Home For Christmas

By KM Lowe

Being a soldier changed Logan McDade's life. It turned him from a boy into a man and he'd fought for his country for ten years. He was in his prime, or so he thought, until one fateful day when his camp was ambushed, his career ended, and his life was turned upside down.

Returning Home for Christmas should be a happy occasion, but for Logan McDade,it's the complete opposite.

Returning home to Montana where his family own and run a ranch was his idea of hell. With his future unclear, he returns home to see what he can piece together of his fragile life.

When Logan's path crosses with his neighbour, Alisha, his heart beats fast, and his head tells him to follow his heart, even though Alisha has her own set of issues.

Can two broken souls be mended?

Will their pasts eat them up?

Will family be the answer to a happy Christmas?

• Language: English
• Publisher: KM Lowe
• Release date: Dec 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386216537

Book preview

Author History

MY NAME IS Kelly McMullen Lowe and I was born on March 19, 1986 to the proud parents of Christine Greenlees Beaumont Steedman and Hugh Patrick McMullen. My parents taught me the value of life and they showed me how to succeed. I married David Lowe, on December 30, 2006 and we have two wonderful children named Dylan and Tianna. Over the last couple of years, I was unwell and I put all of my time into my family and reading. In 2012 I wanted to commit myself to writing my own novel. I have put a lot of time and effort into all of my books. I hope that you all enjoy them, as much I did writing them.

Acknowledgments

FIRST OF ALL, I WOULD like to thank Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design, for helping me to create a beautiful cover for my ninth novel. You have helped me through a difficult time when I couldn't find what I was looking for. I will always be grateful to you for your help with picking my cover photo.

Second, I would like to thank Karen Sanders for editing my book. This process has been so much easier with you on my side. You answered all of my questions and I hope to have you as my editor for a long time to come.

Also, I would like to thank my family and friends for putting up with me over the last couple of years. My husband will get some sense out of me for a couple of weeks, until I start writing again. This book would not have been possible, if it wasn't for the support of my husband. I love you to the moon and back.

Next, I would like to thank my children for being my little angels. I love you dearly and you mean the world to me. I hope that one day you will be able to read mummy's work. In the meantime Dylan, you can read the blurb. My son is my little book worm. I hope when he gets older, he will still enjoy reading just as much.

Finally, to my readers. Thank you all for purchasing my books. It means a lot to see so many of you reading what I write. All of your lovely reviews and comments make everything worthwhile.  Your willingness to buy The Beautiful Life Trilogy, gave me the nudge I needed when I was at a low point in my life. I have made lots of new friends from all over the world. That wouldn’t have been possible, if it wasn't for my writing. I would like to thank everyone on my street team. Without Suzie and the other ladies, I would be snowed under with promoting books. You ladies take a lot of the pressure off and I thank you for that.

Special Acknowledgements

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Dave Kelley Photography, for helping me to create the perfect cover. Your cover models are amazing and I look forward to working with you again.

https://www.facebook.com/DKArtistics/

I would also like to thank my cover models for Home For Christmas, Lance Jones and Tayler Vomacka. Thank you for doing what you do.

https://www.facebook.com/LanceJonesTattooFitnessModel/

https://www.facebook.com/tayler.vomacka?ref=br_rs

Finally, Kellie Dennis. I would like to thank you for all of your help with this cover. As a team, we all worked together to come up with the perfect cover, but you transformed that into a beautiful masterpiece. Your help and expertise will always be very much appreciated.

https://www.facebook.com/bookcoverbydesign/

Dedications

I WOULD LIKE TO DEDICATE this novel to all of the veterans out there that dedicate their lives to fighting for our country. I’ve found out so much information while writing this book and my heart is heavy knowing that people go through what my character has.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all every day.

PROLOGUE

LOGAN

Getting ready to leave the base in Afghanistan was a moment we’d all been waiting for. We'd faced war and lost many men and woman we called family. We'd seen many things that will haunt us for life, and although we were going home, we’d be different people. Nothing would ever be the same again for us.

It makes you wonder why we put ourselves through this shit. We fought for our country, but who fights for us? We were tossed out there to do a job and we were blind to everything around us. Every day we faced out there could have been the last, but we did everything in our power to fight through and survive. 

The smell of death and destruction hung heavy in the air. Everywhere we looked we were haunted by the things we'd seen and heard. The buildings were no longer standing. Men carted off the dead. Woman and children were crying and clinging to their loved ones, and our job was complete. It felt weird that we were leaving all of that mess and destruction behind while telling ourselves it was a job well done. 

