Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1

It takes a strong heart to connect roots with wings.

Homefront, Book 1

With a life that started in foster care and nearly ended in the mountains of Afghanistan, Grady Reid is more than ready to hang up his sergeant’s stripes when his Army contract expires.

Small-town Meridian, Kansas, seems as good a place as any to finally put down roots. He’s dumped his savings into a ramshackle farmhouse and is on his way to trading bullets for bull breeding when an exquisitely beautiful, totally unattainable blonde turns his head faster than a pivoting cutting horse.

Dr. Laurel Hayes longs to escape the confines of stuffy, small-town life for an adrenaline-fueled, transient lifestyle delivering medical aid in unstable regions around the world. Then she meets Grady, a man with enticing eyes, a slow smile—and not an ounce of the wanderlust that tugs at her soul.

Their lives are headed in opposite directions. But as something more powerful than attraction, desire, or even lust draws them together, something’s got to give…or their hearts could break under the strain.

Warning: Contains a strong, silent Texan military man with wounds he can’t name, and the gorgeous doctor tough enough to heal them.

Boots on the Ground

Rebecca Crowley

Chapter One

Grady’s eyes widened as the door opened. He’d expected a middle-aged, stout woman with a sensible haircut and a white coat. Wasn’t that how fancy-ass doctors looked on TV?

Okay, truth be told, he never watched those tearjerker medical dramas. Even so, he doubted any of the actresses could compete with the tall, pretty, blue-eyed blonde standing in front of him.

“And you are—” She turned a page in the manila folder she held open in her hands. “John Reid, correct?”

“Yeah, although I go by my middle name.”

She ran her finger across the form. “Grady.” She looked up at him for the first time, and if he hadn’t been so caught off guard by her lively, intelligent gaze, he would’ve had the presence of mind to return her warm smile.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Laurel Hayes.” She sat at the small desk pushed against one wall and clicked a ballpoint pen. “What can I do for you today?”

He cleared his throat, trying to shrug off the punch of desire so strong that it seemed to have knocked the air clean out of his lungs. He’d spent the majority of his thirty-one years as a contented bachelor, and he couldn’t remember the last time his head had been turned so immediately and with such intensity. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d ever responded to a woman the way he had when she stepped into that fluorescent-lit examining room.

“I’ve been offered a job with the city road crew, and they’ve asked me to get a letter that says I’m fit to work. Something to do with liability.”

She frowned. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon. I don’t—”

“They asked me to see a specialist, on account of my shoulder.” He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. “I had a combat injury a couple years back. This is the army doc’s statement that I was fit to return to duty, but the city wants something more recent.”

Laurel scanned the document, her expression changing as she absorbed what to him was only medical jargon. After a second she shrugged. “Okay, no problem. Take off your shirt, and I’ll have a look.”

As he tugged open the first snap below his collar, she tapped the folded paper. “Says you were in the Thirteenth Infantry down the road at Fort Preston. When did you leave the army?”

“About ten days ago.”

“So you’re a newborn civilian.”

“Sure am.” He pulled off his shirt and folded it beside him on the examining table. “My contract expired a couple weeks after we got back from Afghanistan, and after thirteen years I decided it was time to find a new job.”

She froze in her progress toward the table. “You were in Echo Company. They just rotated back from Kunar Province.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“We heard you guys had a bad war. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, in reality not at all grateful to be reminded and as always unsure how to respond. Evidently the local media in Meridian had vividly relayed every tragedy in their ill-fated nine-month deployment, and he was already sick of replying with pat phrases like “We’re all glad to be home” or “I was one of the lucky ones,” because he had no idea where home was, and he sure as shit didn’t feel lucky. He knew people were simply trying to be kind and didn’t want a level of detail that would derail their Hollywood-softened image of brothers in arms, but damn if he didn’t feel like he was lying every time he acknowledged their well-wishes with a nod and an appreciative smile.

“I guess you’re planning to stick to the area if you’re joining the road crew.” Laurel stepped up to the table, and he exhaled with relief at the change of subject. “Are you from Kansas originally?”

“Texas. But I have no real ties down there, and Meridian seems like a nice town. This morning I signed the papers on a place out in the county, only about twenty acres and not one of them ready for cattle, but eventually I’d like to get a little ranch setup going.”

