Thunder Running (5 page)

Tara's forced grin had just started to falter when she spotted Chance approaching on her right. She turned a grateful smile in his direction, then dropped it altogether as she read the thunder in his eyes.

Rob pushed back from the barn, finally freeing her from the invisible cage of his generously applied cologne.

“Hey, McKinley, I keep asking Tara what persuaded a gorgeous gal like her to marry a busted-up grunt like you. She insists it was love at first sight, but I'm sure you must've spiked her drink. Which is it, huh? And where can I get whatever you used?”

Tara was thankful the darkness hid her blush as Rob repeated her words, but when Chance's expression didn't change she figured he hadn't heard—or didn't care.

Ignoring Rob's greeting, he nodded in the direction of the pasture fence. “Come on, we're going home.”

Searing fury reared up in her chest but she shoved it back down, all too aware of Rob's keen attention. She pushed trembling lips into a broad grin and linked her arm around Chance's.

“Sure thing, honey. It was nice to meet you, Rob. Hopefully I'll see you in town sometime.”

“Definitely,” he affirmed, but Chance tugged her away before he could say anything else.

Tara waited through several minutes' terse silence and brisk walking until they were well out of earshot of the partygoers. Then she wrenched free of his grip and spun to face him with blood pounding in her ears.

“Were you planning to explain our sudden departure or am I supposed to quietly follow you around like your subservient little wife?” she demanded, hands clenched at her sides.

“I don't know, were you planning to explain why you were flirting with Rob for who knows how long?” he shot back.

She rolled her eyes. “He owns a bar, Chance. I want him to give me a job.”

“Why do you need a job?”

“For the money, of course. Why does anyone need a job?”

“I mean, why do you need a job around here?”

Anxiety spiked her pulse before she willed it back down. Was he expecting her to leave? “I guess we skipped the calm, rational, adult conversation about how your deployment is going to affect our marital status.”

She could barely see his expression in the darkness, but his momentary silence seemed more stunned than angry. When he spoke again, some of the hostility had drained from his voice. “Probably shouldn't be a surprise.”

“That I figured I'd stick around while you're away?”

“That we haven't had a grown-up discussion about it.”

She pressed her back teeth together. “We're talking now. What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Up to you.”

Disappointment thudded in the pit of her stomach, but she straightened her spine and raised her chin. “Don't sound so thrilled.”

“Don't think I wouldn't tell you if I wanted you to leave.”

Guess that's as good a declaration of undying devotion as I'm going to get.
“Then it's settled. I'll hold down the fort and bring in a little money while you're away.”

He shook his head resolutely. “My pay will more than cover the rent on the house, gas, utilities, anything you'll need while I'm deployed.”

“I'm a third-generation bartender,” she insisted, poking her finger in his chest to emphasize the words. “I'm good at it and I'm proud of it and you've got no right to stop me.”

He seized her scolding finger and pulled her against him, closing his hands on her upper arms. “My wife ain't working in no bar, you hear me?”

“Your wife's gonna be bored out of her damn skull stuck out at that house while you're dodging bullets in Afghanistan, how about that?”

A crack ran through the steel in his expression, but he pushed her away and turned his back before she could trace its origin. Her heartbeat stuttered, her irritation wavered, but as terror accompanied the tenderness swelling in her ribcage she advanced on her husband, her voice growing louder and sharper with every word.

“What the hell kind of marriage is this supposed to be, anyway? One minute you're sleeping on the couch like I'm your long-lost cousin on a weekend visit, the next you're bossing my job prospects and accusing me of flirting. I got news for you, buddy, a girl can't step out on a husband that don't act like no husband.”

That got his attention. “What does that mean, I don't act like your husband?”

“I've been here for days and you haven't even kissed me. That's what I mean.”

The line of his jaw hardened as he advanced on her. She took one stumbling step backward, then another, then another, until her back hit the cold bark of a leafless tree. Her palms found its coarse surface as Chance moved even closer, towering over her, the sheer size of him quickening her pulse with a mixture of fear and reckless attraction.

“That's what this is about, huh?” His voice was low and full of menace. Briefly she wondered if this was how he spoke to Afghan prisoners, whether he knew all kinds of brutal interrogation techniques, if that was ever part of his job or just a ridiculous image she'd plucked from a primetime drama.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer. She glared at him instead.

His hand moved in the dark, a shadow streaking up toward her face and she flinched involuntarily, angling her chin away from him and squeezing her eyes shut. When she reopened them he was staring down at her, his expression inscrutable.

