Thunder Running (3 page)

“Meridian has six stoplights and four of them are superfluous.” He leaned farther into the fridge. “I've got salmon fillets, I could grill those if you want. Do you like pesto?”

She probably would—if she knew what the hell it was. “I guess.”

“Then I'll get started. Can you set the table? Plates and stuff are in the right-hand cabinet above the sink.”

Tara exhaled her irritation at being put to work, then started to lay out the napkins and cutlery, trying to remember what she'd been taught in her brief tenure as a server at Denny's. Her dad's version of setting the table was shoving a grease-stained fast-food bag in her direction, so utensil placement was not exactly her forte.

Chance used paper towels to spread cooking oil over the grill rack in the oven, then placed the salmon inside and shut the door. Unsure what to do with herself now the table was set, she backed up against the counter. He straightened and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking as uncomfortable as she felt.

After an awkward beat she offered, “Can't remember having salmon before. I'm more of the fried catfish type.”

“I'm trying to get into shape for deploying. No unhealthy food.”

She stiffened. “Are you saying I don't eat healthy?”

“I'm saying fried catfish isn't healthy.”

“Didn't realize you were such a food snob.”

“Five minutes ago you wanted sushi, now I'm a snob for pointing out nutritional value?”

He had a point, which yanked her defenses even higher. She crossed her arms. “Craving one thing doesn't mean I like your attitude about another.”

“But you—” He stopped, closed his eyes, reopened them. “The fish will take a few minutes to grill. Why don't we put your stuff in the bedroom and I'll show you the rest of the house?”

She lifted one shoulder, secretly grateful for the route out of her hostility.

Tara studied Chance's heels as she followed him through the living room to the staircase, longing to steal a glance at his tight, denim-wrapped butt but convinced she hadn't earned it. She was doing it again, using belligerence as armor, wrapping herself in anger until she was so tangled up she could barely breathe.

Her dad said she was born bad-tempered, and a lifetime of report cards full of behavioral missteps seemed to agree with him. Then there were all the doors slammed behind departing lovers, usually punctuated by words like
bitch
and
psycho
. Just four days ago her boss slipped up and called her crazy, then hastily backpedaled and chose
aggressive
and
unprofessional
instead. She wasn't offended—she understood he had to be careful about his terminology, considering he was in the middle of firing her.

And he was right. She knew she was a crazy bitch. She just didn't know how to be anything else.

The wooden beams protested as they climbed the stairs to the small, slope-roofed second story. Even the house was moaning at her to leave. Maybe she should. Maybe this was the wrong decision after all, made in the heat of the argument with her father, fueled by forty-eight hours under his roof and the prospect of thousands more while she looked for a new job. Maybe it was unfair to inflict herself on Chance after all this time. He obviously hadn't missed her—how much clearer could his signal be?

He stepped back and gestured for her to precede him into the bedroom. With one foot over the threshold her conscience twanged its objection and she spun, the suggestion to seek an annulment already forming on her tongue.

That was when she saw it.

He snapped his gaze up to her face, but not quickly enough. She caught the hot shine in his eyes before they cooled, the looseness in his jaw before he tightened it, the haunted yearning sharpening his expression before he smoothed it into placidity. She knew that look. He'd worn it that night at the bar, not realizing she could see him in the mirror when she turned to pour his drink, and in the instant when she opened her eyes after their first kiss as husband and wife beside the gurgling fountain in the casino's atrium, and in the darkened hotel room as she'd peered at him through her lashes, letting him think she was still asleep.

She smiled. He did too.

“Sorry about the mess.” Chance brushed past her into the bedroom, dropping her bag on the bed as he rushed to gather up various articles of camouflage clothing and dump them on an already overflowing chair in the corner.

“There's only one bedroom,” he explained, frowning in evaluation at a pair of army-green socks before adding them to the pile. “The room across the hall became an equipment closet and general clutter graveyard. I'll change the sheets after dinner so you can have the bed. Couch'll suit me just fine.”

