“Are you telling me you aren’t interested in me anymore? Not at all?”

“No.”

“Liar,” Nate said.

“Do you remember why we broke up?” Jenny’s voice was nearly a whisper in the busy hallway. “Because we were from totally different worlds. If you can tell me that’s changed, that you want to settle down in Mercy and make this your life, then maybe I’ll change my mind.”

Nate leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Or maybe you’ve just made up that little condition because you’re afraid.”

“Me? Afraid? Of what?”

“Of getting involved. With me. Or anyone else. You’re not married. Or divorced. Or dating anyone that I know of. That tells me you’ve either become a recluse or you’re afraid of getting involved.”

She frowned. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this.”

“I agree. So let’s pick a time. When we can be alone.”

Dear Reader,

Working with talented writers is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job. And I’m especially pleased with this month’s lineup because these four authors capture the essence of Silhouette Romance. In their skillful hands, you’ll literally feel as if you’re riding a roller coaster as you experience all the trials and tribulations of true love.

Start off your adventure with Judy Christenberry’s The Texan’s Reluctant Bride (#1778). Part of the author’s new LONE STAR BRIDES miniseries, a career woman discovers what she’s been missing when Mr. Wrong starts looking an awful lot like Mr. Right. Patricia Thayer continues her LOVE AT THE GOODTIME CAFÉ with Familiar Adversaries (#1779). In this reunion romance, the hero and heroine come from feuding families, but they’re about to find out there really is just a thin line separating hate from love! Stop by the BLOSSOM COUNTY FAIR this month for Teresa Carpenter’s Flirting with Fireworks (#1780). Just don’t get burned by the sparks that fly when a fortune-teller’s love transforms a single dad. Finally, Shirley Jump rounds out the month with The Marine’s Kiss (#1781). When a marine wounded in Afghanistan returns home, he winds up helping a schoolteacher restore order to her classroom…but finds her wreaking havoc to his heart!

And be sure to watch for more great romances next month when Judy Christenberry and Susan Meier continue their miniseries.

Happy reading,

Ann Leslie Tuttle

Associate Senior Editor

The Marine’s Kiss
Shirley Jump

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the men and women who serve our country with honor, giving their lives to protect the freedom we all cherish. And especially to my father and husband, two military heroes who make me proud every day.

Books by Shirley Jump

Silhouette Romance

*The Virgin’s Proposal #1641

*The Bachelor’s Dare #1700

*The Daddy’s Promise #1724

Her Frog Prince #1746

Kissed by Cat #1757

*The Marine’s Kiss #1781

SHIRLEY JUMP

spends her days writing romantic comedies with sweet attitude to feed her shoe addiction and avoid housework. A wife and mother of two, her real life helps her maintain her sense of humor. She swears that if she didn’t laugh, she’d be fatally overcome by things like uncooperative llamas at birthday parties and chipmunks in the bathroom. When she isn’t writing, Shirley’s either eating or shopping. Or on a really good day, doing both at the same time.

Her first novel for Silhouette, The Virgin’s Proposal, won the Bookseller’s Best Award in 2004. Though she framed the award, it didn’t impress the kids enough to make them do the dishes more often. In fact, life as a published author is pretty much like life as it was before, except now Shirley conveniently pulls a deadline out of thin air whenever the laundry piles up.

Read excerpts, see reviews or learn more about Shirley at www.shirleyjump.com.

Should I or shouldn’t I get involved with U.S. Marine—and homegrown hero—Nathaniel Dole?

PROS

Gorgeous!

Sexy!

He makes my heart beat superfast whenever he’s around

Loves children

Didn’t make fun of me for kissing a pig…will I ever live that incident down?

Stood up for me at school in front of administration—he is a hero!

Loves his family—a1nd they live here, too

CONS

Keeps his feelings hidden…then again, so do I, sort of…

Can’t tell how he feels about me, but I think he really likes me

I’m afraid he’ll break my heart when he leaves again…

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Chapter One

The pig refused to cooperate, creating a problem bigger than Green Acres and Big Valley put together. Jenny Wright needed to kiss this piece of pork in the next two and a half minutes so she could usher her third-graders back inside—before the principal caught her necking with a mammal on the school lawn on a Friday afternoon.

Dr. Margaret Davis was from the old school and didn’t think Jenny’s rewards program for her students’ achievements did much more than waste time. Everyone in town knew the principal was hoping to be appointed superintendent next year, so she’d been cracking down on anything that made her—or her school—look bad. Jenny doubted Dr. Davis would like the pig much.

Heck, even she didn’t like it much right now, and she’d hired it to be her pucker partner.

“Come on over here, Reginald,” she whispered to the rotund pink animal. “One quick kiss and then you can go back to the farm. Nice bowl of slop waiting for you, I hear.”

Reginald grunted, plopping down onto the new spring grass. He heaved a sigh and closed his eyes.

The circle of third-graders around Jenny began to laugh at the recalcitrant swine. Kissing a pig as a challenge to the kids to read one hundred books before the end of spring term had sounded like a great idea two and a half months ago, when Reginald was wallowing on a farm far away. But now that the pot-bellied three-hundred-pound beast was actually here, he didn’t look very appealing.

She’d never be able to eat bacon again, that was for sure.

“Go on, Miss Wright, kiss him!” Jimmy said.

“Kiss the pig! Kiss the pig!” The chant spread through the twenty-five kids like a verbal wave. The April breeze carried it across the school lawn, into the open windows, bringing a few heads out to see what was happening.

She’d made a promise and she’d stick to it. If there was one thing Jenny Wright did, it was keep her promises. Especially to her students.

She tamped down the wave of nausea in her stomach, then came around to Reginald’s face, got down on her knees in her black capris and, before she could think about what she was about to do, pressed her lips to Reginald’s velvety snout.

He snarled, jerked awake and backed up quickly. Then he let out a squeal and dashed toward the bright pink “Animals Where You Want ’Em” truck. His handler, Ed Spangler, a tall man in overalls and a straw hat, laughed and helped Reginald up the ramp and into the back of the truck. He shut the door, then circled to the front. “Old Reginald hasn’t moved that fast in ten years. Must be one heck of a pucker you got there.”