“Sounds idyllic.” She leaned in to touch the round scar below his clavicle on the right side. “Tell me about this.”

The scent of her perfume—light and fresh, like a cold slice of watermelon on a hot day—went straight to his head faster than a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. He swallowed hard.

“Couple years ago we were rolling through a remote village and took some enemy fire. This is the exit wound. Entry is around the back.”

Laurel nodded as she peered at the twin scar above his shoulder blade, and he continued, “I’m told it was a real clean shot, no damage to the artery. Recovery wasn’t as bad as I expected. Doesn’t give me any trouble now.”

“Are you sure? The physician’s report says you have limited mobility in the joint.”

“It’s stiffer than the left, but I can lift the same weight on both sides.”

Without another word she put her hands on him, her practiced, confident fingers palpating the muscles around the old wound, tracing bony ridges, testing and prodding and pushing until he had to grit his teeth against his burgeoning arousal. He tried to relax as she gently rotated his arm, but the firm grace of her touch and the nearness of her body combined to send a scorching lust ripping through him. He caught his breath and held it, trying to cool his raging pulse.

There was something about Laurel that jolted him, like spotting a bright pink flower growing in the middle of a junkyard. Her body was a series of perfect feminine curves, she had the straight shoulders and long neck of an honest-to-God princess, and the deliberate, precise way she spoke reminded him of those talking-head political debaters on CNN. Yet there was kindness in her eyes, tenderness in her movements, and nonchalance in the way she’d loosely swept her butter-colored hair back into a clip that suggested there was a lot more to this well-heeled doctor than met the eye.

“Everything feels fine to me. You can pop that back on.” She indicated his plaid shirt as she dropped her hands and crossed back to the desk. Grady thrust one arm through a sleeve, his brain whirring from the loss of her touch and the compulsion to get it back.

Go on, ask her out,
he coached himself.
You’ll never see her again otherwise—what’ve you got to lose?
This was what leaving the army was all about—building relationships, finding a home.

He began to button up his shirt. “Did you grow up in Meridian?”

Laurel was writing in his file, and she nodded without looking up. “Born and raised. The Hayes family has been here since the town’s inception, and we don’t tend to leave it for very long.”

He thought he detected a wry twist to her tone, but discarded that as something much bigger clicked into place. “Are you a Hayes as in Hayes Field at the high school?”

“And Hayes Avenue, and Hayes Memorial Library, and Hayes House, that nineteenth-century building where the historical society runs programs.” She shot him a rueful smile. “My mom is on the city commission, my dad’s a retired judge and my brother is an attorney.”

“Not Blake Hayes Associates, near Main Street?”

“One and the same.”

“Sounds like they should’ve named the place Hayesville instead of Meridian,” he commented quietly, his heart sinking. He’d make a fool of himself if he asked her out now. Laurel was the closest thing this Kansas town had to royalty.

“They considered it, actually.” She turned to him with a bright, professional expression. “I’m satisfied you’re fit to work. You clearly know your limitations, and if you can get that shoulder through a deployment, you can get it through a job digging up concrete. I’ll have my secretary type the letter, and I’ll add that the relevant supervisor from the road crew is welcome to contact me directly if they need anything else. Sound good?”

“Perfect. I appreciate your taking the time.”

“My pleasure.” She swept up the file from the desk and put her hand on the doorknob. “Good luck with your ranch, and welcome to Meridian.”

He dipped his head in response, then jerked it back up when he didn’t hear her leave the room. She stood by the door, poised to depart, but there was hesitation in her posture and reluctance in her face. He raised his eyes to meet hers and caught the barest glimmer of what looked like hot longing in their blue depths before it disappeared. Then she was through the door and gone, and Grady was alone in the small room, blinking in disbelief and mentally compiling a long list of reasons why he had to be wrong.

But as he checked out at the front desk, crossed the parking lot in balmy May sunshine, slid into the driver’s seat of his pickup and slammed the door shut, he was more certain than ever that he’d read bald, hungry desire in Laurel’s expression.