Our worn-out bodies trudged to the four-by-four vehicles that were waiting to transport us back to our base. Our skin was dirty from the lack of facilities to get a decent wash. Our skin was dry from the lack of nutrition, and the sun had dried our lips out until they were crispy and sore to touch. We put ourselves through physical and mental torture, and we counted down the moments until we were deployed back to our base. Life was tough out there, but someone must do it. 

I flung the door open and took a seat in the front passenger seat. I was the first to make it there and I wasn't at ease. I was leaving, I should have been happy about it, but I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't put my finger on it. My body was still on full alert and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I rested my head back on the headrest, but almost immediately I was startled forward when I heard shouting. As I looked up, the ground in front of me was blown up. The four-by-four in front exploded and I had no time to get out of my vehicle. I watched it all happen in front of me and I was unable to do anything. The force of a bomb blew my car up and everything went silent, although I could still see and feel what was going on around me. The black smoke clouded around my body and lingered. 

The air grew thicker. 

My chest grew tighter. 

I didn’t know whether I was deaf or if there was no sound around me; it was like someone had pushed a mute button. I tried to move but I was stuck in between the passenger seat and the windshield. 

How the hell would I get out alive? I didn't know where my legs were. My body was a crumpled mess. I couldn't feel a thing. 

My family. Oh, shit. They would never get over this. I hadn't seen them in such a long time and now they were only going to be left with my remains. I could hear my mom screaming when that army official knocked on their door to tell them I was dead. 

I was so close to getting out of that tour alive and well, but fate had other ideas. 

I tried my best to move but my body was a dead weight. The smoke was making my lungs sore and, the more I breathed, the worse it got. My head was spinning and I was seeing double. 

My eyes were getting heavier and there was nothing else I could possibly do. I couldn't fight anymore. I had no energy to fight.

I was dying. 

Going. 

Going.

Gone.

PROLOGUE

ALISHA

Why do you have to keep pushing?" Jack yelled at me. 

I... I don't, I cried.

Before I could move, he turned around and pushed me. I stepped back and lost my balance, bumping my head on the coffee table. My head spun and my vision slipped in and out of focus. I lifted my hand to my forehead and felt the wet, sticky substance on my fingers. I should have been used to his abuse, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. 

You’re a useless piece of shit, Alisha! 

I was yanked off the floor by my hair, making me cry out in pain.

Please, don't do this, I begged the man I once loved. A punch to my stomach made me gag as the wind was knocked out of me. I felt sick and I knew he was either going to kill me or beat me until I couldn't say another word.  Either way, I was done for.

I’m out working all day and I can't even come home to a meal on the table. Why do you make me so angry?  Jack hissed.

I was just home in front of you. I had an emergency to attend to at the surgery, I tried to explain around my sobs.

Another punch to my jaw hit me and I’d never experienced pain like it. This was the worst he’d ever been. I willed my heart to stop beating. Anything, so I didn't feel what he was doing to me. 

Alisha this, Alisha that. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes. 

I’d lost count of the amount of times he’d hit me that day, and my body slumped to the floor. I had no fight left. I couldn't see anything and my stomach rolled. Everything had gone silent and I had no idea how to help myself. I didn't have the energy to get help. I was scared to move in case he was still there. 

I closed my eyes and felt the most peace I'd felt in months. I was in a place I didn't want to wake up from. 

Peaceful. 

Heavenly.

Chapter 1

Logan

Joining the army was the most selfless thing I’d ever done in my life. Before I enrolled, I felt like my life had seen as much excitement as I was capable of showing it. I was nineteen years old and I felt invincible. All I knew was I didn't want to run the ranch with my family. I grew up with those damn horses and I didn't want to be stuck there doing the same tasks day in and day out. Mucking out stables and running day to day tasks, fixing fences and gates was not something I could see myself doing for the rest of my adult life. 

Was I selfish? Hell, yeah. My dad had supported his family by doing what I turned my nose up at, but I couldn't pretend to be happy there. That wasn't where I saw myself in twenty years’ time. 

Making the decision to join the army was one of the easiest things I ever did. 

I watched my mom cry for the weeks running up to my deployment. My dad would say, He's a big boy, Kate. He'll do just fine. I think my dad was just trying to keep the peace in the end, because we were all sick of the same arguments. I knew deep down he was secretly dying inside, because he had high hopes that he could retire and leave the ranch to his three sons - Joel, Kyan, and me. 

