Mitzi's Marine

“Here’s a five.” Bruce shoved it at him. Kissing that six bucks goodbye, he started walking again.

“Them damn drivers don’t make change.” The old-timer kept pace with him, grumbling.

“How much to get you to stop following me?” Bruce demanded, losing all patience with the old guy.

“Depends on where you’re headed.”

“Right here. This is where I’m headed,” Bruce said, walking up to the recruiting office door with the Navy and Marine Corps logos and opening it wide.

The two-story brick-and-mortar office had received a recent face-lift. The sign above the two doors read “Armed Forces Recruiting Station.”

“Well, hell, son, that’s where I’m headed, too.” He blew past Bruce. “I asked was you Mitzi’s Marine?”

“I’m not Mitzi’s anything!” Bruce said a little too vehemently.

“MITZI!” the old-timer called out. “You here?”

“Be right out, Henry,” she answered from somewhere beyond the alcove. The bathroom? The storage room? The stairs to the second-story loft, maybe?

The Navy/Marine Corps half of the recruiting station was divided into front offices and back offices, separated by a short hallway. Alcoves built into either side of the hall were fitted with kitchen-style counters and cabinets.

With Bruce hot on his wheels, the old-timer scooted off in search of her. “Hey! You can’t go back there.”

The one-eyed wheelie scowled at him. “Says who?”

“Says me!” Bruce was about to argue further when Mitzi stepped out from the unisex bathroom in the locker area. Were those tears she was trying to hide? He felt a familiar tightness in his chest. The last time he’d seen her cry she was running from his hospital room.

“Henry Dawson Meyers,” she said, “what is that thing over your eye?”

“Found it in a Dumpster,” Henry said proudly. “Lots of good stuff left over from Halloween.”

“What have I told you about digging through Dumpsters?”

The guy had the decency to blush. Mitzi took the eye patch from him and stepped back into the open bathroom. After washing the patch with soap and water, she wiped it down with a paper towel and handed it back to Henry, who tucked the prop into his jacket pocket.

Bruce stood there shaking his head. “Ol’ Henry here has a bus to catch,” he said. He’d put the guy in a position where he’d have to leave or be caught in a lie.

“Oh? You don’t want a ride today?” Mitzi asked Henry.

“Course I do.” Henry glared at Bruce with two weathered eyes.

“I give Henry a ride to the VA hospital every Wednesday,” Mitzi explained.

“Of course you do.” First he’d been outmaneuvered by Mitzi, aka mini-Marine. Then a one-legged con man with a fake eye patch had tried to take him for a ride. Not today. “I’ll drive,” Bruce insisted.

MITZI BEGAN DIGGING through the glove compartment of his government vehicle. “What are you doing?” Bruce demanded.

“Looking for this,” she said, hanging the handicap permit from the rearview mirror.

Bruce yanked it down and shoved it back into the box. “We’re just dropping him off,” he said, pulling up to the front entrance of the VA hospital.

“You don’t want to stop in and say hi to your mother?” she asked, incredulous. “What about your aunt? You probably haven’t seen her in ages.”

“I saw my mother at breakfast.” His mother and paternal aunt were registered nurses. Both worked at the VA after having served in Vietnam together thirtysome-odd years ago. That’s where Aunt Dottie had introduced his mom to his dad and his uncle John.

True, he hadn’t seen Aunt Dottie in a while. But he’d had enough well-intentioned smothering for his first day home. His mother had fussed over him at breakfast more than when he’d been an inpatient at Balboa.

Hospitals weren’t exactly on his list of favorite places, no matter who worked where and what shift. Not after his extended stay. Been there, done that. Didn’t need the handicap permit to prove it.

Bruce put a hand to his collar to loosen the choke hold his tie had on him. “Even if I was sticking around,” he said, “I wouldn’t need to take up a handicap parking place.”

“I just thought you might want the extra room for Henry’s wheelchair.”

“That’s why there’s a loading zone.”

