Jane's Long March Home (2 page)

Unspoken, she got his message loud and clear.
As soon as the sun rises, I want you out of here.
But for now, she had a bed for the night.

When he retreated to another part of the house, her bold front deserted her faster than air whooshing out of a deflating balloon. Chin dipping to her chest, her shoulders slumped. If he wouldn’t help, where would that leave her? Where would she go?

Sister Mary Margaret wouldn’t approve of giving up. Heading out the door she’d come in, Jane retraced her steps around the house to her Jeep. Grabbing the gear stashed there, she made her way to the room that had been assigned to her, vowing on the way to convince Russell – one way or another - to not only let her stay, but while he was at it, to fix what was broken inside.

*

In his office, desperate for the settled routine he’d managed to establish since coming to the ranch, Chase closed the computer file his uncle had sent on Gunny. The Marine's arrival had interrupted the unexciting routine of one day following the other and he wanted it back.

The acid burning his gut suggested that wasn't in his immediate future. The sass in sky blue eyes, and the cocky arrogance in the nip of her hip against the door frame, refused to be dislodged from his mind.

Gunnery Sergeant Jane Donovan challenged him in ways he didn't want to contemplate. So far, he'd managed to avoid examining too closely why he'd retreated to the ranch. His instinct for these things told him, letting her stay would force him to dig too deep into his own problems.

He had them. He just wanted to leave them in the past where they belonged.

Restless, he went to the kitchen to warm up his coffee, then continued through to the dining room and sat at the table. Through the large picture window he’d put in to bring more light into the room, he found the Marine leaning against the weathered siding of the bunkhouse.

Leaving the Counselor behind wasn't as easy as it should have been. And he was curious.

What had happened to take the light out of Jane Donovan's stunning eyes? According to the information Matt had sent, since the incident in Madrid, the Marine had turned into an absolute train wreck. Cited more times for drunk and disorderly conduct than he thought the Marine Corps had patience for, she’d also been to a long list of therapists who’d apparently been unable to straighten her out.

Chase fought the awakening of professional interest he’d gone to a lot of trouble to lock away the night he walked out of his brother’s hospital room. He would be crazy to let her stay. All she would do was disturb his new, quiet life.

He was a fraud. He knew it, and it was his family who’d suffered because of his bad judgment. It wasn’t fair to put Jane at risk, by pretending to be something he knew he wasn’t.

The back door squeak open, then slapped closed. Shortly, coffee in hand, his handyman joined him at the table.

Gus inclined his head in Jane’s direction. “Who’s the young lady?”

“A Marine passing through.”

Gus’ shaggy brows shot up. “She seems a bit lost.”

In more ways than one
, Chase couldn’t help thinking, watching her curl and uncurl her fingers in a slow rhythm he knew was meant to soothe her. “She’s leaving early tomorrow morning.”

Pushing away from the building, she paced back and forth. A limp surfaced he hadn’t noticed earlier.

“She’s been hurt.” Concern colored the old man's quiet observation.

Chase frowned. From her file, he knew she’d been injured in the bombing, but there was no mention of it still giving her problems.

He kept his gaze locked on the woman fighting her demons in his yard. “Are you sticking around for dinner?”

He had a feeling he was going to need the buffer of the old gent between him and the Marine.

Gus shook his head. “Have a poker game in town.”

“Will Maxine be there?” Chase hadn’t met the woman, but it seemed there was something going on between the lady who owned the next ranch over and his widowed handyman. Every week Gus and his cronies met at the local bar to play cards. Most of the time, despite their protests, Maxine joined them.

A furrow formed between Gus’ brows. “She’s a stubborn woman, who just won’t listen to reason.”

It seemed they had the same dilemma.

Gus pushed himself up from the table; clapped Chase on the back. “She’s a pretty lass.”

She most certainly was.

And that was the problem. As a woman, she had him thinking of warm summer nights; dinner over flickering candlelight that cast a golden glow on her tanned skin; easy conversations sipping champagne. Never once in these sudden imaginings was he sitting across from her, making notes in her medical record.