“As if,” he muttered, shoving his key into the ignition. She might like the look of him, but that was the extent of it. She probably had a rich boyfriend who drove an Italian sports car and bought her diamond necklaces and took her to the opera, not to half-price Bud Light night at the bars near the interstate on-ramp. The only way he was ever likely to spend an evening with the beautiful doctor was if he needed emergency surgery.

He snorted at the image of his anesthetized date and pulled out of the parking lot. Laurel wasn’t the kind of woman a man forgot in a hurry, but he had to move on—she was as out of his reach as the moon.

Chapter Two

“Laurel? Did you hear me? I said I told him that he’d be better off contacting the Entomology Department at K-State.”

“Hm?” She blinked, snapping back to the table at one of Meridian’s fanciest restaurants and Peter Klein’s expectant, grinning face.

“Get it? Entomology, like insects.”

“Oh, right.” She managed a smile. “Funny.”

Peter’s forehead creased as the humor vanished from his face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem distracted. Is everything all right at work?”

Laurel studied her date in the generous glow of the soft, atmospheric lighting. Peter was four years her senior. He’d gone to high school with her brother, then returned to Meridian after attending law school in Kansas City. He was about five foot ten with broad, regular features, and previously she had thought he was passably, acceptably handsome, hence her agreement to join him on what was now their third date.

And she couldn’t stop comparing him to Grady Reid, that mountain of masculinity that had filled her office a day earlier.

Which was beyond unfair, as she’d reminded herself at least twice an hour throughout the evening. Grady was exceptionally handsome, with hair and eyes the color of coffee grounds, shoulders that strained the width of his shirt, the sort of rugged, strong features that wouldn’t look out of place in a gritty Western movie, and she’d seen firsthand that he had the combat-ready body of a soldier.

Peter didn’t have the same powerful physical presence, true, but he was a nice guy, and he could hold forth on local politics, and he knew a lot about fine dining, and, uh—

She met Peter’s anxious blue eyes and sighed. Okay, he was boring. And if she wasn’t running out of eligible bachelors in this town, she never would’ve gone on the second date, let alone the third.

Next time he called, she’d let him down gently. For now she offered an encouraging smile. “Work’s fine. I must be tired after my wild Saturday afternoon with the Rotary Club.”

His expression relaxed, and he cut into his cheesecake with the side of his fork. “It’s nice of you to help your mother in her various community endeavors. What were you doing today?”

“Bagging tiny toothpaste and toothbrush sets to send to Alpha Company, who deployed last month. Tied with yellow ribbons, of course.”

He grinned. “Of course.”

“I had the audacity to suggest that if our government can’t even afford to supply our troops with sufficient amounts of toothpaste, something is seriously wrong.” She rolled her eyes. “All those gray heads turned so fast, you’d think I’d climbed up onto one of the cafeteria tables and started stripping.”

Peter’s eyes widened with interest, and she instantly regretted her choice of words. She rushed to continue before he could speak. “I mean, no one even asked up at the fort if there was anything specific the troops needed. They just dumped all of the pancake breakfast proceeds into travel-size dental hygiene kits. It’s all dinner-party smiles and lukewarm platitudes, and while I know their hearts are in the right place, I’m not sure they get much done.” She shook her head. “I e-mailed that humanitarian organization again—you know, the medical one—but they really want you to have experience in a war zone before they post you abroad. Maybe if I improve my connections with the fort, I could get some kind of civilian role in one of the army’s overseas medical centers, and then—”

“You’re not still seriously considering this charity thing, are you?” Peter put down his fork with a heavy exhalation. “As much as I admire the idea, I think the time for running off to save the world is past. It’s one thing to go on a spring break house-building trip in Appalachia with church when you’re seventeen, and quite another to abandon a thriving orthopedics practice in your hometown. This community needs you just as much as the starving orphans or earthquake victims or whatever—and so do I.”

His smile as he reached across the table to cover her hand with his own was kind and sweet, and clearly broadcasted that a life with Peter would be one of stability and calm, of a big house and well-dressed children, of no worries bigger than remembering to roll the trash can down to the curb every Wednesday night.

It was a life so nearly within reach—and as far from the one she wanted as she thought possible.

She tugged her hand back into her lap and glanced at the clock on the wall. “Gosh, it’s so late. I’m exhausted—I think we’d better call it a night.”

