Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 (7 page)

He was halfway down the street now. In another minute or two he’d be in the truck and gone, as unseen as he was unreachable.

She heard the telltale slap of her mother’s clogs starting toward her. Sending her mother as envoy meant her parents had decided now was the time for gentle consolation—righteous indignation was more her father’s forte.

“Dammit,” she muttered, reaching down to pull off her braided sandals. She never had been one to do things the easy way.

She gathered the sandals in one hand, hiked her purse higher on her shoulder and broke into a run.

She heard her mom call her name, but it was too late—she was sprinting across the soft, springy grass, tearing across front yards, weaving around ornamental bushes and walkway lights and discarded children’s toys, her heart pounding and her skirt flapping. She reached the truck just as Grady slammed the driver’s-side door shut, and when she caught the edge of the open window, she could see the key already in the ignition.

“Wait,” she panted. “I’m coming with you.”

She rounded the front end before he could respond, hauling open the door and clambering into the seat. His eyes were round with surprise, his lips parted as if about to protest, and she pressed a finger to his mouth to silence him.

“You listen to me, Grady Reid,” she commanded. “I know today has to be about more than barbecues and block parties for you. I saw it this morning at the fort and I saw it just now with Jessa. I wouldn’t presume to know what’s going on inside you, but I am more than audacious enough to ask you to tell me. I’ve been as open and honest with you as possible, and it’s your turn.” She huffed a breath and crossed her arms. “Now you are going to put this truck in gear, drive to your house, make a pot of coffee and talk me through everything happening in that sexy head of yours. Understood?”

For a full minute he simply stared at her, his expression blank and his eyes unreadable. Then one corner of his mouth lifted in a lopsided grin.

“Sexy?”

“You heard me.”

“After thirteen years of military service I know not to question the orders issued by my betters.” He started the truck. “We’re Oscar Mike.”

Chapter Eight

“Sorry.” Grady’s smile was sheepish. “Am I saying too much?”

Laurel tightened her grip on the chipped porcelain mug. Her coffee had long since gone cold, but she took a small sip anyway to buy a few extra seconds.

The stories Grady had relayed over the rickety card table in his half-finished kitchen—of years spent bouncing between his mother’s drug-addled care and short-term foster placements, of watching powerlessly as his superiors’ incompetence repeatedly put soldiers’ lives in danger, of realizing on his last tour that his indifference to atrocity had grown so impenetrable that he feared for his soul—were harrowing and painful and penetrated right to her core. Part of her wanted to scream at him to stop, that she couldn’t listen to another word—but the rest of her realized that his disclosure was a privilege not to be taken lightly, and that now this door was open she had no choice but to walk straight through.

She shook her head. “Of course not. Keep going.”

“So, the army shrink said it was because I had abandonment issues stemming from foster care, and that’s why I struggled so much every time we lost someone in the field.” He rolled his eyes. “Only in the army do they think there’s something wrong with you for being sad when someone dies. If anything, I think my childhood prepared me for the military better than any happy nuclear family could have. It taught me never to get too attached, because all relationships are temporary, and in the end you can only rely on yourself.”

“That’s a lonely way to go through life.”

“Or a safe one.”

“People who like to play it safe don’t usually join the army.”

“There you’re wrong.” His lips quirked into the first genuinely playful smile she’d seen for hours. “There’s nothing safer than the military. There’s no offshoring, no dwindling shift hours—that paycheck comes every month as long as your contract is valid. You get clothed, fed, housed, trained, told how to fill the hours in your day and paid to hang out with your best friends in the world. It was R&R that was tough—that’s when I had to occupy myself while everyone else was home with their families. Deployments were a cakewalk in comparison.”

“Except for the whole potential-to-be-killed thing, right?”

He lifted a shoulder. “We all die. I figured a valley in Afghanistan was better than a drunk driver in Texas.” He exhaled heavily. “Guess I’m not destined for such a heroic end after all.”

She stiffened. “You sound disappointed.”

“Surprised.” He reached across the table to take her hand. “Maybe a little relieved. Battlefield deaths are a lot more glorious in Hollywood blockbusters than in actual wars.”

She swallowed against a throat suddenly thick with emotion, and when she spoke her voice was little more than a whisper. “I’m glad you came back safe. I’m glad I met you.”

“So am I.”

She closed her eyes against the prickling threat of tears, then snapped them open again as Grady dragged her into his lap, tugging her into place so she straddled him, her legs dangling down either side of the chair.