A twinge of self-reproach nicked Chase. He knew what it felt like not to know where to turn next. Jane Donovan deserved more from the person who would be her therapist, than a has-been psychologist, with nothing but lust on the brain.

After Gus left, he rose and stood at one side of the window, watching as she continued to pace out her agitation. Her jaw was clenched with stubborn resolve. And something else. Bruised honor? He knew a thing or two about that.

According to her file, she’d saved many lives that day in Madrid. The kid had been the only casualty. Why was she tearing her life down and throwing it away?

Chase shifted in irritation. It always started like this, with questions he shouldn’t be asking if he had no intention of doing anything to find the answers.

He sucked in a breath, left the room, leaving the hurting Marine to her struggles. He didn’t want to be interested in what those answers might be.

In the kitchen, he put two steaks on to broil. He would convince her leave, even if it meant telling her the truth about about his failure.

In the meantime, the least he could do was feed her. If that smacked of giving a condemned woman her last supper, he couldn’t let that sway his decision.

CHAPTER

III

B
rooding over the wall she’d hit in the guise of the uber-attractive Dr. Chase Russell, Jane reminded herself he wasn’t the enemy. That part was being played by her own mind.

She rubbed the ache in her hip and slowly crossed the yard to the house. Russell’s ranch was a far cry from the orphanage she’d grown up in. When she was a kid, living in a place like this would have been a dream come true. It would have meant she’d been very good indeed.

Part of her envied the man - that he had this serene place to sink his roots into. She’d only been there for a little over three hours, and for the first time since waking up in the Bethesda Hospital with a cranky hip and an even more cranky disposition, the sound of her heart pounding in her head had eased off to a dull thump.

Stopping just short of the wraparound porch, she stomped the dust from her boots. Out of habit, she patted her pockets, looking for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes. She dropped her hands, closed her eyes, forced in a deep breath.

“I’ve got steaks grilling. Do you want a baked potato or rice?” Russell’s deep baritone eased over her raw nerves, exciting a vision of long, barefoot walks on a South Carolina beach, and of holding hands in the five o’clock hour before the stretch of warm sand filled with sunbathers. Her heartbeat stilled at the thought.

When she opened her eyes, he was studying her closely.

It was foolish to imagine scratching this unexpected itch. Doing something that reckless would only prove to Russell everyone else was right - in her current undisciplined condition she wasn’t fit to go back to duty.

“Rice.” Suddenly, she didn’t want to stand idly by waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Is there something I can do to help?”

The man shrugged. “Sure. Do you cook?”

“Not so much, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”

Strong brows shot straight up.

Jane winced. There were a lot of things she was good at - obeying orders, protecting her troops, developing good tactical plans. Cooking just didn't happen to be one of the skills in her arsenal. “Rice is easy, right?”

Russell’s lips quirked into a brief half-smile. Jane was mesmerized. Quickly, she snatched herself free.

“All you have to do is follow the directions on the box.”

She followed him inside. “That can’t be too hard.”

Surprisingly it wasn’t. When the meal was cooked and the table set, she dropped into a chair across from Russell, biting back a soft groan. It’d been a long drive from South Carolina. She was feeling every mile.

Her stiffening hip begged for relief, but first she had to play nice. Sister Mary Margaret would approve of that tactic.

“Have you lived here long?”

Russell glanced up from cutting into his steak. “About three months.”

Nerves had Jane reaching for anything that would keep the conversation with the taciturn man from descending into thick silence. “Where did you live before you came here?”

He hesitated. “Seattle.”

“I’ve never been there.”

The stern lines on his face eased. “It’s a beautiful city.”

The merry-go-round in Jane’s stomach slowed. This wasn’t so hard. “Why did you leave?”

“I needed a change.” Russell’s abrupt withdrawal ended their brief truce. His next question was proof enough. “What happened to your hip?”

He knew her story. She could tell. Despite her best efforts to hide it, he must have seen her limp. She bit her tongue to keep from lashing out - another new, bad habit.

