Fallout Read Online Free PDF Page B

any of those things, fine. Even if she
was
good-looking. So he just held steady and watched her. He thought her small eyeglasses, obviously chosen for their look, were quirky and impractical, and her short, midriff-exposing, spaghetti-strapped top and sexy capri pants were “incongruous”—he’d used the word once he found out what it meant—with her role as a corporate lawyer. And if
anyone
was part of the machine against which the band had been raging, it was probably the corporations that used Third World nonreading slaves to build things no one wanted but were persuaded to buy through the companies’ clever marketing campaigns.
    She’d loved that and had thrown back her head in beautiful laughter that seemed to bounce off her perfect teeth like musical notes off crystal. He told her that her long, curly blond hair was also not the usual sign of a corporate lawyer, and he insisted on seeing her business card.
    They had dated on weekends, when Luke would drive his Corvette to the Bay Area from LeMoore. They would go to Marin County, or Sausalito, or just ride the ferry around the bay. He’d fallen for her more deeply than he’d ever imagined possible. It left him short of breath. The thought of living without her was inconceivable. He knew by the second month of dating her that he wanted to marry her, but it took him another six months to work up to hinting at the possibility to gauge her reaction. She’d laughed again, but it was her encouraging, “what a great idea” laugh, that life is good, and this idea will be part of the wonderful, enchanted life she seemed to be leading. Luke knew he was completely outclassed. She was from a higher plane in almost every way. But she loved him, and he knew it, and he wasn’t the kind to catalog all the ways she was better than him. No point. If it didn’t matter to her, he wasn’t going to let it matter to him.
    He had asked her to marry him right as his squadron tour was ending, just as he was rolling to his shore tour. They knew they would have a chance to be together every day. The timing was perfect. Then he got his dream assignment—he was asked if he wanted to be an instructor at TOPGUN. He was thrilled. So was she, until she learned TOPGUN wasn’t in San Diego anymore. Fallon, Nevada, he’d told her, and her enthusiasm had evaporated.
    She didn’t want to leave what she was doing, and after days of agonizing over how to solve the problem, they’d arrived at a compromise. She would keep her apartment in Palo Alto and come to Fallon every Friday afternoon through Monday morning. They had agreed that practicing law in Fallon, Nevada, simply wasn’t the same as practicing law in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Palo Alto, California.
    But she knew that he was going to stay in the Navy. He was determined to be a commanding officer of a Navy squadron and ultimately of a nuclear aircraft carrier. He loved flying in the Navy and wanted to make it a career. She’d breathed in deeply and said she didn’t know how, but she would make it work. They would make it work.
    Now he had to tell her that all their plans were being turned upside down.
    “You’re home,” Katherine said from behind him, surprising him.
    “Hey,” he said. He turned to see her. She looked terrible. Her face was drawn and pale, and her long blond hair was more disheveled than usual. She was dressed in a business suit, but she looked as if she’d been camping. “How you doing?”
    She stood next to him and put her head down on her arm on the counter. “Sick.”
    “Flu?”
    “No,” she said.
    He frowned.
    “You sitting down?” she replied.
    He looked at the stool on which he was obviously sitting. “Looks like it.”
    “Morning sickness.”
    He stood and stared at her, openmouthed. “Seriously?”
    “Seriously,” she said, trying to smile. “I did the test after you left this morning. I got dressed and tried to get to the airport and just lay on the bed. I couldn’t make