A Few Good Men. Tori Carrington

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СКАЧАТЬ Gertrude and Howard had needed her to help see them through the sad ordeal.

      Then came the day six months after the military funeral at Arlington when she woke up to discover that she hadn’t allowed her heart to grieve the loss of the only man she’d ever loved. And her soul rebelled.

      She’d spent a week shut off from the world, wishing she had been the one to go instead of Andy. After all, he’d had his family to live for. What did she have?

      She’d had him. And now…

      Sara looked at Gertrude. Now she had his family. And no matter how much she hated going to the sym-phony, or helping Gertrude organize Saturday luncheon and afternoons out with “The girls”…Well, putting herself out there, even as someone she feared she wasn’t, it was all she had. And she would never, ever do anything to risk that.

      Her cheeks felt hot. Liar, a little horned devil sitting on her right shoulder whispered.

      She had done something to upset the status quo. The good thing was, no one but her knew that.

      Well, no one but her and her late husband’s best friend and fellow marine Eric Armstrong.

      No. She was wrong on that account. She was the only one. Because there was no way Eric would ever know that her online identity of Samantha was really her. Would never know that she had been the one to reach out to him as an anonymous friend during that weeklong isolation, or that he had been her salvation, the sole reason for her to finally end her seclusion and continue an existence that sometimes loomed unbearable without Andy.

      Then came the time six months ago when she’d given in to the feminine yearnings pulsing inside her, parts of her as neglected as her heart clamoring for attention. And she’d finally returned Eric’s desire to take their online connection a little further. To venture into unknown territory with racy e-mails and instant messages. But rather than satisfy the sexual ache, their online flirtation had merely amplified it.

      Until Eric told her he would be returning stateside for leave and needed to meet her…

      Sara hadn’t hesitated to erase Samantha’s entire identity. The risk was too great for her to take. No matter how much it had hurt at the time to do so, no one could know what she’d done. Ever. She would never betray her husband’s memory in that way. Never put his parents through the pain of knowing she’d indulged in provocative behavior with the man who had been her husband’s best friend.

      Never again allow herself to love a man whose job it was to put his life on the line for his country. She’d already lost one. Losing another would destroy her.

      Gertrude was looking at her oddly again. Sara forced a smile. “I was thinking that I’d like for you and Howard to come over for dinner this Sunday,” she said. “I could make that pot roast he likes so much.”

      “Andy’s favorite.” Gertrude immediately relaxed. “We’d like that. It’s when we’re at your house that…Well, that both of us feel the most like Andy might walk through the door any moment.”

      And therein lay the rub…

      Chapter 2

      IT WAS ONE OF THOSE rare winter days when the sun slanted in just such a way that it was easy to be lured into believing it might be July instead of January. Temperatures were mild, the scent of the Atlantic Ocean permeated the air, and Sara’s small house in Virginia Beach looked welcoming rather than foreboding.

      She let herself into the one-story, two-bedroom bungalow she and Andy had bought five years ago and accepted the excited welcome and face wash she received from Truman, her four-year-old golden retriever.

      “Oh, yes, you missed me, didn’t you, boy? Yes, you did.”

      She let Tru out into the backyard to do his business, then put food out for him in the kitchen before going into her bedroom to change into sneakers and a sweat-shirt so she might take Truman to the beach and enjoy the early sunset. It was only five o’clock and the rest of the dark night stretched in front of her like a black wall she couldn’t figure out how to scale. As she slipped out of her low-heeled shoes and knee-highs, she reached out with her right hand to boot up her laptop, as was her normal routine. She took off her blouse and put on a T-shirt, then pulled the sweatshirt on over it, shaking out her shoulder-length brown hair before clicking to check for e-mail.

      Her hand hovered over the mouse as she realized what she was doing. She was looking for a message from Eric.

      How much she’d come to rely on those daily exchanges. It had been over a week since she’d been in contact with him. Worse, ten days since she’d deleted the e-mail account she’d used to communicate with him and, in essence, erased a part of herself.

      She moved her hand from the mouse to the top of the screen and closed the laptop.

      A moment later she had Truman on his leash, had filled a bottle of water, and left the house for the brisk, quarter of a mile walk to the beach, determined to forget that there would be no more e-mails from Eric waiting for her.

      ERIC HAD HIS HAND on the door handle. He’d watched Sara pull her eight-year-old compact car into the drive-way of the small house he’d visited on countless occasions, then go inside. It was the first time he’d seen her since before Andy’s death. And the reality hit him full force, like the forceful butt of a weapon to the stomach.

      He had the hots for his best friend’s girl…

      It was the first thought that went through his mind. A thought he’d never expected to have. Sure, Sara had always been attractive, but she’d always been Andy’s girl. Off-limits. It had never even crossed his mind to think of the possibility of anything more. Partly because marines didn’t go screwing around with other marines’ women. (Well, good marines didn’t, anyway.) Mostly because Andy and Sara had been so much in love that it had sometimes been awkward to be around them.

      He hadn’t gone to Andy’s funeral. The Corps had offered to fly him back for the event, but he’d refused. He’d lost his best friend, but he still had friends in his unit that depended on him. And the enemy that had taken Andy’s life was still a threat to the others. He couldn’t leave them behind.

      Eric closed his eyes and bounced the back of his head against the seat. Who was he shitting? He hadn’t had the guts to face Sara or Andy’s parents. Had been too big of a coward to admit that despite everything he’d done, he had been unable to save Andy.

      And now here he sat, trying to reconcile that life then with life in the here and now. Remembering how happy the couple had been…and how hot he’d been for the woman named Samantha with whom he’d shared a closeness he’d never had with another human being outside the brotherhood of the marines.

      He forced his thoughts outward.

      Sara looked so much like the woman he remem-bered, yet not at all. He supposed the new filter he viewed her through was to credit. But there were physical changes, as well. For one, she’d cut her hair. Where the honey-brown strands had been almost waist-length before, now the ends barely touched her shoulders. And he could tell even under her loose clothing that she’d gotten thinner. Her once va-va-voom curves were now almost girlishly slight. She even seemed to hold herself differently, as if she no longer had the strength to hold herself upright, as if her shoulders bore the weight of the world and she was a straw away from collapsing altogether.

      During СКАЧАТЬ