by Skye Taylor
“Well, she didn’t do it before she discovered his condition.” Why on earth am I defending the woman? “He was one of Philip’s men. Maybe I can ask him to keep an eye on Cpl. Dickey. Reach out to him and, you know, help him out of his funk, maybe.”
“If the Gunny can get through to him, it will be more than Dr. Trebow or I have managed. Ask him. It can’t hurt.” Rob picked up the magazine and found his place. “Thanks for filling me in. It’s good information to have.”
As she crossed the room to get to work with Philip, she considered his reaction to being roped in to helping Mark Dickey. Philip was eager to get back in action himself. More than eager. He chafed at being ashore, as he called it. But he’d been there, done that. He understood, and maybe Mark Dickey would respond to that.
In the meantime, she had a therapy session to get through all the while pretending that nothing else was going on.
Chapter 30
April 2015
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
ELENA CURLED AGAINST Philip’s side with her head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. Her little scented candles still flickered on the bedside table, creating patterns of light on the ceiling. He trailed his fingers absently over her warm bare flesh and sighed.
These moments of quiet contentment in the aftermath of lovemaking were something they’d not shared fourteen years earlier. Then, they’d both been a lot younger, and they’d humped like rabbits until they fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Woke up and did it all over again. Things were different now. Sweeter and more mellow. He kissed the top of her head.
They’d discussed a number of random topics. Dave Calloway’s art, Captain Clueless, and the construction of a new resort in Tide’s Way. He should be asking her how she was going to explain the change in their relationship to Julie. His sleepovers wouldn’t go unnoticed if they continued as they had the last couple of days. But still lurking in the back of his mind was the distressing possibility that this week was a gift that wouldn’t be repeated any time soon. The idea made his heart ache. Made his groin ache too. He hadn’t found the courage to bring up the idea of marriage while she was awake and might turn him down.
Maybe the no would be all tied up in her being his therapist. But just maybe she would say no regardless.
Elena played with the cross and dog tags resting on his chest. Then she drew a line downward over his abs and flattened her hand on his stomach.
“Do you ever think about your men getting their lives back together?”
Her question, totally unconnected to anything they’d been talking about before, and definitely a long way from sex and marriage, took him by surprise.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“I mean, do you worry about them. Like when they’re depressed or . . . you know . . . when they have nightmares and PTSD and such?”
“Worry doesn’t do much to help anyone.” Where is she headed with this question?
“But do you ever do anything about it? Anything to help them cope?”
“Of course. When I can. They’re my boys.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. Her dark eyes glimmered seductively in the light from the candles. His groin stirred in response. “They’re hardly boys.”
He pulled her face down so he could kiss her. He should have been tapped out sexually, but he couldn’t get enough of touching her and kissing her. And his anatomy seemed willing. She responded as if she, too, was trying to make up for lost time. By the time she drew away and settled her head back onto his shoulder, he was hard again.
“Why do you call them boys?” She slid her hand a little lower.
“They make me feel ancient.” She made him feel like a teenager again.
“Maybe you’re a little old to be playing cowboys and Indians.”
He was too aroused to take offense. It wasn’t her fault she could never understand the addictive pull of combat, the satisfaction of an op that turned out as planned, or the intense bond with those who fought at your side.
“I’m not too old until I can’t keep up, and I start being a liability.” He flexed his injured hand. That time might be sooner than he’d like, but he believed in his heart it was not now.
“So, what about Mark Dickey? He’s one of your boys. Are you going to help him?”
“What do you think I can do, exactly?” He rolled to face her and put one hand on her hip, pulling her body firmly against his erection.
Her breathing quickened, but she wasn’t deterred from her subject. “You could help him get past his wife’s infidelity, maybe? And give him something to hope for beyond being a Marine?”
“I haven’t figured that out for myself yet. How am I supposed to help a man who’s lost his legs create a new purpose in life?”
“He must be good at something besides shooting a rifle.” Elena pushed herself up and sat cross-legged to face him. “Same as you.”
Frustrated, he rolled onto his back. “But I am very good at shooting a rifle. I—” He’d had this discussion with various members of his family both before and after 9/11. “The Marines is who I am.”
“It’s only part of who you are,” she insisted. “You’re good at languages. You’re fluent in three that I know of. You could be a teacher.”
“Me? Stuck in a classroom all day? Are you kidding?” There was no adrenaline rush in teaching. Any more than there was in slaving away at a desk deciphering endless tidbits of intelligence. He was used to being active. Out of doors. On the hunt. Getting stuff done.
“Well, I think you’d be good at it. And you wouldn’t have to spend months deployed on the other side of the world.”
“Is that what you’d like from me?” His arousal was dissipating rapidly.
She flopped back down and rolled onto her side. “I’d like to know you’ll be around for a while this time.”
He turned to face her again. He touched her face, drawing the tip of his finger from her temple down to her chin. “Is there going to be a this time for us?” The question he’d been afraid to ask.
