Thunder Running (7 page)

“What do you think? Green or black?”

She had to blink several times to realize he was talking about the color of the nylon wristbands. Sheepishly, she dropped her hand. “Oh, I don't know. Green, I guess? It's kind of camouflage.”

He nodded, dropping two green watches into the cart.

He started to say something about waiting for batteries to go on sale but she drifted over to the men's jewelry display, not listening. She picked up a plain titanium band and tried it on. It was big enough to fit over her ring finger and the silver-set amethyst she'd worn since that day at the courthouse.

“Maybe we should get you a wedding ring before you leave,” she suggested, less than half-joking. “I don't want those goat farmers' daughters getting any ideas. This one's only thirty bucks.”

He moved beside her, sliding his arm across her back as he tugged the ring off her finger and replaced it in the display case.

“Rings aren't a great idea when you're going to spend as much time outside the wire as I will. You risk a de-gloving injury—that's when the ring gets caught and rips the skin off your finger, or amputates it altogether. It's not a pretty sight, and I speak from experience.”

She stiffened beneath his hand, her joints locking, her muscles tensing. Then the rigidity gave way to shivers, tight, fierce tremors rolling from her toes to her jaw in waves that steadily intensified until she wrapped her arms around herself in a desperate attempt to make them stop.

Chance tightened his grip, pulling her against his side. “What's wrong, sugar? Was that too much gory detail? I'm sorry, I tend to forget that—”

“I can't do this.” The words were high-pitched and squeaky, barely above a whisper. She squeezed her eyes shut, overcome by the humiliation and irrepressibility of her admission.

“Can't do what, Tara?”

The answers were all there in her mind—
I can't let you go so soon after I found you, I can't breathe without knowing you're safe, I can't survive losing you now that I know you're the only man I could ever love
—but they got stuck on the way to her mouth. She began to speak, stopped, tried again, started over.

“Just…all this…with everything… I'm having a hard time. I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.” He drew her into his chest for a quick hug, but when he released her it was with an unfamiliar awkwardness and left her feeling like there were ten miles between them instead of ten inches.

“Let's get the rest of the stuff on the list and head home. We can talk later, okay?” He resumed his position behind the cart and briskly pushed it down the aisle without waiting for a response. She had to hustle to keep up with him, trailing at his heels like an ignored dog who'd chewed up his shoes one time too many.

The door was cracked open but Chance knocked anyway, half-hoping the captain might be busy and tell him to come back later.

“Come in.”

He swallowed a pang of disappointment and stepped inside. Ethan continued typing for another second, hit
send
on an e-mail and swiveled to greet him, his preppy, Abercrombie-model face brightening, then darkening as he registered his visitor.

“What's wrong?”

“Good afternoon to you too, Captain Fletcher.”

“Spare me. Sit down.” Ethan kicked the chair out from his side of the desk so that Chance had to sidestep to avoid it hitting his shins. He shut the door behind him and dropped into it, bracing himself for a difficult conversation with his old friend.

“So?”

“So what? Can't a guy just stop in to see his buddy?”

Ethan crossed his arms. “You knocked.”

“I'm polite.”

“I guess that's why your usual entrance involves slamming that door on its hinges and at least three profanities. What's up?”

He sighed, acquiescent. “Remember that woman I told you about a couple weeks ago? Tara?”

“No, I forgot that wild story about the sudden appearance of your legal wife.” Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, she's still here. And I think I want her to be. Here. While I'm gone. I got her a spousal ID, I added her to my bank account, the whole shebang. She seems to like the idea too. She seems to like me.”

Ethan grinned. “That's great, McKinley. It's about time you found someone who can put up with you for more than ten minutes.”

Chance ignored Ethan's attempt at humor. “How are things with you and Mia?”

“Good. Really good. Amazing, actually. She's applying for a new research grant that would get her back out here in January.”

“That's awesome,” he enthused. Ethan had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn for the better since he'd gotten together with the postdoctoral psychologist, and that was what had prompted Chance to stop by his office today. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How did you know when to—or when you were—y'know, in love and stuff. Like serious love, not just infatuation or lust or whatever.”

Ethan glanced away, cheeks coloring. “I'm not really an expert on that kind of thing, I wouldn't presume to—” He stopped himself, frowning as he seemed to give the matter serious consideration. Chance had to bite back a smile. He expected no less from the scholarly, earnest officer.

