Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 (6 page)

“Still, I’m impressed.” She slid an arm across his waist as she peered into the pot. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I didn’t know you couldn’t.”

“Too busy memorizing the human anatomy. What’s your excuse?”

“Karen put all us boys on a rota. She hated cooking.”

Laurel reached up to smooth his hair, then planted a sweet kiss on his lips. “You look a lot better. Did you sleep?”

He grunted an acknowledgement and focused on the chili, suddenly uncomfortable with this blissful domestic scene. Laurel was infatuated, sure, but she wasn’t being realistic. Even if their relationship could survive her long absences doing charity work, he suspected a former judge and a city commissioner had bigger things in mind for their surgeon daughter than a washed-up infantryman, and she’d inevitably buckle under the pressure of her parents’ expectations—not to mention the sidelong glances and raised eyebrows of an entire town.

He’d enjoy this while it lasted, but when it came to imagining the future, he was keeping his two feet firmly on the ground.

She snapped her fingers, oblivious to his minute withdrawal. “I brought you something.” She dug in her purse, produced a white T-shirt and pressed it into his hand. “Although I couldn’t do much on the jeans and socks front, I thought you might at least want a clean shirt to wear.”

He held it out to read the name of a local fun run and a date six months earlier.

“I was volunteering at the finish line and somehow four boxes of shirts found their way into my office, never to be heard from again. Until now.” She smiled teasingly as she hoisted herself onto the edge of the counter perpendicular to the stove.

“Thanks.” It wasn’t the most elegant solution—particularly the cartoon sneaker grinning in the center—but it was better than nothing. He shrugged out of his snap-front shirt and—noting Laurel’s attentive gaze—pulled the T-shirt over his head significantly slower than was necessary.

“How’s the fit?”

“It’s a little small.”

Laurel motioned him over. He gripped her bare knees where they emerged from her tailored dress and pushed them apart, wedging his hips in the space between. Her eyes darkened, but she kept her face still, making an exaggerated show of running her fingers over the seams at his shoulders, down his sides, across the hem at the bottom. The movements were tantalizingly light and wickedly confident, and he pushed his hands up her legs until his fingertips were beneath her skirt, his thumbs caressing the soft skin on the insides of her thighs.

Her fingers were trailing down his back now, tugging him closer, one side of her mouth lifting playfully. Naïve though she seemed about their chances together, he suspected she was used to calling the shots in the bedroom. He would be very happy to let her push him around between the sheets—and even happier to reverse their roles when she least expected it.

She raised her hands to his shoulders, ran her forefinger over the hair at his nape that was slowly but steadily growing out. He had no military tattoos, no visible combat scars unless he undressed—soon nothing would mark him out as someone who’d spent all of his early adult life in the service of his country. No one could see inside his head, no one would notice him checking exits, no one would know that most nights he jerked awake from vivid nightmares in a cold sweat. He’d be just another guy in his thirties with a high school diploma and a little piece of land, trying to make his life amount to something. Quiet. Unremarkable. And solid as lead.

Laurel slid her thumb across his temple, bringing him back to the here and now. A tiny crease formed between her brows as she studied him with soft, searching eyes. “Where have you gone?”

Had any woman ever looked at him like that before? Like she could unlock him and throw him open if she was gentle and careful. Like she wanted so desperately to see what was inside that she didn’t care how long it took, she’d keep chipping away until the moment he was flung wide and she was turning over each of his secrets in her hands with the same care and attention she’d show an injured baby bird.

The answer was no—never. Women had looked at him with dismay, with exasperation, with annoyance, and more recently with hungry, self-serving lust. He didn’t mind—it wasn’t like he had much more to offer in return.

But Laurel’s gaze penetrated straight to his core in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He smiled against the flutter of fear in his stomach, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as he bolstered his inner defenses, brought his face closer to hers as he prepared to lie through his teeth.

“I’m right here,” he murmured. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

After the screech of the smoke detector cut short their tête-à-tête, after Grady ran through what Laurel suspected was a military-grade vocabulary of vulgarities as he scraped burned rice from the sides of the pot, after they ate the surviving chili against a backdrop of easy conversation, and after Grady caught his hands behind his head in a stretch so expansive she genuinely feared for the survival of the cartoon mascot on his shirt, she decided it was time to make her move.