She stared at him silently for a long moment. She reached out to touch the dog tags dangling across his chest, then drew her finger slowly around the circumference of one tag. “It scares me.”
“What scares you? Us reconnecting?”
“I’m afraid of letting myself care and then losing you all over again.”
He scooped her into his chest and buried his face in her hair. “You never lost me in the first place. We just let ourselves get separated by circumstance. It won’t happen again. I won’t let it.”
“You might not be able to prevent it. Not if you stay in the Marines.”
So, there it is. She wants a future with me, but she wants me out of the Marines. Can I sacrifice everything I’ve ever been? Why should I have to? Most of my buddies have wives. They make it work. So can I. Elena just has to realize that being a Marine is who I am.
He tipped her face up to his and kissed her. “We’ll find a way to make it work, Elena. Just don’t give up on me this time.”
ELENA SAT IN the courtyard outside the physical therapy department, thinking about Philip and the conversation they’d had after making love the night before. He seemed to want a future with her, but not one that didn’t include being a Marine. He was a warrior, and that’s all he could see for himself.
She should have known he’d react that way. His determination to get his hand rehabbed and get back into the action had never been a secret. To her, it seemed logical that any man with as many years in as Philip had would welcome a medical discharge and a full pension with a chance to try another career. But Philip wasn’t most men.
He had blinders on when it came to his future.
Maybe she should have told him about Julie.
No maybe about it.
She should definitely have told him about Julie. Maybe if he knew he had a daughter, his attitude would be different.
Except, now that she knew about Tommy, confessing the truth about their baby, the baby Philip never knew he had was going to be terrifyingly difficult. He’d relinquished his rights to a son he’d loved because he’d felt that Lawrence’s claim was stronger. And that Holly’s lies had been unforgiveable.
If he’d never forgiven Holly, what chance did she have that he’d forgive her?
He would be furious with her for not telling him he’d gotten her pregnant. Even after she’d married Eli, she still could have let Philip know about Julie.
He would have every right to be angry. And hurt beyond repair. She’d cheated him out of all the years of Julie’s babyhood, childhood, and most of her growing up.
The ringing of her cell phone jerked her back to her surroundings. Julie’s smiling face bloomed on the front of her phone. She pressed answer.
“Julie. How’s it going?”
“Fantabulous, Mom. Dad took me to eat at this awesome new restaurant, and last night we went to a Padres game. I spent the whole day at the beach with Vicky, Steph, and Lucy, and tonight we’re going to a party at Steph’s house. Dad is taking us all to Old Town on Saturday. I wanted to go to Little Tijuana and see if I could make a few deals, but I don’t have my birth certificate so we decided on Old Town instead,” Julie gushed with excitement.
“Sounds like you’re having a great vacation,” Elena responded with a sinking feeling in her gut. Julie had never seen her own birth certificate. For good reason. Or what Elena had thought was a good reason until now.
“I might even have to get a new duffle bag if I get more stuff on Saturday. I already have one new dress. The restaurant was kinda fancy, and I didn’t have anything nice enough. Dad got me shoes to match it, too. Besides that, Dad gave me a box of things you left behind. He was fixing up his guest room, and he found this box stashed in the closet.”
“Well, don’t go buying a new suitcase just for my old junk. If I haven’t missed it by now, I probably don’t need it.” No point in commenting on Eli lavishing gifts and outings on Julie. He had always been generous with her. Too generous sometimes. Like buying her all the latest fads that kids always seemed to want, then wore once and relegated to the back of the closet.
“Not to worry, Mom.” Julie launched into a lengthy recital of her day at the beach and what all her old friends had been up to since she moved east. Elena listened and made appropriate sounds here and there.
“I miss you,” Julie said suddenly in a much quieter voice.
“I miss you, too.” If it hadn’t been for Philip absorbing all her free time, Elena would have been lost without Julie around. They’d never been apart for more than a single night sleepover in Julie’s whole life.
“Don’t forget to pick me up at the airport.”
“As if!”
“Well, bye. I’ve gotta run. Dad’s waiting to take me over to Steph’s. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Say hi to your—your dad for me. I’ll see you Sunday.”
Elena turned off her phone and shoved it back into her pocket.
How was she going to tell Julie about Philip?
Fresh from a week with Eli, Julie wasn’t likely to be too receptive to the change in her mother’s relationship with another man. Especially when Philip showed up at the breakfast table with his hair still tousled and a day’s growth of beard on his cheeks.
Sleeping with a man she didn’t have some kind of an understanding with wasn’t the sort of example she should be setting for her daughter. But neither could she face not making the most of every moment with Philip for however long he remained at Lejeune.
She dropped her face into her hands and pressed her palms into her eyes. These last few days had passed so quickly. Too quickly. Philip made her feel alive and sexy and . . .
And in love.
How could she give that up?
Chapter 31
April 2015
Camp Lejeune, North Carolina
PHILIP HUNG UP the phone and stood. The gray walls of his claustrophobic little cubicle made him antsy at the best of times, but at the moment he couldn’t wait to be gone. And there was some urgency to be gone quickly. He stuffed the papers he’d been going over back into a manila file folder.
