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he expected deployment within weeks to Bosnia or Somalia or anywhere bad guys were acting up and needed to be taken down.
    The year before, he’d been deployed to Iraq. Thank God the Gulf War hadn’t been a long one because he hated that dust bowl of a county and never wanted to go back. He was grateful, though. Grateful to serve his country and have the opportunity to add a few more medals and ribbons to dress blues. Kasper loved the military life. Loved being a Marine, and had worked damn hard to earn his Hog’s Tooth. His life was exactly what he’d envisioned. Exactly what he’d planned for himself. There’d been a Pennington man in every war since the American Revolution, and Kasper’s feet were firmly planted on a path for military success.
    Kasper ate a quick bowl of cereal and headed outside. He worked on the big house whenever he was in town, but that wasn’t often lately. He sent his grandmother money for basic upkeep, but it needed more than the basics. He grabbed his Camp Lejeune ball cap and opened the back door. The old hinges creaked as he moved to a woodpile on the side of the house.
    Pulling his cap farther down his brow, he picked up an axe leaning against a stump. He needed to chop enough wood to make sure his grandmother had plenty for when he wasn’t around this winter. He’d tried to talk her into moving into a smaller house, a house much more manageable for a woman in her sixties. Of course she didn’t want to hear a word of it.
    The first chop of the axe split the log in half, and the pieces flew to the sides. It was a little after ten in the morning, and a cool breeze fluttered the leaves and Spanish moss on the live oak around the place. It was bound to get a hell of lot hotter. Like yesterday.
    He put another log on the stump. When he’d looked across Wally’s yard yesterday and seen a girl with a mass of soft, dark curls, he’d been fairly certain he was looking at a Toussaint. A beautiful, delicate Toussaint.
    From as far back as he could recall, he’d been warned to stay away from anyone with Toussaint blood in their veins. The men were thieves, and the women thought they were better than anyone else. As his grandmother always said, “Those women walk around with their noses so high, they’ll drown in a rainstorm.” Then she’d always purse her lips, and add, “But those cats can’t resist a Pennington man.”
    The log split with one chop. He should have listened to grand-mère’s warning. If he had, he wouldn’t have gone to sleep frustrated.
    He split wood for several more hours before he leaned the axe against a stump and pulled a beer from the cooler. He figured he’d split a cord and popped off the top of a bottle of Budweiser. He tipped it back as a white Chevy turned off the highway and headed up the drive. Likely one of his grandmother’s club members dropping by to share some gossip, but grand-mère was at her “friend” Boots Butaud’s for the day. She would not be home until after dinner.
    The Chevy rolled to a stop, and Kasper immediately recognized the mass of dark curls on the driver’s side. Blue Butler cut the engine to the car and got out. She wore a silky white blouse, and he could see the lacy straps to her slip beneath. A conservative striped skirt hugged her hips and legs to her knees, and her curls bounced as she moved toward him. She held his sweatshirt in one hand and a big straw hat in the other.
    “Hello,” she said as she stopped in front of him. “I accidentally took off with your shirt last night.”
    She handed it to him, and he tossed it on the stump. “You didn’t have to drive it over.” She probably thought that the shirt she was wearing was all proper, buttoned up to her throat like that. It wasn’t. One dunk of water, and it would be totally see-through.
    “I was in town, and it’s not exactly out of the way.” She shoved her hat on her head and looked around. “I’ve never been here.”
    If she expected a tour, she was