What Part of Marine Don't You Understand? (The Challenge Series) (3 page)

Brent chuckled. “Just not in Dr. Seuss rhymes? One Marine, Two Marine, Red Marine, Blue Marine was enough.”

“That will teach you to fail to read what I send you before you walk into a meeting.” She’d almost forgotten she’d done that when she’d gone with their father to tour the Green Zone in Baghdad. “But I promise, I will not plagiarize Dr. Seuss this time.” Not when she could use rhyming meter from another century.

“Uh huh. Thanks for doing this, kiddo.”

“Anytime, Mr. Congressman. Now go earn a paycheck, us little people have real work to do.” He laughed and said goodbye. Accessing the Wi-Fi, she started her search for the
1Night Stand
service.

Who knew such a thing existed
?

Chapter Three

Matt ran the trail with Jethro bounding along next to him. In the previous two weeks, he felt like he’d made more progress than in the whole two years he’d bounced in and out of Mike’s Place. He didn’t break into the long mile runs he indulged in against advice during his first stay, but followed orders to manage a steady pace. At the mile marker, he slowed to a walk. Gulping oxygen, he walked off the burn. The nausea in his stomach ebbed. Breathing exercises helped, but nothing replaced the heat of feeling his muscles flex. He missed workouts that pushed him to his limit.

The therapist insisted on a walk-run-walk regimen. Impatience curled through him, but he fought the urge to ignore her and run again. Retired sergeant Candy Jefferson might look like someone’s grandmother, but she cowed the most belligerent of her patients with a stern eye. He didn’t feel like testing her to see if she could back up her attitude.

She probably could.

“Hey, man,” Damon rounded the curve ahead of him, walking in the opposite direction. Sweat soaked through his gray-green sweatshirt.

“Hey. I thought you were in Los Angeles.” He and his girlfriend were a firm item, though rumor had it Damon had asked her to marry him and she’d said no.

Twice.

That had to sting.

“Next week. Helena’s court case moved up the docket. So she’ll be tied up for the next couple of days.” Damon pivoted, falling into step with him. “You want to get a beer tonight?”

It sounded good, but that meant hitting a bar. He wanted to avoid those triggers, particularly since he’d been doing so well. “I’m good. Maybe we can hang out when you get back later? Catch a game here?”

“Sure.” Restaurant owner, chef, Marine and regular volunteer at Mike’s Place, Damon was also one of his best buds. “You okay?”

Matt winced at the absolute caution hovering in the question. Tired of being the quirky, difficult friend, he needed to get his shit together.
You can’t get upset at the questions. They ask them because they care
. The mantra helped, but only a little.

“I’m actually pretty good.”
Discuss your healing process. It’s natural and nothing to feel ashamed of
. “Up to a full mile on the run, getting out more because I’m not holing up in the apartment when I can be outdoors. Still not so good with large crowds of people.”

He waited for awkward discomfort to stilt the conversation.

“Cool.” Damon rolled his head from side to side and extended his arm behind his head, gripping the elbow for another stretch. “Glad to hear it. If crowds are the issue, how about I swing by with a six-pack this weekend and we just watch the game?”

The knot of tension in his shoulder blades loosened. “Sounds good.”

“I gotta jet. I’m on opening today and I want to get the kitchen set up.” Damon gripped Matt’s shoulder. “Keep fighting the fight, man. We got your back.” He gave Jethro a pat and turned to jog toward the parking lots.

The easy acceptance stunned him, a solid kick in the ass to his confidence. “That wasn’t so bad.” He glanced down at the Labrador and laughed at the dog’s tongue-lolling grin. “Not bad at all.”

***

“So what makes this week so different?” Doc sat forward, his notepad resting untouched on the thick, upholstered arm of the chair. Their once weekly sessions had turned daily for the past three weeks.

“I’m actually looking forward to our sessions.” He counted them off on his fingers. “I’m sleeping better. I’m running again. My balance is improving—it’s not perfect. It may never be perfect and….” He hesitated, uncertain of how to phrase it. “And I’m okay with that.”

