21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales Read Online Free Page A

every critique she gave him on his homework, or the sweet boyfriend who grinned like an idiot when she raced up to hug him.
    She’d missed that boy for years.
    “I’m fine.” She licked her lips. This is a bad idea. Why now ? Why tonight ? Why had Delilah cajoled her into changing her schedule so that she would spend the winter in Dallas rather than Dubai, to plan an event for Mike’s Place rather than an oil tycoon? Did she know ? I told her about Luke, but did she realize they were the same man before she set this up ?
    “Why Mike’s Place?”
    If the question surprised him, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked very relaxed leaning back in the seat, his right hand resting on the steering wheel. Sliding her heels off, she shifted to tuck one leg over the other. The damn shoes cost a fortune and pinched her toes.
    “I’ve seen what back to back wars do to the men and women who serve, and their families. Mothers who don’t see their kids for years. Fathers who return, a wad of stress and out of sorts. Soldiers who can’t reintegrate because their personal worlds moved on without them, and the injured who are struggling to figure out who they are now without an arm, a leg or the ability to walk. It’s a bitch and we don’t leave people behind, especially when they come home. Mike’s Place will provide the lodestone for a lot of lives.”
    Tears misted across her vision. She’d poured over the literature for Mike’s Place, the thirty-acre complex providing physical therapy centers, mental health pavilions, free clinic services and a childcare facility. Donations requested, but not required, covered the near non-existent cost to patients. Out-of-state visitors would be provided with access to onsite apartments for both patient and family.
    “It’s a beautiful idea.” She whispered the words and it was. Thoughtful, generous and compassionate. Just like the boy she’d loved. He had been Lowell High’s best football player. Even the year he’d left the team to enter the military, he’d been nominated for MVP. Not for being best player on the field, but rather because Luke took the concept of, no I in team, to the extreme.
    Oh, I’ve missed him so much.
    Missed him, past tense, not present. She tugged her gaze away from his profile lest the naked need running rampant through her shine on her face. Every man she’d dared to date had to live up to the ghost of his estimation.
    None had passed.
    “Thanks.” A note of shyness slipped into his deep voice. “It’s good work. It needs to be done.”
    Rebecca rubbed two fingers carefully under one eye, sweeping away the tears that kept trying to slip free. “Who’s Mike?”
    It was Luke’s turn to sigh. The poignant note pulled her gaze back. The highway’s interspersed lights strobed across his profile, revealing a raw emotion that had her hand reaching out to rest on his arm. He covered her slender hand with his own, trapping her there, but she didn’t care. Pain echoed through him and he needed her.
    “Mike Nowiski went through basic with me. Two years older than me, he’d dropped out of college to enlist. He grew up in New Jersey. His parents owned a pizza joint, and he married his high school sweetheart for love. They had a baby girl, just a year old when Mike enlisted. He was a good guy, never shut up about his kid. He joked that the Marines would give him all the know-how he needed to cap any punk who wanted to date her. I met his wife, twice. Shari was a sweetheart. They had that real thing, crazy in love, but supportive as hell. She was amazing, we spent four years in Afghanistan, and Mike never had leave to go home except for one seventy-two hour furlough. Shari flew to meet him halfway in Germany.”
    Dread curled around Rebecca’s heart. So many of Luke’s words were past tense, not present. But she squeezed his arm, the heat of his bicep melting the ice chips on her soul.
    “Three years ago, Mike got injured. We were in Iraq, monitoring a