A Hero to Come Home To by Marilyn Pappano Read Free Book Online Page B

Justin.”
    “He’s a good kid.”
    “Kid? You can’t be that much older.”
    She smiled. Justin was twenty-one. She was twenty-eight going on forty some days. Today, maybe going on thirty-five. “What’s that movie quote? It’s not the years, it’s the mileage?” The last twenty-five months had been like dog years: each one stretching into seven.
    But time was moving at a more normal pace now. Sometimes it dragged, sometimes it rushed past, but overall it averaged out. She could breathe. She could think. And if tomorrow wasn’t always better, well, the next day would be, or the one after that. Tuesday always rolled around, and she got to come here and to have dinner with the margarita club.
    And those two things counted for a lot.
      
     
    Dane’s first impulse was to snort. She didn’t look as if she had any mileage on her…though didn’t he know how deceiving looks could be? Most of the guys in the gym looked like they’d just started shaving a week or two ago, while a fair number of them were, in fact, learning to do it again with whatever limitations they’d acquired. Justin, at least, still had all his body parts, though his legs were held together with plates and screws. They were surrounded by amputees, burn victims, and traumatic brain injuries, and Carly Lowry seemed to have the least mileage on her of them all.
    Kids excepted, of course. He’d heard something about kids visiting but had assumed a couple, related to one of the patients. Not a whole classful. Not accompanied by a pretty teacher with auburn hair and hazel eyes and damn nice legs.
    And a wedding ring on her left hand, he reminded himself. As off-limits, even for looking, as a woman could be.
    He should get out of the gym before he noticed that her smile was sweet. Before he gave more than a second glance at her breasts. Before one of the therapists asked just how long he intended to make this break.
    Before she realized he was a patient along with all the others.
    The thought of discovery created a throb in his left leg—not the part that was there, but the rest of it. It was stupid. He couldn’t hide the prosthesis forever. People back home knew; his mother had made sure of that. All the regulars in this room knew, along with most of his buddies stationed elsewhere. News like that traveled.
    But he’d rather hide. He didn’t want sympathy or questions or concern or pity. Hell, he had more than enough pity for himself.
    Since Carly didn’t seem ready to move on, he would. He opened his mouth to say I’ve got to go , but the words that came out were totally wrong. “So you’re a teacher.” Stupid. Obvious.
    She smiled. “Third grade. The kids are big enough to be fun but not dangerous.”
    “Any of them yours?”
    The smile didn’t waver. “No. You have any?”
    “No.” How much worse would that have made finding out about Sheryl’s affairs? Wondering if his kids were really his? Believing they were, loving them, then finding out otherwise?
    Time for another subject change. “You’re not from here.”
    Her hair swayed in the clasp that loosely held it as she shook her head. “I grew up in Utah. I went to college in Colorado and came here four years ago. You’re not from here, either.”
    “Texas. A little town outside Dallas.”
    “Do you still have family there?”
    “My mother. A few aunts and uncles. Some cousins I never really knew.” His mother had been an only child, his father a surprise born twelve years after the youngest of his brothers. Anna Mae had never had much use for Bill’s family, so even though they’d all lived in the same county, Dane had rarely had contact with them. “What about your family?”
    “My mom, dad, and three brothers are all happily researching, splitting atoms, and splicing genes in Utah. They have two or three alphabets’ worth of letters after their names, and my brothers’ wives are raising five little scientists.” She shrugged, making her hair sway again. It looked