“Don’t you dare cry on me,” he murmured, his hands at her waist. “All those miles of rough road brought me here to you, and I still can’t believe my luck.”

“I still can’t believe you made me change my own tire,” she managed with a weak smile, and then his mouth was on hers.

Grady kissed like a man. That was the only way she could define it. He had none of the hesitance or frenzy or contrivance of her past suitors—he took her mouth, he sought her tongue, and there wasn’t so much as a glimmer of timidity in his movements. He was forthright, authentic, unafraid.

She wondered what else he did like a man.

His fingers tangled in the hair at her nape as she explored the inside of his mouth, savoring the strong, bold, addictive taste of the black coffee he’d brewed in a dented pot. He shifted beneath her, and in the next second the hard core of him was palpable between her legs, the rough, strained denim of his fly digging through the thin cotton of her underwear.

As soon as her brain processed the size of the erection threatening to bust the zipper out of his jeans, she produced a moan so guttural she could scarcely believe it came from her own throat.

Grady thrust her away and held her at arm’s length, his hair spiked where she’d run her hand through it, his eyes big, impenetrably dark pools. He stared at her for a few tantalizing seconds before his gaze fell to her shoulder. Slowly, gently, he pushed down the cloth of her sleeveless dress and slid aside the strap of her bra. Then he put his lips on the bony notch of her shoulder, and her moan made its predecessor seem like the barest of sighs.

She put bracing hands on his wide shoulders as he worked his mouth over her collarbone to the tops of her breasts, his perennial five o’clock shadow tickling her sensitive skin. As a tall woman with a robust figure, she’d never fit into the waiflike, maidenly mold, but with Grady’s arms heavy around her waist and his broad chest heaving beneath her palms, she felt delicate, supple and indescribably feminine.

At least until he urged her breast out of her dress and closed his mouth over her nipple. Then she was so consumed by ecstatic sensation that she wasn’t sure she was still human.

Grady released her flesh and sat back to look up at her, licking his lips. “You taste like coconut.”

“Must be the body lotion I use.”

“It’s delicious.”

“Glad you like it.”

“You put that stuff on everywhere?”

She smiled. “Only one way to find out.”

Then he ducked forward, and in one smooth motion he had her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He flowed to his feet and was at the bottom of the stairs before she could gather her senses enough to speak.

“It won’t ruin the mood if you let me walk, I promise,” she insisted, eyeing the rickety-looking staircase.

“Not a chance. Compared to an unconscious infantryman you’re like carrying a feather.” And to prove his point he sprinted up the stairs, ignoring her giggling, squealing protests as he traversed creaky hallway floorboards to swing open a door and fling her onto the king-size bed on the other side.

“This is a big bed,” she remarked, looking around what was the first fully renovated room she’d seen in the house.

“I’m a big guy.”

“Promises, promises.”

Grady’s grin was wolfish as he pulled off his shirt. All of the mirth drained from Laurel’s body and was replaced by insistent, pulsating desire as she gazed up at his magnificent torso. She raised her hand to touch him as he clambered on top of her, trailing her fingertips through the crisp hair, tracing the ridges of muscle. He slid his hand between her back and the mattress to tug on the zipper of her dress, then peeled it down and off.

His eyes heated and flashed as he looked her up and down, and she preened under his gaze. She pushed up on her elbows and gripped his belt, slowly sliding the worn leather through the buckle.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me—”

With a throaty, animal growl he was on her, his mouth scalding her stomach, her neck, the space between her breasts as his hands worked impatiently to shuck off his jeans. She gripped the narrow, tight contours of his hips through his boxers, his hand trembled against her back where he fought with the clasp on her bra, and then everything sped up into a semi-coherent whirlwind of sensation.

Something ripped, that grating sound of seams being wrenched apart, and then she was bare before him, her nipples peaking under his attention. His big, callused fingers were on her naked breasts, dipping low on her abdomen. She thought for a moment that these same hands had fired machine guns, tied tourniquets around bleeding limbs, held steady through the chaos and mayhem of countless battles, and yet his touch was so tender that her heart squeezed and her stomach tightened and then he slipped that trigger finger inside her and she stopped thinking altogether.

When they finally came together, when Laurel parted her thighs to welcome him, only to clamp them around his hips as soon as he pushed into her slick core, Grady knew he was in trouble. There was none of the usual impatience for completion, the self-conscious pressure of pleasing someone he barely knew, the impulse to close his eyes and imagine he was with a woman who loved him, who understood him, who never wanted to leave him. Instead he watched Laurel like she might vanish if he blinked, savoring every tiny change in her expression, stroking in and out of her with a selfless rhythm, praying he wasn’t imagining the possessiveness in the way she gripped his body.

