The Littlest Marine & The Oldest Living Married Virgin

by Maureen Child

  Hands tight on the steering wheel, she let her mind race from one blossoming thought to the next. No matter what happened, she resolved firmly, she wouldn’t regret a moment of what she and Jack had shared. Already, those hours with him in the dark had taken on a misty, dreamlike quality, too perfect to be real.

  She should have known it was too good to last.

  But why couldn’t it? she asked herself, stopping at a red light. As a trickle of cars streamed through the intersection, she stared blankly ahead.

  Okay, her judgment was lousy. She could accept that. But she hadn’t actually chosen Jack. Fate had. Surely that counted for something. On the other hand, knowing her judgment was so bad, was loving Jack a good thing? Or a bad thing?

  The fact that her father approved of Jack was reassuring. Dad had never liked Kyle. Still, she had to admit that Jack had never shown any signs at all of wanting to stay married.

  Her head hurt. A dull, throbbing headache pulsed behind her eyes and she leaned forward, resting her head on the cool, black steering wheel of the truck Jack had insisted she drive. Why was her life always so complicated? Why couldn’t she do anything like a normal person? Fall in love, then get married, then have a baby?

  Oh, no. Donna Candello Harris had to get married, make a baby, then fall in love.

  One hand dropped to her flat abdomen on that thought. Was there a baby already growing inside her? She sucked in a gulp of air and told herself that she only had another week or so to find out. She’d always been as regular as clockwork. If she missed her next cycle, then she’d know.

  Something warm and lovely settled in the pit of her stomach. Jack’s baby. Their baby. With her dark hair and his gray eyes. She smiled to herself and squeezed her eyes shut, the better to build an image of her maybe-baby.

  And that image was suddenly so strong, she could almost feel her child lying safe in the crook of her arm. She could see the proud gleam in Jack’s eyes and taste his kiss as he admired his daughter.

  Oh, yes, she thought. It would be a girl. A girl who would wrap her daddy around her little finger as easily as she would wrap herself around his heart.

  Donna caught herself as her fantasy blossomed to include three more children, a nice house and a flower-filled yard. This was ridiculous. She didn’t even know if the man loved her or not. She thought he did, but God knew, she’d been wrong before.

  A horn blasted into the silence, startling her.

  Donna jerked upright, shot a glance into her rearview mirror at the irate man waving her on, then looked at the now green light. Obediently, she stepped on the gas.

  “So help me,” Tom Haley said stiffly, “you bark one more order at me and I’ll borrow a tank and turn you into a spot on the road.”

  Jack glared at his longtime friend as the other man stomped out of their shared office. He couldn’t blame Tom. Hell, if he had been in Tom’s shoes, Jack would have punched himself senseless.

  His frustration had been riding him all day and Tom had just been the most convenient person to dump on.

  Jack set both hands on either side of his skull and squeezed, as if he could rid himself of his thoughts and the pounding headache accompanying them. But it didn’t help. Visions of Donna still rose up in his brain, blinding him to work, friendship, everything else.

  What if she was pregnant? What then?

  The thought of Donna and him making a child together filled him with warring emotions. Pleasure, first and foremost, followed quickly by desperation and fear.

  A helluva thing for a career marine to admit to.

  But there it was. Jack rubbed one hand over his tired eyes and sank back into his chair. Staring up at the ceiling, he acknowledged that the coiled tension in his belly could only be fear.

  Fear that when she eventually left him—and he didn’t have a doubt that she would—he wouldn’t be able to go on without her.

  For most of his life, the corps had been everything to him. Father, mother, lover, wife. His sense of duty had been polished and honed like the sharpest of steel knives. Honor was as much a part of him as the color of his hair and eyes.

  But how could he act in an honorable fashion—sticking to their temporary marriage vows—when everything inside him screamed to never let her go?

  “Jack?”

  He straightened and jumped to his feet at the sound of that familiar voice. “Colonel, Sir,” he said, keeping his gaze from meeting that of his father-in law’s.

  “How’s everything?”

  “Fine, Sir,” Jack replied, his features frozen into the stony mask of a full attention stance.

  “At ease, First Sergeant,” the colonel told him.

  Jack followed orders. He always followed orders. Finally, unable to avoid it any longer, he looked at the man in the doorway. For years he’d respected and admired Colonel Candello. He’d looked forward to the times when they worked together. When they could talk, man to man.

  Now all he could think was that he wished the colonel would go away. Leave him to his misery.

  “Just wanted to stop and make sure you and Donna would be coming to Thanksgiving dinner next week.”

  Thanksgiving? Had it only been a few weeks since he’d first laid eyes on Donna? Impossible. It felt as though he’d known her forever.

  “Jack?” the colonel prompted.

  He shook himself from his thoughts and focused on the here and now. With no graceful way out of the invitation, he finally snapped, “Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

  Tom Candello’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at him, and Jack found himself grateful the other man couldn’t read minds.

  “If I’m out of line here,” the colonel said at last, “feel free to say so. This isn’t between a commanding officer and his first sergeant. This is between a father-in-law and his daughter’s husband.”

