Page 20 of Chasing Amanda

“Little town near the New Hampshire coast.”

“You moved farther from home than I did. What were you doing at the bar last night?”

“Drinks with a friend. He’s a graduate student at Brown.”

“And what do you do?”

He took a long sip of his soda. He didn’t want to tell her what he did, who he was. Not yet. He wasn’t prepared for her reaction, whatever it might be. He hated when people treated him like the professor had the other night, as if being a Marine meant he liked killing people. Not that he’d ever killed anyone, though the thought had crossed his mind with Amanda’s stalker.

But that reaction he could handle. People like the professor could be brushed off.

His mother was ashamed of him. He felt that sometimes, like his existence embarrassed people. He was used to dealing with that.

It was the ones who treated him as if he’d done something gallant by joining the Marines. As if it made him a hero.

Mark didn’t feel like a hero, never had. He’d joined because it was all he’d ever wanted to do. Now his country was at war, and he was prepared to do what he’d been trained to do.

He didn’t want to think about it. And he certainly didn’t want Amanda to know. Not yet.

How would she react? Would she be proud of him? Angry he hadn’t told her earlier? Would she be disgusted?

What would that look like on her perfect face?

He’d paused too long.

Her head tilted to the side, and her mouth turned down in a frown. “Are you a student too?”

“Graduated a few years back,” he said, thankful for the out. “I’m probably too old for you.”

She uttered a dark chuckle he didn’t understand. “I doubt it. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven. You?”

“Twenty-one. See, just six years.”

She said it as if it were great news, as if there were no barriers between them that couldn’t be crossed.

What was he doing?

Falling for her.

What in the world?

He’d just met this woman. He barely knew her. She didn’t know him at all.

Somehow, he was falling for a twenty-one-year-old college student who had no business wasting her time with a Marine headed off to war.

If only he had the strength to end it before it went too far.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Amanda picked at the fish tacos. How could she eat with Mark sitting across from her? This handsome, kind, heroic man who couldn’t take his eyes off her? Was he just a charmer? Maybe he did this all the time. She might believe that except he wasn’t exactly smooth. Actually, he was a little awkward, saying things he didn’t mean to say, like when he’d dropped that innocent comment earlier.

Mark was telling her about his friend in Providence, an old friend from his hometown, and the restaurant they’d gone to the night before. Mark had met Justin’s fiancée for the first time at dinner. Amanda hadn’t ever been part of an official couple. Had Mark?

She really wanted to know. When he finished his story, she gathered her courage. “Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”

“In high school. We were pretty serious, but then she moved to New York, and I went to college.”