A Soldier's Heart

Did she dare to hope…?

Yell all you want, she told him silently. I’m not giving up on you, Luke Marino. I’m going to help you whether you want it or not.

“Hey, M.K., catch.”

Hearing her brother Gabe’s voice, Mary Kate turned to see a bright blue exercise ball heading toward her. Off-balance, she grabbed for it, missing and stumbling toward the wheelchair. Before she could hit it, Luke grabbed her, his strong hands steadying her.

“Sorry,” she muttered, straightening herself. “My brother’s an idiot at times. I didn’t mean to run into you.”

“It’s okay.” His hand still encircled her wrist, his fingers warm and strong. She glanced at him, aware of how close they were, of how dark those smoky eyes of his were. That emotion seemed to dance between them, and she felt sixteen again.

MARTA PERRY

has written everything, including Sunday school curriculum, travel articles and magazine stories in her twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her home in the stories she writes for the Love Inspired Line.

Marta lives in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting her children and her beautiful grandchildren, traveling or relaxing with a good book.

Marta loves hearing from readers, and she’ll write back with a signed bookplate or bookmark. Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279; e-mail her at [e-mail] or visit her on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

A Soldier’s Heart

Marta Perry

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

—Isaiah 61:1–3

This story is dedicated to my granddaughter,

Georgia Lynn Stewart, with much love

from Grammy. And, as always, to Brian.

Contents

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

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

She was keeping an appointment with a new client, not revisiting a high school crush. Mary Kate Donnelly opened her car door, grabbed the bag that held the physical therapy assessment forms and tried to still the butterflies that seemed to be doing the polka in her midsection.

What were the odds that her first client for the Suffolk Physical Therapy Clinic would be Luke Marino, newly released from the army hospital where he’d been treated since his injury in Iraq? And would the fact of their short-lived romance in the misty past make this easier or harder? She didn’t know.

She smoothed down her navy pants and straightened the white polo shirt that bore the SPTC letters on the pocket. As warm as this spring had been, she hadn’t worn the matching navy cardigan. The outfit looked new because it was new—just as new as she was.

Nonsense. She lectured herself as she walked toward the front stoop of the Craftsman-style bungalow. She was a fully qualified physical therapist and just because she’d chosen to concentrate on marriage and children instead of a career didn’t make her less ready to help patients.

The truth was, her dwindling bank balance didn’t allow her any second thoughts. She had two children to support. She couldn’t let them down.

The grief that was never far from her brushed her mind. Neither she nor Kenny had imagined a situation in which she’d be raising Shawna and Michael by herself. Life was far more unpredictable than she’d ever pictured.

For Luke, too. He probably hadn’t expected to return to his mother’s house with his legs shattered from a shell and nerve damage so severe it was questionable whether he’d walk normally again.

Ruth Marino’s magnolia tree flourished in the corner of the yard, perfuming the air, even though Ruth herself had been gone for nearly a year. Luke had flown from Iraq for the funeral. Mary Kate had seen him standing tall and severe in his dress uniform at the church. They hadn’t talked—just a quick murmur of sympathy, the touch of a handshake—that was all.

Now Luke was back, living in the house alone. She pressed the button beside the red front door. Ruth had always planted pots of flowers on either side of the door, pansies in early spring, geraniums once the danger of frost was past. The pots stood empty and forlorn now.

There was no sound from inside. She pressed the button again, hearing the bell chime echoing. Still nothing.

A faint uneasiness touched her. It was hardly likely that Luke would have gone out. Rumor had it he hadn’t left the house since he’d arrived, fresh from the army hospital. That was one reason she was here.

“You went to high school with him.” Carl Dickson, the P.T. center’s director, had frowned at the file in front of him before giving Mary Kate a doubtful look. “Maybe you can get him in here for an assessment. He’s refused every therapist we’ve sent. You certainly can’t do any worse.”

She had read between the lines on that. She was new and part-time, so her hours were less valuable. Dickson didn’t want to waste staff on a patient who wouldn’t cooperate, but he also didn’t want to lose the contract from the U.S. Army if he could help it.

She pressed the bell again and then rapped on the door, her uneasiness deepening to apprehension. What if Luke had fallen? His determination to reject every professional approach, even simple acts of kindness, left him vulnerable.

She grabbed the knob, but it refused to turn under her hand. Kicking the door wouldn’t get her inside, tempting as it was, and if Luke lay helpless, he couldn’t answer.

She stepped from the stoop and hurried around the side of the house toward the back door. She’d grown up less than two blocks away, in the house where her parents still lived. Luke had been at their place constantly in those days, shooting hoops on the improvised driveway court. A frayed basketball hoop still hung from the Marino garage, mute testimony to Luke’s passion for sports.

