Jane's Long March Home (7 page)

“What am I up to?”

“You think by forcing me to spend time with the boys, it’ll initiate a major breakthrough. You’re hoping it will help me understand what I did wrong in Madrid.” She said that without a lick of emotion, as if she were an outside observer looking in, without the slightest internal attachment to the riotous feelings that had to be swirling in her chest.

“According to the report I read, you didn’t do anything wrong in Madrid.”

Putting her whole weight behind the next jab, she snorted, making him almost miss his next  punch. “How do you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I didn’t lie for the report. That I didn’t make a huge mistake that cost a kid his life.”

He raised his brows. “Did you lie?”

She paused for a moment before giving the bag another bone shattering hit. “No.”

Having one chance to get this right, Chase leaned around the bag so he could capture her angry gaze. “You’re headstrong, arrogant, and stubborn.”

Her chin hitched up. “Gee, thanks.”

Behind the polite mask she wore as though hardly interested, he could see  the vortex of unchained emotions churning in her beautiful eyes.

“You’re also compassionate, courageous and dedicated. You love the Corps. You’d never do anything to jeopardize your standing there.”

“What if I didn’t know what I was doing?” The question was a whisper. She wanted to believe him. He could see it in the desperate, still way she held herself.

His vow to stay professional slipped a notch.

“You knew what you were doing. You were leading with your heart, giving aid to a homeless kid.”

She began to pull off her gloves. “Which was my first mistake, and brings us right back to where we started. It
was
my fault Linus got killed.”

“No, it doesn’t. Sometimes bad things just happen.”

Pressing her lips together, she dropped the gloves to the ground, lobbed a jerky nod in his direction. With her back ramrod straight, she stalked toward the barn.

Okay then, clearly this session is over.
 

Chase gave the bag a hard jab that reverberated up his arm.

Patience Russell. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

CHAPTER

VIII

J
ane twisted the last bolt tight. After her session with Russell that morning, she’d come to the barn and deliberately put it all out of her mind.

A large part of her wanted to understand what had gone wrong in Madrid. Another, just as demanding part, was plain tired of herself, and exhausted from rumbling over the same old ground.

Just once, she’d like to be a normal person who wasn’t falling apart. Your average twenty-something, taking a well-deserved vacation. For the first time in her life, she
wanted
to be one of those silly women who had nothing better to do than pursue a ridiculous, scintillating crush on her therapist.

Only she’d never been normal. Thinking she could start now was a hysterically bad joke.

Russell believed she had all this courage and dedication - two things she’d be lucky to have when she went back to on duty. She wished she could prove his belief in her was warranted. But how?

The only way she knew was to do everything he asked of her, no matter how childish and irrelevant it seemed. She had nothing to loose, and everything to gain by playing this campaign his way. 

But what if all her hard work didn’t make a lick of difference? What if after putting her trust in him, he couldn’t fix her and she had to return to base with her tail between her legs, her re-enlistment denied despite all her efforts?

Jane swept the disabling doubt from her mind. She refused to march down that road.

“Don’t touch anything, guys. I’ll be right back. I have some spare oil in my rig.” She wiped the grime off her hands, using a rag she’d found in the tack room, then tossed it to Pete, who squatted in the straw by the rear wheel of the motorcycle. Bobby, hands poked in his pants’ pockets, leaned against a nearby wall.

Jane kept the oil on hand for the Indian motorcycle she’d left back at the base. She’d acquired it second hand, and over many months, lovingly rebuilt the engine.

She missed being able to ride; hadn’t been able to since her injury. That was about to change.

Stepping out of the barn into bright sunlight, by instinct alone, she just missed running straight into the man taking over her life.

“Lunch is ready. How’s it going out here?” The gruff concern in his voice scuttled her thin control.

“We’re about to crank her over. Just getting oil from my Jeep.” She clamped her tongue between her teeth to stop babbling. He did that to her. Made her lose track of why she was here.

When she returned with the oil, he followed her, a little too closely for comfort, into the barn. “Show me.”

Her steps slowed. Bobby was crouched beside his brother. Both had their backs to her.

Someday, Bobby whoever-he-was, would grow into a handsome man. His love and protectiveness for his little brother would draw the girls like bees to honey. Jane wondered if things would have turned out different for her if she’d had a big bother to worry over her.

