Once a Warrior (20 page)

Anne-Marie felt a dizzying sense of
déjà vu
as she wheeled away from the window to see Mike closing her door behind him.

For a small eternity, she stood where she was, sating herself on the sight of him. Tall and tan and tautly muscled, he looked every inch the conquering hero. His square-cut hair was neatly combed, his face freshly shaved. On the shoulders of his dress uniform gleamed his single silver lieutenant’s bars while a colorful tier of campaign stars and battle decorations lay over his heart.

He looked so strong. So handsome, standing in her ugly little room. So alive.

“Mike,” she marveled softly.

“You were expecting maybe
The Hunchback of Nôtre Dame
?” he said with a wry smile.

Her saucy little chin shot up a notch. “Do I look like Esmerelda?”

That devilish dimple pocked his cheek. “You look like a dream come true.”

Before she could stop herself, Anne-Marie did something she’d never done in front of him before. She burst into tears. Hot tears that made her eyes feel as if they were on fire.

“You’re here!” she sobbed. “You’re really here!”

Alarmed by her loss of control, Mike crossed the room in half the number of steps it normally took her and enfolded her in his arms. His own emotions were dangerously close to the surface. On the one hand, it felt so right to hold her again. To bury his face in her sunlit hair and to fill his senses with her moonflower scent. On the other hand, it terrified him to think that this wouldn’t end the way he wanted it to.

“Hey,” he said, trying to cheer her up, “I’ve got a bicycle taxi waiting down—”

“A bicycle taxi!”  She lifted her shocked face to his smiling one. “But that must be costing you a small fortune!”

He shrugged indifferently. “I’ve also got three months’ worth of combat pay in my pocket and a seventy-two hour pass—”

“Seventy-two hours?” she repeated, both her voice and her heart breaking at the realization that this, then, was how it would end between them.

His dark eyes speared into her distraught ones. “Do you know I’ve been here for a good ten minutes and you haven’t even kissed me hello?

Anne-Marie made a painful but practical decision in that instant. She could cry as much as she wanted after Mike left her to go back to America. Until then, he wasn’t going to see another single tear.

She rose up on tiptoe and drew his head down. No coyness sparked in her eyes when they met his. She was his woman for the next three days and nights, and he was her man. And in the years to come—the lonely years, far ahead and long away—she knew she would look back on their time together with no regret.

“’Ello, Mike,” she whispered against his mouth.

He crushed her against him as their lips melted in an ardent kiss. Their tongues swirled together in an erotic
pas de deux
. His hands moved possessively over her body, leaving fire wherever they touched, and she could feel his living heart pounding in tempo with hers.

She clung to him and to the wonder of the moment. He was her first lover, her
bien-aimé
, and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. But lose him she must. The war that had brought them together had been won. He had a home and a family waiting for him back in Kansas City, and she had goals of her own to pursue here in Paris. So instead of worrying about the future, she would simply appreciate the precious present.

“I thought of you every day,” he murmured.

“I prayed for you every night,” she admitted.

Mike smiled, but his brown eyes were shadowed with memories of war that Anne-Marie knew would haunt him forever. “Sometimes in the middle of a fire mission, I’d swear I could see your face in the smoke. Then I’d blink and, poof, you’d be gone.”

She nodded. “Every so often I’d see an American soldier on the sidewalk who reminded me of you. I’d start walking faster, trying to catch up with him”—now she shook her head ruefully—“only to realize he was a complete stranger.”

They kissed again, tenderly. And again, deeply. Finally, fighting for breath, they broke apart.

“Do you want to send the bicycle taxi away and stay here tonight?” she asked him.

“No.”

“Why not?”

He grinned down at her. “Because I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”  She smiled up radiantly at him. “Oh, but I love surprises!”

Actually, Mike had several surprises in store for Anne-Marie, but after a cursory glance around her tiny but tidy room, he decided that this was neither the time nor the place to spring them on her.

“What is this surprise?” she demanded, scarcely able to contain her curiosity.

“Put on your prettiest dress,” he said silkily, “and I’ll show you.”

