Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 Read online

  “Dammit, Laurel, I need the money,” he barked, then instantly pressed a rueful palm over his eyes.

  The terse reply was on the tip of her tongue. Four hours digging up roads will earn a fraction of what Ethan will get for his afternoon’s work. Ask him to make up the difference.

  “What you need,” she instructed instead, “is a long shower, a nap in fresh sheets and a hot meal. Doctor’s orders.”

  “I’m racking up debts like a drunk in Vegas,” he muttered, but got out of the car and followed her up the front walk.

  “I have to get to the office, but make yourself at home,” she explained as she unlocked the door and ushered him into the entryway. “The shower in the master bedroom is the best, there are towels in the linen closet, and if there’s anything in the fridge, you’re welcome to it. I’ll pick up dinner on the way home—I’ll call when I’m leaving. Have I missed anything?”

  “Yeah. The part when you realize that unleashing an ex-con you barely know in your expensively appointed home is completely insane.”

  “You’re not an ex-con,” she protested with a feeble laugh—but he had a point.

  “Multiple arrests, no charges. Until today.”

  “Oh. Well I’m sure—”

  “What was it you said in the lobby?” He stepped closer, and she stumbled back. “Sometimes you need it a little rough?”

  “I was joking, I didn’t mean—that’s not what I—”

  The handrail of the banister dug into her spine as she pressed herself against the staircase. Grady gripped the balusters on either side of her, his eyes dark with an unknowable intent.

  “You were right—I’m as rough as they come. No home, no family, no education, just a long list of duty stations and a ninety-percent accurate kill rate at three hundred meters. If you had a lick of sense you’d throw me out right now, tell me to walk home and bolt the door behind me.”

  That’s when she saw it—the faint, pleading flicker of hope in his eyes, the glowing ember that belied his frosty tone of voice, the raw wound of abandonment that undermined his possessive stance.

  What had Ethan said on the courthouse steps? He’ll try to push you out—don’t let him.

  She brought her hands to his face, traced the hard planes of his cheekbones with her fingertips, ran the pad of her thumb over his lips.

  “Then I guess I’m the dumbest thing going,” she murmured, watching the ice in his gaze break away in chunks as she touched him. “Because if you walked out that door, I’d follow you as far as you’d let me.”

  The breath he drew was ragged, and the hand that cupped her chin was painstakingly gentle.

  “What did I do to deserve you?”

  It was a question so beseechingly honest that her heart lurched in her chest. She didn’t know the answer, and she didn’t know what to say, but she knew what she wanted. She knew what she had to do.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed up on her tiptoes and sank into the best kiss of her life.

  Grady flinched painfully as the front door slammed, but the light, feminine voice that rang out in its wake—“Honey, I’m home!”—was a cool salve on his fiery panic.

  It had been one of the more unusual days in recent memory, that was for sure. After Laurel finally slipped out of his arms, her lips swollen and her lids heavy as she visibly pulled herself together to leave for the office, he spent a long time hovering in the entryway, unsure how to react to the enormous generosity and trust she’d shown him. A childhood spent as an outsider in a sequence of homes, topped off by thirteen years of nomadic soldiering, left him ill equipped to be anyone’s polite houseguest, let alone a blue-blooded doctor he sincerely wanted to impress.

  For the first hour he lumbered through the many rooms, inspecting everything but touching nothing, feeling like an uncoordinated grizzly bear tiptoeing through an exquisite doll’s house. There seemed to be hundreds of illuminating details his cursory glance had missed that day he’d painted the spare room—haughty-looking fashion magazines intermixed with medical journals in the pile next to the slate-gray leather sofa, an extensive stash of Swiss chocolate in the otherwise bare pantry, and a silk bathrobe in royal purple hanging on the bathroom door that he longed but didn’t dare to touch.