“Anyone seen the Captain?” He gazed over the cubicle walls toward the other occupants of the room.
Lieutenant Ken Evans looked up from his computer screen. “He’s in a meeting with some brass down from Quantico.”
Probably not a good idea to take off without letting the Captain know where I’m going. Not that I’ve got much of a choice. If Mark needs me now, then he needs me right now.
“Tell Clooney I had something important to take care of. I’ll call in when I can. Maybe I’ll be back before he knows I’m gone.”
Ken nodded, his gaze already back on his computer screen.
Philip pocketed his phone, grabbed the car keys to the Buick, and headed for the door.
Mark had sounded pretty desperate. More desperate than Philip had guessed when he’d assured Elena the corporal wasn’t going to end his life. Now Philip wasn’t so sure.
He was in a rush and barely stopped to notice that he’d unthinkingly unlocked his mother’s Buick using his right hand. He glanced at his hand and the key still dangling in the door, shrugged, then yanked the door open and climbed in. Getting the car started with his right hand didn’t’ hurt either. The twisting, pinching motion that had sent a rip of fiery pain up his arm just a few weeks ago didn’t even cause a twinge. He flexed his fingers briefly, then put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking spot. No time to dwell on his own small triumphs.
When he arrived at the address Dickey had given him, the man was sitting right where he’d told Philip he would be, on the bottom step of an isolated shack on the other side of Route 17. He looked up as Philip pulled into the dirt driveway and parked next to an old Toyota pickup truck.
Philip got out and strode toward the steps. A nondescript mongrel that had been lying at the corporal’s feet got up and came toward Philip with his hackles raised and a low growl rumbling in his throat.
“Friend, Max.” Mark told the dog.
The dog stopped growling and his tail wagged slightly at the sound of Mark’s voice. Then he sniffed at Philip’s trousers. Philip bent to pet the dog a moment, and then moved past him and sat down on the step beside Mark.
“You came,” Mark said.
“You asked me to.”
“I wasn’t sure you would,” Mark muttered. He reached behind himself, hesitated for a long moment, and finally brought out an old but well-kept Smith and Wesson revolver. “I think you’d better hang on to this for a while. Until I lose the urge to use it instead of picking up the phone.”
Philip accepted the gun and set it down by his feet. He noticed the revolver was loaded, but the safety was on. Mark might be tempted to use it, but he hadn’t forgotten his training.
“I’m glad you chose the phone.” He paused. “So . . . you want to talk about why today was any different than yesterday, or the last time I saw you?”
“The bank foreclosed on my house.” Mark’s shoulders slumped further.
“Well, ain’t that a kick in the nuts.”
What else was this guy supposed to lose before fate was done with him? Philip glanced at the dog who’d come back to plant his head on Mark’s knee. “Kind of like those jokes about country and western songs. Only you can’t play the record backward.”
“This place—” Mark gestured to the rotting building behind them. “Is all I’ve got left. That and Max. Gramps left me this relic free and clear, but nothing else. Once I’m discharged, I’ll have no way to fix it or feed Max.”
The dog’s tail thumped once. Philip thought about Elena’s question last night when they were lying in bed, relaxing in the aftermath of sex. A question he’d avoided thinking about in terms of himself.
“What did you do before you became a Marine?”
Mark shrugged. “Before the Marines? When I was in high school, you mean? I worked at a garage on weekends, tinkering with old cars. Not much else. All I ever wanted to be was a Marine.”
“Amen to that,” Philip replied. It was all he’d ever dreamed of being, too. His father had tried to dissuade him, but Philip’s determination had been stronger than his father’s objections.
“Whoever said ‘once a Marine, always a Marine’ didn’t mention this.” Mark slapped his prosthesis. “All the Marines I know who are still out there have two legs.”
“Not all of them.” But most of the unfortunate men who’d lost limbs didn’t stay in. The uphill struggle was just too steep, even for a determined man with an unflagging support team that included a wife and family. But maybe there was a way for Mark to stay in.
“The Marine Corps can always use good mechanics,” Philip suggested. “Probably even more than they need trigger-pullers. Get serious about your rehab, and maybe you can stay in and get signed up for whatever training you’d need to change your MOS.”
“You really think there’s a chance that could happen?” A spark of hope entered Mark’s hazel eyes.
“I can help you look into it if you’re interested.”
Mark looked encouraged for a moment, then his face clouded again. “What’s the use? Without Sharon, what’s to live for?”
“I know you love her, but if Sharon could dump you at a time like this, then you don’t need that kind of baggage in your life.”
Mark winced and, for a moment, it even looked as if he might weep. He bit his lips hard and looked away.
Philip put a hand on his shoulder. “At the risk of sounding like a shrink, try looking at the things you do have for a minute. You can’t get the legs back, but I’ve been told you have the best prostheses they make. You’ve got a roof over your head that hasn’t got a mortgage on it. And you’ve got Max. That’s more than some guys have.”
