The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

I go away, you forget about me. Just walk, keep going, don’t ever turn and look back. It matters to me, Carrie. That you have a happy life, a good life. When I close my eyes and look in the future, I want to see a smile on your face.”

That made me sob. “Damn it, Ray, shut up. You aren’t going anywhere. You are my life.”

Abruptly, he let go of my hand and turned around facing me. He took my face in both of his hands and stared in my eyes. “Don’t say that. You mean everything to me, and I refuse to have you dragged down into the muck of the war. You’ve got a good life; you’re doing things that matter.”

I could feel the muscles in my chin and eyes as they bunched up, and tears were rolling down my cheeks and onto his hands. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Promise me,” he said, his voice urgent.

“I can’t promise that.”

“Jesus, Carrie,” he muttered. “I’ve never met anyone so stubborn in my life.”

I sniffed and pulled him closer. “That’s why you love me,” I said.

He shrugged, and a small grin appeared on his face for the first time that day. “Well, that and the great sex.”

I laughed through my tears and said, “I do love you.”

Still holding my face, he leaned forward and planted a kiss on lips, then said, “And I love you.”

Out of your system (Ray)

And of course, that’s when my cell phone rang. I broke off the kiss, and she said, “Answer it, it might be your lawyer.” I grimaced, and pulled out the cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Sergeant Sherman?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Major Dick Elmore. I’m with the Staff Judge Advocate office, and I’ve been appointed as your counsel.”

I sighed. “What can I do for you, Major?”

“Are you available to meet this afternoon? We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

I gave him the address for the condo, and then we went in the apartment and Carrie called the concierge to have her send Elmore straight upstairs when he arrived. And then I fidgeted, nervously, until the phone rang again.

I didn’t recognize the number … it was a 202 area code, Washington, DC. I answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, I’m trying to reach Sergeant Ray Sherman?” It was a youngish-sounding woman.

“Yeah, this is he.”

“Hi, I’m Sylvia Knight with Fox News, and we’d like to have you…”

I recoiled from the phone then disconnected it without a word. Carrie gave me a curious look. “Fox News,” I said.

She muttered something obscene. “I’m going to make some coffee,” she finally said.

A moment later, the phone rang again. This one was from area code 212, New York. But it wasn’t Dylan or Alex’s number. I stared at the phone and then glanced up at Carrie, who was looking at me through the pass-through between the living room and kitchen. We met each other’s eyes, and I silenced the phone.

Where the hell did they get my cell phone number?

The phone rang three more times in the next ten minutes. I ignored the calls and put the phone on silent. Pretty much everyone I actually wanted to talk to had Carrie’s number, if they really needed to get in touch with me.

It was a long forty-five minutes before we heard a knock on the door. Carrie and I both jumped to our feet. She gave me a soft smile, and we walked together to the door and I opened it.

Major Dick Elmore wasn’t at all what I expected.

Whether we admit it or not, first impressions make a big difference. And to a guy in the infantry, my new lawyer was impressive.

He was in his blue Class A uniform, and the first thing I saw was the combat patch of the Third Infantry Division. In and of itself, that didn’t mean much, because if you went to war with the division, you got the patch, regardless of whether you were infantry or a supply clerk. But he also wore a Ranger tab, and on his left breast the Combat Infantryman’s Badge with two stars, which meant that at some point prior to becoming a lawyer, he’d been to war as a grunt three separate times. Underneath that, jump wings, and then his medals, which included a Bronze Star, with the V device that signifies heroism in combat, and two purple hearts. His skin was the color of a strong cup of coffee, with hair going white, and had a nasty burn scar on the right side of his face. At his elbow, his left arm ended with a prosthetic arm that conceded nothing to appearance. It was all function, ending in a functional and ugly pair of hooks.

He extended his right arm. “Sergeant Sherman? Major Dick Elmore.”

I shook, and I’m embarrassed to admit how relieved I was to find an infantryman on the other end of that handshake instead of some paper pushing desk jockey.

“It’s ... very good to meet you, Major. This is my fiancée, Doctor Carrie Thompson.

She flashed a smile at me when I said the word fiancée. It’s true, we weren’t officially engaged, though we’d been talking about it more and more lately. But ... whatever. I said it.

“A pleasure, Doctor Thompson.”

“Call me Carrie, please. Please come in?”

We led the Major in. He had an ancient army rucksack thrown over his shoulder and dropped it to the floor. “First things first,” he said. “If you call me Sir or Major or anything like that, I’ll knock you in the head. It’s Dick, all right? I’m your lawyer, and we’re not going to stand on rank.”

“All right … Dick. I’m Ray.” It was really, really hard to call an officer by his first name.

“Can I get you some coffee?” Carrie asked.

“Please. Black.”

She smiled and walked into the kitchen. Major Elmore sat down on the couch, and I took a seat opposite him. His eyes fell to my laptop, which was still open to the New York Times.

“I’m going to suggest, Ray, that