  And then there was the bookcase in the living room, where a shelf and a half was devoted to thick travel guides for far-flung destinations—Nepal, Ecuador, Kenya, Russia, Fiji. It was an unwelcome but important reminder of their very different aspirations. She wanted all the excitement and adventure of the transient life he’d just escaped, whereas he was finally ready for the safe, predictable, small-town life she chafed against. The protective walls around his heart thickened a little at that thought.

  Eventually he worked up the courage to take a shower, used the least fruity-smelling of Laurel’s bath products, and reluctantly slipped back into the clothes that still stank of the jailhouse. Then he stretched out on the big bed in the room he’d painted and slept like the dead.

  “Oh my God, are you cooking?” Laurel appeared in the kitchen doorway, slinging her purse on a counter. “When you said you had a handle on dinner, I assumed you meant you’d call for pizza delivery. I refuse to believe the contents of my cupboards could produce something that smells that good.”

  “Don’t get too excited—it’s white chili, but with no meat and no onion. I’m not sure it’ll be anything to write home about.”

  “Still, I’m impressed.” She slid an arm across his waist as she peered into the pot. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

  “I didn’t know you couldn’t.”

  “Too busy memorizing the human anatomy. What’s your excuse?”

  “Karen put all us boys on a rota. She hated cooking.”

  Laurel reached up to smooth his hair, then planted a sweet kiss on his lips. “You look a lot better. Did you sleep?”

  He grunted an acknowledgement and focused on the chili, suddenly uncomfortable with this blissful domestic scene. Laurel was infatuated, sure, but she wasn’t being realistic. Even if their relationship could survive her long absences doing charity work, he suspected a former judge and a city commissioner had bigger things in mind for their surgeon daughter than a washed-up infantryman, and she’d inevitably buckle under the pressure of her parents’ expectations—not to mention the sidelong glances and raised eyebrows of an entire town.

  He’d enjoy this while it lasted, but when it came to imagining the future, he was keeping his two feet firmly on the ground.

  She snapped her fingers, oblivious to his minute withdrawal. “I brought you something.” She dug in her purse, produced a white T-shirt and pressed it into his hand. “Although I couldn’t do much on the jeans and socks front, I thought you might at least want a clean shirt to wear.”

  He held it out to read the name of a local fun run and a date six months earlier.

  “I was volunteering at the finish line and somehow four boxes of shirts found their way into my office, never to be heard from again. Until now.” She smiled teasingly as she hoisted herself onto the edge of the counter perpendicular to the stove.

  “Thanks.” It wasn’t the most elegant solution—particularly the cartoon sneaker grinning in the center—but it was better than nothing. He shrugged out of his snap-front shirt and—noting Laurel’s attentive gaze—pulled the T-shirt over his head significantly slower than was necessary.

  “How’s the fit?”

  “It’s a little small.”

  Laurel motioned him over. He gripped her bare knees where they emerged from her tailored dress and pushed them apart, wedging his hips in the space between. Her eyes darkened, but she kept her face still, making an exaggerated show of running her fingers over the seams at his shoulders, down his sides, across the hem at the bottom. The movements were tantalizingly light and wickedly confident, and he pushed his hands up her legs until his fingertips were beneath her skirt, his thumbs caressing the soft skin on the insides of her thighs.

  Her finge
rs were trailing down his back now, tugging him closer, one side of her mouth lifting playfully. Naïve though she seemed about their chances together, he suspected she was used to calling the shots in the bedroom. He would be very happy to let her push him around between the sheets—and even happier to reverse their roles when she least expected it.

  She raised her hands to his shoulders, ran her forefinger over the hair at his nape that was slowly but steadily growing out. He had no military tattoos, no visible combat scars unless he undressed—soon nothing would mark him out as someone who’d spent all of his early adult life in the service of his country. No one could see inside his head, no one would notice him checking exits, no one would know that most nights he jerked awake from vivid nightmares in a cold sweat. He’d be just another guy in his thirties with a high school diploma and a little piece of land, trying to make his life amount to something. Quiet. Unremarkable. And solid as lead.

