The Marine Makes His Match
- -
- 100%
- +
“Not intentionally. I was closing down my mom’s house until my brothers and I can decide what to do with it when one of the Northbridge doctors called. He asked if I could do some home health care for neighbors of his—the Tellers. They needed help but they were also in the process of moving to Denver. The Northbridge doc knew I wanted to get back here so he thought I could start with the Tellers in Northbridge then transition along with them to Denver.”
“And the Tellers are somehow hooked up with the guy Livi Camden is engaged to, right?”
“Callan Tierney, right. He was kind of a foster son of theirs. He was best friends with their son, and lived with the Tellers after his own parents died. When their son was killed in a car accident, Callan stepped in to see that they were taken care of, along with their granddaughter who is his godchild.”
“And that’s how you met Livi—nursing the Tellers. Livi, who you think is your half sister.”
“And Livi recommended me to you, so I’m here on what’s only my second home–health care job,” Kinsey concluded.
“Do you like it?”
“I do,” she said with some surprise. “I guess it lets me be sort of like family for a little while—and it’s nice working in a home environment. Oh!” she said, startled when Jack suddenly attacked her foot. Then she laughed and added, “And I would never have had a terrier puppy trying to chew on me while I worked at the hospital, so what fun is that?”
“Jack! Stop it!” Sutter commanded the dog, who elected to go on doing what he was doing.
Kinsey stopped her work on Sutter’s shoulder to kick the ball Jack had dropped nearby into the other room to distract him, too.
Jack took the bait and chased the ball so Kinsey could return to the stitches.
“You told my mother you were going to take care of the puppy problem, too—does that mean you have a plan? Because today she told me to take him back to the breeder,” Sutter said ominously.
“Ohhh, poor Jack!” Kinsey said sympathetically.
“We’ve always had this breed, but it was my dad who trained and took care of them. I’ve managed to housebreak this terror, but that’s it. I don’t know how to fix the rest—training a whole platoon of men is easier than getting Jack to behave. And if I don’t find a way to get him into shape before I leave, the colonel won’t keep him.”
A big tough marine daunted by a puppy—the idea of that amused Kinsey to no end.
“Actually,” she said then, “there’s an organization called Pets for Vets that pairs shelter animals and former military dogs with veterans. That way either the dogs already have military manners or the shelter dogs have been trained with them so they kind of fit a little more comfortably with a vet’s lifestyle and expectations. An animal like that might have been a little more to your mom’s liking at this point.”
“I didn’t even know that existed.”
“But now that you have Jack, we can’t give up on him—he’s just a puppy being a puppy. I know someone who works for Pets for Vets and I called him. I thought he could teach us—and the colonel, too, if we can get her onboard—what to do with Jack.”
Jack brought the ball back, dropped it and jumped against Kinsey’s leg, jarring her into yanking too hard on the stitch she was removing and causing Sutter to flinch.
“Ooh, I’m sorry! Again,” she apologized. “But that’s the last one.”
The only relief Sutter showed was in the cautious and slight rolling of that shoulder as if to ease the tension out of it.
“It looks good, though,” Kinsey said, meaning his wound, though the movement caused her to notice once more just how good everything else looked, too.
“I need to do a little bit of an exam—can you wiggle your fingers? Make a fist? Squeeze my hand?”
He could, wiggling long, thick fingers, making an impressively tight fist and then taking the hand she offered, showing more strength than she’d expected.
And at the same time causing her to feel her temperature rising again.
She ignored her own reaction to him.
“Good,” she said.
That seemed like signal enough for him to let go but he didn’t until she told him he could. And even then it seemed as if there was a split second more of lingering.
She put him through a few more exercises, then she bent over and picked up the ball Jack had abandoned, handing it to Sutter. “You can start therapy with a few squeezes of this. Tomorrow when I come, I’ll bring you one of your own and we’ll add a few other things.”
“It’s all gonna work again, right?” he asked.
“I think we can get you back to a hundred percent range of motion. You’re even healed enough to shower without being bandaged, but you might want the incision site covered just to avoid any irritation from the sling.”
