Book of the Month: CARRY ME HOME
Dear {$email},
I hope you’re enjoying March’s book of the month: CARRY ME HOME!
If you missed CHAPTER ONE, click here.
CHAPTER TWO
An hour later, Evan stepped into the hallway and came to a grinding halt. Claire, it seemed, was staying in the room next to his.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered when she saw him. She sounded so disgruntled, Evan almost laughed. “My life is a cliché,” she added, but then shot him a smile he recognized. “I promise not to turn the music up to eleven if you promise not have drunken orgies.” She snapped her fingers and wagged her finger at him as if she’d just had an epiphany. “No, wait. That would require you have some kind of personality other than Captain America. Never mind.“
“I’m not Captain America.” Evan started walking, irritated by the nickname that he should be used to by now.
“What, that’s it? No snappy comeback?”
“I’m not in the mood. So sue me.” He couldn’t even take a moment to appreciate the stunning transformation of Claire into civilian clothes. Her eyes were as deep as midnight in the shadows. Her hair tumbled down her back, reflecting the hallway lights like red star-cluster flares. He was fascinated by the change in her, a memory of another time mixing with the sight of her now. His blood stirred with latent arousal, making him want to feel her body pressed against him again.
And if he kept up this line of thinking, he was going to end up in the gym tonight or taking a cold shower. Holy crap, he was a disaster.
They rounded the corner, and Claire froze. Evan could practically see the hackles rising on the back of her neck. “Oh, perfect.”
Evan stopped and frowned at the tiny woman coming out of the stairwell. Dim light made it hard to distinguish her from any other generic brunette, but he was pretty sure he recognized her. “Is that Lieutenant Engle?”
Claire breathed out heavily and kept walking, her shoulders stiff. Mildly curious about the strength of Claire’s reaction, Evan followed her. He must have missed the part where the professional disagreement between them had morphed into active hatred on Claire’s part. This ought to be interesting.
First Lieutenant Mallory Engle stopped in her tracks when she saw them. Engle was the kind of cute and perky that gave female lieutenants a bad reputation. Back in Iraq, Evan had barely tolerated the ditzy officer, who seemed to care only about the latest brainless celebrity scandals. Claire’s patience had been significantly less than Evan’s on a good day.
“So this is where she disappeared to,” Evan said under his breath as they approached. He’d barely noticed her absence from the headquarters back at Fort Hood.
“God hates me. All the lieutenants in the army and I can’t get away from this one.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m going to slap the shit out of Iaconelli if he’s the reason she’s at the lodge.”
Evan glanced sharply at her, wondering what exactly she was getting at. She didn’t honestly suspect Iaconelli would violate army policy by sleeping with the lieutenant, did she? Relationships – especially sexual ones – between officers and enlisted were forbidden.
“Why are you here, Lieutenant?” she asked Engle. Only another officer could make the rank sound like a dirty word.
Engle’s eyes widened a little bit, and she stiffened, attempting a slightly more military bearing. Which was pretty difficult, considering that her cleavage was helping to prop up the box she carried. “Well, um, I was looking for Reza—I mean, Sarn’t Iaconelli asked me to take him to get some food, but then he said he had some briefing, so he asked me to bring it upstairs for him and—” The words tumbled out in a rush, with absolutely no reservations whatsoever. With abrupt clarity, Evan remembered why he’d hated listening to her briefs.
Claire’s words were laced with bitter cold. “I think you could better spend your energy with your current team, Lieutenant. It sends the wrong message that you’re in an enlisted man’s room when he’s not even present. Leave the food and go home.”
Engle’s cheeks flamed red, and she dropped the food in front of Reza’s door before she disappeared back down the stairs. He waited until they turned another corner before broaching the subject with Claire. “What’s with the attitude? You’d have thought she was the Antichrist disguised as a lieutenant.”
Claire was the one to keep walking this time, and Evan was certain it was to avoid his gaze. “She is.”
Deeply curious now, Evan followed her. Tension radiated off her in waves, and while he was no stranger to Claire’s temper, this seemed different—far beyond normal competition or rivalry—and he wanted to know why. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
Claire sighed heavily. “Inquiring minds want to know, huh?”
Everyone knew she and Engle had a personality conflict. Hell, it had been perfectly obvious every time the two of them were in a room together. This was somehow more. “Try me,” was all he said.
“Engle went to the brigade commander while we were still in Iraq. Told him that I was being mean to her. And while he told her to pound sand, the battalion executive officer, my boss, entertained her bullshit because she made it sound like it was a female thing instead of a senior officer correcting a junior. The XO told me to back off. And since I’m so good at obeying orders, I did. I’m not ending my career over some trashy lieutenant who can’t even spell LT.” Her words dripped with sarcasm and latent hostility. He’d never heard her sound more jaded or cynical.