“Did you think I was about to hit you?” His tone was a fraction softer.

“Wouldn't be the first time.”

“That ain't me, sugar.” He raised his hand again, smoothing his thumb over her cheekbone. “I can't swear to much, but I promise I'll never hurt you. I promise you're safe with me.”

A bone-deep shudder ran from her toes to her skull, shaking her so hard she was surprised not to hear her skeleton clattering against the tree. She knew she should say something—toss back a self-defensively dismissive comment, offer a wry quip to move them away from this dangerously personal territory.

But one look into Chance's eyes, one glimpse of the intent she saw there made her throat dry, her brain cloud over. After a second she wasn't sure she could spell her own name, let alone make a strategic move in this high-stakes duel. She swallowed hard, bracing herself for the defeat to come.

He shifted where he stood, pressing almost imperceptibly closer. He pushed a lock of hair off her forehead; instantly it swung back into place.

“Do you believe me?” He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, the rip-stop fabric of his jacket whispering against her fake-leather bomber.

A highlights reel of former lovers scrolled through her mind as she considered his question. The University of Arkansas student she dated in high school who cheated on her with a fifteen-year-old freshman. The high-functioning alcoholic cop who was twelve years her senior and routinely whimpered his ex-wife's name in his sleep. The shale driller with the gorgeous face and hideous personality who shoved her into a dresser so hard she wore a book-sized bruise on her hip for weeks.

From the moment he smiled at her in the bar she'd sensed Chance's difference, not only to the other men she'd dated but to everyone, everywhere. He had that slightly detached, outsider's manner she knew defined her as well, and when their gazes locked for the first time it brought the certainty that they were the same, the odd ones out who'd finally given up on trying to wedge themselves into life's grid.

As she looked up at him now she remembered the unfamiliar contentment that drugged her as she'd dozed in his arms in that sterile hotel room, under that ugly beige blanket. She'd never felt so secure, so accepted. She'd never fit so well.

The pain of his abandonment, her doubt about the decision to come here, the nagging uncertainty of the future still clawed at the edges of her happiness, but for one minute she chose to ignore them. Chance was waiting for her answer—did she believe she was safe with him?

She nodded.

He kissed her.

It was everything she wanted, everything she remembered from those two whirlwind days together, everything she imagined on the long drive to Fort Preston. He smelled like honeysuckle and seawater, tasted like beer, and the hand gripping her waist did so with exactly the same barely restrained urgency she'd felt back in December. The warmth of his mouth, the callused pads of his fingers were so achingly familiar she had to choke back a lump in her throat and tighten her lids against the tears gathering behind them.

She'd missed him so damn much.

Her hands found his tight haunches, her palm snuck beneath the hem of his jacket and crept under his flannel shirt to trace the ridge of his spine, fingers nestled safe and cozy against his bare skin. At her touch he pushed his tongue between her lips, its fervent explorations reminding her so vividly of the way it had licked and thrust between her legs that she moaned out loud, tightening her fist in the denim over his hip.

His own hand left her waist to explore her side, her ribs, his thumb following the wire semi-circle of her bra until she seriously considered tugging her top over her head and telling him to go for it there and then, partying witnesses be damned.

As if he could sense her approaching loss of control—or maybe trying to prevent his own—Chance pulled back, briefly pressing his forehead against hers before straightening to look at her. His shoulders heaved, his erection strained his jeans, yet she could tell from the tension in his face that he was drawing the line, that she wouldn't be able to push him any further that night. Like a stern bartender confiscating her half-full glass, he was cutting her off.

And just like a drunk ready to grudgingly admit she'd had one too many, she couldn't find it in her to be annoyed. They'd rushed things once and nearly lost each other forever. She still needed to understand why he'd left her in December, but she didn't want to risk scaring him off again if their runaway-train courtship was the reason. This time she would be patient and calm, flexible. Because this time she wasn't letting him go.

She crossed her arms, fixing him with a smug smile. “That's more like it.”

“Good. Does that put an end to your career at Rock's?”

“I won't agree not to take a bartending job, but I promise I won't work for Rob. How about that?”

“That's fair.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step back, freeing her from where she'd been pinned against the tree. “Sorry about my caveman moment. Of course you should work if you
want
to. I guess it's important to me that you know you don't
need
to.”

He started walking in the direction of the fence where they'd parked the car, and she fell into step beside him. “I appreciate that. Lord knows there've been enough days of obnoxious customers and power-tripping bosses that I've prayed for some billionaire oil tycoon to sweep me off my feet so I can spend the rest of my days drinking Lynchburg lemonades by the pool.”

