Operation Christmas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Operation Christmas

  Copyright

  Praise for Books by Barbara Weitz

  Dedication

  Dear Reader,

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Operation Christmas

  by

  Barbara Weitz

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Operation Christmas

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Barbara A. Weitz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Sweetheart Rose Edition, 2013

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-983-4

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Books by Barbara Weitz

  CUTTER MOUNTAIN RENDEZVOUS

  2012 Single Titles Reviewers’ Choice Award

  by the CataNetwork Reviewers

  “I thoroughly enjoyed this story. The hero and heroine were well-matched and had great chemistry...The romantic tension that is woven through the book doesn’t disappoint. I fell in love with them immediately and enjoyed the twists and turns leading to a great ending.”

  ~Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews (5 Stars)

  …

  TEED UP FOR LOVE

  “A witty story full of fun but it also addresses plenty of serious issues in a delightful way that brings out emotions but isn’t too heavy. The supporting cast of characters is as well developed as the lead couple and enhanced the story. If you are looking for the perfect summer read full of personality and humor, this is definitely the one to pick up and enjoy lounging in the sun.”

  ~Got Romance Reviews

  “Barbara Weitz has a delightfully sophisticated writing style that conveys wit and humor without the slapstick. Teed Up for Love is a great read.”

  ~Catherine Andorka, author (5 Stars)

  Dedication

  I’d like to dedicate this book to

  the military men and women who sacrifice so much

  to serve and protect this beautiful country of ours.

  Thank you.

  Dear Reader,

  Sometimes a story latches onto your heart and demands it be written. This is such a story. It’s impossible not to be aware of the large number of young injured vets coming back into mainstream life. We, the public, see their bravery and smiles as they rehabilitate in the media, but what happens when the cameras stop rolling? A difficult subject to tackle as a romance writer, and not typical, but one I felt compelled to write.

  I’ve taken the liberty to imagine the trials of a young war widow in denial who comes face-to-face with a physically injured former Marine ready to take a shot at living life to its fullest. Since the world’s troubles can’t be fixed with the wave of a wand, I brought a determined angel into the story bent on convincing this doubting Marine his life is precious no matter what he’s seen or believes.

  We all know freedom comes at a great price, even the liberty to write this fictional story, for that I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my editor and publisher for helping me present it to you. And then there’s the bevy of brave widows in my life who show me their strength. This story is about loss and recovery and the ability to embrace the sorrows and the curve balls life throws us with grace and dignity and a smile even if it’s through our tears.

  It’s my sincere hope you will fall in love with Jess Grant and Madeleine Belmar as you read their journey to new love and happiness.

  Wishing you a blessed and Merry Christmas,

  Barbara Weitz

  Chapter One

  Jess Grant clenched his jaw until it ached. Phantom pain struck at dawn in a Molotov cocktail of hot embers and dry ice cold, making the simplest of tasks monumental. Never sure of the trigger, he blamed December’s bone-chilling air and gray sky dumping wet snow that clogged his windshield wipers.

  He put more heat on the windshield and shook his head. If only all things could be fixed this easily. Like everyday life without a lower left arm. Wasn’t that enough of a challenge to body and mind without this—this dealing with something you couldn’t see but sure as hell felt big time.

  Thank God this latter phenomenon occurred less frequently these days. Who needed the periodic flashback to the day his arm stayed behind in Afghanistan, leaving him to wonder why the rest of his body earned the right to come home. The answer always came with a glimpse into the unbelievable, and most certainly undeserved, by any measure his mind could grasp.

  Being saved by an angel might make a good party story, but he wasn’t about to toss the possibility out there for folks to deem him mentally damaged as well as physically. He lowered the passenger side window to flood the truck with mind-clearing air. It didn’t take long for frigid ozone to knock some sense into his thick skull.

  Jess tamped down on the brakes to come to a complete stop. Stuck in the crawl of morning traffic brought on by winter’s first major snowfall, he spotted Belmar Bakery up ahead. About to jump out of his skin, he decided to stop and kill two birds with one stone. He could place his Operation Christmas order and pick up bakery for the office break room.

  Jess maneuvered into a parking spot across from the bakery and got out of his truck. Traffic made a steady stream over two lanes of sloppy pavement, creating ridges of brown slush deep enough to cover the thick soles of his boots.

  If he didn’t look at the road, he saw a different scene. The old river town in which he’d been raised took on a fresh new look as fat snowflakes shrouded century-old storefronts. Old-fashioned lampposts lined Main Street. Fake green wreaths and advent banners hung from them, letting the daily commuters know they passed through Ferris Bridge, Illinois—don’t blink.