“Gee, thanks. I think.” Jenny dug her check out of her pocket. “Here you go.”

“Oh, no need to pay me, ma’am. I haven’t laughed that much in ages. Plus, the paper got a snapshot of your date with Reginald. I’d say that free publicity makes us about even.” Ed gestured toward a young man holding a camera and standing across the street. “I thought this might make a good story, so I called the Mercy Daily News myself.” He thumbed the strap of his overalls and nodded.

“This is going to be in the paper?” Oh Lord, her career was over. Might as well start scouring the Help Wanted section now. If there was anything Dr. Davis disliked more than Jenny’s unconventional teaching methods, it was publicity about Jenny’s teaching methods.

A tension headache began to pound in her temples. She pressed her hands to her head, then tucked her hair behind her ears. She would deal with this later. Preferably after a lot of Tylenol and a huge platter of nachos.

Stuffing the check back into her pocket, she spun on her heel and flapped her arms at her class like a mother goose. “Come on, children, back inside.”

“Miss Wright, what’d the pig taste like?” Jimmy Brooks asked.

“Yeah, was he all boogers and slime?” Alex Herman had a fascination with all things nasal. He’d even fashioned a nose for his clay project in art class.

“Eww, Alex. That is so gross.” Lindsay Williams made a face and took a step away from him. “Miss Wright wouldn’t really kiss a slimy pig anyway. She has taste.”

“In what?”

Lindsay shrugged. “I dunno. In animals, I guess.”

Not in men, Jenny thought. As far as love lives went, she’d be willing to bet Reginald had better luck than she did. Finding a man wasn’t high on her priority list right now anyway, not while she was so consumed with her class. All relationships did was complicate her life. Jenny had had enough complications to last her until she was eighty.

“Okay, that’s enough. We need to get back to work.” Jenny pulled open the outside door to her classroom and led the children inside. They took their seats, amid a steady stream of pig chatter and chair squeaking. Then she moved to the front of the room and clapped her hands. After a moment, the children quieted down and faced her. As always, a small thrill of triumph ran through her when her class ran like clockwork. To Jenny, a civilized and orderly class proved she was doing a good job. “Now, you all have done a wonderful job on the first level of the reading challenge. But, we still have a ways to go.”

The class let out a collective groan.

“I’m willing to make it fun,” Jenny said. “If you’re willing to put in the work.”

“Are you going to dye your hair green this time? I really liked the pink,” Jimmy piped up.

“Uh, no. Not this time,” Jenny said. Dr. Davis had nearly gone into cardiac arrest when she’d seen the fuchsia hair Jenny had sported as a first-quarter class incentive.

“How about making us another giant ice cream sundae?” Lindsay rubbed her belly. “I didn’t eat dinner at all that day.”

Lindsay’s mother hadn’t been happy about that either. She’d called Dr. Davis to complain, resulting in another black mark on Jenny’s teaching record. “Er, no, no sundaes.”

“Well, what then?” the class asked.

Jenny put on a bright, work-with-me smile. “We could read just for the fun of it!”

“Nah. That’s boring.” Jimmy said. “We want a prize.” Twenty-five nine-year-old heads nodded in agreement.

She’d created a monster. The children now expected rewards for making their class goals.

Maybe Dr. Davis had a point.

No, she refused to entertain that idea. Her third-graders needed every boost they could get to raise their reading level. This past winter, Mercy Elementary’s scores in the state achievement tests had come back at their lowest levels in years and the school had been placed on probation. Losing their accreditation was a very real possibility, if something didn’t happen. Jenny couldn’t change every class, but she could darn well change her own.

In the last few years, her class had become her main priority in life. It wasn’t that she’d set out to become the stereotypical spinster elementary school teacher. It had just happened that way, after too many failed relationships and one broken heart that refused to heal. And it was a heck of a lot easier to concentrate on the children than on why Jenny attracted bad dates like steel filings to a magnet.

“I’ll think of something,” she said, rubbing at her temples again and returning her thoughts to the class. As long as it didn’t involve pigs or hair dye, she figured she’d be fine.

“Miss Wright?” the school secretary blurted over the loudspeaker. “Can you come down to the principal’s office please? I’ll have Miss Rhodes cover your class.”

“I’ll be right there,” Jenny said.

Jimmy mouthed “Uh-oh.” The other kids’ eyes got wide. They knew that even for an adult, an impromptu trip to the principal’s office meant only one thing—big trouble.

Debbie Rhodes opened the connecting door between the two third-grade classrooms and gave Jenny a sympathetic smile. “Do you think she saw the pig?” she whispered.

“How could she not? He weighed three hundred pounds and arrived in a hot-pink truck.” Jenny sighed. “Guess I better go down there and face the wrath of Davis, huh?”

Debbie gave her arm a squeeze. “Good luck.”

If she could have trudged in two-inch pumps, Jenny would have. It was a bit hard to look as if she was going to her execution dressed in black capris and a white sweater set. So she held her head high, straightened her shoulders and figured if she was going to get fired, she’d go out looking good.

“Dr. Davis would like to see you in her office. She said to shut the door.” Bonnie, the school secretary, gave her a sad smile, as if she knew Jenny was going to enter the lair of the lion and come out like a shredded sock.

Jenny’s spine slumped a little. “Okay.” She crossed to the principal’s office, entered the room, then closed the door behind her.

Dr. Davis sat at her desk, all business and primness. Her gray hair was woven into a tight bun, her brown checked suit perfectly pressed. She had on dark framed glasses, a chain dangling from both sides of the lenses. Dr. Davis left nothing to chance—not even losing her glasses.

“Sit down, Miss Wright.” Dr. Davis didn’t bother to look up from her paperwork. “I hear you had a visitor today.”

“Uh, yeah. A really cute pig.” Jenny pasted on her bright smile again. “The kids loved him.”

