The Lieutenant by Her Side

by Jean Thomas

  He wasn’t so ready to answer her this time.

  “Mark?” she prompted him.

  “Okay, so maybe it’s true.”

  “Then what are we going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  She’d known the risk in loving him, knew it all along, and now she was about to pay for it. It was going to end as badly as she’d feared it would.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, Clare. It’s killing me to hurt you, but there can’t be anything permanent for us. Your life is in New Orleans, and mine is with the rangers.”

  She should have left it there, accepted the inevitable, but she couldn’t do that. Not without a struggle. “Why does that have to be an obstacle? Other couples have partners with opposing careers, live in different locations even and manage to work out successful relationships.”

  “Maybe, but it’s different if your career is the service. I’ve seen too many marriages fail when the partner, man or woman, is repeatedly deployed overseas in dangerous zones for months at a time. Not to mention the possibility of being permanently disabled in battle and sent home for a wife or husband to care for them the rest of their lives. Or, worse, being killed. I won’t do that to you, Clare. I won’t risk having you suffer the grief of another Alan Britten.”

  “And you’re giving me nothing to say about it?”

  “It wouldn’t matter. I’m not going to change my mind. I can’t.”

  She could see how miserable his decision was making him, as miserable as she was, and all because he was stubbornly convinced he was doing the right thing letting her go. There was no point in going any further with this.

  She got to her feet. “Would you get my bag from the car?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going home.”

  “But I’m going to drive you back to New Orleans.”

  “And how awkward and uncomfortable would that be for both of us? No, Mark, I made my own plans in case it turned out this way. After I called Terry last night when you were out, I phoned the reception desk and learned I could fly home from Fort Myers. There are buses from here to the airport there. My friend Monica will meet me in New Orleans and drive me down to the service garage to reclaim my car.”

  “At least let me take you to the bus depot.”

  She shook her head. “It ends here, Mark. It has to. I couldn’t stand it otherwise.” You aren’t standing it now, but to draw it out would be worse. “I can catch a cab at the front entrance to the hospital.”

  He must have recognized the wisdom in her arrangement, because he didn’t argue with her. He fetched her bag from the SUV and silently handed it to her. There were no thank-yous or goodbyes exchanged. Mark, as well as she, must have realized nothing would have been adequate enough.

  Clare simply turned and walked away.

  He didn’t try to stop her.

  * * *

  The days that followed were rough ones for Clare. She felt as if something had died inside her and wondered if it would ever be brought back to life. Time maybe. Isn’t that what people said? That only time could cure a severe heartache?

  Until then all she could do was battle her dejection. Returning to her classroom helped. That and her friends, who seemed to sense when she needed company and when she didn’t, and who complied with both moods.

  There was her sister, as well. She came down from St. Boniface to spend the weekend with her. Terry, bless her, never tried to remind Clare how she’d tried to warn her about Mark. Always the nurturing big sister, she simply expressed her concern.

  “I could see when you both visited me at the jail how much you already cared for him.”

  “Foolish of me, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t punish yourself, Clare. It’s easy to fall in love with a guy like him. Do you think you’ll hear from him again?”

  “Not likely.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “I’ll get on with my life, maybe even manage to forget about him.”

  “Yes, that’s best. Just remember, though, I’m always here for you.”

  Much to Clare’s surprise, there was also Officer Martinez. The dark, handsome cop, who had answered her call the night Roy Innes broke into her house, turned up at her door one evening. He claimed he just stopped by to make sure she’d recovered from the attempted robbery, but when he learned Mark was no longer with her he asked her if she would consider going out with him.

  Clare was flattered and told him so, but that she wasn’t ready to date again. Officer Martinez was a nice guy, and any other available woman wouldn’t have hesitated to go out with him. Only Clare didn’t want a conventionally nice guy. She wanted what she couldn’t have. A tough warrior, who wasn’t always nice but who had her heart and always would.

  * * *

  She was angry with herself, wondering if she was ever going to shake this hurt, when she came home from school one afternoon to find Lieutenant Mark Griggs on her doorstep.

  Clare was astonished to see him there waiting for her. Astonished and not sure whether to be exhilarated at the sight of him or heartsick. There was only one certainty. Seated there, hands on his spread knees, he cut a dashing figure in his boots, camouflaged-patterned combat uniform and the tan beret of the rangers at a rakish angle on his head.

  “Mark, what are you doing here?”

  He got to his feet, tall and imposing, wearing one of those damnable grins that could make her insides turn over. “Ask me inside, and I’ll tell you.”