“Get me out of here,” Henry demanded from the backseat. “I’ve had about all I can stand of the Bickersons. If I’d of known you two was gonna fight the whole way I woulda taken my chances with the bus.”

Bruce and Mitzi exchanged censuring looks.

He managed not to slam anything as he got out of the car, got the wheelchair from the trunk and pulled it alongside Henry’s open door. The old-timer barely had the upper-body strength to transfer himself into the chair. Once he did, Bruce shut the car door and wheeled Henry over to the dip in the curb.

“I can take it from here,” Mitzi insisted.

Bruce eased off the handles. “You’re going in?”

“You can wait in the car in the farthest spot in the parking lot, for all I care. But I have business inside and you’re the one who insisted on driving.”

“How long do you think you’ll be?”

She shrugged. “Half hour maybe.”

“That long?”

“Just go, Calhoun. I’ll find a ride back to the station.” Pushing Henry’s wheelchair toward the sliding double doors, Mitzi left Bruce standing on the curb.

“I like the other fella better,” Henry was saying as the automatic doors slid open.

“Wait!” Bruce stopped her before she could push through to the lobby. “Here,” he said, removing the spare key from his key ring. “Keep the car. I’ll walk back to the station.”

“You can’t walk all the—”

“Then I guess I’ll have to run,” he said, squaring his shoulders.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know what you meant, Chief. I’ll park the car in a handicap spot where you’ll be sure to find it.”

She expected him to fall on his ass.

Maybe he would, but he’d be damned if he was going to fail without trying. He’d never give up the fight, no matter how low she set her expectations.

Eighteen months earlier

Baghdad, Iraq

“HURRY UP, you lazy son of a gun,” Freddie taunted as Bruce and his charge ran behind the truck, trying to catch up to the slow-moving vehicle.

Bruce threw his weapon over the tailgate. Hopping onto the back bumper, he reached behind to help the new kid up and over. Lieutenant Luke Calhoun slid down to make room for them. Bruce declined with a shake of his head.

Stepping over first Luke’s, then Freddie’s outstretched legs, Bruce acknowledged Alpha and Bravo squads with a nod. The six men on the opposite bench were all Navy SEALs. While his side, a combo of Recon Marines and Navy SEALs, grumbled about having to make room for seven, the truck could hold twice as many in a pinch.

“Move your ass over, Freddie,” Bruce said, squeezing himself and the new kid into the middle of the bench seat to the left of Freddie. There was nowhere he’d rather be than right here. This was his home and these guys were his family.

Luke literally. And Freddie soon to be.

“Gum?” Freddie offered.

“Thanks.” Bruce pocketed it for later.

Taking a moment to catch his breath after almost missing his ride, Bruce leaned back against the canvas cover of the supply truck and closed his eyes. Not only was he late getting back, he’d been put in charge of their newest team member, a young hospital corpsman by the name of Manuel Henriquez.

“Jeez, wipe that grin off your face or I will,” Freddie threatened.

“Can’t,” Bruce said, his grin the only thing visible beneath the brim of his helmet.

“You just spent three days in Dubai with my sister. Humor me,” Freddie insisted.

“Never even left the hotel room.”

“Too much information, bro.” Freddie elbowed him in the gut, hard. “You’re not married to her yet.”

“O-kay.” Bruce let out his battered breath. “I deserved that. But I’m still smiling.” He tugged his brim lower so Freddie wouldn’t have to see the satisfied smile on his face.

“Just make sure she’s the one still smiling or I’m going to kick your ass from here to Timbuktu.”

“Where’s Timbuktu?” Henriquez asked.

“West Africa, Mali,” Luke answered, around Freddie. Luke was a college grad, an officer, and as such the lieutenant in charge of the operation.

A really smart guy. Imagine coming halfway around the world to discover that about your own brother. Half brother. They had the same father—not that Bruce held that against Luke.

Bruce peeked out from under his helmet at Freddie. “You think you can kick my ass all the way to West Africa? I’d like to see you try.”