Pete scrubbed his hands on the rag she’d tossed him earlier.

Bobby watched indulgently, then shook his head. “You’re such a girl, Abby.”

Pete shot a look at Bobby. “You said we’re not supposed to say.”

Jane pulled Chase quickly into the nearest stall. When Bobby glanced over his shoulder, he didn’t see them. “That’s right, but there’s no one around.”

Stunned by the secret the kids had hid so well, she glanced at Russell, got caught up in the self-mockery shifting across his face, and started to fall.

“This is an unexpected development,” she managed to whisper around the firecrackers going off in her chest, and meaning the way the counselor was taking over her senses, not that one little boy had turned out to be a girl.

Strong hands found her waist, massaging surprisingly greedy flesh.

Stand down, Gunny.
Instead, inside her belly something very feminine stood at attention, taking notice.

 “It sure is.” Russell’s voice was deep, jagged like the Rocky Mountains she’d driven through to get to the ranch.

She groaned, not knowing which sucked more. Finding out one of the boys was a girl and she hadn’t noticed? Or, discovering that no matter how much she tried not to be, she could no longer deny she was taking more than a passing, flirty interest in her therapist.

God, the man should wear a sign.
Danger Jane, danger.
 

If she really had the courage Russell claimed she did, she’d tell him right then and there what he did to her equilibrium, and what, if given half a chance, she wanted to do about it. But, she lost the opportunity when he released her and moved them out of the stall.

It was crazy thinking anyway. All she had to do was hold it together long enough for him to clear her to go home. Once she got back to base, she’d dive back into her life, maybe go on a date or two, and forget all about the handsome, sexy Doc resurrecting ideas she’d given up a long time ago.

Taking a fortifying breath, she held up the container she’d retrieved from her Jeep. “Okay, I’ll add the oil, then we can start this puppy up.”

Bobby stood and greeted her pronouncement with a hesitant smile. Her heart jerked. If she were at the base right now, on a Tuesday morning she’d be doing paperwork at her desk, or meeting with staff. Maybe exercising the hitch out of her hip at the gym. She wouldn’t, all of a sudden, be wondering what it would be like to be part of a family that included two brave kids and one seductive man.

Uncapping the oil container, she poured some of the thick, black fluid into the corresponding opening. Sorting out her priorities would be smart, but she couldn't get past the discovery that Pete was a girl. Little more than a baby, who had only her teenage brother to protect her from a world that could be really bad.

Where the hell were her parents?

Did she have a mother who was worried sick about where her daughter was?

Linus’ face crowded into the mix. The orphaned street urchin had reminded her too much of herself and she hadn’t been able to turn her back on him. Now, here were these two kids, just as alone in the world, except for her and Russell.

Jane swore under her breath.

Pete, or rather Abby, jumped up with an excited hop. “Can I go for a ride?”

She told herself, this wasn’t Madrid. She hadn’t befriended a motherless kid who would later strike at the only family she had. And, she wasn’t at the orphanage anymore, in charge of kids who, as soon as she got used to having them around, found families of their own in adoption or permanent foster care.

It didn’t help. A loathsome, familiar slide into panic crept in on her. She sucked in a breath to catch it before it caught hold, but the edges of her vision began to turn dark.

The Colonel was right. She
had
lost her edge.

“Please, can I go first? Can I?”

The girl's sweet voice pierced the fog engulfing Jane. She locked her jaw in a futile attempt to slow her tumble. She had to get out. Fast. Before she made a fool of herself by losing it in front of these strangers she’d somehow come to care about.

“Please?”

“Not this time. I have to take the bike for a test drive before you go for a ride.”

Abby’s shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Hands shaking, Jane jammed one of the helmets she’d cleaned up, then hung from the handlebars, on her head. The other she tossed blindly to the ground.

Breathing becoming impossible in the confines of the barn, she pushed the heavy bike out into the open and quickly climbed aboard. Gripping the handlebars until her knuckles ached, she focused on one thing and one thing only. Getting away before the panic won.

Russell, carrying the helmet she’d thrown down, slipped onto the Harley behind her.

“What are you doing?”

“Going with you.” He strapped on the helmet.

“The kids-”

”Will be fine with Gus.”