The thing is, Joel and Kyan were ranchers. They loved the great outdoors, the horses, and the jobs that came with being a ranch handler. It was all they knew. I’d hated doing chores as a kid, but I had no choice then; that was life. In the end, it wasn't what I chose and I will never regret the decisions I made.  I did what was right for me at the time.

Lying in a hospital bed made me realize that life is too short. We were on the final legs of our deployment when we got hit. Yeah, bad luck on my part. I've had five surgeries on my leg to repair the bone, plus skin grafts over the burns I got from the explosion. It had been a tough ride, but I’m here to tell the tale.

Now, there I was, fit for discharge the next day, and I was heading back to Montana for Christmas. My family was unaware of me making it home for the holidays, but for a long time I wasn't sure if I would ever return. If it wasn't for the fact that I had no choice in the matter, I'd have taken a flight to the middle of nowhere and spent the next several weeks with me, myself and I. That sounded blissful, but after speaking with my boss and hearing my mom's broken voice whenever I spoke with her, it was killing me. I didn’t want to go home, but my mom deserved to know I was alive and well. I could only imagine what she’d been through, from getting that visit from the army official to tell them I was injured, to every phone call to the medical staff, getting details of the surgery I was having next.  It's every mother’s worst nightmare. 

Every family sat and waited for that knock on the door; it came with the job, unfortunately. We just needed to keep a level head on our shoulders and do our best to protect our families from getting hurt. 

I know for a while it was touch and go with me. The bone was so badly broken in my leg that the surgeon didn't know if he could save my limb. But, several weeks later, I was fighting to get back on my feet and put the ordeal behind me.

However, just thinking about some of the procedures made my blood run cold. I had skin taken from my ass to cover the burns on my leg. I was left with a limp that would get better with extensive physiotherapy at home. If not totally better, it would improve greatly, hopefully.

I sighed.

I knew I should have been elated that I was getting out of the hospital. We dreamt of getting out alive to go home to our loved ones, but this was different. I hadn't chosen to leave, I'd been evicted, so to speak. I wasn't ready to walk away from everything I knew. Life in the army was our ‘normal’ life. What I had back home in Montana was far from normal. It was the complete opposite for me and it scared the shit out of me, if I was honest with myself. 

I'd been stuck in the infirmary for nearly twelve weeks. I'd gotten used to the procedures. The surgery. The medication. The staff. The accommodation. It was everything I knew. Even before I was a patient there, I used to visit any of our officers who were injured in the line of duty. 

Going home would be like starting over again, and I'd have to learn to walk before I could run. It was going to be a new kind of mission for me, and the odds of me getting through it were not in my favor. 

A knock on the screen door had me turning to see who was there. Hey, I said with as much power as I could when I saw my squad leader, Grey, enter my room.

Why do you look like someone pissed in your coffee? It's Christmas, and you're going home tomorrow. Cheer up, Buddy. 

I sniggered slightly because my squad leader was always a joker. He always kept us smiling, even if he was winding us up.

I'm cool. Seems weird, is all. Which was kind of the truth. 

Enjoy it. You've done your time. Go home and be with your loved ones. Relax. Put your feet up. Go out to celebrate and get yourself a bit on the side. 

In Blue Ridge? I shook my head. Being serious though, I think that's just it. This is home for me. I haven't been home in so long, now I'm not sure how to feel about it. I sighed again, swinging my legs over the side of the bed to sit up straight.

Your old lady will be over the moon. I had the pleasure of her phone calls every day when you first got injured. Now, it’s maybe twice a week. I'll miss her calls when you go home.

The thought of my mom torturing herself over the last several weeks tore my heart in two. I put that worry into her head. She cried and yelled at me before I left home. She had it in her head that I was still a child at nineteen. She also had it in her head that I wouldn't survive out in the big bad world. I know all moms worry, but I would have loved to have left home knowing I had my family’s full support. 

What was my problem? Why couldn't I be excited to go home?

Yeah, my mom’s a star. She will never change. She’ll be like a child at Christmas that I've been discharged because she always hated me being here. It's everyone else I'm bothered about, because I don't want their pity. Blue Ridge, the ranch, the village... it won't be the same as before I left and I don't want to be the ‘new guy in town’. 

I knew first-hand how things could change so quickly. I'd been away for nine years, but it didn’t feel like that long. 

You're not the same either, buddy. Nothing ever stays the same, said Grey, trying to reassure me.

I guess that's true.

I called in to tell you the itinerary for tomorrow. You'll get taken to the airport at nine a.m. You should be home for seven p.m. tomorrow. The only thing I haven't covered is the taxi from Montana to the ranch. I figured you'd know that neck of the woods better than me.

