Free Welcome Home by Emily Mims Page B

the highway toward Reece Acres.
    Tommy’s hands were now clinched into fists,
and his jaw tightened more every mile they drove, but his eyes lit
up and a wide smile filled his face as Christi pulled up to the
gate with the metal mailbox and simple wrought iron sign bearing
the name of his ranch.
    “God, it’s good to be here,” he said
softly.
    “And it’s good to have you here.” Christi
stopped the van long enough to open the gate, drove through and
stopped again to pull it shut, but rather than drive on she killed
the engine and turned to Tommy. “I just want to take a minute and
welcome you home properly,” she said. She unbuckled her seat belt
and leaned across. “Welcome home, Tommy Joe.”
    She took his face in her hands and placed her
lips on his, softly at first and then with increasing passion. She
captured Tommy’s mouth with her own and let her months of lonely
yearning fuel the way she tasted and touched the man she loved. She
teased and played and nibbled, and she felt Tommy’s lips melt under
hers. When his lips parted, she snaked her tongue between his teeth
to begin the kind of sensual duel they had so passionately shared
so many times in the past. She could feel his fists slowly
unclench, and he ran his hands up her arms then snaked them around
her neck.
    They kissed and touched for another long
passionate moment, and Christi was about to climb over the console
and sit in Tommy’s lap when he stiffened and pulled away. “Later,
okay?” he asked almost gruffly before he blinked and stared out the
window.
    “Sure thing,” Christi said. Pulling away, she
started the van so that he didn’t see the tears welling up in her
eyes.
    Why had he turned her away after kissing her
so passionately in his hospital room? She forced back the tears and
hoped Tommy hadn’t noticed, pasting on a smile. There would be
other kisses. The important thing was that he was home.
    Or, was he? In his mind and his heart, where
it really mattered, had Tommy really come home to her today, or was
his soul still somewhere in that hospital in San Antonio? Christi
glanced over at the man in the passenger seat staring blindly out
the window, and she had to wonder.
    * * *
    Tommy glanced over at the tear-filled eyes of
the woman he’d loved since he was seventeen. He’d hurt Christi just
now, and he would give anything to go back to that damned gate and
kiss her senseless. But he couldn’t. It was all he could do to hold
it together and not break down screaming and crying like a
baby.
    Stupid, really. It was just a damn gate. A
gate he should have been able to open for her. Instead she’d had to
stop the van, open the gate, get back in the van and drive through,
and then she had to get out of the damned van a second time and
shut it, all while he sat on his useless ass and watched. And they
weren’t even to the house yet! How many more things was he going to
have to sit on his ass and watch her do? How many more times was he
going to face the stark reminders of his new limitations?
    Those limitations had been shoved in his face
on a daily basis since he’d arrived at the military hospital in San
Antonio. In the dark of the night they made him wonder if his life
was even worth living at this point. He’d watched with no little
envy as the other paraplegics—an attorney, a teacher, a couple of
salesmen, an accountant—made the adjustment to their new normal and
wheeled their ways out the door to the rest of their probably
productive lives. But how was he ever going to run Reece Acres from
a wheelchair? More importantly, how in the hell was he supposed to
be the husband that a beautiful, vital, sensual woman like Christi
deserved? How was he ever going to dance with her or carry her off
to bed or make love to her the way he used to?
    The answer was simple. He wasn’t.
    No, they would never dance together again,
and he would never sweep her off her feet and carry her across the
house to their bed. And, lovemaking? Oh, the