Free CHRISTMAS AT THUNDER HORSE RANCH by Elle James

that happier, younger Dante before he’d been jaded by a war half a world away.
    “Dante, is this picture in the kitchen of your family?”
    “Yes,” he called out from the bedroom.
    “How old is this photo? You look so much younger.”
    “It was taken about four years ago, when my father was still alive.”
    So his father was dead. Another detail of Dante’s life she was learning. “I’m sorry.”
    “We were, too.” Dresser drawers opened and closed and a closet door was opened.
    Emma set the frame on the counter and lifted the other.
    The other photo was of Dante in a flight suit, standing with a couple of men and one woman in desert camouflage uniforms. Dante had his arm around the woman. She wore her hair pulled back in a tight, neat bun, her makeup-free face smiling into the camera. Sandy-blond hair and light gray-blue eyes, she was a woman men could easily fall in love with. She had one of those sweet, outgoing, girl-next-door faces with an added dose of steel. She’d have to have been tough enough to handle the ten-to-one men-to-women ratio in the desert.
    Emma admired women who volunteered for armed services. She herself had tried to go into ROTC, but an injury to her shoulder as a child had kept her from passing the physical.
    Emma stared down at Dante’s arm draped over the woman’s shoulder. In her heart she knew this woman had meant something to Dante.
    “What are you doing?” Dante demanded.
    Emma jumped and dropped the photo frame back on the counter. She’d been so engrossed in the two photographs she hadn’t noticed Dante had returned to the living area carrying a duffel bag and wearing freshly laundered jeans and a blue chambray shirt. He was even sexier in clothes that fit.
    A guilty flush burned her cheeks at being caught snooping about his private life. But she refused to ignore the picture, wanting to know more about this man she’d made love to. “Who is she?”
    He started to walk by, headed for the door, but stopped beside her instead. “Someone I used to know.”
    Lifting the frame again, she stared across the floor at him. “She’s very pretty.”
    Dante’s gaze went to the photo, his eyes staring as if looking back in time, not at the paper picture but at the memories it inspired. “Samantha made the desert bearable.”
    Something in his voice made Emma’s heart squeeze in her chest, but she couldn’t stop herself from observing, “She has a nice smile.”
    He nodded. “Everyone at Bagram Airfield loved Samantha.”
    Emma studied Dante’s face, her heart settling into the pit of her belly. “Did you love her?”
    His gaze shifted from the photo to Emma. “What?”
    “Did you love her?”
    “Yes.”
    “And do you still?” Emma asked quietly.
    His lips thinned, his dark green eyes unreadable. “Yes.”
    Emma glanced around the sterile apartment. There were no signs of the woman. Surely he wouldn’t have taken Emma out to have coffee if he was still involved with her. “What happened?” she dared to ask, the question burning in her heart.
    “She died in an IED explosion while visiting an Afghan orphanage outside the wire.”
    A heavy lump settled in the pit of Emma’s gut as she stared down at the beautiful face, so happy and alive. “That’s terrible.”
    “Yeah,” he said, the word clipped and as emotionless as the room they stood in. “Ready?”
    Emma nodded and set the frame on the counter. “I’m sorry for your loss. She must have been a very special woman.”
    “She was.”
    And there she had it. Samantha was a very special woman. How could Emma compete with that? No wonder he’d had coffee with her one time and walked away without calling again. Emma didn’t measure up to Samantha’s perfection.
    Her heart fell even farther, landing somewhere around her shoes. And he’d made love to her only to find out she was a pathetic virgin. Heat burned her cheeks and she ducked her head to hide her shame. “I’m ready to leave.”
    She led the way