A Soldier's Quest

by Lori Handeland

  Tim leaped off the chair. “’Kay!”

  The room went silent. Eleanor cleared her throat.

  “I apologize,” Dean said. “My mouth gets away from me.”

  Jane considered the man. Knowing that he had ADHD, like Tim, explained a lot. The impulsiveness that marked the disorder was often evident in an inability to keep quiet.

  “Forget it,” she said.

  The room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  “Especially since he was right,” Bobby muttered as he took a seat next to her.

  Jane glanced at the others, but no one appeared to have heard, or if they had, they’d chosen to ignore him. She kicked Bobby under the table.

  Her gaze met Kim’s. Bobby’s sister’s eyes were full of both speculation and amusement. “Why don’t you come on over to my place tomorrow,” she said. “You’re going to be bored sitting around here. Lord knows, I was.”

  “Yeah, but you were the Princess Lazy,” Dean said.

  “Was not.”

  “Was not!” Zsa-Zsa shouted.

  Brian scooped his daughter out of the high chair. “Now you did it.”

  He carried her out of the house as she continued to chant, “Not, not, not, not, not!”

  “I hate to say it—” Kim stood “—but she’s exactly like her mother. We’d better go.”

  Shouts of “Doodies!”

  “Timmy!”

  “Kitties!” followed, then the car started and all was silent again.

  Eleanor began to clear the table and Jane did, too. “You’re a guest,” Eleanor said. “Sit.”

  “I’m more of an intruder. The least I can do is KP.”

  Eleanor shrugged, then shooed the men outside to put away the dogs.

  “If you leave those darn doodles loose they bark all night. Besides—” Eleanor led the way into the kitchen “—we should talk.”

  Jane bobbled the stack of plates, but recovered before they fell on the floor. “Talk?” she echoed.

  “About you and my son.”

  “Do we have to?”

  Eleanor just glanced at Jane, then turned on the dishwater, filling the sink.

  “Obviously you’re more than an assignment.”

  “Not according to your son.”

  “He’s never brought a girl here before.”

  For some reason, the knowledge perked Jane right up. Nevertheless…

  “I’m not exactly a girl, and he didn’t have much choice.”

  “One thing about Bobby, no one pushes him around. If he didn’t want to bring you, he wouldn’t have.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re thinking it’s a fling.”

  Jane didn’t bother to answer. This was Bobby’s mother. She was not going to discuss “fling” or “not a fling” with Eleanor Luchetti.

  However, Eleanor wasn’t going to be dissuaded by anything as simple as silence. “But I’m thinking you could turn this into a whole lot more if you put your mind to it.”

  Jane dropped a fork on the floor, narrowly missing her toe. “What are you saying?”

  “Seduce my son.”

  “Again?”

  The word escaped before Jane could snatch it back. Eleanor merely smiled. “Whatever it takes to—”

  “To what?”

  “Keep him here.”

  “Here?”

  “Well, not here, exactly. In the country.” Eleanor’s shoulders slumped, and she stared at the fading suds in the sink. “I don’t think I can take having him disappear again.”

  Jane realized her mouth was open. “You want me to—”

  “Do whatever you have to do to make Bobby quit his job. Marry him. Have his baby. Have ten. He won’t leave if he has responsibilities here.”

  Jane wasn’t sure what to say except “I can’t.”

  “You can sleep with him, but you can’t love him? You can let him save you, but you won’t save him?”

  “He’s good, really good, at what he does. I couldn’t take that away from him, and I couldn’t take him away from the world. Without Bobby I would have died, and so would a lot of other people.”

  “If he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s going to die.”

  “I don’t think he will, not anytime soon.”

  Eleanor turned her head. “You love him, don’t you?”

  “What?” Jane yelped.

  She’d refused to give a name to the feelings she had for Bobby beyond lust. If she didn’t admit to anything more she couldn’t get hurt. Or so she kept telling herself.