When Ethan finally spoke his tone was thoughtful. “You're leaving to join Alpha Company in about two weeks, aren't you?”

Chance nodded.

“Where do you want the relationship to be at that point?”

He bit his lower lip while he reflected on his answer. “I want to know she's committed. I want to be sure she'll stick with me, and that we can pick things up again when I get back. Right now I'm worried she's thinking about leaving. The whole deployment thing has been pretty overwhelming. Everything was going so well, then suddenly it's like she woke up and realized she'd be here for six months, by herself, while I'm thousands of miles away getting shot at.”

“She's right.”

He nodded sheepishly. “I know. And at the beginning, I prepared myself that she'd probably be out the door as soon as it all hit home. I never expected that I wouldn't want her to. Not this badly, anyway.”

“Have you told her you want her to stay?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Why not?”

Chance shrugged. “Didn't think it needed to be said.”

“Trust me, it does.”

“I don't know.” He shifted in his chair. “What if she doesn't feel the same? What if she leaves anyway?”

“Then she leaves, and you stop wasting each other's time.”

He studied the grain of his camouflage ACU trousers, failing to find a way to contradict Ethan's point.

“Are you nervous about all that financial stuff you mentioned?” Ethan pressed. “Do you think she'll rip you off if you leave her alone in your house? Are you worried she'll pawn your stuff and take off?”

“She wouldn't do that. I trust her.”

“Do you think she'll be unfaithful?”

“No.”

“Has she told you she loves you?”

He swallowed hard. “No.”

“Do you love her?”

“I don't know. I've never loved anyone. I don't think I know how.”

Ethan leaned back in his chair, blue eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “Sure you do. Everyone does.”

He shook his head. “You can say that because your parents are still together. I don't even know what my dad looks like. I got married in a casino, to a woman I'd known for less than twelve hours, because a roulette ball landed on green. Believe me, I don't know how.”

“That's all procedure. Love isn't the form you fill out when you come home from deployment, it's the courage and loyalty you showed while you were there.”

“Whatever,” Chance muttered, suddenly unable to sit still a second longer. He sprang up from his seat and began pacing the small office, pretending to look at the vintage war posters adorning the walls but seeing something far different—an empty house, an empty heart, an empty life.

“I just don't think I could find anyone else like her,” he managed eventually, still facing the wall. “She's hard and soft at the same time. She's tough, funny, smart, calls me on my shit. That doesn't mean I love her.”

“What does it mean?”

“That she's screwing up my deployment. How can I enjoy myself over there when I'm missing her the whole time?”

When he finally got up the nerve to turn around, Ethan was failing to hide his smug smile.

Chance's sigh was exasperated. “You think I'm doomed.”

“I think you're in love. And I think you should tell her.”

“Well, thanks for absolutely nothing, Captain Fletcher. Next time I come to you for romantic advice, remind me how useless you've been today.”

“I love you too, Sergeant. I'd ask you to invite me to the wedding but it already happened.” He grinned as he swiveled back to his computer. “Get out of my office.”

“Gladly.” Chance threw the door open so hard it bounced in the frame, not bothering to look over his shoulder to see the middle finger Ethan was undoubtedly offering.

His footsteps echoed in the empty corridor as he made his way out of the building. It was almost dark as he crossed the parking lot, the sun hanging on just above the horizon as if reluctant to say goodbye for a whole night.

He slid into the Challenger's driver's seat, shut the door and ran his hand over the dashboard. He loved this car. He knew that for a fact, felt his attachment to this hunk of glass and metal right down to his core. It was probably the only thing he'd ever loved. Until now.

He left the post and drove toward home, the built-up military complex immediately giving way to flat wheat fields occasionally interrupted by dirt driveways and weathered signs announcing the names of cattle ranches.

Almost all of the ranch houses he passed on his way to and from the fort were too far back from the road to be visible, but every so often he saw a well-used pickup turning into one of the driveways, and once he'd even been caught behind the school bus for the rural district. He imagined the orderly, wholesome lives those children led. Glasses of milk with dinner, swimming lessons, drawings taped to the refrigerator.

He tried not to dwell on the way he was raised, having decided years ago that there was no changing it and he'd done all right in the end so he might as well get over it. But as the Challenger growled down the long country roads toward his house, toward Tara, he thought about his mom.

