The Heart's Command
Chapter One
Joe Yates came home to Conard County, Wyoming, a changed man. Sitting in
Mahoney's Bar with his green marine tunic and the top buttons of his shirt
undone, and his tie hanging loose, he sipped a whiskey and told himself he
wasn't going to do anything as cliched as turn into a drunk over this.
But he still felt a huge hole at the very center of himself, and he couldn't
figure out how to fill it. Or if he even wanted to. At the moment he didn't even
want to go out to the ranch and see his sister and her family. He didn't want to
see anyone who might touch that gaping hole and make it hurt.
He sipped more whiskey, and told himself not to be an ass. The words didn't
help. Kara was gone and it was all his fault, and to hell with the USMC anyway.
Joe was a young man, only in his middle twenties, but he looked a lot older.
Wind and weather had aged him, but so had events of the last months, especially
the last week. The lines were cut deeply in his lean face now, a face that was
ever so slightly exotic, hinting of his Shoshone ancestry.
After a ... read full excerpt from: The Heart's Command ebook