  “Only someone who loved Bobby would understand that being a soldier is part of who he is. Take that away, and he’d be miserable.”

  Jane contemplated Bobby’s mother for several ticks of the clock. “You don’t want him to quit.”

  “I do, but I understand that he won’t. He can’t.”

  Jane had a fleeting wish that her mother understood her as well as Bobby’s understood him. Raeanne would forever be trying to get Jane to become the doctor of the elite. She’d never comprehend that to take away Jane’s work with the Doctors of Mercy would be to take away a part of her soul.

  “So you were playing me,” Jane said.

  Eleanor cast her a quick, uneasy glance and Jane smiled. “I’ve got to admire that.”

  BOBBY HOVERED OUTSIDE the kitchen door. He’d planned to help Jane and his mom with the cleanup since his dad, Tim and Dean appeared to have doodle herding down to a science.

  He’d stopped when he heard his name, then he’d been unable to leave once he realized what they were discussing. He’d known Eleanor was testing Jane long before Jane figured it out. He should have stepped in then, but when his mother had said Jane loved him, he’d been frozen, unable to interrupt, too interested in what Jane would say.

  While she hadn’t really answered the question, she hadn’t denied loving him, either, and that had made Bobby think as he wandered out of the house and across the cornfield to the thresher’s cottage, then took a seat on the front porch.

  Could a woman like Jane and a man like him…?

  “Nah,” he muttered.

  “Talking to yourself?” Dean stood on the other side of the screen door.

  “I thought you were chasing doodles.”

  “Done. I just put Tim to bed.” Dean contemplated Bobby for a few seconds. “Want company?”

  In the past, a conversation with Dean had produced the same headache Bobby got when someone threw him into a wall. But his brother seemed older, wiser and, amazingly, less sarcastic than the last time Bobby had seen him. Age, responsibility, the love of a child had matured him—or at least calmed him down.

  “Sure,” he found himself saying.

  Dean stepped through the door and took a seat, as well. “What’s up?”

  Bobby hesitated. If Colin were here, Bobby would tell him about the conversation he’d just overheard. However, since that friendship had been put on hiatus, at the least, Bobby might as well find another confidant—even if he was Dean.

  After relating what he’d heard, Dean pointed toward the main house. “Go get her.”

  “We’re too different. Too driven.”

  “Doesn’t being driven make you more the same?”

  Dean was a lot smarter than he looked.

  “I don’t love her.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “We’ve only known each other a few weeks. Less.”

  “You never even met Marlie, yet you were in love with her. But you can’t be in love with a woman you shared a life-threatening adventure with? You’ve slept with Jane. You must feel something. You’re not Evan.”

  They went silent, thinking about their littlest brother, who was the tallest of them all. Evan Luchetti had been the Luchetti family gigolo until he’d gone to Arkansas and discovered love in a haunted inn.

  “Another one bites the dust,” Dean murmured. “Only you and me left alone.”

  Alone.

  Bobby didn’t want to be. That was h
ow the entire fiasco with Marlie had begun. He’d dreamed of something more. Could he have it with Jane? The idea wasn’t as far-fetched as it should be.

  Bear shot out of the cornfield. He skidded to a stop at the sight of the men on the porch. His head dipped to the ground and his shoulders hunched as his tail went between his legs.

  Dean stood. “Not on your life, pal. Come here.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Nothing yet. He was on his way to the girlfriend’s house.”

  “Mom said you had him fixed after the doodle incident.”

  “Yeah. But old dog, new tricks and all that. He still wanders. I keep him inside at night now. I don’t want him to get shot for a coyote or hit by a truck.”

  Bear collapsed in a heap on the porch at Dean’s feet, the picture of dejection, and silence settled over the land, as well as the porch.

  This time was the best time on the farm. All the work was done, and there were hours before it would begin again. The moon shone on the cornfield, tingeing the floppy green leaves with silver. In the old days, farmers believed that the moon, not the sun, made things grow. On a night like this, with magic spilling from the sky, Bobby understood why.

