder to see what he had missed. A girl materialized and loped toward him with a duffel bag in one hand and a backpack slung over her shoulder.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing out here in the middle of the road in the dead of the night?” Bill yelled as she reached the car. “I could have hit you.”

She yanked open the passenger door without waiting for an invitation and tossed her bags over the seat to the back. “My old Volkswagen Beetle got me all the way through high school and nursing school, but it finally gave up a mile or so back. I was beginning to think that another car would never come along,” she said breathlessly.

“You can’t—” Billy stopped himself. It was late, and they were in the middle of nowhere. “Get in,” he muttered.

“Hi, I’m Darcy,” she said, sticking out her hand as she slid onto the seat. “You aren’t a serial killer, are you?”

“Bill Hays,” he said, then laughed. “Hell, no,” he finally managed between chuckles. “I’m one of the good guys according to Uncle Sam.”

“Your uncle’s recommendation works for me,” Darcy said as she buckled herself in. “Where’re you heading?”

Bill didn’t know what to make of this unexpected passenger, and he wondered what had made her throw caution aside and hop into his car in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. “Mattison, Alabama,” he said. “About three hours up the road.”

“You came from Florida, then? Me, too.”

He nodded, then glanced sideways at her. Darcy might have said she’d been through college, but she didn’t look much older than fourteen in that T-shirt and jeans.

Her hair was short, wispy, and flew around her face as she spoke using animated gestures and expressions. She was clean-scrubbed and fresh-looking, with a delicate mouth that seemed very kissable.

Now, where the hell had that thought come from?

Hadn’t he just assured her that she could trust him? It might have been a long time since he’d been out with a woman, but he wasn’t that hard up that he’d get the hots for the first one he came upon. The first one close enough to allow him to smell her perfume.

He had a hard-and-fast rule about remaining free of complications while he was in Special Ops, and this girl—woman—looked like a keeper. He had no room for a woman in his life. Hadn’t he seen enough families torn apart because of the demands of the job? Not to mention families broken apart when the service member didn’t come home. He would never leave a woman in the same desperate situation his mother had found herself in when his father had died too young and too poor. Or in the same dire straits his sister Lougenia was in when that skunk of a husband had left her.

Women were to be loved, protected, cherished. A man couldn’t do a decent job of that if he was off attending to hot spots on the other side of the world.

He shook his head. If he continued to think about kissing her, he might not be able to trust himself. He drew a deep breath and cleared his throat, if not his thoughts. “Where were you going?” he finally managed after he realized that she hadn’t said. She hadn’t told him much other than that her car had broken down.

“Don’t really know,” she told him after what seemed to be a long, pregnant silence. “I just graduated nursing school, and I haven’t quite figured out what to do with my life. I just knew I had to get away from my family and be on my own for a while.”

Bill thought about that for a minute. Maybe her reluctance to talk about herself told him volumes more than if she’d prattled on. He shrugged. “I can take you to the next town,” he allowed. “You can get a motel and somebody to tow and fix your car.”

He wondered about this small woman who had apparently climbed into a stranger’s car without a second thought. She was either desperate or stupid.

He glanced at her and decided that desperate was more the thing. He’d bet she was escaping an abusive family, and climbing into a car with a man she didn’t know was probably preferable to going back to a situation she did.

“You sure you want to ride with me?” he wondered out loud before he put the car into gear.

She did what almost seemed to be a double take, then flashed a grin that seemed impossibly large from that small mouth. “I’m game,” she said. “It beats walking.”

Darcy settled against the seat and breathed in the wonderful, new-car scent. She had worried that she’d be picked up by some Friday-night liquored-up weirdo, and that she’d have to fight for her virtue, if not her life. But the minute she’d seen the clean-cut man in the driver’s seat, she’d known she’d be fine. As soon as her gaze had settled on his face, her doubts had vanished.

One look and she knew she’d be safe in his arms.

In his arms?

