A Christmas Homecoming

By Linda Rettstatt

PFC Kate Milner did not expect to be suddenly called up and deployed to Afghanistan. It was a six month deployment. She would be back with her husband and son before Christmas. And she was—just not in the way she expected. With a shattered ankle and an even more broken psyche, Kate is struggling to find her way home again. Then she finds the note her son had tucked into her duffel bag. The only way home is by letting in the people who will love her past the physical and emotional wounds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linda Rettstatt
• Release date: Nov 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463034781

Linda Rettstatt

Linda Rettstatt is a best-selling and award-winning author of Women’s Fiction and Mainstream Contemporary Romance. In March of 2012 her novel, LOVE, SAM, won the prestigious EPIC eBook Award for Mainstream Fiction. And in April, 2016, LADIES IN WAITING won the EPIC eBook Award for Contemporary Fiction. Rettstatt grew up in the small town of Brownsville in Southwestern Pennsylvania. After 20 years living and working in Mississippi, she has returned to the hills of PA to write and work as an editor.

Book preview

A Christmas Homecoming

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Linda Rettstatt

A Christmas Homecoming

3rd Act Books

© 2020, Linda Rettstatt

All rights reserved.

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by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal

and forbidden.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are

a product of the author’s imagination and bear

no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings,

and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance

are purely coincidental.

A Christmas Homecoming

The explosion nearly deafened Kate Milner. She clamped her hands over her ears and turned to find her way out of the smoke. She stumbled and soon realized her left ankle was not working the way she needed it to. Someone grabbed her, threw her arm over a shoulder, and dragged her away from the smoke and flames.

Kate sat up, her nightgown stuck to her body, her breathing labored.

Katie? Honey, it’s okay.

She slapped the arm away before realizing it belonged to Justin, her husband. She turned and sat on the edge of the bed, her feet dangling inches above the floor. She stared down at her ankle. The injury was still evident in the misshapen joint, angry red scars, and dull pain she still experienced.

Justin sat behind her. Katie, just breathe. He set a tentative hand on her shoulder.

She closed her eyes and stiffened her arms, palms pressing into the mattress. She struggled to regulate her breathing. Then she slipped from his grasp and stood for a moment before walking unsteadily across the bedroom and into the bathroom.

Hands pressed on the sink, Kate stared into the mirror. Her dark hair was damp with perspiration, as was her nightgown. It was the terrified, haunted look in her eyes that disturbed her the most. She hated that look. She hated herself because it made her look weak. She was a soldier, a warrior.

She put her trembling palms under the stream from the faucet and splashed cold water onto her face. The nightmare always seemed real. Whether it was triggered by a sound or by a momentary pain in her ankle, it seemed real.

Kate had returned from Afghanistan a month earlier with a shattered ankle and a fractured psyche. She’d been scheduled to return home in mid-December, but an IED changed those plans. The ankle would heal, so she’d been told, though she’d likely always have a slight limp and arthritis to deal with. The therapist at the VA told her she would heal inside eventually, too, if she stuck with therapy. She had been diagnosed with PTSD.

Kate emerged from the bathroom to find Justin standing and holding a fresh nightgown for her. She took one look at him and broke.

Justin pulled her into him, holding tight, kissing her hair, whispering, It’s okay, Katie. It’s going to be fine. I’ve got you.

This only made her cry harder. He had her—what was left of her. It wasn’t fair to him. It really wasn’t