The Marine Makes His Match

For the first time she saw a small smile cross the older woman’s lips, apparently appreciating Kinsey’s willingness to conspire with her. “You do that,” the colonel said with the arch of one eyebrow.

Then, as Kinsey headed for the door after making sure the older woman didn’t need anything else, the colonel said, “Glad your other brother made it through his surgery this morning.”

“Thanks. Me, too. See you tomorrow.”

Apparently Sutter had found quite a bit to talk to Todd about because he was just closing the front door as Kinsey came from the colonel’s room. He had Jack slung under his good arm.

“Jack wanted to go home with Reggie?” Kinsey guessed as Sutter bent over to set the dog on the floor now that the opportunity to make a run for it was taken away.

“Yes. And I thought Todd might be tired of this puppy pestering his dog. I think there’s some hero worship going on there,” Sutter said. “Maybe Reggie can be his role model and Jack will work at improving himself to impress him.”

“Looked more to me like Jack was trying to corrupt Reggie, but let’s think positive,” Kinsey said.

“The colonel’s down for the count?”

“She’s in bed but not asleep if you want to say good-night, then we can do your physical therapy since we didn’t get to it earlier.”

“Yeah, we can’t skip that,” Sutter agreed with more enthusiasm than the prospect usually brought on in most of her patients. Not that that was a surprise to her—recovering meant he’d be able to return to combat, and her experience with her brothers had taught her that that was all the motivation a marine needed. “Meet you in the living room.”

Jack followed Kinsey while Sutter went to his mother’s bedroom. Once in the living room the puppy promptly leaped onto the sofa.

“Todd says you’re not supposed to do that unless you’re invited,” she whispered.

Jack wagged his tail and stayed put.

“Come on, get down,” she said before she recalled that she was to use one-word commands, and repeated only, “Down!”

Jack still didn’t budge so she picked him up and set him on the floor while saying, “Down!” again and then adding, “I bought you a reprieve from going back to the breeder, you’d better use it wisely.”

Jack wagged his tail again and she took that as encouragement. Until he jumped on the sofa again.

“Jack, down!” came Sutter’s deep voice from behind Kinsey as he joined them.

This time the puppy actually got off the couch.

When Sutter didn’t respond to that Kinsey whispered a reminder to him. “Praise...”

“Good boy!” Sutter said while Kinsey leaned over to pet the pup, too.

Then Sutter asked, “Shirt on or off?”

Oh, off, please!

He was wearing a pair of loose-fitting workout pants and a short-sleeved crew-necked gray T-shirt that could have been painted on him. It had been a terrible distraction to Kinsey all day and evening but since it didn’t create much of a barrier now it wasn’t really necessary for it to come off. Despite her every inclination to have him remove it.

Reminding herself that she wasn’t supposed to notice things like those incredible shoulders and that mile-wide chest and those muscular pecs, she resisted the urge to have the shirt disappear, and said, “I think we can work with the shirt on. Just take off the sling.” Then forcing herself into work mode, she said, “How’s everything feeling today?”

“The incision feels better with the stitches out. The shoulder and arm? Doesn’t seem possible for such a small thing but I can feel it all the way to my neck when I squeeze the ball.”

All the way to that neck that was thick but not too thick.

“But you’re able to squeeze the ball,” she pointed out. She’d watched him do it and—on top of everything else—realized that he had great hands, too. Big and strong and capable, with long fingers and thick wrists that led up to impressive forearms and those biceps...

Oh, those biceps...

Kinsey mentally took herself to task and again yanked her attention back. “Being able to squeeze a ball might seem like a small thing but it isn’t.”

And she needed to stop thinking about him squeezing more than the ball, squeezing parts of her...

Stop it right now!

“Why don’t you sit down?” she said then, deciding she needed to do her job and get out of there.

He did as he was told, sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa where Kinsey could go to work.

“Todd says there are a lot of organizations out there for vets,” Sutter said as she did an initial warm-up of his arm and shoulder. “He works for Pets for Vets, but volunteers for a couple of others and has used the services of one or two more. Apparently getting back into civilian life can have complications for servicemen who decide not to be career military—I never really thought about it since I grew up surrounded by people who were either military-for-life or civilian employees of the military. I guess I just didn’t think about anything in between.”

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