by Caro Carson
Apparently, a half dozen or more, when the woman had graduated from West Point.
West Point. Michaels.
Fraternization. Court-martials.
Thane hadn’t hugged Chloe yet. He never would.
Chloe turned to him. She wanted him to meet her old friend. It hurt Thane’s heart. She was opening up her life to him, welcoming him in, because she still thought he was an interesting man. She still thought they were new friends and on their way to being more, to dinners and movies and a first kiss good-night.
They weren’t.
It was all he could do to keep going through the motions. This Greg guy had to be about his age, twenty-five or -six, yet Chloe acted as though Greg far outranked her. Thane shook hands. With his gut churning, he made polite conversation. “Another West Point classmate?”
“Oh—no, a classmate is someone in your graduating class. Greg was a firstie—a senior—when I was a plebe. Not even a plebe yet. He was my CO for Beast Barracks.”
“Beast Barracks is basic training at West Point,” Greg explained, bending forward to brace his arms on the fence, settling in for a chat. Yeah. Who wouldn’t stop and chat with Chloe?
“I’ve heard the term,” Thane said neutrally. He felt trapped. He needed to break up with a woman the same day he’d met her. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
“He was scarier than the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket during Beast,” Chloe said, “but he watched out for us the rest of the year.”
“Hazed her a little bit, but she was a stubborn little cuss. Couldn’t break her.” Greg smiled at Chloe. “Looks like you turned out just fine.”
Thane didn’t miss this Greg guy checking out the way his plebe looked now, four years later. Thane couldn’t date Chloe, and it was going to kill him to watch her date anyone else.
“So, how do you two know each other?” Greg asked. At least Chloe’s former cadet CO had the decency to see if the coast was clear before putting a move on her.
Chloe smiled at Thane, happiness that killed him, then did an adorable little duck of her chin, although she was the last person he’d expect to be shy. “We just met today. He’s going to show me around town sometime.”
No, I’m not. So sorry, Chloe. So very damned sorry.
He kept going through all the motions, listening to them reminisce for a polite amount of time before excusing himself to get a beer, and did anyone else want one? No?
Thane stood at the keg for a red plastic cup of beer he didn’t even want, trying to brace himself against the hurt he was going to cause when he told Chloe this whole day had been a big mistake, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man in uniform heading toward the parking lot, carrying a black MP bulletproof vest. Thane snapped out of his pity party. He could mourn his disappointed heart later. Right now, he needed to avoid immediate trouble.
The man walking by the pool’s fence was a platoon leader from one of the other MP companies in the battalion. He was in his ACUs and carrying a thermos in one hand, that black vest in the other, obviously on his way to take over as duty officer. He spotted Thane and raised the thermos in a brief wave. “Wish me luck. Saturday night and a full moon. Phillips owes me a case of beer for covering this shift for him.”
Thane did the lift-of-the-chin greeting, all he could manage as dread filled his chest. That had been a close call. Too close. Five minutes sooner, and that lieutenant would have seen Thane smiling and laughing and sitting nice and close at a cozy table for two with his fellow platoon leader. And it was far too true that it didn’t always matter what you were doing, it mattered what it looked like you were doing, and that would have looked bad. If Chloe arrived at the battalion Monday morning and that lieutenant had recognized her as the girl Thane had been cozying up to at the pool, the rumor mill would have exploded like a bomb detonating.
Legally, they’d done absolutely nothing wrong. Thane would be able to stand in front of the CO and honestly tell him he and Lieutenant Michaels had only talked. But the gossip surrounding that closed-door meeting would tarnish a reputation, and Thane already knew it would be her reputation that got tarnished far worse than his, as unfair as that would be. Women were just under greater scrutiny. She’d be toast before she even got to put her name on their office door. What made a man look like a stud would make a woman look like...
Yeah. She’d start out deep in a hole that she hadn’t dug. He couldn’t do that to her.
He needed to leave ASAP, before more people saw them together. This situation was like a hand grenade that had had its safety pin pulled and was now primed to explode. The second Thane could get Chloe alone, he’d tell her they were assigned to the same company. He could slide the safety pin back into place and set the hand grenade down safely. Nothing had to explode. He’d leave Chloe here where he’d found her, with her classmates and her former cadet CO, and he’d go back to his apartment, shut the door and resume his regular routine. Alone.
Alone, damn it, with no Chloe to wine and dine and talk to.
Ballerina Baby.
Not totally alone. Ballerina would be waiting to hear from him. The only safe person he’d had to talk to before this pool party was still the only safe person he had to talk to. How could he explain this whole debacle to her without explaining that he was in the military, with all the ins and outs of rank and fraternization? He couldn’t. He was going to have to deal with the hope and grief of finding and losing a wonderful woman all on his own.
Thane turned to see if Chloe was back at their table, so he could get this conversation over with before they were busted. She wasn’t at the table and she wasn’t by the fence. She was probably near the grill, talking to one of the golden retrievers. Thane walked in the opposite direction, yanking his towel off the back of her chair as he passed it, heading toward the pool house with its restrooms and dinky outdoor shower. His chair was in the shade of the pool house, the chair he’d dropped his stuff on eons ago, before he’d ever seen Lieutenant Michaels and her happy smile. If he’d known then what he knew now...
