Read Online Jane's Long March Home by Susan Lute - Free Book Online Page A

wanting to help. Not being able to walk away. Secretly not wanting to turn out like her mother.
    She should be grateful Kimberly Donovan - that was her mother’s name though she had no face to go with it - hadn’t left her daughter in the garbage bin just down the block from the orphanage. She should be glad the strung-out woman had somehow found the will-power to make it to the orphanage door and ring the bell.
    A much younger Sister Mary Margaret had taken them both in, but it hadn’t taken Kimberly long to decide she preferred the streets and drugs to her baby girl.
    Jane sneered. As a teenager, knowing there was little even her mother had found to love about her, she’d flirted with a life that made Kimberly’s look like a walk in the park. The day she woke up in a stranger’s bed, without a single memory of how she’d gotten there, was the day she’d decided to change roads. It was the day she enlisted in the Corps.
    With a scowl, she firmly disconnected from the old emotions on every level. That was water under the bridge, and she was long gone from it.
    “Do you know where you’re going?”
    Bobby’s brows slammed together. His young face was an open book. Jane used his overdeveloped sense of responsibility against the boy. “How far are you going to get with your brother dragging that cast around?”
    And, who will take care of you? A question she couldn't ask without getting the boy's hackles up. Giving him time to think about it, she glanced down at her nails and studied them. They were cut straight across, with not a lick of polish. The cuticles were smooth and tidy.
    She made her voice just as tidy, as though the boys’ welfare hadn’t that instant become very important to her. “You could stay here.”
    “No!”
    “Russell will let you stay.” She stood and locked gazes with the man who’d approached, quiet as a Stealth bomber, behind the boys. They hadn’t noticed, but Jane had been acutely aware of him from the moment he’d stepped out of the house. “Won’t you?”
    “They can stay.” He said it with a cautious edge, but like he meant it. His willingness to play along opened up a Pandora’s box she didn’t want to have anything to do with.
    Bobby’s mouth turned down in scathing distrust. He motioned Pete to start moving.
    Jane outflanked the teenager to clamp a hand on the little tyke’s shoulder, holding Pete in place. Eventually, the boys might find themselves alone and homeless in a dangerous world, but not on her watch.
    Her sore heart fluttered at the understanding gleam in Russell’s eyes. Her free hand slid into a fist.
    His too perceptive gaze cut to Bobby, but not before a wish that things could be different slipped free of Jane’s tight restraint.
    *
    The next day, bellied up to his desk to get some work done, a cup of black coffee cooled at Chase’s elbow while he considered his next move. He’d thought his days of planning treatment strategies were over, yet here he was working to individualize one for the Marine. That he’d accidentally stumbled across serious ammunition to fight her demons so early in the game was a stoke of pure luck on his part.
    He cursed under his breath. When had Jane stopped being his uncle’s Marine and become a woman badly in need of his help? Was it when she’d put on airs and sauntered toward the boys, her real intentions hidden beneath that sexy swagger of hers? No.
    Maybe it was the moment she’d squatted down at their level and talked to them like equals, as if being there, at that moment, was all that mattered.
    He shook his head at the seductive image. Not that either.
    “Russell, you are one unlucky son,” he muttered, rising to stand at the window.
    It was when he’d come up behind the boys. Though he could tell she knew he was there, her attention remained firmly fixed on Bobby and Pete, her questions not pushing, just curious as she coaxed them into staying. All the while, her thoughts had been directed inward. The