“It was a distraction from their learning.”

The smile fell a little. “It was a reward for reading a hundred books this term.”

Dr. Davis raised her head. She dropped her glasses to her chest. “Your class read a hundred books?”

“Yes, they did.” Jenny nodded. “They tried some authors for the first time. Even Jimmy Brooks read three and he didn’t read at all before the pig incentive.”

Dr. Davis leaned back in her chair. “You know the school has been placed on probation because of our achievement test scores this year.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.”

Dr. Davis tapped at her lip with her pen, thinking. “We don’t have much time to bring up our scores if we want to make a difference. You have mentioned to me, several times, that you’d like more support for your program.”

“I do,” Jenny said. “I really think it could work. The children have responded well to incentives and fun.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not entirely sold on your methods thus far. However, I do have to worry about our accreditation. There’s a grant available to the third-grade class that can demonstrate the best growth in reading skills over the school year. It can be used to buy books, computer equipment, whatever you want. I’m quite impressed with what the other teachers are accomplishing using traditional methods….”

Oh, no, here it came. She was going to be stuffed back into the plain reading, writing and arithmetic box. No pink hair, no pigs. Nothing fun.

“However, you have done something unusual and had some success,” Dr. Davis said, almost gritting the words out between her teeth. “Time will tell if it will pay off in test scores, but at this point, I’m ready to try almost anything. Your classroom could use that grant and our school needs to retain its accreditation. If we can raise our status, it also makes us eligible for additional state funding. A winning solution for everyone.” Dr. Davis pursed her lips, then released them. “So, with all that in mind…you have my permission to continue with your students.”

Jenny blinked. “I do?”

“Yes, but—” Dr. Davis held up a finger. “I don’t want any more animals on the school lawn. No giant desserts in the art room. No painted hair. Instead, I have come up with your next reward.” She gave Jenny a smile that seemed an awful lot like a lion opening his jaws.

Oh, Lord.

“Children like heroes,” she continued. “And we have a local hero who has returned to town.” The smile widened. “Nathaniel Dole.”

“N-N-Nate?” Nate was back? He must be on leave. Since when? And why hadn’t she known?

Because the days when he’d pick up the phone and call her to say he was coming home had passed a long time ago. And yet, a part of her still leaped at the thought of him returning, like some Pavlovian response to his presence.

“Is there something wrong with him?” Dr. Davis asked.

“No, no, not at all,” Jenny said, shaking her head. A little too hard because her hair came out from behind her ears and whipped at her eyes.

I used to be in love with him, but that’s not a problem. Anymore.

Besides, she was twenty-nine now. All grown up. It had been, what, ten years since she’d seen him last?

Nine years and three months, whispered the little part of her brain that kept track of those kinds of things.

“Good. I think Mr. Dole would be perfect to come in and work with the kids. He’s home on indefinite leave, doesn’t have much to occupy his days right now and he loves children. Think of him as a sort of free aide.” Dr. Davis leaned forward in her chair and slid a paper across the desk. “Here’s his contact information. I’m sure with all those nine-year-olds, you could always use a helping hand.”

The principal had found a box for Jenny. One she couldn’t escape. Not only did she gain tacit approval for her teaching methods, but also a helper for the busy class.

Nate. The one man she’d vowed never to see again. As if by keeping him out of sight, she could blight him from her heart. If the plan had involved anyone but Nate…

“Oh yes, this is going to be wonderful,” Jenny said. Almost as good as kissing the pig.

Nate Dole’s mother had been at it again. No one else would have left a newspaper on his front stoop, with a tin of cookies to boot. He loved her for trying, but he wasn’t ready to come out of his self-imposed cave. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

He’d bought the small ranch house he was living in now six years ago as a rental property investment. It had been vacant for a few weeks—good timing for a man who’d needed a cave.

Nate had told his family he was on an extended leave and needed some time alone to rest. They’d believed the extended-leave story because he’d barely been home in years. He’d always been too busy fighting the bad guys to stop off in Mercy for some R and R. He’d lied to his family, but it was a lie that bought him a little space and some time to figure out the rest of his life. Or what was left of it now that he was down a knee.

He turned and hobbled back into the house, using the despicable cane to help keep the weight off his left leg. It made him feel ninety, not twenty-nine, and the minute he could get around without it, he was going to use it to start a bonfire.

When he’d shut the door, he reached for the cookies and pried off the lid. He paused, a chocolate chip cookie halfway to his mouth, and noticed the picture on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Mercy Daily News.

Jenny.

Not just Jenny, but Jenny kissing a pig, of all things. Nate laid the cookies on the hall table, then turned on a light so he could see the paper better. He blinked in the sudden brightness.

How long had it been since he’d had the lights on? That alone was a sign he’d spent too much time sleeping and not enough time—

No, he wasn’t going to go there. He rested his weight against the wall and traced the grainy outline of her face.

Jenny.

How many years had it been? Almost ten. He would have thought she’d be married, living anywhere but Mercy by now.

But, no, the caption said “Third-grade teacher Jenny Wright.” She was still single. Still his Jenny.

He shook his head. She hadn’t been his in such a long time. His brain, though, seemed to forget that fact.

He chuckled a little at the image of her down on her knees, puckered up with Reginald, the kissing pig. The sound of his own laughter startled him, like suddenly hearing a foreign language.

He knew what his mother was up to. Between the cookies and the picture of Jenny, she was hoping he’d come around. Go back to being the old Nate again.

The thing no one understood was that he couldn’t go back to being that Nate. No matter how much he wanted to. He’d left that man behind two weeks ago when he’d opted for an honorable discharge from the marines instead of spending the rest of his service years behind a desk—the only other option the doctors gave him.

The doorbell rang and Nate jumped, dropping the paper to the floor. It fluttered apart, dispersing like feathers. He ignored the cane and hopped the few steps to the door on one foot. Through the glass panel, he could see who it was before he even opened the oak door.

He rubbed at his eyes. Surely, this was too coincidental to be true. Maybe he had been alone too long. Now he was starting to hallucinate. Next, it would be pink elephants.