* * * *

The door opened into her fantasy boudoir. Subtly striped moiré papered the walls, cut velvet draped the windows, and a simply patterned Savonnerie carpeted the floor. A carved bed, its white satin comforter already turned down, dominated the suite.

“It is to your liking,
m’sieur
?” asked the anxious concierge who’d ridden up in the hotel lift with them.

Mike tilted his head consideringly at Anne-Marie. “What do you think,
madamoiselle
?”

“
C’est magnifique
!”  Peeking into the luxurious, mable-mosaicked bathroom, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the gilted mirror above the sink, seeing a woman who had been liberated by love . . . and, standing behind her, the man who had set her free.

Coming here with Mike might have been a mistake, Anne-Marie knew, because she would surely end up weeping when it was time for him to go. But as she’d changed out of the chemise and into her white crepe suit—a prewar Chanel she’d found in a secondhand shop—she’d felt ridiculously happy. And in the taxi on the way to the hotel, where he’d already arranged for them to stay, she’d renewed her vow to enjoy what time they had together.

We deserve this, she told herself now. After all we’ve suffered, everything we’ve survived, we deserve this.

She squared her shoulders and started to turn back to him. Then stopped, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise when she saw the bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge chilling in a silver cooler beside the small brocade sofa.

“Champagne!” she said on a laugh.

The concierge lifted the bottle from the bucket, expertly removed the foil, then popped the cork and poured.

As she accepted the flute, Anne-Marie noticed a tray of hors d’oeuvres—crackly disks of thin crust daubed with briny black drifts of caviar or cool crème frâche—sitting on the sofa table.

She smiled coyly at Mike. “Now I see why you didn’t want to stop for dinner.”

“No turnips,
m’sieur
.”  The concierge’s tone said he didn’t quite understand the reasoning behind that particular request but that he’d fulfilled it precisely.

Seeing the puzzled expression on the man’s face, Anne-Marie choked back her laughter and sipped champagne. It was delicious. But the fizz in her throat was nothing compared to the bubbling of her blood when she looked at Mike and saw the naked want on his face.

His eyes never left hers as he reached into his pants pocket and produced an American ten-dollar bill. “That’ll be all, thank you.”

Clutching the precious paper money that would probably buy him more than he earned in a month, the concierge backed out of the open door, then executed a courtly bow before he closed it.

“We need to talk, Anne-Marie,” Mike said in a grave tone that sent a shiver of premonition down her spine. “I have a lot of things to tell you, and something I want to ask—”

“No.”  Not yet ready to hear him say that he was going back to America, she set down her flute and started toward the bed. “No talking tonight.”

Determined to have his say, he followed close on her heels. “But I want—”

She spun and silenced him the only way she knew how, with a desperate kiss that left them both shivering with desire. Then, before he could utter another word, she kicked off her shoes, unbuttoned her suit jacket and stepped out of her skirt. Clad only in her lacy brassiere, garter belt and the silken stockings she’d been saving for a special occasion, she took hold of his tie and towed him down to the mattress with her.

“A feather bed!” she squealed in delight.

“How does it feel?”

“It’s so soft.”

And he was so hard and ready lying between her thighs that Anne-Marie simply couldn’t resist. All seductress snow, she reached down between them and undid his fly. Her eager fingers circled him and stroked him until he made a noise in his throat, part moan but mostly growl. Then she let him go and lifted her hand to caress his cheek with melting tenderness.

Mike’s blood pounded a drumbeat in his ears as he looked down at the wanton picture she made with her tawny hair fanning across the potpourri-scented sheet, her amber eyes so soft and shiny, and her skin gleaming like satin in the golden light from the bedside lamp. Talking be damned, he decided. Right now, he had more pressing needs to tend to.

His mouth captured hers and moved over it greedily. She twined her arms around his neck, parting her lips to receive the thrilling thrust of his tongue as she opened her thighs to accept his hot, pulsing hardness. He gripped her hips and drove his body into hers. In response, she locked her legs around him and arched her back like a bow. His hoarse gasps mingled with her glad cries as they found release where they’d left it . . . with each other.