He remembered the way she flirted with his junior-high principal, breezing into the office in her short skirt and high heels, switching between flattery and mutual concern until the wheezing old man agreed not to suspend him. He smelled the alcohol on her breath when she came home from work, ignoring his sisters' chorus of complaints as she turned on the kitchen radio and raised the volume, taking him by the hand and dancing him around the room until one by one the girls got bored and walked out and it was just the two of them, spinning and jumping and laughing. He saw her bleach-blond hair tangled and gnarled first thing in the morning, her long, intricately manicured nails tapping against her coffee mug, her squint-eyed smile as she peered at him through her hangover and croaked, “How's my boy?”

She'd made a lot of mistakes. She was irresponsible, she was an alcoholic, and she had no idea what she was doing when it came to raising five children as a single mother. And she hadn't changed. She still called him for money, she still drove drunk, she still brought home more men than paychecks. But he knew she tried her best—he knew she loved him.

Maybe he was exactly the same. Maybe he did know how to love someone. It just looked a little different than most people. Like intense conversation over several rounds of beer in the small hours of the morning instead of six months of roses and boxes of chocolate. Like slurred vows in a casino atrium instead of a unity candle and a best man's speech. Like a feverish, blurted declaration before six months of combat deployment instead of Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws'.

Tara was the only woman he'd ever met who seemed not only capable of keeping up with his blazing journey through life, she was raging a path all her own. She was hot-tempered and stubborn and foul-mouthed, and she burned so brightly he couldn't bear to look away, so hungry for her light and fire and energy that he wondered how he'd ever managed to survive almost thirty years of darkness before he met her.

He loved her. It was too fast, too untested and the surest truth he'd ever known. He couldn't wait to tell her.

It was nearly full dark by the time he turned the Challenger up the driveway. The porch light was on and he could see that she'd pulled the Malibu out of the carport and parked it parallel to the front of the house. The trunk was open, and so was one of the backseat doors. As he passed it to park his own car he saw a bag stuffed with clothes poking up out of the trunk. He shut off the engine as Tara appeared on the doorstep carrying a cardboard box.

She was packing her car. She was leaving him.

Chapter Seven

A sharp pain throbbed in her left temple
,
a telltale sign of gathering sobriety. She gulped some beer from the bottle on the side table, but she knew there was only one way to avoid the oncoming hangover
—
sleep. And lots of it.

He was at the window, naked, holding the ugly floral curtains a foot apart and peering through the space between.

“What time is it?”

He didn't turn around. “Midnight.”

“You going to keep standing there, giving the world a free show, or are you coming back to bed?” She had to force the nonchalance in her tone, because in that second she realized something was different. His voice had changed, her boozy haze had cleared
—
they seemed more distant, somehow. Like the hotel room had stretched and the wall where he stood was ten feet farther away than it had been two seconds earlier.

“Don't think that drunk old lady in the parking lot appreciated what she saw, anyway.” He shut the curtains and loped across the room, flopping onto the bed beside her wearing the same loose, easy grin he'd been giving her for the last day and a half.

He slid his arm around her waist and dragged her closer, and that's when she knew for sure. This was an ending
—
this was nearly over.

She exaggerated her yawn, feigning a whole-body stretch so she could roll out of his grip. She didn't want to talk, and she didn't want to hear what he had to say. She wanted him to get it over with.

“I reckon I could sleep for a hundred years.” She burrowed under the covers, crossing her hands beneath the pillow and closing her eyes.

“Better not. Room's only paid up until ten o'clock tomorrow morning.”

“I dare 'em to try and wake me.”

She resettled against the pillow, resisting the urge to take one last look at the man beside her and praying sleep overtook her quickly. She felt the mattress shift as he stirred, then stirred again, until she could practically hear the thoughts whirring in his head.

“Tara,” he murmured, running his thumb down the side of her face. “Are you awake?”

She grunted softly, trying to deter him from saying anything else.
Don't tell me you love me,
she begged him silently. If he did, she knew she'd blurt out the awful truth
—
she knew she'd reply that she loved him too.

She fisted her hands beneath the pillow, trying to quell the rising panic in her throat so he wouldn't notice her frantic breathing. Too much, too soon, too fast
—
too perfect. Too good for someone like her.

He exhaled as he lowered himself beside her. She longed to peek from beneath her lashes, to see what was in his eyes as he watched her, to give herself ten seconds to memorize every line and contour and feature of his face. Instead she kept her lids screwed shut, trying to keep her expression neutral as her pulse pounded in her ears.

Just go,
she wanted to scream.
We both know you can do so much better, now pack your bag and leave before this mistake gets any worse.

