Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 (4 page)

Chapter Five

Laurel stifled a yawn as Christina’s husband, Kenny, launched into another impassioned point about the number of local jobs that would be created by the planned development of a supersize grocery store on the east side of town. Peter—whom Laurel had invited against her better judgment, needing to find someone at the last minute after she forgot about this dinner—shook his head and reiterated his earlier argument about the threat to small businesses and the chain’s reputation for low wages and poor benefits. Christina’s gaze darted between the two of them, punctuated by an occasional agreeing nod.

Laurel drained the wine in her glass and reached for the bottle in the center of the table but put it back down when she found it was empty. The clock on the restaurant wall said it was twenty minutes past eleven. The other two couples who’d joined them for Christina’s birthday dinner had left more than an hour ago, but from the pace of Peter and Kenny’s conversation, she suspected her own departure was still a long way off.

She sat back in her chair and thought—as she had so often in the two weeks since their disastrous date—about Grady. She hadn’t seen him since they said goodbye on her doorstep, despite staring creepily at every tall, dark-haired man she encountered around town and slowing her car whenever she drove past any sign of construction, in case it was the road crew. One day, back in the office after an especially taxing lunch date with her mother, she opened his file and repeatedly reread the first-time visit form he’d filled out, running her fingers over the ballpoint pen indentations made by his careful, blocky handwriting. She memorized his address, and when she climbed into her car at the end of the day, she told herself she was just going to drive by his house, she just wanted to see where he lived, she wouldn’t bother him, he wouldn’t even know she was there.

Shortly before she reached the turn down the long, graveled road leading out to his property, Laurel brought the car to an abrupt stop on the shoulder.

“This is crazy,” she chided aloud. “You are being crazy. He made himself perfectly clear—he’s not interested. Leave the poor man alone.”

Then she U-turned and gunned the engine toward home, sniffing hard against the rejection that still stung behind her eyes.

“Laurel? What do you think?”

“Hm?” Christina’s voice jolted her from her reverie to find three sets of eyes staring at her expectantly. “Sorry, I missed that—what did you say?”

“The restaurant is closing, but we thought we might walk down to Rock’s and see what’s going on. Peter thinks they have live music on Saturday nights.”

Laurel not only doubted Peter had ever been to the shabby bar at the other end of the strip mall, she suspected his interpretation of live music was vastly different from whoever booked the talent at Rock’s. “I don’t know,” she balked, “it’s getting late.”

“Come on,” Christina cajoled. “It’ll be fun. It’ll be like back in college.”

“You mean I’ll find you passed out in a hedge at the end of a frat party?”

Christina rolled her eyes and Laurel sighed her resignation. Her best friend’s two small children were with their grandparents overnight, and she knew Christina and Kenny wanted to take full advantage of their rare respite.

“All right, let’s go.”

The jangle and thump of a country-music band drifted through the cool evening as they made their way past darkened storefronts to the neon-lit door of Rock’s. Christina practically skipped along at her husband’s side, the two of them clearly elated at the chance to shirk parental responsibility for a night. Part of her envied their easy companionship and familial bliss, yet it felt so impossibly distant at this point in her life that it didn’t seem worth the energy to be jealous. Deciding to become a surgeon meant that hers would be a less conventional path through adulthood, and she was at peace with that. Maybe she’d meet a handsome French—no, Spanish, she knew more of the language—scratch that, she’d always wanted to go to Australia—
Australian
emergency medicine doctor when she went overseas, they’d work tirelessly together to save lives, their gazes would meet beneath a bare bulb in a makeshift operating room, they’d adopt a child orphaned by a tsunami, they’d travel endlessly until—

Peter slung his arm over her shoulder as they pushed into the clamorous dark of the bar, popping her fantasy like an overfilled balloon. His arm was stiff and heavy and his cologne was so cloying she was absurdly grateful for the scent of stale beer that nearly overpowered it. Her shoes stuck to the floor as they pushed into the crowd, where oversize belt buckles and cowboy hats were the dominant motifs. The country band of pot-bellied, bearded, middle-aged men was better heard than seen, but Laurel was soon instinctively tapping her foot to the upbeat tune as they assembled around a tall table.