  Laurel slid her thumb across his temple, bringing him back to the here and now. A tiny crease formed between her brows as she studied him with soft, searching eyes. “Where have you gone?”

  Had any woman ever looked at him like that before? Like she could unlock him and throw him open if she was gentle and careful. Like she wanted so desperately to see what was inside that she didn’t care how long it took, she’d keep chipping away until the moment he was flung wide and she was turning over each of his secrets in her hands with the same care and attention she’d show an injured baby bird.

  The answer was no—never. Women had looked at him with dismay, with exasperation, with annoyance, and more recently with hungry, self-serving lust. He didn’t mind—it wasn’t like he had much more to offer in return.

  But Laurel’s gaze penetrated straight to his core in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He smiled against the flutter of fear in his stomach, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as he bolstered his inner defenses, brought his face closer to hers as he prepared to lie through his teeth.

  “I’m right here,” he murmured. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  After the screech of the smoke detector cut short their tête-à-tête, after Grady ran through what Laurel suspected was a military-grade vocabulary of vulgarities as he scraped burned rice from the sides of the pot, after they ate the surviving chili against a backdrop of easy conversation, and after Grady caught his hands behind his head in a stretch so expansive she genuinely feared for the survival of the cartoon mascot on his shirt, she decided it was time to make her move.

  “So the bed in the guest room was comfortable?”

  “Yeah, it was great.”

  She brought her gaze squarely to his, broadcasting her intent. “You can stay in it tonight.”

  Instantly his eyes widened with sheepish apology, and her heart sank. “I can’t, Laurel, I’m sorry. I haven’t been home since Saturday, and I have to work tomorrow, and—”

  “It’s fine,” she replied with a blitheness she didn’t feel, and which he evidently saw right through, because he covered her hand with his and leaned into the space between them.

  “You’ve shown me incredible hospitality today, and I really hope I’ll be invited back. Just not tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.” She nodded, encouraged by his earnest tone of voice and the heavy warmth of his palm. She pushed back from the table, reached for her purse and suddenly remembered her conversation with Blake.

  “Actually, the kidnapping’s not quite over. I’ll drop you home, but first I need to ask for a favor. And yes, your answer will determine whether or not I release you.”

  He arched a curious brow. “Favor?”

  She held up her car keys and jingled them in the air. “What are you doing on Memorial Day?”

  Chapter Seven

  Grady’s stomach somersaulted with apprehension as he pulled up beside the curb, already feeling embarrassingly out of place as he parked the dusty bulk of his truck at the end of a line of late-model, high-end SUVs and sedans. Laurel flashed him a smile almost as bright as the cloudless blue sky as she slid down from the cab. He didn’t even attempt to return it as he got out and slammed the door shut behind him.

  Although he’d told himself it was a thank-you gesture to her brother, the real reason he had agreed to attend the block party was to show Laurel how impossibly mismatched they were. Once she saw how he stuck out like a sore thumb among her high-class friends, she’d have to realize that they could never work. It would be painful, and he was going to miss her something fierce, but he’d come to the conclusion that it was better to get this over with now. He was falling for her too hard and too fast, and her inevitable rejection would only hurt more the longer he waited.

  At least, that had been his plan until about two hours ago. The faint sounds of music and children’s squealing laughter grew louder as they followed the sidewalk past big houses on generous lots, but he was so distracted by the frantic machinations of his brain that he barely noticed the fancy neighborhood around them.

  He wasn’t sure what had made him call Laurel the night before. He’d spent a long day ripping up the carpets in his house to expose the hundred-year-old oak floorboards beneath. It was a sweaty, heavy, dirty job, and he was so exhausted that he barely registered picking up the phone and dialing her number until her voice chimed a greeting on the other end.

  “I wanted to ask you something about tomorrow.”

  He cringed at the wary pause before her reply—she was clearly bracing herself for him to back out. “Yeah?”

