Jane's Long March Home

by Susan Lute

  The man didn’t waste any time. Jane danced in to throw her own punch, not answering for a long string of heartbeats. She didn’t like talking about her mother, and if it was family Russell wanted to discuss, it was going to be a very short conversation. “My mother died of an overdose a few years after she left me with the nuns at St. Mary’s.”

  She retreated on the balls of her feet, feeling a pinch in her right leg that matched the one in her heart. She swore under her breath, then came back, delivering a swift one-two to the bag.

  “I’m sorry.” He was silent, his look thoughtful, making her edgier than she already felt. “What was it like, growing up there?”

  Breathing hard, she took a sideways step, inching around the perimeter of the bag. Russell kept pace with her.

  She glanced at him and smirked. “I had a particular talent with a Slim Jim.”

  “Sounds like a tough life.”

  “Sister Mary Margaret did the best she could with what she had to work with.” She gave the bag several more punishing blows, making it rotate back and forth. “Should I be lying on a couch or something, Dr. Russell?”

  He made her pay for the sarcasm she wouldn’t keep in check by taking the conversation to a place she didn't want to go. “How’s your hip holding up?”

  “Fine.”

  Constant discomfort was a reminder of how she’d failed to do her duty. She attached the bag with a ferocious sequence of hits that rocked it toward Russell. He bared his teeth in a smile that harbored devastating understanding.

  Not wanting his pity, she clenched her jaw tight enough to ache along with her hip. All she wanted from the Doc was for him to hand her life back in one piece.

  “Tell me about Sister Mary Margaret.”

  Her growl was surly, even to her own ears. “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “If you want to go back to work-” His implication was clear.

  Jane chomped on her gum. She’d gnawed every bit of nicotine out of it, and wished she’d brought more down with her. Dancing another step around the bag, the force of her next strike reverberated up her arm, settling her as nothing else had so far.

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Tell me about the orphanage then. Do you ever go back?”

  “There’s nothing to go back for.” Except Sister Mary Margaret. The one person who’d believed in her.

  It’d been too long since Jane had last seen the nun, but she hadn’t wanted the lady who’d had such a huge impact on her life to see how far down the rabbit hole she’d fallen.

  She stepped back and taking several deep breaths, planted her gloved hands on her hips.

  Russell’s hits were getting too close. She would cooperate with him - tell him what he wanted to know. But for now, she needed a little breathing room. “Look, I’ve heard it all before. What happened in Madrid wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t have prevented the bombing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Each time she’d heard the words, and she’d heard them often enough, a bile of grief pushed into her throat making it almost impossible to breathe. All those therapists had wanted her to believe that bull, but no matter how hard she tried-

  A shrewdness she hadn't expected from the man sparing with her muted the sting from his next words. “You don’t believe it. If you did, you wouldn’t be here needing my help.”

  She stared at her feet, holding herself perfectly still while silently counting to ten. Stiffly, she conceded. Anything to give him the ammunition he needed to route her demons.

  “Of course, you’re right.”

  But, Russell wanted more. “Talk to me, Gunny.” An order, not a request.

  Goaded, she spat, “Madrid had nothing to do with my Marine training!” The truth of that startled her.

  “What do you mean?”

  Drowning in the sudden realization that it was growing up an orphan that had betrayed her, she scowled fiercely, and willing her feet to stay put, shouted, “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Let’s try another tack.

  Suspicion erupted like shot from a scatter gun. Keeping up with the Doc was turning into a full-time job. But she’d asked for his help, and just because he’d touched a sore spot, it sure as hell didn’t mean she would let him push her into retreat this early in the game.

  “Has any of your therapists tried Play Therapy with you?”

  “Play therapy.” She pulled off her gloves.

  “Originally it was developed to help children recover from psychological trauma.” He eyed her with a good dose of speculation. Jane squirmed. What was the hunky therapist was up to now? “I’ve had some success using this modality on adults. I like it because it's a safe, non-threatening way to explore feelings we might not be able to untangle, in a reasonable amount of time, using a more conventional method.”

  “English, Doc.” Jane dropped her gloves, grabbed one of the water bottles from the edge of the porch.

  “It'll work.”

  His assurance didn't settle the battle being fought in her stomach. Play like a kid? She was willing to give anything a try. “Whatever. You're the Doc.”

  His gloves hit the dirt. “What kind of games did you play at the orphanage?”

  “I mentioned the Slim Jim, right?”

  He grabbed up the remaining bottle and uncapped it. “Before that. Board games? Playing in a sand box? Hide and seek?”

  Fascinated, Jane watched his throat work as he gulped down the water, waiting for her answer.

  What it would be like to be the one lapping the moisture from his lips? More than a little distracted, she scrambled to remember his question.

  Games. When she was a kid. That was it.

  “Um...jump rope. Dodge ball. And, I ran track in middle school.”

  His gaze slid down her body to her hip. Heat flared across her skin, and not because the day was turning into a hot one. “I was thinking of something a little tamer. Have you ever played hopscotch?”

  “I don’t think so.” She’d watched the younger kids hop the connected blocks, but never joined in herself.