Peter’s face was pinched. “Maybe this wasn’t such—”

“What’s everyone having? This round’s on me,” Kenny called over the music, his wallet already in his hand.

“I’ll help you carry,” Laurel volunteered after Christina and Peter gave their drink orders. She followed Kenny’s back as he wove toward the bar, skirting around the people dancing in front of the low stage. He reached the row of taps first, but just as she saw him turn to make sure she was behind him, one of the more inebriated dancers staggered backward and hit hard against her side. As she teetered on her high heels, one ankle twisting painfully beneath her, a firm, warm hand closed on her arm and dragged her upright.

She didn’t need to look up to know whose touch it was.

“Why is it every time I go out for a drink, I end up rescuing you? I’m starting to think this is all some sort of elaborate plan.”

Grady released his hold and stepped back, transferring two of the six beer bottles he held by the neck into his free hand. She guiltily dragged her gaze up to meet his, and sighed in relief when she found amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Laurel, are you okay?” Kenny rushed to her side, concern drawing his brows together.

“I’m fine. I’ll see you guys back at the table, okay? I’m just going to catch up with my friend Grady for a few minutes.”

Kenny gave Grady a skeptical once-over, and she knew exactly what he was thinking—he’d known her for years and never heard of this
friend
. But he nodded, shot her a look that was a clear reminder to be careful, and made his way back to the bar.

She indicated the bottles he carried. “Thirsty?”

“Saturday night special—three for five dollars.”

“It’s packed in here.”

His smile was tight. “I’m trying to be okay with that.”

“Want to get some air?”

She was afraid he would hesitate, that he’d give her the pitying look that precedes a letting-her-down-gently statement, that he’d shift awkwardly and explain he was here with someone else. But to her thrilled surprise, he took a deep breath. “Yeah. I do.”

She trailed him away from the crowd and around a pool table, averting her gaze as they crossed near where Peter and Christina sat. He led her to a back corner, where she recognized his two friends from the bar near the highway. Chance was leaning forward and speaking earnestly, not even noticing as Grady clunked the full bottles down amid the empties. Ethan sat across from him, his face in his hands.

She didn’t have time to say hello before Grady was edging past them to the back door, and she had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. The door shut behind them with a slam, and then everything was quiet. They were alone.

Her stomach clenched with nerves as she realized the significance of this moment. This was her second chance—and almost certainly her last.

She pushed her lips into a bright smile.

Don’t mess this up.

The taut ache in his shoulders eased the instant they stepped into the parking lot, where row after row of pickup trucks gleamed under the pole-mounted lights. The dark, crowded, booze-fueled atmosphere made him jumpy as hell, but Ethan refused to leave, and he and Chance agreed that they weren’t comfortable leaving the captain in there on his own.

Still, he was wound so tightly that when he saw Laurel stroll in with some accountant-looking guy in a suit, he figured it was a trick of his imagination—not unlike the RPG teams and AK-47-wielding guerrillas he sometimes saw in his peripheral vision. After all, he’d thought about her a lot the last couple of weeks, always with a pang of regret and resigned disappointment. He wasn’t ready for a woman like her—he might never be. It was a hard lesson but an important one.

But then she walked right past him, and as soon as he got a whiff of that fresh, fruity perfume, he knew she was the real deal.

It hadn’t taken much time in combat for him to develop a firm belief in fate and a willingness to follow where it led. For the esteemed doctor to waltz into a down-home dive bar seemed to be fate’s version of screaming in his ear.

Even in the harsh glow of the streetlights she looked gorgeous, her hair drifting loose around her shoulders, her luscious body poured into a patterned dress that matched the blue of her eyes.

Fate. He took a step closer.

“Who’s your date?”

She frowned briefly, as if she’d already forgotten the poor guy existed. “Oh, Peter? He’s a lawyer friend of my brother’s.”

“Is he boring you?”

“To tears.”

