Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)(118)

One year later…

“Ladies and gentleman, we’ve begun our descent into Phoenix. Winds are calm so we should have you on the ground in twenty minutes.”

I half-listened as the flight attendant blathered on with the same spiel I’d heard a million times in the past year. Okay, not quite a million, but some travel days it felt as if I lived on a damn airplane. I’d racked up so many frequent flyer miles that I usually got upgraded to first class. My favorite part of that perk wasn’t the free booze but being one of the first passengers to deplane. It seemed especially urgent today. I’d already visualized how fast I could get my roller bag out of the overhead compartment—I never checked a bag anymore—so I could hustle off the jet bridge and through the terminal until I reached the main level where he’d be waiting to welcome me home.

Home.

Finally.

For good.

While the people I’d met, the places I’d been and the sheer array of knowledge I’d amassed had changed my life, my worldview and my goals, the travel schedule the last year defined brutal. I’d kept track of the number of nights I’d spent in my own bed. Sixty. Out of three hundred and sixty-five.

Three hundred and five nights apart from him.

No, that wasn’t right. We’d spent a week together in Hawaii on our honeymoon. We’d spent another week together in Fort Hood.

Still…two hundred and ninety-one days apart was a lot of lonely nights.

We missed each other with a ferocity that could be gut-wrenching. But we’d survived it. We’d thrived because we never took a single moment of the time we did get to spend together for granted.

This last stretch had been the longest. I hadn’t seen him in person for six weeks. Skype and FaceTime made it somewhat better; I could at least see his handsome face and hear that sexy voice. And the smartass always did an onscreen sweep of our house with his phone or his laptop to prove that he hadn’t returned to his slovenly ways.

I was too damn restless to sit, so I made one final trip to the bathroom and combed my hair. I touched up my makeup and removed the remnants of my lipstick—that’d be history the second we were within kissing distance anyway. The plane dipped and I placed my hand on my stomach. The last thing I needed was a bout of nausea to ruin my first night back home so I returned to my seat.

The woman sitting next to me smiled. The other thing I liked about flying first class? The other passengers weren’t chatty, so it surprised me when she struck up a conversation.

“I will be so very glad to feel the desert heat again after a week in New York in January.”

“I’ve been in Scandinavia for three weeks. I won’t miss wearing a parka, that’s for sure.”

That prompted a bunch of questions about the nature of my trip, so the last twenty minutes of the flight went by quickly. But as soon as we touched down, I wanted off the plane. I didn’t text him to tell him we’d landed. I didn’t call him. I knew he’d be waiting outside the arrivals gate like he always was.

I’d never deplaned so fast.

But I forced myself not to run. With my luck I’d trip in my heels, which were his favorite. I couldn’t wait to see that molten look in his eyes when he noticed them. I couldn’t wait to see what inventive position he’d put me in while I was wearing them. The man had a wicked streak as wide as the Grand Canyon.

There were more people in the terminal than usual and I got swept up in the mass exodus. I weaved through the throng but didn’t get clear of them until I was well past the area where we usually met. My grip tightened on the handle of my roller bag as I scanned the waiting area.

Then I saw him.

My soulmate, my lover, my husband, my partner, my everything.

My heart started beating again. It seemed listless and mopey when we were apart.

Boone had worn his uniform. His everyday uniform, the faded-looking gray camo one that thousands of other men and women in the armed forces put on every day.

But he wore it better.

I saw anxiety in his eyes as he scrutinized the arriving passengers. Normally he saw me first, so I didn’t get to see this—his anticipation, his complete oblivion of the admiring glances women sent him since he looked so f*cking fine in his uniform, nor did he pay attention to the men who stood a little straighter as they walked past him because he epitomized a military man to the core.

And he was mine.

God. I was so proud that he was mine.

Our gazes connected.

The relief I saw in his eyes brought tears to mine. Sometimes I’d wake up to find him watching me as I slept as if he still feared he’d wake up and find the last year a dream.

Silly man. I’d give him seventy years to get over that.

And I didn’t have to run to him because he was running toward me.

He picked me up, crushed me to his chest and held onto me, burying his face in my neck.

Then our mouths collided.

I melted even as I marveled at how exquisitely, how perfectly he expressed his tenderness, his love and his hunger for me with just a kiss.

Boone set me down. He cradled my face in his hands. The metal from his wedding ring pressed against my jaw. He wore that band with as much pride as he did his uniform. “Welcome back, Mrs. West. I missed you.”

I smiled at him. “You love saying that.”

“No. I love you. Missing my wife sucks.”