The bell rang again.

Okay, the sound was real. The person on his porch had to be real, too, not a dream come to life.

Nate turned the knob and opened the door. “Hello, Jenny,” he said, as if it had been ten minutes, not ten years, since he’d last seen her.

God, she looked beautiful. Even more so now with the sophistication of age. Her straight blond hair fell in a shimmering curtain against her neck and shoulders. She wore a suit of soft peach over a white silk blouse and matching pumps, as if she’d just come from church. Knowing Jenny, she probably had. Family and commitments had always been important to her, no matter the day of the week.

The nether parts of his body could care less how she was dressed. All he saw when he looked at her was a memory from ten years ago—Jenny lying on the back seat of his Grand Am, looking at him with a happy, satisfied smile and a love in her emerald eyes he’d thought would never die.

But that had been a long, long time ago. And he’d been wrong about the love part.

She tucked several strands of hair behind her ear. He knew the gesture well. She was nervous. For some reason, that made him feel better. “Hi, Nate.”

“Uh, you want to come in?”

She shook her head. “You’re probably busy.”

“Not especially. I could put on some coffee.” If he had any coffee. He wasn’t sure what was in his cabinets. He had cookies, though, and he could scrounge up something to drink to go with them.

“Okay, but only for a minute. I just wanted to stop by and discuss the game plan for next week.”

He opened the door and waved her in. “Next week?”

She stopped in the hall. “Yeah, that’s when you’re scheduled to come into my classroom and help out, remember?”

He hadn’t been in that deep of a fog, had he? “What are you talking about?”

“Dr. Davis told me you called the school and volunteered to help with my third-graders.”

He shut the door and leaned against the wall so she wouldn’t know how much his knee was hurting him. The last thing he wanted to do was drag out the cane in front of her. “Who’s Dr. Davis?”

“The principal.” Jenny put a hand to her mouth. “You mean…you never talked to her?”

“No.”

“Then how…” Her voice trailed off, confusion knitting her brows.

Nate glanced at the paper on the floor, the cookie tin on the hall table. It didn’t take a master puzzler to put the pieces together. “My mother is behind this. I’m sure of it.”

“Why would she do something like that?”

“She thinks I need something to keep me busy.”

“You?” Jenny let out a laugh. “You’re Type-A-plus. I can’t imagine you ever sitting around doing nothing.” Then she paused, as if her vision had finally adjusted to the darker interior. He saw her note the piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen behind him, the laundry he hadn’t bothered to deal with beside the sofa, the discarded newspapers and empty pizza boxes tossed around the room.

“Ah, excuse the mess, I’ve been—” he cut himself off. What reason could he give? He’d been wallowing quite well in self-pity for the last couple of weeks? He’d lost all sense of direction and purpose? That he’d had a hell of a time knowing who he was since he’d returned to Mercy?

Better to leave the sentence unfinished.

Jenny started backing toward the door. “Well, I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll tell Dr. Davis it was all a big misunderstanding.”

She was going to leave. If she did, he had a feeling it would be another ten years before he saw her again. And next time, her last name might not be Wright anymore.

“Jenny, wait.” He took a step forward, then saw the cane against the wall, a stark reminder of why he was home in the first place.

She pivoted, her hand on the doorknob. “What?”

He tightened his fists at his side and gritted his teeth. “It was, ah, really nice to see you again.”

A strange look flitted through her eyes. Disappointment? Hurt? He couldn’t be sure. Half of him wanted to take the words back, to say something that would keep her here, but the other half disagreed.

“Yeah, you, too,” she said. “Tell your mother I said hello.”

And then she was gone. When the door shut, Nate turned off the hall light, yanked the cane up, and retreated to the sofa again. But for the first time, his sanctuary offered no comfort. Like a spring that wouldn’t stay down, the memory of Jenny inside his hallway kept popping up and poking at him.

By the time he picked up the phone, he’d already half made up his mind.

Chapter Two

On Monday morning, Jenny came in early. She’d come up with seventeen ways of telling Dr. Davis that Nate had turned her down, but rejected them all. Even if the whole thing had been a scheme by Grace Dole to reunite the two of them, or a grand idea to get Nate out of the house, Jenny knew she had to find a way to make the whole thing work out, for the sake of her class. If she came up with a good enough excuse for his absence, then it could buy her enough time to convince Nate to change his mind.

David Copperfield moved mountains. Surely she could get one stubborn marine to agree to help her class—and her career. She’d already kissed a pig. How much worse could convincing Nate be?

But being around him…all day, every day. In the same room, within touching distance. Could she do that? Ten years ago, he’d been the man she’d wanted to marry. The one she had laughed with, cried with. Kissed as if the world was going to end tomorrow.

Their world did. He’d joined the marines at seventeen and stopped coming home as often. The distance had made their bond weaker, not stronger. And eventually, one of them—she no longer remembered who—had said the words break up, and before she knew it, the dream she’d held for so many years had evaporated like summer rain on hot pavement.

It was better that way. She was happier. Granted, she was alone, but she no longer pounced on the mail truck, hoping for a letter or some sign that he was okay. That he still cared. She’d finally gone back to normal life.

Well, as normal as life could be with pink hair and a pig for a date.

Jenny pulled out a selection of new library books from her tote bag and set them up on a stand inside the reading circle.

“Miss Wright?”

Jenny wheeled around at the sound of Dr. Davis’s voice. Already? She hadn’t had time to prepare speech number eighteen yet. “Good morning, Dr. Davis.”

“Is Mr. Dole here yet?”

“No, he, ah, he couldn’t make it.”

Dr. Davis arched an eyebrow. “Really? I was under the impression he was eager to help.”

“I think your idea of bringing him in was a wonderful one,” Jenny began, weaving speeches number two and number eleven together on the fly, “and I think the kids would really respond to something like that. The boys’ top choices in books are almost always hero-related.”

