Once a Warrior by Fran Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

original lean, mean fighting machine.”  She lingered bitterly over the last word.
    Mike cocked his head in curiosity. “How’d you get to the church?”
    “I shared a cab with Kitty because I ran out of gas coupons for my car, and now I’m out of money.”
    “War’s hell on the homefront,” he said dryly.
    “Isn’t it, though.”  Reaching up, she ran a scarlet-tipped fingernail over the crossed brass branch insignia on his uniform lapels. “I like your guns.”
    “Cannons.”
    Her green eyes arrowed into his. “They look dangerous.”
    “They are.”  Mike had made enough passes, both on and off the football field, to know when he was on the receiving end of one.
    “I live at Thirty-third and the Paseo.”  She hadn’t buttoned her coat, and the January wind played peek-a-boo with the hem of her short, swingy dress.
    His conscience raised a ruckus as his gaze moved down to her shapely legs. “That’s a long way to walk.”
    “Alone,” she added meaningfully, her expression softening when his eyes met hers again. “At least until Kitty gets back next week.”
    “I leave tomorrow morning.”  As if he needed another reminder that time was at a premium, the bell in the church tower chimed the noon Angelus.
    “Have you ever pulled down your blackout shades in the middle of the day?”  Her glossy lips parted in a wide, wicked grin. “I do it when I take a nap and it makes the room dark as night.”
    Damning the consequences, he unlocked the passenger door and opened it for her. “Ready?”
    “Willing and able, too,” the redhead parried silkily as she slid into the car.
    The seductive way she crossed her legs, flashing him just a glimpse of smooth white thigh where the tops of her stockings met the tips of her garters, told Mike that he was probably in for the ride of his life. He should have been rarin’ to go; instead, he found he was dragging his feet as he cut around to the driver’s side. And when she reached over to unlock his door with her ring hand, he couldn’t help but think that whoever said “All’s fair in love and war” must’ve had heels like himself in mind.
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Spinnazola, Italy
     
    “ My darling Kitty: I got your letter yesterday. My new birthday picture of you, too. To answer your question—again—no, you don’t look fat and ugly. You look six gorgeous months pregnant. I only wish I were there to rub your back and your feet when they ache. Or to hold you on my lap, with your head on my shoulder and my hand on your belly, feeling our baby move inside you . . .”
    John Brown took a drag on his cigarette and studied his wife’s latest picture, which he’d propped up against the wall in front of him. Last month, while on “stand-down” due to bad flying weather, the officers in his squadron had contracted with a builder in the nearby town of Altamura to replace their pyramidal tents with small houses made of white tufa block and tile roofs. A reporter from Stars and Stripes had dubbed it “Bomber City.”
    His crew had moved into their new quarters on April Fool’s Day. So for a couple of weeks now he’d had cement walls instead of canvas. Better yet, he was no longer tripping over five other men and their stuff all the time because he had a small single room with a door he could close when he wanted some privacy and a window he could open to let in fresh air.
    There wasn’t much space for anything besides a clothesline and the cot he was sitting on the edge of, but he’d scrounged up a couple of spare cement blocks and cut down a piece of raw lumber to make himself a crude writing desk. He kept Kitty’s letters with the Air Medal he’d earned after five missions in a locked metal box but had left her pictures out, lined up against the wall. That made them the last thing he saw every night before he turned out the lights.
    “ I really like your new hairdo. Makes you look like Gene Tierney in Heaven Can Wait —only prettier. Now I