“Great, let’s give it air tonight—I don’t sleep in the sling, I just rest the arm on my chest. Tomorrow I’ll slap some gauze over the wound after I shower in the morning.”
So very many mental images ran through Kinsey’s head, but she shoved them away, washed her hands again and then began to clean up as Sutter retrieved his shirt.
Being careful to keep her eyes to herself, she said, “Todd—he’s the dog trainer—can come tomorrow evening after he leaves work if I give him the go-ahead.”
“Sounds good to me. The sooner the better.”
“Then I’ll call and tell him. And maybe we can save Jack from exile.”
She’d repacked her suture kit by then and—still without a glance in his direction—she told him she wanted to peek in on the colonel one last time before she left.
The colonel was asleep with her glasses on and her book resting on her chin, so Kinsey silently went into the room to remove both, managing not to disturb her patient in the process.
Sutter was waiting for her when she returned to the kitchen, his shirt on again but only one button fastened.
Kinsey tried not to look, instead noting that he’d replaced the sling, too, which told her that he still needed it. “The colonel is asleep,” she informed him. “So unless you need anything else—”
“I don’t.”
“Then I’ll get going and let you rest, too.”
She leaned down to pet Jack where he was trying hard to open a cupboard door with his nose. “You rest, too, Jack, because you’re in for a big day tomorrow.”
Sutter surprised her by walking her to her car.
“Feel free to park in the driveway. Nearest to the house,” he said as they reached her small sedan at the curb and she unlocked her door. “If I need to get out I can use the far side.”
“Okay,” she said, appreciating that he was trying to save her a few steps.
She tossed her purse and bag and suture kit across the console into the passenger seat and then glanced over the car’s roof to Sutter. “You have my number—don’t hesitate to call anytime during the night if there’s any problem or you have any question—this is round-the-clock care even if I don’t live in.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“Just in case,” she persisted, recognizing in herself a certain unfathomable lack of eagerness to leave.
But then Sutter said, “See you tomorrow,” giving her no other option.
Kinsey nodded and got behind her steering wheel, closing her car door behind her.
But as she put the key in the ignition, she glanced in Sutter’s direction once more, thinking to catch sight of him returning to the house. Instead he was merely taking slow steps backward. Slow enough that her view was of his belly button just above the waistband of his slacks. His very sexy belly button there amid those rock-hard abs.
And up went her temperature all over again before she turned on the engine, put the car in gear and hit the gas.
Telling herself to get away as fast as she could.
Chapter Three
“Oh, Conor, finally! I’ve been worried,” Kinsey said when she connected for a video chat with her oldest brother on Friday morning. She’d been up since five waiting to hear from him. It was almost eight. “Is Declan all right?”
Declan was another of her brothers and a twin with her brother Liam. The twins were the middle children—older than Kinsey, younger than Conor.
Three weeks earlier Declan had been badly wounded when the Humvee he was driving in Afghanistan went over a hidden bomb. He’d undergone an initial emergency trauma surgery in Afghanistan, then been transferred to a hospital in Germany for more surgery this morning.
Conor was a navy doctor but couldn’t treat family. So he’d taken leave to oversee Declan’s care and travel with him.
“It was touch and go for a while,” Conor admitted. “That’s why I’m late getting to you—the surgery went on longer than expected. But he did okay and he’s not going to lose the leg!”
“Thank God,” Kinsey muttered, breathing a sigh of relief.
“I was just with him in recovery and I got him to move his toes, so it looks like everything is working,” Conor continued. “They recasted his hand when we first got here and he’s starting to be able to use his fingers. The rest of the bumps and bruises and cuts are under control now, too, and I think he’s going to come out of this okay. The good news is that he’ll be sent stateside to recuperate and rehab, and I’ve put in for reassignment to go with him—that means you could have two of us there for a while.”
A while...
That was all she ever got with any of them.
“For how long?” she asked without showing her feelings.
“Can’t say. But we’ll be there, both of us in the states. Bethesda—”
“Maryland. Hardly right next door to Denver.”
