Once a Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page B

of that last beer before I start on another one.”  She grabbed her purse off the chair she’d abandoned earlier and got to her feet. Then, as if to guarantee he wouldn’t disappear while she was gone, she also snatched his officer’s hat off his head and put it on her own.
    Mike watched her walk away, his hat tilted at a jaunty angle on her bottle-blonde hair and her hips working smoothly beneath her straight black skirt. Looking around, he noticed that he wasn’t the only one who was watching. Every other man in the joint seemed to appreciate the fully orchestrated anatomical symphony playing out before his eyes.
    Anticipation swam sweetly along with the beer in his bloodstream. If this was a preview of what he was in for later tonight . . .
    Turning his head, Mike was amused to see that even the engaged John wasn’t immune to some gentle voyeurism. Their eyes met over Kitty’s bowed head and, together, they grinned. At the same time, someone punched in the “Pennsylvania Polka” on the jukebox.
    “Why don’t they play some Glenn Miller?” he griped.
    “Or Sinatra,” John suggested.
    “Spit on me, Frankie, I’m in de toid row!”  Mike’s falsetto impersonation of one of the New Jersey crooner’s fans, complete with an ecstatic facial expression, brought a chuckle from John. Even the melancholy Kitty managed a small laugh.
    He should have quit while he was ahead, but he had just enough of a buzz on that he didn’t stop to think before he blurted out, “So, has your mother changed her mind about coming to the wedding?”
    Wrong question, Mike realized, sobering instantly. Because even in the dim light, the flush that climbed John’s face was clearly visible.
    Kitty had been raised a hard-shell Baptist, but had agreed to be married by a Catholic priest. When she’d called her parents in Houston to invite them to the wedding, they’d been horrified to hear that she was actually going to marry that “mackerel snapper” and had hung up on her. Naturally, she’d been devastated by their rejection.
    Now the reminder that John’s mother had also declined to attend the nuptials of her only son, saying she certainly hadn’t raised him to see him married in a priest’s parlor instead of at the altar where she took daily Communion, brought a fresh batch of tears from his bride-to-be.
    “I promised to raise the baby a Catholic!” Kitty cried against his chest. “What more does she want?”
    “She’ll come around.”  John’s comforting words aside, his bleak expression said he didn’t believe for a moment that his dogmatic mother would budge an inch on this issue. Or that his browbeaten father would dare go against her.
    Wishing he’d kept his big mouth shut, Mike reached for his beer. He wasn’t surprised to hear that Kitty was pregnant. The passions of war were prompting shotgun weddings from coast to coast. He was just glad that he’d managed to avoid that particular trap.
    Not that he didn’t want to get married and have a family of his own someday. He did. But it was bad enough worrying about how his widowed mother and younger sister and brother would take the news if he were killed in combat. He couldn’t even begin to fathom the thought of leaving a wife and child behind.
    Frowning, he glanced toward the dance floor just as Charlie and Daisy waltzed by. And had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. Charlie was a pump-her and grind-her, raising and lowering Daisy’s arm in time to the music and rotating his pelvis against hers with every other step.
    An adoring Daisy didn’t appear to care that her parents considered Charlie to be rude, crude and a drunk in the making. It was no secret that she was madly in love with him. She’d started chasing him when they were seniors in high school, then had continued her pursuit when he left for the Army by sending him letters liberally splashed with “Evening in Paris” perfume. Now that he was back, her gap-toothed