“Don't be ridiculous, I'll take the couch.”

“Now what kind of gentleman would that make me?” He paused in shutting a drawer to shoot her a lopsided grin. Tara stabbed her thumbnail into her palm to mitigate its effect.

“The kind who's a foot taller than me and probably has to work in the morning.”

“I do. Speaking of work, did you tell the bar you'd be back, or—”

“I got fired.” She lifted her chin, daring him to judge her. Instead he nodded.

“Was that guy with the mullet still your boss?”

“Yep.”

“Probably for the best, then. What happened?”

“Customer had one too many, got lippy, tried to cop a feel when I came around to collect the empties. So I kicked the stool out from under him.”

She waited for him to roll his eyes at her outburst or frown at her overreaction, but all he did was raise a mildly skeptical brow. “Giving a drunk-ass lecher what he deserves is a firing offense?”

“He was an old dude, raised a stink about his bad hip, threatened to sue, blah blah blah.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I was due for a pay raise so they would've found a reason eventually.”

Chance leaned against the wall behind him, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Is that why you decided to come out here and look for me? Because there was nothing holding you down in Kansas City and you didn't want to go home to Fayetteville?”

“Springdale,” she corrected. “And I did go home. Then I came back.”

“Your dad hasn't dried out, huh?”

She managed a tight, bitter smile. “He fell off the wagon so long ago the horses could up and die and he still wouldn't find his way back on.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

They lapsed into thoughtful silence. Tara thought back to that long conversation they'd had when her shift ended and they moved to a table at the back of the bar, hushed and hidden from the steady stream of casino patrons taking a midnight break before heading back out to the slots. That was before the alcohol really began to blur the edges, yet he was so open, explaining that he was the youngest of five kids from four fathers, he joined the army to get out of Biloxi and away from his chaotic family, but he started sending money home after Hurricane Katrina and now he couldn't seem to stop, that even Iraq and Afghanistan hadn't felt far enough to break the cord tethering him to his sexually voracious mother and lazy sisters and ever-expanding number of nieces and nephews.

Then she told him about the mother she couldn't remember, the aunt who resented having to take care of her while her father was in prison, the day a strange woman in a pants suit picked her up from school and drove her to an emergency foster care placement where she ate dinner at a table for the first time in her life.

It was different from the slurred, tedious oversharing she so often endured when being a bartender made her a captive audience. They both spoke with urgency, not much above a whisper, beer bottles sweating and forgotten on the edge of the table. When she finished they shared a silence not unlike this one, each digesting the weight of the other's story and recovering from the exertion of their confessions.

Then Chance had covered her hand with his, leaned across the sticky tabletop and kissed her.

She looked up to find him watching her from across the bedroom. She wondered if he was remembering the same thing. She inhaled to speak but he beat her to it.

“Why are you here, Tara? Why now?”

His slight emphasis on the last word made the question feel rhetorical, like he knew she didn't have the answer but wanted to ask anyway.

A slew of safely offhand replies sped through her mind.
I was hoping you had a new girlfriend I could run off as revenge. I was planning to go all the way to Colorado but I ran out of cash. Let's be honest, Chance, the sex was amazing.

“I missed you.”

She clenched her hands at her sides, bracing herself for his laughter at her pathetic response and the meek voice in which she'd offered it, but he was silent. He straightened where he stood, eyes dark and unreadable, and she couldn't decide whether he was about to kiss her or kick her out. He squared his shoulders, withdrew his hands from his pockets—

The ear-splitting shriek of the smoke detector ripped through the house. Tara jumped so badly she nearly lost her footing, and Chance's eyes widened in comprehension.

“Oh, shit, the salmon's burning.”

He bolted across the room and out the door, and in a second she heard his heavy footsteps thundering down the stairs.