The other woman frowned. “I can hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”

“But unfortunately, Mr. Dole—”

“Was running a little late this morning.” Nate entered the room, bearing his weight against a cane. A cane? She hadn’t noticed one yesterday.

Had he been injured? If so, that would explain why gung-ho, always-another-mission-to-take-on Nate was home for more than a minute.

She’d expected him to wear his uniform and was surprised to see him instead in a light-blue dress shirt and navy pants. He looked good, always had. Her heart, which didn’t seem to listen to her head or the warning siren telling her not to notice how he looked, skipped a beat at the sight of him.

“My apologies, Miss Wright and Dr. Davis.” He nodded toward each of them.

“I’m glad you could make it.” The principal extended her hand to shake his. “Miss Wright was under the impression you weren’t coming.”

“Just a misunderstanding.” He grinned. “I’m here and ready to help.”

“Good. I’ll get out of your way then.” Dr. Davis gave him a smile, then left the room.

Once the principal was gone, Jenny turned to Nate. His face, she’d realized yesterday, looked older now, more tired, as if the weight of the world wasn’t sitting so easily on his shoulders anymore. For a fleeting second, she wanted to reach out and make it easier for him.

She quickly shook off the thought. The days when she’d supported Nate were far in the past, and she intended to leave them that way. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Helping you.”

“When I left yesterday, you didn’t seem interested.”

“I, ah, had some time to think it over.” He took a seat on the edge of a desk. “I’m here for a week. Do with me what you will.” He grinned.

A week. She could last a few days in his presence and not lose her mind or her heart again.

Couldn’t she?

Jenny crossed her arms and leaned against the blackboard. “I don’t buy it. You’re as stubborn as a mule and once you’ve made up your mind, you never change it.”

“It’s been a long time, Jenny,” he said quietly. “People change.”

“Yes, they do.” She picked up a piece of chalk and turned it over and over in her palm. “Sometimes.”

The silence stood between them like a gate waiting to be unlocked. His deep-brown gaze met hers and she had to look away before all the thoughts she’d had over the last ten years came rushing to the surface.

I am over him.

But when she turned again to draw in the face that had once been as familiar as her own, she knew Nate wasn’t the only liar in the room.

“Knock, knock.” Debbie stuck her head in the room. “Oh, hi. I didn’t know you had company, Jenny.”

“Come on in.” Jenny stepped forward and waved the other third-grade teacher into the room. If she had to, she would have dragged Debbie in. Anything to ease the growing tension between herself and Nate.

It’s over between us. Maybe she needed to put that on a sign and wear it around her neck as a reminder.

“I’m Nate Dole,” he said, putting out his hand to the slim brunette. “I’m here to help with Jenny’s class for a few days.”

Debbie’s hazel eyes sparked to life and a wide smile took over her face when she took his hand in hers. “Well, if you ever run out of things to do, my classroom’s right next door.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Nate said. Their hand-shake—which seemed to last for hours—finally ended.

Jenny shouldn’t have felt an ounce of jealousy. Nate had every right to flirt with another woman, kiss another woman, marry another—

No, his left hand was bare. He was still single.

She would not acknowledge the relief that flooded her at that thought.

“Well,” Jenny said. “Mr. Dole and I need to re-organize the day. The children will be here in seventeen minutes and once they arrive, there won’t be any time to breathe.”

“Yeah, I better get to my own class.” But Debbie didn’t move.

Jenny opened the connecting door. “See you at lunch.”

“Oh, yeah, lunch.” Debbie shook her head, then turned to Nate. “Will you be here at lunch?”

“If Jenny wants me to be,” he said.

Both of them turned to look at her. She wondered what was on the menu today and if Debbie would look good wearing it, then bit back the evil-twin thoughts. She was not jealous. Not one bit. “He doesn’t have to stay all day.”

“Oh, too bad,” Debbie said. “I’m sure the…the, ah, students will really enjoy him being around. A big, tall guy like you.” She gave him a smile and leaned against the doorframe. “You’re a marine, I hear.”

“Debbie?” Jenny said, laying the hint heavy in her voice. “I really need to rework my lesson plan for today.”

“Yeah, sure. Me, too.” Debbie dispensed another smile Nate’s way, toothy as a Miss America contestant. “Have a nice day. If you need anything—”

“You’re right next door,” he finished for her.

Jenny distinctly heard the sound of Debbie sighing as she disappeared into her own classroom. With a firm shove, Jenny shut the door.

“Now, let’s talk about the real reason why you’re here,” she began. “It’s not altruism.”

He grinned at her, as if he’d seen the spark in her eyes when Debbie had flirted with him. “To help you.”

“I know you, Nate. You and children mix about as well as an elephant in a roomful of mice. I don’t think so.” She tapped her lip with her finger. “There’s more to you showing up here than a nudge from your mother. I’d be willing to bet on it.”

“Maybe.” His grin widened, giving nothing away. “If you want to bet, we could make it interesting.”

“This is an elementary school, remember? Nothing R-rated allowed.”

“Too bad.”

Jenny got out a stack of math fact review worksheets and began putting one on each child’s desk for early-morning work. It was easier to do that than to focus on the teasing glint in his eyes. “Believe me, you won’t be having any R-rated thoughts in a little while. Once those kids get hold of you, your brain will become mush and your body will beg for a nap.”

“I’ve been through wars. I can handle a bunch of kids.”

“A war is nothing compared to twenty-five third-graders.”

“Jenny, I’m a marine, remember? I can handle it, believe me.”

She paused and turned to him. “I’m going to take such pleasure in saying ‘I told you so’ later on today.” She thrust the pile at him. “Here, finish putting these on the desks so I can get the vocabulary words up on the board.”

He slid off the desk and hobbled to where his cane lay resting against the wall. When he’d entered the room, she’d seen him walking with it, but then she’d forgotten about it.

Her attention had been riveted on his face. Those liquid chocolate eyes. The way his hands moved when he talked. And that grin. That damned grin that even now, ten years later, could still cause an odd quiver in her heart.

“What happened to you?” She gestured to the cane.

He shook his head. “Just a little knee surgery. Nothing big.”