  “I’ve only met Marlie a few times,” Dean murmured.

  Bobby tensed, uncertain he wanted to hear this. Dean had met Marlie more than he had.

  “But when Colin told me—”

  Bobby glanced Dean’s way, scowling, and Dean held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, don’t beat the hell out of me, we’re not twelve.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “About your argument.” Dean shrugged. “I suddenly seem to be everyone’s confidant. Probably because I’m the only one who stays put.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “She wasn’t for you.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Listen for a minute, will you?” Dean took a deep breath. “Marlie’s soft, sweet, easily freaked out. She’s a preschool teacher from Minnesota.”

  “I know that, Dean.”

  “When Colin was kidnapped while he was searching for you, she nearly married another guy because— Well, she was pregnant, but that was beside the point.”

  Bobby clenched his hands. His idiot brother had gotten Marlie pregnant, then run off and tried to get himself killed in Pakistan. Even if Colin had been under the delusion Bobby needed rescuing, he still wanted to punch his brother in the face all over again.

  “Marlie never would have survived your going back to Iraqistan.”

  “Afghanistan. Iraq. Gotta pick a country.”

  “You gotta see the truth. You would have had to choose between Marlie or the Special Forces. Were you prepared to do that?”

  Bobby frowned. The army was his life. He hadn’t planned on leaving.

  “Aaron says everything happens for a reason. I always thought that was bull.”

  Bobby smiled. So had he.

  “But the older I get the more sense it makes. Sometimes you don’t see the why of it until later. Tim came here. He and I fit. We’re good for each other. He needed me and I—”

  Dean broke off, seeming to gather his thoughts.

  “I needed someone,” he finally admitted. “None of that would have happened if Aaron hadn’t met a stripper fourteen years ago, screwed up his life, saved Nicole’s, produced Rayne, who found Tim—”

  “And everyone wound up here at the happy Luchetti insane asylum. Get to the point.”

  “I thought I had. Marlie wasn’t for you, but Jane could be. She doesn’t spook easily.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “She’s used to being on her own. She has an important job, which I doubt she wants to give up. You heard with your own ears she’d never ask you to give up yours. She’s perfect, moron. So go get her before another one of your brothers beats you to it.”

  “There’s only you left.” Bobby narrowed his eyes. “Go near her and you’ll wish you were never born.”

  “You won’t be able to loosen my teeth as easily as Colin’s,” Dean said, but he was smiling.

  Bobby couldn’t help but smile back. Sometimes it was nice hanging out with a brother. Even if he was Dean.

  Dean gave an exaggerated yawn, stretched and got to his feet. “Day begins early for me. You can take the couch.”

  He whistled for the dog, then strolled inside, waiting for Bear to get in, before letting the screen bang behind him.

  “Couch, my ass,” Bobby muttered.

  He glanced toward the main house, where the light shone in his and Colin’s room like a beacon. Bear whimpered on the other side of the screen.

  “Dean will have my head if I let you out.”

  Bear collapsed on the ground with a grumble and a sigh.

  “I know. Sucks.”

  Bobby was still watching when the light in his room went out. Jane was lying in his old bed, hair spread across his pillow, long silky legs tangled in his sheets.

  He glanced at Bear. Maybe wandering wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Bobby slipped off the porch and headed across the cornfield.

  BOBBY’S MOTHER LOANED Jane a nightgown and some clothes for the next day. She even promised to buy Jane some new underwear and a bra in town. They were nearly the same size. Wasn’t that just delightful?

  She’d expected Bobby to say good-night. When he hadn’t shown up by the time everyone was ready for bed, she went to bed, too.

  Lying in the bottom bunk, with the window open and the sounds that darkness made drifting in, Jane fell asleep quickly and deeply. She’d always loved sleeping close to night.

  She came awake, heart pounding, ears straining for the tiniest sound, and she wasn’t sure why. The window was open, but she was on the second floor. Who was going to scale the side of a farmhouse?