He could feel her trying to delay her release, fighting against the rising tide until she was shaking with the effort, her deep moans of pleasure choking into mewling pleas for this moment to last forever. He knew exactly how she felt, but if he had his way, there would be plenty of time for this and much, much more.

He brought his lips to her temple at the same time he slid one hand between them. “I want to see you come, pretty girl,” he whispered, pressing the pad of his thumb to her taut nub.

She shattered. Her back arched, her toes curled, and he’d barely gotten a glimpse of those outstanding breasts thrust up in ecstasy when her tremors ignited his own. He drove into her convulsing form, her name ripping from his throat like a cry for help, and in the last second before his brain gave over completely to the heady fog of lust fulfilled, he noted how seamlessly their bodies fit together, how in that moment he wasn’t sure where he ended and she began.

And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was where he belonged.

Sometime later, when they were both sated and drifting in and out of sleep, Laurel rolled over to look at him with eyes shining like bright blue gems in the darkened room.

“Thank you for talking to me tonight.”

“Thank you for listening.” He rubbed a lock of her hair between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear. It was as soft as flower petals and just as pretty. “I don’t usually go in for the touchy-feely stuff. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone some of the things I told you.”

“I’m honored.”

“To be told a bunch of war stories? You are a funny one.” He brought her hand to his lips to show her he was kidding. “I don’t know what made me want to spill so much to you, but I’m glad I did. I guess I thought if I could lay a good, solid foundation, you and I might be able to build something real sturdy.”

Her smile glowed in the darkness. “I’d like that.”

With a satisfied, comforted sigh he pulled her against his chest, wrapped his arms around her and fell into the most peaceful sleep he’d had since he’d set foot back on American soil.

Chapter Nine

Laurel’s stomach lurched as she gave the menu at her favorite café a fourth and final perusal.

“Just an Americano with a little milk, please. To go.”

It would be her fifth coffee of the day, and although she felt shaky and anxious from all the caffeine, the thought of anything involving chewing had her checking the room for places to throw up.

She’d been like this ever since four o’clock that morning when she’d startled awake in Grady’s bed with her heart pounding. She didn’t know what had woken her—if she’d had a nightmare she couldn’t remember it—but there was so much adrenaline pouring through her veins she couldn’t stay still. Grady was stretched out on his side, his breathing deep and even, and he didn’t stir as she drew the sheet up over his shoulder, snagged his T-shirt off the floor and slipped out of the bedroom.

She inhaled his woodsy, masculine scent as she pulled the shirt over her head and crept down the hallway to the stairs. Back in the kitchen she filled a glass with water and leaned against the counter, glancing down at the papers piled at her elbow. Building permits, roofers’ estimates, property insurance quotes, printed-out instructions on hanging drywall—the messy stack of pages was a testament to Grady’s determined pursuit of the permanence and stability he’d never known.

Suddenly her heart rate picked up again, accompanied by panic welling in her throat.

A tempting, seductive ember had begun to glow in her chest as she’d given over to the pull of sleep with Grady’s arm draped heavy and reassuring on her waist. It was still there—she could feel it now—and it was stronger, brighter and more dangerous than ever.

It was contentment.

Her breath came in shallow gasps as she clutched the edge of the counter. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to indulge her deep-seated savior complex, help to heal this complicated and remarkable man, and after a period sufficient to satisfy both their needs, the relationship would come to a natural, affable, mutual conclusion. Then they were supposed to remain close but platonic friends as he continued to build his life in Meridian and she skipped around the globe, resetting shoulders dislocated by earthquakes and saving legs broken by shrapnel from suicide bombs.

She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him, for God’s sake.

With her legs threatening to buckle beneath her, she dropped into one of the folding chairs shoved up to the card table. Surely this wasn’t how her life was meant to go, was it? All those years of school, of training, of doing what everyone expected of her while she plotted her great escape—it couldn’t end here. Not on a start-up cattle ranch at the edge of her hometown, not in this ramshackle farmhouse, not in the arms of the most honorable, captivating, gorgeous man she’d ever—

“No,” she commanded aloud. No, no, no. This was not the plan. She’d worked too long and too hard for what she was on the brink of reaching, and she would not be derailed by dark eyes and skillful hands.