  Clare wasn’t sure she wanted to do that, not if it meant further anguish. But when had she ever been able to deny him when he was sporting that familiar grin? Digging her key out of her purse, she unlocked the door, preceded him into the house and dumped her purse and the work she had brought home on a chair.

  When she turned around, he was leaning against the door he’d closed behind him and casting his gaze around the living room.

  “Looks like you’ve moved in completely.”

  She wasn’t interested in discussing her furnishings. She eyed his uniform. “I guess they’ve pronounced you fit for duty. You’re being deployed again, aren’t you?”

  Why on earth would he travel all this way just to tell her goodbye? They’d already had their parting. She couldn’t take another one.

  He looked down at his uniform, as if just now realizing he was wearing it. “You thought because— No, hell, no. See, I was wearing this on base, and I didn’t take time to change into civvies before I left Ft. Bragg. All I could think about was getting to you, which is why I drove straight through from North Carolina.”

  It would have been so easy for Clare to soar into a state of happiness at that moment, but she had been through too much to assume anything regarding this man.

  “Are you telling me you suddenly decided you missed me and that you couldn’t wait to get to me? Because if that’s your reason for being here, it’s not enough. I want more than that. I deserve more than that.”

  “Yeah, you do, and I want to offer it to you. And I’m hoping like hell you’ll accept it.”

  “Why this change of heart, Mark? What happened to make you think you had room for more in your life than just the army?”

  “A couple of things. Like, for one, understanding that I didn’t have to be like my parents, running away from commitment because I was afraid of it.”

  “And for another?” she pressed him.

  “Easy. Easy, but meaning everything. I realized what I should have known all along. Yeah, I love the army, but the army can’t love me back. And I want that love, Clare. I need it. With you. Everything, marriage, kids, a home.”

  She was almost ready now to trust him, to go to him and tell him she would gladly provide him with all that. Almost, but not quite.

  “What about your argumen
t for relationships that fail when one of the partners is deployed for long periods overseas, or the possibility of being permanently disabled or killed? Not that I wasn’t ready to accept those risks.”

  “The argument no longer applies. There’ll be no more combat zones for me. My CO and I talked it over. From now I remain stateside training new recruits to be rangers.”

  “Are you going to be happy with that?”

  “I’ll have my career in the army, still be a ranger. With you beside me, that’s all that matters. The thing is,” he went on, looking anxious now, “could you bear to leave all this? New Orleans, the home and job here you love so much?”

  “There are other cities and houses and teaching positions, Mark.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “That I accept your proposal of marriage and all that goes with it? You are proposing to me, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely proposing.”

  “Then I am saying yes,” she said, surrendering fully now to the joy she had so fiercely wanted and finally won.

  Mark had been slowly edging toward her all this while. He was close to her now, close enough to wind his arms around her and draw her against him.

  “I’ve been longing for days to kiss this scar,” he said, bending his head to tenderly place his lips over the crescent-shaped scar high on her cheek.

  “Hey, if it’s just about the scar, I don’t think—”

  “Quiet.”

  Altering his target, as Clare decided any experienced army ranger would realize the advantage of doing, he got busy kissing her mouth. For a very long and highly satisfying time.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Colton Showdown by Marie Ferrarella.

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  Chapter 1

  He wasn’t one of those people who had an obsession about cleanliness. Tate Colton had never had a problem with getting his hands—or any other part of him, for that matter—dirty, if the job required it. That kind of dirt he could put up with and ignore.

  But dealing with these subhuman creatures who made their living trafficking in human flesh, in destroying young lives and thinking absolutely nothing of it, was an entirely different matter. It made him want to go back to the hotel room where he was registered under his assumed name and take a shower. A long, scalding-hot shower to wash away their stink.

  Once he received the assignment from his supervisor, Hugo Villanueva, he knew that going undercover in order to find and save the Amish young women who had been kidnapped would require him to associate with, in his opinion, the absolute dregs of the earth.

  Dregs in expensive suits.

  You could dress a monkey up in fine clothes, but he was still a monkey, Tate thought. No amount of expensive clothing could change that, or change the fact that the people he was forced to interact with were lower than scum.

  He’d think more about stepping on a beetle than he would about terminating the existence of one of these cockroaches.

  To look at the man who had brought him up to this particular hotel suite—his current tour guide to this underworld—someone might have thought the man was a successful businessman or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company instead of the utterly soulless lowlife that he actually was.

  Impeccably dressed in what was easily a thousand-dollar suit, his guide to this lurid world of virgins-for-sale smirked at him confidently as he opened the door leading into the suite’s bedroom.