What had made her think that? The last thing she needed was to be thinking about another man, considering the close call she’d just had. No, as soon as they reached civilization, she was going to thank Bill Hays sweetly for picking her up, then she’d get out of his car and do her best to get on with the rest of her life.

Darcy risked a glance at the man driving, his eyes trained steadfastly on the dark road ahead. It was hard to tell much in the dim glow of the dashboard lights, but what she could see was pleasing to the eye.

He was young, maybe a few years older than she. His clothes were clean, and he smelled like he’d just come from a shower. Was he hurrying to meet a sweetheart?

If he was, Darcy thought, she was one lucky girl.

Though he’d made that remark about Uncle Sam, he didn’t look much like a soldier. He looked like the college boys she’d known in school, a little bigger, maybe, and rougher around the edges. He wore jeans, faded but not too worn. His pullover shirt stretched tight across a broad chest, not too muscled, but lean and taut. Physical activities were obviously a regular part of his life.

“Say, Darcy,” Bill said, interrupting Darcy’s thoughts. “I took off without eating. I could sure use a burger or something. What say we stop in Brewton for some eats?”

Why was he asking her? Darcy wondered as they rolled into the marginally congested area of a small, country town. He was the one doing her the favor. She spotted the brightly lit sign of a familiar fast-food chain looming above the trees. Though she’d recognized the fast-food logo, she had yet to see a chain motel she was familiar with. After all, he was just supposed to take her to a motel so she could arrange to have her car towed.

There was no harm in stopping for a bite, though. Sure, she wanted to get as far away from Hurlburt and Dick as she could, but a ten-minute delay to grab a burger wouldn’t make that much difference in the scheme of things.

“Thank you. I’d like that,” she finally said. “I skipped dinner, too.” And breakfast and lunch, thanks to pre-wedding jitters, she didn’t say. Darcy pressed her hand against her stomach to silence the rumbling that Bill surely must have heard. Maybe that’s why he’d decided to stop.

She felt her face grow hot, and Darcy thanked the powers that be that the car was dark, and Bill wouldn’t see her red face. Maybe he wasn’t hungry at all, and he’d only decided to stop because of her noisy stomach.

“Let me buy your meal,” Darcy suggested. “My way of thanking you for rescuing me. It’s the least I can do.”

She glanced over at him as they pulled into the parking lot. Hoo boy. His expression looked like a thundercloud on a sultry summer afternoon. She must have wounded his sense of macho. She shrugged. Tough. If he wanted to pay for his dinner, she couldn’t stop him. But she wouldn’t let him pay for hers.

Truthfully, she was too hungry to argue. She just wanted to eat. Anything to quell that empty feeling in her belly, not to mention her heart.

BILL WATCHED Darcy from over the rim of his cup. Now that he could see her in the bright light of the restaurant, he could see that she was old enough to have graduated from nursing school. She carried a certain degree of confidence that the girls he’d known in Mattison didn’t.

He could see, however, how he could have mistaken her for a teenaged runaway in the dark. She was small and slight and wore a short-cropped do that seemed more pixie-like than sophisticated. He’d thought she was blond when he’d first seen her, but in the brightness inside, he could see that her hair was light brown.

Though she wore the uniform common to teenagers and college students—one that he favored, too—the figure that lay beneath the worn T-shirt appeared mature and well-developed. Darcy was tiny, but she wasn’t skinny. She must be closer to his age than he’d originally thought.

Not that it mattered that much. He would never see her again after tonight.

In spite of his fatigue, he felt a stirring in his lower regions, but shrugged it away. He’d just met the woman, it was late, and he had promised that she had nothing to fear from him. He raised his cup to his mouth.

He wondered, though, if he should be careful of her. She seemed safe enough on the outside, but it was what you couldn’t see that was the problem.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Bill looked up, startled by the intrusion into his mental meanderings. “What?”

