Military Grade Mistletoe

She saved his life when everything was hopeless. He’s determined to return the favor.

Not even Master Sergeant Harry Lockhart’s military expertise could stop the IED that killed his team and left him injured. Only Daisy Gunderson—a pen pal he’d never met—and her kind letters helped him survive. But Daisy in the flesh is the surly Marine’s polar opposite. She’s outgoing, talkative and putting his military training on high alert. A stalker named Secret Santa is targeting the kindhearted teacher…and the pranks are growing deadly.

In Daisy, Harry’s finally found the safe haven he needs. And he’ll be damned if anyone is going to take her from him.

The Precinct

Daisy was in a deep, blank sleep when she startled awake to a man’s hand clamped over her mouth.

Her muffled scream quickly fell silent when Harry’s face hovered into focus above hers. He pressed a finger to his lips in the universal sign of shushing and didn’t remove his hand until she nodded her understanding to remain quiet.

Something was wrong. Even in her nearsighted haze, she could see Harry was strapping on his gun again. She pulled the sheet around her and sat up as he handed her the brown glasses they’d left in the living room.

She slipped them on, hoping that bringing clarity to his grim expression would give her understanding. “What is it?” she whispered softly. She heard one of the dogs growling from the foot of the bed, and all the beautiful aftermath of making love and sleeping contentedly in his arms vanished in a clutch of fear. “Harry?”

He pushed her phone into her hands. “Call 9-1-1. There’s someone outside.”

That was when Daisy jumped at the pop, pop, pop of tiny explosions and shattering glass out on the back deck.

Military Grade Mistletoe

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JULIE MILLER is an award-winning USA TODAY bestselling author of breathtaking romantic suspense—with a National Readers’ Choice Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award, among other prizes. She has also earned an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. For a complete list of her books, monthly newsletter and more, go to www.juliemiller.org.

In honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Camp Pendleton, home of the 1st Marine Battalion.

My dad and brother were both once stationed there.

For the real Muffy. Yes, that dog is a he. And yes, he’s in charge. Just ask him.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“You’re not the first Marine this has happened to.”

But it was the first time it had happened to him. Master Sergeant Harry Lockhart didn’t fail. When he was given a mission, he got the job done. No matter what it cost him. But this? All the doctors, all the physical training and rehab, all the therapy—hell, he’d talked about things nobody knew about him, and it had gutted him worse than that last firefight that had sent him stateside in the first place—and they were still going to give him the boot?

Harry didn’t know who he was going to be if he couldn’t be part of the Corps, anymore.

His given name was Henry Lockhart Jr., but nobody called him by his daddy’s name unless he or she outranked him or wanted a fist in his face. Henry Sr. was serving time in a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri for a variety of crimes, the worst of which was being a lousy excuse for a father. Between Henry’s drinking, neglect and natural affinity for violence, it was a miracle Harry and his older sister, Hope, had survived to adulthood. Hope wouldn’t have done that, even, if at the ripe old age of nine, Harry hadn’t picked up his daddy’s gun and shot one of the dogs that had attacked her when she tried to leave the house to get him food so he wouldn’t starve.

A muscle ticked beside his right eye as a different memory tried to assert itself. But, with a mental fist, he shoved that particular nightmare into the tar pit of buried images from all the wars he’d fought, determined to keep it there.

“How many years have you been in the Corps?” The doctor was talking again.

If Dr. Biro hadn’t also been a lieutenant colonel, Harry might have blown him off. But Biro was not only in charge of his fitness assessments, he was a decent guy who didn’t deserve his disrespect. Harry met his superior’s gaze across the office desk. “Seventeen, sir.”

Biro nodded. “A career man.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hope was the only family he’d ever had, the only person he’d ever trusted, until he’d enlisted in the United States Marine Corps the day after he’d graduated from high school. The Corps had whipped his rebellious butt into shape, given him a home with regular meals on most days, introduced him to the best friends he had in the world and given him a reason to wake up every day and live his life.