  His brows raised in surprise. “Well, we’re going to change that right now.”

  He led her to a hard packed, patch of dirt.

  Hopscotch? The child’s game was some kind of bizarre therapy?

  Besieged by an attack of attraction for the man she was counting on to give her life back, Jane couldn't take her eyes off the display of strong muscles as he drew a string of linked squares on the ground.

  He handed her one of two flat stones he found nearby. “Do you know how to play?”

  She swallowed back the lump making it difficult to breath. She wasn't about blow her last chance to get her life back, just because she had the hots for her therapist. Anyway, It was just lust, right?

  “You go first.”

  Amusement warmed the color of his eyes, and turned her resolve to keep her distance to mush.

  He tossed his stone into the first square. “Did you like Spain?”

  He hopped over the stone into the next square, and continued along the hopscotch, hopping on one foot, landing with a foot in each set of side-by-side squares, until he reached the end. He flipped around.

  The look of utter enjoyment on his face was priceless. An unaccustomed pressure built in her chest. A grown man voluntarily playing a child’s game moved something there she didn’t know was lurking.

  What woman wouldn’t want a man who had the looks of a Mount Olympus god, and who could also play like a child in order to help a wounded soldier?

  “It wasn’t home, but I liked it.”

  He started back. “Did you leave anyone there? Friends? Someone who cares what happens to you?”

  “No.” The answer shot out of her.

  After the incident in Madrid; after losing Linus, she’d dropped contact with her buddies at the embassy. Another strike against her.

  She knew better than to shut them down the way she had. At first she just didn’t give
a damn about staying in touch, pretending she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her career.

  Then, she hadn’t known how to apologize for her behavior. It was totally out of line. If she'd been in their place, she certainly wouldn't have put up with it.

  Russell leaned over to pick up his stone, then cast her a smug glance, as though he could see the rage and anxiety swirling in her belly. “Your turn.”

  She tossed her stone, barely keeping it inside the square, then hopped over it, and determined to complete this one simple task, wiped everything else from her mind. Following Russell’s example, she made it to the far end of the hopscotch, took a small jump, twisted to return the way she'd come.

  Sharp pain stabbed her hip. Her vision blurred, and suddenly, there she was, in the basement of the embassy facing the boy she’d befriended. Linus’ eyes were dark with the brainwashing drugs terrorists had pumped into him. Suffocating. Terrifying. A homemade bomb was strapped to his chest.

  She had no excuse for not figuring out as an orphan, the boy could be approached and used as a pawn by terrorists who would use even children to get to their target.

  She’d thought she was making his life better. Now, because of his association with her, the kid had no life at all.

  “Jane.” Fingers digging into her shoulder brought her back to the present. Russell hovered too close, concern drawing his brows together. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. The image always came without warning, and when she least expected it. She knew there was more, but it was all she remembered of that last moment before a loud explosion brought the building down on top of her.

  Bitterness spilled over threatening hard won equilibrium. Her heart pounded, torn in two, burning with the pain of a loss that shouldn't have happened that way.

  Sweat beading her upper lip, Jane backed up from the memory. All she could think of was finding the nearest bar. She shrugged off Russell's immobilizing grip. “I’m done playing.”

  He blocked her escape. “Okay, we’re moving too fast. No problem.”

  She gulped in several rapid breaths to slow the thumping in her ears. Her swimming gaze snapped up to Russell’s. The concern he didn't bother to hide caused a silly flip-flop in the region of her heart. The way his lips curled up on the edges was a killer. She was too slow slamming her defenses up against it.

  The struggling breath in her chest stilled. What would it feel like to press her lips to his. To see if he could move her beyond this cold inner landscape she’d lingered in too long?

  Then the craziness of it slapped her. The truth was, thinking about kissing the daylights out of her therapist was a nice distraction, but it wasn’t part of her mission, and it wouldn’t get her home any faster.

  She wanted his help, but doing as he asked; remembering was just too damn painful.

  A loud crash from inside the house broke the tension spinning between them. A boy’s scared face appeared at the screened back door and all of a sudden, how much she was attracted to the Doc was the least of Jane’s worries.

  CHAPTER

  V

  The boy disappeared. Russell sprinted into the house.

  Instantly thrown into military mode, Jane slipped around to the front to cut off the kid's escape. Focused on getting away, he didn’t see her until it was too late.

  As quick as a striking snake, she nabbed him by the back of the neck. Apples and energy bars scattered to the ground.

  “What have we here?” When he tried to jerk free, she tightened her grip. “Settle down. You’re not going anywhere, kid.”

  She looked him over. He was about an inch shorter than her own five foot nine. Probably thirteen or fourteen. He had unkempt dark brown hair and wild eyes.

  Another face superimposed over his. Linus. Unable to easily pronounce his real name, she’d called him that, after the Peanuts character he’d reminded her of.

  Sensing her sudden weakness, the boy she was hanging on to struggled against her firm grip.

  “Be still,” she growled, giving him a shake to let him know she was dead serious.

  Emerging from the house, Russell took hold of the kid’s arm. A faint cry came from the direction of the barn. Gus stuck his head out. “Got a kid down in here.”

