Bad Boy Romance: Bad Marine (Bad Boy Military Romance) (Alpha Bad Boy New Adult Contemporary Male Stories) (35 page)

The next morning, he was actually disappointed to find that Sara was not still next to him.  He woke up and quickly dressed himself just as the sun was coming up over the mountain.  Harry could hear people moving around inside the village so he walked towards the center where a group of women were busy getting the fire lit again.  Looking around, he could see Dr. Harper and his wife walking towards him.

“Good morning,  Sargent Freeman,” Dr. Harper said as he walked up.  “I trust that you slept well.”

“Can't complain too much,” Harry replied bluntly.  “What's on the schedule for today?”

“For you, not much,” Dr. Harper replied.  “Emily and I are going to get started on our projects.  You should just look over the trucks and make sure the survived the trip over.  Fix any problems that you find on them.”

“Do you mind if I use your daughter?” Harry asked.  “She said she's pretty handy with a wrench and I could use the extra set of hands.”

“Why don't you use one of the locals?” Emily replied.  “They have plenty of strong men here.”

“You are probably going to need them more than I will,” Harry said as politely as he could.  “Besides, I would like to work with someone who understands English.”

“Sure,” Dr. Harper said with a grin.  “Sara is yours when you need her.  She's still asleep, but you can put her to work as soon as she gets up.”

“Looking forward to it,” Harry said, barely able to suppress a smile as he thought back to the events of last night.

Harry began looking over the trucks and making notes of things that needed repairs.  After a few hours, Sara joined him in the inspections.  By noon, it was time to get to work fixing what they could.  Harry enjoyed spending time with Sara.  She was a good worker, intelligent and eager to learn.  When the work was done, she was a good companion.  Harry enjoyed talking with her and was happy to be able to carry on  deep, thoughtful conversations.  It was much better than some of the gorillas he had to work with back on base.  Later that night after the village had fallen asleep, Sara was back in Harry's bed.  After a vigorous session of love making, Sara would snuggle up against him until she felt like it was time for her to sneak back into her own bed.

This routine carried on for the next few months.  What had started out as a nightmare of an assignment had become one of Harry's favorite times.  He cherished the times with Sara and even began to grow fond of Dr. Harper and his wife.  After a month, he had started to join the Harpers for meals and he soon started to think of them as friends.

The only thing that bothered Harry was that when this mission was over, Sara was going to go to college and he was going to go back to the Army.  For this reason, Harry tried to avoid becoming romantically attached to Sara.  The last thing that he wanted was to have either Sara or himself becoming heartbroken over this affair of theirs in the jungles of Africa.

One afternoon, Dr. Harper came over to where Harry was hard at work changing the oil in the Jeep with a stack of letters in his hand.  “I've got something with your name on it,” Dr. Harper announced.

“What do you mean, Doc?” Harry asked, as he wiped his hands on his pants.

“We got some mail with this last supply run and there's a letter for you,” Dr. Harper said as he handed over the envelope.

“Thanks, Doc,” Harry said as he stared at the envelope.  The return address simply read US ARMY.  Harry ripped open the envelope and read over the contents.  When he read what it was, Harry could hardly believe it.

“What do you have there?” Sara asked as she walked around the back of a truck that she was looking over.

“It's my discharge papers,” Harry said still in shock.  “My time with the Army is over.  I can go home.”

“What are you going to do now?” Dr. Harper asked.

“I don't know,” Harry replied, re-reading the document.  “I guess I can use my GI Bill and go to college.”

“That's a great idea,” Sara said, trying to sound supportive.

“Never a bad idea to get an education,” Dr. Harper added.  “I suppose you can leave on the next supply run if you want to, but we sure will miss you around here.”

“I guess I will be heading home then,” Harry said finally registering what his freedom really meant.

“We really will miss you,” Sara said sadly.  Harry had the feeling that Sara was going to miss him more than anybody and, in truth, he would miss her too.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack that split the relative silence around them.  There was a scream in the distance and some yelling.  Time seemed to slow to a crawl when Harry looked towards where the sound had come from and saw a group of natives with AK-47s running across the river.  Harry knew deep down in his heart that these were the violent Kutus that he had been told about when he first arrived.

Looking around at his surroundings, Harry realized that there wasn't a lot between him and these violent natives except for a half built hospital clinic.  Acting out of instinct, Harry rushed forward and tackled Sara and Dr. Harper to the ground.  As soon as they were all lying in the dirt, all hell broke loose.

Gunshots rang through the air and bullets ripped through the stick huts, sending splinters flying through the air.  People were running in all directions.  Mothers ran into the jungle with their children in their arms only to be mowed down by gunfire.  Whatever men that weren't already out in the jungle picked up spears and started to fight back.  Their spears were ineffective at best against men with guns.

“Get in the trucks,” Harry shouted before he had even thought about it.  “The trucks are armor plated.  Doc, you and Sara load up everyone you can and drive out of here.”

“What about you?” Sara asked, concern and fear plastered across her face.  “You have to come with us.”