Yeah, if my legs had worked perfectly fine it would have been a relaxing walk from the airport to my parents’ ranch. However, a short drive would see me home in ten minutes. 

Thanks. For everything. We've been a good team over the years. I punched his arm in true army style. 

No thanks needed, brother. It’s been a pleasure working with you. Take the time to get yourself back on your feet. If after that you want to talk about other positions, give me a call. There’s more to the army than being on the front line.

Is next week too soon? I spoke with humor, but we both knew I wasn't joking in the slightest. 

Good try, buddy. Take care of yourself. 

My leader leaned forward and patted me on the back. His man hug was probably the last thing I needed, but it would be ingrained into my memory from then on. 

Grey? I said before he left my room, making him turn back to me. Keep safe out there. 

Of course I will.  His parting words made me smile, because you needed a confident attitude out there. Army life isn't for the faint-hearted. 

Tomorrow was the start of a new chapter for me and I had no idea how to face it. I thought I was undecided at nineteen. I thought my life was dull then, but now, I couldn’t see my life ever being the same again. 

My new mission was to survive Christmas at home.

CHAPTER 2

Logan

I tossed and turned all night. I walked the floors of my hospital room and took a shower at five a.m. By the time eight a.m. arrived, I was ready to leave.

I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the only life I’d come to know. It was going to take me a while to fit back in at home, if I ever did. 

Logan. I turned to the voice and several of my team buddies were walking towards me.  Each one of them had their own story to tell, but they were still in their uniforms. They weren't leaving everything they knew behind. I was sure many of them would have swapped places with me, because some of them had wives and kids, so Christmas at home would have meant the world to them. 

Hey. What are you all doing here? I asked.

We couldn't let you leave without saying goodbye. We're all still here because of you. Many men would have left us in the field, but not you, said Mick, one of the older guys in my squad.

I didn't want to let the dam burst. I wanted to remain strong and tear free, but listening to Mick was going to set me off.  I've never been emotional, but since getting injured, I felt like my emotions had taken over. 

I only did my job. You guys are like brothers to me and I won't forget that. Take care of one another out there and keep in touch.

You too. Enjoy your freedom from this hell hole.

I'll try.  I've got to go. My driver is waiting. I took each man into my arms and patted their backs. I wasn't sure if I'd ever see them alive again, and I suddenly got a sense of how my mom and dad must have felt when I left them. I felt a connection to those guys because we'd been through so much together.  Behave. Be careful. Believe.

With my last four words, I turned and limped out into the warm, musky air.  Behave. Be careful. Believe. The four words I said before we went out on any mission. 

Behave, because we weren’t invincible.

Be careful, because we needed to get home. 

Believe, because if anything happened to us out there we needed to believe we would get home.

I got into my waiting car and waved to my brothers. The car maneuvered slowly, and along the base there were people stopping to wave me off. It was like I was moving in slow motion. The lift of their hats and salutes. I felt like royalty, but I was nothing now. My life would never excite or thrill me again. 

What was I supposed to do with myself? Ranch life was going to drive me up the wall. My sister, Allana, was married to Paul, the guy next door. She had an eleven-year-old daughter, Kayla, who I was looking forward to seeing. I always replied to the messages and cards she sent me. They always arrived at times when I needed them, and I'd enjoyed keeping in touch with my niece. She had no idea how much those cards and letters kept me going. 

My two brothers, Joel and Kyan, worked on the ranch. They all lived in and around the family business, and now I needed to either find my place within my family or figure shit out and move forward. This wasn't going to be an easy task for me because my family business didn't appeal to me. Even after all those years away from the ranch, I had the same feelings about it. 

I rested my head back on the headrest and waited to arrive at the airport. If I’d never arrived at that airport, I didn’t think it would have bothered me in the slightest.

Only time would tell where my life was heading.  Time would tell if my life would ever be the same again.

Time would tell me if I would ever be the same again.

The travelling had been plain-sailing. Flights were on time and I was wrapped up warm in Montana Airport, heading towards the exit. I was on the last legs of my journey and my family was only ten minutes away. 

I could see the snow falling heavily, and when I got outside, I looked up to the black night sky as white flakes hit my face. The feel of the cold flakes melting on my warm skin made me smile. I couldn’t remember the last time I stood in snow.

A soft bump into my arm had my attention shifting from the sky. Oh, I’m sorry, came a voice from beside me. I looked down to the ground and noticed a woman