  The boy lashed out with his feet, won his freedom to race ahead to the barn, shouting, “Leave my brother alone.”

  Admiring his nerve, Jane reluctantly followed Russell.

  She should be grateful for the distracted interest that filtered across the Doc's handsome face. It meant he wasn’t lingering on that little episode aborting his play therapy.

  At the end there, something had passed between them. Not sympathy. Or pity. A promise perhaps, that he wouldn’t give up on her, no matter how much bull she threw at him. Which could be a lot, given her present state of mind.

  She slipped into the barn, stopping just inside to adjust to the dim interior. Russell and Gus squatted next to a small child - he couldn’t have been more than five or six - lying motionless on the hay covered floor. The teen she’d caught stood over them, fear laden eyes darting from face to face with equal parts anger and apprehension.

  A quick assessment had Jane locking up her seriously stormy emotions. She would wager a king's ransom these kids were homeless, runaways maybe, but definitely without a loving family to look after them. She knew the signs.

  One look at Russell’s face, the concern pulling at the edges of his mouth, and she was swearing under her breath. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind he was about to offer the children sanctuary; in fact, would insist on making whatever was wrong, right for them.

  What man with his background wouldn’t? Worse than that? Jane knew if it was left up to her, she would do the same thing. Despite whatever mistakes she’d made in Madrid, she would do whatever it took to help these kids, too.

  The revelation was a shock, but it didn’t change things. Mentally, she did what no Marine did. She retreated.

  What happens to these kids has nothing to do with you.

  “I’m okay.”

  “He’s not hurt!” Alarm made the boys’ voices squeak.

  “We need to see how badly he’s injured.” Russell spoke directly to the older boy, his tone discouraging any argument.

  Jane wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.

  The teenager’s lips compressed together in a belligerent slash across his none too clean face. She knew that look. The memory had a face. It slammed her in the gut.

  Wanting more than anything to leave the suffocating, cavernous barn, she started to back up. As much to distance herself from the sight of Russell murmuring encouragement as he calmly checked the frightened boy for injuries, as from an overwhelming need to protect herself from the panic spilling from the dark eyes of the older kid.

  “I could use some help here.” Russell’s sudden, steady regard halted her hasty retreat, while daring her to cross over the line into his camp. She knew what Sister Mary Margaret would expect her to do.

  The little guy attempted to sit up. Straw clung to his clothes.

  From a distance she was reluctant to give up, Jane offered, “It’d probably be best to keep him still until you’re sure he’s not injured.”

  “Good advice. Thanks,” Russell sneered. Placing a firm hand on the kid’s shoulder to hold him still, he shot her an exasperated look that almost had her smiling. Almost.

  She sighed heavily. A good Marine always obeyed orders, she reminded herself, dropping to her knees at the boy’s feet. Starting at his thighs, she checked for fractures, working her way towards his well worn sneakers.

  “Leave him alone!”

  “We won’t hurt him.” Russell’s reassurance was just a shade too welcome. Her edginess dissipated like a squall gone to ground. The older boy hovering over them shoved his hands in his pockets and stood down too.

  The Doc certainly had a way with casualties. That shouldn’t be so surprising, she decided, locking her attention on the teenager. “What’s your name, ki
d?”

  Instead of answering, he braced his feet on the straw littered floor. Cocky, scared, and too easy to read, he smelled of trouble with a capital T.

  Jane had been where he was, had done far worse than steal a few apples when she was his age. Unwanted sympathy shimmied beneath the barricade she’d built around her heart.

  “Tell the lady your name,” Russell ordered softly.

  “Bobby...uh Bobby Jones.”

  Not his real name. She could guarantee it. Jane knew all the games of survival. Why didn’t Russell just call 911 and the authorities and be done with them?

  He caught her eye, reading her thoughts. Silently he taunted her to become his co-conspirator. She held back in self-preservation, unwilling to be dragged into whatever maneuvers the man had planned.

  Russell broke eye contact, resuming his interrogation. “So, why are you boys stealing food?”

  Gus shuffled his feet, grumbling his verdict in the absence of a response from Bobby. “Hooligans, that’s why they was stealing.”

  Jane sighed. A “special gift”, the nuns had called her ability to calm the new arrivals at the orphanage. It was the gift that had betrayed her.

  It wasn’t smart to lend Russell a hand with the boys, but she couldn't stop herself. Surrendering to her fate, she set her sights on the one she figured would be the most likely to spill his guts. “My name’s Jane. What’s yours?”

  The injured boy looked to his big brother. Bobby nodded in a spare movement, as if anything they did could reveal who they were and what they were doing there.

  The little guy shifted his tired gaze to Jane. “Pete. Ow!”

  Her heart taking a hit, she removed her hands from his foot. “His ankle’s probably broken. He’ll need x-rays to be sure.”

  “We’re not going to the hospital.”

  “You have no choice. There’s nothing here on the ranch that will help us determine how badly your brother is injured.” Discouraging further discussion, Russell picked up Pete. “Jane, you ride in the backseat with Pete to keep his ankle stabilized.”

  Oh no. that’s not going to happen. She raised a brow. “It’d be better if I stayed here.”