“I can slow them down,” Harry said as he reached into his tent and pulled out his M4 that he had been issued.  “The Army gave me this rifle for these exact reasons.”

Before Sara or Dr. Harper could argue, Harry grabbed a pocketful of extra magazines and rushed into the half built clinic.  From there, he could find cover to start returning fire.  With the Kutus quickly rushing across the empty field, Harry took careful aim and pulled the trigger.  Several Kutus fell down into the field.  Harry was glad that his accuracy hadn't dropped any since he had been in the jungle.

The downside was that now many of the Kutus were now shooting at him rather than into the village.  Of course, this gave Sara and her parents time to round up the villagers and get them to safety.  However, this proved to be a bad position for Harry to be in.  As bullets flew past him in all directions, Harry was at least glad that he would go out in a blaze of glory like he had always hoped.  Behind him, Harry could hear the trucks starting up and he knew that he only had to hold off the advance of Kutus for a little while longer.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Harry stepped around the concrete pillar that he had been using for protection and began spraying bullets into the Kutus.  Bullets flew in both directions and Harry felt nothing but a rush of adrenaline, his fear replaced with a bloodlust.  This bloodlust quickly died out when Harry felt a sharp pain in his leg.  He looked down and saw blood pouring from his left thigh and knew immediately that he had been shot.  Dropping to the ground, Harry knew that his time on this earth was quickly coming to a close.

Just a few short months ago, Harry would have gone willing into a war to die.  Now, now that he had Sara in his life, Harry felt a desire to live.  With a searing pain in his leg, Harry rolled onto his stomach and kept firing into the crowd of Kutus.  Soon, the bullets stopped flying and everything went quiet.  Harry looked through the smoke and saw the few surviving Kutus running back across the river.  With a smile on his face, Harry allowed the darkness to overtake him.

Sara heard a soft groan and looked down.  Harry's eyes began to flicker open.  Sara's heart began to race.  She squeezed tightly onto Harry's hand and she felt him squeeze back.  “Welcome back, Harry,” Sara said softly.

“I'm not dead?” Harry asked.

“No, you survived,” Sara said, unable to stop smiling.  “And thanks to you, a lot of us survived too.  The Nguntu are calling you a hero.”

“I didn't do it for the Nguntu,” Harry said plainly.  “I did it for you.”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked, blushing slightly.

“I thought that I was going to die out there,” Harry explained.  “I would have given up and let them kill me, but all I could think about was you.  I wanted you to survive.  I wanted to survive so that I could see you again.”

Sara's heart raced when Harry said this.  She smiled so widely that her cheeks hurt.  She couldn't resist herself and began to kiss Harry all over his face.  “I'm glad that you survived,” she said when she was finally done covering Harry in kisses.  “I was really worried about you.  I didn't want to think about having to go home without you.”

“Speaking of going home,” Harry said, “what is going to happen with us when we get back to the real world?”

“What do you want to happen?” Sara asked shyly.

“Well, I almost lost you once and I don't want to lose you again.  You are incredibly smart, sexy, funny woman.  For the first time in my life, I can't imagine being with anyone else but you.  I don't have the Army to go back to and you don't have to keep following your parents around the world.  I was thinking that maybe you and I could see if this thing between us really stands a chance.”

“There is nothing in this world that I would like better than to be with you for as long as possible,” Sara said with a wide smile, her blue eyes dancing with joy.  “I think you are a wonderfully handsome and brave man.  You might be a bit rough around the edges, but deep inside I know that you are a good man.  Just promise me one thing will you?”

“Anything you want,” Harry said.

“Don't go getting shot again,” Sara said with a laugh.

After a couple of weeks in the hospital, Sara was happy to see Harry finally back on his feet.  His recovery was slow, but Sara held his hand the entire way through it.  With her support, Harry was soon back to work.  He couldn't do as much as he used to, but Sara was more than happy to pick up his slack.

After the attack by the Kutus, Sara and Harry no longer felt the need to hide their relationship.  Sara was worried that her parents would reject the idea of her and Harry being a couple, but they seemed very supportive of it.  Sara was happy that her and Harry could be affectionate with each other in public.  Harry wasn't very fond of kissing in public, but Sara thought that it was cute to sneak in a kiss when people were looking at him.

Finally, it was time to head back to America.  Sara was excited to be going back to the real world where her and Harry could begin their lives together.  The trip back to the states was made much more entertaining with Harry by her side.  Sara slept less on this flight, but when she did sleep, she slept in the arms of her lover which was her favorite place in the world to be.

Back in the states, Sara and Harry applied to start college in the spring at a university out in California.  They were both accepted and began studying Environmental Management.  In their third year, Sara was surprised when Harry gave her a diamond ring and asked for her hand in marriage.  One year later, the two of them were married.  Sara was as happy as she had ever been on her wedding day and she thanked her lucky stars every day that she had been dragged along on that trip to Africa to spend time with the Nguntu.

THE END

Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance

G.P. Joyner

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