  He hunched his shoulders against wet flakes drifting down the neck of his leather jacket, his frozen breath lost in the blinding snow. About to curse the damp cold, the persistent pain, the traffic inching along, finally, he saw his chance. He darted through the break in traffic with his eyes riveted on the bakery’s mouthwatering window display. Belmar Bakery represented home and yearly birthday cakes, it a fixture in town since his childhood.

  The familiar jingle of the small bell above the bakery door brought with it warm homey aromas. Usually the family matriarch Grams Belmar greeted him with steady brown eyes and a grim mouth. Her white halo of hair gave the impression of a rocking chair grandma, but he knew different. Beyond a sales pitch of the day’s special, she appeared stern yet knew exactly what he wanted without a lot of chatter. Broad grins filled with “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am” would make the corners of her mouth curl against her will. At the rate they were going, he figured it would be spring
before they got friendly enough for him to ask about her granddaughter, Madeleine.

  Today, Grams was nowhere in sight as Madeleine’s mother greeted him with a head nod. Janet, if his memory served him right. She made her way toward him. He could see some resemblance between mother and daughter but had to admit Madeleine favored her father more.

  They chatted easily as he placed his order. He almost made a casual inquiry about her daughter, when she braced herself against the counter with her pen caught between sturdy fingers and sighed. “Imagine. Our cookies traveling all the way to Afghanistan to brighten some soldier’s Christmas. Goodness that warms my heart.” She placed her hand against her chest with a steady pat. Jess understood all too well the emotions behind her sad eyes in remembrance of her son-in-law killed in the war. Any questions about Madeleine would have to wait.

  Customers gathered and milled in the store and hurried Jess’s business to a close. He tucked his fingers under the twine wound heavily around two white bakery boxes. At the door, he jumped back and made a quick arch to allow the distracted woman rushing in to dip beneath his prosthetic arm and avoid a collision.

  Madeleine! He’d know her anywhere.

  She ducked her head, jostling the long dark curls that cascaded around her shoulders and over the knit pink scarf wound around her neck. Her breath swooshed into her lungs with a gasp. “Oh, my gosh. So sorry.” Her light brown eyes flashed with apology. “My fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Sorry.”

  “No harm done. I didn’t drop these.” He lifted the boxes.

  And it was over.

  Not what he hoped. Off to tell her mom some good news, she hurried past without seeming to hear his comment or notice his best sexy grin let alone recognize him. But he remembered her. Remembered being sorry she remained attached at the hip to Danny all through high school.

  Good thing she didn’t take notice. He’d let his eyes appreciate her fair skin and rosy cheeks stung by frigid air moments too long, too blatant. What did he expect? That she’d recognize him, talk, and want to hook up? Right!

  Again at the curb, he waited with his thoughts. She hadn’t changed a bit other than being more beautiful as an adult than a teenager. How strange Danny’s death in Iraq occurred around the same time as his ambush in Afghanistan. Shame, really. Widowed at what? Twenty-six, seeing as he turned twenty-eight over the summer.

  Pain crushed deep inside Jess’s chest and squeezed around his heart. An injured war vet would be the last kind of guy she would date. He would be a constant reminder of what she lost. Maybe even resent he survived and Danny didn’t. He shivered and not from the cold.

  Impatient with the endless traffic, he dared the car speeding his way to slow down. Honk! He jerked back, his arm swung out and the car’s front fender caught hold of the bakery boxes, ripping them from his fingers. Cold, dirty road slush drenched his pant legs with splatter from the knees down as the car rolled over the boxes. The driver didn’t even seem to notice other than hitting his horn.

  Talk about a bad day! No desire to do anything other than go to work, he darted between the cars.

  By the time he jumped inside his truck and jammed the key into the ignition, the phantom returned. Or his realization it never left. A dark sinking swirl at the pit of his stomach made him feel useless and angry. Damn the war and all the baggage he still lugged around. Some of his bigger-than-life personality remained buried in a foreign country he’d just as soon forget about in detail. Leaving him to wonder why he’d made it out alive and not the rest of his team?

  The question haunted him.

  He dialed Tamara. The only person in his support group he shared anything personal. Special Ops Army and minus a leg, she was much tougher than he in lots of ways. She’d give him grief, but at the moment, he needed the wakeup call to forget the guy who about plowed him over rather than slow down. Although, he had to admit, forgetting the ruined bakery would be a lot harder. He’d been set for a piece of stollen with his morning coffee.

  Yet something else burned a bigger hole in his gut. Why couldn’t he let it go? What good would come of any of it?

  “Hey, baby. Whaz up?” Tamara said with an exaggerated soul sister twang.

  “Saw Madeleine.”

  “And?”

  “She looks good.”

  “Uh-huh. You say hello?”

  “She was in a rush.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s a big fat no.”

  “She didn’t recognize me.”

  “Uh-huh. Hang on a sec. Need to feed Puddy Kat. Can’t think with him rumblin’ in my ear.”