Once again, she got the feeling he was holding something back, as if he had a bunch of secrets tucked in his back pocket. The Nate she’d known years ago had been as open as a pool of water. But the Nate she saw today had become a darker lake, filled with depths she couldn’t see.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only when I let it.”

Asking more would mean getting close to Nate. Treading in the personal zone. She didn’t want to go there, not again. It had taken her two years to get over their breakup. She didn’t have the heart to go down that path a second time.

“As an aide, all you really have to do is help any kids who are struggling.” Jenny turned to the board and began writing because it was too hard to watch him wrangle his way through the rows of desks. She knew Nate—help was a four-letter word in his vocabulary. She cleared her throat and got to work chalking the list of words from the books the class had been reading. “Anyway, our theme this week is heroes. You being here is perfect timing.”

“Why?”

She turned, the chalk still between her fingers. “Because you’re the definition of a hero.”

Nate shook his head. “Not in my Webster’s.” He jerked away, the cane rapping against the tile.

“Nate, what do you mean by—”

“Hi, Miss Wright,” Jimmy Brooks said. “My mom dropped me off early. Again.” The wiry blond boy disappeared behind the coatroom wall, then poked his head out. “Hey, who are you?” He pointed at Nate.

“Jimmy, this is Master Sergeant Dole. He’s going to be with our class this week.”

Jimmy dropped his backpack to the floor. His eyes widened. “You’re in the army? Like a GI Joe?”

“I’m not—” Nate began.

“Mr. Dole is a marine,” Jenny explained before turning to Nate. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“That’s, ah, exactly what I was going to say anyway.” Something flickered in his eyes—a shadow passing through—but then it was gone.

“How many people have you shot? Can I see your gun?” Jimmy circled around Nate, rat-a-tatting the questions.

“Later.” Jenny said, bending down to the boy’s level to get his attention. “Right now, you need to put your book bag away and start your morning work. Sergeant Dole will be here all week. You can talk to him later.”

“But—”

Jenny put up a finger. “I said later. And no questions about shooting people.”

“Aw, Miss Wright. You’re no fun.” Jimmy trudged off, muttering about how the class finally had someone cool and the teacher had made it all uncool.

She glanced at Nate and caught him watching her, a bemused expression on his face. Unbidden, the corners of her lips turned up into a smile. His brown gaze linked with hers, and something fluttered deep inside her. Something she’d thought she’d left in the past, like the photo album tucked under her bed.

Before Jenny could consider what that something could be, the bell rang and in gaggles like baby geese, the other children entered the room, talking and laughing, poking and prodding, complaining and shouting. Each stopped and stared when they noticed Nate, then started up a sea of whispers in the coatroom.

“As soon as you all take your seats and get your morning work done, I’ll tell you about our visitor,” Jenny called over the clamor. Focus on the class, not Nate. And maybe that quivering in her gut would stop.

The children nearly knocked each other over trying to get to their desks. Pencils flew across papers faster than cars zipping around the Indy 500 raceway. Like dominoes in reverse, one hand after the other shot up into the air, signaling they were done.

“If I’d known a visitor would get you all to work this hard, I would have brought one in a lot sooner,” she said, laughing as she collected their papers. She waved Nate up to the front of the room. “Class, this is Master Sergeant Nathaniel Dole. He grew up in Mercy and even went to this school. He’s a marine and he’s visiting our class this week, as part of our reading project on heroes.”

There were several exclamations of “Cool!” from the back of the room, a couple of yawns and several whispers between the children.

“Now, I’m sure you all have questions for Sergeant Dole. We’ll do a brief question-and-answer period today and maybe another one tomorrow. Now, who has a question?”

A dozen hands reached upward, fingers wiggling. Jenny laughed and gave Nate’s shoulder a pat. “You’re on,” she whispered.

Nate got to his feet and eyed the crowd. “What do I do?” he whispered to her.

“Just be honest. If there’s one thing a kid can spot from fifty paces, it’s an adult telling a lie. No gory stories, of course, but you can tell them the truth. The goal here is to get them more interested in heroes so they’ll want to read about them, too.”

Nate shook his head. She had him confused with the man he used to be. “I’m not the right man for that.”

“You’re perfect.” Jenny gave Nate a long, slow smile that ricocheted through him with the force of a hurricane wind. “The one thing you always did well was be a marine.”

If she only knew, he thought, how right she was.

He wasn’t a marine anymore, not the kind he’d dreamed of being. And thanks to the bullet that had torn through his knee, he never would be again.

Jenny walked over to her desk, leaving Nate to face the class alone. He pointed first to a little girl with blond hair who seemed to have a continual sniffle. “What’s your question?”

She dabbed at her nose with a crumpled tissue. “What’s a marine do?”

He drew himself up and gave her a nod. “Good question. The grunts are the first ones into the hot spots. For instance, we’d take a beachhead with an amphibious assault and cordon off an LZ, then…” His voice trailed off as he noticed the furrowed brows surrounding him. “Uh, we go in first when there’s a war and make a safe place for planes to land the other troops.” He pointed next to a small boy with glasses.

“What happened to your leg? How come you got to have a cane?”

“I, ah, had some knee surgery.” Not exactly a lie. Not quite the truth, either, but there were some things he wasn’t ready to talk about, Jenny’s advice about being honest be damned.

“Where’s your gun?” Jimmy interrupted, before he could be called on.

“I don’t carry it when I’m not on duty.” He pointed to a girl in the back row who had her hair in twin pigtails. His mother, he remembered, had always done his sister’s hair like that.

For a second, he felt a pang at not having seen Katie since he came home. He missed her and his brothers—Jack, Luke, Mark. All were married now, settled down with families—nieces and nephews he barely knew because he’d been gone from Mercy more often than not.

He shook his head and, with skills honed over years of being apart from his family, Nate brushed the thought away. His mother had been calling and asking him over, but he’d made one excuse after another. He’d see his sister and brothers when he was ready. When he could somehow explain the man he’d become.

