The Majors' Holiday Hideaway
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Caro Carson
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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.
