The Soldier’s Kiss Read online

  THE SOLDIER’S KISS

  (Prequel short story to The Forgotten Prince, The Wedding Series)

  Patricia McLinn

  The Soldier’s Kiss is a short-story prequel to The Forgotten Prince. Book 7 of The Wedding Series. It introduces Harmon Reed, the heroine of The Forgotten Prince, and shares how her father, Lt. Col. Brooks Reed, discovers his true love, artist Ann-Elise Jerakenko … with help from a cat.

  The Soldier’s Kiss also updates readers of the A Place Called Home series on the married life of John Griffin, one of the descendants pledged to take care of his family’s Far Hills Ranch in Wyoming.

  The Wedding Series

  Prelude to a Wedding

  Wedding Party

  Grady’s Wedding

  The Wedding Series

  The Runaway Bride

  The Christmas Princess

  The Wedding Series Box Set Two

  Hoops (prequel to The Surprise Princess)

  The Surprise Princess

  The Wedding Series Box Set Three

  Not a Family Man (prequel to The Forgotten Prince)

  The Forgotten Prince

  The Wedding Series Box Set Four

  The Wedding Series: The Complete Series

  Join Patricia McLinn’s Readers List and get news on releases and special deals first.

  Copyright © Patricia McLinn

  ISBN: 978-1-939215-71-0

  Payhip Edition

  www.PatriciaMcLinn.com

  Cover Design: ArtbyKarri.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  Dear Readers: If you encounter typos or errors in this book, please send them to me at [email protected]. Even with many layers of editing, mistakes can slip through, alas. But, together, we can eradicate the nasty nuisances. Thank you! — Patricia McLinn

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  Copyright Page

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Wedding Series

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Columbia, S.C.

  Ann-Elise Jerakenko’s pushy sister — well, her pushiest sister, since all her sisters were pushy — often said that Ann-Elise’s only hope of meeting her prince charming was if he marched up her front steps and laid on the doorbell until she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  “And even then you’d tell him to go away,” Miranda had groused the last time she’d marched up those front steps and laid on the doorbell until Ann-Elise couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  “Go away,” she had said. “I’m on deadline.”

  “You’re always on deadline. You like it that way.”

  “I like to eat and pay my bills. So I have to work. And that means deadlines.”

  Miranda hadn’t gone away. At least not fast enough. That had put Ann-Elise farther behind on that e-magazine illustration, which had left her starting this book cover days later than she wanted to.

  Some said she made it harder on herself — actually a lot of people said she made it harder on herself — by not working off a photograph. But too often she found a photo limited her. She understood the theory behind mapping it out ahead, but sometimes a cover started from the smallest thing and grew organically from there. She needed the elbow room to let that happen.

  Elbow room on the canvas — her paintings were never finished to book cover dimensions — and in her head.

  Thank heavens her authors understood. Or didn’t care, as long as the finished product worked. This cover was for an author of Scottish historical romances who’d been with her nearly from the start.

  After noodling around with false starts for more than a day, a sword started taking shape. A stalwart, noble sword at an angle that gave it character and strength that would be reflected in the figure who — eventually — would take shape to hold it. Hallelujah. The sword was her entry into this painting.

  And now, when she’d finally gotten the concept, here was the damned doorbell ringing again.

  One more touch right there along the underside of the hilt … That helped, but—

  Doorbell.

  —it definitely needed more. Another stroke of—

  Doorbell.

  —the same shade? Or a short thread of the next shade darker? A bit of blue to catch the cool underside of the sword blade? Or—

  Doorbell. Doorbell. Doorbell.

  She put down the brush and charged for the door under a doorbell-fueled head of steam.

  “What?” she demanded as she yanked open the door.

  To a soldier.

  A soldier?

  It wasn’t that she never saw soldiers around town. As the home to Fort Jackson, Columbia knew a thing or two about soldiers. The Army said Fort Jackson was its largest Initial Entry Training Camp. Civilians said a whole lot of kids came through for basic training.

  Still, soldiers didn’t show up on her front steps. Not unless it was Halloween.

  But this was a grown-up soldier, not a kid trolling for candy. Also not like the ones — male and female — she saw coming for basic training or leaving for new posts or deployments that wrung her heart with their youth. These past few years she’d definitely started thinking of them as kids. Which surely said more about her advancing years than any change in the age of those in the Armed Forces.

  But this guy didn’t make her feel aged. Or protective. Not with gray touching the short hair at his temples, the stern mouth, and gray eyes … the perfect color to convey the glint of light on a sword blade.

  “Is this your cat?” he asked in a voice that also fit a sword blade.

  Automatically, she took the limp calico cat he held out. “No. It’s not.”

  It looked young. And it felt thin. It blinked at her sleepily. That and a slight twitch of one of its matching set of four white paws were its only movements.

