Always a Marine 21 - Lest Old Marines Be Forgot Read Online Free PDF Page B

me to let it all go.”
    “What do you want?” Because her would-have-been sister-in-law wasn’t the woman who interested him.
    “I don’t know, not to be crying on the shoulder of a man I just met. To be flirty and playful and have that good time I signed up for—maybe laugh and dance and…and not pass out when my heart hurts.” She bit her lower lip then grinned ruefully. “Maybe get to know you a little better.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    Mission accepted .

Chapter Three
     
     
    Brenda blinked at the question. Tom Baxter was not at all who she’d expected. Nor had she thought she’d bare her soul so blatantly in the first few minutes of their date, but something in the way he watched her, as if she were the solitary thing holding his attention, had wrapped her up and cocooned her in a blanket of security.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You said you wanted to get to know me a little better.” The gruff growl of his voice wasn’t remotely unpleasant. If anything, it had a deliciously sexy power, tempered by the sincerity of patience. “What would you like to know?”
    “I’d like to know why it is when you have a million questions you’d like to ask and someone offers you the opportunity to ask them, that you go blank.” She widened her eyes then winced, and to her immense delight he laughed. It was a slow, easy sound like whiskey pouring over ice with just a hint of a crackle.
    “Questions make us vulnerable—reveal our interests. One intelligence-gathering technique is to allow someone else to interrogate you. Their questions say a lot not only about what information they already have, but what they are trying to verify and what they classify as important.” He picked up a piece of the shrimp and fed her again.
    Licking a drop of cocktail sauce from her lips, she considered his statement. “That’s such a cold way of looking at the world.”
    “It’s practical. I’ve spent a lot of time in hot zones. Knowledge and trust are the only things that can keep you and the guy standing next to you alive.” But he didn’t shrug off her comment or make light of them. “It’s why you aren’t sure what to ask. How about we do this—you can ask me any question you like without fear of judgment or recrimination, and I am free not to answer any without any reprisal or judgment on your part?”
    It wasn’t an unreasonable request, however she could do him one better. “Tit for tat.”
    Amusement curved his mouth. “I’m sorry?”
    “Question for question. If I can ask you, then you can ask me. Whoever doesn’t answer one first gives a pass to the other when they choose not to answer one. But as long as we’re both answering…fair?”
    “Exceptionally, though I admit to being ahead of the curve since you told me about your fiancé.” He chose a stuffed mushroom and offered it to her. Accepting the bite, she shivered at the way his gaze lingered on her mouth and the stroke of his thumb along her lower lip as a bit of mushroom tried to escape.
    No one ever fed her—it was an intimacy she couldn’t recall ever experiencing. Tom offering to do so was novel enough. That she allowed him to, even more so. “I don’t mind that you know about Steve.” Oddly enough, she really didn’t. “I don’t talk about him anymore. Most everyone who knew about us back then have gone on with their lives. It’s been thirty years, so for them it’s a distant memory. A sadness from the past. Amelia remembers, but even for her, he was her brother and she misses him. But her life went on.”
    “And yours didn’t.” Tom shifted in his chair and drummed a finger against the tabletop. “Why?”
    “I don’t have any easy answer for that. At first, I know it was because I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. It was everything I could do to put one foot in front of the other. If my parents hadn’t made me stay in college, I think I would have dropped out.” Folding her arms, she leaned on the edge of