She knew she should follow him, dart around the ground floor opening windows while he turned off the oven and fanned the smoke in the kitchen. She'd do it—she'd go down and help him. First she just needed one minute to breathe.

Chapter Three

“Is that everything you need?”

The soldier behind the desk gave the spousal ID application a final onceover and nodded. “Looks fine. She can come in any time on Monday to get her photo taken and we'll issue the card then.”

“Thanks, I'll tell her.”

Chance breathed a sigh of relief as he left the administrative building, squinting as he stepped into the crisp but sunny autumn morning. He was so worried he'd have to answer invasive personal questions about why he was only now registering a spouse after nearly a year of marriage that he'd turned up at the ID office as soon as it opened, hoping it would be empty and limiting the risk of running into someone he knew. But the woman who accepted his paperwork hadn't so much as blinked at the date on the marriage certificate, and now that it was over he realized how paranoid he'd been. This was the army. They'd seen it all.

He stretched and yawned, wondering what to do with the hour remaining before the start of his duty shift. Tara won the fight over who got to spend the night on the couch, but the queen-size mattress might as well have been the floor for all the sleep he got.

He'd thrown together a vegetable stir fry while Tara scraped scorched bits of salmon off the baking sheet, and the atmosphere over dinner was companionable if somewhat stilted, like they were two feral cats sizing each other up, deciding whether they'd need to fight to protect their respective territories. What strange accord they'd seemed to find had been banished so thoroughly by the smoke alarm that Chance thought he must have imagined it. Tara was back to being one wrong word away from ornery, and he kept the conversation light and superficial until it was time to say goodnight.

As soon as he switched off his bedside lamp his mind started to race, except his thoughts weren't circling the question he expected, namely what the hell Tara Lambert was doing in his house. Instead he fixated on her lips, her breasts, the faintly discernible outline of her nipples in the thin T-shirt she'd worn to sleep in. His breathing quickened with memories of how she'd tasted, how her sweet scent had cut through the stuffy air in the hotel room, blackberries and vanilla, long-sought delicacies yielding to his hands and melting against his tongue.

He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to think about anything else, until with an exasperated sigh he admitted defeat and slid his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. He'd no sooner closed his fist than a door slammed downstairs—Tara was in the bathroom directly below the far corner of his bedroom. He snatched his hand up to his stomach and flopped onto his back, readying himself for a long, painful night.

“Hey, McKinley, I was wondering what happened to you.”

Chance turned to see Sergeant Carl Watkins, one of Echo Company's team leaders, heading toward him. He raised a hand in greeting.

“You know if you hadn't texted to say you were all right that I would've been beating down your front door,” Carl chided. “And I spent the hour up until then kicking myself for not following her car. Since when are you in the habit of accepting rides from random women who leap out at you in parking lots claiming to be your wife?”

“She is my wife.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Come on, man, what's really going on?”

“I'm serious, we're married. I was just in there turning in a DD-1172.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

Chance handed him the copy of the marriage certificate he'd brought for the application. The amusement drained from Carl's face as he read it, and by the time he handed it back his expression was grim.

“I figured you'd hit the card tables during R&R but I didn't realize you walked away with a wife.”

“It was roulette, actually.”

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head. “The whole company is thrilled to pull R&R during Christmas and you spend it in a casino, managing to get the Missouri version of a Vegas wedding? Why didn't you go home like normal people?”

“My mom's been a cocktail waitress my whole life. I grew up in casinos. In a way, I was home.”

“I guess that makes it okay, then,” Carl drawled sarcastically. “Now explain to me how you drove into Kansas City expecting to leave with a hangover and an empty wallet and wound up married instead?”

Chance shrugged. “Tara was working the bar, and we kept things going after her shift ended at midnight. We had a few drinks, then a few more, and somehow we made a bet that if the spin landed on green, we'd get married. Next thing you know it's eight o'clock in the morning and we're waiting for the courthouse to open. We paid the fifty dollars for the license and went back to the casino, where her coworker was ordained to perform marriages thanks to one of those Internet churches. Two rings from the gift shop, a few words from this guy and boom, 'til death do us part.”