“You don't drink whiskey cocktails by the pool.” He laughed, white-toothed grin visible in the darkness that thickened as they moved away from the bonfire.

“No? What do you drink, then?”

“I don't know, pink fruity shit with little umbrellas.”

“Sounds like an expert opinion to me,” she scoffed.

He didn't reply, and as the silence stretched between them she worried she'd said something offensive. She was halfway through her mental replay of what had just come out of her mouth when he spoke, his voice soft and serious.

“Thing is, my family's always hitting me up for money. My mom drives home drunk, dents her car on a light pole, doesn't want to tell the insurance company so she calls me to ask if I'll cover the repair. The next day it'll be my oldest sister on the phone, crying about breaking up with her kid's dad for the fifteenth time, spinning this whole story about how she moved all her stuff to his house and had to walk out without any of it and my nephew has nothing to wear to school and could I just spot her enough for new gym shoes, oh and can I wire it first thing in the morning?” He shrugged. “I guess I'm used to taking care of everyone, even if I resent it sometimes, so the idea of my wife having to go to work in some dive with a creep like Rob for a boss— What I'm trying to say is it's been a long time since anyone told me they didn't need my money, that they could earn their own.”

“Which is a good thing, right?”

“Definitely.” He shot her a quick, reassuring smile. “Just caught me off guard.”

“I specialize in unpredictability.”

“Tell me about it,” he grumbled, but there was humor in his tone.

They walked another few feet in silence, the light and noise of the party now so distant and the wintry blackness so complete the bonfire might as well have been in another time, on another planet. Tara liked that feeling—that they were totally alone in this field, suspended, impervious to interference.

She reached across to close her palm around Chance's wrist, tug his hand from his pocket and lace her fingers through his. He didn't speak, and he didn't pull away.

She smiled into the conspiratorial nighttime. Maybe this lunatic marriage experiment was going to work out after all.

Chapter Five

Tara peered through the windshield at the low-slung stone building and the all-caps declaration
COMMISSARY
etched on its façade. The parking lot was busier than she would've expected for a Wednesday morning, but then again she supposed a lot of army personnel didn't work nine to five so the normal rules didn't apply.

The dashboard clock informed her she'd wasted seven whole minutes sitting in the Malibu, fretting about going inside. She huffed in self-disgust.

“It's just a freaking grocery store. Now get out of this damn car and do this,” she coached under her breath, releasing her seat belt.

She reached for the hessian tote she'd stashed on the passenger seat, checked to see if any of the entering or exiting patrons had brought their own bags, then decided to leave hers in the car. Lord knew they'd already smell the civilian on her—she didn't need to raise more hackles with her hippie grocery bag.

“It's exactly like any other grocery store in America, except there's no sales tax and it's packed with grunts every payday. There's a Dillons and a Walmart in Meridian if you'd rather drive into town. The prices aren't that different.”
Chance had shrugged the night before when she announced her plan to make her first solo trip on post.

But she was resolute. Although they were still sleeping separately and hadn't kissed again, every day they were taking baby steps toward a full-fledged relationship. Chance touched her now, squeezing her knee when she joined him on the couch or leaving his hand on her back as he looked over her shoulder at her improving culinary efforts. In turn she was trying to calm her temper, to give him the benefit of the doubt, to hold open the door her self-defensive instincts longed to slam shut whenever he paid her a compliment or said something so unexpectedly tender her heart hammered in her chest.

She was going to become the supportive army wife he deserved if it killed her. And from the height of the heels on the woman preceding her into the commissary, it very well might.

Tara paused inside the door to let her eyes adjust to the fluorescent-lit interior, which was much brighter than the overcast November day outside. She took in her surroundings, noting with relief that apart from the above-average numbers of shoppers in ACUs, Chance was right. The commissary was nothing more exciting than a run-of-the-mill grocery store.

She picked up a plastic basket and unfolded her shopping list. Although Chance insisted she didn't need to cook—and probably preferred she didn't, to be honest—she hoped today's trip would simultaneously relieve him of the errand and allow her to get what she needed for a recipe she knew she could handle, rather than try to mimic his ability to concoct a delicious meal out of whatever odd ingredients he had hanging around.