“How far is not the point. The point is I can, and I will,” Freddie boasted. “Mitzi loves you,” he said in all seriousness.

Bruce shoved his helmet back. “I know.”

“This isn’t high school. You don’t get to break her heart again. Not and have me as a friend. Marriage is for real. You hurt her…”

“I’m not going to pretend we have it all figured out. With her there and me here it’s going to be tough.” They were having to shout above the grinding gears of the diesel engine, making this conversation a little less private and a lot more uncomfortable than Bruce would have wanted. “We love each other. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

“Why now?”

“Why not now?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a war zone. Chances are you’ll make my baby sister a widow before your first anniversary.”

“Thanks for that optimism.”

Freddie’s family had moved next door to Bruce’s when they were both eight. They’d been best friends ever since. Bruce’s relationship with his best friend’s little sister was a lot more complicated.

They’d been on again/off again since high school. Being in two different branches of military service didn’t make it easy to be together. But in high school she’d been his first love. His only love.

And he’d been hers.

She wasn’t the only woman he’d been with since then. Just the only one who mattered. When they were together they were inseparable. And when they were apart?

Well, he used to drive himself crazy thinking about it. Finally he drove himself crazy enough to propose.

Before Kuwait it had been eight months since he’d last seen her. Eight very long months. He’d been reading between the lines of her emails. There was this guy, her crew chief. Nothing serious as far as he could tell. Just the way she dropped his name every now and again left Bruce thinking.

And thinking was dangerous.

“I don’t want to lose her.”

“Fear is not a reason to get married.”

“Reason enough.”

“Couldn’t you have said you knocked her up? I could respect that, at least.”

It was Bruce’s turn to elbow his future brother-in-law in the gut. “Mitzi’s not pregnant.”

“Too bad. I was kind of hoping you’d take her away from all this.” Freddie spread his arms to encompass the thirteen of them sweating it out in the oppressive heat of the truck’s interior.

The thought had crossed his mind. But Mitzi wouldn’t have gone along with that and he was far more afraid of her kicking his ass than of her brother’s threats. “We’ve agreed—”

“Don’t wait too long to make me an uncle.”

No kids.

DRESS SHOES WEREN’T MADE for running. But Bruce managed the distance without a serious slip. Thanks to his new all-terrain leg, he could push himself further than before. Pavement gave way to gravel and he didn’t miss a beat. Slowing to a stop, Bruce propped himself against the metal fire door at the back of the recruiting station to catch his breath.

There were days like today when he felt unworthy of the uniform. He loosened his tie and dragged it through the collar. As if he’d let everyone he cared about down.

The sock on his right foot was soaked through from the melting snow. His left foot, too—he just couldn’t feel it. But his stump throbbed a constant reminder of all that had changed. Eyes closed, he let the sensation take him back to Iraq. He’d been about to say No kids.

Or maybe he’d said No kids. He couldn’t remember.

How tragic if those were his last words to Freddie.

Don’t wait too long to make me an uncle.

The RPG had ripped through the truck then.

If Bruce had sat on the end…

What if? What if he’d been two minutes earlier? Two minutes later? Missed the transport altogether? Sat next to Luke? Instead he’d pushed Luke and Freddie to one side and hogged the middle.

And his brother and his best friend were dead.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE TIME MITZI RETURNED to the office, Calhoun had showered and changed into combat utilities. She tucked her hat and handbag back into the bottom drawer, along with the prescription of birth control she’d picked up at the VA, and settled in at her desk.

She didn’t know if he could still run a five-minute mile, but she knew the word can’t was not in his vocabulary.

Unfortunately that stubborn streak extended to his personal relationships, as well. Come mid-afternoon she wanted to scream at him out of frustration. She’d never quite understood the term deafening silence until now. Everything left unsaid over the past eighteen months lingered in the air like the half-eaten egg salad sandwich she’d tossed out at lunch.

If they were going to work together they’d have to learn to communicate again. She’d been wrong to reject his offer of a truce.

But she’d be damned if she’d tell him that.