The back porch had the usual accumulation—a forgotten rake, a trash can, a couple of lawn chairs leaning against the wall. She hurried to the door and peered through the glass at the kitchen.

At first she thought the figure in the wheelchair was asleep, but Luke roused at her movement, fastening a dark glare on her. He spun the wheels of the chair, but she didn’t think he was planning to welcome her in. She opened the door and stepped inside, closing it behind her.

“Don’t you wait to be invited?” The words came out in a rough baritone snarl. Luke spun the chair away from her, as if he didn’t want to look at her.

Or, more likely, he didn’t want her to look at him.

Her throat muscles convulsed, and she knew she couldn’t speak in a normal way until she’d gotten control of herself. But Luke—

The Luke she remembered, as a high school football hero, as a police officer, as a soldier when his reserve unit was called up, had been all strength and muscle, with the athletic grace and speed of a cheetah and a relaxed, easy smile. Not this pale, unshaven creature with so much anger radiating from him that it was almost palpable.

She set her bag carefully on the Formica-and-chrome table, buying a few more seconds. She glanced around the kitchen. White-painted cabinets, linoleum on the floor, Cape Cod curtains on the windows—Ruth hadn’t changed anything in years.

“I didn’t think I had to stand on ceremony with an old friend,” she managed to say, her voice gaining strength as she spoke. “Besides, I thought you might not let me in if I waited for an invitation.”

He didn’t answer the smile she attempted, sparing her only a quick glance before averting his face. “I don’t want company, Mary Kate. You must have heard by now that I’ve made enemies of half the old ladies at church by rejecting their casseroles.”

“Mom wouldn’t appreciate being called an old lady, so you’d better not repeat that in her hearing.”

Her mother had tried, and failed, in her quest to see that Luke had a home-cooked meal delivered by the church every night. Luke had apparently slammed the door in the face of the first volunteer and then refused to answer the bell for anyone else. After a week of refusals, her volunteers had given up.

“I didn’t mean—” he began, and then stopped, but for just an instant she’d seen a glimmer of the old Luke before his face tightened. “I don’t want visitors.”

“Fine.” She had to make her voice brisk, or else the pain and pity she felt might come through. She knew instinctively that would only make things worse. “I’m not a visitor. I’m your physical therapist.”

He stared for a moment at the crest on her shirt pocket, swiveling the chair toward her. His legs, in navy sweatpants, were lax against the support of the chair.

“Doesn’t your clinic have rules against you barging in without an invitation?” Once again the old Luke peeked through in a glimpse of humor.

“Probably.” Definitely, and as the newest member of the staff, she couldn’t afford to break any of the rules. On the other hand, she couldn’t go back and admit failure, either. “Are you going to report me, Luke?”

His dark brows drew down like a slash over deep brown eyes. He’d once been the guy most often talked about in the girls’ locker room, mostly because of those eyes. Smoky eyes, with a hint of mystery in them. Combined with the chiseled chin, firm mouth, jet-black hair and the glow of his olive skin, his looks and that faintly dangerous charm had had the girls drooling over him.

And he’d picked her. For a brief time, she’d gone out with the most sought-after guy in school. She hadn’t thought of that in years, until today. Seeing him now brought it all flooding back—those days when you were up in the clouds one minute because that special guy had smiled at you and down in the depths the next because he’d smiled at someone else, too.

It hadn’t lasted, of course. Maybe, in her naive first love, she’d been too clingy. Luke had made excuses, failed to return phone calls and finally had been seen in the back row of the movie theater with Sally Clemens. She’d given him back his class ring, kept her chin up and done her crying in private.

Luke just stared at her. Maybe he was remembering that, too. Finally, he shook his head, the stubble of his beard dark against the pallor of his skin. “No, I won’t turn you in. Just beat it, okay?”

“Sorry, I can’t.” She pulled out one of the chrome kitchen chairs and sat down, reaching for the forms in her bag. “You’re two weeks past due to report to the clinic for your evaluation and therapy. Why?”

His jaw clenched. “I’ve spent the last three months being poked and prodded by army experts. If they couldn’t get me out of this chair, I don’t think your outfit can. Just go back to your boss and tell him I appreciate it, but I don’t need any more therapy.”

His words twisted her heart. What he’d gone through would be horrible for anyone, but for Luke, who’d spent his life relying on his strength and skill on the playing field, then in the military and on the police force—well, this helplessness had to be excruciating.

Showing the pity and compassion that welled up in her was exactly the wrong way to react. To offer him sympathy would be to rub salt into an already agonizing wound.

But she couldn’t walk away. He needed her help, or someone’s help, whether he wanted it or not.

And she needed to make a success of this. A little flicker of the panic that had visited her too often since Kenny’s death touched her. She had to provide financially for her kids, and that meant she had to prove herself at the clinic.