He would’ve stayed in his apartment and talked to Ballerina.
He scuffed on his flip-flops. He needed to be ready to leave as soon as he filled Chloe in. The lieutenant they’d just missed by sheer luck wasn’t the only MP living in the entire six-building complex.
“Hey, Lieutenant Carter.”
And there was another. Thane turned around slowly. An MP, one of the NCOs from his own company, was being friendly. Specifically, it was Staff Sergeant Gevahr, who was a squad leader in fourth platoon. Chloe’s platoon. Sergeant Gevahr would directly report to Chloe on Monday.
Thane needed to handle this grenade very carefully. He prayed Chloe wouldn’t spot him and come over to stand by his side while he talked with her squad leader. If she didn’t come over, if the sergeant had just arrived and if Thane could leave immediately, then there’d be nothing for the sergeant to see. If the sergeant hadn’t seen them together yet. If he already had...
If he already had, then when Staff Sergeant Gevahr met his new platoon leader on Monday, he was going to recognize her and that grenade would explode.
Thane pulled his apartment keys out of the pocket of his board shorts, making it clear he was on his way out. “Hey, Staff Sergeant. What’s up?”
Staff Sergeant Gevahr only started to laugh. “I was going to ask you that, sir. I was going to come over and say hi at least an hour ago, but it didn’t look like you’d appreciate the interruption. Who’s the new girlfriend, sir?”
The grenade was about to explode.
Chapter Five
Chloe felt like she just might explode with happiness.
As she washed her hands in the pool house bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. Who cared about the half-wet hair, drying without the benefit of a comb? Chloe couldn’t stop smiling.
Thane. Thane, Thane, Thane...
She’d never been so crazy over a man so quickly. The endorphin rush was like
a runner’s high, but without the miles of exertion one had to go through first to reach that point. The burst of adrenaline was like the one a child felt on Christmas morning, not the kind a soldier felt during a dangerous live-fire exercise. She glanced in the mirror again. Still smiling. She couldn’t stop—because Thane felt the same way about her. She knew that, because he wasn’t afraid to say he liked her.
Just like Drummer.
Her heart pounded for a moment, a guilty beat.
What was she going to tell Drummer about their little experiment? That it was a smashing success? That she’d found more than a friend? She wouldn’t have a chance to tell Drummer about it until much later, because Thane had made it plain that he wanted to keep spending his time with her today. He wasn’t going to do that nonsense where a man asked for her number and then waited three days or a whole week before calling, all in an effort to not appear desperate.
Thane wasn’t a desperate man. Just the opposite: he knew what he wanted, and he wasn’t afraid to come and get it.
Her heart pounded again, from a better emotion this time. She’d been away from Thane for at least ten minutes. Seeing Cadet Towers—now Lieutenant Towers—Greg—had been nice, but Chloe wanted to be with Thane instead.
She finished drying her hands on a paper towel and went to grasp the swinging door’s handle just as someone else pushed it in toward her. A woman with an empty stroller struggled in the doorway, a baby on her hip and a toddler dragging behind. Chloe stepped back and held the door open as they crowded into the little two-stall space.
Outside, she heard a man’s voice. “Girlfriend? Give me a break, Staff Sergeant.”
It was Thane talking. He used a different tone of voice talking with a man than he did with her, but she recognized his voice, that barely there Southern drawl. She’d been listening to that voice all afternoon, and she was looking forward to listening to it for weeks to come. Months. Years. All right, it was too soon to be thinking in years, but this man was really something special.
She was smiling at the thought when Thane said, “I don’t stick with one woman very long.”
Oh.
That was before he’d met her, though, right? She was a new person, maybe a new chapter in his life...but still, he really didn’t sound like himself. He sounded kind of arrogant.
Outside, a different male voice said, “Every man says that, sir, until he meets—”
Inside, the mother told her toddler to get up from the floor. “It’s dirty. Yucky.”
The same man sounded like he was laughing. “—change that real quick. I’ve been watching you talk to that girl all day. Just one girl, sir. Just one.”
“Talking,” Thane emphasized with a definite scoff in his tone. “When all I do is talk, there’s your clue.”
Ouch.
Chloe stayed where she was, wedged by the sink as she kept holding the door open with one hand. She felt like she’d missed something. Thane was talking about some other girl, surely.
“Now, sir, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night. A man doesn’t sit at a little tiny table with a woman for a whole afternoon—”
The mother’s voice was an octave higher. “Get off the floor, Mattie. Now.”
There was a moment of silence as the last of the now echoed off the tile.
Thane spoke. “Did you see her face?”
“Well...no, sir.” The man sounded just a little bit hesitant at the question.
That had been kind of a weird question. Did you see her face? Chloe looked at her face in the mirror. Nothing weird to see there.
“She had her back to me, sir. But that’s a fine-looking back, if you don’t mind me saying so, and judging from your face, the front view must be at least as good as the back view.”
Chloe held her breath.