Wiping all emotion from her voice, as calmly as she could manage, she gave him the skinny, “I was on the wrong end of a disagreement with a terrorist. The sciatic nerve is damaged.”

“It didn’t earn you a medical discharge?” His steady regard stirred things up in Jane’s belly she didn’t want coming to life.

She shrugged, leaning her arms against the edge of the table. “The doctors say it’ll get better. Looks like your place could use some work.”

He nodded, “There’s a few things that need to be done to get the ranch into shape.”

In a valiant attempt to keep her disconcerting feelings contained, she picked up the fork and knife beside her plate, and cut into the steak in front of her. “I could help.”

“How?”

She flashed him the smile she’d learned early on could win her a favor or two. “I’ve been known to be handy with cleaning up an area.”

Russell’s eyes warmed to a clear brown that unfortunately, was fast becoming Jane’s favorite color.

It wasn’t an invitation to stay, but he was listening. She took advantage of the opening. “I can paint. And, I’m good with small machines and engines.”

He returned to his meal. “It’s a nice offer, but I already have a handyman.”

She shifted off her hip, confounded by his disinterest. This wasn’t the same man she'd read about on the internet; the author of a book about soldiers with her condition.

Her mind covering the same old ground, she searched for leverage. “If it’s a problem, I don’t have to stay long. You can do your psychobabble thing, and I’ll be gone in a week. Two tops.”

Russell looked up from his plate, his face a blank slate. Surely he could see how important this joint operation was.

He pointed at her plate with his knife. “Finish your dinner. Psychobabble, as you call it, isn’t like taking a pill. You need a treatment plan. A week or two would only be enough time to get started. Besides the amount of time it would take to make any real progress on your problem, there’s a very good reason why I can’t be the one to help you, and my uncle knows that.”

He scraped back his chair, carried his empty plate into the kitchen. Jane jumped up, feeling like a lost puppy attempting to get the nice man’s attention, but she couldn’t think of anything that would put the conversation back in the direction she desperately needed it to go.

Putting his dish in the dishwasher, without looking in her direction, Russell headed for the stairs. Frozen in disappointment, she watched him disappear upstairs.

Frantically searching for an argument she hadn’t tried; anything that would bring him back and make him seriously reconsider her request, she blurted, “Wait, I-”

But, it was too late. Outside the windows, dark settled like a suffocating pile of wool. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed in the stillness, reminding her how much she’d grown to dislike the hours after midnight - each one too painfully intimate.

She barely held back putting a hole in the nearest wall. To keep her temper out of trouble she finished cleaning the kitchen, not to win points, but because she was too disheartened to do anything else. When she was done, she wandered from room to room in an effort to take her mind off the fact that once again she’d failed when so much was at stake.

She’d been to more counseling sessions than she could count, each time wishing she wasn't there. Many of her fellow Marines had been involved in worse incidents than she had, and been able to keep it together; do their duty; move on to the next assignment.

What was wrong with her? It was demoralizing.

Russell was the last train stop on the road to her own guillotine. Jane battled the discouragement crushing her.

For a moment, she'd thought she had a chance to wipe her slate clean, get back the courage she'd lost. There was something in the man's face when he looked at her. Something hiding beneath his resentment at having her show up out of the blue. An indefinable glimmer, as if somehow he seemed to understand where she’d been, what had happened to change her from that good girl Sister Mary Margaret had been proud of, to someone who wasn’t so good anymore.

But it'd turned out to be a dead end. Coming to a halt just inside a room that still bore the odor of fresh paint, Jane sneered at her own naivete.

She was a Marine.
Ooorah.
Marines didn’t give up. It looked like the time to beg had come.

She turned slowly. A couch and two chairs lounged around a heavy square coffee table, facing a large fireplace. Bookshelves leaned against the wall next to her.

There was no television or computer in the room, which seemed odd. Russell struck her as a Saturday sports kind of guy. Decked out in earth tones, the only other color in the room was a tall stack of books on the floor next to one of the chairs.

