The Dream Marine Read online

  RACHEL LEE

  "A storyteller of incandescent brilliance, Rachel Lee makes each and every love story a shattering emotional experience."

  —Romantic Times

  Rachel Lee wrote her first play in the third grade for a school assembly, and by the age of twelve she was hooked on writing. She's lived all over the United States and now resides in Florida. Having held jobs as a security officer, real estate agent and optician, she uses these, as well as her natural flair for creativity, to write stories that are undeniably romantic. "After all, life is the biggest romantic adventure of all—and if you're open and aware, the most marvelous things are just waiting to be discovered."

  THE DREAM MARINE

  Rachel Lee

  * * *

  To the marines in my life who have taught me what it means.

  Dear Reader,

  "The Dream Marine" turned out to be a long journey of sorts. When I initially agreed to write it, I thought, "Wonderful, a chance to write another Conard County story." And when I wrote the proposal, I had a somewhat different story in mind than the one you'll find here.

  Because that was before 9/11.

  On September 11, 2001, our world changed forever. Certainly mine did. And when I started to write this story, directly after that horrible day, I found that it was the last place I wanted to go.

  My mind shied away from thoughts of war, from thoughts of the men and women who were going forth to battle. I was having enough difficulty coming to grips with the terrible events in New York and Washington, D.C. I couldn't bear to think of all the terrible things that might be about to occur in Afghanistan.

  This became a story drawn from the pain and fear in my own heart, and built on my belief in the supreme importance of love.

  In the end, only love matters. As Sister Joan Chittister has so beautifully said, "Love is not for our own sakes. Love frees us to see others as God sees them."

  Sincerely yours,

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  Joe Yates came home to Conard County, Wyoming, a changed man. Sitting in Mahoney's Bar with his green marine tunic and the top buttons of his shirt undone, and his tie hanging loose, he sipped a whiskey and told himself he wasn't going to do anything as clichéd as turn into a drunk over this.

  But he still felt a huge hole at the very center of himself, and he couldn't figure out how to fill it. Or if he even wanted to. At the moment he didn't even want to go out to the ranch and see his sister and her family. He didn't want to see anyone who might touch that gaping hole and make it hurt.

  He sipped more whiskey, and told himself not to be an ass. The words didn't help. Kara was gone and it was all his fault, and to hell with the USMC anyway.

  Joe was a young man, only in his middle twenties, but he looked a lot older. Wind and weather had aged him, but so had events of the last months, especially the last week. The lines were cut deeply in his lean face now, a face that was ever so slightly exotic, hinting of his Shoshone ancestry.

  After a troubled youth, he'd left Conard County nine years ago, an eighteen-year-old boy proud that he'd been accepted by the Marine Corps, and looking forward to a life of adventure. He'd come home now sickened by it all.

  Any innocence he had once possessed was gone, left in the dusty, rugged mountains north of a country he wasn't allowed to name. Home didn't even feel familiar anymore. It felt as if he'd stepped out of reality into the pages of a fantasy. Nothing real could be as peaceful as Mahoney's Bar on a Wednesday night.

  It offended him.

  But Kara's death had been the last straw. Especially since she was there only by accident. She was a United Nations health worker from Amsterdam who'd been sentenced to die by the repressive regime for the crime of wearing a cross around her neck. She'd escaped and had been taken in by insurgents.

  Joe and his unit had found her hiding in a cave with some friendlies. They'd planned to take her out after they finished their operation, but instead they had carried out her body. And Joe, recuperating from a wound of his own, had accompanied her remains home to Amsterdam.

  It was enough. It was more than enough. He was done, finished, fed up, worn-out, and dead inside. It was one thing when he and his buddies risked their nocks; hell, they'd volunteered for the job. It was another when innocent civilians died. He'd seen too much of that, and Kara, lovely sweet Kara who had glowed with life even in a cave where she had almost nothing to eat, was the final straw.

  He looked down at the whiskey glass between his hands and almost sneered. It was a picture out of a bad movie, he thought: marine in rumpled uniform drowning his sorrows in a dark bar. The amber liquid at the bottom of the glass didn't hold any answers, and as an anesthetic it didn't come close to silencing the empty gnawing inside him. All it did was sting on the way down and remind him that he was still alive.

  He didn't think he wanted to be dead. He just didn't know how to get through this. How to handle this. That was something they hadn't covered in training. Paris Island didn't prepare anybody for this.

  He looked at his hands, splaying his fingers, wondering why they looked like ordinary human hands. These were killer's hands. They looked strange, though, because for the first time in months they were free of grime. He wished the memory of that place would wash away as easily.

  He wished he didn't have to go back.

  "You're out of uniform, Marine."

  The female voice was smoky, something out of a man's most wistful dreams. It didn't seem to go with the words it spoke, though. Unfortunately, Joe wasn't drunk enough to ignore them. A spike of anger jabbed him. "Get lost."

  "Look at me, Marine."

  So he looked. It was probably a measure of the amount of alcohol he'd consumed that he noticed first that she was beautiful. Beautiful in a quiet way, with short dark hair, a neat figure and the tiniest waist. Legs... He wished he could see them better.