He was far from being able to do that right now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your question,” he said to the little girl.

“If you’re a marine, how come you’re not dressed like one?” she asked. “How come you’re not wearing your uniform?”

Nate’s grip on the cane tightened. The muscles in his jaw formed into immovable lumps, as if someone had injected them with concrete.

The question wasn’t a hard one. But it required an answer more complicated than he could give to a group of nine-year-olds at eight-thirty in the morning.

“I just decided to wear something else today,” he said finally.

“Can you wear your uniform tomorrow?” Jimmy asked. “I bet it’s really cool. Do you have a lot of medals and stuff?”

He’d had medals. Past tense. He thought of the dark-blue coat, once hung with ribbons and golden pins whispering of past deeds.

But now…

Now he didn’t wear it anymore. It had been far too painful a reminder, so he’d stuffed it into the dark recesses of his closet. A few months ago, that uniform had been his life. He didn’t have the athletic prowess of Mark, the brains of Luke, the business acumen of Katie or the focus of Jack. Nate thrived on action, adventure. And the only thing he seemed to be good at, since the Christmas he got his first G.I. Joe, was battling the bad guys—and winning.

Now that he wasn’t wearing the clothes of a marine, he felt lost, as if he wasn’t sure what uniform he was supposed to wear anymore.

“Can you wear your marine clothes tomorrow? I bet it’s really awesome,” another boy said.

“No.” Nate’s voice came out tight and strangled. He cleared his throat and tried again. “No, I can’t wear it.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He cast a help-me look at Jenny. She grinned at him and stepped forward. “That’s enough questions for today,” she said. “It’s eight-forty-two. Time to get started on our vocabulary words. Now, everybody copy down…”

While she talked, Nate scooted around the desks and made his way to the back of the room. He slipped his free hand into his pocket and fingered the piece of paper that had arrived that morning on his fax machine. Whether he liked it or not, he had to stay in Jenny’s class for the entire week.

After Jenny had left, he’d called his V.A. doctor, thinking the physician would tell Nate he had a good reason to go on staying at home and off his knee. But no, the doctor had disagreed, and when the story of Jenny’s visit had slipped out, he’d ordered Nate to a week in Jenny’s class as “therapy” for his knee. Whether this was going to be good for him or not remained to be seen.

Looking at the wide-eyed, eager faces around him, he realized Jenny had been right.

These kids were going to eat him alive.

3:04 PM Page 38

Chapter Three

“I think I should alert the Pentagon,” Nate said to Jenny after morning recess a couple of hours later.

She laughed, the sound of it as light and airy as clouds skipping across the sky. He had always loved the sound of her laughter. There had been a lot of things he’d realized he’d missed when he came back home, but none caused the wrench of longing in his gut the way Jenny’s laughter did. “Why do you say that?”

“You’ve got this classroom running better than a lot of platoons. I’ve never seen such organization, especially with kids.”

She pulled open the door to her classroom and waved the children inside. Nate stayed on the opposite side of the stoop, providing crowd control. “You should see me the first day. It’s all chaos until I get to know the kids and they get to know me.”

“I bet you have a schedule and a routine all set before the first bell rings on opening day. If I remember right, you weren’t the type to like chaos for very long.”

The last child skipped across the threshold, followed by Nate. Jenny swung the door shut and latched it firmly. “No, I didn’t.” Her voice had dropped into a softer, almost melancholy range.

Jenny’s childhood, he knew, had been a topsy-turvy one. She’d never talked about it much, but it had been clear her flighty mother and absent father had made her young life unpredictable. Throughout their courtship, she’d called Nate her “rock,” the one support system she could count on. With him, Jenny had seemed to let loose, live more for the moment, as if she trusted him to be there when she needed to come back to reality.

Inevitably, though, she’d always rein herself back in, focusing on work or homework or whatever else was more important then, as if she’d suddenly realized the consequences of being too spontaneous. They’d had fun when they’d dated, most of the time, when Jenny had let down her hair and really let him into her heart and her world.

He remembered the fights, the days when it seemed there was no way to repair the damage between himself and Jenny, but he also remembered so much more. Laughter over nothing at all. Hugs on the porch. Kisses sneaked behind the shed. Teasing, torturous touches in the lake during summer camp.

“Jenny, I—”

She turned to him, her emerald eyes wide. Waiting. “Yes?”

Save for a slight maturity in her face and a lightening in her hair, Jenny Wright was the same woman he remembered. Her laughter, her smile, her eyes. All of it exactly the same, as if the past ten years had passed in a blink.

But he was different. And he’d be fooling himself if he thought she’d want anything but the old Nate, the strong, can-do-anything man he’d been. That was the man she had loved, not the shell of a used-up soldier he’d become. “Never mind.”

“Don’t do that. You were about to say something. Tell me.”

He looked past her, into the bright and sunny classroom that so captured Jenny’s personality in the vibrant wall hangings and the sunflowers decorating the bulletin boards. “I…I think Jimmy is trying to feed Lindsay a worm.”

“Oh, God, not again,” she muttered and spun away.

Within thirty seconds, she had the offensive invertebrate back outside, Lindsay calmed and Jimmy seated at a desk in the hall. “Exile worked well with Napoleon,” Jenny explained, joining Nate at the back of the room. “And it works well with Jimmy Brooks, too.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Nah, I just have a system that works for me. All teachers do.” She glanced at her watch, then stepped away from him, clapped her hands and two dozen heads popped to attention. “Story time, children. Everyone grab a mat and take a seat on the floor. Today, we’ll read together instead of having a silent reading period.”

A few minutes of scrambling, and then the class had assembled in a circle on the floor around a small rocking chair. Jenny grabbed a book off the shelf and pressed it into Nate’s hands. “Here you go.”

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Wear it.” She grinned. “No. Read to them.”

“Me?”

“That’s what you’re here for.” She leaned closer and the scent of sandalwood wafted up to greet him. In the bottom of his foot locker was a box of letters that held that very scent, faint now after all these years, but still discernible if he placed them very, very close to his face.