She took a steadying breath. “Sorry, Luke. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He shot the words at her, swinging the chair closer to her in one fierce movement. “I don’t need your therapy and I don’t want it. Why can’t you just understand that and leave me alone?”

His anger was like a blow. She stiffened in response. She couldn’t let him chase her off, the way he had everyone else.

“I can’t. And you don’t really have a choice, do you? If you continue refusing to cooperate, the army will slap you back into a military hospital. And I don’t think they’ll let you bully them.”

Bullying? Was that really what he was doing? All Luke knew was that he had to get rid of Mary Kate the way he’d gotten rid of everyone else who’d come to the door since he’d returned home.

And of all the people he didn’t want to meet while sitting in a wheelchair, Mary Kate Flanagan Donnelly had to be somewhere near the top of the list.

He lifted an eyebrow, trying to find the right attitude to chase her away. “Looks like sweet little Mary Kate learned how to play hardball.”

Judging by the annoyed look in those big blue eyes, she didn’t care for that comment, but which part of it she disliked, he wasn’t sure.

“It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me sweet and little, Luke. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

“Sorry.” Funny to be alone with her now. He’d hardly seen her during the years after high school. She’d gone away to college—he’d enlisted in the service. When he’d come back and taken the job with the Suffolk Police Force, she and Kenny were already married, starting a family and moving in completely different circles. And then his reserve unit had been called up and he was gone again, this time to Iraq.

Once, he and Kenny had played football together. He and Mary Kate had dated. Funny to remember that now. They’d all been a lot more innocent then.

“I heard about Kenny.” He pushed the words out, a reminder that he wasn’t the only person suffering. “I’m sorry.”

She paled under those Flanagan freckles, her lips firming as if to hold something back. When she’d walked in the door, slim and quick as the girl she’d been, he’d thought she hadn’t changed at all.

Now he saw the differences—in the fine lines around her intensely blue eyes, in the determination that tightened her soft mouth. The hair that had once fallen to her shoulders in bright red curls was shorter now, curling against her neck, and it had darkened to an almost mahogany color.

She gave a curt nod in response to the expression of sympathy, as if she’d heard it all too many times. Well, then, she ought to understand how he felt. No help, no pity. Just leave me alone.

“The kids must be getting pretty big by now. Are they doing all right?” He put the question reluctantly, knowing that old friendship demanded it, knowing, also, that the more he treated her as a friend, the harder it would be to get her to leave.

Her face softened at the mention of her children. “Shawna’s eight and Michael is six. Yes, they’re doing fine. Just fine.”

Something, some faint shadow in her blue eyes, put the lie to that repeated assertion. Tough on kids, to lose their father at that age. At least Kenny hadn’t had a choice about leaving, like his father had.

He studied her, drawn out of his own circle of pain for a moment. Mary Kate’s hands gripped the pad of forms a bit too tightly, her knuckles white. She still wore a plain gold band on her left hand.

How are you doing, Mary Kate? Really? How it must have pained Kenny to leave her, especially to let her see him dwindling away from cancer. No doubt Kenny would have preferred to go out in a blaze of glory fighting a fire.

Just as he’d rather have been standing a few feet closer to that bomb—to have died quickly and cleanly instead of coming home mutilated.

He glanced from her hands to her face, seeing there the look he dreaded. “I don’t want your pity.” He ground out the words, because if he didn’t he might scream them.

“I’m not pitying you for your injury. I’m just sorry you’ve come home such a jerk.” She leaned toward him. “Come on, Luke, admit it. You’re not going to get out of this. The U.S. Army won’t release you until they know they’ve done their best for you. You’re lucky they let you come home for the therapy, instead of keeping you in the hospital.”

“Luck is not a word I associate with this.” He slapped his useless legs, getting a stab of pain in return.

“Fine.” Her voice was crisp, as if she’d moved into a professional mode where friendship had nothing to do with them. “We both know I’m right.”

He’d like to deny it, but he couldn’t. If the army wanted him to have this therapy, he’d have it if they had to drag him kicking and screaming. Not that he could do much kicking.

“Okay.” He bit off the word. “When you’re right, you’re right.” At least with Mary Kate, he was over the worst—that moment when she looked at him and saw the ruin he was.

Surprise and relief flooded her face. “That’s great.” She shuffled the forms, picking up a pen. “We’ll send the van for you tomorrow—”

“No.”

She blinked. “But you said—”

“I’ll do the therapy, but I’m not going anywhere. You can come here.” Conviction hardened in him. He wasn’t going out where anyone might see him. “And don’t bother telling me you don’t do that. I know you do in-home therapy.”

“That’s true, but we have equipment at the center that you don’t have here. There’s a therapy pool, exercise bikes, weight machines—all the things you might need.” She dangled them like a lollipop in front of a recalcitrant child.