He must've stayed there, staring at her, for most of an hour. Her fingers went numb and her arms cramped, but she didn't dare move a muscle. She was poised, waiting, willing the moment to arrive—the moment he made the decision so she didn't have to. The moment he left her, so she never had to ask him to stay.

Finally he moved, easing out of the bed and slinking around the room. She heard the whisper of clothes shoved into a bag, the clink of his belt buckle, the creak as he opened the closet where he'd stowed his shoes. Then he was leaning over her, warm, still.

“I can't do this to you,” he whispered. The contents of his bag rustled as he hiked it on his shoulder.

Do what?
She fought the urge to frown. He bent down, smoothed the hair from her forehead and pressed a kiss on her temple.

“I know you'll find the man you deserve. I'm just sorry it ain't me, sugar.”

She tensed beneath the duvet, her mind working furiously as the sound of his footsteps diminished in his move toward the door. Did he mean he thought
he
wasn't good enough for
her
? But that was all wrong—it was the other way around. She was the one who should apologize, who should release him from this stupid, day-old marriage. Couldn't he see how amazing he was? That he was strong and smart and so special? She had the bad temper, the irrational outbursts, the complete inability to be lovable to anyone, including herself?

Unless he thought—unless he saw something that—

She bolted upright in bed, blinking in the darkness as she whispered his name with pleading, desperate urgency.

But the door was shut and the room was empty. He was gone.

As usual Tara heard Chance's car long before she saw it, and she hoisted one of the heaviest boxes up on her hip in the hope she could pass it off to him in the doorway.

Even with the awkward weight digging into her hip, her smile came easily. After all, she'd been wearing it practically all day.

She'd thought long and hard about answering when her dad's number had appeared on her cell phone display. For days she'd been listless, uncertain, caught between aching desire to memorize every second with Chance and the nagging impulse to run as far and fast as she could before her heart broke in two. As much as she was convinced he was the only man for her, her self-doubt expanded by the hour. Was she really enough for him? Could she be the anchor he'd need while he was away? Would she find the maturity and emotional stability not to wallow in loneliness, not to take it out on him, not to blame him for her own inability to cope?

The answer to all of the above was leaning toward no when her phone had vibrated on the countertop. She sighed in exasperation, and then for no good reason at all she draped the dishcloth over the oven handle and picked it up.

“He left you yet?”

“Hi, Dad.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

She waited for his wheezing, smoker's cough to subside before she answered. “No, he ain't left me. And he won't, either.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Uh-huh.” He paused for what she assumed was a gulp of beer. “Guess it'll be you does the leaving this time, then.”

“I would never,” she replied hotly, her voice threatening to break on the last syllable as tears suddenly stung her eyes. And in that moment, as she recalled that desolate final night in the hotel room, the cheap polyester duvet scratching the underside of her arm, the occasional groan as the heating unit switched on and off, the ominous zip of Chance closing his bag as he prepared to leave her, she knew it was true—she would stay by his side, no matter what. She'd be steadfast where her father wasn't, honest like she was when Chance first loped up to her bar, brave like she should've been the night he walked out.

He'd whispered that night that she deserved better, and she let him disappear because she was too cowardly to tell him he was more than she could've ever hoped for.

“Balls to that,” she muttered, and her father's hoarse laugh reminded her he was still on the other end of the line.

“Here I thought you were so prim and proper you didn't drink before noon anymore.”

“I'm not like you, Dad,” she shot back, meaning it in so many more ways than she knew he'd understand. “And so help me, I never will be. I'm sticking this thing out if it kills me. He's worth it. He deserves this. He deserves me.”

“Well, you must have a pretty low opinion of him if—”

She ended the call and tossed the phone into the bottom of her purse, ignoring the muted vibration that told her he was probably trying to call back. Then she slung the bag over her shoulder, stuffed her feet into a totally unseasonable pair of flip-flops and strode out to the Malibu.

The phone was still buzzing when she tossed her purse into the passenger seat.

“Can't talk now, Daddy,” she'd informed it, putting the car into gear. “I've got a meeting to get to.”

And she couldn't wait to tell Chance all about how it had gone. She hoisted the box higher on her hip and edged around the front door, beaming as the headlights flicked off on the Challenger. Except she'd barely stepped over the threshold when he shot out of his car and bolted toward her wearing an expression of such dire alarm that her stomach seemed to drop down into her toes.