Fifteen minutes later Laurel watched as the taillights of Peter’s high-end sedan disappeared down the road, letting her own car idle at the turnout of the parking lot. It was a right turn to get home—she would follow Peter’s car down Main Street, through the historic downtown area that still boasted a handful of Dust Bowl-era building facades, up the hill toward the high school she left as valedictorian almost exactly fourteen years earlier, into a residential neighborhood where the houses got bigger and farther apart until she reached her own newly built, half-furnished four-bedroom monstrosity.

If she turned left, it was a quick skirt around Walmart and then onto the winding, two-lane road out into the county, where the heavy, rural darkness was only occasionally punctuated by the glowing square of a lit window in a farmhouse. If she stayed on that road she could cut over to the fort, but she wouldn’t bother driving out that far. It was a warm Saturday evening, and she just wanted some speed and fresh air.

She clicked on her left-turn blinker and pressed the accelerator.

The roads were nearly empty this late at night, and it only took minutes for Laurel to trade the glowing haze of town for the starlit skies of the country. She rolled down every window in her two-seater sports car and gunned the engine, relishing the wind whipping her hair and the miles that disappeared under the wheels. She was over the speed limit, and she knew bored state troopers watched this stretch of road like hawks, but she didn’t care—she didn’t want to care about anything ever again. Her whole life had been defined by dutiful obedience, from wearing the itchy red tights her mother insisted on when she was five, to joining the French club rather than play softball because it left more time to study, to choosing a well-remunerated orthopedics specialism instead of emergency medicine. She’d moved back to Meridian like her parents wanted, once a week she watched her brother’s kids so he could take out his wife, and she’d never so much as kissed a man with a tattoo.

She played so strictly by the rules that she might as well have written them, and what good had they done her? She was lonely, bored and so full of frustrated energy that sometimes she wanted to start screaming and never stop.

She pressed harder on the accelerator, flying around turns and surging over the gentle rises of the prairie. What if she didn’t turn around? What if she didn’t stop? What if she kept driving until she ran out of gas, then picked up and started over wherever she landed? Maybe she’d get a job as a waitress in some tiny town in Texas, and she’d fall in love with a sexy cowboy, and no one would know she was a doctor until one day a tornado hit, and she climbed through the debris to save the mayor’s child, and then—

The chassis of her car clunked in and out of a deep pothole, and then there was a sound like a shot fired, and the car listed so heavily to the right that she barely managed to keep it on the shoulder. She hit the brake, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel as the car shuddered and skidded at the abrupt drop in speed, until it finally came to a halt on the side of the highway.

For a moment Laurel sat still, listening to the bugs chirping in the long grasses on either side of the road. She had a pretty good idea of what she would find when she got out of the car, and she wished more than anything her brief escape had lasted a tiny bit longer.

Finally she retrieved her high-heeled shoes from where she’d kicked them off and swung open the door. She knew as much about cars as most people did about orthopedic surgery, but even to her untrained eyes the diagnosis was easy. She had a flat.

She reached into her purse for her phone, and uttered a curse when she unlocked the screen. No signal bars—she was too far out of town.

“Goddammit,” she barked, snatching her bag out of the car and slamming the door. All she wanted was to go for a mildly irresponsible drive. Was that really too much to ask?

Apparently so. With a huffed sigh, she slung her purse over her shoulder and began making her way back down the highway, her heels clopping against the asphalt in the otherwise silent evening. She was a mile past the gravel-road turnoff that led to a dingy-looking bar that usually had more Harleys than cars in the parking lot. It wasn’t ideal, but they’d have a landline, and it was better than sticking her thumb in the air and hoping she wasn’t about to live out the plot of a slasher flick.

By the time she reached the edge of the bar parking lot twenty minutes later, Laurel’s hair was tangled, her feet were swelling out of her peep-toes, and she could feel sweat soaking her bra—but when she took one look at the three beer-bellied, leather-vested men smoking outside the front door, she seriously considered turning around and high-tailing it straight back to her car.

The men stopped speaking as she approached, and she had a sudden memory of walking into one of the more heavily male-dominated classes in medical school and getting the same reaction. She lifted her chin and smiled at each man in turn. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Evenin’, miss,” one of them replied. The other two nodded, which she decided was sufficient. She held her head high despite the wobble in her step and pushed open the door.