“School’s out,” she said with a nod toward the pedestrian traffic outside. Within minutes two girls, trying to look much older than their seventeen or eighteen years, walked through the door.

The pair stopped in front of Bruce’s desk while he continued to do whatever it was he was doing at his computer. Mitzi was pretty sure his emails to his old command had little to do with recruiting.

“May I help you?” he asked after a while.

“Hi.” Swallowed up by an oversize varsity letterman’s jacket, the first to speak wore a cheer skirt and cropped top underneath. Mitzi didn’t know her name, but the other girl was Kelly Casey. Kelly had on jeans and layered T-shirts. She carried drumsticks and hid behind her schoolbooks.

Mitzi could relate to the band geek. She’d been one. As well as captain of the swim team. What she’d never been was a cheerleader. Or a blonde.

She’d never seen the two together before. They made an odd pair.

“Hi, Heather,” Bruce responded without inflection.

Heather took that as an invitation to perch on his desk and Mitzi got a glimpse of the name on the back of the jacket. Calhoun.

So that’s how they knew each other.

Heather must be Keith’s girlfriend.

“So are you, like, a Marine?” Heather picked up Bruce’s stapler and played with it until he took it from her and set it out of her reach.

“I am a Marine.”

“Did you, like, fight in the war or whatever?”

“Whatever,” he agreed. Calhoun stood up so that he towered over the two girls. “Excuse me, ladies. I’m busy right now.” Heather shrugged. Whatever.

Kelly followed her to the door before turning around. “Will you tell Keith we were here?” Her cheeks, already pink from the winterlike weather outside, brightened. “And that I can’t tutor him this Saturday. I have to work.”

Calhoun offered a curt nod. Mitzi frowned after the departing pair, then at him.

“What?” he demanded.

“Whatever.” She shrugged. “Be careful.”

“Of those two?”

“The last recruiter is gone because he gave in to temptation. Seventeen may be legal in this state, but there’s a very fine line—”

“You know me better than that.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” That uniform and all that brooding silence could be hard for a young girl to resist. Mitzi propped herself against his desk and picked up his stapler. “Don’t you remember what it was like to be seventeen?”

At seventeen he’d been her whole world.

“No,” he denied, taking the stapler from her. The brush of his hand took her by surprise. Every scarred knuckle, every callus on his palm were 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.

Lest she forget, when she was twenty-four he’d brought that world crashing down.

She crossed the room and picked up the folder with his travel orders. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “You left this on a chair and it wound up on my desk.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Not a problem,” she said, heading back to her desk.

“Did you read them?” He sounded curious, not angry.

His curiosity intrigued her. “Your orders are none of my business, Gunny.”

“I just thought you should know I’m only here temporarily.”

It sounded like a warning not to get her hopes up. She knew better. “I guessed as much.”

“Once my detachment gets back to The Boathouse, I’ll be joining them. I’ll have to pass a physical fitness test first. But as soon as they call…” He shrugged.

He’d be gone. Back in the line of fire.

Not a matter of if, but when.

The Boathouse was a modern space-aged building tucked into the boat basin at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. If his recon unit wasn’t there they could be almost anywhere.

Which was obviously where he wanted to be.

Anywhere but here.

“It’s what you wanted.” Was it petty of her not to be happy for him? Even if he got himself killed just to prove he was worthy of being called a Marine?

“Hey,” Keith called out, coming through the door, basketball tucked under his arm. “I hear there’s a new Marine Corps recruiter in town. Where do I sign?”

“Over my dead body,” Bruce declared.

“I’m serious.” Keith approached the desk and Mitzi retreated to her side of the room.

“So am I.” Bruce stood with his hands on his hips. A dozen cold calls his first day down the list of high school seniors and not a single lead, then in walks his eighteen-year-old brother ready to sign on the dotted line.

As if he was ever going to let that happen.

Keith dropped into the chair opposite Bruce’s desk, put his basketball and backpack at his feet. “Seriously,” he said, kicking back, with his size thirteens up on Bruce’s desk. “I want to join the Corps.”

