her feel this way. Or maybe because she was getting slightly turned on by his photos while sitting in her son’s room surrounded by Angry Birds posters and Lego sets.
She needed to get ahold of herself. Or go out on a date once in a while.
Just then, a text message popped up on her smartphone. Kylie was running late and Mia’s knee was too sore for yoga. Maxine took another sip of wine. She could either back out of their dinner plans now and sit in front of Hunter’s computer screen staring at Gunny Heartthrob, or she could walk down the street and meet her friends at Patrelli’s for pizza and another glass of wine.
Her nerves won out and she grabbed her heavy jacket off the coatrack and practically ran out the door, trying to get as far away from her thoughts as she could.
* * *
From: [email protected]
Re: Star Wars
Date: Jan 25
Hunter,
First of all, the femoral surgery went well. Dr. McCormick is supposed to be the top orthopedic surgeon in the Navy, and he expects me to recover quickly and undergo the knee replacement surgery just as well.
Second of all, Han Solo is in no way “more awesomer” than Luke Skywalker. You can’t even compare the two. Han Solo is a smuggler. He isn’t even a Jedi. Also, Luke is royalty, and he went through a lot of training. Han doesn’t even have a light saber.
Third of all, I’m still learning to use Skype and I’m not used to it yet. And you have to promise that you’ll get your mom’s permission before we start talking on the computer like that.
Speaking of your mom, please thank her for sending that box of her cookies. When I shared them with all the guys on my floor, I was more popular than PFC Spooner, whose dad sends him magazines with— Well, I’ll tell you about those when you’re older.
I got the list you sent me with the names of every local police department that is hiring. I’m really not sure if I’m going to try to be a civvie cop. And I’m definitely not going to love Idaho “the way a drunk loves a martini.” Does Jake Marconi even know what a martini is? Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on when I can start having visitors.
Cooper
Cooper hadn’t been lying to the kid. The surgery really had gone pretty well. It was too soon to tell if he’d make enough of a recovery to reenlist, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Hunter that there was no way he planned to stay in Idaho permanently.
It was bad enough that he’d been putting off Hunter’s visit, but, honestly, he didn’t know if he could handle being around Maxine Walker again. The woman had brought out the worst in him that day at the baggage claim area, and it had been all he could take when she’d had to help lift him out of the airport-issued wheelchair and into her car.
She’d smelled as incredible as she looked. And the drive to the hospital had been just as intense as the woman’s forced smile when Hunter had insisted on waiting for the admission paperwork to be completed and for the nurse to wheel him away to the orthopedic wing.
He didn’t look forward to having to endure Maxine’s stiff presence, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to see her again. To smell her again. Hell, to feel her hands on him again—even if it meant asking her to help him get out of this damn hospital bed to hit the head.
A light blinked on the bottom of his open laptop and he pulled the wheeled tray table closer to him.
He was receiving a Skype call from Dr. Gregson. The damn shrink was the one to blame for the whole mess. Back in September, Gregson had gone right over Cooper’s head and his objections. He’d purposely sought out Cooper’s commander to force him to participate in the pen pal program, knowing full well the honor-bound marine couldn’t refuse a direct order.
As Cooper clicked on the mouse to connect their call, he had a lot more than some soul cleansing to discuss. There was hell to pay.
“Gregson,” he bellowed, when the counselor’s grainy image jumped onto his screen.
“How’d the surgery go, Gunny?”
Cooper relayed what Dr. McCormick had told him, including the part that his leg would never be 100 percent.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I know the Corps was your life.”
“Yeah, well...” he cursed, though it hardly raised one of Dr. Gregson’s eyebrows.
“Language, Gunny.”
“Do you have to be such a sainted do-gooder all the time?”
“Do you have to be so cranky and miserable all the time? Here I thought you’d like Shadowview, being close to your pen pal and all that.”
“That’s another thing, Gregson. I’m still pissed about that whole program. I told you I didn’t want to play pen pal to some kid. And yet you went up my chain of command and had me ordered to participate? You made me look like a loose cannon to Colonel Filden. And now he, and probably everybody else in my unit, thinks I’m some lonely PTSD candidate who needed a damn morale boost.”
The only man Cooper had opened up to in his almost sixteen years in the Corps now sat behind a web cam with a self-righteous smirk on his saintly face. Gregson might make a good psychologist, but he was too softhearted to be a marine in a combat zone.
“I gave you the opportunity to accept graciously, Coop. You forced me to take it up with Colonel Filden.”
It was hard to stay angry at Gregson when he simply sat there, passively and politely nodding his head and listening to Cooper’s heated argument. Did they teach shrinks to smile and nod like that in grad school?
“Why are you still so upset about that?” Gregson asked. “What else did you have to do when you were off duty? You never associated with any of your fellow troops. And you never went anywhere besides the chow hall and the weight room. And look at what you got out of the program.”
“The decision should have been mine to make.” Cooper tried to scratch under the bandage covering his recent incision. He knew Gregson was right and that meeting Hunter had been exactly what Cooper needed in his life at the time. Hell, his letters and emails with the boy were the only thing that got him through the aftermath of that explosion at the base, followed by a helo evac to Okinawa, where he’d had to stay while his body and leg stabilized enough to fly back to the States for surgery. If it hadn’t been for Gregson, Cooper wouldn’t have Hunter in his life.
Nor would his pain-addled mind be hosting those damn dreams of wrapping Maxine’s sexy blond curls around his fingers. Being laid up in the hospital was making him stir-crazy and had his emotions spinning all over the place. Logically, he knew this situation that he’d landed in wasn’t Gregson’s fault, but the fact remained that his leg hurt, his pride hurt and he wanted to be mad at someone.
But Gregson didn’t get riled. Instead, he changed the subject. “So when the knee replacement surgery is over, how long will it take to recover?”
“I’ll stay in the hospital for a couple more weeks, doing rehab, and then they’ll release me to go