  But then he registered her uniform and her rank. And the name on the badge over her breast. Gunnery Sergeant Mathison. Well, hell, wasn't it just his luck to run into another marine a thousand miles from the nearest water? And a nipped-and-tucked one, too. She couldn't have been any neater if she'd stepped off a recruiting poster.

  "Go away," he said, even though she outranked him. Hell, she wasn't in his chain of command, anyway.

  "No. I won't have you embarrassing the Corps in public like this."

  He pushed back his stool and stood, facing off with her. "You wanna fight, Gunny? 'Cause I'm a damn good fighter. Had plenty of practice the last few months."

  Her eyes narrowed, and he found himself wishing, oddly enough, that he could tell what color they were. But the bar was too dimly lit. At least they weren't blue like Kara's.

  "Hey," said Mahoney, coining up behind him. "Joey, cool it. I don't want a couple of jarheads tearing up my place. Take it outside if you wanna fight."

  The gunny spoke. "I don't fight with drunks, Mr. Mahoney. It's too easy."

  Oh, a spitfire. Joe had no doubt he could show her a thing or two. Or three, but he wasn't going to do it here. And come to think of it, he wasn't going to fight, either. Certainly not with a woman. Anyway, he was sick of fighting. Turning, he tossed some bills on the bar to cover his tab. "I'm outta here."

  He should have guessed she would follow him. He should have known she wasn't going to have the sense to let it lie. Hell, no, she was a marine, and a marine never backed down. Except that he had, in a way, so why the hell didn't she get the message?

  Out on the street, he saw the night was cool and a bit misty, unusual for an ordinarily dry cl
imate. Fog seemed to swirl around the streetlights, creating a fuzziness that added to Joe's sense of unreality. He turned, prepared to ignore the woman who was on his heels, and walk back to the Lazy Rest Motel, where he seemed to recall having booked a room by phone before leaving the airport and catching the bus down here.

  But Her Mightiness, guardian of the Corps' proper public appearance, wasn't prepared to let him go.

  "You know," she said, catching up with him, "if you want to slop around, you could wear civvies."

  "True," he agreed, wishing he could just bat her away like an irritating fly.

  "In the meantime," she said sharply, "straighten yourself up, Marine."

  That was one time too many. The volcano that had apparently been building in the vicinity of the empty hole inside him suddenly erupted.

  "Look," he said, rounding on her, "I don't give a damn who you are or what your beef is. If you want to worry about creases and starch, pay attention to your own. But get the hell off my case!"

  Even in the dim, fog-dampened light from the streetlamps, he could see the fire in her eyes. Well, of course, she was a marine.

  "The way you wear your uniform represents me," she said.

  Amazingly, she didn't say it hotly, as he anticipated, but rather calmly, almost as if commenting on the weather. The change in tack surprised him, and he found himself looking even more closely at her. "Who are you?" he asked.

  "Gunnery Sergeant Bethany Mathison," she answered. "I'm the recruiter here."

  The light went on. A drunken marine, in rumpled uniform, wasn't exactly an invitation to join the Corps. Although, at the moment, he'd have told anyone who was even considering the idea of enlisting to run, not walk, in the other direction as fast as their legs could carry them.

  But he figured if he said so, she'd either try to knock his block off, or she'd write him up. He didn't feel like fighting with anyone anymore, and as for getting written up—well, it didn't scare him, but who needed the hassle?

  And finally he realized that he wasn't making sense, even to himself. His thoughts were all over the place, as were such feelings as he was capable of having. It was as if he were casting around for something he could fixate on so he could ignore the emptiness inside. As if his thoughts were splintered and he couldn't gather them together.

  Facing his own irrationality was uncomfortable. With a muffled oath, he started buttoning his shirt, straightening his tie and buttoning his coat. It wasn't as if anyone was likely to see him at this hour, in the dark, but what the hell. Why make this woman miserable just because he was?

  "Thank you," she said.

  "You're welcome, Gunny." He couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Then, with a smart click of his polished heels, he turned away, heading toward the motel.

  "Where are you going, Sergeant?" she called after him.

  "To the motel."

  "Wait. I'll drive you."

  The urge to tell her which plank to walk off grew in him again, but he battled it down. What was with this woman? Why couldn't she just leave him alone? All he wanted was to be left alone.

  "Thanks," he managed to say shortly, "but I can walk."

  "I'm sure you can," she answered. "But you don't have to."

  "What's with you?" he demanded, turning to her again. "Just get out of my face."

  She didn't even flinch, just looked him straight in the eye. A good marine, he found himself thinking irrelevantly. She wasn't at all bothered by the fact that he was eight inches taller and eighty pounds heavier.

  Then she utterly astonished him. "I'm being a good buddy," she said. "A good buddy gives a fellow marine a ride home."

  "The walk will clear my head," he grumped, although a clear head was the last thing he wanted.

  "Fine. I'll walk with you."

  He didn't have an idea in hell what this woman was doing wandering the streets of Conard City at eleven at night in full uniform when she should have been home watching TV or something. Or why she seemed to have walked in on him at Mahoney's as if she were on a mission.