“That’s better than okay. That’s great.” Encouragement and acceptance were readily available in James’ office. “How about crowds? How are you doing getting off campus?”

He grimaced. “Still not my favorite thing. But…I hung out around one of the tour groups yesterday. You know the ones Rebecca is bringing in as part of the fundraising? About a dozen people, lots of noisy shoes.” He’d sweat right through shirt and thought his heart would explode in his chest, but he didn’t lose it and when it was over, he experienced relief and something more.

Satisfaction.

“I’m familiar. She’s doing some excellent work getting the message out there. We’ve had several inquiries about openings over the last few weeks. How did you feel about the tour?”

“It was a tour, bunch of people listening so they weren’t that noisy. You know the crazy thing is, Jethro helps.” The dog always seemed to know when he was about to have a nutty and distracted him. It helped that he genuinely liked Jethro, an uncomplicated companion whose only demands included taking him for regular walks and scratching between his ears.

“How did you feel about it?” Apparently he wouldn’t let Matt evade a direct response.

“I didn’t like it. I kept hearing boots on the ground running, but I didn’t—I didn’t taste it in my mouth as much. Bitter, but not sickening. It seemed easier to remind myself it wasn’t real.”

James nodded slowly. “Tell me what happened in Iraq.”

“Again?” Didn't James ever get tired of asking the same questions over and over?

“Yes, again. It will get easier.”

“Soon?” Or was that too much to ask?

“Eventually.” James didn’t sugar coat it and as unwelcome as the news might be, Matt preferred the truth.

Acrid bile coated his throat and Matt swallowed. “It was the middle of the night and I was in my bunk….”

Naomi chewed the end of the pencil and stared at the blank sheet music in front of her. Her producer had called three times that week and she abandoned the cell phone in her borrowed apartment to escape outside with her guitar and her thoughts. None of the songs he sent her were right. Phil accused her of being a diva, and he might be right, but she wanted her debut album to be special—the first songs anyone would hear and they would either discover her or change the station.

Not that people really seemed to listen to radio stations anymore, but they did have Pandora and Spotify and a number of other ways to get music. Her chances of getting attention without a truly outstanding track were slim to none. She would rather miss her studio time entirely than record some half-assed piece of music that sounded like everything else out there.

Doing it well meant doing it right. She didn’t need to wait around for inspiration. Mike’s Place overflowed with powerful, compelling stories beckoning to be told. Sliding the pencil behind her ear, she unlocked the guitar case and set the Gibson in her lap. It took only a few moments to tune it. Stroking her fingertips across the chords, she concentrated on emptying her mind and played.

The music came slowly and she relaxed into it. The sun warmed her face and a light breeze tugged at her hair. Losing herself in the moment was a skill perfected over a lifetime of moves from Marine base to Marine base across the country and around the world. Being alone in her own head provided the sanity check frequent relocations and new situations demanded.

Maybe that’s why she liked Mike’s Place so much—it reminded her of all the bases she’d grown up on, but without reveille and troops of men working out.

Although there is definitely something to be said about a unit working out
…. Humor flooded through her. Her father caught her staring at a particularly green batch doing pushups one day and forbade her to go anywhere near the training fields after that. He didn’t buy that her very healthy interest in members of the opposite sex was natural or that having four older brothers discouraged potential suitors.

The music changed with her mood and took on an upbeat, almost folksy quality and she giggled. Four older brothers had been bad enough, four older Marines made it that much worse. She hadn’t gone on a real date—one that hadn’t included an older brother lurking somewhere in the vicinity—until college. She majored in music and minored in psychology. Somewhere along the way, she dropped the psych and focused on music full time.

Slowing the tempo, she found a particular chord she liked and repeated it three or four times before she wrote it down. The song crystallized and she paused to title the music sheet.

Growing Up Marine

Perfect.

It took another hour to work out all the notes, bridges, and changes. But she had her first song. She’d just shaded in the last note when the sound of a clearing throat interrupted her. A man stood in the shade a few feet away, a beautiful black Labrador sitting patiently at his side.

Oh, God. How long have they been there
?

Undeterred, she grinned. “Hello.”