  “There’s a Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Preston tomorrow. I was going to pick you up afterward, but then I thought you might want to come.”

  “I’d love to,” she affirmed, and although he spent the rest of the night and most of the next morning wondering what on earth had possessed him to ask, when he pulled up to the fort cemetery shortly before midday he was glad to have her at his side.

  He wasn’t sure what he expected to feel. It was his first Memorial Day out of uniform, and he wanted to pay his respects to those he’d served with who’d fallen so recently from Echo Company. He thought he’d be sad, angry, bitter—so he was surprised when, more than anything, he felt out of place. It was incredibly strange to stand in the audience of civilians, facing the major general head-on as the officer gave a brief speech rather than sitting behind him. He hung at the back of the crowd, shifting uncomfortably as they laid the wreath and raised the flag, no longer a part of the brotherhood that lifted their arms in salute but not at home among the civilians putting their hands over their hearts for the national anthem.

  The army was the only family he’d ever known. Now that he’d left it behind, he didn’t know if he’d ever feel like part of something again.

  Then Laurel slipped her fingers through his and he suddenly felt as safe, accepted and grounded as if they’d been married for fifty joyful years.

  His head spun on the short drive from the cemetery to Blake’s neighborhood. Not only was he more attracted to Laurel than any woman since—well, ever—he’d never met anyone so stubbornly insistent on shoving past all his excuses or willfully blind to the glaring obstacles littering the path between them.

  What if he was wrong? What if there was a way to make their seemingly disparate lives intersect? What if Laurel grew to love him, and he found the courage to love her back? What if his luck was changing—what if this was the start of everything he wanted?

  He’d planned to be resolutely authentic at this block party, to let her friends and family see exactly who he was without any attempt at sugarcoating. Now he was having second thoughts. Should he try to impress her social circle? Or would they see straight through his pathetic effort to fit in?

  He was so lost in thought that he barely noticed the kid hurtling toward them on a scooter. He stepped aside just in time, then looked up to see a throng of people spreading across four front yards at the end of the cul-de-sac. Smoke poured off an enormous barbecue grill, kids swarmed over a trampoline and an inflatable bouncy c
astle, and adults milled around carrying beer bottles and paper plates while a small group of teenage boys hurled a Frisbee, cheered on by their female counterparts sitting on the curb with their legs stretched ahead of them.

  No one staggered drunk, no one chain-smoked, no one smacked the little boy who stole his playmate’s Popsicle. No one’s clothes were torn or dirty or obviously too-small cast-offs sneaked out of the school lost and found, no one told the kids to shut up in case the neighbor called social services again, and he doubted any of these people had ever watched helplessly while everything they owned was swept into a black plastic garbage bag, ready for that evening’s transfer to the next temporary foster placement.

  These were normal, affluent, cohesive families gathering for a community party. And he’d never seen anything like it.

  “Do you know all of these people?”

  “Most of them. If this town is a small pond, I’m its shark.” She slipped her hand into his, and he was astounded all over again by the strength he took from her thin, soft fingers.

  He squeezed gently. “Sure you want everyone thinking we’re an item?”

  “Are we?”

  He looked around at the other guests. They were beginning to attract attention—someone waved from the far end of the yard, and a woman with a toddler on her hip was striding toward them wearing a big smile. He had to decide what he wanted from this afternoon, and fast. Did he want Laurel to see how he’d never fit in and they could never work? For the first time he realized how unfair that would be, that he had to man up and let her go if that was what he wanted, not let her friends’ opinions do his dirty work.

  So he had to walk away now, before anyone got any big ideas about their relationship status. Otherwise he had to commit to this day—commit to her—and do the best he could to be polite and friendly and a credit to her decision to bring him.

  He drew a deep breath, cleared his throat and slung his arm around her shoulders.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, allowing the tiniest fraction of hope to seep into the word. “I guess we are.”