  Nor did he care. But even in his whiskey-fogged state, he knew that if she walked with him to the motel, she was going to have to walk back alone, past the railroad tracks and stockyard, through the worst part of town.

  The fact that she was probably as capable of de-fending herself as any other marine didn't make any difference. He couldn't allow that.

  "Where the hell is your car?" he growled.

  She cocked her head to the right. "Just over there."

  He followed her, telling himself that this was the easiest and quickest way to get rid of her. She'd dump him at the motel, and that would be that. And man, didn't those hips of hers have a nice bit of sway to them?

  He yanked his eyes away from her nether regions and forced himself to focus on the back of her head. In his present state, he wasn't sure he could trust himself.

  In fact, he knew damn well he couldn't. He'd been living a barbarian existence for too long to slip easily back into the constraints of civilization.

  She drove a small, economical car, and he had to squeeze his large frame into the passenger seat. In the confined space, he could suddenly smell the alcohol on his breath. He reeked. And he wasn't proud of it.

  She started the car and pulled away from the curb. "You're staying at the Lazy Rest?"

  As if there was another motel in this two-bit, godforsaken ink spot on the map. "Yeah." He felt her glance at him, but he refused to look back. He didn't want to think about anything except the way the beams of the headlights looked on the road. Or the way the stockyards looked ghostly and dark, a frozen tableau.

  Anything but faces. He didn't want to see faces anymore. Seeing faces meant you got to know people. And then you got to see their faces when they died.

  It was a relief when she pulled up in front of the motel at last. Saying nothing except thanks, he climbed out and headed for his room.

  And never once did he look at her face again.

  Gunnery Sergeant Bethany Mathison drove away from the Lazy Rest Motel torn between conflicting feelings. On the one hand, she'd felt bound to step in because the Yates guy had been creating a bad impression for the Corps, and given that there weren't a whole lot of examples to be had in this small town, she felt she had an obligation to uphold the best image of the marines.

  On the other hand, what she had seen in the guy's eyes had spoken volumes to her. It had touched a carefully buried place deep within herself. It had reminded her of things better forgotten.

  And she didn't like that.

  She probably shouldn't have intervened at all. It had been unfortunate that she'd missed dinner getting ready for her evening presentation at the high school, and even more unfortunate that it had run on so late because students had wanted to talk to her afterward. She had decided to stop by Mahoney's and get a sandwich to take home with her after the last, lingering student—a young woman who saw becoming a marine as a gateway to adventures she would never find in this ranching community—had departed.

  It had been unfortunate that she had ran into Sergeant Yates. Another time she might just have ignored him. But after spending five hours talking proudly about the Corps, and about marine life, all the while walking a tightrope so as not to blind the students to reality by giving them stars in their eyes, she was exhausted and somewhat irritable.

  And then she had walked into Mahoney's and seen the worst stereotype of a marine.

  Damn. She shook her head at her own behavior and turned the corner toward the snug little house that she was renting. The Corps was serious about wanting "a few good men" and women. They wanted the pick of the litter, the few who really had what it took to be a marine. Consequently she had to always be on guard against signing up young people who didn't have what it took, or who had mistaken ideas about what was involved. At the same time, she was being measured by her recruitment numbers. She wouldn't last long if she recruited too many people who couldn't make it through boot camp, but
she wouldn't last long, either, if she failed to sign enough recruits.

  Anyway, she'd walked into Mahoney's and seen Yates looking like every mother's worst nightmare, and she'd snapped at him.

  Dumb. Especially after looking into his eyes. She'd seen that thousand-yard stare too many times in guys fresh out of combat. She should have just left him alone.

  She certainly wished she had when he'd buttoned his tunic and she'd seen the purple heart with cluster, not to mention the other medals. He'd been wounded twice. Twice! And she'd called him on his uniform.

  Right now she felt about two inches tall.

  And she hoped she never set eyes on him again.

  Chapter 2

  Morning came too soon. It always did. Joe sat up on the edge of his bed, robbing his eyes, trying to ignore the hammer and chisel that were working on his brain.

  Night was his friend. Night was the best time to move safely through enemy territory. He'd gotten so used to living the life of a cave bat that morning seemed like an offense.

  Especially when it revealed that he really was in a fantasy world of clean sheets, running water, and hot food right across the street.

  There was even a coffeepot on the bathroom counter, with a packet of coffee beside it and two mugs. He could just walk in there and make a fresh pot of drip-brewed. No grounds in it, sitting at the bottom of a tin pot. He could drink it in comfort, leaning back against pillows instead of sitting on a hard boulder, or cross-legged on the ground.

  It still didn't feel real.

  He took a shower first. If that hot water wasn't real, he didn't want to know it. Head bowed, he stood under the pounding spray and soaked up the heat, feeling muscles let go as they hadn't been able to let go in many months now. Feeling tension seep out of him and run down the drain with the water. The scar on his arm was healing nicely, little more than a bullet nick. The other scars, more serious, were old enough now that he didn't think about them anymore.

  Under the stinging spray, he worked his arm so the scar tissue wouldn't tighten up, and tried not to think about anything at all. A blank mind was a man's best friend.