Alive Day: Homefront, Book 2

by Rebecca Crowley

  What if she’d met Ethan in that lecture hall almost ten years ago? She tried to imagine a younger version of him, without the military haircut, his eyes bright and eager and free of the haunted shadows darkening them now. They’d have a classic romantic comedy mishap—she’d turn and slam into him or drop her books all over the floor at his feet. Then their gazes would connect, their lips would part but neither would speak, each of them aware that life as they knew it had just changed forever.

  Maybe that long-ago Ethan, not yet hardened by too many hours on the battlefield, could’ve given her the patient affection and support she needed to get over that ambiguous night in Jake’s bedroom before it swelled into a mental obstacle she still hadn’t overcome.

  And maybe that long-ago Mia, whose belief in the redeeming power of love and her own ability to find it someday was flickering but not quite extinguished, could’ve been the devoted anchor Ethan needed to tether him to the home front and keep him from shattering into the shoddily taped-together pieces clinking on the other side of the table.

  She must’ve peered at him a second too long or with too much curiosity because in the next instant his expression shut down and his shoulders stiffened. When he raised his mug his right hand shook so badly that he had to stabilize it with his left, tea sloshing over the rim and dripping down the side.

  He cleared his throat. “I think your car is drivable, but I can give you a lift to the rental agency tomorrow if you don’t want to chance it.”

  “I’ll ask my colleague for a ride—you’ve been a huge help, I wouldn’t want to put you out.” She smiled, already missing this brief glimpse of how things could’ve happened and who they might’ve been.

  “It’s no problem,” he insisted, but rose from his chair and stepped out from the table. His signal couldn’t have been clearer if he’d shoved her toward the door, so she stood as well, her mug still half-full of lukewarm tea.

  “I can’t thank you enough for coming to my rescue today,” she told him earnestly as he followed her through the book-cluttered corridors to the front door. “I was so stunned after the crash I’d probably still be out there with my jaw hanging open while Ray told me I was an idiot.”

  The jokey smile she shot over her shoulder was swallowed in the void of his bleak, shuttered air. She could tell he was withdrawing, becoming more uncomfortable with every minute she remained in his house, but as she stepped over the threshold into the darkening twilight she couldn’t help turning to him one last time in a desperate attempt to grab hold of whatever was palpably dissolving between them.

  “I’m serious—I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there. Thank you, Ethan.”

  He shrugged.

  “We should do this again sometime,” she suggested, wincing inwardly as she realized how clichéd that sounded.

  In for a penny… “I mean, having tea and a chat, not a car accident.” She mustered a weak smile. Please smile back. Please let me see that sexy, capable, charming officer just once more.

  He didn’t meet her eyes as he gripped the doorknob. “It’s getting late.”

  “Right. Well, thanks again.”

  He grunted something incoherent and shut the door, the recently installed wood slotting perfectly into the brand-new frame with a decisive click.

  Chapter Four

  “So we’re standing there, staring at this oven door that’s just fallen off and shattered big chunks of glass all over the floor. Out of nowhere she says, what was it I wanted to talk about after dinner? Well, I can’t lie, so I tell her the truth—that I was fixing to ask her to move in since the kitchen was finally finished.”

  Ethan grinned. “The kitchen that’s now flooded and has a broken oven.”

  “And a big crack in the tile where the damn door hit it. Hell of an offer, huh?” Grady shook his head. “But she just laughed and asked whether Pizza Hut delivers that far out in the county. It’s a done deal—she’s looking for a tenant for her house, and I’m trying to ignore all the mysterious lady stuff in the bathroom cabinet.”

  Ethan sat back in the booth, studying his longtime friend and former NCO. Grady’s black hair had grown way beyond regulation length, he was tan, he’d barely stopped smiling and his bearing had a lightness Ethan hadn’t seen since before they deployed to Kunar Province. He was a different man. He was happy.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but the civilian life agrees with you, Sergeant Reid.”