She started in the produce section, choosing carrots and potatoes and a bagged side salad. She moved onto meat, adding mince beef and chicken breasts to her basket, then turned into the canned goods aisle. She was constantly self-conscious, certain the women pushing carts, scolding children, smiling as they reached around her for a tin of kidney beans were judging her or at least identifying her difference. Could they tell this was her first trip to the commissary? Did they notice that her so-called wedding ring was a thirty-dollar piece of crap from a casino gift store? Would they convene at some secret army wives' tea later that afternoon and speculate about the racially ambiguous piece of trailer trash who'd wandered onto their post? Would they whisper to their husbands that Sergeant McKinley had gone too far this time, and something had to be done?

She recalled Chance's frown as she'd explained her theory that army wives were like a mean girls' sorority, poised to viciously exclude anyone who didn't measure up to their expectations.

“Don't believe everything you see on TV,” he'd replied. “Army wives are as different from each other as soldiers. Some of them have full-time jobs, some stay home to raise their kids, hell, some are probably finishing PhDs while they PCS all over the country. And you know there are army husbands too, right? I can't see them taking much interest in your choice of lipstick color.”

On a deep, rational level she knew he was right, but it was buried so far under layer after layer of paranoid insecurity that she struggled to see her fellow shoppers as normal people instead of members of a vast military-spouse conspiracy.

Then again, she reasoned as she selected a bag of frozen peas, she had some weird hang-ups about normal grocery stores too. For years her bartending shifts meant she tended to shop at twenty-four-hour superstores at unsociable hours, but on the rare occasions she stopped in during the day she approached the cashiers with irrational trepidation. The
bleep
of the scanner always brought her back to the arguments her father would have in the checkout line about what he could buy with his food stamps, usually ending in a drunken and utterly fictional claim that he was a full-blooded Native American raising a child on his own and he was going to call the American Civil Liberties Union the instant he got home to tell them about the racism and poor customer service he'd encountered.

More often than not she was left to shove their meager groceries into a bag while her father was escorted off the property by a manager. Even though the supermarket nearest her Kansas City apartment was miles away from those years-ago stores in Arkansas, she could never shake the feeling that they might know her, that news of America's worst customer and his guilty-by-association daughter had spread through underground checkout teller channels and that when she passed over her debit card to pay for her items it would be refused and she'd be barred from the store for life.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered under her breath, squaring her shoulders and striding purposefully toward the commissary checkout. That was then and this was now. She had her groceries, she had plenty of money to pay for them, and she had Chance's advice on tipping the baggers. She was ready. Everything would be fine.

She unloaded her basketful of items onto the conveyer belt, greeting the bored-looking cashier with a big smile.

After a moment of expectant silence and a stifled yawn the woman asked, “ID please?”

“Oh, right.” Tara slung her oversized purse on the conveyer belt, rummaging in its depths as her cheeks heated. Of course she needed her ID. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Hold on, I think it's just—it was in this pocket. It must've fallen out. Sorry, give me a second.” Where had the damn thing gone? She began emptying the contents of her purse item by item, lining them up in an embarrassing potpourri of unneeded crap. Hair ties, mostly empty tubes of lip gloss, gas receipts from three years ago, but no ID card.

She froze, the humiliation becoming too much to bear. She'd had her ID to get through the post gate—was it in the car? On the ground in the parking lot? Had she lost it? What the hell was she supposed to do now?

“I'm so sorry, I think I must've left in the car. Do you mind if I run out real quick and check?”

By this point a middle-aged man carrying most of his weight in his belly had taken an interest. His cheap tie suggested he was a manager, and his narrowed eyes broadcast how seriously he took that responsibility. Her heart started to pound in earnest.

“Who's your sponsor, ma'am?”

“My husband. Sergeant Chance McKinley.”

“Which unit?”

Her mind drew a panicked blank.
C'mon, Tara, you know this
.
Wait, is a company the same as a unit?

“Alpha.”

The cashier crossed her arms as the manager raised a disapproving brow. “Alpha Company's deployed to Afghanistan, ma'am.”

“Right, I knew that, I mean he was in Echo, but he just moved to Alpha, so I wasn't sure what you—”

“Will you step aside, please?”

Tara realized with abject horror that a line of shoppers had formed behind her, all wearing keen gazes underlined by a hint of annoyance. She scooped everything back into her purse, and the implausibly loud sound of her hairbrush missing its target and hitting the linoleum floor was only slightly less mortifying than her fumbling attempt to kneel down and retrieve it, her hand unsteady, her knees shaking.

She joined the manager at the front of the store, forcing herself to look away from the depressing sight of the cashier ruthlessly sweeping her unclaimed groceries back into a basket and shoving it onto the floor.

