Rogenna Brewer - Mitzi's Marine

Mitzi handed him and his brother a can of soda, presumably to cool them off. Bruce popped the top. “What’s this I hear about you needing a tutor?”

“So you’re just going to change the subject?” Keith accused, tapping his can before opening it.

“Skinny, dark-haired girl. Lives around the corner from us.” Bruce held his ground.

His brother wavered under his steady scrutiny. “Kelly Casey. I help her with math, she helps me with Spanish.”

“Since when do you need help with Spanish?”

With Bruce on the offense, Keith became defensive. “Since…whenever.”

“Mom mentioned your grades were slipping.”

“One lousy B on a calculus test.”

More than one, according to their mother. “You’re better than that,” Bruce said. “And by the way, Heather stopped by today.”

“So?” Keith took a big gulp of pop and hid whatever it was he felt for Heather behind a shrug.

Was Heather the reason for Keith’s general lack of interest in continuing education? Did he think he was going to marry her? Live happily ever after?

Bruce glanced over at Mitzi, involved in discussion with her DEPers. It looked as if they were getting ready for physical training. She’d changed into gray sweatpants. Dark blue letters spelled out Navy down one leg. She wore a snug gray T-shirt that showed off the athletic lines of her body from her slender neck to her slim wrists.

He could circle those wrists with one hand. Band them like steel. Hold them above her head. Kiss all the hollows of her neck. She’d put up a fight at first because she hated giving up control.

She glanced back, caught him drooling over her breasts and signaled her displeasure with the tilt of her chin. Then she gathered her crew and headed outside.

Bruce watched her all the way out the door. His self-imposed abstinence had gone on too long. Eighteen months too long. He hadn’t gone that long since… He’d never gone that long.

Did Estrada know the secrets to her surrender?

Would the schoolteacher be the one snuggling up next to her for the rest of his life? Bruce could have had that lifetime commitment. Before his injury it had seemed that clear. After, all muddled.

But no one married their high school sweetheart.

Least of all a Marine.

“Girls can cloud a guy’s judgment,” he continued. “Maybe you and Heather should think about taking a break for a while. At least until after graduation.” He knew firsthand that break meant break up. “And I don’t want your girlfriend and her friends hanging around the office anymore, either.”

“Heather’s not my girlfriend,” Keith said. “We haven’t dated since eighth grade.”

Eighth grade? The kid was dating in eighth grade?

Bruce hadn’t started dating until… Okay, Mitzi had been in ninth grade, but he’d been in eleventh—a junior. It took a lot of restraint for a guy to wait that long for a girl. The wait had been worth it, though.

Definitely worth it at the time.

“She was wearing your jacket,” Bruce pointed out. He didn’t know what they called it these days—dating, not dating, hooking up. But back in his day, a guy gave up his letterman jacket for only one of two reasons. He was getting laid. Or he wanted to get laid. “Are you sleeping with Heather? And her friend? Because that’s just asking for trouble.”

Keith pushed to his feet again, fists balled. “What business is it of yours anyway?”

Bruce was back on his feet, too. “You damn well better be using a condom. Every time,” he warned. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t screw it up!”

Keith snatched his backpack. “Who are you to give me relationship advice? Your fiancée is dating my coach!” He took an envelope out of his backpack and placed it on Mitzi’s desk. “Invitation to Career Day. You don’t get one.”

Bruce picked up Keith’s forgotten basketball from under the chair. He called to his brother just as Keith reached the door. “Hey!”

Keith caught it in one Calhoun-sized hand. If Bruce had anything to say about it, his brother would play college ball.

Heather walked in carrying Keith’s letterman jacket.

She waved to Bruce. “Hiya.”

Bruce offered a halfhearted wave.

To Keith she said, “You left your jacket at Kelly’s again.” Not so sweetly.

“I told you, I gave it to her. Hers got stolen at band practice. She doesn’t have the money to buy a new one. And it’s starting to get cold.”

Heather rolled her pretty brown eyes. “I’ll find her a hoodie or something of mine to wear.” She parted with Keith’s jacket grudgingly. She might not want the other girl to have it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want it for herself. “Kelly can’t meet up with you on Saturday. She volunteered to pass out books at the VA hospital again. I don’t see how being a candy stripper is supposed to make her a better doctor.”

Had Heather just said candy stripper?

Not the brightest bulb in the box. Not the dimmest, either. Her comment seemed calculated.

“Actually,” Bruce couldn’t help but point out, “volunteering is a good way to see if you’re cut out for something.” To Keith he said, “I’m going to start putting my DEPers through their paces next week.” Did he even have any DEPers?

Keith accepted the challenge. “I’ll be there.”

“BE WHERE?” Mitzi asked, coming in on the tail end of their conversation. Keith and Heather were already on their way out the door.

“Do I have any DEPers?” Bruce asked.

“Don’t think so.” She twisted the cap off her water bottle. “All your kids were absorbed into other stations when the last recruiter left several months ago.”

He sized up the kids lined up at the minifridge. “Mind if I borrow a couple of yours?”

“Knock yourself out.” Sipping water, Mitzi looked fresh as a flower. Her kids looked a lot more wilted.

“How far did you run them?” He started unbuttoning his uniform shirt. His hands stalled in the process. Was she checking him out?

More likely inventorying his body parts.

“’Bout a mile.”

He looked over at the kids in question.

“A twelve-minute mile,” she said defensively. “I’m not trying to kill them before they get to boot camp.”

Slow. Even for a Navy mile.

The average recruit didn’t have to run much faster than that. And he’d never met anyone who could outrun a bullet.

“How many Navy SEAL recruits?” he asked the kids directly. Two of the boys raised their hands. Both looked reasonably fit. “A ten-or twelve-minute mile isn’t going to cut it. SEALs have a sixty percent attrition rate. Think you could run another couple miles for me today?”

Both boys nodded eagerly.

“Any hospital corpsmen?” he asked, looking to the third guy in the group. These were just a couple Navy rates he knew that were the most likely to see some action with their Marine brethren. The kid avoided eye contact.

The girl raised her hand. Chances were she wasn’t going to be assigned to a Marine Corps combat unit. Then again, she might. The days of G.I. Jane were here.

Both the Army and the Marine Corps were finding ways around the “noncombatant” rules for women.

Case in point, Mitzi. A five-foot-nothing Navy rescue swimmer who could haul his six-foot-plus ass out of the water.

He nodded the girl toward the SEAL twins. She beamed at him as she followed the boys outside.

“What’s your rate? Navy job,” he clarified for the kid, who looked as if he’d sat on the sidelines most of his life.

A gamer? A little chunky. A little nerdy.

The glasses didn’t help. And he’d probably gotten in under a weight waiver—which meant he would have to lose a few pounds before he shipped out anyway. But Bruce wasn’t going to embarrass the kid by saying so. He’d just work it off him.