The Marine (Semper Fi; Marine)

by Cheryl Reavis

  He wondered suddenly what Angie was doing, if she was still with the sneaking son of a bitch she’d dumped him and their baby for. A goddamned sand sailor she’d met over there, a fast worker who looked her up as soon as he got back to the States and who knew how to make her feel like a woman—she said. He thought he’d seen him in a hallway once, when he’d gone to Camp Lejeune hospital to see one of his guys. He’d been surprised that the bastard was a corpsman, one that had to worry about IEDs and house to house combat just like the rest of them.

  Josh had already had two deployments when Angie was sent overseas. When she got home, she’d been crazy to start a family. He was fine with that. By then, both of them knew the value of not wasting whatever time they had. And their situation wasn’t all that unusual. They were surrounded by military couples who had to figure out what to do with their children when one of them got sent someplace. The baby was six months old when his third tour came around, and he thought she’d manage fine while he was over there. She was a good mother, a good Marine. They had their Family Care Plan. They had all the logistics worked out.

  But they hadn’t factored in her change of heart—or at least, he hadn’t. Man, he hadn’t seen that coming, but he should have when the emails got scarce. He thought it was because she was trying to look after a new baby while readjusting to not being in a war zone.

  He’d been in-country three weeks when he got the word that there was a family emergency and he was being sent home because his CO had opted to let him go fix whatever was wrong instead of staying and worrying and maybe endangering his men. It took a while before he could even find out what the emergency was, and then, all he’d learned was that nobody was sick or hurt.

  He’d arrived back at Lejeune to find his house and his wife very quiet. Angie had taken Elizabeth to daycare, and she couldn’t have been any calmer. With no distractions, she didn’t waste any time informing him that she “wasn’t going to do this anymore.”

  It had still taken him a while to get it. His military mind had been full of possible glitches in their care plan and the revisions they might need to make. Then, he realized what “this” actually meant. They no longer needed a plan. He did. Angie was dumping the whole package. Everything. She didn’t want their baby girl, and she didn’t want him. And clearly the sincerity of her complaint to higher ups about her state of mind had been enough to get him home. He was already all too familiar with the concept—women dumping their inconvenient baggage and moving on—but it had nearly killed him anyway. The only thing he had going for him now was the knowledge that he and his daughter were better off without her.

  They were doing all right. He was doing all right—except that he had trouble sleeping, and when he did, sometimes just as he dropped off, he thought Angie was there, warm and loving and still his. He could feel her arms around him, her body against him, and hear her whisper his name.

  Joshua.

  He had loved it when she did that—said all of his name.

  Joshua.

  Oh, yeah. He was all right.

  And he was crazy.

  The biggest problem was that there weren’t any viable options. Angie didn’t have much in the way of reliable family—even if they had been on better terms—and he didn’t have any at all. He had only one possibility—his birth mother. He wanted to finally meet her. He wanted to see if he could make a revised Family Care Plan with her in it as some kind of supervised caregiver. She wasn’t a stranger to him—exactly—and he was desperate. Semper fi could open a lot of doors in this part of the world, and thanks to a roundabout access to the DMV, he knew that Grace Justin James lived in the area. But he hadn’t made any attempt to contact her. He hadn’t needed to contact her. He had his own life and so did she. It had been enough to read about her and her husband and daughters in the local newspaper and to drive by her house—once—out of curiosity, nothing more. He just wanted to see what she’d traded him for—a big rustic-looking brown two-story house with a wide front porch, a manicured lawn and a red front door. And mature hardwood trees, expensive trees. But now, thanks to Angie, he needed more. He had driven back to her neighborhood, and he’d gotten out of the truck to walk around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  Or something.

  It wasn’t a well thought-out plan, but he’d run into a talkative old man leading a pair of greyhounds. Josh had been curious enough to ask about the dogs—rescued racers with easily damaged skin, he learned, from the Florida dog tracks, the male so intimidated by the decidedly alpha female that it would no longer hike its leg to pee. Josh’s sincere inquiry had thrown open the door for a flood of information. The old man had been happy to tell him all there was to know about the strict adoption process for recycled dogs and that Mrs. James owned the house with the red door he’d been admiring and also a house close to the beach. The worldwide web being what it was, it hadn’t been hard to find the beach house. It had been harder to find her.

  Maybe he should have worded things better, he suddenly thought.

  And said what?

  Hello, I’m your son—this is your granddaughter—help me?

  He had to make a decision. When he got right down to it, the choices were pretty simple. He could put Spike in foster care—except that he had been there and done that himself when he was a kid. He didn’t want her in foster care. He wanted her with family. Real family. What kind of world was it when adoptions worked out better for dogs than it did for little kids?

  His other choice was to leave the corps. How was he supposed to decide when he couldn’t stand to do either one?

  Damn you, Angie!

