Free Light This Candle (Harlequin More Than Words) by Cindy Dees

then remembered that Mitch had given her a ride
over here. She frowned, staring down at her hands, too numb and exhausted to
solve this simple problem. Where was Mitch when she needed him to take care of
her?
    “Problem?” Rose murmured.
    “Mitch brought me over here. I don’t have a way to get
home.”
    “I’ll give you a lift. C’mon. You look like you could use some
rest.”
    But when she crawled into her bed, memories of Mitch refused to
leave her alone. She tossed and turned until she thought she was going to
scream. For a minute there, the two of them had almost had it all. But somehow
she’d managed to go and blow it. Worst of all, she already missed him.
    * * *
    Dawn was creeping around the edges of his curtains
before Mitch gave up on sleeping. He’d spent the whole night kicking himself for
being a hundred kinds of fool. Why did he have to go and throw it in Cassidy’s
face that he was part of the same military that had killed her husband and
ruined her life?
    Their relationship was too new, too fragile to survive such a
blow. Was he just foolish, or was there some subconscious force in him trying to
chase her away? Was he scared of his feelings for
her? Was that why he’d pushed her away like that?
    As soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew it to be true.
He was terrified of how fast and hard he was falling for Cassidy and Cody. It
was as if he’d been waiting his whole life for the two of them to come along.
But now he’d gone and lost them both.
    He alternated between fury at himself and grief deeper than any
he’d ever known. Eventually he dug himself out of the emotional hole he’d thrown
himself into and turned his thoughts toward winning the two of them back. He
wasn’t a highly trained military strategist for nothing.
    The first order of business was to make contact with Cassidy
again. But subtly. Indirectly. He drove over to the military base and paid a
visit to the finance office. He’d had the folks there reviewing Jimmy Frazier’s
beneficiary paperwork, and they’d found several crucial errors.
    Mitch was relieved to hear that starting in a few weeks,
several hundred dollars more per month of Social Security money would be
released to Cassidy. Furthermore, the last fifty thousand dollars of Jimmy’s
life insurance policy that had been withheld pending a search for his
parents—who were both deceased according to Cassidy—was going to be released to
the widow. He was assured the check would take no more than two weeks to arrive
in her mail.
    He wished there was more he could do for her. He had a driving
need deep in his gut to make her happy. To see her smile and hear her laugh.
He’d had crushes in the past, but this obsession with making another human being
happy was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He didn’t know how or why it
had happened at the speed of light, but it was unquestionably real.
    He made his way toward the hospital to tell Cassidy about the
change in her benefits; he’d learned the hard way not to do such things behind
her back. And as he drove, something incredibly obvious dawned on him. It didn’t
really matter why he’d fallen for Cassie. The fact that he had was all that
mattered.
    If watching young men die in war had taught him nothing else,
it was to live in the now and not to ask too many why questions. Like why did
one kid die when another one lived? Why had he survived? Why did war exist? Why
did he care so much about a widow and her young son so soon after meeting
them?
    He just did.
    Now to convince her of that.
    * * *
    Cassidy stared at Cody in dismay. How was she going to
convince him to cooperate with the doctors? The helicopter would be here in a
half hour to airlift him to Columbus. But her normally sweet and tractable son
had dug in his heels and was throwing the mother of all hissy fits. He was
absolutely determined that he was not leaving this place until he saw Mitch.
    The doctors looked exasperated and told her that they