  “It’s just Grady these days, Captain Fletcher.”

  “You’ve never been just anything,” Ethan replied softly. He shifted in his seat and lowered his voice, all too aware of the busy diner’s lunchtime crowd and the remarkable propensity for gossip in Meridian, the town a few miles down the highway from Fort Preston. “How are you doing, work-wise? You know if you ever need—”

  “I know, but I’m good. That criminal fine was my only worry, and since you took care of that the rest is gravy.” Grady hesitated, choosing his words. “You didn’t get any heat for that whole thing, did you?”

  Guilt burned in Ethan’s chest at the reference to the incident in May when he’d been blackout drunk and fired his service weapon in a bar parking lot. Staff Sergeant Chance McKinley, the third member of their unlikely triumvirate, had wrestled him to the ground while Grady palmed the weapon and confessed to the shooting, knowing the penalty would be easier to carry as a civilian than a military officer.

  Ethan shook his head. “The major grumbled at me about fraternization when word got around the post, but since you’d left the army and Chance is a senior NCO he wasn’t too bothered. Plus we both know I’m the golden boy of the 13th Infantry Division,” he added gloomily.

  “You’re the only officer I know who resents being showered with service medals. Shit, man, they gave you a Bronze Star.”

  “Yeah, for coming home with fewer men than I left with.”

  Grady looked thoughtfully at his empty plate before replying. “You know, being with Laurel has really changed my life. And not only because I love her and she’s smokin’ hot.” He flashed a playful grin. “It’s because she’s my future. I look at her and I see all the good stuff on the horizon—all the happiness I finally believe I deserve. Remember that day we got on the helicopters and flew out of Kunar Province? How it got smaller and smaller underneath us? You have to let it keep shrinking until it’s gone, Ethan. We can’t change what we did there and we can’t go back and fix our mistakes. We’re home. It’s time to look forward.”

  “I know,” Ethan agreed quietly. “I want to. I just haven’t figured out how.”

  “You will.” Grady’s smile was encouraging. “Eventually.”

  After another few minutes of conversation it was time for Grady to get back to his job on Meridian’s road crew. They played a disproportionately violent game of snatch-the-check in which Ethan was the victor, and he waved goodbye to his departing friend as he stopped at the counter to pay.

  He was waiting for the man ahead of him to pocket his change when a voice piped up at his back. “Excuse me, are you in Echo Company?”

  He turned to find a pretty blonde with wavy hair, a curvaceous body and long legs extending from her cuffed white shorts. He’d changed out of his ACUs when he left the post for lunch, but he guessed the haircut gave him away. He nodded.

  She plucked the check from his hand and brushed past him to the counter. “I’d like to take care of this today,” she informed the cashier.

  “That’s really not necessary.” He tried to think of a way to delicately indicate to her that he was a commissioned officer on a healthy salary, but she held up a hand to silence him.

  “I read every word of the newspaper reports about what y’all went through over there. You guys sacrifice so much on behalf of this country, and I want to show my gratitude.”

  Ethan was on the brink of pointing out that as a taxpayer she already funded his wages, but he recalled Grady’s urging to move on and bit his tongue. She was being nice—she di
dn’t deserve his bitterness and sarcasm.

  “Thank you,” he managed as she counted out dollar bills.

  “My pleasure.” She stuck out her hand. “Chelsea Cornell.”

  He gripped her hand briefly. “Ethan Fletcher.”

  “How’re you liking being back at Fort Preston, Ethan?”

  She hiked her purse higher on her shoulder, and he registered that she was flirting with the same detachment as if he’d noted a change in a neighbor’s landscaping.

  Not Mia’s, of course. Since the collision he’d watched her comings and goings with an intense awareness better suited to assessing a potential enemy position. He told himself it was on account of Ray’s threatening behavior, but the truth was she fascinated him in a way he didn’t fully understand. That she could hold her own in rooms packed with macho soldiers yet seemed so fragile after the crash was as confounding as it was intriguing. He desperately wanted to get to know her and sensed in his kitchen that she wanted to do the same, but he was so worried she wouldn’t like what she discovered that he hung back, skulking around his house, keenly aware of her presence next door but refusing to do anything about it.

