Just Shy of a Dream Read online

  Meek?

  No.

  Shy?

  If she was that shy, how had she ever survived in the military?

  By being so competent that—

  “How did you know how to save Mr. Lyons?”

  9

  “I didn’t. But I knew if I didn’t try, he’d die. I just used what I learned from dissection in biology class.” Never in her life had she been so terrified.

  “Bio class? With Ms. Klein?”

  “Yes.”

  “You performed what the doctor called ‘advanced field surgical techniques’ with a bunch of shop tools—because of bio?”

  “I,” Sara didn’t know how to explain herself…to herself least of all. “I read a lot. Human anatomy—a couple of books.”

  “What else do you do?”

  She waved a hand at the prone major. Finally satisfied with the readings, Sara covered her with a double layer of blankets and hung one more bag of saline. After a moment’s debate, she didn’t reinforce the sedative.

  “That’s it?”

  Stephen. Stephen Brown. She emphasized the name a few more times to make sure she remembered it.

  Sara closed her eyes. This was the moment where she never knew what to say next. Raised by her grandmother, who had been bedridden since Sara was twelve, had left her with few tools for communicating with others. Silence hadn’t merely become her natural state, it had become her friend. By running at the head of the pack, no one else with her, no one else to even see, she had felt free and alone. Studying hard had given her an excuse to focus on something other than people. Her grandmother had lost speech by the time Sara was fourteen, by which time they didn’t need words to communicate anyway. After Gran had died the year Sara turned seventeen, she had been the only attendee at the graveyard. She had lived out her last year of high school alone in the vast silence that had fit so comfortably in the small house.

  The Army had been straightforward as well. Medics were always outsiders—no soldier wanted to be reminded that the chance of injury was so high that they needed a trained medic hovering nearby. Easy to be left alone. On base she ran, read, and worked. Each time she was awarded a Good Conduct Medal or promoted for being a model soldier had mystified her.

  But Sergeant Stephen Brown’s silence forced her to speak.

  “I’m glad Mr. Lyons is okay.” The words slowly grew easier. “He’s the reason I went Army medic. I rewrote my speech because of him. Changed everything.”

  Which wasn’t true. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look at Stephen. The softness of the red night light didn’t make it any easier.

  “Truthfully, I changed it all because of you. I saw how you cared about him,” the words rushed out of her now. “I saw how important it was to you to save him. I wanted to do that for you, then for others. I wanted to save them. I have no one. Never really did. But the chance to send them home to people who cared? Who knew how to care? I wanted—”

  Why were words so hard? It had taken her moments to understand the changes that saving Mr. Lyons had wrought in her. Yet every waking moment between then and graduation had only captured a shade of that meaning in her speech. It was the first speech she’d ever given outside of a class, and the last. Only by focusing on the importance of that message, had she been able to read it at all, without once looking up.

  She leaned forward as the major woke slightly. Not conscious, but an increase of movement. Enough to throw a strap across her back and knees to keep her in place.

  It was why she’d never reported a single elicit affair. It was why she’d been so angry at Major Beale’s raging commander.

  Nothing, nothing! was more important to her than getting a soldier home alive to someone who loved them. To have that questioned, doubted, was the worst pain. It would be a betrayal of everything she believed in.

  “What about you?”

  She shook her head. It was a question she managed to drive down deep every time it came up.

  “Sara. What about you?”

  Oh…the question wasn’t coming from inside as it so often did.

  It was coming from Stephen.

  “What about me?” But that was evasion. “I try not to dream for me.”

  Stephen was silent for a long time.

  Sara was so sick of being alone. If only she could think of what to do about it. No one understood her silences. Men never gave her time to organize her thoughts well enough to speak them aloud. Yet Stephen seemed to understand.

  Maybe… She was jolted by the thought. It might be the first time in her life she’d even found a maybe.

  Major Beale awoke slowly and turned to look at her.

  “How close?” Beale managed a hoarse whisper, but her gaze was clear. Clearer than any time since she’d come under Sara’s care. Awake enough to know that death had brushed by her so very closely.

  “You’re alive. You’ll fly again. Your husband is waiting.”

  “Thank you. And I’d be lost without flying. But that last part is the best feeling there is.”

  The best news of all was that her husband was waiting.

  Then the woman’s eyes drifted past Sara’s shoulder and she smiled.

  Sara turned to see Stephen reaching out. He took her hand in his.

  “I remember your hands too. Such sure, competent hands.” His voice was low, but soothing and calm as it had been for Mr. Lyons. More so. She felt no desire to pull back. To hide.

  Stephen’s beautiful hands had always been her ideal. And now he held hers gently, rubbing a thumb softly over her knuckles.

  Beale was right.

  It was the best feeling ever.

  Daniel’s Christmas (excerpt)

  If you liked this, you’ll love the Night Stalkers White House novels!

  Daniel’s Christmas

  (excerpt)

  The phone hammered him awake. Daniel came to in his office chair with the phone already to his ear.

