A Soldier's Heart. Marta Perry

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      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.