Except for the stack, the room had a silent air that said a lot about the man. In other circumstances, Jane might have been interested in finding out why he didn't spend enough time in the appealing room to even leave a discarded glass or piece of mail.

If this were her home, with its quiet, tranquilizing feel, this room would be her favorite. It was a place where troubles wouldn’t intrude and secret dreams would dare to come out of the dark where they were hiding.

She flipped back the cover of the top book,
Treatment Strategies For The Country’s New Walking Wounded, by Dr. Chase Russell
. His book.

She snatched it up. The cover fell open to the dedication page.

This book has been a labor of love, and is dedicated to my family; my Mom and Dad, Elaine and Mike Russell, and my brother Nate. You’re my bedrock.

Jane’s anxiety slipped unguarded into temper. She flipped to the index. The man was a freaking expert in the field of treating military personnel returning from war with symptoms of post traumatic-

The book abruptly flew from her hands.

She whirled to face Russell. His face impassive, he put the tome out of reach on the bookshelf.

“Hey.”

“That’s not very interesting reading. I have a Tom Clancy in that stack you might prefer.”

Her temper tied Jane up. She didn’t understand. If he was so clever at treating soldiers with her problems, why did he live on a rundown ranch in more need of repair than she was? More important, why was he so determined not to help her?

Holding onto her tumbling emotions, she locked her jaws until they ached. If she wanted answers, staying in control - a challenge at the best of times – was her only recourse.

“Actually, I’m a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey and Katie MacAlister.”

His eyes never left her face. Attacked by a sudden awareness she didn’t want, she glanced around the room, her gaze lighting on a photograph on the mantle.

Space. She needed some space before she said the heck with it, and grabbed his shirt and dragged him close to discover if he tasted as good as he looked.

She edged away to study the photo closely.

Whoever had taken the picture had captured two young men, one of them Russell looking much younger. He was clowning around, his arm locked around the neck of the other one, free hand curled in a fist, playfully aimed at his smiling hostage’s stomach.

The grin reached the younger Russell’s eyes. How had the lighthearted, laughing guy in the picture become the withdrawn, resigned man behind her? Maybe the answer lay in the dedication in his book. “Nate?”

He nodded.

Filing the information for later, she moved on to the only other adornment in the room. Two ink and pencil drawings hung on either side of the fireplace. In the drawings, two young children bearing a remarkable resemblance to the young men in the photograph played in a park.

She raised one brow in Russell's direction. The hard lines around his mouth softened. “My mother drew them. When we were kids, after school, we’d go to the bookstore she and my dad owned, to do our homework. Sometimes we’d look up and there she’d be with her sketch pad.”

At the wistful look on his face, Jane went still. That back door she was looking for creaked open, but Russell didn’t let her linger there.

As quick at he’d opened up, he changed back into the perfect host. Aloof and all business. “There’s a television in your room. I left a heating pad on the bed.”

Her patience, what little she had left, snapped.

“I don’t get what your problem is. You have to be at the top of your game to get a book like that published.” She waved a frustrated hand at the book he’d taken. Like a full blown hurricane, her turbulent emotions broke free of her fraying restraint. “So, is this the end of the road for me? What am I supposed to do? Lay down my gun and surrender?”

Russell moved fast, so fast Jane didn’t see him coming. His large hands dug into her shoulders, his eyes losing that yummy shade of brown she’d come to expect. “This is the end of the road only if you want it to be. Don’t ever give up!”

Caught by surprise, she put a hand against his chest and pushed hard. She could feel the heat of his body through the cotton shirt. The accelerated thump of his heart captured the unwanted girl that still resided in Jane.

Which was crazy. No man had ever reached that deep inside her. “I don’t want to, but if you won't help me-”

She left the sentence unfinished.

He forced out a breath. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not what you need.”

“What I need?” Jane didn’t like the sound of that. Not once since she’d accepted she wasn’t the kind of kid prospective parents lined up to adopt, had she needed anything or anybody. That's what made it that much harder to admit her failure to Russell. “I thought I could do this on my own. Get better. But, I can’t. Everything’s wrong. I can’t hold it together.”