“You know the commissary is only open to military members and dependents,” he scolded. “The tax breaks offered here are—”

“I swear, my husband is a soldier here. I probably dropped the ID in the parking lot, can I please—”

“No need,” he said imperiously, his voice full of the kind of threat she'd heard parents use on children telling improbable lies. “I'll call up his unit to check. Alpha Company, you said?”

“I'm sure that won't be necessary, if you'd just—”

“Who's his commanding officer?”

“I don't know, he's a medic, he's supposed to replace—”

“Great, I'll call the clinic. Wait there.”

He disappeared into what looked like an administration office. She plopped down on the plastic chair beside the plywood door, fourteen years old again and waiting while the principal called her house to report on her poor behavior. Back then she could usually count on her dad forgetting the conversation by the time she got home. She had a feeling Chance's memory was a lot longer.

She dropped her face into her hands. She should've known she couldn't handle any kind of normal existence, especially one entwined in the intricacies of military custom. She should've stayed in Kansas City, tending bar and shopping at midnight and leaving poor Chance McKinley well enough alone.

“Look, can you just give me a referral slip? It's a medical thing that needs to be seen by a doctor, I promise.”

Chance leaned back in his chair, trying to keep a straight face as he regarded the nervous private across the table. “And what reason should I put on the slip?”

“Personal problem.”

“I need more detail than that, Greene. How do I know whether to send you to a shrink or a proctologist?”

The young man shifted in his chair. “I need a doctor. This can't be handled by the unit.”

“As much as I admire your confidence in your self-diagnosis, I think you should probably tell me exactly what medical issue we're dealing with.”

Private Greene looked down at the floor, up at the fluorescent lamp, and finally at a point halfway across the table. “It's my dick, sir. It burns when I piss, and there's this discharge—”

“Okay, you don't need a doctor.” Chance swiveled to retrieve a sterile cup from the cabinet at his back, removed the plastic packaging and handed it over. “It's probably an STD, but I'll need a urine sample to be sure.”

The private stared at the proffered cup like it was alien technology. Chance rolled his eyes.

“Pee in this and bring it back. Bathroom's down the hall.”

Wordlessly the private accepted the cup and scurried out of the room, not bothering to shut the door behind him. Chance sighed heavily as he started filling out the notes on the visit, then glanced at the clock. Fifteen more minutes and his shift was over. Thank God. He hated working sick call.

“Hey, Sergeant?” The E-4 on duty with him leaned into the room. “There's a weird call from the commissary for you. Something about your wife?”

“My wife?”

“Apparently they need you to head on over there. I told 'em I didn't think you were married, but the guy said you need to come over in person to verify—”

“Can you do me a favor and finish up with Private Greene? He's got the clap. I'll relieve you fifteen minutes early when we serve range duty tomorrow.”

“Don't even worry about that, just let me know you've got everything sorted out. Are you really married?”

“Yeah. It's kind of a recent thing.”

The younger man's brow creased. “Does this mean we can't play pool at Rock's on ladies' night anymore?”

“I'll call you later.” He patted his distraught colleague on the back, edged past a bewildered Private Greene toting a full cup and jogged down the corridor to the parking lot.

It was only a five-minute drive from the clinic to the commissary, but that gave him plenty of time for worst-case speculation about what might have happened.

Tara must've lost her temper and made a scene—what else could it be? Someone cut ahead of her in line, or took the last loaf of bread while she was reaching for it and she went berserk. He exhaled ruefully. She'd been so much calmer since Saturday, he thought she was settling in and allowing herself to relax. Like an abandoned kitten that has to be coaxed and convinced and hand-fed until it finally relents and keeps its claws retracted while you scratch its ears.

They were still a long way from purring, but he thought Tara was slowly lowering her mile-high defenses.

Apparently not.

He spotted her Malibu in the lot and parked next to it, grateful that she hadn't furiously rammed it into the back of someone she thought was stealing her space.

The image of short-statured Tara gunning that rust box into some oblivious soccer mom's high-end SUV made him smile more than it should, and a chunk of his irritation dissolved as he entered the store. She was so desperate to act the good little domestic goddess, and he shouldn't encourage her hellcat tendencies, but damn if they didn't light his fire every time.

He saw her as soon as he stepped through the door, perched on a plastic chair way down past the last checkout lane. Whatever het-up scenario he'd imagined himself walking into vanished along with the last shreds of his exasperation the instant he saw Tara's face. Stiff-shouldered, lower lip caught between her teeth, dinner-plate eyes shining with unshed tears—she looked terrified.