Now his sister was married and had her own family. So he’d really, really like to keep the one he’d found. His physical wounds from that last deployment had left their mark on his stiff, misshapen face, but the scars were a sign that those had healed. He knew it was the mental wounds the lieutenant colonel was worried about.

Not for the first time in his life, Harry was going to have to prove himself worthy. He was going to have to earn someone else’s unshakable trust in him again.

He was going to have to relearn how to trust himself.

Do this. That was Harry’s motto. He couldn’t lose the only home he had left. He scrubbed his fingers over the bristly cut of his regulation short hair. “You said I was improving.”

“You are.”

The medical brass seemed to like it when he talked, so he tried again. “I’ve done everything you asked of me these past four months.”

Biro grinned. “I wish all my patients were as dedicated to following my orders as you. Physically, you could handle light duty, maybe even a training assignment.”

“But...? Tell me the truth, Doc.” Was he washed out of the Corps or not?

The lieutenant colonel leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t smiling now. “You need to get your head on straight or we can’t use you.”

“You’re not comfortable sending me out in the field?”

“I’d be doing you a disservice if I did.” Biro leaned forward again, propping the elbows of his crisply pressed lab coat on the desktop. “At the risk of oversimplifying everything you’ve gone through—something broke inside you. I believe it’s healing, but the scar is still new and I don’t want you to rip it open again.”

“I appreciate the honest answer.” Harry did some mental calculations on how long he’d have to play this game before he could come in for his next assessment and change the doctor’s prognosis. “So, peace and quiet, huh? Normalcy?”

The lieutenant colonel didn’t understand how far away from normal civilian life was for Harry. The jarheads he served with didn’t care where he’d come from or how rough his altered face looked, as long as he did his job. But on the outside, expectations were different, and he was ill-equipped to handle them.

“That’s my prescription.”

“And I don’t need pills on the outside? I just need a shrink?”

Lt. Col. Biro opened a folder and pulled a pen from his chest pocket. “That’s my recommendation. If you can’t sleep, or the mood swings become unbearable, call me. Otherwise, take the time off. Relax. Give yourself a few weeks to reconnect with civilian life. Enjoy the holidays. Get yourself a Christmas tree and eat too many sweets. Kiss a pretty girl and watch football all New Year’s Day. Whatever you like to do to celebrate.” Relax and celebrate sounded like daunting tasks for a man who didn’t have much experience with the examples on the good doctor’s list. “If you still want to after that, make an appointment with my office in January and we’ll reevaluate your fitness to serve. Or, if you decide the clean break is what you need, I’ll have your honorable medical discharge waiting for you. It’s not like you haven’t earned it.”

Harry stood, clasping his utility cover, the Corps’ term for a canvas uniform hat, between his hands. “I’ll be back, sir.”

The lieutenant colonel nodded before signing off on his medical leave papers and dismissing him. “You’re from Kansas City, Missouri, right?” Harry nodded. “You might have snow there this time of year.”

What was Biro going to prescribe now? Building a snowman to get in touch with the inner child Harry had never had the chance to be? “Sir?”

“My best buddy from basic training was from KC. I’ve always enjoyed my visits. I’ll have my aide give you some recommendations for therapists you can see there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Harry’s cover fit snugly over his head as he pulled the bill down and hiked outside into the sunny Southern California weather. He drove to the base housing he shared with two other Non-commissioned Officers, or NCOs, slammed the door on his truck and hurried inside before he cussed up a blue streak that would have all of Camp Pendleton talking by sundown.

Thankfully, his bunk mates were both on duty so he had the house to himself. But that empty echo of the door closing behind him was a curse as much as it was a blessing. Damn, he missed the way his best friend used to greet him.

The remembered thunder of deadly fireworks and images of blood and destruction seared him from the inside out, leaving him with beads of sweat on his forehead and his hands clutched into fists.

