The Daddy Salute. Maureen Child

they found out about Kathy?

      Jack chuckled gleefully. “There’s not a marine on base who wouldn’t like to see you strike out completely for once.”

      “Surrounded by friends and supporters.”

      “Hey, anybody with the kind of luck you have with females is bound to inspire a little…”

      “Envy?” Brian provided, one eyebrow arching high on his forehead.

      “I was thinking more along the lines of enmity.”

      “And you felt it was your responsibility to tell everybody about my next-door neighbor.”

      “After what I saw the other day,” Jack said on a laugh, “you bet.”

      “What happened to semper fi?” Brian asked, throwing his hands up in the air. “Marines sticking together? Always faithful?”

      “In battle, sure. In this kind of situation, it’s every man for himself.”

      Brian laughed and shook his head. Typical.

      “So, what’s happening anyway?”

      “Nothing,” he said on a snort of derision. “That’s the problem.” Dinner with Dana had been a disaster. As soon as he’d arrived, she’d poured him a drink, told him dinner wouldn’t be ready for another hour and suggested several ways to pass the time until then.

      Bound and determined to prove to himself—if no one else—that nothing in his life had changed, Brian had given her suggestions his best shot. But in the middle of what should have been a delicious kiss, he found himself imagining that the woman in his arms was shorter, a little plumper, with softly waving brown hair and eyes wide and deep enough to lose himself in.

      In short, even Dana’s charms couldn’t keep his mind from straying to Kathy. Which irritated the hell out of him…and Dana, when he suddenly announced that he’d made a mistake and couldn’t stay. With the slam of her door still ringing in his ears, Brian had driven straight back to the base. It was a sad thing indeed to have to admit that work sounded like a better idea than dinner with Dana.

      Jack laughed and Brian realized he’d never noticed what an evil chuckle his friend had.

      “What’s so damn funny?” he demanded.

      “It’s always entertaining to watch the mighty take a fall.”

      “A fall?”

      “This could be better than I’d hoped,” Jack said, amazement in his eyes. “This could work into love, Gunnery Sergeant. You may have finally met your match.”

      Love?

      “I think marriage has warped what was left of your mind, Jack. I hardly know this woman…” Then, to make his point, he admitted the most humiliating fact of all. “She won’t even go out with me.”

      “This just gets better and better,” Jack chortled.

      “Thanks for your support,” Brian snapped and jumped to his feet. His uniform boots beat a heavy tattoo against the linoleum floor as he paced back and forth. Then he stopped in front of Jack’s desk, shoved his hands into his pockets and said, “I’m not in love, and I sure as hell don’t plan to be.”

      “None of us do,” Jack pointed out.

      “Yeah? Well, some of us,” Brian told him, slapping himself on the chest, “have a little more self-control than others.”

      “Oh, yeah. I can see that.”

      Brian scowled at him. “Is there a reason why we have to share an office?”

      “Probably.”

      “It’s not good enough, whatever it is.”

      “Hell, Brian,” Jack said on another suspiciously evil laugh, “you’ll live through this. We all do.”

      “Quit lumping me in with you and your kind.”

      “My kind?”

      “You know, married marines. Formerly happy men, now dragging wife and family from base to base…packing dishes and furniture and worrying about schools and doctors and God knows what else.”

      Jack shifted uneasily in his chair and deliberately looked away from the picture of Donna and their daughter, Angela, that had a prominent spot on his desk. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “Sure I do,” Brian snapped. “Heck, there’s some kind of marriage epidemic sweeping the base. More marines have been picked off here lately than at Iwo Jima!”

      Jack stood up slowly, planted both hands on his desk and leaned in. “I wasn’t ‘picked off,’ Brian.”

      “Sure you were…hell, Donna’s a sharpshooter! You never even saw it coming.” He lifted one hand to stop Jack from interrupting. “I like Donna, and Angela’s the prettiest baby I ever saw, but, man…you were taken out by a sniper and didn’t even know it until after the vows were read.”

      “Back off, Brian.”

      “No, you back off.” Nose to nose now, the two men squared off. “You’re not sucking me down into the hole you jumped into. I like my life,” Brian went on, his voice getting louder with every word. “I like packing a duffel and taking off. I like being deployed all over the world. I like living in furnished apartments. I like answering to no one but me.”

      When Brian finished, he took a deep breath and listened to the sudden silence in the small room. Jack’s features were stiff, but after a few seconds ticked away, he seemed to relax a bit. Finally he spoke up. “Who’re you trying to convince here? Me? Or you?”

      “I don’t need convincing,” Brian muttered, turning for his desk and the pile of weapons reports that awaited him. “I just needed reminding. So thanks.”

      “Anytime, gunny,” Jack muttered, sitting down and getting back to work. “Anytime at all.”

      Case closed, Brian thought and felt sanity pour back into his soul. No more moaning around like some lovesick kid. He was a marine, for pity’s sake. In charge of enough weapons to start World War III. And damn it, it was time he started acting like it again.

      He had more names and numbers in his address book than any man he’d ever known. He’d just call a few and get back into the game. He must have been nuts spending the past four weeks daydreaming about a woman who couldn’t see him for dust.

      Kathy Tate wasn’t interested. So what? There were plenty of other women in this city. Mind racing, resolutions forming and solidifying in his brain, he snatched at the phone on his desk when it rang and answered impatiently, “Gunnery Sergeant Haley.”

      The voice on the other end of the line started talking. With every word spoken, Brian’s newly reinforced world started shaking. He couldn’t seem to draw air into his straining lungs. His thoughts spun, and his stomach lurched. The familiar sights and sounds around him seemed to evaporate, and all he could hear was the stranger on the phone shattering what was left of his once-so-comfortable life.

      Three

      “She’s getting married again.” She cringed inwardly as she said those words aloud.

      “Who?” Tina Baker asked.

      Kathy shot a long look at her friend, swallowed down the embarrassment choking her and said, “Three guesses.”

      Tina wiped oatmeal off her infant son’s cheeks and frowned thoughtfully. A moment later comprehension dawned on her features. “Your mom?”

      Sitting back in her chair, Kathy turned her coffee cup between her hands and glanced at her friend. “Yep. The queen of matrimonial nightmares is at it again.”

      “Wow.” Tina handed the baby a teething ring to slam against the tray of the high chair, then sat down