“So the bed in the guest room was comfortable?”

“Yeah, it was great.”

She brought her gaze squarely to his, broadcasting her intent. “You can stay in it tonight.”

Instantly his eyes widened with sheepish apology, and her heart sank. “I can’t, Laurel, I’m sorry. I haven’t been home since Saturday, and I have to work tomorrow, and—”

“It’s fine,” she replied with a blitheness she didn’t feel, and which he evidently saw right through, because he covered her hand with his and leaned into the space between them.

“You’ve shown me incredible hospitality today, and I really hope I’ll be invited back. Just not tonight, okay?”

“Okay.” She nodded, encouraged by his earnest tone of voice and the heavy warmth of his palm. She pushed back from the table, reached for her purse and suddenly remembered her conversation with Blake.

“Actually, the kidnapping’s not quite over. I’ll drop you home, but first I need to ask for a favor. And yes, your answer will determine whether or not I release you.”

He arched a curious brow. “Favor?”

She held up her car keys and jingled them in the air. “What are you doing on Memorial Day?”

Chapter Seven

Grady’s stomach somersaulted with apprehension as he pulled up beside the curb, already feeling embarrassingly out of place as he parked the dusty bulk of his truck at the end of a line of late-model, high-end SUVs and sedans. Laurel flashed him a smile almost as bright as the cloudless blue sky as she slid down from the cab. He didn’t even attempt to return it as he got out and slammed the door shut behind him.

Although he’d told himself it was a thank-you gesture to her brother, the real reason he had agreed to attend the block party was to show Laurel how impossibly mismatched they were. Once she saw how he stuck out like a sore thumb among her high-class friends, she’d have to realize that they could never work. It would be painful, and he was going to miss her something fierce, but he’d come to the conclusion that it was better to get this over with now. He was falling for her too hard and too fast, and her inevitable rejection would only hurt more the longer he waited.

At least, that had been his plan until about two hours ago. The faint sounds of music and children’s squealing laughter grew louder as they followed the sidewalk past big houses on generous lots, but he was so distracted by the frantic machinations of his brain that he barely noticed the fancy neighborhood around them.

He wasn’t sure what had made him call Laurel the night before. He’d spent a long day ripping up the carpets in his house to expose the hundred-year-old oak floorboards beneath. It was a sweaty, heavy, dirty job, and he was so exhausted that he barely registered picking up the phone and dialing her number until her voice chimed a greeting on the other end.

“I wanted to ask you something about tomorrow.”

He cringed at the wary pause before her reply—she was clearly bracing herself for him to back out. “Yeah?”

“There’s a Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Preston tomorrow. I was going to pick you up afterward, but then I thought you might want to come.”

“I’d love to,” she affirmed, and although he spent the rest of the night and most of the next morning wondering what on earth had possessed him to ask, when he pulled up to the fort cemetery shortly before midday he was glad to have her at his side.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to feel. It was his first Memorial Day out of uniform, and he wanted to pay his respects to those he’d served with who’d fallen so recently from Echo Company. He thought he’d be sad, angry, bitter—so he was surprised when, more than anything, he felt out of place. It was incredibly strange to stand in the audience of civilians, facing the major general head-on as the officer gave a brief speech rather than sitting behind him. He hung at the back of the crowd, shifting uncomfortably as they laid the wreath and raised the flag, no longer a part of the brotherhood that lifted their arms in salute but not at home among the civilians putting their hands over their hearts for the national anthem.

The army was the only family he’d ever known. Now that he’d left it behind, he didn’t know if he’d ever feel like part of something again.

Then Laurel slipped her fingers through his and he suddenly felt as safe, accepted and grounded as if they’d been married for fifty joyful years.

His head spun on the short drive from the cemetery to Blake’s neighborhood. Not only was he more attracted to Laurel than any woman since—well, ever—he’d never met anyone so stubbornly insistent on shoving past all his excuses or willfully blind to the glaring obstacles littering the path between them.

What if he was wrong? What if there was a way to make their seemingly disparate lives intersect? What if Laurel grew to love him, and he found the courage to love her back? What if his luck was changing—what if this was the start of everything he wanted?

He’d planned to be resolutely authentic at this block party, to let her friends and family see exactly who he was without any attempt at sugarcoating. Now he was having second thoughts. Should he try to impress her social circle? Or would they see straight through his pathetic effort to fit in?

