Free A Soldier's Redemption by Rachel Lee Page A

some part of her want to cry out in loss. But with the return of awareness came a bit of sense.
    He didn’t pull completely away, as if he knew how sensitive this could become. How dangerous for her, and maybe for him.
    Instead, even as she let her legs fall away, he reached out to gently brush her hair with his hand.
    â€œYou’re enchanting,” he said huskily.
    Enchanting? No one had ever called her that. She remained mute, unable to speak, knowing that her eyes, her face, her breathing must be telling a truth she didn’t want to hear herself say. Not yet, maybe never.
    â€œI forgot myself.”
    He wasn’t the only one. She didn’t know what to say, could only stare at him, torn between yearning, loss and the returning shreds of common sense.
    He leaned forward, giving her the lightest of kisses on her lips. “I think,” he said, “that I’d better cut those vegetables.”
    She managed a nod, awhirl with so many conflicting feelings she doubted she could ever sort them out. He turned to pick up the knife, and moved down the counter about a foot to the cutting board and vegetables.
    â€œYou don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said, his voice still a little thick. “I’ll behave.”
    Another odd choice of words. As she fought her way back from the frustration of awakened, unmet desires, she tucked that away for future consideration. Right now, the thing she most needed was some equilibrium. Thinking could come later.
    Wade, just about to start slicing the vegetables, put the knife down and turned toward her. He gripped her around the waist and set her back on her feet. “Sorry,” he said. “Should have thought of that.”
    She could have slid off the counter on her own, but hadn’t because she still felt so shaky. Unable to tell him that, she mumbled her thanks and turned desperately in another direction, away from him, seeking something tokeep busy with. This was a simple meal, and he was about to do the major part of the work.
    Finally she measured out the penne into a bowl, then walked around him to get the sausage from the microwave. Just act as if it never happened, she told herself. Maybe it never had.
    But her traitorous body said otherwise. Oh, it had happened all right, and she suspected the internal earthquakes had just begun. Even the light brush of her own clothing over her skin, especially between her legs, reminded her that something primal had awakened.
    She coated the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil, then began to slowly cook and brown the sausage on medium heat. Her hands still shook a little when she pulled out the stockpot she used for cooking pasta. A cheap pot, it wouldn’t have served well for anything that wasn’t mostly liquid, and she found herself pausing, suddenly locked in the most ridiculous memory of her previous pasta cooker, an expensive pot with a built-in colander and a smaller insert for steaming vegetables.
    It was an odd memory, coming out of nowhere. She had long since ceased to care about the things she had lost during her transition to this new life, but for no reason she could almost feel the weight of that pot in her hands and with it the tearing edge of memories, ordinary memories, the simple kinds of things that should hold no threat whatever. It wasn’t a memory of Jim, of their life together. It was just a memory of a damn pot, one she had bought long before she married Jim. Nothing but a memory from the life of a woman who had once slowly built up a kitchen full of all the best cooking utensils because she loved to cook, and part of that expression was using the best of everything.
    On a teacher’s salary, many of those items had trulybeen an indulgence. She had scrimped to buy them, until she had had a kitchen that would have pleased a world-class chef.
    And now she was using a five-dollar aluminum stockpot and a chef’s knife she’d bought on sale at the grocery