  She tried to hand it back. “Not mine,” she clarified.

  He didn’t accept it. “You got paint on it.”

  It took a moment for her to realize he considered that the cat having paint on it was a justifiable reason not to take it back.

  “It’ll dry and then it’ll flake off his fur.”

  “In the meantime, it would get on my uniform.”

  “It’s already camouflage. What difference does it make?”

  He looked back at her, not relenting.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Stay here.” She pivoted, went down the hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house, grabbed the first thing that came to hand and returned to the doorway, where the soldier still stood.

  She hadn’t been sure he’d be there. He looked more accustomed to giving orders than taking them.

  But she issued another one anyway. “Here, hold this.”

  He took the towel by the corners. She started the unresisting cat at the bottom and rolled it up like a pig-in-a-blanket hot dog in a crescent roll, shifting one of the soldier’s big hands underneath the cat’s weight before he knew what was happening. She backed up a step.

  “There. Problem solved.”

  The cat actually looked quite content with the situation.

  He glared down at the cat, then at her. “Not solved. This is not my cat.”

  “Not mine either. Try next door.” She chin-tipped to the next house in the cul-de-sac, where Charlene and Fred, their three kids, and numerous pets lived.

  “I did. Nobody’s home.”

  “Then try the next house.”

  He frowned. Interesting. The sword-blade eyes managed to get even sharper and cooler. Should she edge the sword toward this cooler shade? But what would she use to capture this … What was it disapproval? Judgment? Something else?

  Whatever it was, the voice matched it when he said, “The next house in the cul-de-sac is where I live. Moved in a month ago.”

  “Oh. Huh. Well, welcome to the neighborhood.”

  “You opened the door without recognizing who was out here?”

  “Yeah.” The duh subtext she managed to layer into that syllable would have done her newly-turned-a-teenager niece proud. She gestured to the solid door. “Always do.”

  “That’s not good security.”

  She let her gaze linger on the suburban terrain of lawns, arching trees, driveways with minivans, bikes, and basketball hoops. “This isn’t exactly a danger zone.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  Or not, since he gave no appearance of being a good-time kind of guy, and in this instance it appeared that what you saw was what you got.

  “Uh-huh. Well, now that the cat who isn’t mine won’t get my paint on you, I need to get back to work. See you round.”

  “Unlikely since you hadn’t seen me in the past month.”

  “True. That’s because I’ve been working. Which I should be doing right now. So—”

 
“What am I going to do with this?” He lifted the cat-in-a-kitchen-towel roll.

  “Wait until Charlene gets back — she lives between our houses — then ask her. That’s the answer to any problem that involves animals, kids, the neighborhood, food, or gardening. For lawn mowers, cars, weather, or grilling ask Fred, her husband. That’s what I always do.”

  “What do they come to you for?”

  She’d never thought about that. “Painting and computers.” A listening ear, too, but she didn’t want to encourage that right now. She started easing the door closed. “So if your cat messes up your computer, I can help. Other than that…?” She shrugged. “Bye.”

  He turned and started down the steps, muttering. She thought it was, “It’s not my cat.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Charlene had used her key to the back door to let herself in without disturbing Ann-Elise. Plus, she’d made fresh iced tea, bringing a glass for each of them.

  If Miranda and her other sisters did that Ann-Elise might not mind their invasions so much.

  “My, my, my,” Charlene said from the chair looking out the window of what the builder had designated as the dining room but Ann-Elise used as her studio.

  This was Charlene’s only flaw. She talked. She said she came over during her Fred-has-the-kids hideouts for the peace and quiet, but then she didn’t stay quiet.

  She’d already talked about the kids putting gelatin in the fish tank, the xylophone that ended up in the dryer, and the fundamental unfairness that the siblings of a new baby didn’t get postpartum depression so they’d slow down long enough for the mother of said siblings and new baby to catch a break.

  “Are you looking at what’s outside your window, my friend?” she asked. “A sight that does my old heart good.”

  Ann-Elise didn’t look. “You’re not old. You can’t be old. You’re a year younger than I am.”

  “You are missing the point. Completely. Turn away from your easel, your pad, your computer, and look out the window.”

  She turned only her head. Saw a glimpse in the bright morning sun of a male form mowing the lawn of the house across the cul-de-sac.

  “Oh, yeah. Our new neighbor. He’s a soldier. Or something military. Anyway, he wears a uniform to work that he doesn’t want to get paint on.”

  “You’ve been watching him,” Charlene crowed. “You’re human after all.”

  “No. He showed up at my door yesterday and tried to foist a cat off on me.” She tipped her head and squinted at her work. The sword was great. The guy was a mess. Damn. “Maybe the day before yesterday.”