How many times had he done that in those lonely years in the marines? Those days after he’d lost her, when the only thing he’d had was a few sheets of sandalwood-scented stationery? Too many times, he knew.

He jerked himself back to the present when he saw her staring at him. “What’d you say?”

“I said, go read to them before they start a riot in the circle.” She gestured to the group of kids, already starting to argue and tease each other.

He grinned. “Your wish is my command.”

Jenny smiled back. “Now why can’t all men say that more often?”

“Because we rarely mean it.” He caught her chuckle as he made his way through the crowd of children, who parted like the Red Sea to make room for him and his cane to wriggle through. Once he was settled in the chair, he cracked open the story and began to read.

At first, his voice droned in a monotone, the cadenced speech pattern he’d developed after so many years in the military. But then, as the pages passed and the story began to grow more interesting, Nate slipped into the voices of the characters, adding inflections to the old man, high pitches to the shrieking neighbor woman and a deep baritone for the firefighter who all starred in the tale.

The children stopped squirming and talking. They perched their elbows on their knees and leaned forward, ears pitched toward the sound of his voice. When he reached the last page, several of them let out cries of disappointment.

“Let’s thank Mr. Dole for his spirited reading debut,” Jenny said, stepping into the circle.

The applause that encircled him could have been coming from Carnegie Hall. Nate shut the book. “It was fun.”

“I told you so,” she whispered, taking the novel from him and replacing it on the shelf. “You always were a ham.”

The children got to their feet, replacing their carpeted mats in the pile and heading back to their seats. Jenny grabbed a stack of worksheets off her desk and handed them out, directing the class to write a short paragraph on the story and draw a picture of their favorite character.

Nate came up beside her. “I was not a ham,” he said.

Jenny laid the extra sheets on her desk and quirked a brow at him. “Who starred in every production put on by the Mercy Elementary Players?”

He chuckled. “I don’t think playing the lead in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown qualifies me for Oscar status.”

“You loved it. Admit it. I’m surprised you didn’t go into acting.”

He let out a snort. “There’s plenty of that in the marines, believe me. Pretend the drill instructor doesn’t make you so mad you want to scream until your voice gives out. Pretend the food in the mess hall doesn’t taste like something left over from the Dark Ages. Pretend you don’t miss the people back home so much you can barely sleep at night.”

She toyed with the pencils in a white Hug a Teacher mug on her desk. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Miss…people?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “A lot of them.”

“Miss Wright?” A little boy in the second-to-last row raised his hand.

She got to her feet and left her desk, as if she were grateful for the change of subject. “Yes, Lionel?”

“How do you spell grenade launcher?”

“Why? There weren’t any weapons in the story.”

“I know. I’m writing about Sergeant Dole instead. He’s cool. I even got a picture of him killing the—”

“Lionel, that wasn’t your assignment.”

“Yeah, but, I’m writing a story.” He raised his paper as proof. All of the lines were filled in with neat, tight script. “And didn’t you always say it’s not so important what we read and write about, but that we’re reading and writing?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“This is what I want to write about.” He turned and replaced his paper on his desk, pencil at the ready. “So can you tell me how to spell grenade launcher?”

“Some interesting reading material for today?”

Nate saw Jenny pivot toward the woman who’d entered the room. “Dr. Davis!” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Apparently not.” She looked down her glasses, surveyed the classroom, then crooked a finger in Jenny’s direction. Jenny crossed the room and met the principal at the door. “What were you reading to these children today?” Dr. Davis asked.

“This is heroes’ week. Our first book was about a firefighter who rescued a family.” Jenny withdrew the novel from the shelf and handed it to the principal. The two of them moved into the hall, leaving the door ajar.

Dr. Davis flipped through the pages and harrumphed. “Then why are the children writing stories about war weapons?”

“They’re not—”

“Jenny is an excellent teacher,” Nate interjected in a soft tone, joining them. “She gets these students motivated and hasn’t taught them anything inappropriate. The grenade-launcher thing came about because the kids heard I was in the marines and one boy decided to write a story about me instead of the assignment.”

“I was about to explain the right way to do their worksheet,” Jenny said.

“I hope you don’t think it would be fun,” on this word, Dr. Davis directed a pointed glance at Jenny, “to share war escapades with these impressionable minds.”

“No, ma’am, I did not,” Nate replied. “Miss Wright, in fact, kept everything away from that focus.”

“Well,” Dr. Davis said after a moment. “That’s a relief.” She handed the book back to Jenny, then left.

Jenny poked her head back into the room. “Class, continue working on your assignment, doing it the way I told you to.” She gave Lionel a pointed glance. “I need to talk to Master Sergeant Dole in the hall.”

A few voices uttered the fatal “Uh-oh” as Jenny shut the door a little more to block prying eyes and ears.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

“Against Dr. Dragon Lady?” he said. “I think you could use all the allies you can get.”

Another teacher came striding down the hall. Jenny lowered her voice. “Nate, don’t come marching in here and try to fix my life like it’s old times. I don’t need you to take charge anymore. I’m a big girl now.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He took a step closer to her, invading her space, putting a chink in the wall of invulnerability she had built up in the years since they’d broken up. “Yeah.”

With that one word, the air between them hushed. For a moment, she was lost in the depths of his eyes, her heart racing like a hummingbird. He grinned at her, the same easy grin that had always made her melt. The smile reached his eyes, softening the hard lines put there by his years in the military. For a moment, he became the Nate she remembered. The Nate she couldn’t say no to.

The Nate she’d—

Jenny heard the click-click of heels against linoleum and looked away. Dr. Davis was coming back around the corner, heading down the hallway toward her classroom.

Oh, no.

She considered grabbing Nate and ducking back into the room before the principal reached them—until she glimpsed a familiar pair of overalls coming toward her from the opposite direction.

Oh, God. The Animals Where You Want ’Em guy. He’d probably come to collect on his payment after all.

But no, he had something with him. Something smaller than a pig. And furrier, too. In fact, it looked a lot like—

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