  He glanced into the rearview mirror and changed lanes. It was eating him up inside. He cursed himself for being a stupid bastard. He was a goddamned sergeant in the goddamned Marine Corps—and so far his only solution to the problem had been to run to his mother.

  “DO YOU BELIEVE HER?”

  Allison stared out the car window at the passing scenery and didn’t answer. They were almost home, and she had a lot to think about. The ride to the school parking lot to get the car had been its own special kind of torture. Nobody had said anything, but the unasked questions practically lived and breathed.

  “Allison!”

  “No! I don’t believe her!”

  “Well, you don’t have to bite my head off,” Lisa said.

  Actually, Allison did. The alternative was bawling like a little kid, and she didn’t want to do that.

  “Mom didn’t want us to know. That’s all there is to it,” she said when she was reasonably sure she had the urge to cry under control. She had always trusted her mother; she wanted to trust her now, but she’d seen her wannabe brother with her own two eyes—and his baby. He hadn’t looked or sounded like a nut job or somebody who was playing some kind of stupid, tasteless joke. Who would do that kind of thing, anyway? Nobody she knew, even if she included Lisa’s hateful friends with the double first names. Ana Camilla. Julia Rose.

  “Well, she didn’t tell us Dad wanted to get a divorce,” Lisa said.

  Allison took a quiet breath and stared at the spare set of car keys in the ignition, at the green Care Bear with a four-leaf clover dangling from the key chain. She had given it to her father for his birthday as a kind of lame pre-teen joke, and, he, being the kind of father he was, had actually used it. “Maybe because he didn’t,” she said. “Maybe they were just going through one of those rough patch things.”

  “Yeah, right,” Lisa said, turning onto the street where they lived. “All I know is they were acting just like Julia Rose’s mom and dad.”

  “Well, maybe she didn’t know he wanted one. How could she? They didn’t even talk to each other.”

  “If we could figure something was wrong, she could. She was married to him. I bet that guy is the reason Dad was acting like he was. Maybe he didn’t know she’d had a baby, eithe
r.”

  Allison had nothing to say to that. She kept thinking about the way “that guy” had looked. She wondered where he’d come from, if he’d actually been around here all the time and none of them had known it. She didn’t wonder why he thought what he obviously thought, however. She’d seen the paperwork.

  “I think the baby is his, that’s what I think,” Lisa continued. “What if we’ve got a brother nobody bothered to tell us about? Or a niece? I can’t believe Mom did this to us. What if he wants to live with us or something? What am I supposed to tell people? What if he wants us to give him money—then what? We can’t afford to do that—I’m going to college in September.”

  Allison was only half listening. Her sister wasn’t interested in her opinion. She was only concerned with the possible fallout from this situation and how it would affect her social standing at school. She was worried about what the . . .

  Allison tried to remember the word. They’d just talked about it in her English class—it had come up in the discussion about Jane Austen.

  Ton. That was it. The Ton—the special people, whose opinion could make or break you socially, or, in this instance, could open or close the door to all things high school. There was no doubt that a long lost bastard brother would cause Lisa’s image to take a serious hit. It was too . . . redneck. Poor Lisa. She had enough trouble living down her dorky sister, Allison.

  “I thought he looked worried,” Allison said as Lisa pulled into the driveway.

  “He didn’t look worried to me. Did you get the haircut? He’s a jarhead—or a pretend jarhead—which is worse. Mom’s car’s not here. Where do you think she is? Oh, God. You don’t think she went after him?”

  Allison opened the car door and got out without answering. If she had been the one with a grown up baby on the doorstep, and she’d brushed him off the way her mother had, she’d be out looking for him. As it was, she was only the possible sister, and she already had a plan.

  Chapter Three

  THE MUSIC WAS loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of a car peeling out of the parking lot. It was that kind of place. Some vehicle was always peeling out of the parking lot.

  Joseph Kinlaw kept his attention focused on the ice-cold beer sweating on the bar in front of him.

  Progress, he thought. He wanted to drink it because he was thirsty and not because he was feeling sorry for himself.

  “Bootch!”

  “What!” he said in response to what could have been the second or third summons.

  “Some kid’s messing around your truck!”

  He swore and took a swig of beer before he headed for the door.

  “Looks like a little girl,” the guy who had given the heads-up said as Kinlaw walked past him.

  One with a lousy taste in vehicles, he thought. The truck wasn’t worth stealing, and he didn’t have anything valuable in it. Out of habit, he stopped to assess the situation before he stepped outside. The shadows were long across the dirt parking lot, and there was indeed a young girl standing on tiptoe peering inside his truck on the driver’s side. The window was down because the handle was broken, and her interest in what she could see—or perhaps reach—was so intense she didn’t hear his approach until he spoke to her.

  “It’s not for sale,” he said quietly.

