Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 by Rebecca Crowley Read Free Book Online Page B

bar.
    She indicated the bottles he carried. “Thirsty?”
    “Saturday night special—three for five dollars.”
    “It’s packed in here.”
    His smile was tight. “I’m trying to be okay with that.”
    “Want to get some air?”
    She was afraid he would hesitate, that he’d give her the pitying look that precedes a letting-her-down-gently statement, that he’d shift awkwardly and explain he was here with someone else. But to her thrilled surprise, he took a deep breath. “Yeah. I do.”
    She trailed him away from the crowd and around a pool table, averting her gaze as they crossed near where Peter and Christina sat. He led her to a back corner, where she recognized his two friends from the bar near the highway. Chance was leaning forward and speaking earnestly, not even noticing as Grady clunked the full bottles down amid the empties. Ethan sat across from him, his face in his hands.
    She didn’t have time to say hello before Grady was edging past them to the back door, and she had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. The door shut behind them with a slam, and then everything was quiet. They were alone.
    Her stomach clenched with nerves as she realized the significance of this moment. This was her second chance—and almost certainly her last.
    She pushed her lips into a bright smile.
    Don’t mess this up.
    The taut ache in his shoulders eased the instant they stepped into the parking lot, where row after row of pickup trucks gleamed under the pole-mounted lights. The dark, crowded, booze-fueled atmosphere made him jumpy as hell, but Ethan refused to leave, and he and Chance agreed that they weren’t comfortable leaving the captain in there on his own.
    Still, he was wound so tightly that when he saw Laurel stroll in with some accountant-looking guy in a suit, he figured it was a trick of his imagination—not unlike the RPG teams and AK-47-wielding guerrillas he sometimes saw in his peripheral vision. After all, he’d thought about her a lot the last couple of weeks, always with a pang of regret and resigned disappointment. He wasn’t ready for a woman like her—he might never be. It was a hard lesson but an important one.
    But then she walked right past him, and as soon as he got a whiff of that fresh, fruity perfume, he knew she was the real deal.
    It hadn’t taken much time in combat for him to develop a firm belief in fate and a willingness to follow where it led. For the esteemed doctor to waltz into a down-home dive bar seemed to be fate’s version of screaming in his ear.
    Even in the harsh glow of the streetlights she looked gorgeous, her hair drifting loose around her shoulders, her luscious body poured into a patterned dress that matched the blue of her eyes.
    Fate. He took a step closer.
    “Who’s your date?”
    She frowned briefly, as if she’d already forgotten the poor guy existed. “Oh, Peter? He’s a lawyer friend of my brother’s.”
    “Is he boring you?”
    “To tears.”
    Emboldened by the relief of the open space and the two bottles of beer he’d already downed, he put his hands on her waist. Laurel’s body was trim but not skinny. She was taller than average, with full breasts and flared hips, and the robust, vigorous air of a woman unafraid to ask for what she wanted—and that made him harder than the gun on an M1 Abrams tank.
    “What’s boring about him?”
    She ran her hand down the center of his chest, studying each snap on his shirt as she went. “His suit. His car. His season subscription to the Kansas City Ballet. His apparent inability to laugh at my jokes.”
    “Maybe your jokes aren’t funny.”
    “They’re hilarious.”
    “Do you see me laughing?”
    She looked up, and the harsh light illuminated a heartfelt emotion glittering in her eyes that was as soft as it was deep, and it made his throat constrict and his stomach twist. She raised her hand to his face, smoothing her thumb over his cheek.
    “I see you,” she whispered.
    He kissed her.
    There