His Girl Next Door: The Army Ranger's Return / New York's Finest Rebel / The Girl from Honeysuckle Farm

His Girl Next Door

The Army Ranger’s

Return

Soraya Lane

New York’s

Finest Rebel

Trish Wylie

The Girl from

Honeysuckle Farm

Jessica Steele

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

The Army Ranger’s Return

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

New York’s Finest Rebel

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Girl From Honey Suckle Farm

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Copyright

The Army Ranger’s Return

Soraya Lane

Writing romance for Mills & Boon is truly a dream come true for SORAYA LANE. An avid book reader and writer since her childhood, Soraya describes becoming a published author as “the best job in the world”, and hopes to be writing heart-warming, emotional romances for many years to come.

Soraya lives with her own real-life hero on a small farm in New Zealand, surrounded by animals and with an office overlooking a field where their horses graze.

Visit Soraya at www.sorayalane.com.

For Hamish, my husband and real-life hero.

You have always believed in me, and in my writing, and this book is for you.

CHAPTER ONE

Dear Ryan,

It feels like we’ve been writing to one another forever, but it’s only been a year. When I say only, a lot has happened in that time, but it makes our friendship sound insignificant somehow.

Of course you can come to see me. It would be weird not to meet you, after getting to know you so well, but strange in the same way to put a face to the name. When you are discharged, write to me, or maybe we could use more modern forms of communication once you’re back in civilization.

Stay safe and I’ll see you soon. It’s unbelievable that you could be back here and we’d pass one another in the street without even knowing. Jessica

JESSICA MITCHELL STARED out the window and started pacing, eyes never leaving the road. She’d been like this for almost an hour. Stupid, because it wasn’t even time for him to arrive yet, and he was army. He would be exactly on time.

She knew that. Jessica knew he was punctual. She knew he would be knocking on her door at twelve-noon bang on.

She knew just about everything about him.

Ryan McAdams.

Up until now, he’d just been a name. A name that made her smile, that made her run to the mailbox every morning. But that’s all it had been. Innocent letters, two people confiding in one another. Pen pals.

And yet here she was, pacing in her living room, waiting to meet the man in the flesh.

Jessica looked down and watched her hands shaking. They were quivering, her whole body was wired, and for what? He was her friend. Nothing more. A friend she’d never met before, but a friend nonetheless.

So why was she still walking obsessively up and down? She could just make a cup of coffee or read the paper. Take the dog for a walk and not worry if he had to wait on her doorstep for a few minutes.

Because she wanted this to be perfect. There was no use pretending. His letters had helped her through the last year, had stopped her from giving up when she could have hit rock bottom. And she wanted to say thank you to him in person.

The phone rang. Jessica pounced on it, her pulse thumping.

“Hello.”

“Is he there yet?” her best friend asked.

Her heart stuttered then restarted again. She let out a breath. It wasn’t him.

“Hi, Bella.”

“I’m guessing the hunk hasn’t arrived then.”

Why had she ever told her friend about Ryan? Why couldn’t she have kept it to herself? It was stupid even making a fuss like this. He was her friend.

“Jess?”

She flopped down onto the sofa.

“I’m a wreck. A nervous wreck,” she admitted.

Bella laughed. “You’ll be fine. Just remember to breathe, and if you don’t phone me with an update I’m coming around to see him for myself.”

“He could be overweight and unattractive.”

Bella snorted down the line. Jess didn’t even know why she’d said it. Since when did she even care what he looked like? Whatever he looked like didn’t change the fact that his friendship had meant a lot to her this past year.

“Bella, I—Oh, my God.”

She listened to the thump of footfalls on the porch. Heavy, solid men’s feet that beat like a drum on timber.

“Jess? What’s happening?” Bella squawked.

A knock echoed.

“He’s here,” she whispered. “He’s early.”

“You’ll be fine, okay? Put down the phone, close your eyes for a few seconds, then go to the door. Okay? Just say ‘okay.’”