Thane didn’t say anything for the longest moment. “You’ve been here a while, then. Did I catch you on your way out?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“Great. I’m leaving, too. Let’s go.”
“But, sir. What about your lady friend?”
Thane lowered his voice, but she could still hear him. “She’s not a friend, and she’s definitely not my lady. You didn’t see her face. If you had, you’d fully appreciate why I’m making an escape with you.”
It was a punch to Chloe’s gut, a blow that did real damage because she hadn’t been prepared for it at all.
“You sure were spending a lot of time with her—”
“Do you see any other single women around here? I had to take what I could get. Trust me, I can’t take anymore, so do me a favor and let me walk out in front of you. Don’t even look toward her. If she turns around, I don’t want her to see anything except your back, hiding mine. I appreciate the cover...”
Their voices faded away.
How could she have been so wrong? How could she have so completely misjudged him?
The door slipped out of her hand and swung gently closed. She stood there, paralyzed, until she realized she was staring at herself in the mirror. There was nothing wrong with her face. There was nothing—it couldn’t have been Thane. It wasn’t Thane speaking.
She grabbed for the door handle and yanked it open. Among the mostly stationary folks mingling on the pool deck, two men were moving briskly, heading directly for the gate. One was a stranger. The other was Thane, head high, shoulders back, her towel—his towel—thrown over one shoulder. Leaving without saying goodbye. Leaving without a word of explanation.
If you’d seen her face... I’m making an escape.
She fell back against the wall with the pain of it. He’d liked her. He’d liked her as much as she’d liked him. Why would he say such a cruel thing?
Chloe knew, objectively, that she didn’t have an ugly face, but his words tapped into years of insecurities. There was still plenty of simmering resentment out there against women in the military, too many “jokes” about how they must all be ugly gorillas, how they all must hate men, how they all must be whores. Women too ugly for any man to sleep with, yet who slept with numerous men—all contradictions, all cruel. And it didn’t matter when Chloe told herself it was all false, not when she’d heard it, or hints of it, or felt it behind her back every week and month and year. Year after year, since the year she’d turned eighteen.
That seed of doubt could be consciously squashed, but it was still there, that tiny bit of herself that wondered not only if she was less than a woman, but if there was something wrong with her for wanting to serve her country.
The tiled wall hadn’t held her up. She vaguely realized she’d slid down and was hunkered down on her haunches.
“Yucky.” The toddler chewed on her fingers as she stood eye to eye with Chloe. “Yucky.”
“Mattie, come here. Leave the nice lady alone.” The mother’s voice had turned gentler as she glanced sympathetically at Chloe while buckling her infant into the stroller.
“Oh—no, it’s all right.” Chloe rose up again, feeling the burn in her thighs from the squat. “Here, let me get the door for you.”
She followed the woman and children out of the bathroom. She surveyed the pool scene, but she didn’t want to stay here, not even with friends from West Point.
Friends. One of them had been her friend while they were cadets. Two of them were more like acquaintances whom she’d had in a class or two. Greg Towers had been too many years ahead of her to be a friend, and Keith had surprised her by being friendly to her today, because, frankly, he’d been an ass at school.
If she called being body-slammed into a pool “friendly,” that is. She’d played it off because that’s what one had to do. Deflect, act like you can handle anything, pretend they didn’t upset you. She was a pro at that. She had to be to survive.
Chloe didn’t run, but she didn’t waste any time, either. She stalked over to her stuff, unrolled the yellow dress and caught her cell phone case, then started pulling the sundress over her head as she headed toward the gate. Anger was building
inside her. Fury. All she wanted was to be alone. She couldn’t wait to lock herself back in her apartment. She didn’t want to talk to another human being for the rest of the weekend—no one except Drummer.
He was the only one who’d understand.
Thank God she had someone who’d understand, because she surely didn’t have someone who would tell her about toga parties and smile at her stories and take her to see a movie.
She made it all the way to apartment 401 before the fury deserted her and left tears in its place.
* * *
What would you do if you were me?
Chloe hit the enter key and chomped down hard on another frozen grape, her twentieth, at least. Fresh fruit was her current favorite comfort food. Strawberries, blueberries, peaches—anything that she’d had to live without for the last four and a half years.
The dining facility at Leonard Wood had served bananas and oranges. So had the mess hall at West Point. Those fruits were kept in stock because they were hardy, and they came with their own thick skins. She was done with bananas and oranges. She was sick of having a thick skin.
Because right now, I’m just stress-eating grapes. Have you ever put grapes in the freezer? Amazing. They stop just short of turning into ice cubes.
She didn’t care if dudes didn’t talk about food cravings. She was talking to Drummer without a filter today. He was either her friend or he wasn’t. If he couldn’t handle her online, then it would be best if he just disappeared.
Like Thane had.
She popped another grape in her mouth.
Blue words came across her screen. I thought tater tots were your comfort food of choice.
Good. Drummer could handle her even when she didn’t weigh every word.
The tots are all dead, remember? I’ve moved on. Grapes are my victims now.
Chloe looked at her laptop screen with its jaunty little lines of pink and blue type. She sounded so jaunty herself, didn’t she? Tots and grapes, ha ha ha.
She was brokenhearted.