Read Online Running for Her Life by Beverly Long - Free Book Online Page B

around, putting away the clean dishes that had dried in the rack next to the sink. Then she pulled out the silverware drawer and did the same with the utensils, carefully stacking each fork and spoon. She wiped down an already clean counter.
    When the coffee was done brewing, she poured one for herself and a second cup for Jake. Act like a normal person. It was going to become her new mantra. Act normal, people will think you’re normal, and if you’re really lucky you’ll start to believe it yourself. You’ll forget that normal ended fourteen months ago.
    “So what did you think of the picnic?” she asked.
    “First time I ever saw a tractor with streamers hanging off it,” he said. “I’ve seen them in the field while I was driving down the highway. They’re a lot bigger close up and fancier, too. Heck, I think the one had a fully stocked bar and a couch inside the cab.”
    She smiled, remembering how shocked she’d been when she’d first seen the farm equipment. “Maybe not a couch but definitely a small refrigerator, GPS and a soft chair.”
    “Sounds like my apartment in Minneapolis without the GPS.”
    “Have you always lived in the city?” It surprised her that she wasn’t simply going through the motions of small talk. She wanted to know.
    “Yes. Born and raised. Only time I ever left was when I enlisted in the Marines.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Nineteen. I’d been inspired by Operation Desert Storm. Never got to Iraq, but at one point I ended up in Somalia, where a peacekeeping, rebuilding effort went bad and I almost got my butt kicked.”
    She’d interviewed a number of veterans over the years. The things they had seen always amazed her. “Was it horrible?”
    “Some of it. But a lot of it was very good. It changed my life.”
    “How? Why?” The questions were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
    He laughed. “You’re not from the National Enquirer or anything, are you?”
    Yikes. She needed to be more careful. “I’m just curious. If you’d rather not say…”
    He shook his head. “I got married right out of high school. Wendy and I were both eighteen. She was two months pregnant.”
    He had a wife. A child. Maybe more than one. Her reporter’s intuition had rarely failed her so completely. “I didn’t realize you were married.” My gosh, my voice sounds stiff.
    “Wendy miscarried at four months. We got divorced a year later.”
    Her heart broke for the loss he suffered when he was barely a man himself. “I’m sorry, Jake. The death of a child is probably really hard for a couple to manage.”
    “Yeah, well, I was willing to try. I had this crazy idea that marriage was for life. But it was tough. We had jobs but we were making minimum wage, barely making ends meet.”
    “What happened?”
    “Less than a year later she was pregnant again.” He stood up and walked into the kitchen. He had his back to her.
    “You didn’t want the baby?” she asked.
    It was several seconds before he turned, facing her once again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t talk about it much. Wendy and I hadn’t slept together for three months, so I knew the baby wasn’t mine. The father ended up being the manager of the local ten-minute oil-change shop. He was forty, more than twice as old as we were. He had a house, a boat, his ends were meeting.”
    He said it calmly, without emotion, but she could tell the hurt had never really gone away. “What did you do?”
    “Signed the divorce papers and left. Hell, I didn’t really blame her. I was going nowhere. I didn’t have any education. What was I going to be able to offer her? So I enlisted in the Marines. That’s when I realized I’d skipped college but somehow managed to join the let’s-kick-their-asses fraternity.”
    “You make it sound almost fun.”
    “War is never fun. But the Marines taught me self-discipline. They taught me respect for authority. They taught me that the difference between life and death, the