  Someone was speaking rapidly. He caught perhaps one word in three. “CIA. Immediate briefing. North Korea.”

  He must have made some intelligible reply as moments later he was listening to a dial tone.

  Daniel rubbed at his eyes, but the vista didn’t change. Large cherry wood desk. Mounds of work in neatly stacked folders that he’d sat down to tackle after the long flight. His briefcase still unopened on the floor beside him. Definitely the White House Chief of Staff’s office. His office. Nightmare or reality? Both. Definitely.

  Phone. He’d been on the phone.

  The words came back and, now fully awake, Daniel started swearing even as he grabbed the handset and began dialing.

  Maybe he could blame all this on Emily Beale. In the three short weeks she’d been at the White House, Daniel had risen from being the First Lady’s secretary to the White House Chief of Staff and it was partly Emily’s fault. As if his life had been battered by a tornado. Still felt that way a year later.

  Okay, call it mostly her fault.

  As he listened to the phone ringing in his ear, it felt better to have someone to blame. He rubbed at his eyes. A year later and he still didn’t know whether to curse Major Beale or thank her.

  Maybe he could make it all her fault.

  “Yagumph.”

  “Good morning, Mr. President.”

  “Is it morning?” The deep voice would have been incomprehensibly groggy without the familiarity of long practice.

  Daniel checked his watch, barely morning. “Yes, sir!” he offered his most chipper voice.

  “Crap! What? All of 12:03?”

  “12:10, sir.” They’d been on the ground just over an hour.

  “Double crap!” The President was slowly gaining in clarity, maybe one in ten linguists would be able to understand him now.

  “Seven more minutes of sleep than you guessed, sir.”

  “Daniel?”

  “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “Next time Major Beale comes to town, I’m sending you up on one of her training ri
des.”

  “Sounds like fun, sir.” If he had a death wish. “Crashing in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is definitely an experience I can’t wait to relive.” The Major was also the childhood friend of the President, so he had to walk with a little care, but not much. The two of them were that close.

  “Time to get up, sir, the CIA is coming calling. They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.” A low groan sounded over the phone. “Make that fifteen.” The handset rattled loudly as he missed the cradle. Daniel got the phone clear of his ear before the President’s handset dropped on the floor.

  Daniel hung up and considered sleeping for the another fifteen minutes. There was a nice sofa along the far wall sitting in a close group with a couple of armchairs, but he’d have to stand up to reach it. All in strong, dusky red leather, his secretary’s doing after discovering Daniel had no taste. Janet had also ordered in a beautiful oriental rug and several large framed photographs. Even on the first day she’d known him well enough to chose images of wide-open spaces. He missed his family farm, but the photos helped him when D.C. was squeezing in too hard.

  If he didn’t stand and resisted the urge to seek more sleep, all that remained was to consider his desk. Its elegant cherry wood surface lost beneath a sea of reports and files.

  Fifteen minutes. He could read the briefing paper on Chinese coal, review tomorrow’s agenda which, if he were lucky, might stay on schedule for at least the first quarter hour of a planned fourteen-hour day. Or he could just order up a giant burn bag and be done with the whole mess.

  He picked up whatever was on top of the nearest stack.

  An Advent calendar.

  Janet, had to be.

  Well, the woman had taste. It was beautiful; encased in a soft, tooled-leather portfolio and tied closed with a narrow red ribbon done up in a neat bow. He pulled a loose end and opened the calendar. Inside were three spreads of stunning hand-painted pictures on deep-set pages. He took a moment to admire the first one.

  It was a depiction of Santa and his reindeer. Except Santa might have been a particularly pudgy hamster and the reindeer might have been mice with improbable antlers. One might have had a red nose, or he might have had his eggnog spiked; the artist had left that open to interpretation. A couple of rabbits were helping to load the sleigh. Little numbered doors were set in the side of the sleigh, as well as in a nearby tree, and in the snow at the micedeer’s paws. The page was thick enough that a small treat could be hidden behind each little door.

  He shook the calendar lightly and heard things rattling. Probably little sweets and tidbits to hit his notorious sweet tooth.

  The day Janet retired he’d be in so much trouble. Not only did she manage to keep his life organized, she also managed to make him smile, even when things were coming apart at the seams. Midnight calls from the CIA for immediate meetings didn’t bode well, yet here he was dangerously close to enjoying the moment.

  He started to open the little door with a tiny golden number “1” on the green ribbon pull tab. The door depicted a candy-cane colored present perched high on the sleigh.

  “Don’t do that.”

  He looked up.

  A woman stood in the doorway, closely escorted by one of the service Marines. A short wave of russet hair curled partly over her face and trickled down just far enough to emphasize the line of her neck. Her bangs ruffled in a gentle wave covering one eye. The eye in the clear shone a striking hazel against pale skin. She wore a thick, woolen cardigan, a bit darker than her hair, open at the front over an electric blue turtleneck that appeared to say, “Joy to the World.” At least based on the letters he could see.