His colleague stared at him for several seconds. Then he replied flatly, “That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard.”

“More ridiculous than that time at Camp Victory when we stole the balls from the bowling alley? And then when we heard the First Sergeant running down the hall I hid mine in the—”

“You're legally bound to this woman now,” Carl interrupted, ignoring Chance's attempt to change the subject. “That has serious consequences.”

“It was just a bet. A two-in-thirty-six chance.”

“Sounds like exactly the kind of odds you'd go for, McKinley.” He exhaled hotly, seeming to pull his temper into check. “Why are you getting her an ID? Aren't you going to have it annulled?”

“I don't know.” He stuck his hands in the deep cargo pockets on either side of his camouflage trousers, scuffing the toe of his boot against the pavement. “I might wait and see how things go.”

Carl slapped his hand against his forehead. “See how things go? You barely know this woman, not to mention you're shipping out to the sandbox in four weeks. What are you planning to do, leave her alone in your off-post house for six months and hope she doesn't rob you and sell your car?”

“She's not like that,” Chance insisted, his shoulders stiffening with offense. “I don't need to date her for years to know she's a good woman. Anyway, she won't stick around once the novelty wears off—in the meantime, this might be my only opportunity to experience marriage.”

He'd meant it as a joke, but as soon as the words left his mouth he realized it was true. It had taken nearly thirty years to find a woman crazy enough to marry his sorry ass—what was the likelihood he'd find another one like her? He'd always liked the idea of marriage, even if he'd never really seen one firsthand. It appealed to him in a remote, fantastical way, like when he saw TV evangelists asking for money, all shiny white teeth and dewy skin and first kisses saved for wedding days, and thought it must be nice to have your choices made for you, to live in wholesome contentment and absolute certainty that God had your back.

For as long as he could remember, life was chaos. He was never quite sure who'd be sleeping in his sisters' bedrooms from one day to the next, or whether there was any food in the refrigerator, or if his mother would get home from the casino in time to take him to school, not to mention whether she'd be sober enough to drive. He hadn't consciously joined the army in search of structure, but eventually he understood that had been a bigger draw than the free flight to basic training at Fort Benning.

Ultimately he owed his success in the military to the mastermind recruiter he'd met at a rally car festival in Bay St. Louis. They talked for forty minutes about his family, his recent high-school graduation, his job bussing tables in a casino restaurant. When he aced his ASVAB and had his pick of enlistment contracts, the recruiter asked whether he fainted at the sight of blood, then wisely guided him toward sixty-eight whiskey. Combat medic.

It turned out that gray-haired sergeant in the stuffy office knew him better than his own sisters. Just when the repetition of boot camp really began to wear on him, it was time to ship off for advanced individual training at Fort Sam Houston. He was up at four o'clock every morning for a revolving series of fast-paced classes and intensive physical conditioning. He'd never taken a particular interest in the lackluster science classes at his overcrowded high school, but adrenaline-fueled line medicine was the perfect combination of pace and detail to hold his attention. Add weekend nights off and the bars lining the River Walk in San Antonio and he thought life couldn't get better.

Then he went to Iraq. The violence and heartbreak and sheer disorder was beyond anything he imagined. And the instant he set foot on American soil at the end of his deployment, he knew he had to find a way to get back.

Carl took a step closer, drawing Chance out of his reverie. The sergeant looked in both directions before lowering his voice.

“What's going on with you, McKinley? It was hard to ignore how you slipped right past the emotional hell we've all been through since coming home from Kunar Province. I know you, so I chalked it up to your uncannily thick skin. But to turn around and volunteer to go back barely six months later? And then to produce a wife out of nowhere and seriously believe she has no ulterior motives? I'm not going to lie to you, Chance. I'm worried.”