  Jess heard the monster black cat making his demands and squeezed his foot down on the brake for a stoplight. She didn’t recognize me. Damn. Why not? He’d been senior Homecoming King for crying out loud.

  Then it occurred to him it might be best all-around if Madeleine didn’t recall his face. Should she place him later, he’d rather she think of him throwing a football or dunking a basketball. Dribbling from hand to hand with cocky confidence, his nimble footwork paying off on a hide-n-seek battlefield where he led patrols to flush the enemy from burnt out villages. It’s best, he told himself for the tenth time.

  “Could you hear him?” Tamara returned to the phone. “That goes on every morning until he’s fed.”

  “You’ve spoiled him rotten.”

  “Honey Bear, that’s what we women do with anything that returns affection. So—” She let it hang a moment and he knew, unfortunately, she’d circled back to the bakery. “What you’re really sayin’ is you finally bump into her and got cold feet.”

  “I saw her. I’m satisfied.”

  “That’s pathetic.”

  “Hey, you came home to a loving husband. I came home to Amputee Dating 101 and feeling less a—” He cut himself off from saying the word out loud. Maybe for fear it was true.

  “What? A man? Honey, you’ve only been stripped of your manhood if you’ve been neutered like Puddy Kat. As best I can tell, you’re all there. You need me to swing by and inspect that for you, Lieutenant?”

  He laughed for the first time that morning. “No, ma’am. Jamal would whomp my white butt black and blue.”

  “Uh-huh. Got that right. How’s the Peetappi monster today? Mine’s got jagged teeth.” Peetappi was Tamara’s affectionate, and somewhat macabre, code name for pain-in-the-butt-phantom-pain. The sister tagged silly names onto everything.

  “That about sums up mine.”

  “I hear ya. So what about Madeline? You gonna call her and say you saw her today?”

  “Why?”

  “Come on, Jess. Face it. You’re dying to sit down and have a cup of coffee with her. Reconnect. Not just bump into her for a quick look and see.”

  “We were never connected in the first place.”

  “Seems to me you connected. Now she needs to catch up.”

  “I doubt she’s even available.”

  “I’m losing patience here. Find a damned phone book. Call her and find out,” Tamara said with a loud harrumph.

  “And say what?”

  “Say you saw her at the bakery today. Would she like to grab a cup of coffee? If she’s seeing someone, she’ll tell you. Must I think for you too?”

  “She doesn’t know me from Adam. Sure, we went to the same high school but she was two years below me. It’ll sound weird.”

  “Now you’re makin’ me mad.”

  “Guess I’d better hang up then. Hey, thanks for reamin’ me a new one. I knew I could count on you.”

  “Uh-huh. Anytime. See you at the Christmas party?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So now you’re gonna slouch your sorry rear end on the sofa for the next week and pout? That’s a negative, Brother Grant. You’re coming. Mama T’s got a new dress.”

  He growled. “Fine. I’ll be there. But that dress better be worth it.”

  “It is.”

  “Hey, gotta run. Stay out of trouble.”

  “You too, Honey Bear.”

 
; Jess disconnected from Tamara’s reality check with old wounds festering. He did want to see Madeleine in some situation other than a doorway. Unfortunately, somewhere between a hospital bed in Munich, Germany, and an honorable discharge, he’d lost more than an arm.

  His kid sister’s overboard optimism rang in his ears. “Better a limb than a life,” Crystal liked to say with teenaged exuberance. Or another of her favorites, “Better your left arm than your right.” He did appreciate not needing to relearn all the right-handed tasks he’d known since birth. He hoped to hell Crystal never had reason to become jaded or bitter as he’d become. Or consider it a thrill to hold a beautiful woman in his mind and not his arms. Just his luck the woman who interested him was a war widow.

  He flipped on the radio and mulled over the insecurities one arm brought him. Dating once came as natural as walking. Not anymore. And how did he erase the post-arm sports bar scene where he almost got lucky until the woman remembered she needed to be somewhere. After she realized he had a prosthetic arm. He’d made light of it and teased, “Hey, babe. Everything below the waist still works.” To which she smiled and said, “Sorry. I don’t do pity sex. Just being honest here.” Ouch. That messed up his mind. Pity sex? And that came without her knowing his chest held a battlefield of burn scars. Talk about a stake to the heart for a guy who once held the title for being a babe magnet.

  Jess tapped his thumb against the steering wheel, thinking the next time he got brave enough to trust a woman wouldn’t recoil when they got naked, he’d date a hot brunette like Madeleine. Except this time around he didn’t want just any woman or a one-night stand. He wanted friendship. Someone who wanted to share the rigors of life. Have kids with two arms and two legs, ten fingers and ten toes. The whole enchilada or nothing.