“Okay.” Jessica thought her head might fall off she was nodding so hard.

She placed the phone down without saying goodbye.

He was here. Ryan was actually here.

Waiting outside her front door.

How could she know this man almost as intimately as she knew her best friend, yet be terrified of meeting him?

She looked at the letter on the table, reached for it, then tucked it into her jeans pocket. She didn’t need to open it to know what it said. She remembered every word he’d ever written to her.

Jessica squared her shoulders and shook her head to push away the fear. Ryan was here, waiting for her, and she had to be brave. It felt like she was about to meet a lover she was so nervous, but it made her feel queasy even thinking that way. One of her closest friends was standing at the door, and for some reason she was paralyzed with fear.

Bella had gotten her all wound up in knots, and for what? She wasn’t interested in meeting a man in that way, especially not now. And she didn’t want Ryan to be anything more to her, no matter what he looked like. What she needed in her life were good friends, and he had proven that he was there for her when she needed someone.

Another knock made her jump.

This was it. There was nowhere she could go but forward, down the hall.

Unless she escaped out the back window …

A flash of brown streaked past her and she groaned. Hercules. She’d put him out the back with a bone and hoped he’d stay there, but he must have squeezed through the doggie door when he’d heard the knock.

At least he’d be a good distraction.

Ryan wondered if it were possible for fingers to sweat. His were curled around the paper-wrapped stems of a bunch of white roses, clenching and unclenching as he tried to figure out what to do with them. Out in front seemed too contrived, behind his back looked ridiculous and hanging at his sides just seemed more ridiculous, like he was trying too hard. Why flowers? Why had he felt the need to complicate things by bringing flowers?

He was going insane. He’d survived the trauma and heartache of years serving his country, and now a stupid bunch of flowers was tying him in tight coils. He was a United States Army Ranger. Practised, strong and unflappable. He’d never have made the special ops unit with nerves like this.

Clearly he was losing his touch.

Perhaps he should throw them into the garden? He looked over his shoulder, beyond the porch, then listened as the door clicked and a small dog started barking.

He was out of time. Ryan slowly, cautiously turned back toward the house. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, walk back down the steps and start all over. Without the flowers dangling awkwardly from one hand, and instead standing at ease on the doorstep in front of her.

Ryan spun around as the door swished open.

“Jessica.”

He exhaled the word as if he’d been waiting a lifetime to say it. In a way he had.

Ryan was pleased he’d never asked her for a photograph. It couldn’t have done justice to the reality of her features. Hair the color of rain-drizzled sand was tucked behind her ears, eyes the shade of the richest dark chocolate peeked out beneath dark lashes. She smiled like she was greeting her first date—nervously, expectantly, unsurely.

Worried. Just like he was.

After so many months of writing one another, meeting in person was kind of surreal.

He went to move and something tiny hit him in the knees and almost made him fall. By the time he looked down a small dog was doing laps around his feet, before disappearing back into the house with as much speed as he’d arrived with.

Ryan laughed then looked back to the woman waiting to meet him.

“Jessica.” When he said it this time it made him smile naturally, rather than feeling like a word-stuck teenager. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

She grinned as he walked toward her, then opened her arms to him.

“Ryan.”

Even the way she said his name did something to his insides, but he pushed past it. He was a soldier. He was trained to deal with difficult situations.

“I’m really glad you made it, Ryan.”

He let the flowers drop to the porch as he opened his own arms to hold her. Jessica stepped into his embrace as if she’d been made to fit there, firm against his chest, arms tight around him. She hugged him like someone who cared about him.

Like he hadn’t been hugged in a long time.

It had been years since his wife had died. Years since he’d felt the genuine embrace of a woman, one that wasn’t out of pity, but out of something deeper, warmer.

Ryan inhaled the scent of her—the tease of perfume that reminded him of coconuts on a beach. The soft caress of her hair that fell against his neck as she tucked into him.

It felt good. No … even better than good. It felt great.