Evan said nothing for the length of an entire hallway, unable to reconcile the Claire walking next to him with the reckless officer from Iraq. He caught himself looking at the strands of copper-red hair that had fallen across her forehead, remembering that long-ago night that he’d kissed her and nearly tumbled into a dark mistake. He cleared his throat roughly. “Well, then. That explains the hostility.”
Claire’s smile could have cracked glass and she walked off, leaving Evan alone with uncomfortable thoughts. And for the second time in the three years he’d known her, Evan allowed himself to be intrigued by the woman he saw behind the fractured smile.
* * *
Claire walked through the cavernous lobby of the ski lodge, heading out into the crisp, cold Colorado evening. Alone. She couldn’t figure out what was going on with Loehr and he was freaking her out. Reza melted out of the shadows, startling her.
“So you do own clothes besides military uniforms. I’d wondered,” he said by way of greeting.
“Funny. Real funny.“ She offered a smart-ass smirk to her friend. “You know, you have serious ninja-like qualities. How does someone your size move so quietly?”
“I’m a man of many talents. So how long do we have to stay tonight?“ His smile dazzled white against the deep mahogany of his skin.
“Why? Anxious to get back to your deployment snuggle bunny?”
“Not funny,” Reza said dryly. “You need to lay off Engle.”
“So do you,” she shot back. “We’re not in Iraq any more. Things that might have been overlooked downrange will get you rung up back stateside.”
They walked out into the cold night, crossing the village of ski shops and coffee nooks that made up the base of the resort. The bonfire was supposed to be at some pavilion near the edge of the running trail that Claire had been enjoying since she’d arrived. It might be cold, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need to work out.
“How’s life with my favorite TOC roach, anyway?” Reza asked after a while.
Ever since Claire had gone over to the dark side and earned her commission, she spent more of her life in the tactical operations center, or TOC, where commanders controlled their troops on the ground. Reza harassed her incessantly about leaving enlisted life behind. From anyone else, it would have gotten old, but Reza was family in every way that counted.
“You’re just as much of a TOC roach as I am these days. The master gunner spends all of his time planning ranges and gunneries instead of shooting them.”
“Ha ha fuck you, ha ha” Reza stuffed his cell phone into his pocket. “Look, Engle isn’t as bad as you think she is,” he said.
“I knew this was coming,” she grumbled. “You’re going to ruin your career over this girl. That or your drinking.”
The sheer magnitude of her hypocrisy did not escape her. Her own relationship with Reza bordered on a violation of army policy, after all. Then again, she wasn’t sleeping with him and while it might be splitting hairs, there was a distinct difference.
“No, I’m not, because it’s not like that. But you very well could if you don’t let it go and leave her alone. It’s not like you don’t have a track record there. Engle was looking for a friend downrange. I’d think you could understand that.”
“Yeah, well, Engle is and always has been an officer. She needs to be looking for friendship in the officer ranks.”
“Pot, meet kettle. Did it never occur to you that you and I are not supposed to be friends because you’re an officer now?”
“Did it never occur to you that as a former enlisted soldier, I could give a shit about that rule? I’m not turning my back on my friends just because of my rank. It’s different, dammit.”
When they’d gone through combat together the first time back in ’03, she’d developed a strong appreciation for what this man was capable of, despite his best efforts at ruining his career every single time he came back from the war.
They walked into the pavilion, where the bonfire licked the night sky with brilliant oranges and golds and reds. “Stay out of trouble tonight, will you? All the combat awards in the world won’t help if you get caught with your pants down,” she said lightly. But Reza was already moving off, zeroing in on a cute blonde who looked positively miniature next to him.
Personally, Claire hated these kinds of military social events. Attendance was strongly encouraged but that was just a nice way of saying mandatory. Hail and farewells. Right-arm night, where commanders typically bought their first sergeants a drink. None of those things appealed to Claire in the slightest. But she was an officer, and mandatory fun was in her duty description—or so she’d been told.
She refused to listen to the nagging voice in the back of her mind that said it wasn’t so different for her to hang out with Reza than it was for Engle. In truth, being friends with him was a risk to her rank. Officers and enlisted weren’t supposed to have close personal relationships. And Reza was one of her best friends—which was why she was so worried about him. Considering the sheer amount of alcohol he drank on a regular basis, she couldn’t help it.
But no matter what, she could not—would not—report her friend to the army’s drug and alcohol program. She knew the seductive pull of addiction and she knew she could never compete with the sweet relief at the bottom of a bottle. And it terrified her to think she might lose Reza the way she’d lost her father.
Reza would kick her ass if he knew she worried about him as much as she did. She hated the way he chased his demons away with women and alcohol. But for Reza, it was always one or the other. Tonight, she hoped it would be a woman. Because if it was alcohol, she might not be able to find him in the morning.