  Chelsea shifted her weight and he realized she was waiting for an answer. Crap, what was the question? “Uh, it’s good. I like Kansas. And Meridian is a friendly town.”

  “There’s more nightlife here than you’d think. Why don’t you take my number? I could show you which bars are the best.”

  He looked at how confidently her smile sat in her affable expression and dug deep, as deep as he possibly could, searching internally for the barest hint of an emotional shift. She was attractive, polite, self-assured and obviously interested—there must be some part of him that wanted to go out with her. After all, he never used to have any problems with his love life. He used to be charming, articulate, unafraid of rejection and immune to self-doubt.

  Come on, there has to be a flicker of attraction somewhere, enough to get you out of the house and into a bar on Saturday night.

  But he felt nothing.

  Ethan forced a smile against the despair dragging on his shoulders. He was so far gone, he doubted this big, sucking wound where his heart used to be would ever close up.

  He didn’t want to reject her here and now, especially after she’d been so kind, but he didn’t want to insult her by taking her number and never calling.

  So he lied.

  “I’m seeing someone at the moment,” he offered apologetically. Her face fell so he added, “But you never know, if it doesn’t work out maybe I’ll see you around town sometime.”

  She brightened. “Yeah, that’d be cool. Either way it was nice to meet you, and thanks again for your service.”

  “And thank you for my lunch.”

  “Anytime.” She grinned.

  He followed her out of the diner, deliberately turning left when she turned right to avoid an awkward walk to the parking lot. More dejected than before he’d sat down with Grady, he kept going into Meridian’s version of downtown, essentially a single main road with a few smaller streets branching off. He stopped at the secondhand bookshop, pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  The shop’s big space felt small thanks to the haphazardly arranged shelves and precarious towers of unsorted volumes dotted around the floor. Kenna, the thirty-something, broomstick-skirted, nose-studded owner smiled and greeted him by name and he nodded a hello. At least his insomnia was supporting local business—he bet he personally generated seventy percent of the shop’s revenue.

  “What are you in the mood for today?” Kenna chirped from behind the counter. “More military history? I’ve just gotten a good one about Caesar’s thirteenth legion.”

  “I think I need a little escapism. Can you recommend any mindless thrillers?”

  “Of course.” She grabbed one of the shop-branded bookmarks she included with every purchase and wrote three names on the back. “Shelf in the corner, all the way against the wall.”

  He thanked her and threaded his way through the maze of shelves. Maybe if she bothered labeling these sections she wouldn’t have to spend so much time telling customers where—

  He turned a corner and stopped short. Mia stood with her back to him, her head bent over the book open in her hands, dark hair falling forward to obscure her face.

  That familiar rush of adrenaline that had been upsettingly absent when he looked at Chelsea a few minutes earlier now surged through his veins. It wasn’t the same uncomplicated, thrill-of-the-chase excitement that characterized his romantic advances previous to the Kunar deployment—the memory of her scrutinizing, penetrating gaze in his kitchen was as discomfiting as ever—but it was evidence of thaw in his frozen-over capacity for human connection.

  His smile felt lopsided but he kept it in place, firmly shoving his reservations aside. Readying his deliberately cheesy pickup line, he touched Mia’s elbow.

  She flinched so violently she dropped the book. Its hardcover binding hit the wooden floorboards with a resonant thud.

  “Ethan, hi.” She greeted him warmly, her easy tone bearing no relation to the hot flash of fear slowly retreating from her eyes. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “You’re fine, I was just engrossed in this chapter.” She leaned down to retrieve the book, and he could see the rapid contractions of her ribs. When she straightened again her smile was significantly more believable, but her knuckles were white where she clutched the spine.

