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