Claire spotted Evan near the bar at the edge of the pavilion, nursing a drink. He sat with his back to the bonfire, but every so often he’d glance in the massive oak mirror behind the bar. Who hung a mirror over a bar in an outdoor pavilion? Still, in the flickering firelight, it was beautiful. Intricate branches wove around the edge of the glass, giving it an aged, gothic look.
He caught her watching him. He studied her now, his gaze dark and haunted. For the longest instant, their eyes met, and Claire could not look away. Frozen in the moment, echoes of torment lashed out at her from those dark depths, a violent storm she had never, ever expected to see in Evan Loehr.
Loss. A deep, soul-crushing loss that he did not, for the barest flash of a moment, try to hide.
Then he blinked and looked down at his drink and just like that, the spell was broken. And Claire turned away, before she did something infinitely stupid.
Like ask him what was wrong.
* * *
Evan had already done the glad-handing with the commanders. As the party ground on, he waited for a good time to slip out and head to his room while trying not to freeze to death.
At least the fire helped heat the frigid Colorado night. The pavilion was wide open on three sides, filled with tables that had small candles floating on gel. Everyone who wasn’t huddled around the fire congregated around the bar at the far end. A flash of red caught his eye and he paused, struck by the sight of Claire in her civilian clothes. He watched her from a distance, stealing glances at that beautiful red hair.
Evan pulled his faded Patagonia jacket closed as he watched Claire. She stood at the edge, scanning the crowd of mostly unfamiliar faces. He had never considered himself a coward before, but approaching her took a different kind of strength. As he walked across the pavilion, he recognized it for what it was: a test. Facing someone who teased the edge of his control.
“You look like you’d rather be walking patrols in Fallujah right now.” Claire’s spine stiffened automatically at the sound of his voice, and Evan smiled. He’d snuck up behind her on purpose, remembering that first night he’d met her.
He studied her failed attempt at a poker face. The flicker of emotion that danced in her eyes reminded him that sometimes, jokes about combat were too soon. Fallujah had been bad -really bad- both times he’d been there. And Evan hated doing shoot houses to this day, because the reality was so much worse than anything they could do in training.
“Pretty much,” was all she said in response. He wondered if she’d almost choked on that unusually restrained remark. She shivered and pulled the neck of her coat tighter around her throat. “Whose brilliant idea was it to have a bonfire in the middle of winter? A bonfire, period.”
Evan smirked. “There is always time to rub elbows,” he said dryly.
“Yeah, well I’d rather not do it while freezing to death. I can’t get used to being cold all the time,” she said. Her eyes danced with flames from the firelight.
“It’s not just you. I grew up here, and I’m freezing my ass off.” He wasn’t sure why he’d shared that with her. Some part of him just wanted her to know.
“You’re from around here?” Claire asked.
Evan breathed out a sigh of relief, determined to keep the tentative truce between them. Talking about home seemed to be a safe enough subject. For now. “Yeah, I grew up a few miles away.“
She frowned and tipped her chin, studying him. Old memories swirled beneath his simple statement, closer to the surface than he preferred. “Huh. Never figured you from Colorado.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I figured you were hatched from an egg or carved from stone.” He almost took offense, but her lips curled in a slight smile, and he realized she was teasing him.
She always put on such a façade, hiding the real woman beneath the uniform. She always kept her distance from people, and had for as long as he’d known her—which was a while now, he realized. More than three years. He hadn’t seen her much that first deployment. But on the second, they’d both served operations duty after he’d left command.
They’d never been friendly during those long hours in the TOC, but every so often, in the relentless hours of day-to-day operations, a slice of personality would sneak through past the barriers of egos and spikes of adrenaline when they’d had troops in contact with the enemy. He’d just never allowed himself to pay attention before now.
“Is that what’s bothering you? Being home?” Her question caught him off guard. The words were smooth, lacking the vitriol she normally reserved for him. “You’ve been . . . off your game since we got here. Unhappy childhood?”
You have no idea. He swallowed back the comment and searched for anything else to avoid acknowledging the riot of emotions inside him. “No. It’s just . . . I don’t like being bored. We haven’t done jack shit since we came home from the war three months ago.”
She smiled. This was a safe subject for them. “Yeah. Sometimes the only thing that feels right is being at work. Like fifteen-hour days in the tactical operations cell is what’s normal now, you know?”
“Normal is relative,” he said quietly. “You look nice. You should try to wear civvies more often.”
Her eyes were cast in shadows as she studied him. “What do you want, Evan?” There was no acrid bite to her words. Just a simple, loaded question.
Evan said nothing. Until he’d come home to Colorado, he’d thought he had what he wanted. He loved being an officer in the army. The brothers he’d made in uniform had filled the hole in his life where his family had once belonged. He’d been satisfied with the occasional date, the occasional social outing. He’d thought the uniform completed him, filling the void inside him.