  She jumped violently and whirled around, but she didn’t say anything. He had scared her, and he wasn’t entirely sure she could say anything, even if she’d wanted to.

  “What are you doing?” he asked anyway. “And don’t make me ask you twice.”

  “Looking,” she said finally. He thought she might be high school age, but just barely.

  “For who?” he asked, because a beat up truck like his couldn’t possibly be the attraction. It was likely just a means to an end.

  She frowned. “Nobody.”

  That was a lie, but he gave her credit for looking him square in the eye when she told it.

  “Nobody,” he repeated. “Well, go look for him someplace else and leave my truck alone.”

  “Your truck?” she said with a little squeak in her voice that suggested genuine surprise—and alarm.

  “Right. Mine.”

  “But it’s the one . . .” She trailed off and gave a sharp sigh.

  “Look kid, whatever you’re doing, quit doing it and go home—before you get in trouble.”

  “Okay,” she said, but she made no attempt to leave.

  “Well, go on,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked off into the distance instead of answering the question.

  “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “I . . . had a ride.”

  “Had?” He suddenly remembered the sound of spinning tires. “Did you have a fight? Where is he now?”

  “She.”

  “She, then.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You need a better caliber of friends, kid.”

  She said something he didn’t catch.

  “What?”

  “My sister,” she said, looking at him.

  “You need a better caliber of relatives,” he amended, and as scared as she clearly was, she smiled. Briefly.

  “You got a cell phone?”

  “Lisa’s got it.”

  “Lisa would be the one who went off and left you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “She didn’t want me to look in the truck.”

  “I’m not crazy about it myself. What did you think you were going to find?”

  She sighed again and moved a rock around with the toe of her shoe. He suddenly thought he’d seen her someplace before.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ve just . . . seen you around,” she added.

  “Where?”

  “Fishing. With Joe-B. He goes to my school.”

  “So you know Joe-B.”

  “Nobody knows Joe-B,” she said. “He’s a skater.”

  He took a moment to appreciate her very apt assessment of Joe Benton, his latest rehabilitation project, a Marine brat whose father didn’t—or couldn’t—care that the wheels were coming off both of his sons’ lives. Kinlaw had played a big part in the older boy’s decision to enlist in the Marine Corps, but that decision had left Joe-B to deal with the relentless mess that was his father’s life alone—and he didn’t thank Kinlaw for it. The school psychologist had referred him to Kinlaw for some no-nonsense mentoring and a much needed attitude adjustment. So far, it wasn’t working.

  “You live close to the pier?”

  “No.”

  “Well, give me a phone number. I’ll call somebody to come get you.”

  “No! My mother will kill me if she finds out I’m here.”

  “Kid, this is the kind of place where she’d have to stand in line,” he said, which was partly true but more of an attempt to put the fear of God in her so she didn’t pull something like this again.

  “I’ll . . . just wait out here. And I won’t bother your truck.” Everything about her suggested that she was more than a little worried about where her sister had gotten to, but she was still working hard not to let him know it. He could easily accept the performance at face value if he wanted to. He could tell himself that he’d done all he could and walk away with a reasonably clear conscience. He didn’t ask for much out of life—one beer now and then and an undisturbed minute or two to drink it. Unfortunately, the beer had probably lost its icy edge by now and the sun was going down—which meant the bikers would be arriving soon.

  “Look, kid—”

  “Do you . . .” She stopped.

/>   “Do I what?” He watched her reach deep, gathering her determination, something he’d seen other scared kids do a thousand times in his former line of work.

  She looked at him. “Do you know Joshua Caven?”

  A car turned into the parking lot before he could answer and she took off at a run in that direction, not waiting for it to stop completely before she flung open the door and jumped inside.

  The tires spun in the dirt as the vehicle pulled onto the highway and sped away.

  ALLISON SAT STARING straight ahead, her arms folded across her chest.

  “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “No,” Allison said. “But thanks for asking.”

  “Buckle your seat belt,” Lisa said, her voice as tight as her hands gripping the steering wheel.

  Allison didn’t say anything. And she didn’t buckle.

  “You want me to toss you out of here?”

  “You and whose army?”

  “Buckle your seat belt! I don’t want to get a ticket!”

  Allison gave a sharp sigh and buckled. Of course. Lisa would be more worried about getting a ticket than about the safety of her only sister—if Allison was her only sister. Who knew these days?

  “Who was that man you were talking to?” Lisa asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what did he say? He must have said something.”

  “He . . . just said the truck was his,” Allison said, because she needed to process what little information she’d learned. It occurred to her that if she had never seen Joshua Caven, she wouldn’t have done what she’d just done—assuming she’d found out about him in the first place. But she had seen him, and she really did want to talk to him. Regardless of what her mother said, he had to have some reason for announcing he was her son, and she wanted to know what it was. She wasn’t meddling if he could be her brother. Besides that, she actually thought she might like him. And his baby.