On the edge of her numbed vision, she saw the old man leaning against the corral, one foot perched on the lower rail.

“Suit yourself.” She gunned the gas; had the satisfaction of feeling the front tire come off the ground.

Dirt spewed behind them in a cloud of dust. Instead of sliding off and landing on his hot butt, Russell pressed into her back, holding on, fingers digging into her hips.

The warmth from his body only flamed the panic closing in.

He pointed. Without care for life or limb, she took the rutted forestry road he indicated.

Ruthless speed and precision reflexes finally slowed her tumble. Catching her breath, she wrestled with the dread filling her mind.

The road took them into juniper covered hills. The man behind her swayed into the corners with her. The snug fit of his body at her back seemed shockingly natural, as if he’d been made just for her. When his hands splayed across her stomach, it nearly cost her the next curve.

She shot the bike into a small clearing, breaking hard, barely noticing the lake that sparkled just beyond in the sunlight. Flipping the kick stand down, she shut off the engine, practically tumbling sideways off the heavy machine.

Pulling off her helmet, she threw it at the ground. An instinct for survival had her spinning around to face her unwanted passenger, as she plunked tight fists on her hips to keep them out of trouble.

He slowly climbed off the bike, the look in his eyes predatory. He clearly wanted answers. Answers Jane wasn’t sure she had.

After landing his helmet next to hers, arms hanging loose, he confronted her, his booted feet planted wide. “What happened back there?”

“Nothing.” She went hot with embarrassment. Smoke screen. She needed a smoke screen. “So, Pete’s a girl.”

“So it would seem.”

He waited. She scrambled for another diversion; decided she had to throw him a bone. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but when I was Bobby and...Abby’s age, I wasn’t all that popular.”

“No?”

“In school, I was kind of a fringe kid.”

“Had a hard time fitting in?”

She sucked in breath to ease the tight band squeezing her chest. “Maybe they had a hard time fitting in with me?”

Amusement smoothed out the concerned lines bracketing Russell’s mouth. “So, were you a big track star, or a chess geek?”

She smirked, finally able to turn back some of the edges of the panic that had made her run from the barn, the kids and the vision of a life she wouldn’t know what to do with. “Detention was the sport I excelled in.”

He laughed. Her stomach took a killer tumble when he narrowed the distance between them.

“Tell me what happened back there,” he ordered softly.

Did she dare?

“Please.” The quiet request rumbled seductively from his chest.

Jane made herself meet his compassionate look head on. She didn’t want his sympathy, but her defenses were getting pretty battered in the attempt to keep her distance. “I had a panic attack.”

His penetrating gaze saw more than she wanted him to. “You haven’t told anyone about them, have you?”

“No. Can you just see it? A Marine who has panic attacks going into a hot situation? They’d boot me out faster than it would take them to write discharge orders. I don’t want a medical discharge. I want to go back to work.”

“So you’ve been trying to handle this all on your own. How long have you been having these episodes?”

Whirling away from him, she blindly made it to the lake’s edge where the water gently lapped at the shore. She was oblivious to its sunlit, glass-like surface. A gentle breeze cooled her flushed skin.

“Since I got out of the hospital.” She wished more than anything the tall solitude of the trees surrounding the lake could erase all her troubles.

“They didn’t start in Madrid?”

“No.”

Russell came up behind her, so close, the musk of his soap mixed with the earthy smells of the lake. “I know some techniques that will help you get control of the attacks.”

“What techniques? More play therapy?” She wanted to believe him. Spinning to face him, she tried to smile, falling desperately short of the mark.

“How to calm your mind. Uncovering what thinking patterns cause the attacks. Finding effective ways to intercept them.”

God, the woman was a fighter.
 

Chase watched her struggle, irrationally overcome by a sharp need to drag her close. He wanted to kiss the living daylights out of her, until all the painful memories went away, but was pretty certain she wouldn't approve of the out-of-line contact as appropriate adjunct therapy. Of course,
he
didn’t either.

His uncle had sent Jane to get control of her post traumatic stress disorder. All Chase could think about was this haunted woman who hid so much anguish beneath an impassive surface, tying him up with an overwhelming desire that demanded he help her any way he could.

It was a feeling he’d never experienced before. One he couldn’t shake as it morphed into something deeper, more impossible to ignore.