He cleared his throat and stepped back, not wanting to make her uncomfortable by keeping hold of her too long. Jessica leapt back from him like a bear from a nest of hornets, her face alternating between happy and concerned.

“I …”

“We …”

They both laughed.

“You first,” he said.

Jessica grinned at him and rocked back and forth, arms crossed over her chest.

“I don’t remember what I was going to say!”

Ryan shook his head and laughed. Laughed like he thought he’d forgotten how to, cheeks aching as he watched her do the same.

He bent to collect the fallen flowers.

“These are for you.”

She blushed. When had he last seen a grown woman blush? It made a goofy smile play across his lips.

“Me?”

He nodded.

“It’s been a long time since anyone gave me flowers.”

Ryan watched as she dipped her nose down to inhale them, her eyes dancing along the white silhouette of each rose.

It had been a long time since he’d given a woman flowers.

“Do they give me passage inside?”

Jessica looked up at him with an expression he’d only seen once before. His wife had looked up at him like that from her hospital bed, full of hope, happiness shining from her face.

He clenched his jaw and stamped the memory away, refusing to go there. This was Jessica, the woman who had made an effort to write to him when most Americans seemed to forget what U.S. troops were facing overseas. This was not a time to dwell on the past.

“Yes.” She looked sideways, away and then back, but he didn’t miss the twinkle in her eyes. “Yes, it does. So long as you’re prepared to meet Hercules properly.”

“I take it Hercules is the small fur-ball who almost bowled me over.”

Jessica reached out to Ryan and grinned. “Maybe if I’d given him a more insignificant name he wouldn’t be quite so full of self-importance.”

Ryan took the hand she offered and let himself be led inside. It felt too normal to touch his skin to hers, too casual, but when she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, her fingers trailing away from his until she was just a woman walking ahead of him, he felt the loss of her touch like a limb had just been torn from his body.

The shock of doing normal things was something hard to get used to, after months being surrounded by other men in the desert. Each day started to merge with the next one … and home seemed like just a scene on a postcard.

Being back here wasn’t something he had looked forward to, it was something he’d feared and wished he didn’t have to confront again. But Jessica had been there for him, eagerly writing him back so he’d had something positive to concentrate on.

When everything else was gone, snatched away from him, Jessica had been there.

She’d come into his life when he’d been losing his way. When he’d almost felt as though his soul had been defeated, like he had lost his purpose. It was Jessica who had held each piece of him together when he could have lost hope.

Maybe she could help him now he was home, too. Because nothing else had fallen into place since he’d returned.

A man could only hope.

Jessica set the flowers to rest in a vase on her bench and turned back to her guest.

“Shall we have lunch here or go out for something?”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“But …?”

She laughed as he squinted at her.

“How did you know there was a but?” he asked.

Jessica tapped her nose. “You’d be surprised what I know about you.”

Ryan flopped down on the sofa and crossed his legs at the ankle. He looked at home here, comfortable in her home. Aside from her brother, she wasn’t used to seeing men in her space.

She didn’t want it to bother her, but it did. Having a man around had become foreign to her. It felt too intimate, being so close, seeing him so … at ease.

Funny, she had expected being back in America to be hard for him, but it seemed like she was the one struggling.

“Okay, you got me.” He gave her a smile that made her almost want to look away, but she didn’t. The way his mouth curved, his eyes creasing gently at the corners, was exactly as she’d imagined he would look. Hoped he might look.

Her stomach twisted, as if her organs had been flipped then dropped. She wasn’t meant to be thinking about him like that. Not now, not ever.

“The sun’s shining, the ground is still wet from the rain last night and I’m desperate to be outside in the open. You’ve got no idea how good it feels—smells—outside here,” he said.

Jessica beamed at him. She was still nervous, but the quiver in her belly felt as if it were less from worry than excitement. A day out with someone with whom she could just be herself was exactly what she needed.

Besides, it would be easier being around him on neutral territory. Even if he was just a friend, she wasn’t ready to see a man in her house, on her sofa, like that. Not after Mark. Not after what she’d gone through this last year.

