Thunder Running by Rebecca Crowley Read Free Book Online Page A

than a one-night stand, he hoped bringing Tara to this party might accelerate things between them. The host was one of his civilian buddies, the only local mechanic he trusted to touch the Challenger, but there would be a few soldiers in attendance too. His plan was to start introducing Tara to a network of people she could lean on while he was away, show her there was more to him than wild nights and fast cars, pray it was enough for her to wait for until he got back. As the number of days before deployment ticked lower, the stakes felt higher and higher, and he hoped presenting themselves as married in public might help them act that way in private.
    Not that he’d contributed much on that front, he thought ruefully, recalling the previous night’s conversation in which he’d insisted she take the bed since the next day was Saturday and he didn’t have to work. He could’ve sworn he saw a flash of disappointment in Tara’s face before she recovered her default expression of slightly defiant indifference, then convinced himself he’d imagined it. After all, he didn’t want to make the first move and suffer her rejection. Better to let her dictate the tempo.
    Bullshit , a voice accused in his mind. She put in all the effort to find you, to turn up out of the blue and pray you didn’t slam the door in her face. You’re not afraid of offending her—you’re afraid you won’t measure up to her rose-tinted memories.
    â€œYou’ve gone awful quiet over there. Thinking deep thoughts?” Tara peered at him through the darkness.
    â€œJust wondering if we should’ve brought a second bottle of tequila. It sounds like there are a lot of people here.”
    â€œYou were planning on sharing that? I figured it was just for us, and even then it seemed a little stingy.”
    He caught the teasingly sulky note in her voice and grinned. “I’m driving home so you can have the whole bottle to yourself, how about that?”
    â€œSounds like a quiet night at the library, but I’ll take it.”
    They were rounding the barn, and as a handful of people standing on the periphery of the party came into view Chance slung his arm across Tara’s shoulders, pulling her into his side on an impulse borne of unexpected pride.
    He hadn’t used the word girlfriend in relation to a woman he was sleeping with since high school. Just the idea of that much emotional attachment and the weight of another person’s expectations was enough to make him restless and uncomfortable. He knew he was one of those guys women hated, who say all the right things and flatter and charm and then disappear, ignoring calls, deleting texts. He hated himself for it, but that didn’t stop the fidgety, prickly itch that spread through him whenever anything in his life started going well. One minute he’d be smiling as he drove to a woman’s house, looking forward to spending the evening with her, and the next he was frantically U-turning, gravel flinging up from the back wheels as he floored the accelerator, desperate to escape the panicked sensation of entrapment closing in.
    One by one he’d left women in the lurch, his guilt at their pain obscuring the relief of separation. Eventually he quit dating altogether, deciding the mutual insignificance of mostly anonymous one-night stands was the only way for him to be with a woman without hurting her.
    When Tara first returned his smile that night in the bar he assumed they were agreeing on exactly that. He never imagined two days later he’d find himself sneaking out of a hotel room while she slept, for once not to relieve himself of the chafing bonds of commitment, but to protect her from him, from his insatiable hunger for mayhem, from the tumult and pain that followed him like twilight shadows.
    She hadn’t pulled away, and as a few people recognized him and lifted their hands in greeting he squeezed her more tightly.