He was so lost in thought that he barely noticed the kid hurtling toward them on a scooter. He stepped aside just in time, then looked up to see a throng of people spreading across four front yards at the end of the cul-de-sac. Smoke poured off an enormous barbecue grill, kids swarmed over a trampoline and an inflatable bouncy castle, and adults milled around carrying beer bottles and paper plates while a small group of teenage boys hurled a Frisbee, cheered on by their female counterparts sitting on the curb with their legs stretched ahead of them.

No one staggered drunk, no one chain-smoked, no one smacked the little boy who stole his playmate’s Popsicle. No one’s clothes were torn or dirty or obviously too-small cast-offs sneaked out of the school lost and found, no one told the kids to shut up in case the neighbor called social services again, and he doubted any of these people had ever watched helplessly while everything they owned was swept into a black plastic garbage bag, ready for that evening’s transfer to the next temporary foster placement.

These were normal, affluent, cohesive families gathering for a community party. And he’d never seen anything like it.

“Do you know all of these people?”

“Most of them. If this town is a small pond, I’m its shark.” She slipped her hand into his, and he was astounded all over again by the strength he took from her thin, soft fingers.

He squeezed gently. “Sure you want everyone thinking we’re an item?”

“Are we?”

He looked around at the other guests. They were beginning to attract attention—someone waved from the far end of the yard, and a woman with a toddler on her hip was striding toward them wearing a big smile. He had to decide what he wanted from this afternoon, and fast. Did he want Laurel to see how he’d never fit in and they could never work? For the first time he realized how unfair that would be, that he had to man up and let her go if that was what he wanted, not let her friends’ opinions do his dirty work.

So he had to walk away now, before anyone got any big ideas about their relationship status. Otherwise he had to commit to this day—commit to her—and do the best he could to be polite and friendly and a credit to her decision to bring him.

He drew a deep breath, cleared his throat and slung his arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah,” he agreed, allowing the tiniest fraction of hope to seep into the word. “I guess we are.”

Laurel smiled inwardly as her dad threw back his head with laughter at Grady’s wry, deadpan crack about a recent scandal in the state senate. Despite a shy start, he’d become more and more relaxed as the afternoon wore on, and soon he was charming everyone they met with witty, funny remarks delivered in his slow Texas drawl.

“That deserves another beer.” Her father chuckled, indicating the bottle in Grady’s hand. “More of the same?”

Grady held up his palm. “I’m driving.”

“I’m fine too, but I think Mom could use a refill,” Laurel piped up, pointing to where her mother stood under a tree. Her dad nodded and started toward the cooler, still shaking his head at Grady’s joke.

Alone with him for the first time in over an hour, she smiled conspiratorially. “Having fun?”

“Yeah,” he replied, sounding a little surprised. “Your parents are great, and everyone’s been real nice. I guess they decided to go easy on me.”

“Never—you’re just holding your own, like I knew you would.”

“Is this your standard operating procedure? Getting guys to run the social-circle gauntlet on the third date?”

“Most of them were part of the social circle to begin with.” She gripped the thick biceps emerging from the short sleeves of his shirt. “You’re so stuck on this idea that you’re an outsider, I thought we might as well put it to the test. What do you think?”

He glanced over her head at the gathered friends and neighbors, then brought his hands to her waist as their gazes met. “I think this is exactly the kind of life I’ve always wanted but never dared to imagine I could have.”

She breathed his name as she raised her fingers to his cheek, her heart seizing as she imagined the circumstances that would make such a simple desire seem so out of reach.

“Thank you for bringing me today,” he murmured, tugging her closer. “I’m still not sure why you’ve decided to take a chance on me, but I’m going to try my damndest to live up to your expectations.”

She shook her head. “All I expect is for you to be yourself. And to cook me dinner occasionally. Or more than occasionally.”

“I can handle that.” He grinned one of his rare face-lighting, eye-crinkling, teeth-flashing big smiles and slid his hand to her nape, tilting his face toward hers. She let her eyes fall shut in heady anticipation, already tasting his kiss, savoring the sweet pressure—

Her eyes snapped open as Grady lurched against her, then said, “Hey, buddy.”

Christina’s two-year-old son had wrapped himself around Grady’s leg and was staring up at him with a mischievous smile. Christina jogged up behind him, her precocious six-year-old daughter Jessa skipping along at her side.