Hell. The doc was right. His head wasn’t on straight.

Using some of the calming techniques Lt. Col. Biro had taught him, Harry breathed in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. Then he grabbed the pull-up bar hanging in his bedroom doorway and did ten quick reps until he felt the burn in his biceps, triceps and shoulders, and the anger that had flared behind his eyes receded.

He took the pull-up bar off the door frame and tossed it onto the bed beside the duffel bag he’d already packed that morning, having known he was either shipping out or going home by the time the medical team was done with him today.

You need to get your head on straight or we can’t use you.

The lieutenant colonel’s blunt words made the tiny, impersonal bedroom swim around him. Squeezing his eyes shut against the dizzying, unsettled feeling he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy wondering if he was going to eat that day, Harry sank onto the edge of the mattress. He needed to find that happy place inside him. He needed to feel the holidays and the hope they inspired. He needed to find a way to push aside the nightmares and the anger and learn how to cope again. Or else the brass wouldn’t let him be a Marine anymore.

On instinct, he opened his duffel bag and pulled out a bulky, crumpled manila envelope that held the lifeline to sanity that had gotten him through that last hellish deployment and the long days in the hospital and physical therapy which had followed. He brushed his fingers over the torn envelope flap before sliding his thumb underneath and peeking inside. Now here was a little bit of sunshine. He pulled out a homemade angel ornament that had been a gift to him last Christmas. Then he studied the stack of cards and letters that were battered and smudged from travel and rereading. Words from a compassionate oracle who understood him better than he knew himself. His stiff jaw relaxed with the tremor of a smile that couldn’t quite form on his lips.

Harry hadn’t been this uncertain since he was that starving little boy with a black eye and clothes that didn’t fit. He didn’t need a shrink. He needed the Corps. But he’d need a miracle to make that happen. He needed the angel from all these cards and letters to work her magic on him again.

None of them were recent, but that didn’t matter. The effect on him was always the same. He opened the very first letter and started to read.

Dear MSgt. Lockhart...

Chapter One

Dear Daisy,

Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa.

Daisy Gunderson stared at the gift tag, dotted with sparkles of glitzy snow, in the top right drawer of her desk and wondered who hated her enough to wage this terror campaign against her. This should be the happiest time of year for her, with the holidays and her winter break from school coming soon. Either somebody thought this sick parade of presents left on her desk or in her mailbox in the faculty work room was a clever idea for a joke, or that person intentionally wanted to ruin Christmas for her.

Typically, she made a big deal of the holidays, as evidenced by the greenery and ornaments decorating her classroom, and the hand-carved menorah and colorful Kwanzaa mat she had on display that had been gifts from former students. But the red glass candy dish filled with rat poison, the decapitated elf ornament and the X-rated card that had nothing to do with holiday greetings hidden away in her drawer were disturbing signs that not everyone shared the same reverence for celebrating this time of year.

The gifts were an eerie reminder of the tragic mistake she’d made three years ago that had cost her so dearly. But Brock was locked up in a prison cell, and would be until her roots turned gray. Daisy had already called the prison to confirm Brock Jantzen hadn’t escaped or been accidentally released. These gifts couldn’t be his handiwork. Men in prison who’d tried to kill their ex-girlfriends didn’t get to send them cards and presents, right?

Daisy inhaled and let the long exhale flutter her lips. Of course not. These gifts had nothing to do with Brock. Or losing her father. Or even losing her mother, in a way. They had nothing to do with the scars on her chest and belly or her missing spleen.

Deciding that her thinking made it so, Daisy adjusted her purple-framed eyeglasses at her temples, spared a glance for the lone student muttering at the laptop on his desk, then looked up at the clock on the wall to wonder how much longer it was going to take Angelo to finish his essay before they could both go home for the day. Since she’d promised to give the teenager all the time he needed to complete his work, Daisy closed the drawer, picked up her pen and went back to grading papers.