“Right. But you can meet us there. And once Declan is doing well enough to be on his own a little, I can get to you. Eventually even Declan will probably be able to travel and maybe stay with you so you can help with some of his physical therapy.”
Kinsey nodded, knowing what her brother was getting at before he said it.
“This is a time for us to pull in—focus on each other and deal with our situations. So don’t stir up that whole Camden mess,” he added, just as she’d been expecting. “We don’t need the complication right now.”
Kinsey had broken the news of who their biological father was when she’d found out. All three of her brothers had had a different reaction than she had. Instead of wanting to reach out to family the way she did, they wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, certain that the Camdens would refuse to acknowledge them, leaving them—specifically her, who had put so much stock into this idea—with nothing but heartache and rejection.
“Now that you’re finished with that job that put you around them, just let it go,” Conor said.
“I don’t want to do that,” she responded, deciding not to mention that her new job put her in line for even more contact with the Camdens. That she’d struck a deal to create opportunities for it.
“Declan and I will be there!” her brother insisted. “We’re all the family you need.”
“You’ll only be here for a while,” she reminded him by repeating his words back to him.
“I know it’s been hard on you, Kins,” Conor said. “We all know it, even though you never complain. And we appreciate everything you’ve done standing in for us, not having us around to share the load with Mom and Hugh...” He shook his head. “But you have to think this through. The Camdens could already know we exist, meaning they’ve opted to pretend they don’t—”
“I never saw any hint that Livi Camden knew we’re related.”
“They could know there’s another family out there somewhere without knowing specifically who we are—do you think nobody missed all that money we’ve ended up with? That nobody ever knew it was paid to cover up a dirty little secret? A dirty little secret they don’t want to put faces and names to, let alone acknowledge? And say they don’t know we exist and you tell them. Can you see that being anything but ugly? They’ll probably call Mom a whore. And they’re the ones with the legitimate pedigree—that makes us the mutts. Is that really how you want us to be thought of? Labeled as less worthy? The Camden bastards? Is that what you want? Because we don’t.”
“They seem like nice people, Conor. Maybe it wouldn’t play out that way,” Kinsey persisted. “And even if you and Declan and Liam don’t want anything to do with the Camdens, that doesn’t mean that I can’t have anything to do with them.”
“It’s opening a can of worms, Kinsey. A huge can of worms. And I’m afraid it wouldn’t have whatever happy ending you’re hoping for. We’re the living proof that this guy was an adulterer—how well can that go over with people who want to believe the best of him?”
“But maybe no matter how it came to be, they might want to know that they have three half brothers and a half sister out in the world. The Camdens are all about family. Maybe their grandmother might like to know she has four more grandchildren...”
“Or not,” Conor said intractably. “Can’t you date or something instead? Think about building a family of your own? Something else?”
“Connecting with other brothers and sisters, our grandmother, isn’t a replacement for marriage and kids. I still want that, too. But I also want the Camdens. A grandmother. Cousins. Siblings.”
“You have brothers,” he said as if she’d forgotten.
“I haven’t been in a room with you or Declan in three years, Conor. It’s been closer to four for Liam.”
“Liam is on an elite team—”
“I know,” Kinsey said, cutting off one brother’s defense of the other. “I understand. But you have to understand where I’m coming from, too—”
“I do,” he said with some resignation, as if he’d been trying not to admit it. “It’s not just what you had to do without our help with Mom and Hugh. Now they’re gone. And if you get a flat tire you can’t call one of your big brothers to fix it.”
“I can change a flat tire and I have road service if my car breaks down, but yes! With you guys doing what you do, I sort of have family in name only—”
“Yeah, I know that’s true,” he conceded. “I know that’s it for you—day in, day out, on your own, nobody to turn to, nobody around to blow off steam to, to ask for help or an opinion or to go to dinner or a movie, no family for holidays or birthdays. Nobody to come if you end up in an emergency room. None of us for anything... Believe me, we hate that.”
