Las Vegas Sidewinders: Drake (Book 2) by Kat Mizera Page A

afternoon and fly to the next destination right
after the game. I might not even spend the night. I don’t remember who we play
after Washington.”
    “I didn’t look at
that,” she admitted. “I guess I’ll have to get used to the way things work.”
    “What about you? Will
you stay in Virginia? Is there a chance you’ll be moved?”
    “Right now I’m on light
duty, desk duty. I don’t even belong to a unit, although if I can pass the
physical, I can go active again and get assigned to another unit. Because of
being a Purple Heart recipient—”
    “You got a Purple
Heart?” He was startled there was something so major he still didn’t know about
her.
    “Everyone who gets
blown up gets one,” she shrugged. “And because I tried to save Shay, they
consider me a hero. Anyway, if I return to full duty, I’ll be ready for a
promotion to Major. That could mean another deployment.”
    “Another deployment?”
He stared at her in surprise. “You want to go back out there?”
    “I don’t know,” she
admitted. “I worked really hard to get where I am. If I leave the military, what
will I do?”
    “Get married? Have
babies?”
    She laughed. “Yes, I’d
like that, but I think I’d need to do something else too.”
    “You have a college
degree and an impressive resume from the military. I’m pretty sure you can get
a job anywhere.”
    “The problem is, where?
I have no idea what I would do on the outside. Military is all I ever planned
to do. We thought after one deployment I would get pregnant, and probably get
pregnant a couple times, so that I wouldn’t be deployed again for a while. But
after the accident and the divorce, the military is all I have left.”
    “You in the military
and me in the NHL means we’re together four months of the year, wherever you
are. Less if we make the playoffs. The rest of the time, we would be apart.”
    “I can’t promise I’m ready
to leave the Marines.”
    “And I can’t leave the
NHL—I don’t have a college degree or know what I would do other than coach,
which schedule-wise, is the same as being a player.”
    “So, what does this
mean?” She looked at him warily. “Are we done before we even start?”
    “I don’t know.” He took
her hand. “I don’t want to let you go, but you have to do what makes you happy,
and I know I can’t give up hockey. I probably only have six or seven years left
in my body, unless I’m really, really lucky, so this is the height of my
career.”
    “Would you be happy
being a military husband?” she asked. “I mean, if it was to work out between us
for the next six years, and then you retired from hockey, would you be able to
stay home with our kids while I continue in the military?”
    He frowned. “I think
so. I mean, if my career runs its natural course, I don’t think I’d have a
problem being a stay-at-home dad.” He spoke slowly. “But I don’t know how I
would feel if you deployed again. I don’t know that I could handle that .”
    “It’s who I am,” she
reminded him gently. “I’m a Marine. I’m a little bit off course right now, but
that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. If you and I are meant to be, you have to
get that about me.”
    “I do. And I respect
the hell out of it. But as a man, the idea of my wife, the mother of my
children, going to war is completely foreign to me. I have no concept of
that.”
    “So even if I was to
wait out your career, you would never be okay with mine?”
    “I never said I
wouldn’t be okay with it. I just said it’s not anything I’ve ever thought
about. Both of us have already been married and divorced, so neither of us is
going for casual dating. If you won’t leave your job, and I won’t leave mine,
and either of us could be moved at any time, it’s going to be a long, hard road
with a lot of time apart.”
    “So…” Erin felt a
painful squeeze in her chest—the same one she’d felt every time Shay had walked
away from her. “What do you want