“Seriously.” Bruce knocked Keith’s feet to the floor, then sat where they’d been. “You’re going to college.”

“College is an expensive waste of time.”

“Coach says your scholarship prospects are good.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So you’re going.”

“You didn’t.”

Bruce crossed his arms. “And look where it got me.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about being you.”

“Then you’re not looking hard enough.”

“It’s family tradition. You—”

“Didn’t have the same opportunities you have. And sure as hell didn’t have your grades. You’re a smart kid—act like it.”

“I’m sick of school.” Keith pushed to his feet, full of restless energy. They were roughly the same height now. When had the kid shot up those last few inches? “I’m sick and tired of people telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“And you want to be a Marine? You’re going to have someone in your face 24/7 telling you when to eat, sleep, drink and take a piss. Hoorah!”

“That’s just boot camp.”

“What’s that poster behind me say?”

Keith tilted his head to see around him. “Every Marine a rifleman.”

“Deer hunting. Few years back. Me, you, your dad.” Despite the fact that Uncle John had been more of a father to him than Big Luke, Bruce couldn’t bring himself to call his uncle and stepfather Dad, so he settled for John. Or your dad when talking to Keith. “You stared down that three-point buck, but couldn’t bring yourself to shoot.”

“I was thirteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“It was my first time hunting. And I don’t like venison all that much either,” he added for good measure.

“You been hunting since? To a rifle range?”

“No,” Keith admitted. “But I know how to shoot and I know I’ll get the training I need in boot camp.”

“Go home,” Bruce said.

“So I’m not you. There are other jobs in the Marine Corps besides Force Recon.”

Bruce had been Recon, parachute and diver qualified when he’d gone through BUD/S training and integrated into Navy SEALs. He’d added recruiter to his list. And if he was any kind of a recruiter he’d be showing Keith his options right now.

But this was his brother and there was no way in hell he was going to put the kid in harm’s way. Just because Keith knew how to fire a weapon didn’t mean he knew jack about war.

“Like what, admin?” Bruce asked. “Think you’re going to sit behind a desk all day until your ass is as wide as the chair? No matter what your military occupational specialty, you’re going to fight. That’s what a Marine does.”

Unless you’re a recruiter stuck behind a desk.

“Maybe not admin,” Keith agreed. “But there are some pretty cool jobs in the Marine Corps.”

“Like…?” Bruce prompted.

“Cameraman. I took a photography class last year. I’m pretty good at it.” The kid had done his homework.

But it was Bruce’s job to know all eighty of the Marine Corps occupational fields. He reached for a thick three-ring binder and opened it to “Combat Camera.” “What do all of these jobs have in common? Combat illustrator,” he read. “Combat lithographer. Combat photographer. Combat videographer. Could it be the word combat?” he practically shouted. “Besides which—” he slammed the book shut “—I don’t have an opening for a cameraman. That’s CNN’s job these days.”

“I’m not a kid anymore. I’m eighteen. I don’t need your permission. I could walk into any recruiting office in the state and enlist,” Keith threatened.

“Try it and I’ll kick your ass from here to Timbuktu.”

“What the hell, Bruce? I came to you. You’re my brother. You’re supposed to help me!”

Bruce could understand being sick of school. Sick and tired of being told what to do. At eighteen Keith was well on his way to becoming a man. What he couldn’t understand was his brother turning his back on a chance to play basketball for four more years.

That didn’t make sense.

“I’m trying to help you.” Frustration tinged Bruce’s voice. “Trust me. I know you well enough to know you’re not cut out for the Marine Corps.”

He didn’t even realize he and his brother stood toe-to-toe until Mitzi put a gentle but firm hand on each of them. “You’re scaring my DEPers.”

Keith slunk back to his seat. And Bruce sat back on his desk. The front office was full, every couch, every chair occupied. When had that happened? Three guys and one gal. DEPers, kids on the delayed entry program, enlisted while still in high school for guaranteed jobs after graduation.

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.