Jane's Long March Home by Susan Lute Read Free Book Online Page A

his age. Unwanted sympathy shimmied beneath the barricade she’d built around her heart.
    “Tell the lady your name,” Russell ordered softly.
    “Bobby...uh Bobby Jones.”
    Not his real name. She could guarantee it. Jane knew all the games of survival. Why didn’t Russell just call 911 and the authorities and be done with them?
    He caught her eye, reading her thoughts. Silently he taunted her to become his co-conspirator. She held back in self-preservation, unwilling to be dragged into whatever maneuvers the man had planned.
    Russell broke eye contact, resuming his interrogation. “So, why are you boys stealing food?”
    Gus shuffled his feet, grumbling his verdict in the absence of a response from Bobby. “Hooligans, that’s why they was stealing.”
    Jane sighed. A “special gift”, the nuns had called her ability to calm the new arrivals at the orphanage. It was the gift that had betrayed her.
    It wasn’t smart to lend Russell a hand with the boys, but she couldn't stop herself. Surrendering to her fate, she set her sights on the one she figured would be the most likely to spill his guts. “My name’s Jane. What’s yours?” 
    The injured boy looked to his big brother. Bobby nodded in a spare movement, as if anything they did could reveal who they were and what they were doing there.
    The little guy shifted his tired gaze to Jane. “Pete. Ow!”
    Her heart taking a hit, she removed her hands from his foot. “His ankle’s probably broken. He’ll need x-rays to be sure.”
    “We’re not going to the hospital.”
    “You have no choice. There’s nothing here on the ranch that will help us determine how badly your brother is injured.” Discouraging further discussion, Russell picked up Pete. “Jane, you ride in the backseat with Pete to keep his ankle stabilized.”
    Oh no. that’s not going to happen. She raised a brow. “It’d be better if I stayed here.”
    She’d agreed to cooperate fully with Russell, but no way was she going to reveal this early in the game, the Marine he’d decided to let stay on his ranch had more than a few skeletons of her own. One of them, an unreasonable fear of hospitals.
    He cast her a sharp look. “Move it, Marine.”
    Jane swore under her breath. The man saw way too much.
    Leaning on years of long, hard training, she pulled herself together, focusing on the children's distress. Apprehension danced on their faces, matching the emotions churning up acid in her stomach.
    “Yes, Sir,” she spat, putting the sharp snap of a silent salute into the words.
    Russell’s lips twitched. Unexpectedly she felt better.
    He carried Pete to the older model crew cab F150. Wearing a mulish look, Bobby followed close behind. “I’m going with you.”
    “Figured you would,” Russell tossed over his shoulder, luring Jane further into his trap.
    Little Pete kept his frantic gaze locked on his brother, silently begging Bobby to extract him from the clutches of these strangers. That’s when Jane’s defenses buckled. First by Russell’s compassionate handling of the boys. Where had that come from? And then, by the obvious bond between the two brothers.
    The closest thing she’d ever had to having a brother were her fellow soldiers in the Corps. Before she could do anything more to stop him, Russell had her loaded in the backseat, cradling Pete’s ankle in her lap. Bobby took shotgun.
    In the tense silence that rode with them, the Doc carefully negotiated the long drive that headed toward the nearest Emergency Room. It didn’t get past Jane that his ride was the same color as a white knight’s steed. Wasn’t it good she didn’t believe in silly fairy tales?
    His eyes met hers in the rear view mirror, then crinkled at the outer corners in approval. Jane’s breath stalled. A flush of pure awareness heated her skin.
    How the Sam Hill had she ended up here?
    Saving your career, that’s how.
    Pete winced as they hit an uneven patch of road. Tearing away from the image of Russell