  “I’m on the hunt for some pulpy novels with as little literary merit as possible. Have you read any of these?” He held up the bookmark, investing his words with as much lightness as possible given the shame twisting his gut. Was she afraid of him? Did she think he’d hurt her? She’d seemed to take him in stride, from his bottle smashing to his peppermint tea, but maybe that was all an act. Maybe he really was as irredeemable as he felt.

  “Let me see.” Mia moved to his side to read the slip of cardstock. Her scent reminded him of orange liqueur and freshly sliced lemon, sophisticated but not stuffy, refreshing and restrained. He blinked, registering how unnecessarily close she stood, how her body pressed needlessly against his. Almost like his nearness was reassuring. Like she thought he could protect her.

  He fought a visceral urge to wrap his arms around her slender shoulders and promise to keep her safe, to do anything she wanted to whoever had hurt her and made her afraid. Was it her dad? An uncle? An ex-boyfriend? Or a complete stranger?

  “I haven’t read him, but this guy’s books are the most action-packed, and this one’s plots are more twisty. It depends on what you want. Stuff blowing up or shocking surprises?”

  She looked up at him over her shoulder, eyes as dark and soft as melted chocolate and free of the fleeting terror that had hardened them so instantly. And for the first time in months, he knew exactly what he wanted.

  He smiled. “Shocking surprises, every time.”

  Before she could reply he raised his hand, slowly enough for her to see it coming, giving her plenty of time to stop him, and swept her hair off her shoulder. She watched, unmoving, as he trailed his finger down the line of her neck, parting her lips as he stopped at the ridge of her collarbone. He paused, waiting for permission, for confirmation that this wasn’t all in his messed-up head.

  Mia put her hand over his, holding it in place with a light squeeze.

  His heart lurched into motion, beating frantically yet unevenly, disoriented, as if jerked from the middle of a deep sleep. Her touch was almost surreal in its tenderness, its encouragement.

  He angled closer, unable to stop his gaze from dipping to her slightly parted lips. He wet his own, wondering how hers would taste. Would she let him find out? Would he ever deserve to know?

  “Ethan? Did you find everything okay?”

  Mia jerked away as Kenna rounded one of the bookshelves, putting a foot of distance between them. The shop owner’s smile was broad and friendly and totally unsuspect
ing, but he still felt like he’d just been caught kissing a girl in an empty high-school classroom.

  “Actually, I think I’m ready to check out.” Mia hefted the hardback in her hand and Kenna nodded eagerly.

  “Great, let me bring this up front for you.” Kenna took the book and headed back to the counter. Mia turned to follow her, then flashed him a conspiratorial smile.

  “I’ll see you on post, Captain Fletcher.”

  “You will.” He ducked his head in farewell and she was gone.

  He remained in the spot for another couple of minutes, idly listening to the muffled chatter, crinkling paper bag and swishing door that signaled Mia’s departure, but he wasn’t trying to avoid her like he’d tried to avoid Chelsea. Instead his ruminations were mostly internal, mentally weighing and examining and classifying the distantly recognizable emotion that simultaneously loosened his muscles and straightened his spine. It was vaguely familiar, but so foggily remembered that it took him a while to find its name.

  When he did, his grin was so immediate it almost startled him. Hope.

  Chapter Five

  Gabe Hernandez bounced his heel on the floor as he spoke, his voice hushed, staring at nothing in particular.

  “We were on the egress, we were almost out of there. We should’ve been safe.”

  The door creaked open, and every man’s head snapped up, grateful for the interruption in the tense atmosphere. Mia followed their gazes, her attention sharpening as Ethan eased into the room.

  “Sorry, I had a meeting run over but I really wanted to join today’s session. Watkins says you’re talking about the forest mission.”

  She nodded and gestured to an empty chair. “Have a seat. We’re just getting started.”

  She watched as he folded his long frame into the folding chair, exchanging murmured greetings with the men on either side. She’d never worked with a unit that responded to its commander’s presence with such apparent relief, like his simply being in the room reassured them everything would be okay.