Rogenna Brewer - Mitzi's Marine

Their gazes collided across space and time. At seventeen Bruce had been her whole world. He’d broken her heart then and he’d broken it again later. Both times because he’d chosen the Marine Corps over her.

“No,” he denied, taking the stapler from her. The brush of his hand took Mitzi by surprise. Every scarred knuckle, every callus on his palm was as familiar to her as the memory of his touch.

“Me either,” she lied. Heaven help her, she wasn’t seventeen anymore and it was hard for her to resist.

But resist him she would.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes a story starts with a spark and other times it takes several sparks to set off that explosion, as was the case with Gunnery Sgt. Bruce Calhoun, USMC. June 20, 2003, marked the beginning of a year-long trial in which eighty-one Marines and five Navy hospital corpsman began training to integrate into Navy SEAL teams. Also, the wounded started coming home from war and amputees returning to duty were making headlines. In those cumulating events I discovered my hero.

I chose the city of Englewood in the shadow of Denver, Colorado, for its small-town feel. The VA hospital mentioned in this story is fictional—the real one is in Denver.

That detail isn’t the only blurring of reality and fiction. The Englewood Navy Recruiting Station, where I enlisted and worked as a receptionist before shipping off to boot camp, no longer exists. Including a JROTC program as part of the high school curriculum was a stretch because Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps is offered in Denver schools. I made the compromise because JROTC was an important part of my formative years.

I wanted to give my Marine a nice, cushy desk job in a state with a small Marine contingent so making him a recruiter seemed like a good option. Cushy being tongue-in-cheek as the job of a recruiter is not an easy one.

As for his heroine, Navy recruiter, Chief Petty Officer Mitzi Zahn, I didn’t have to look farther than a margin note in a previous manuscript by my editor, Victoria Curran. She wanted to know more about the high school sweetheart who ran from his hospital room. The idea intrigued and as I wrote, I discovered exactly what these two characters were running from—and toward. I hope you enjoy their journey.

You can contact me via my website www.rogennabrewer.com.

Rogenna Brewer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When an aptitude test labeled her suited for librarian or clergy, Rogenna attempted to shake that good-girl image by joining the U.S. Navy. Ever the rebel, she landed in the chaplain’s office, where her duties included operating the base library. Far from being bored, our romantic adventurer served Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps personnel as a chaplain’s yeoman in such exotic locales as Midway Island and the Pentagon. But even before she shipped off to boot camp, Rogenna worked as a receptionist for the now defunct recruiting station re-created, and somewhat embellished, for this story.

For my recruiter, Petty Officer George Sandoval,

Station manager Master Chief Bill Moore

and

Davis Faunce, ENC (Ret)

Because he kept the engraved pen I gave him as I

was leaving for boot camp, then sent it back to me

all these years later for an autograph.

Thanks, Chief, for your quick quips and

answers to my questions.

A special thanks to Annette and her

Marine recruiter husband, Charles, who probably

doesn’t remember answering my many

questions all those years ago.

Any mistakes I’ve made or liberties I’ve taken

are my own.

To reconnect with shipmates, I look for them

online at

Togetherweserved.com.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHIEF PETTY OFFICER Mitzi Zahn entered the storefront Navy/Marine Corps recruiting station. Navy to the left. Marine Corps to the right. The path up the middle was known as the DMZ, demilitarized zone. Potential recruits stepping onto that worn patch of blue carpet were fair game.

For the past several months Mitzi had had the hunting grounds to herself. Which was why the jarhead standing beside her desk, holding the only framed photo to be found there, made her natural territorial instincts kick in.

Letting the heavy glass door swing shut on the sounds of the midweek morning rush, Mitzi cleared her throat. “You must be the new Marine.”

Leatherneck looked up, unapologetic.

She couldn’t help it—she shivered. Penetrating green eyes, eyes she knew to be hazel when he wasn’t decked out in that belted olive drab uniform, gave her service khaki blouse and pants the once-over.

“Mitzi,” he said in a timbre that penetrated even deeper than those eyes.

“Calhoun.” She caught her breath as she said his name for the first time in over a year—months of devastating loss from which she was just beginning to recover.

“Have I changed that much?” he asked.

She glanced at the photo in his hand and shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe,” she confessed, her answer running the gambit of her emotions.

Somewhere along the way the man she’d fallen in love with had become a lean, battle-hardened Marine. And even though she’d been there for most of the ten-year transformation, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time.

But he wasn’t the only one with battle scars.

“What brings you here, Calhoun?”

The obvious answer was military orders.

He’d left his garrison cap and an official-looking folder on the chair in front of her desk. He was dressed for travel in his service uniform. Sharp military creases in his pants, despite the fact that he’d probably spent hours on an airplane.

“It’s good to see you, too,” he said in that all-too-familiar tone. “Nice new uniform.”

She snatched the picture from him, then set it back down on her desk with deliberate finality. “It’s Chief Petty Officer Zahn now,” she said, stowing her hat and handbag in the bottom right-hand drawer. The move served to put her behind the gunmetal-gray desk and in the power position.

After all, they were on more than just opposite sides of a piece of government furniture. If he was the new Marine recruiter, then he was her competition.

“Chief,” he acknowledged.

Challenge resonated in that single word.

“A chief is the Navy equivalent of a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant,” she reminded him. In case he thought that extra stripe on his sleeve meant he outranked her. “Gunny.”

“For the record, Zahn, I still have date of rank on you.” He’d graduated from high school and enlisted in the Marine Corps two years before she’d joined the Navy.

He’d always been at least one pay grade ahead of her. But she’d exceeded all her recruiting quotas, and one of the perks for superior performance was advancement.

“Okay, then…” Just because they were no longer friends didn’t mean she wanted to make an enemy of him. “Now that that’s settled… Still take your coffee black?”

“Black’s fine.”

“I like cream and sugar. You’ll find the coffee mess and everything you need right over there.” She nodded in the general direction of the alcove that led to the back of the building. “Feel free to help yourself,” she said, in case her message needed a little reinforcement.