It sent a shiver down her spine just thinking about the last twelve months.

“Give me five minutes, I’ll get my handbag and we’ll go to the park.”

“I’m guessing we have to take the mutt?” he teased.

Jessica cringed as she heard paws racing on the timber floor in the kitchen. Hercules was like a missile, as if he’d known exactly what they’d been talking about.

He sprung through the door and leapt onto Ryan’s lap, tongue frantically searching out his victim’s face.

“Hercules! No!”

Ryan grabbed him and held him at a safe distance.

“Five minutes?” He raised an eyebrow, ignoring the wriggling dog.

She nodded. “Sorry about him.”

Ryan stood, eyeing Hercules. “I’ll start the clock now.”

She turned sedately and walked toward her bedroom as slowly as she could manage. She wanted to run, to sprint to her room and grab her things and not miss a moment of being in his company.

Ryan. His name was circling her mind over and over, like a record she couldn’t turn off. Ryan.

He was everything she’d imagined he would be and more. When they’d first started writing, he was just a soldier. He was a man serving their country and she felt good giving support to him. But when they’d realized they had grown up within ten minutes of one another, something had started stirring within her. Then when he’d made noises of coming back home to California, to Thousand Oaks, she’d started wondering. That despite her insecurities, despite her worries about herself, she had a connection with this man. A man who understood her and wanted to meet her. But a man she only knew on paper, who wouldn’t feel pity for her or treat her like an almost-broken doll because of what she’d been through.

And he was hardly a disappointment. In the flesh, he was even more commanding than he was on paper. Well over six feet and built like a man who could protect her on a dark stormy night in the meanest streets of Los Angeles. A man with dark cropped, slightly disheveled hair that begged to be touched, ice-blue eyes that seemed to pierce straight through her body. And beautiful lips that, despite all he’d seen and experienced, still hovered with the hint of a smile as he spoke.

Jessica scolded herself. Smiling over mental pictures of him while she was alone was exactly what she didn’t need to be doing. Ever. Until she reached the five-year mark, until she knew she was in complete remission, men were strictly off her radar.

Jessica stole a quick glance at herself in the mirror as she passed and fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest. She was still self-conscious, but it was getting better. After all they’d said to one another, all they’d shared, she hadn’t told Ryan. Couldn’t tell him. Not yet. It was still too fresh for her, too raw, to share with anyone.

And she wanted him to just like her for herself. Treat her like she was normal and not a fragile baby bird in need of extra care.

She picked up her purse, squirted an extra spray of perfume to her wrist and reached for a sweater. She didn’t know why, but today felt like a fresh opportunity, a new chance. She wasn’t going to let her insecurities ruin it. Not when she had a man like Ryan waiting to spend the day with her.

Even if she was scared to death.

She utterly refused to let her past ruin her future. Not now, not after all she’d been through.

Today was about starting over.

CHAPTER TWO

Dear Jessica,

I’ve become desensitized to what we have to see over here. I wait for my orders, I no longer cringe when an explosion echoes around me, and I automatically squeeze the trigger to take down the enemy. Does it make me a bad person that I no longer feel? I’m starting to think I like being here because it means I don’t have to face reality. I can pretend my wife didn’t die and that my son doesn’t hate me. But I’ll be coming home soon, after all this time, and I’m not going to have any more excuses.

Thanks for listening, Jessica. You don’t know how much it means to me to be able to write to you, to be honest like this. I can’t talk to anyone else, but you’re always here for me. Ryan

“SO HOW IS it you’ve managed to stay away for so long?”

Ryan shrugged and turned his body toward Jessica as they walked. He made himself look away from Hercules racing up and down the riverbank so he could give Jessica his full attention.

“I guess I became good at saying yes, and the army were pleased to have me wherever I was needed.”

“What about this time?”