  Charlene’s delight dimmed. She already had two dogs and three cats, in addition to her kids. “A cat foister? That’s bad. Definitely don’t want one of those in the neighborhood.”

  “Why do you care about him anyway, Char? He doesn’t seem very sociable.”

  “Are you kidding? He’s the most interesting thing to happen in this neighborhood since Jud started wearing women’s underwear.”

  Ann-Elise turned with her brush loaded with paint. “What? Jud?”

  “Yup. Panties and bra. Forty-eight A.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Charlene rolled her eyes. “Have you ever looked at him? Does he look like a double D to you?”

  “I meant that he’s now wearing women’s underwear.”

  “Not all the time. And you’d know about it, too, if you didn’t stay holed up in your house.”

  “If I didn’t stay holed up in my house you wouldn’t have a spot to disappear to. That’s the deal. You can escape to my house. You tell me the news of the neighborhood, whether I want to know it or not.”

  “True. Tiffany says it’s really spiced up their love life, but she insists he wash his own delicates, since they require a separate load. He likes black and red and they run.” Charlene rose from the chair with a tired sigh. “Back to the salt mines. You have paint in your hair again. Why don’t you just go for a punk look and be done with it.”

  “I’m surprised I have any hair left to get paint in. I’m tearing it out — at least metaphorically — over the guy on this cover.”

  “He’s a hunk.”

  “From the neck down. The face is all wrong. It should be right, but it’s just not coming together. I just can’t picture him clearly enough in my head.”

  “Try looking out the window.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Swearing a blue streak and carrying the paint brush in one hand to show her sister that she could not — would not — be disturbed, Ann-Elise yanked open the door with the other hand … only to see she’d just transferred Titanium white and raw umber to the doorknob.

  That might have added more edge to her demand of “What?” as she swung the door wide to again reveal Uniform Man, though he was definitely out of uniform.

  He had on the cutoffs from mowing the lawn and a t-shirt he hadn’t been wearing this morning. No, not the same cutoffs, because these didn’t have a rip on the side of the right thigh.

  “It’s back.” He extended his arms with the limp cat clasped between his big hands.

  She was going to have to find someone to install a storm door so she could open the main door without risking being handed cats all the time.

  Fortunately — from her point of view — he spotted her attire and jerked back his hands. “You’ve got paint on you again. Your hair, too.”

  “That’s because I’m painting.”

  “With that?” He eyed the brush.

  “Since the alternative would be that I was carrying it around as an accessory, the answer is yes, I’m painting with this.”

  “A roller would be faster.”

  “A roll—? I’m not painting a wall. Or,” she added quickly because she was pretty sure she saw the next comment brewing in his frowning eyes, “trim. I’m painting a painting.”

  Now the piercing eyes looked puzzled.

  “On canvas. You know, art.”

  “Oh. You’re an artist.”

  She’d heard that tone before. It was Oh, you’re a flake. Oh, you don’t have a brain in your head. Oh, you’ve never heard of common sense or responsibility.

  She brought her fists to her hips, the brush taking a swipe at her shirt’s bustline on the way — that was okay, that’s why she wore this shirt.

  Something shifted in the gray blade of his eyes, going hot. More red than yellow.

  “Yes, I’m an artist,” she said. “And a business person. Self-employed. CEO, CFO, CIO, and every other C of my own corporation. I’m also the receptionist, janitor, and all too frequently the door-answerer.”

  “Sorry. But—”

  His unapologetic apology was cut short by the cat emitting a yowl and hurtling out of his hands, using her shoulder as a vault to launch itself into the house behind her.

  “What on earth—? What is your cat doing?”

  They’d both taken automatic steps after the escapee, and she’d let go of the door. As it often did, it started to swing closed of its own accord. Miranda had accused her of buying this house because of that feature alone.

  “It’s not mine. Better close this door all the way if you hope to catch it.” He sidestepped the door, then swung it closed behind him. “He probably spotted a mouse.”

  “I do not have mice in my house, that cat certainly isn’t mine, and you’re going to catch him. Just before you leave.”

  “Cats can be hard to catch.” He sounded hopeful. Like if he couldn’t find it in two minutes flat, she’d say, Oh, well, I’ll just keep it.

  Stepping through the wide opening from the hall into the living room, she looked back over her shoulder at Uniform Man. “I think you’re in luck this time,” she said pointedly.

  The double doors at the other end were open to her studio because that’s the way she’d come to answer the front door. The cat sat placidly on the threshold.

  He muttered under his breath, “Still might take off.”

  “Not if you don’t scare him. Though I’ve got to say, your cat is about the most placid one I’ve seen.”

  “He’s not my cat. I keep telling—” He’d reached the cat, then bent to put his hands around the unresisting animal. As he lifted his head, he froze and swore. “That’s me.”

  She didn’t fool herself that his recognizing himself in her work was meant as a compliment.