Now? Now he looked at Claire, at the firelight dancing over her skin, and everything he’d been missing in his life stood before him in aching, vibrant clarity. It wasn’t as though he suddenly wanted to settle down and get married, but he couldn’t ignore that he wanted more than the regimented existence he’d allowed himself. For the first time since that kiss, he wanted to act on the lush fantasies he’d entertained about her.
Claire braced one arm over her stomach, resting her other arm against it and holding a beer in front of her. He wondered briefly if she knew that standing that way plumped her cleavage, accenting the soft curves of her breasts. That, or his imagination had entirely too much time on its hands, because she was wearing a winter coat.
When had he started thinking about her like this? Why the hell couldn’t he stop?
A crash at the end of the pavilion in the vicinity of the bar caught his attention, saving him from having to answer her question.
“Iaconelli is going to get arrested,” Evan muttered. “He should be more professional than that.”
Claire shot him an odd look. “Are you going to tell on him? He’s not out wrecking his car. Let the guy relax.” She took a sip of her own drink, appearing calm, but her words were laced with sarcasm. “You should try it sometime. Relaxing? Might do wonders for your personality.”
She’d meant it as a joke. He knew that, but it did nothing to stop the powerful memories of twisted metal and burning leather. His beer suddenly tasted sour.
“There’s a fine line between relaxing and being unprofessional,” he said shortly. He threw his beer in the trash with a clink of broken glass. “You of all people should know that.”
* * *
Claire was still simmering from Evan’s caustic remark a few hours earlier. Unprofessional? Who did he think he was? She hadn’t seen Evan for much of the rest of the evening, but she hadn’t been able to shake the deep, seething anger that had settled over her heart when he’d stalked off. It was probably for the best that he’d left. She’d been about to tell him where he could shove his attitude, and telling off the officer in charge was never a good plan. The last thing she needed to do was get into yet another argument with Evan.
Pressure had long ago started wrapping around her lungs, squeezing the air from them along with her ability to keep her temper in check. Mandatory fun had long ago petered out for all but the most devoted ass-kissers. Or, in Claire’s case, for those who were tailing the drunks while they continued to party. Reza was still chatting up the cute blonde, and he was the only reason Claire hadn’t left yet. At least he’d stayed away from Engle tonight. Evan already thought Claire was a shitty officer. If he found out she was covering for Reza, it would only cement her status as a bottom-rung captain who didn’t follow the rules.
Claire just wanted to get Reza home and locked safely in his room before he showed his ass and got in trouble. At least two men who Claire would have bet money were command sergeants major were currently giving him the hairy eyeball. If she could just get him out of here, she had a snowball’s chance in Texas of getting him safely to bed and keeping Evan from seeing him piss drunk.
Claire sighed and tried to figure out the best way to get him out without looking like she was babysitting him—or taking him home herself. This was turning into one of those pesky times when it would have been better if she were in uniform.
“Crap,” she mumbled beneath her breath. She tossed her drink into the trash and started weaving through the picnic tables toward Reza and the giggling blonde. She offered up a silent prayer that he wasn’t going to make a scene. Though it wasn’t really a question of if he would make a scene. Only how big.
Reza swayed on his feet as she approached, and the woman next to him laughed and leaned into him to help prop him up. Claire narrowed her eyes, wondering if the cute young thing even realized he probably didn’t know her name.
Reza chose that exact moment to stagger into the tiny blonde, and the two of them went crashing to the floor. Claire rushed across the rest of the space and pulled the big man off the squirming female, who appeared to be enjoying herself a little too much. She bit back a horrified laugh as Reza mumbled, “Stop wiggling,” while Claire struggled to heave him to his feet.
After she finally managed to get him upright, she jerked her chin at the small blonde, who was brushing off her white pants. “You okay?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” She stiffened and looked at Claire as if she were stealing her date. Not in this lifetime, sister, Claire thought darkly.
Trying not to look like she was staggering beneath his weight, Claire maneuvered Reza out of the pavilion. Silence hung around them as she struggled to get him outside without tripping over his feet or her own. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. No, the chill was laced with a slithering fear that Reza was closer to the edge of a breakdown than she’d ever wanted to admit.
The full moon hung heavy and pregnant over the mountain, casting the snow-covered path in soft silver light. They were making steady progress when Reza shifted too quickly and Claire barely got out a “damn it, Reza“ before the big man stumbled and went down, dragging her with him. Reza landed with an elbow in her ribs, knocking the air from her lungs. She barely managed to keep her head from smacking against the wall as they landed in a pile of limbs and muffled curses.
“Get off me.” She struggled to keep the panic from her voice as the air fled her lungs and rational thought flittered for an escape route. A memories rushed in. “Reza, get off!”
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