Ryan chuckled. After so long being in the company of men, he wasn’t used to the way a woman could just fire questions. So candidly wanting to know everything at once.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

Jessica was … what? Pouting? No, not pouting but she was definitely pursing her lips.

“You’re very inquisitive, that’s all.”

She gave him a nudge in the side and rolled her eyes. Ryan tried not to come to a complete standstill, forced his feet to keep moving. He wasn’t used to that, either. Someone touching him so casually, with such ease.

He’d definitely been away too long.

“I write to you for months, and you can’t tell me where you are or why you’re suddenly coming home on such short notice. So spill,” she ordered.

He followed Jessica toward the edge of the lake, the water so still it looked like the cover of a postcard. The park was beautiful, much more attractive than he’d remembered it being, but after so long seeing sand and little else, everything about America seemed beautiful. The smell of fresh rain on grass, the softer rays of sunlight, not burning so hot against your skin that it made you sweat. Things you took for granted until they were snatched away.

“I can’t tell you where we’ve been, you know that, but what I can say is that our last, ah, assignment was successful.”

Jessica waited. He’d give her that. She could talk his ear off, but she knew when to stay quiet. Seemed to sense that he needed a moment.

“I’m a marksman, Jess.” He paused and watched her, made sure she didn’t look too alarmed. “I entered the special forces as an expert in my field, and it’s why I’ve been deployed so long.”

“But you didn’t want to come home,” she said softly. “What made you come back now?”

Ryan sighed and looked out at the water. It was so much easier just keeping this sort of stuff in his head. But he didn’t have to tell her everything. It wasn’t like he’d planned to come home, more like his hand had been forced.

If he’d had it his way he would have stayed away forever. That’s what he had done until now. Now he was home and he had to deal with being a single dad for real. Not to mention the fact his son didn’t want to know him.

He didn’t like admitting something was impossible, but repairing that relationship could be like trying to bring someone back from the dead. It was his own fault, his own battle to deal with, and he’d been a coward to wait so long before confronting the problem.

But one thing he’d promised himself was that he was going to be honest with this woman. She’d done something generous for him, helped him from the other side of the world through her constant letters, and he owed it to her to be real and candid with her now.

“I had an injury a while back and it never healed quite right.” He moved to sit down on the grass, needing to collapse. It was hard being so open, just talking, and he couldn’t go back. Couldn’t put into words what had happened to him then, that day he’d realized he wasn’t invincible. “I’ve had a lot of pain in my arm, so I had surgery in Germany on my way back home, and the army wants me on rest until the physio gives me the all clear.”

Ryan gritted his teeth and forced his eyes to stay open as his memory tried to claw its way back. The smell of gunpowder, the pain making his arm feel like it was on fire, and not being able to stop. Making his arm work, pushing through, pulling the trigger over and over until his body had finally let him down.

He clamped his jaw down hard and looked at Jessica. She was sitting, too, right beside him, legs tucked up under her as she stared at the water. As if she was the troubled one. He could see it on her face. That she was either reacting to his pain, or harboring her own.

“Jess?”

She turned empty eyes toward him, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“That means you’re going back at some point.”

He raised a brow. Had she thought he was home for good? Had he made her think he was staying by something he’d said?

“Ah, all going well, I’ll be deployed wherever they need me,” he confirmed.

It was wonderful being back here in some ways, but it was also extremely difficult. He’d do his best, try to make amends, but he was a soldier. That’s what he did. What he was good at.

She nodded, over and over again, too vigorously. “Of course, of course you’re going back. I don’t know why I thought you wouldn’t be.”

“I’ll be here a couple months at least, then I have to figure out what to do. I’m eligible to be discharged, they’ve offered me teaching positions, but I’m just not ready to walk away from my men. I don’t know where I’ll be deployed yet but it’s my job to go wherever they need me.”

Sad eyes greeted him when he looked back at her. She smiled, but he could tell something had upset her. He hoped it wasn’t his fault. Seeing those bright eyes cloud over was not something he wanted to be held accountable for.