Emboldened by the relief of the open space and the two bottles of beer he’d already downed, he put his hands on her waist. Laurel’s body was trim but not skinny. She was taller than average, with full breasts and flared hips, and the robust, vigorous air of a woman unafraid to ask for what she wanted—and that made him harder than the gun on an M1 Abrams tank.

“What’s boring about him?”

She ran her hand down the center of his chest, studying each snap on his shirt as she went. “His suit. His car. His season subscription to the Kansas City Ballet. His apparent inability to laugh at my jokes.”

“Maybe your jokes aren’t funny.”

“They’re hilarious.”

“Do you see me laughing?”

She looked up, and the harsh light illuminated a heartfelt emotion glittering in her eyes that was as soft as it was deep, and it made his throat constrict and his stomach twist. She raised her hand to his face, smoothing her thumb over his cheek.

“I see you,” she whispered.

He kissed her.

There was no tentative exploration, no slow build. Within seconds his tongue was pursuing hers, his mouth led hers in a quickening rhythm, and the hungry pressure of her lips started a fire roaring low in his groin with the speed of a match dropped on a puddle of kerosene.

She smelled like sunshine and cool spring mornings, and each time their mouths met and parted and met again, he sought the sweet, white-wine-tinged taste of her with renewed vigor. It was the kind of feverish, insatiable, shameless kissing he thought he’d left behind in the backseats and bleachers of his younger days, but any reservation about manners was soundly snuffed by her soft moan as their teeth clicked together in their haste to devour each other.

His hand moved to her lower back, pulling her closer, and she slid her fingers to the nape of his neck. The material of her dress was silky against his callused fingers, sliding over his skin in a way that reminded him she was not the type of woman he usually picked up in dives like this one, the type who either left before dawn or accused him of being a coldhearted asshole before slamming the door and driving off. Everything about Laurel felt somehow freer and more confident than what he was used to. She kissed with open desire. The hand at his neck was honest in its urging, while the fingers splayed on his cheek said she was ready to follow wherever he wanted to go.

Which, at this point, was all the way to the bold, bright moon hanging overhead.

A loud crash resounded behind them, and Grady jerked, every nerve leaping to high alert as he instinctively gathered Laurel to his chest, turning his back to the sound and ducking his head.

As soon as he realized shrapnel wasn’t about to rain down on them and it was just the back door slamming against the brick wall, he released Laurel and spun in time to see Ethan lurch into the parking lot. Chance followed close on the captain’s heels, and the definite lack of humor in his usually mirthful green eyes broadcast the seriousness of the situation.

“I think you should go inside,” he murmured to Laurel, but before she could reply, the captain staggered toward them, blocking her exit. Grady held her behind his back with one hand.

“Sergeant Reid,” Ethan declared, as if it had been years since they’d seen each other rather than minutes.

“No need for formalities—I’m a civilian now,” he replied with forced joviality, his gaze asking Chance for a clue as to what was happening. Chance inclined his head toward Ethan’s hip, and Grady’s pulse began to pound in his temples.

Ethan squinted at him. Grady’s jaw tensed.

“Let me show the doctor here back inside, then I’ll come out and join y’all. Anyone need another drink?” He clamped a hand on her upper arm and tried to usher Laurel toward the door, but in the next second Ethan had drawn his sidearm from his concealed-carry holster. The Beretta gleamed dully under the lamps, and Grady gave Laurel a hard shove in the direction of the door, turning his back on her to block her from Ethan’s view.

“You don’t need that out here, Cap.” He held up his palms, noting that Chance had moved to stand directly behind Ethan. “We’re back home now. We’re safe.”

“Safe.” Ethan practically spat the word in disgust. “We’re no safer here than we were in Kunar. The hostiles just wear ties instead of
pakols
.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed honestly. “But there’s none of them out here—only me and McKinley. And you know we’ve got your six.”

“I do. I do know that.” He swayed on his feet. Chance took a step closer, one hand poised to take the gun. Grady held his breath, willing the officer who’d saved his life half a dozen times to drop it so they could all get out of there.

Without warning, Ethan stiffened into a shooting stance, aimed out into the parking lot and fired.