“So we’ll improvise. That’s the deal, M.K. Only you, only here. How about it?”

If she reacted to the high school nickname, she didn’t let it show. Obviously she’d toughened up over the years. Still, she had to be easier to deal with than those hard-nosed army docs who’d outranked him.

“I can’t authorize something like that.”

“Then go back to your boss and get him to authorize it. Deal?”

She must have seen this was the best she could hope for, because she shuffled the papers together and shoved them back in her bag. Her lips were pressed firmly together, as if to hold back further argument.

“I’ll try. I can’t speak for the director, but I’ll tell him what you said.”

“Good.” Well, not good, but probably the best he was going to get. He watched her hurry to the door, as if afraid he’d change his mind.

He wouldn’t. He’d drag himself through whatever torture she devised, because he couldn’t get out of it, but in the end it would amount to the same thing. Whether he was in a wheelchair or staggering around like an old man with a walker—either way, his life was over.

The butterflies in her stomach had been replaced by the tightness in her throat that said she’d bitten off a lot more than she could chew. Mary Kate drove down Elm Street toward her parents’ house, glancing at her watch. It was too late to catch Mr. Dickson at the clinic. Her revelation of the terms Luke had put on his therapy would have to wait until tomorrow.

How would Dickson react to that? She honestly didn’t know her new employer well enough to guess. He might be relieved to have a difficult situation resolved. Or he might think that she had overstepped her bounds and used her friendship with Luke to gain the case for herself instead of persuading him to come to the clinic.

It’s not as if I have a choice. You understand that, don’t You? I have to take care of the children, so I have to do whatever it takes to succeed at this job.

Sometimes she thought these running conversations with God were all that had kept her going throughout the past year. Even when she’d been venting her anger, raging at the injustice of Kenny’s death, she’d been aware of God’s daily presence. She might have been furious with Him, but she’d always known He was there.

I’m sorry—I’m thinking too much of myself. Please, be with Luke. Let me be the instrument of Your healing for him.

She pulled into the driveway. Shawna’s and Michael’s bicycles lay abandoned on the front lawn, but they were nowhere to be seen. She slid out, leaving her bag on the seat, and hurried toward the door. The visit to Luke had taken more time than she’d expected, so her parents had had the children for a longer time after school.

Not that they minded. All the members of her large family were only too eager to help her since Kenny’s death. She appreciated it. She just hated needing it.

She walked into the living room. The chintz furniture always looked a little worn and the coffee table bore the scars of the six children who’d been raised here. And now her own two would be here too much, probably, since she’d started work. Her parents deserved to relax in their retirement, not take care of her children.

“Mom?” She crossed to the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of baking chicken. “I’m here.” She’d almost said I’m home, the phrase the Flanagan kids had always shouted when they rushed in from school or play.

The phrase said that you belonged, that here you were important and valued and sure of your welcome. She thought again of Luke. How must it feel to him to be back in the house where he’d grown up, with his mother gone?

Maybe similar to the way she felt now each time she came here—torn between longing for the reassurance she’d felt as a little girl in this place and feeling as if she ought to be able to handle everything on her own.

“Mary Kate.” Her mother straightened from bending over the oven door, pushing the pan back inside. Her cheeks were rosy from the heat and her dark hair curled around her still-youthful face. “You’re just in time. Supper will be ready in fifteen minutes. I promised Michael biscuits with the chicken.”

Siobhan Flanagan never seemed to look any older—or at least any less beautiful. Why couldn’t she have inherited her mother’s ageless beauty instead of her father’s red hair and freckles?

“You don’t need to feed us. We can go home for supper.” And have frozen pizza again.

“We want you to stay. Your father and I can’t eat all this chicken by ourselves.”

She should take the kids, go home, prove to herself that she could manage the whole working-single-mother thing. Still, it was a family joke that after cooking for so many for so long, her mother couldn’t fix a meal for two. Twenty, maybe, but not two.

“You spoil us.” She’d work on self-reliance tomorrow. “Where are the kids?”

“In the backyard, playing ball. I’ve been keeping an eye on them from the window.”

Shawna and Michael were fine. Of course they were. So what compelled her to step out onto the back porch, just to be sure?

“Hi, Mom.” Shawna waved a bright red plastic bat. “Look at the neat ball set Grandpa got for us.”

“Very nice.”

Michael came running to give her a hug. She held him tightly for an instant, wondering how soon he’d begin to emulate Shawna’s independence, making these embraces a thing of the past.

Michael squirmed out of her arms. Looking at his blue eyes and golden red curls was like looking into a mirror. Everyone had always said the kids had little of their daddy in their appearance. That hadn’t bothered her too much until Kenny was gone.