“But hating it doesn’t change it. And maybe being part of the Camden family could...” Kinsey said.
Conor grimaced. “Really think about it before you reach out to them, will you? Declan and I will be in the states shortly—plan for that instead. Look forward to that for now. Maybe the three of us can even have Christmas together this year. Liam is out of reach for the time being, but when we have contact again, I’ll talk to him about putting in for leave. Maybe we could all meet at the farm, really talk this through while we pack things up there so you don’t have to do that on your own, too.”
That was so appealing—Christmas back on the farm, all four of them together...
But how many times had she hung her hopes on promises like that and had those promises broken? And even if the promises were kept, it only meant a brief taste of family before it ended and she was on her own once more.
She’d come to accept that that was the way it was with Conor, Declan and Liam, that it wasn’t ever going to be any different. Her brothers were career military. They went where they were ordered to go. And none of them was likely to come out of the service until they were retirees like the colonel. Her brothers would always be far, far away.
But the Camdens—who were also family—weren’t so distant, if only she could get them to open the door to let her in.
“Say you’ll wait at least until the first of the year before you do anything,” Conor prodded when she didn’t respond to his Christmas proposal.
“I can’t,” she said honestly.
A nurse appeared in the screen behind Conor just then to tell him something Kinsey couldn’t hear.
When the nurse left, Conor said to Kinsey, “I have to go. Declan is in some pain and I want to monitor what they’re giving him for it.”
“Sure. Good. Tell him I’m thinking about him and I love him.”
“I will. We love you, too, you know?”
“I know,” Kinsey said. “Love you, too.”
“Think Christmas in Northbridge like when we were kids. And don’t do anything rash.”
Kinsey only nodded at that before they said goodbye.
Then she gave a little prayer of thanks for Declan having come through the surgery and not losing his leg before she went to take a shower.
But even as she took off her pajamas and got under the spray of warm water, her conversation with Conor weighed on her.
What if he was right and the Camdens knew there was another branch on the family tree but didn’t want to acknowledge them?
If that was the case then none of them were likely to look kindly on her forcing the issue.
And even if they had no idea that Mitchum had been a philanderer with a second family, it certainly couldn’t come as good news now. Plus yes, it was possible that there wouldn’t be any love lost for that second family when they did find out.
But the Camdens were her flesh and blood—it always came down to that for Kinsey. And she just couldn’t let go of that now that she knew it. She just couldn’t let go of the hope that they might open a door for her to become one of them.
She recognized that a part of her hope for that might be coming from grief over losing the mother she’d loved dearly and been very close to. But that loss had also opened her eyes to the fact that she didn’t have anyone else left, either.
Being completely overwhelmed with caring for her adoptive father and then her mother for the last two and a half years had made it impossible not to neglect her other relationships.
Friends had found mates and she’d missed meeting those new people in their lives, missed their engagement parties, their bridal showers, their bachelorette parties, their weddings. They’d had babies and she’d missed those showers, too, and then the births, and even a first birthday celebration. Her friends had become enmeshed in their own lives, and Kinsey just hadn’t been able to keep up. So those friendships had gone by the wayside and left no meaningful place for her in any of them.
And now there was the potential to have sisters and brothers, a grandmother, nearby. And that had become important to her.
Not that she didn’t want to find a man and have a family of her own because she did, she thought as she finished her shower and began to dry her hair. The hardest thing she’d ever done was saying no to Trevor’s proposal. But it had been the difficulty she’d had rejecting Duncan after Trevor that had told her that she needed to conquer her loneliness before she ventured into any other romantic relationships. She didn’t want to end up with a man she didn’t really love just because she was afraid of being alone.
She opted to leave her hair down again today and dressed in a pair of jeans that she knew fit her to perfection and two layers of T-shirts—a tight yellow scoop-neck over a white tank top. Glancing in the mirror, she realized that once again, she had dressed to impress not the colonel, but Sutter.
There was no denying that he was a hunk and a half. That he was sexy as all get-out and so handsome any and every woman would take a second look and go slightly slack jawed.