“What about your son?” she asked quietly.

Ryan sighed. His son. George. Now that was a topic he and Jess could talk about all day. Or maybe not talk about at all, as he’d been home a week already and they’d hardly spoken a word to one another.

“I don’t know if I’m just not cut out to be a father, or whether he truly wishes I was back with the army.”

He didn’t say what else he wondered. That maybe his son wished he were dead.

Ryan picked up a stone and stood, then reached his arm back and threw it into the water. He’d meant to skim it, but instead the stone went a little distance then landed with a plop.

He shut his eyes and pushed away the anger. He hated not being capable, losing the function in his strongest arm, but getting angry about it didn’t help his progress and he knew it. Sometimes he just forgot about it, and then he’d surprise himself all over again by not having the control he wanted.

He looked down at Jessica, sitting still, eyes fixed in the distance.

“You okay?”

It was as if she had to snap out of a trance before she even noticed he was speaking.

“Yeah.”

Ryan watched as she jumped to her feet and brushed the grass off her jeans. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Maybe he’d been away way too long, or maybe he’d just forgotten how sensitive women were. Because they’d only been at the park less than an hour and already he’d done something to upset her.

And he had no idea what.

“You still want to grab some lunch?” he asked.

She smiled at him, this time more openly. Or maybe more guardedly. He couldn’t tell which.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

Jessica couldn’t fathom why her stomach was twisting like a snake had taken ownership of it. Why did it even bother her? So he was going back to war? He was a soldier and that’s what soldiers did. It was just that she hadn’t expected him to be going back. When he’d written to her and told her he was coming home she’d thought it was for good.

It wasn’t as if he’d promised her something and was now going back on his word. She had no right to even feel this way.

They were friends.

So why was she acting like her lover had come home and lied to her about his intentions? Or maybe she’d just dealt with too much loss to even comprehend the thought of losing anyone else from her life again. She knew firsthand what the consequences were of him not coming home, what the risks were.

“You sure you’re all right?” he persisted.

Jessica’s head swivelled so quickly it almost swung off.

“Me?”

He laughed and she watched as he pushed his hands into his jeans pockets.

“Yes, you.”

She felt the flush of her cheeks as he made fun of her. She’d expected him to be the one clamming up and here she was like a nervous bunch of keys being jangled. She hadn’t even realized how long they’d been walking in silence.

“I’m sorry Ryan, it’s just …”

He shrugged. “I took you by surprise.”

This was a man who’d been away from civilization for years, and yet he seemed to have her all figured out. That made a change.

Jessica sighed.

“I understand if you don’t want to, you know, hear about war or anything. It’s not exactly the most pleasant experience to discuss,” he said.

She frowned at the look on his face. It took her a second, because she hesitated, but Jessica reached for his hand to give it a quick squeeze. She was being stupid and he was the one who needed her to act like normal. To listen to him like she had in all their letters. He had no idea why she was affected by what he’d said, and that’s how it had to be. She’d lost too much, exposed those she loved to that loss as well, and it had struck a chord with her. But that was one musical instrument she had no intention of playing around him, and that meant she had to deal with it and move on. Fast.

“You can tell me all you like, honestly. I just didn’t expect you to be going back there anytime soon,” she explained. “It took me by surprise.”

Ryan caught her hand before she could pull it away. His hand was strong, smooth. And the touch made a tingle start in her fingertips and ripple goose bumps up her forearm.

“You’re the only person I’ve been able to talk to, apart from the guys, since I left.”

She nodded. Words refused to form in her throat. It had been so long since a man had touched her. Since she’d even felt a spark of attraction that had made her heart beat like a hammer was thwacking it from side to side.

“If I can’t talk to you, I’ve got no one,” he added.

Jessica couldn’t take her eyes off their hands. Ryan followed her gaze and seemed to realize what the problem was, opening his grip and slowly releasing her fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be sorry.”

She smiled up at him. Watched the way his eyes crinkled ever so gently at the sides as he smiled back at her.