Free Shameless by Ann Major Page A

softly to herself.
    Despite the bourbon, he could still taste her. A chill shot through him that had nothing to do with the icy air. He’d made her cry again because he was cold and cruel.
    Gonzalez and Wainwright were forgotten, as Phillip raked his hand through the thick darkness of his hair. He was a fool to care about her. Furious at both Celeste and himself, he commanded his feelings to shut down. He always shut down before combat. It never took long. In less than five minutes, he’d no longer be human. Tears wouldn’t matter. Nothing would matter except accomplishing his objectives.
    He moved away from the air conditioner. Maybe it was better this way. He couldn’t take another night or another day with her in his house, unless he could have her.
    When she came inside, they ate dinner in silence. Oh, she tried to make conversation, and he tried to mumble appropriate answers to her idiotic questions. Why did women always want to talk when you felt like tearing furniture apart with your bare hands or ripping the oak floor up with a claw hammer?
    Sweetly she asked if something was wrong with the meal.
    How the hell would he know? As if he could taste anything but her. Maybe the steak—she’d actually cooked beef tonight—was delicious. Who the hell cared? He was shutting down, going deep, deep inside himself.
    He was good at this game. He’d learned that if he did this before combat, the fear couldn’t take over. Instead of going mad or becoming paralyzed with terror, he became inhuman and turned himself into some sort of soulless killing machine. Once, in such a state, he’d run straight at a tank in Iraq.
    â€œWe shouldn’t have kissed,” Celeste said.
    â€œWouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he replied.
    Her glistening lashes fluttered. Somehow she seemed far away, and he was glad. Her rejection didn’t hurt quite so much.
    He wasn’t good with rejection. The Marines had a policy—they didn’t leave anybody behind. That policy was why he’d become a Marine.
    He’d been left behind his whole damn life.
    Rejection.
    His rich socialite mother hadn’t wanted him. He’d been an accident and beautiful, glamorous, Kathryn Westin’s only child. He’d been a big baby, ten pounds, and she’d never forgiven him for her stretch marks. As soon as he was old enough, she’d packed him off to military school in Harlingen, Texas.
    The other boys went home for the summer. He’d been sent to expensive camps near Hunt, Texas, which had an emerald-green river and was some of the most beautiful hill country in central Texas. At Christmas he’d gone to his grandmothers, who were good to him in their way. But he hadn’t been close to them, and they weren’t his mother. He’d rarely seen his mother. She hadn’t even bothered to watch him graduate from high school or college.
    Celeste stood and picked up her dinner plate, snapping him back to the present. She walked over to the sink and rinsed her dishes. Even though he knew he was in hisown kitchen and she was real, not a phantom, he felt as if he was in a dream. As if she wasn’t really there. As if nothing could touch him or hurt him.
    â€œAre you okay?” she whispered, turning around when she was done.
    He nodded. “Why?”
    â€œYou seem kinda strange.”
    â€œI think I’ll go for a walk. Don’t wait up.”
    As if she would—
    â€œOh, Phillip, Sheriff Wainwright called about that cow—”
    â€œI know.” He slammed out the door. When the light came on in the living room, he watched her settle herself on his couch to watch his television, which was something she never did, if he was in there.
    Rejection. Funny, he couldn’t feel a thing now.
    Nobody had ever wanted him. Nobody except the Marines.
    Boot camp had proved more than even he could bear, so after ten days of abusive military garbage,