Darcy grinned, the expression making her look as young as he’d judged her to be. “Just wondering what you were thinking about.” She nodded toward his drink. “You emptied your cup and didn’t even seem to notice.”

He put the cup down. Well, he damn sure couldn’t tell her what he’d really been thinking about. “Nothing, I guess. And everything.”

“Everything?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s heavy. Have you solved the problems of the world?”

Bill shrugged. “Hell. I don’t even have a solution for my own,” he said, grimacing. “I’d settle for that.”

Darcy leaned against the red plastic booth back and gave him an assessing look that made Bill want to squirm. “You don’t look like you could possibly have a care in the world,” she said finally. “You look healthy, you’ve recently bought a new car—judging from the smell—and you’re just back from Florida.”

“It damned sure wasn’t a vacation,” Bill chuckled dryly. “I’m stationed there and just back from two glorious weeks playing war in the sand in Nevada on a field exercise with my air force combat control team. Now I’m on my way home to visit my dying mother.”

Maybe the statement seemed harsh, but he’d had to say it that way at least a thousand times before he could do it without breaking down. It might seem hardhearted, but he had forced himself to face the reality. He was going to have to deal with it sooner or later. Might as well get a head start on it.

Darcy gasped, started to say something, but snapped her mouth shut. Bill wondered what had stopped her. Was it the cold way he had spoken about his mother’s illness, or was it that he wasn’t the kind of man she’d wanted him to be? Who had she expected him to be?

Darcy looked down and selected a cold, limp French fry, dragged it through a puddle of ketchup on the paper from her burger, then put it slowly into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully as if she were using the exercise as a stalling tactic. Was she trying to decide what to say, or was she trying to avoid putting her foot in her mouth again?

Or was he just reading too damned much into the whole thing?

The silence between them grew awkwardly long.

It was hard not having anyone to talk to about it. It sure wasn’t anything he could discuss with any of the guys on the team. Not even his roommate, Ski Warsinski, knew how he felt. He’d tried talking with the chaplain, but he’d only mouthed the standard platitudes. Bill didn’t want comfort. He wanted to yell, to shout, to curse God. He couldn’t do that with the chaplain. Maybe he could unload on Darcy, because after tonight, he’d never see her again.

He reached across the table and snagged one of Darcy’s French fries. He wanted to talk about it, but he didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said softly. “Are you in Florida to be closer to home?”

Bill swallowed, then swallowed again. This time it was a lump of emotion he forced down his throat, not a morsel of potato. “Yeah,” he said, his voice thick and husky. “We don’t know how much time she has.”

Darcy reached across the table and placed her hand over his and squeezed. It was such a simple gesture, but so warm, so giving that it touched something deep inside him. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. “Cancer?”

Bill shook his head. “Congestive heart failure. Every time I see her, she’s weaker.”

Nodding, Darcy spoke. “I understand. Sometimes, heart patients seem so healthy, it’s hard to believe that they’re sick. Other times, they can appear so fragile that you wonder how they’ve held on as long as they have. It must be quite a burden for your dad.”

Bill drew a deep breath and let it slowly out. “Dad died when I was five. Momma worked hard to keep my older brothers and sisters and me fed and clothed, and now I want to make her last days easier,” he said, his voice hoarse. He paused and swallowed, then moistened his dry lips.

“She used to be such a loving, giving person,” Bill went on. “It so hard to see her this way.” He looked down at Darcy’s hand, still covering his. Her skin was so soft, the fingers so delicate, he should hardly have noticed that it was there. But the comfort she provided was enormous.

Darcy didn’t respond. Maybe she knew that words weren’t necessary. There was nothing to say, but her silence seemed to tell more than a Sunday sermon.

Bill glanced at the clock over the pickup counter. Almost ten. At the rate he was going, he wouldn’t get home until midnight. He cleared his throat. “I reckon we’d best get on, then,” he finally said, his voice strained, thick.