It clattered shut behind her, and Laurel paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior. There were more patrons than she expected for somewhere so far out of town, although a quick scan told her she was the only female. A couple of gaming machines stood against one wall, neon-lit beer logos pierced the gloom and country music blared from the stereo system.

It was a down-homey, cowboy-style dive bar. It was about as far from her usual upscale, sophisticated scene as it could get. And despite everything, she couldn’t stop the excited grin that flashed across her face.

She strode to the bar, her turquoise wrap dress feeling sexier and much more feminine than it had an hour earlier in the restaurant. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, fully aware that every eye in the place was fixed on her. She hadn’t felt this brazen since her early days as an undergraduate, when life was a series of never-before-tried mixed drinks and good-looking guys, long before the stresses of finals, medical school admissions, board exams, highly cited articles and her parents’ nagging questions about whether there were any potential husbands on the horizon.

It wouldn’t kill her to have a beer while she waited for the mechanic, would it? She smiled at the approaching bartender. After all, one drink in a seedy bar wasn’t exactly going to derail her small-town social climbing.

“What can I get you?” the thickly bearded man asked, but before she could reply, the man on the barstool beside her—whose camouflage coat was way too heavy for the bar’s warm and slightly humid interior—slapped his palm on the bar.

“I’ll take care of this little lady,” he slurred, and flashed her an inebriated version of a saucy wink. “You order whatever you want, honey, and he’ll put it on my tab.”

“Your tab was reached and breached a long time ago, Leroy.” The bartender offered Laurel an apologetic shake of his head.

“I’ll have a Bud Light. And I need to use your phone, if you’ve got one. My car’s got a flat about a mile south of here and my cell has no signal.”

“Yeah, only a few of the service providers have coverage out here. Let me get some fresh glasses. Then I’ll bring you the cordless from the office.”

“Much appreciated,” she told his retreating back. She leaned her elbows on the burnished wood surface and had begun to study the photos taped up over the liquor bottles when Leroy slid his barstool closer, its legs loudly scraping against the floor.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” His grin revealed tobacco-stained teeth, but his face was relatively unlined. Laurel suspected that he was a lot younger than his alcohol- and cigarette-damaged skin portrayed.

“It’s, um, Jane.” She edged away from the scent of stale smoke that clung to his coat. Now she remembered why she preferred quiet wine bars with live jazz ensembles.

“Now that’s a real pretty name.” He slid his hand so close to hers that their fingertips met. She fought the urge to flinch, not wanting to set him off. She glanced at the table immediately behind her, but its lone, mustachioed resident was buried in a game on his phone, completely ignorant of the activity at the bar.

She craned her neck to see over the taps, looking for the bartender. How long did it take to get clean glasses?

“My ex-wife’s name is Jane,” Leroy continued, openly leering at her as his fingers crept farther over hers. “But she wasn’t half as beautiful as you are.”

“You told me your ex-wife’s name is Marianne,” a deep voice rumbled beside her. “And that she left you for the same reason this nice gal doesn’t want to talk to you—you’re a stinking drunk.”

Laurel spun and came face-to-face—or more accurately, face-to-chest—with John Grady Reid.

As Leroy retreated with a grumble, Grady moved in to rest one elbow on the bar beside her. His big frame seemed to radiate power, yet he was comforting rather than intimidating, and his reassuring smile immediately banished her anxiety.

“I guess I could try some line about what an esteemed medical professional like yourself is doing in a place like this, but I’m sure ol’ Leroy probably gave you enough lines to last you for a month.”

Laurel’s treacherous heart thrilled at the implication that Grady wanted to try a line at all. Maybe she hadn’t imagined the sexual tension in their meeting yesterday—although now that he was standing up, she could see she’d definitely underestimated his size.

“My car’s stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire, so I had to hike here in heels. What’s your excuse?”

“Men like me don’t usually need one. But since you’re asking—” he turned to indicate two men perched on stools at a high table nearby, “—I’m reliving the glories of war with two of my former colleagues. Meet Captain Ethan Fletcher and Staff Sergeant Chance McKinley. Guys, this is Dr. Laurel Hayes, who so kindly signed off on my shoulder yesterday.”