  Jack braced himself.

  “Is everything all right between you two?”

  “Sir?”

  “Would it help if I invited myself to dinner? The three of us could spend some time together.” He paused meaningfully. “Talk.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t think so, Sir. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Jack,” the colonel went on, “I think if you’ll just—”

  He cut him off, trusting the man had meant what he said about this not being about ranks. “Beg pardon, Sir, but this is between Donna and me. It’d be best if you back off.”

  Tom Candello’s eyebrows lifted and he whistled softly, tunelessly. “That bad?”

  Jack forced a shrug.

  “Okay, Jack.” Clearly reluctant to let it go, the colonel nodded. “You two work it out.”

  “There’s nothing to work out, Sir. This was a temporary solution to a problem. That’s all.” The words sounded phony even to him.

  Colonel Candello’s features tightened slightly. “I’ll butt out, for now. But don’t you do anything stupid, Jack. Don’t do or say something the two of you might come to regret.”

  “Sir.” Neither an agreement nor a denial.

  The colonel shook his head wearily. “I’ll let you get back to work,” he said, turning in the doorway.

  Jack didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The colonel was already gone.

  That night the strained silence that had hovered between them over dinner, splintered suddenly.

  Jack had been walking on eggshells around her, sure that one wrong word from him would send her racing to the airport, eager to get away and end this farce.

  But, damn it, at the same time, he’d been torturing himself with thoughts of what might have been. He didn’t know if he loved her or not—the way he was raised, he’d never been close enough to love to identify it, much less experience it firsthand.

  But he did know that he looked forward to the end of his shift now. He left his desk in a hurry every night, eager to return to this little house where Donna could be found. He liked fighting his way past her panty hose, drying on the rod, to take his morning shower. He liked the smell of
her perfume as it seemed to hang in every corner of the house. He liked to watch her push her hair out of her eyes when it got in her way. And making love with her had filled all of the lonely, empty spots inside him.

  Even with this terrible, uncomfortable tension between them, there was nowhere he’d rather be.

  And he liked the way she hummed in her sleep.

  But he couldn’t live on the edge like this. Waiting for her to leave would kill him slowly. Much better to go out with a bomb blast and get it over with all at once.

  “About Thanksgiving dinner at your father’s house,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  She kept her gaze locked on her dinner plate. The pot roast was good, but it wasn’t that good. She simply couldn’t look him in the eye, he thought.

  “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea,” he went on.

  “Really?” She picked up her untouched plate and stood, turning for the sink.

  The frosty tone in her voice sent shards of ice plunging like daggers into his heart. He steeled himself against the pain beginning to well inside. His gaze shot to where she stood at the counter, her back, stiff as a board, to him.

  Odd, how hard this was, when he’d been expecting it all along. He’d known all his life that he wasn’t worth loving. And he’d known from the first day of this supposed marriage that it would soon end. And he would have been all right with that, if he hadn’t allowed himself to care.

  “The holiday itself or the idea of us celebrating it?” she asked, drawing him back from the dark thoughts circling his mind.

  Anger churned in the pit of his stomach. But the fury was directed at himself, not her. This was his fault. He never should have slept with her. He never should have become accustomed to having her around. To her voice. Her scent. He never should have awakened himself to possibilities that he hadn’t considered before.

  Jack inhaled sharply, deeply, and said, “Let’s stop kidding ourselves, all right?”

  “Kidding ourselves?”

  She still hadn’t turned to look at him. Maybe it was better that way. If he looked into those deep brown eyes of hers, he might falter. Might back away from the only conclusion possible, “What happened between us last night was—”

  “What?” She challenged, her fingers curling around the edge of the counter. “A mistake?”

  He released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. There. She’d said it. Surprising, really, how much it hurt to know that she, too, considered those few, magical hours to be an error in judgment.

  “Donna.” He tried to keep his voice steady, even, so she wouldn’t know just how much this was costing him. “There’s no reason to pretend that last night was anything more than a case of raging hormones. We’re both adults. Sex is—”

  “Don’t say it,” she snapped, suddenly turning on him, her dark brown eyes blazing with indignation.

  “Say what?” Prepared for her regrets, her anger caught him off guard. Instinctively, he rose to face her.

  “‘Sex is no big deal, Donna,’” she said in a deep, false voice. Obviously doing an impression of someone who had once thrown those words at her, she went on. “‘It has nothing to do with love. Don’t be so naive.’”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She jerked him a nod, then shoved her hair out of her eyes. “You didn’t have to.” Tossing her hands high, she let them fall to slap at her sides. “Amazing. How do I find you guys? What? Am I some kind of creep magnet?”

  Donna stomped out of the room, and Jack was no more than two paces behind her. Blast her, he was doing the right thing. Something that was tearing him open inside. He’d be damned before he’d let her lump him in with some jerk without so much as an explanation.

  He grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Her eyes seemed to sizzle with sparks of fury. She jerked out of his hold and faced him, chin up defiantly.

  Whoever this jerk from her past was, he’d hurt her badly. Old pain was evident in her battle stance.