“Sorry.” She pried the little boy away and took him firmly by the hand. “We’re so busy with potty training it seems the etiquette lessons have fallen by the wayside.”

Laurel made the appropriate introductions, noting Christina’s approving glance as she shook Grady’s hand. “Nice to meet you. We were at the bar with Laurel on Saturday night, but evidently we didn’t get a chance to say hello before you had to leave.”

Christina’s careful choice of words had Grady shifting his weight at her side, and Laurel raised a reassuring hand to the small of his back. Blake had thought it was better to keep the true details of the incident secret from everyone but their parents until after the verdict was issued, and while Laurel appreciated the importance of that discretion in a town as gossipy as this one, at the moment she chafed against the longing to inform Christina that Grady was about as far from a tire-shooting loose cannon as could be.

“Are you the army man?” Jessa chirped.

He nodded. “I guess so.”

“Are you Aunt Laurel’s boyfriend?”

A hot flush burned in her cheeks, but Grady smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. “Sure, if she’ll have me.”

Christina arched a brow that promised a thorough interrogation when they had a minute alone, while Jessa decided to hold hers right there and then.

“Where do you live?”

“I live here, in Meridian. On a ranch.”

“Do you have horses?”

“Not yet.”

“You should buy some. Aunt Laurel likes horses. She took me horseback riding when I was five.”

He squeezed her against his side. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“She’s a doctor.”

He nodded.

“And you’re a soldier.”

“I was.”

“Did you kill people?”

Grady stiffened under Laurel’s hand. Christina’s eyes widened, but she said nothing. Laurel suspected she wanted to hear his answer as much as her daughter did.

“Hey, Jess,” she intervened. “You must be done with school for the summer, right? Are you—”

“My uncle says soldiers are murderers. He says it’s not true that they kill bad guys. He says they kill children and babies.” She squinted up at him. “Did you ever—”

“Jessa, that’s enough,” Christina hissed, taking her daughter by the arm and pulling her away. “I’m so sorry about this,” she called over her shoulder as she ushered her children away. “It was nice to see you both. Maybe we can meet for dinner?”

“I’ll call you,” Laurel promised and Christina turned away, muttering angrily as she led Jessa across the lawn.

“Christina’s brother was kicked out of basic training for failing a drug test about ten years ago,” she rushed to tell Grady, flattening her palms on his chest to yank him back from wherever it was she could feel him withdrawing to. “Jessa idolizes him because he buys her ice cream and doesn’t make her go to bed on time, but in reality he’s a thirty-five-year-old loser who plays video games and smokes pot all day. Jessa’s just parroting him—she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.”

But it was too late—the eyes he turned on her were haunted and distant.

“I need to get out of here. I’m sorry. Can you get a ride with someone else?”

Disappointment settled like a lead weight in her stomach. She couldn’t blame him, but she hated that a couple of mimicked remarks from a six-year-old could bring the whole day’s happy progress to a screeching halt. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Home.” He winced. “I thought I could do this. I was wrong.”

“Do what? You were having a great time until five minutes ago.” There was a plaintive whine in her voice that she immediately scolded herself to get in check. The last thing he needed was her impatience.

He took a step backward, then another. “We’ll talk later.”

The way he said
later
made her pretty sure he meant
never
. “At least say goodbye to everyone first?”

“Make an excuse for me—or don’t. Tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

He shrugged. “That I walked out.”

He jerked out from under her hands, and Laurel watched in disbelief as he loped back toward his truck, his long strides making quick work of the distance. With his head bowed and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, he was like a completely different man from the one who’d circulated through the party with an easy posture and a warm smile.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her parents stared at her in concern, her mother’s lips pursed and her father’s forehead creased. Christina stood slightly behind them, not looking nearly as apologetic as Laurel thought she should. On the contrary, her friend’s brow had a distinctly well-what-did-you-expect arch.

She turned again to Grady’s retreating figure with a frustrated sigh. She’d shown him he wasn’t an outsider, proved he could fit in wherever he pleased, yet it only took a child’s comment to slam his defenses back into place. The truth was she had no understanding of what he’d been through or how to reach him, and she was running out of ideas. She’d pushed him far enough—she should let him go. Maybe it would be easier for both of them.