Free A Weldon Family Christmas: A Southern Steam Novella (Weldon Brothers) by Jennifer Saints Page A

the Huey helicopter I was in crashed.   It was Christmas Day 1971, Vietnam, and I was on my way to Landing Zone Eagle to serve dinner to the men there.  John went to hell and back to save me.”
    “That sounds like an amazing story.”
    “It is.”
    “Come with me.  Hopefully you can calm him enough for the tech to do the test.”
    “Jared just texted,” James said.  “He’s on his way to the hospital.  I’ll wait for him here while you see Dad.”
    Emma hugged James.  “We’ll finish talking later.  Just remember that sometimes the heart doesn’t need time to know what’s right.”  Leaving the waiting room, Emma followed the nurse into the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.  Emma had worked in the hospital cafeteria for years, so the place should feel like home.  It didn’t though.  It felt strange.  The lights were too bright; the sounds too frightening; the surroundings too hard and sterile.  There were touches of Christmas cheer scattered about, but the only comfort to be found was in the dedicated staff committed to saving lives.
    “You’ll have to share your story with us,” the nurse said as she slid the curtain across the window, dimming the bright light of the nurses’ station and giving her a little privacy with John.
    “I will.”  Emma moved to John’s bedside, blinking back tears.  His eyes were squeezed tight and he was moving his arms and legs restlessly as if in the grip of a nightmare.  “Ninh Hoi Find Em,” he whispered harshly.
    Lacing their fingers with his, she pressed her palm to his, a hold that would forever remind her of the first time they’d made love.  “I’m here John.  You found me.  Now, you need to rest.”  Leaning down, she kissed his furrowed brow and brushed back his once dark but now more salt than pepper hair.
    He may have been drugged and not quite aware of where he was, but he shifted her way and tightened his hand around hers, making her heart soar.  He knew she was here.   Hooking the leg of a nearby chair with her foot, she pulled it to the bedside and sat down.  Once she wrestled the safety rail down, she snuggled up to him with her head practically on his shoulder and her free hand over his heart.   “You found me, John.  We still have quite a bit of living and loving to do.  So fight for me, my love.  Fight for me.”
    His restless movements stilled and his racing heart slowed to a steady pace.  Emma heard the nurse come into the room and looked up to see the woman smiling.  “Whatever you are doing is working.  Keep it up.  We’ll give him a little time to rest before the tech comes back.”
    The nurse left, and Emma softly hummed the first song John had sung to her— Make it With You by Bread.  He’d been a little off key, a little off rhythm, but his deep voice had wrapped around her heart in that dank jungle and made her smile.  The song had seemed as if it was written just for them and said everything that needed to be said at the time.
    She hadn’t thought they’d make it out of the jungle alive, but he did.  During that week they’d spent running from the enemy in the middle of the worst bombing campaign in Nam in years, he had made her believe they’d survive—with his strength, his courage, and his love making.  Even now heat flushed her cheeks from the memory.  It was a story that she could never fully tell anyone except John, and he already knew it.  Nobody did it better than her Southern Bad Boy.
    Looking back at what they’d gone through and the unleashing of their desperate passion, it almost didn’t seem real or believable.  But she’d lived it, knew that it had all happened, and it had felt more than right at the time.  Still did.  John had needed some convincing though—at least the first time.  After that…well it was a miracle they’d made it out of the jungle.  Not because they’d been lost.  Not because of the infiltrating enemy troops.  But because when the man made love to her