Had his orders changed? Was he leaving for Afghanistan in the morning? Had he shot someone by accident during a training exercise? Were the police after him? Oh God, he'd failed to pull over and now the whole county sheriff's department was coming for him, they had to get out of here, had to get over the state line…

“It's okay, I can leave now,” she called nonsensically. “I'll grab a couple of things and we'll—”

“No, no, don't do this,” he begged, wrenching the box from her grip and dropping it on the ground, then taking her hands in his. “I know six months seems like a long time, but I'll make it up to you when I get back, I promise. And I promise I'll
be
back. Did I tell you my nickname in my old platoon was Un-killable McKinley? Seriously, I always keep my head screwed on in combat, in fact it's probably the only time anything I do makes any sense, but I can change that, I can do better if you just tell me what better looks like, I meant it when I said I'd keep you safe, and I swear—”

“Whoa, slow down. What's wrong? What don't you want me to do?”

“Don't leave.” He squeezed her hands, his voice hushed and urgent. “Stay with me. Please.”

She gaped at him, at a loss for anything other than a characteristically flippant reply but gathering from the desperation in his eyes that was the opposite of what he needed. That wasn't who she would be anymore—she could be real with him. She could show him how she really felt. She worked hard to keep her tone even and calm, without a hint of the mocking she knew tended to slip in without her even trying.

“I'm not going anywhere, Chance. What gave you that idea?”

“You're all packed, loading up your car. I know you weren't counting on us only having a month to get to know each other before—”

The pieces came together with an abrupt
click
. “I'm not leaving. This is for the food bank.”

“Food bank?” he echoed. She tugged him through the front door and watched his eyes widen as he took in the array of groceries and cardboard boxes in varying degrees of fullness spread across the floor.

“I went to that enlisted spouses' group meeting this afternoon. Turns out today was the end of their food drive, so they all turned up with a pantry-load of groceries. I felt bad for not bringing anything, so I volunteered to sort it all and drive it down to the food bank tomorrow morning. I knew the second their eyes lit up it was a dumb offer, but it was too late.” She sighed. “It's a lot of work, but maybe it'll endear me to 'em.”

He stared at the clutter like he couldn't quite reconcile its presence in his house. “Why do you want to endear yourself to them?”

“You know how it is, they've all been married ten years, have kids, go to church, know this army life inside out. It's bad enough I've turned up out of the blue so soon before you deploy. If they ever found out—”

“But why?” He turned the full force of his gaze on her, and her heart thrilled at his attention. “Who cares what they think of you? This town ain't that small you have to try to fit in where you don't.”

She fidgeted under his scrutiny, fighting opposing compulsions to tell him everything and bare her ugly core or retreat to safe old habits, to lock up tight with a coy smile and rolled eyes. Then she remembered the worry in his face when he thought she was leaving, the pressure of his hands as he asked her to stay, and for the first time she processed the full meaning of his misapprehending plea.

Time to put all her cards on the table.

“I don't know how to be a wife,” she confessed, flinging up her palms. “I don't even know how to be a girlfriend. All I know how to do is cuss and drink and run men off. Now I found one I want to hang on to, I don't even know where to start. But I'm going to do my level best. I'm going to be the wife you deserve.”

“You don't need a bunch of middle-aged do-gooders to teach you how to do that, Tara. You've always been the woman I deserve, not to mention the one I want. My wife. And I never imagined I'd find someone so perfectly suited to the position.”

She smiled weakly, not quite daring to believe her ears. “You mean you never imagined you'd find someone willing to put up with your bony ass.”

“Who're you calling bony, short stuff?” Before she could respond he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up over his shoulder, one arm clamped across the backs of her thighs while the other was propped arrogantly on his hip. Slowly, steadily, he began to spin in a circle.

“Put me down, crazy man,” Tara squealed delightedly, grabbing at the waist of his ACU trousers to steady herself as he turned faster.

“Don't think I will.”

“You're going to drop me or I'm going to throw up. Neither option sounds like much fun.”

“Let's see which happens first.”

His boots squeaked against the floorboards and she closed her eyes against her upside-down spinning dizziness, laughing and shrieking as she spun through the air. She felt a little bit sick, a little bit scared, but so sure that Chance wouldn't let her go that she almost wanted him to go faster, to never stop, to let her always fly like this, defying physics and gravity and every stupid convention humans came up with to hamstring themselves into respectability, all the while knowing he was there with her, holding her, refusing to let her fall.