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t open it early,” she nodded toward the calendar in his hands. “That’s cheating.”

  He double-checked his watch. “It’s twelve-eighteen on December first. That’s not cheating.”

  “Not until nighttime, after sunset. That’s what Mama always said.”

  “And your Mama is always right?”

  “Damn straight.” Though her expression momentarily belied her cheerful insistence.

  He glanced at the Marine. “Kenneth. Does she have a purpose here?”

  She sauntered into his office as if it were her own living room and an armed Marine was not following two paces behind her. More guts than most, or a complete unawareness of how close she was to being wrestled to the ground by a member of the U.S. Military.

  “Remember what they say about the book and the cover?”

  “Sure, don’t judge.” He inspected her wrinkled black corduroys and did his best not to appreciate the nice line they made of her legs.

  She dropped into one of the leather chairs in front of his desk and propped a pair of alarmingly green sneakers with red laces on the cherry wood. At least they were clean. All she’d need to complete the image would be to pop a bright pink gum bubble at him. And maybe some of those foam slip-on reindeer antlers. He offered her a smile as she slouched lower in the chair. In turn, she offered him a clear view most of the way to her tonsils with a massive yawn.

  She managed to cover it before it was completely done.

  “Sorry, I’ve been up for three days researching this. Director Smith said I should bring it right over.” She waved a slim portfolio at him that he hadn’t previously noticed.

  CIA Director Smith. Well, that explained who she was. Whatever lay in that portfolio was the reason he’d only had forty-five minutes of sleep so far tonight. And he’d spent that slumped in his chair. He did his best to surreptitiously straighten his jacket and tie.

  “You’ve been researching.” Maybe a prompt would get her to the point more quickly.

  “Yes, Mr. Darlington. I’m Dr. Alice Thompson, with dual masters in Afghani and Mathematics at Columbia. Which makes me a dueling master. PhD in digital imaging at NYU and an analyst for the CIA. Which means something, but I have no idea what. The reason you’re awake right now is to meet with me.”

  “No, the reason I’m awake right now is to meet with both you and the President.”

  “The President?” She jerked upright in her chair, her feet dropping to the floor. “No one said anything about that to me.”

  About the Author

  M.L. Buchman started the first of, what is now over 50 novels and even more short stories, while flying from South Korea to ride his bicycle across the Australian Outback. All part of a solo around-the-world bicycle trip (a mid-life crisis on wheels) that ultimately launched his writing career.

  Booklist has selected his military and firefighter series(es) as 3-time “Top 10 Romance of the Year.” NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Best 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for RWA’s prestigious RITA award.

  He has flown and jumped out of airplanes, can single-hand a fifty-foot sailboat, and has designed and built two houses. In between writing, he also quilts. M. L. is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and fantasy.

  More info and a free novel for subscribing to his newsletter at: www.mlbuchman.com

  Join the conversation:

  www.mlbuchman.com

  Also by M. L. Buchman

  * also sweet version / + also audio

  White House Protection Force

  Off the Leash+

  On Your Mark+

  In the Weeds+

  The Night Stalkers

  Main Flight

  The Night Is Mine

  I Own the Dawn

  Wait Until Dark

  Take Over at Midnight

  Light Up the Night

  Bring On the Dusk

  By Break of Day

  White House Holiday

  Daniel’s Christmas+

  Frank’s Independence Day+

  Peter’s Christmas+

  Zachary’s Christmas+

  Roy’s Independence Day+

  Damien’s Christmas />
  and the Navy

  Christmas at Steel Beach

  Christmas at Peleliu Cove

  5E

  Target of the Heart

  Target Lock on Love

  Target of Mine

  Firehawks

  Main Flight

  Pure Heat

  Full Blaze

  Hot Point+

  Flash of Fire+

  Wild Fire

  Smokejumpers

  Wildfire at Dawn

  Wildfire at Larch Creek

  Wildfire on the Skagit

  Delta Force

  Main Flight

  Target Engaged+

  Heart Strike+

  Wild Justice+

  Midnight Trust+

  Henderson’s Ranch

  Nathan’s Big Sky*

  Big Sky, Loyal Heart*

  Love Abroad B&B

  Heart of the Cotswolds: England

  Path of Love: Cinque Terre, Italy

  Where Dreams

  Where Dreams are Born*

  Where Dreams Reside*

  Where Dreams Are of Christmas*

  Where Dreams Unfold*

  Where Dreams Are Written*

  Eagle Cove

  Return to Eagle Cove*

  Recipe for Eagle Cove*

  Longing for Eagle Cove*

  Keepsake for Eagle Cove*

  Deities Anonymous

  Cookbook from Hell: Reheated

  Saviors 101

  Dead Chef

  Swap Out!

  One Chef!

  Two Chef!

  SF/F Titles