“Yeah. I guess so.” Darcy lifted her hand, and in spite of the negligible weight she’d removed, his hand felt cold without it there resting on his.

DARCY GAZED OUT the window and tried to stay awake and on the lookout for a motel. So far, all she’d seen were local places that looked none too reputable. She might be eager to get away from Dick, but she wasn’t that desperate. And Bill had agreed to let her ride along as far as Montgomery where there were more to choose from and the choices were likely cleaner.

In the meantime, she had to keep her eyes open. That had been easy when they were driving through the countryside on the small, back roads. She’d been riding shotgun, helping Bill to guide them through the dense fog, and the constant motion and the stops and turns had kept her alert. Now that Bill had pulled onto I-65 and the fog was gone, the never-changing scenery, unbroken by bright lights or towns, and the comfortable seat seemed to hypnotize her.

Bill turned up the radio and opened a window, to keep from going to sleep himself, she supposed. As it was, her long, sleepless pre-wedding night and even longer day, began to catch up with her. Darcy found herself nodding off and, she tried to think of something to keep her awake.

She yawned. “Do you have a girl waiting for you at home?” she said, trying to make conversation.

Bill shrugged. “Nope.”

She didn’t know why she cared, considering she was hitchhiking and she’d never see him again after tonight, but that small bit of information about him seemed sad. “Do you have other family in Mattison?”

“Yeah.”

Darcy shrugged. Of course, he did. He’d already mentioned siblings. Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Would you rather I be quiet or do you need me to talk to help you stay awake?”

“Naw, I’m fine. It isn’t that late yet, and we’re trained to do without sleep. It’s part of the job.”

“Oh. I’ll just shut up then. When we get to town, you can drop me off, and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“No problem.”

Darcy wondered how much company she could be, sitting there like a bump on a log. She felt about as useful as training wheels on a tricycle, but she was grateful not to have to make idle conversation. Just being in Bill’s strong, silent presence was comforting.

The quiet companionship would be over too soon, she thought as they passed a road sign announcing that Montgomery was thirty-eight miles away.

Thirty-eight miles. At seventy miles an hour, that meant about thirty more minutes in his company. Thirty-eight miles and Bill would drop her off at some motel. Thirty-eight miles and she could get a good night’s sleep and then figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

Montgomery was big enough to have several hospitals, she supposed. Hospitals were always short of nurses. Maybe she could get a job at one of them and start over free from pressure from her family. Free of Dick.

Then she wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just keep going without letting anybody know where she was. Even Bill Hays knowing that she had ended up in Montgomery might bring Dick and her family to her.

No, she wasn’t trying to hide from them. She just didn’t want to deal with them for a while. She needed time to get her head together. She wasn’t ready to face Dick, her parents, or even Uncle John right now.

She wanted to be just plain Darcy and to have the luxury of time to explore who that really was. Dick Harris and the Stanton family with their long military tradition couldn’t seem to understand that.

Darcy leaned back against the seat, pillowed her head with her bent arm against the window frame, and closed her eyes.

THE LIGHTS of the city loomed ahead of him, and Bill sighed. In just a few minutes, Darcy would be gone.

The roadside information signs indicated a wide selection of discount motels at the first exit, and he sighed again. He engaged the turn signal and started to ease into the right lane.

Then Bill looked across the seat to Darcy, sleeping on the seat beside him. Yes, he knew she expected him to stop at a motel in Montgomery, but she looked so peaceful curled up there that he didn’t have the heart to wake her. What had made her so tired that she dropped off next to a stranger? He flipped the turn signal off and remained on the highway.

There were plenty of other motels on the road ahead before they got through Montgomery. Who said they had to stop at the first one? Darcy hadn’t. She could get a room at the last one out of town just as easily.

Bill drove on through the sleeping city, then he drove past the last Montgomery exit, crossed the Alabama River and approached the first off-ramp for Pittsville just a few miles from Mattison. There were fewer motels here, but they were close.