  “I’m sure we can find something to pique your appetite, Mr. Conrad,” he said.

  Tate scowled at the shorter man. “I said no names,” he snapped, mindful of the part he was playing in this surreal drama.

  The other man laughed, enjoying what he considered to be the display of ignorance on the part of this new client.

  “Nothing to be worried about. What are they going to do?” he asked, gesturing at the bedroom and the young women being held there. Each and every one of them were dressed in identical long, slinky white gowns. “Post it on the internet? None of them even know what the hell the internet is,” he stressed, jeering at the young women who were virtually prisoners in this suite. “They all live in the Stone Age. Trust me.” He patted Tate’s arm and the latter shrugged him off as if he was flinging off an annoying bug—an act that wasn’t lost on the man. “Your name—and your sterling reputation—are both safe here,” he assured Tate.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” the man snapped at the young woman he was herding into the room for his “client’s” final review. “He hasn’t got all night. Or have you?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Tate, a lecherous grin spread across his angular face. “You know, if you’ve changed your mind and want to make your purchase now—” He left the sentence open, looking at Tate expectantly.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Tate answered formally. The deal was that he got to see the young women in person in order for him to finalize his choice, and then the negotiations regarding the pending “purchase” would go from there.

  Inside, Tate was struggling to contain his fury. The woman he’d “requested,” “Jade,” was looking at him apprehensively like a mistreated animal afraid of being beaten.

  Had she been beaten?

  Tate looked her over quickly. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded, channeling his anger into the part he was playing—a man who wanted the “goods” he was considering purchasing to be perfect. He was well aware of the fact that the blue-gray eyes continued to watch his every move. Tate swung around to confront the other man. “She looks like she’s been manhandled,” he accused angrily.

  The man shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened that would have left a visible mark on her.” His flat, brown eyes raked over Hannah from head to toe, as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t displaying any sign of bruising in plain sight. “That’s the one rule—other than payment up front—the boss won’t tolerate any visible marks left on the merchandise.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tate saw Hannah flinch at the label the man had contemptuously slapped on her. Merchandise.

  His anger flared.

  “She’s a person, not merchandise,” Tate retorted, glaring at the guard.

  “Hey, at the price you’re going to pay, she’s anything you want her to be. You want a person? You got it, she’s a person.” He turned to look at the redhead he’d led out of the bedroom for Ted Conrad’s perusal. “A soft, sweet-smelling person, aren’t you, honey?”

  Smirking, he slid his hand along her cheek and down the side of her neck.

  It was obvious that the guard didn’t intend on stopping there.

  “I’ll thank you to take your hands off her,” Tate warned darkly as the man’s hand just grazed the swell of her breasts.

  Anger flashed in the other man’s eyes, but just as quickly, it subsided. The main reason he’d been told to bring this client here was to get Conrad to make his final decision so that the deal could proceed.

  Apparently, it looked as if the deal was about to be sealed. The bottom line was, and had always been, money. So, much as he would have personally rather shot out this client’s kneecaps, the guard
raised his hands in the air in mock surrender.

  “They’re off,” he declared dramatically, wiggling his fingers in the air to underscore his point. The smirk on his face deepened as he looked at Hannah knowingly. “So, this is the one you want, eh?”

  “She’s the one,” Tate replied, his tone scrubbed free of any emotion.

  The other man nodded his approval. “Gotta say, you’ve got good taste. She’s a beauty.” With hooded eyes, he looked her over again. It was obvious that he was putting himself in the client’s place. “She also looks like she might last you awhile.”

  Hannah drew in a breath. They’d given them all some sort of pills, but she had managed to fool her captors into thinking she’d swallowed hers when she hadn’t. Each word from the guard felt like a dagger, stabbing into her heart.

  Her eyes swept over both men. “Please don’t do this,” Hannah pleaded.

  It was impossible to know which of them she addressed her plea to.

  For his part, though he took care not to show it, Tate felt terrible. He could certainly imagine what was going through Hannah’s mind. What Caleb’s sister was anticipating. He would have given anything to comfort her, but that wasn’t what was going to save her.

  In order to accomplish that, he had to be convincing in his role. Which meant that he needed to go on with this charade, continue to maintain this facade so that he could, ultimately, get her and her friends away from these men.

  If he went about it the traditional way, pulling out a service weapon and threatening to shoot the other man if he got in his way, Tate knew that he might—or might not—be able to get out of the hotel with Hannah. Most likely, they’d be stopped before they ever made it to the street level.