  “Tell me,” he said flatly.

  “Four years ago, I was engaged to be married.”

  He nodded. He did remember something about a wedding that didn’t happen.

  “We were saving ourselves for marriage,” she went on, snorting a choked laugh at her own stupidity. “We wanted making love together for the first time to be something…sacred.”

  He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment. She had been willing to wait for sacred with a different man. With him, she’d given in to her desires. How was he supposed to take that?

  “But two nights before the wedding,” she continued, her voice strangled with remembered humiliation, “I found him with my maid of honor.”

  Anger rustled inside him. Anger for the hurt she’d suffered and because he hadn’t been around to kick the man’s ass for her.

  She shook her head as if she still had a hard time believing it. “When I found them, he had the nerve to tell me that I was overreacting. That sex was no big deal and it didn’t have a thing to do with his feelings for me.”

  “The bastard.”

  “Thank you,” she said absently, and raced ahead. “I found out that he’d been sacred all over town.” She started pacing wildly, her long, hurried steps carrying her back and forth across the tiny room in record time. “So I called off the wedding, made a fool of myself with my father’s adjutant and then ran away.”

  Huh? What was that last part? he wondered. Then he shrugged it off. Wasn’t important at the moment. Besides, she was still talking, the words tumbling from her mouth in a rush, and if he didn’t pay attention, he’d be lost.

  “Gone four years,” she was saying. “And the day I get back, I do it again. Only this time the man actually married me before he says sex doesn’t mean anything.” She threw a wild look at the ceiling and heaven beyond. “Is this some kind of weird cosmic joke?” she demanded. “Because if it is, I don’t get it.”

  “Donna,” he interrupted, determined to at least defend himself against being lumped together with a lousy ex-fiancé.

  “No, Jack. I don’t want to hear it.” She shot him a look that should have frozen him in his tracks. But marines were made of sterner stuff.

  “I am not that bastard who cheated on you and hurt you,” he shouted as she walked away from him, headed for their bedroom.

  She paused in the doorway and glanced back at him. The ice in her eyes sent a chill through him that ran bone deep. And when she spoke, he knew it was over.

  “No, Jack. You’re the man who married me for my own good, then hurt me.”

  Twelve

  For the next week, they moved like strangers through the little house. No, not strangers, Donna told herself. Strangers at least give each other the courtesy of polite nods and disinterested glances. She and Jack were more like ghosts. Neither of them even seeing the other.

  Nights were the worst. Lying in the same bed, where the distance between them was measured like the legend on a map—inches equaled miles.

  From her seat on the couch, Donna stared out the window at banks of massed gray clouds, rushing in to cover the sky with the threat of rain. November had arrived suddenly, as it often did in California. Cool, sunny days had disappeared into early morning fogs drifting in off the ocean and cold, damp winds.

  She sighed and threw a quick glance at the kitchen timer sitting on the coffee table. One more minute and she’d know for sure. One more minute and her world would change dramatically. Her stomach pitched and rolled briefly and she took several deep breaths in a vain attempt to settle it.

  When the timer chirped like a hysterical bird, she jumped and reached for it, stabbing the Off button with her fingertip. Silence crowded around her. She heard her own heartbeat thundering in her ears and imagined she could even hear another, fainter heartbeat marching in time with hers.

  Slowly, she set the t
imer down and picked up the white plastic wand that held the answers to her immediate future. Hesitating only slightly, she looked down at the test squares.

  A plus sign.

  She gulped in a breath.

  Her fingers closed tight around the wand. She felt the sharp sting of tears behind her eyes as she turned her head back to the window. Appropriately enough, the rain had started, splashing polka dots on the glass panes.

  Donna wiped a tear from her cheek and blinked the rest of them back into submission. She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t afford to. She had to be stronger than that. One hand dropped to her flat abdomen where her child was already growing, counting on her to keep it safe. And loved.

  She knew what she had to do. Still clutching the test stick, she stood and, to the accompanying patter of the rain, walked to her bedroom and started packing.

  “You can’t just leave,” her father told her, “without so much as saying goodbye to the man.”

  “I can’t say goodbye to Jack,” Donna countered, and glanced at the closed door to her father’s office before looking back at him. She knew damn well that if she tried to say goodbye, she’d never leave. And she had to go. For all their sakes.

  “Donna,” her father said, pushing himself out of his chair. Coming around the edge of the desk, he stopped directly in front of her and took both of her hands in his. “You’re not thinking this through.”

  “Yes, I have,” she told him, pulling free of him. If she gave in to the need for comfort now, she’d dissolve into a weeping, hysterical mess.

  “What about the three months you agreed on?” he countered.

  “Things have changed.” To say the least.

  “What things?”

  She shook her head and blinked furiously, determined to keep the tears that were never far away, at bay awhile longer.

  “You love him, Donna,” he said softly, knowingly. “Even I can see that.”

  Pain tugged at her insides, poking, prodding.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said, and took the step that brought him right next to her. Laying both hands on her shoulders, he pulled her stiff form up against him and gave her a hug. “It’s the only thing that does matter.”