Read Shades of Shame (Semper Fi) for Free Online

humph.
    “No, no, Mother… if I had called you would have spent your entire dinner worrying about me, and there wasn’t a thing you could do.”  Logan noted the stress in his mothers’ forehead, “Mom, I swear I had it under control.  I’m a big boy now, believe it or not.  Now Mother, I don’t mean to be rude, but you just set me up with a stunning dinner date, this incredible woman.”  Logan smiled across the table at Leila.  “And having my Mom standing over me like a Mother Hen is cramping my style!” he laughed heartily.
    Leila had never seen such a man.  He must lift weights in his sleep to look like this!   She returned his smile involuntarily.  Damn it!  His happiness was just like his mother’s:  infectious!   He sure was a big boy now , she thought as her own eyes instantly matched the twinkle in his.
    Elise looked from Leila to Logan, then back to Leila, “You see what trouble these McNarry men are, Leila?  I’m warning you sweet girl, they will corrupt you!  Damned men will charm the pants right off you if you aren’t wearing a belt!”  The woman giggled like a teenager as she ruffled her son’s curly brown hair.
    Leila slid her napkin from her lap and lifted the corner of her shirt.  “Don’t worry Mrs. McNarry, I wore protection!” she said, showing the leather Coach belt at the waistband of her black slacks.
    Elise and Logan both laughed cheerfully as Leila joined their antics.  Elise kissed the top of her son’s head, but looked across the table at the young blonde.  She cared deeply for Leila; after all she was Patricia’s child.  It worried her that the girl had always been so serious.  The girl always seemed so guarded; it seems as though even Logan has a way of cutting right through that , Elise smiled conspiratorially.  “Alright my darlings, you two catch up.  But for the record Logan, if you are ever stuck without brakes again, I’d appreciate a phone call!  We’re all lucky you didn’t roll right off the docks into the water!  Am I clear?”
    Logan looked up at her over his shoulder and barked with military precision, “Yes ma’am!  Crystal.”
    Elise knocked him in the back of the head, a bit too roughly, “You are not a Marine, nor will you ever be!  Have you not seen your father’s scars?  I won’t have it, Logan.  I simply won’t have another McNarry man in the military!”  She paced towards the doorway still ranting, “I swear you all are going to drive me to the nut house one day!  I’m going to drink now!” she stomped from the room in exaggerated distraught.
    Logan laughed and shook his head as his mother left the room, “My mother the nut case!”
    He was strikingly handsome when he laughed Leila noted, she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him since he’d walked in.  Even her skin prickled as she memorized his every feature.  “So Logan, what have you been up to for the last oh… what is it?  Ten years?”  She leaned forward and stabbed her fork in the remains of her desert plate.
    “Mmm…” Logan murmured as he swallowed.  Gracie’s steak was the best, but that thought was pushed to the far realms of his mind as he studied Leila.  She was taller than she’d been, of course, and her nearly white blonde hair hadn’t darkened as she’d matured.  It gave her an almost ethereal glow he thought.  He’d always thought that she was part angel when he was a child.  Logan remembered her as somewhat of a bitch though.  He recalled her babysitting for him, even though she was only two years older, and he resented that at the time.  All those times playing at her townhouse while their Mom’s were upstairs… doing ‘lady stuff.’  That’s what they called it, ‘lady stuff.’  Logan had imagined them trying on shades of lipstick and leafing through Cosmopolitan magazine.  His mother had told him that her ‘lady time’ was what kept her sane.  It’d been the only reason he tolerated Patricia