Soldier of Fortune Series Books 1-3Soldier of FortuneTender StrangerEnamoured by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Dutch thought that getting married might have been worth it all when he saw the shock on J.D.’s and Gabby’s faces.

J.D. Brettman was big and dark. He was an ex-mercenary who now practiced law in Chicago. And Gabby Darwin Brettman had been his secretary before she married him. Dutch had heard a little about her from First Shirt, another member of the team, who’d told him how rough the courtship had been, and he’d met her once himself. Now he needed advice, and he couldn’t think of anyone better than J.D. to ask.

“Married.” J.D. caught his breath. “You?”

Dutch shrugged. He looked up from his lit cigarette to catch the amused look in Gabby’s green eyes, and he laughed in spite of himself. “It’s your fault,” he told her. “I never would have noticed her, but for you. Until J.D. married you, I thought all women were incapable of honesty.”

J.D. touched Gabby’s cheek gently. “She changed my own outlook,” he said, and a look passed between them that embarrassed Dutch.

Dutch got up and went to the window, staring blankly out at Chicago. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. “I thought I would keep working and we’d each have our own lives. But she won’t agree to that. She says she can’t handle knowing what I’m doing when I’m away.”

J.D. got up. “I’ll make a pot of coffee. Gabby, keep Dutch company, will you?”

“Sure.” She got up and went to the window, standing quietly beside the tall blond man, her arms folded over her chest. She looked at him. “I was going to get out of J.D.’s life when I thought he might go back to it,” she said honestly. “I couldn’t handle it, either.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “I’m not a coward, but the worry would have made one of me. If he’d been a policeman or worked in law enforcement, I suppose I’d have had to make the best of it. But the kind of work he did, and you do, isn’t easy for a woman to cope with. It’s extraordinarily dangerous.”

“Gabby,” he said, staring out the window, “how would you have felt if J.D. hadn’t been able to give it up—and you were pregnant?”

Tears burst from her eyes. He looked down and saw them, and his face contorted. “Oh, God,” he breathed roughly.

She turned away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I want a baby so much. But J.D. and I haven’t been able to have one. If I were pregnant, and he went off to a war, I think I’d die in my sleep.”

He started to speak and couldn’t. He lifted the cigarette to his lips, anguish in his eyes.

“I meant to tell you,” J.D. said minutes later, after he’d brought the coffee, “that Apollo’s been cleared of any criminal charges.”

“You got him off?” Dutch asked with a smile, feeling happy for their old friend and comrade.

J.D. nodded. “It took a little work. But he was innocent—that helped.” He pursed his lips and glanced at Dutch. “He’s opened his own business.

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