“Good morning.” Blond hair, high and tight, broad shoulders stretching his Marine green shirt, and dark sweatpants hiding his legs—yeah, everything about him said
Marine
—including the perfect posture despite the respectable tree he could be leaning against. “Sorry for the intrusion.”

“I’m sitting in the middle of a park, basically next to a running trail. Not the best place for privacy if that’s what I was looking for.” She set the guitar aside and rose up on her knees. “Hello, puppy, are you friendly?”

The man chuckled. “He’s very friendly. Go on, Jethro, go say hello.”

The Labrador bounded over. His sun-warmed coat was soft beneath her fingers, and he bestowed a slurping kiss on her cheek before returning to his owner.

“What a great name for a dog—tell me you named him after Mark Harmon’s character—please….”

“Sorry ma’am, wish that I could. But he already had his name when I got him.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave her an apologetic smile. “You’re new here?”

“Well, yes and no. I’m spending a few weeks here as a favor to my brother and—for inspiration.” And maybe, just maybe, that crazy service will come through.

“Inspiration?” He nodded to her guitar.

“Guilty.” Rising, she dusted the grass off of her jeans. Her legs protested after languishing cross-wise for the last little while, but she ignored the pins and needles. “I’m recording an album in a few weeks and I’m putting together a song list.”

“Never really thought about the people who write music—just thought—well—I guess I don’t know what I thought.” A smile warmed his faint grimace. “Sorry.”

“I never knew people wrote them either. I remember listening to all these great songs on the radio when I was a kid and thinking I want to sing like they do. So I would buy their tapes and CDs and practice. I really liked the ones that came with the lyrics. Then I could see the words and sing along. I think I memorized every one and then sometime around third or fourth grade, I’m at this school in Germany, and the teacher told me if I liked music so much I should write my own. I stared at her and was like, ‘you can write music?’”

Laughing, Naomi threw her hands up. “She goes off on this German diatribe and then says, ‘where do you think music comes from silly girl?’ and I have no idea where it would have come from, but after that I wanted to write my own. Drove my father nuts until he agreed to lessons and well—now here I am.”
Babbling like an absolute idiot and this man has a deer in the headlights look. Shut. Up. But, he really has the prettiest blue eyes.

“Is it hard?”

She drew a blank. “Is what hard?”

“Writing music?” He unclipped the dog’s leash and strung it around his neck. Picking up a stick, he threw it and the dog streaked after it.

“Yes. And no. It’s hard to get the notes on the paper the way I hear it in my head. Sometimes I just have to escape away from all distractions, and play until I hear it so clearly I can write it down.”
Wow, you just can’t shut up, can you
? Chewing her lip, she scuffed a shoe against the grass. Jethro trotted over with his stick and presented it proudly. The man took it and threw it again.

“Well, if it helps, I liked what you were playing. It was—nice.”

“Thank you. I’m Naomi Sparks by the way….” She took a couple of steps forward and held out her hand.

He stared at her for a long moment before taking it in his warm, callused, strong grip—and her insides did a little shimmy.

“Matt McCall.”

Chapter Four

Matt opened the cabinet and his gaze landed on the locked gun case. Nudging it to the side, he reached behind it for the power strip. After rewiring the television and sound system, he still had to relocate his laptop’s power strip for the job. It took a while to remember if he had a second one and where he stored it. Locking the cabinet and pocketing the keys, he looked around the apartment. Jethro watched him from his claimed corner of the new sofa.

The furniture had trickled in over the last several days. He’d talked to Lauren and James about wanting to make the apartment feel like more than a bunk, so Lauren went shopping. He wasn’t sure about the lamps or why she ordered different shades than the ones they came with, but he followed her orders to exchange them when they arrived.

The fifty-five inch flat screen he’d picked out for himself. Grabbing the laptop off the table, he set everything up on the coffee table. Grabbing a cup of coffee from the kitchen, he carried it to the sofa and turned the game on. The dog yawned, bored with his fussing and curled up to sleep. Grinning, Matt powered up the computer. He hadn’t turned it on in so long, the battery had died.