But her thoughts drifted to the small stack of letters she’d locked away in a keepsake box under her bed at home. Letters from a Marine overseas. Short, stilted and impersonal at first. Then longer, angrier, sadder. Master Sergeant Harry Lockhart yearned for quiet and routine just as much as he longed to complete the job he’d been sent to the Middle East to accomplish. She could tell he loved serving his country. That he loved the military dog he worked with, Tango. That he grieved the young men and native soldiers he’d trained and lost. She’d grieved right along with him when he’d written to say that Tango had been killed. Those letters had been part of a class writing project she’d initiated last year, with help from a friend at church, Hope Taylor, who had connected Daisy to her brother and his unit. She’d give anything to hear from Harry Lockhart again, even one of his short missives about the heat or the sand in his bunk. But sadly, those letters had stopped coming months ago. She hoped the unthinkable hadn’t happened to her Marine. More likely, he’d simply tired of the friendship after the class had ended and those students had stopped writing the servicemen and women with whom they’d been pen pals.

Now the only notes she received depicted graphic sexual acts and violence. All under the guise of a friendly game of Secret Santa.

She’d reported the gifts to her principal, and he’d made a general announcement about the appropriateness of everyone’s anonymous gifts at the last staff meeting. And, she’d alerted the building police officer, who promised to keep an eye on her room and try to figure out when the gifts were being left for her. But, short of canceling the faculty party and gift exchange, and ruining everyone else’s Christmas fun, there was little more she could do besides staying alert, and doing a little sleuthing of her own to try and figure out who was sending them. Daisy wondered if the wretched gifts might even be coming from someone who hadn’t drawn her name in the annual gift swap—a disgruntled student, perhaps. Or maybe there was someone else in her life who thought this terror campaign was a cute way to squash her determination to make the most of every holiday celebration.

If that was the case, she refused to give in and take down one tiny piece of tinsel or play her Mannheim Steamroller music any less often. She already had enough reasons to mourn and resent the holidays. The Scrooges didn’t get to win. If grief, abandonment and solitude couldn’t keep her from saying Merry Christmas every chance she got, then a few morbid trinkets from a disturbed mind weren’t going to make her say, Bah, Humbug, either.

“Finished. Five hundred and two words.” A small laptop plunked down in front of her on her desk. “Before the deadline.”

Daisy smiled up at Angelo Logan, a favorite student with as much talent as he had excuses for not doing his work. She knew no one in his immediate family had gone to college. And since that was a goal of his, she didn’t mind putting in some extra time and pushing him a little harder than some of her other students. She skimmed the screen from the title, The Angel and the Devil, down to the word count at the bottom of the page. “Wow. Two words over the minimum required. Did you break a sweat?”

“You said to be concise.” A grin appeared on his dark face.

“Did you map out why you’re deserving of the scholarship?”

“Yeah. I talked about my home life, about being a twin and about what I can do for my community if I get a journalism degree.”

Daisy arched a skeptical eyebrow. “In five hundred and two words?”

Angelo tucked the tails of his white shirt back beneath his navy blue sweater and returned to his desk to pull on his blue school jacket. “Can I have my phone back now, Ms. G?”

“May I?” she corrected automatically, and looked up to see him roll his deep brown eyes. The standard rule in her class was “No cell phones allowed,” and anytime a student entered her room, he or she had to deposit their phones in the shoe bag hanging beside the door. Getting a phone back meant the student was free to go. Daisy smiled at the seventeen-year-old who looked so put upon by grinchy teachers who held him accountable for procrastinated essays and college application deadlines, when he probably just wanted to take off with his buddies for some Thursday night R & R. “You’re too good a writer to miss this opportunity.” She turned the laptop around. “Email me this draft and I’ll get it edited tonight. I can go over any changes that need to be made with you tomorrow. Then we can send the whole thing off before Monday’s deadline.”