The use of his first name indicated the gravity of Carl's words. Chance stared hard at the toes of his boots, trying to find a response that would be sufficiently honest to respect his friend's disclosure. He knew it wasn't easy for Carl to say that kind of thing, and he owed him a genuine reply.

He thought about Tara, the sleepy goodbye she'd offered from the couch as his attempt to leave without waking her proved unsuccessful. Despite all the reservations still nagging at the edges of his mind, his smile came easily.

“I'm fine, Carl. I promise.”

Skepticism passed like a cloud over Carl's eyes, but the stiffening of his posture announced the end of this conversation.

“I hope I get to meet your wife before you leave.” He angled his body, signaling his departure.

“You will. Definitely. I'll make sure that happens.”

Carl's nod was curt. “See you around.”

“Later, Sergeant.”

Carl didn't wait long enough to shake his head in disbelief—Chance got a clear view.

Yet the strength of his impulse to defend not only Tara but their decision to treat the marriage as legitimate surprised him almost as much as his certainty that he really was fine. He understood the risks and ramifications of every decision he was making, good and bad, and no matter how much he searched the depths of his emotions, he couldn't find a hint of doubt. If she left him, she left him. At least he'd know he tried—he'd know he gave this unlikely second chance his best shot.

And if he risked a glimpse into the darkest, most shadowed corner of his heart, he'd missed her. He'd never forgotten about her. He'd spent months wondering if walking out on her was the biggest mistake of his life.

He exhaled with the force of his realization. He really wanted her to stay.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened a blank text, then ordered his contacts by the date they were added to find Tara's number, which he'd entered last night. He raised his other hand to the phone and typed with his thumbs.

Hope you slept OK? Coffee all set up for you, hit green button to brew, should make 2 cups. Mugs in cabinet left of sink. Plenty of milk in fridge.

He hit
enter
for a line break, took a deep breath, and kept typing.

Thought I'd come home for lunch to see how you're doing. Will phone when on way but will prob be ~1 PM. Text if you need anything in the meantime. McK

He checked his watch. If he hurried, he still had time to stop into the commissary, buy some flowers and stash them in his car before his shift started. He shoved the phone in his pocket and headed off in that direction, hope quickening his steps.

Tara frowned at her phone, rereading the brief text for the fourth time.

McK?
What was this,
Top Gun
? She supposed
Love, Your Doting Husband
or
Kisses
was too much to expect at this stage, but surely she merited the use of his first name at least. Even if it was a stupid one.

She peered over his shoulder as he filled out the marriage application. “I can't wait to see what your mama came up with for your middle name.”

He wrote the word
Harrison
in tidy block capitals. “For a long time I figured it was my father's name. That was pretty much all I knew about him. Then my mom told me I was named after the county where I was conceived. Turns out my dad's name was Derek.”

She touched the small of his back. “Do you know why she picked your first name?”

Chance shrugged. “Fifth kid, first boy. Maybe she was hoping this time she'd get it right.”

“Did she?”

“Not even close.”

With the memory of his rueful smile hovering behind her eyes, Tara deposited the phone on the counter and planted her hands on her hips, surveying the kitchen around her. If she wanted Chance to treat her like a wife, it was time she started acting like one. She had four hours before he'd be home for lunch—more than long enough to clean up the kitchen, cook him something to eat and make herself presentable.

She imagined his delighted grin as she set a heaping plate of food in front of him, the subsequent failure of that homemade meal to hold his attention as his gaze followed her across the room, her secretive smile as she bent over the sink at an unnecessarily deep angle and he licked his lips without even glancing at his lunch.

Yes. She was totally going to make this happen. Just as soon as she'd had a cup of coffee.

Three-and-a-half hours later Tara was darting between the upstairs bathroom, bedroom and spare room, leaving wet footprints on the floorboards as she cursed herself for forgetting to pack her hairdryer.