She couldn’t go back to bed, but her car was back at her house, so she quietly tugged on her dress and called one of Meridian’s few taxi companies—if you could call a man with a cell phone and a ten-year-old Pontiac sedan a company. She scribbled a vague note about needing to be at work early the next morning and then sat on the front porch, trying not to think about how perfect it would be, once the house was restored and repainted, to rock a baby to sleep on a summer night right there in that spot, with the view of the unending prairie ahead of her and the solid presence of a good man at her back.

By the time the cab arrived, the sun was peeking over the horizon, spilling light over a brand-new day. But as she shut the car door behind her and the sedan started back down the long gravel driveway, she had the unshakeable sense that no matter what that golden dawn promised, this was an ending.

She didn’t actually have to be at work early, but she went in anyway in case Grady stopped by on his way to the road crew. He didn’t, but he did call during what she presumed was his lunch hour. She stared at the phone as it buzzed on her desk, her stomach in knots, hating herself a little more with each silenced ring. She didn’t answer, and he didn’t leave a message.

The barista passed over her coffee, and she dropped a dollar’s worth of change in the tip jar, figuring she needed all the good karma she could get after last night. She was well aware that repaying Grady’s unparalleled trust and selfless intimacy by disappearing while he slept was in the top five lowest things she’d ever done—or did that make it the bottom five?

Shaking her head at her own rambling thoughts, she plunked down onto one of the green benches lining Main Street. What did she do now? Call Grady and say
Thanks for the painful disclosures, but I like you too much to see you again
? Carry on the pretense of the relationship, knowing all the while that she had no intention of staying with him? No, that wasn’t an option—given the speed at which she was falling for him, it soon wouldn’t be a pretense. It would be a sincere, deep-rooted attachment that would hurt like hell to rip out.

So she was back to square one—whatever that meant. After all, what was square two? And where were these squares anyway?

She set the coffee cup down on the arm of the bench—the caffeine was making her delirious. She had to focus on the task ahead. She had to find a way to let Grady down.

Laurel was so absorbed in her circular thinking that she didn’t notice Peter’s approach, and startled when he sat down beside her.

“Sorry.” He raised a hand. “I heard you and Grady had a falling out at the College Heights block party, so when I saw you sitting here looking upset I thought maybe you needed a sympathetic ear.”

She stared at Peter for several moments, but it wasn’t with annoyance at the wildfire way gossip spread in this town, or exasperation at his blatant attempt to catch her on the rebound. Instead she took in his neatly combed hair, his furtively sanguine eyes and his perfectly pressed sleeves and wished with all her heart that she could fall in love with someone like him—that she was the kind of woman whose most fervent desires were a big house, a tolerable husband and a seat on the fundraising committee at the PTA. Life would be so much easier and less complicated if she could just bring herself to want what everyone else wanted for her.

“I appreciate it,” she replied honestly. “But I’m fine. Just taking a coffee break.”

Peter flattened his palms on his thighs. “Look, Laurel, you know I’m crazy about you, and I’m not going to pretend I’m disappointed that things haven’t worked out between you and Grady. I can see that you have an adventurous spirit—that’s why you want to do this overseas stuff, and that’s why someone like Grady appealed, especially with all the action at the bar that night.” He pivoted on the bench and took one of her hands in both of his. “But he’s a loose cannon. Not only was his friend so drunk he could barely stand, Grady took his gun and shot a car for no reason. Maybe it seems like harmless, boys-will-be-boys fun to you, but you can’t seriously consider a relationship with a man who—”

“Hello, Peter.”

They jerked apart as Grady drew up in front of them. He crossed his arms, his expression locked up tight.

“It is Peter, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

“We were just talking,” Peter insisted, shooting up from the bench with his palms held out in a gesture so needlessly self-defensive that Laurel rolled her eyes.

“I know.”

“I’ve known Laurel a long time and I want to be a friend to her. I’m not trying to muscle in on—”

“I know,” Grady repeated more firmly.

“I should get back to the office.” Then, with as much subtlety as an Apache helicopter, he leaned in to murmur, “Think about what I said,” before retreating down the sidewalk.

Grady took Peter’s place on the bench and her heartbeat went into overdrive. The nearness of his body, his scent, his heat, set memories of the night before loose from their moorings and floating up into her mind. She clenched her hands together in her lap, swallowing hard against an urgent need to touch him.

“What’re you doing downtown?” she asked by way of greeting.

“I had a meeting with your brother about the sentencing hearing.” He glanced in the direction of Peter’s departure. “I underestimated how quickly word traveled in this town. I figured having a huge military installation on your doorstep would give y’all more to talk about than a shot-up tire. Apparently not.”

“Slow news day.”