But he was wrong for her. As wrong for her as Trevor had been. And yet here she was, here she had been since she’d met him, thinking about him. Factoring him into her choice of hairstyles and clothes again today despite having told herself she wasn’t going to do that again.
Loneliness was coloring her thoughts, her leanings. If not for that she was certain that the simple fact that Sutter was a career marine would have been enough for her to put him out of her mind.
But she didn’t seem able to do that. Instead, she was filled with eagerness to see him again, even though it wasn’t something she should be feeling. Something she doubted she’d be feeling at all if her life was fuller.
So it was better to focus on the Camdens, on the possibility of connecting with them.
And if—hopefully—that went well and she suddenly found herself a part of something bigger, then she could look for a mate of her own and trust that she was choosing wisely.
* * *
“With a little patience and a little effort, Colonel, you’ll have a fine dog in Jack. He’s just a pup—keep that in mind,” Todd Runyun said.
Todd had been working for Pets for Vets since leaving the marines four years ago. Kinsey had met him through her brother Liam, who had done two tours with him. An injury during their last deployment had caused Todd chronic back problems. ffWhen those problems flared he called Kinsey for physical therapy that she’d provided gratis. Returning the favor, he’d come to the Knightlingers’ house after his workday was over to teach Sutter, the colonel and Kinsey what to do with the rambunctious Jack.
Todd had brought his own dog Reggie, a former bomb-sniffing German shepherd he’d adopted when Reggie was retired from service. It had become clear during the two hours he’d been there that the colonel preferred Reggie to Jack and that was only confirmed when the colonel said, “How about you take Jack with you and leave me Reggie?”
Todd laughed. “Give young Jack here a chance—he’s a new recruit who needs to be whipped into shape like all new recruits.”
Then Todd wrapped up the training session with assignments as Jack tried to enlist Reggie into play, front paws outstretched, hind end in the air, tail wagging, at the ready for mischief while Reggie sat regally beside his master, pretending the puppy wasn’t there.
“Jack is a good pup, he’ll make a good dog,” the trainer concluded.
The colonel huffed under her breath as if she’d have to see it to believe it.
What Kinsey could see was that the elderly woman was tiring, and since their lessons were over she thanked Todd for everything and suggested she get the colonel settled for the night.
As Kinsey and the colonel left, she heard Sutter asking about the Pets for Vets organization itself, lamenting that he hadn’t known about the group when he had been looking for a dog for the colonel.
“Good man,” the colonel said once they were in her room, referring to Todd.
“He is.”
“Boyfriend?”
Not only didn’t Kinsey mind answering most personal questions, she was glad to have any show of interest from this particular patient. The colonel wasn’t one to make polite chitchat. If she was asking, it was because she wanted to know more about Kinsey, which was a sign that the colonel was warming to her.
“No, he’s only a friend,” she said, thinking as she did how true that was and wondering why, in comparison to Sutter, Todd’s good looks had no impact on her whatsoever. He was an attractive guy, after all—tall, blond, Nordic-looking. But nothing about him had ever inspired in her what she was struggling with over the colonel’s son.
“Todd is actually one of my brother’s friends,” she said, shying away from analyzing that phenomenon. Instead she forced herself to concentrate on the colonel and went on to explain how Todd knew Liam.
That led to the colonel’s asking about all three of her brothers and their military careers as Kinsey prepared the older woman for bed.
The fact that Kinsey had such close ties to the military in her brothers and her late stepfather—who had just retired from the marines when he’d met her mother—went a long way toward establishing greater rapport with the colonel, and by the time Kinsey was finished and the colonel was situated with a book and the remote control for her television, the atmosphere between them was considerably friendlier.
Friendly enough for the colonel to confide on the sly, “You know, I like a little brandy before bed...”
“I can’t call your doctor for permission for that now, but I’ll check with him first thing in the morning to make sure it won’t interfere with any of your meds. If we get the go-ahead, I’m fine with that. Even though you seem to sleep without it, I’ll tell him you need a little help and that should do the trick,” Kinsey offered.