* * * *

The pale light of dawn outlined the velvet drapes when Anne-Marie awakened. She lay unmoving for a moment, staring at the elaborately worked plaster ceiling. Then she turned her gaze to Mike, sleeping soundly beside her.

He’d had a bad dream in the middle of the night. She hadn’t known what to think when his shouts first pierced her ears. But when he’d sat bolt upright in bed with his eyes closed and his fists clenched and sweat beading on his skin, she’d realized that he was reliving some unspeakable horror of war. Remembering her own harrowing nightmares when she didn’t know where he was or whether he was even alive, she’d wrapped her arms around him and held him, simply held him, until his muscles relaxed and he drifted off peacefully again.

Now, being careful not to disturb him, Anne-Marie slid out of bed and began putting on her clothes. Mike’s seventy-two hours were up today, and it was time for her to go. She hated the thought of leaving him like this, with no note of explanation and no kiss goodbye, but she was taking with her a lifetime’s worth of wonderful memories.

The days had passed in a blur as she’d given him the grand tour of the “City of Light.”  She’d taken him from the top of the Eiffel Tower, where they’d clung dizzily to each other as they’d looked straight down, to the underground tunnels of the métro, where they’d necked like teenagers in a darkened car. From the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, from a religious service at Nôtre Dame to a risqué show at the Casino de Paris, he’d seen them all.

But at night, he took the lead. Time and again, he celebrated her body with a tender skill that had left her limp and sated and more in love than ever. Later, she would lie cradled in the curve of his shoulder, listening to the receding thunder of his heart and the relentless ticking of his watch.

Finished dressing, Anne-Marie found her purse on the sofa table, where she’d dropped it the night before while being carried to bed. Tucked inside her bag were the franc notes she would use to buy a round-trip train ticket to Ste. Genviève. She was sure her aunt would be happy to see her. And she hoped she could be of some help to Henriette, who was due to give birth any day and whose husband Guy was working to reconstruct the very railroad tracks that he and the other Résistance members had destroyed. Mostly, though, she needed to get away from Paris for a little while so she could begin learning to live with the pain of Mike’s absence.

She stooped to pick up her shoes, then straightened to study his beloved face one last time. It was then that her tears came—silent sobs that began somewhere in her soul and shook her chest. She had to get out of here. Now. Before her heart shattered and the sound of it breaking into a million irreparable shards awakened him.

Carrying her things, she tiptoed to the door and reached for the knob. Two hands suddenly snaked around from behind her and kept her from opening it. She sagged against the wood, knowing she was caught.

“Where are you going?” Mike demanded, his voice rough with sleep and his breath warm against her neck.

Anne-Marie spun and faced him squarely. “I’m leaving you before you can leave me.”

He fisted his hands on his naked hips and frowned down at her. “What makes you think I’m leaving you?”

“You said you only had seventy-two—”

“I also said I had a surprise for you.”

Still holding her purse and her shoes, Anne-Marie waved her arms to encompass the suite. “I thought you meant this.”

Mike grinned and shook his head. “That’s only part of the surprise.”

“And the rest?”  Her voice reflected her anxiety.

“I’ve been given a choice.”  His expression turned somber. “I can use the points I’ve earned in combat to go back to Kansas City next week. Or I can accept a promotion to Captain and stay in Paris another six months with the Army of Occupation.”

She was almost afraid to ask. “Which are you going to do?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Not what, but who.”

“Who?” she parroted.

“Or is it
whom
?  I can never remember—”

“
Whom
?”

He bent his head and brushed his lips over hers. “You.”

“Me?” she all but squeaked.

“I love you, Anne-Marie.”

On finally hearing the words, she bumped her forehead against his chin to hide her tears. “I love you too, Mike.”

He looped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “You’re brave and you’re beautiful and you gave me a reason to go on living when it seemed like everyone I knew was dying.”

“That’s why you didn’t write to me,” she said with sudden insight.

“I was afraid of putting my feelings on paper,” he admitted. “Afraid that I’d tell you I loved you one day and then jinx it by getting myself killed the next.”  His self-deprecating laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “I was even afraid that, after the way I’d built you up in my mind, you’d find someone else you loved more and wind up jilting me.”