Angelo zipped back to her desk and attached the file to an email. “I’ve got basketball after school tomorrow. I won’t be able to come in. Coach will bench me if I miss practice two days in a row.”

Ah, yes. Coach Riley and the pressure he put on his players, despite the academic focus of Central Prep. “Can you do lunch?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She pointed to the shoe storage bag hanging by the door. “Grab your phone. Have a good night and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

But he didn’t immediately leave. He exhaled a sigh before setting his backpack on the corner of her desk and digging inside. He pulled out a squished plastic bag with a red ribbon tied around the top and shyly dropped a gift of candy on her desk. “Thank you, Ms. G.”

An instinctive alarm sent a shock of electricity through her veins. But then she saw the blush darkening Angelo’s cheeks and realized she couldn’t be paranoid about everything with a gift tag this time of year. Plus, the smushed present didn’t look anything like the carefully prepared gifts she’d received from her Secret Santa. She feigned a smile before genuinely feeling it, and picked up the gift. “Are these your grandmother’s homemade caramels?”

“Yeah. She wanted to thank you for the extra hours you’re putting in on me.”

Daisy untied the bow and pulled open the bag to sniff the creamy brown-sugary goodies. This present was safe. She’d seen it delivered, and there was nothing hinky about the candies wrapped in this modest bag. She could let herself enjoy it. “I love her caramels. She made a special batch without nuts for me?”

The blush faded as the grin returned. “I don’t know why you want to eat them without the pecans, but she remembered that was the way you like them.”

Daisy pulled out one of the individually wrapped caramels and untwisted the waxed paper. “Hey, between her and me, we’re going to get you into college.”

“Yes, ma’am. Um... I wanted to...”

Wondering how long Angelo was going to stand there before he said whatever was making him shift back and forth so nervously, Daisy popped the caramel in her mouth and started to fill the awkward silence. “These are the yummiest—”

She almost choked on the chewy treat when a sharp knock rapped on her door. “’Lo. You coming or what?” Although the baggy jeans and sideways ball cap were a vastly different look than the school uniform Angelo still wore, Albert Logan shared his twin brother’s face. “Just because you got in trouble with the teacher doesn’t mean I have to be late.”

“I’m not in trouble,” Angelo insisted.

“I don’t care. I just know I have to drive your sorry ass home before I meet the guys.”

“Granny’s going to kill you if you skip dinner again.”

“She ain’t killed me yet.” Albert jerked his head down the hallway toward the exit. “Move it.”

“Hey, Albert.” Daisy stood and offered a friendly greeting.

“Hey, Ms. G.”

Despite looking alike, the two brothers couldn’t be more different. “You know, my offer to stay after school and work with students who need extra help extends to you, too.”

“I ain’t in your class no more.”

“You aren’t anymore,” she corrected. “I’m here with Angelo. I could easily tutor you, too. Get your grades back up so you can be on the basketball team again.”

“Whatever.” He turned down her repeated offer to help him raise his D’s and F’s into acceptable grades and pointed to his brother. “My car leaves in five. Be in it or walk home.”

Although she was already plotting different arguments to convince Albert to get the help he needed, Daisy trained her smile on Angelo while he zipped his backpack and hurried to grab his phone. “Be sure to thank your grandmother for the caramels.”

“Bye.”

Once the teens had left her room, the silence of an empty school long after classes had ended closed in on her. Shaking off the instant sensation of loneliness before it could take hold of her, Daisy packed up her pink leather shoulder bag. She jotted a note to Bernie Riley, the boys’ basketball coach, asking him to have a chat with his former player to encourage Albert to take her, or someone else, up on the tutoring offer. Without sports to keep him interested in school, she feared he’d wind up dropping out without a diploma. Then she grabbed her scarf and wrapped it around the neckline of her tunic sweater and pulled her coat from the closet before shutting off the lights and locking the door.