Soldiers' Wives Read Online Free PDF

up.
    â€˜And while we’re up there, you can show me what Newcastle has to offer.’
    Lee gave her a slow smile. ‘It’ll have to be during the day. There’s a double bed in the front room and frankly I’m planning on spending as much time in it as possible.’
    Jenna gave him a friendly shove. ‘You soldiers are all the same – and I should know!’
    For a second Lee felt a tiny stab of jealousy. Then he manned up – pretty girl like her, of course she’d have had a few previous boyfriends. And why not?
    He walked her back to where her car was parked and watched as she drove away towards her mother’s little council house, the other side of the garrison. It was that little runabout that had brought them together in the first place; it had been broken down at the side of the road, just beyond the barrack gates. Jenna had been standing beside it in the rain looking helpless and Lee, returning from a night out with the boys, had offered to have a look at it for her. Two minutes later he’d found the lead that had disconnected from the battery, fixed it back on again, and his reward had been a date, which had developed into a helter-skelter ride into marriage.
    There were times when Lee couldn’t quite believe how fast it had all happened. Six months ago he’d just finished basic training and had been posted south to this unit, and all he’d had in mind was doing some proper soldiering; now, here he was, married with a wife and responsibilities. And a mother who was less than happy about everything. Lee sighed. The bridge he would have to build needed to be about as big and solid as the Tyne Bridge.
    He made his way back to his barrack block. His thoughts turned to Jenna’s two mates who had been with her when he’d arrived at Tommy’s Bar. He was sure he’d seen the coloured girl somewhere before. Of course, there weren’t that many girls who worked with the regiment, so they tended to stick out. Jenna’s mate Immi certainly did – in
all
the right places. But the other girl – Chrissie, was it? – wasn’t nearly so obvious, although she was pretty in an understated way. Big brown smiley eyes. Then he remembered. The last time he’d seen those big brown eyes they hadn’t been smiling, they’d been full of worry, because she thought he was about to die. She was the medic. She was the nurse who’d hated his guts.
    He was still chuckling when he reached his room.

3
    Down the road from the barracks, in a quarter on Omdurman Avenue, Maddy Fanshaw wearily surveyed the overflowing boxes and packing cases that littered the sitting room floor. It was a nice quarter, much nicer than the one she’d just moved out of, so she couldn’t complain.
    Actually, she thought, she bloody could. It might be bigger, brighter and more modern than the last house but it still had dreary fawn carpets and hideous stretch covers on the issue three-piece suite, and the paint was chipped and peeling, the kitchen units tatty and the cooker electric. She hated electric cookers. And Seb… Seb wasn’t around and she was knackered and…
    She dashed away a tear. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to get things done, but there was so
much
to be done, she thought despairingly: the unpacking, the getting straight, and Nate to look after. Maybe if he wasn’t colicky, she’d cope better. Maybe if her husband hadn’t been away for a whole fortnight, it wouldn’t seem so impossible. It wasn’t his fault and she knew she was being horribly unfair, but there was a small bit of her that blamed him for the state her life was in right now.
    OK, so getting posted very suddenly, just three months after she’d given birth, hadn’t been something anyone had planned or expected, but Seb going off immediately on some regimental exercise the minute he arrived in his new job, leaving her to cope with the