  “Bobby?” she whispered.

  “How did you know?”

  Since she hadn’t really believed he was there, she gasped. He materialized from the corner of the room and sat on the bed.

  “Your mother’s going to kill us if she catches you in here.”

  “I know.” He pulled off his shirt. The moon turned his skin silver, rippling over the dips and curves like a river over smooth stones. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  A nervous giggle escaped her lips. “You’re crazy.”

  “About you.”

  Bobby leaned over and kissed her. Their kisses had been so few, she found herself mesmerized from the first taste.

  When he lifted his head, she put her palm against his chest, holding him away. “What did you say?”

  “I’m crazy about you, Jane. Can’t you tell?”

  “When you say crazy—”

  “I mean, I don’t want this to be a one-night stand.”

  Her fingers flexed, tracing his collarbone. “I think we passed one night about six or seven nights ago.”

  “You know what I mean.” He laid his hand over hers. She felt his heart beating. His eyes picked up the glow from the moon and shone eerily pale in the night. “I want—”

  Jane held her breath as he seemed to struggle with the words. She had no idea what he was going to say, but she wasn’t going to interrupt him and make him forget to say it.

  “You,” he blurted out. “For more than a night, a weekend, a month. Can we see where this goes from here?”

  A tiny shard of disappointment settled in Jane’s chest. What had she expected? A declaration of everlasting love after only a couple of weeks?

  Yes.

  Bobby was waiting for her to say something. The idea of leaving here, leaving him, of never seeing Bobby Luchetti again was too depressing. Why couldn’t they see where this went? Maybe it would go exactly where she wanted it to.

  Where’s that? her conscience asked in Raeanne’s voice. To a baby for you and a shallow grave in another country for him?

  Jane winced.

  “Bad idea,” Bobby murmured, and inched away.

  “No.”

  She pulled him back, and kept pulling
until his entire body rested on top of hers. He nuzzled her ear, nibbled her earlobe, and she tried to concentrate on the subject. He was making it awfully difficult.

  Bobby hadn’t declared love. He hadn’t proposed marriage. He wanted to continue their affair. And wasn’t that exactly what she’d always said she wanted from a man?

  A physical relationship. No strings. A little sperm and voilà. Baby Harker.

  No wonder her mother thought she was cold.

  As Bobby’s kisses became more demanding and his body became as hard as the questions, Jane had to wonder if perhaps marriage wasn’t such a bad idea—if she married Bobby.

  He’d lived in a household where his parents had enjoyed an equal and loving relationship. Bobby would want to continue his job, so he’d be supportive of Jane continuing hers. They could have a perfect life. If he loved her.

  And when had she decided she needed love? Maybe she just needed it from him.

  “Jane?”

  “Mmm?” She kissed his jaw.

  “You never answered me.”

  “What was the question?” she stalled.

  “I don’t want this to end when you go back to Mexico, or wherever it is you’re going.”

  “Mexico,” she said.

  “We could meet somewhere, or I could take leaves and come to you.”

  “You’d travel halfway across the world for great sex?”

  “No.” He brushed her hair out of her face. “For you.”

  Her eyes burned. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “Then I’ll have to be nicer.” He kissed her. “Is that a yes?”

  Jane stared into Bobby’s eyes and knew the truth. She couldn’t give him up. Not now. Not ever.

  She loved him, and sooner or later he would love her. They’d work everything out. Together.

  “That’s a yes,” she answered, and then there was no more talking for the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE SUN SPILLED THROUGH the window and across Bobby’s face. Someone’s legs were all tangled with his. Hair was stuck to his lip. He spit it out and remembered.

  Jane.

  Smiling without even opening his eyes, he tugged her naked body closer and snuggled.

  “You forgot Marlie pretty damn quick, bro.”

  Bobby’s eyes shot open. Colin leaned over the bed, staring at him in disgust.