“I guess.” He sighed. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Even the guys on the road crew look at me like I’m about to hit ’em. Ethan’s career was the only thing on my mind when I took that gun off him. It never occurred to me that I’d be starting off my new civilian life with a reputation for being a trigger-happy lunatic.”

“Do you regret it?”

He shook his head. “It was the right thing to do. My back’s a lot straighter than Ethan’s these days. I can carry this weight for him.”

They sat in reflective silence. A car crept down the street and pulled in to a space in front of the bridal shop. A wind chime tinkled and swung in its spot outside the dry cleaner’s. A woman pushed a stroller up to the crosswalk, checking her phone while she waited for the light to change. It was a warm, peaceful, late-spring afternoon, but the storm raging inside Laurel’s stomach could’ve blackened the skies in an instant.

When Grady spoke again, his voice was soft and unsure. “Where’d you run off to this morning?”

“Work,” she replied instantly, then cringed at how lame that sounded. He deserved better—he deserved the truth. “I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“What kept you up?”

“Thinking. About us.”

He stilled beside her. “Did I push you too far? I know I sort of unloaded on you with all the war talk.”

“No, nothing like that, I just—”

“Last night was something special for me.” His tone was urgent, like he might lose these words if he didn’t get them out. “You’re special to me. I want you to know that.”

“Oh, Grady.” Regret squeezed her heart like a vise—regret that she let things get so far so quickly, and regret that she couldn’t be the woman he needed. In that moment she’d never wanted anything more than she wanted to be his, but she gritted her teeth against that longing, achingly aware that the longer she let this go on, the harder it would be for both of them.

“We want different futures,” she told him gently. “You need to find your place in this town, and I need to find my way out of it. If I didn’t care about you, I’d suggest we keep on having a good time together until I get my overseas posting, but even one more night like last night and I—”

She pulled in a trembling breath, swallowing hard against the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat.

“Another night like that and I don’t think I could leave you,” she finished weakly.

She clamped her eyes shut, shielding herself from his reaction as she sent up a quick prayer that she was doing the right thing. When she opened them again, Grady hadn’t moved. His body was motionless, his expression blank. The only evidence that he felt anything at all was the whiteness of his knuckles where his fingers dug into his thighs.

“So don’t leave me.”

His voice was rough and gravelly, but the emotion behind it was wide open, like he was offering her his heart in outstretched hands. That flash of vulnerability was in such poignant contrast to his big, strong frame that for several seconds Laurel could barely breathe, let alone formulate her response.

“I have to,” she managed when she could find her voice. “I have to get out of Meridian. I can’t be happy here, going through the motions, doing what everyone wants, suffocating underneath my parents’ expectations—”

“Bullshit,” he declared with such sharp, sudden volume that an elderly couple on the other side of the street looked over in surprise. In the next second Grady was on his feet, staring her down with so much ferocity that his dark eyes glittered.

“I met your parents, and your brother—remember? And I’m pretty sure the only thing they want is for you to be happy.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know them.”

“I don’t need to—I know that you’re lucky as all hell to have them. So they want you to stay close to home—so what? It’s not like they’re going to disown you if you don’t. Considering they barely blinked when you brought around a fresh-out-of-jail war vet, I’m not sure I believe they’re all that opposed to you doing charity work overseas. In fact, I’m starting to think the biggest thing standing in your way is you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she scoffed, but a tiny bud of unease took root in the pit of her stomach. “What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re a coward,” he retorted hotly. “It means you’re afraid to take risks and go after what you want, but you make excuses so it’s never your fault. You say your parents hold you back, but I think you’re scared to leave the safety of your hometown and go abroad. And you say we can’t be together because our lives are going in different directions, when really you don’t want to jump into something that might be difficult and complicated and exactly what you want. This thing between us and your dreams of practicing medicine overseas aren’t mutually exclusive. You’re just afraid to fall in love with me.”

Her eyes widened as she stared up at him, her heart fluttering into a panicked rhythm in her chest. He didn’t know what he was talking about. She wasn’t afraid—was she? And what he said about their relationship, about it being exactly what she wanted—what did he know about what she wanted? Just because he charmed her more than any man she’d ever dated, and awakened some deep, dormant part of her with his gruff tenderness, and made her feel more whole than she thought possible when he pushed inside her, her moans swelling with fulfillment that went so much further than physical satisfaction…

His last sentence echoed in her mind with the crisp, clear resonance of a brass bell. When she pulled herself together enough to speak, her throat was so dry the words weren’t much above a whisper.

“Do you think you could fall in love with me?”