by Caro Carson
Evan made a sound, not a laugh, exactly, but a sound of disbelief. “You’re really insane.”
“Not about this.”
He looked up at that, but his eyes flickered as he spotted something behind her. “If my motor pool officer wasn’t coming down the walk right now, I’d prove you wrong. Why the hell is Chief working this late?” He sat up straighter, but his breathing was still that of a man who had...expectations.
Don’t expect too much. I’m not exactly irreplaceable in bed.
She tried to warn him. “It was just a kiss.”
“One kiss with you is worth ten entire nights with any other woman.”
It hadn’t been a joke, but she had to laugh or else the misery would kill her. “Nothing I do is worth ten nights in bed with some other woman. I know that for a fact.”
“Are you kidding? That was incredible.” Those blue eyes were serious.
“Don’t.” She jerked her gaze from him to look out the windshield. “Just don’t. I know exactly how I stack up, compared to other women.” Don’t make me spell it out.
“How can you think—?”
“Evan. I know how I compare, damn it.”
His silence said too much.
She glared at the steering wheel. Her knuckles were white. “We’ll be fine. Just keep your expectations realistic, not—not ten-nights’-worth type of stuff. Let’s leave it at that.” Don’t make me remember.
“How could you not...?” Evan sat back, all the way back. He shook his head slowly, rolling it against the leather of his headrest, an inch to the left, to the right. “That bastard.”
She didn’t need to spell it out, then.
Of course, Evan would guess why Rob Jones had left her. Of course—but it was still humiliating to have anyone know her husband had strayed. Strayed. Like he’d drifted outside the line of a bike lane as they’d pedaled along on a Sunday afternoon ride. Rob hadn’t strayed; he’d screwed other women. Often.
She was dimly aware of someone walking past the hood of her car, stopping abruptly just before the Corvette, Evan raising a hand in greeting, the person moving on. She saw it all without seeing it.
Wake up. Stop wallowing in your memories. You have responsibilities. A child.
She looked out Evan’s window. “I think Matthew’s getting bored over there. We should go.”
Evan didn’t even look. He just picked up his key fob and pressed a button. Music began playing in the Corvette, muted through the car windows. Matthew’s little whoop of delight carried more clearly.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“For God’s sake, Juliet, give me a minute here.”
“To do what? Oh.” She was not going to blush, she was not going to blush...
“To catch my breath.” Evan looked into the Corvette for a moment, then put his head back and laughed a little disbelieving laugh. “I’m in no condition to go anywhere emotionally. You’ve stirred up every emotion, every single one, I swear, since you walked into my office, Lieutenant Colonel Grayson. Every emotion.”
“That was not what I expected.”
“That makes one of us. I always knew if you came back into my life, all hell would break loose in here.” He rubbed his chest.
“I’m sorry.” She looked straight ahead, pretending she wasn’t aware that he was studying her.
“You apologize a lot. That’s new.”
“I didn’t mean to cause you turmoil. That seems to be the natural state of my life, though. Parenthood will do that to you.”
Matthew was worth it, but he was her child and she couldn’t imagine life without him.
Evan had just met him. They weren’t related, nor did they have an eleven-year history. Evan really was a friend, someone she cared about, and here she was, expecting him to take on too much—and so, for the dozenth time, she tried to give him a chance to bow out gracefully. “Look, preexisting children were never part of the bargain. I understand if you want to reconsider—”
But Evan had burst into laughter. “Preexisting children. Good one.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“I said you stirred up every emotion. That includes things like happiness. Anticipation. We always had fun together. That’s the one thing you don’t seem to expect.”
“Fun?”
“Yes. You said you don’t know what to expect from this point, so let me tell you what I expect.”
He put his hand on her seat’s headrest again. When she turned to look at him, she realized how easy it would be to simply rest her cheek against his hand. She didn’t. But she could have, and he...he wouldn’t have minded.
“I expect us to enjoy dinner together,” he said. “I expect that you and I will enjoy some truly delicious food, and I expect your son will get a splinter on at least one hand from hauling hickory wood and having the time of his life. I expect us to laugh at something we don’t know right now will be funny, but it will crack us up. And after we laugh together, when you and Matthew go back to your hotel and I go back to my house, we’ll all fall asleep in our beds remembering it. And I expect you to do all of this in comfortable civilian clothes. You cannot eat brisket and corn on the cob in a service uniform.”
“Says who?”
“Cowboys. It’s their food, and they don’t eat in suits and ties.” He tugged on his lapel with his free hand. “And I can’t be out on the town after 1900 hours in ACUs, and before you ask, smart aleck, the post commander says so. The policy is in your welcome packet. So why don’t you let me drive your Lexus back to my house?”
She started to object, but Evan held up his keys.
“While you make your son’s day and drive him back to the hotel in my Corvette. I’ll change and meet you at your hotel, and then you know what to expect next.”
“What?”
“Fun.”
* * *
Juliet lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling of her hotel room, reliving every minute of the evening, of three people having a uniquely Texan dinner experience.
She’d forgotten.
Life could be fun.
Men could be fun.
A date could be fun.
But she, Juliet...
She was not fun.
She was a good person. She loved her child. She took care of her soldiers. She knew how to be loyal, how to put others first, how to take command when placed in command. But in a situation where she was supposed to relax and enjoy herself, it took effort to go through the expected motions: grin, chuckle, say politely pleasant things.
She was not fun.
Evan was. He smiled. He laughed. He pretended to race her son to a stack of hickory logs and overacted like a cartoon character when he got beat by an eleven-year-old.
Evan deserved a woman who wouldn’t drag him down. Who wouldn’t expect him to raise another man’s son. Who didn’t have to pay another man alimony, because she’d been so very, very stupid.
She hadn’t warned Evan that she had to pay alimony. She’d have to tell him. She’d have to tell him everything.
The worst thing was, she’d be able to sit down with the man and explain court decisions and obligations without faltering. But to sit down with the man and explain what she thought of fun food made her feel like an alien attempting to assimilate with the native life forms. The banana pudding is delicious. I had no idea it was so popular in Texas. How funny, to think of macho rodeo riders loving a kid’s dessert.
The tears rolled from the corners of her eyes, down her temples, into her hair.
What if I’d married Evan eleven years ago?
Then Matthew wouldn’t exist.
She wiped her nightgown sleeve over her eyes. One day with Evan had made her realize how terrible it was of her to call in this chit, to hold a man to a sixteen-year-old pact. It was terrible, because Evan was wonderful.
They’d been a match once, not lovers, but a matched pair of friends who’d valued the same things, who’d approached life with the same attitude. She’d hoped they would be again, but she was not...she was no longer...
Fun.
Oh, Evan. I forgot that life was supposed to be fun.
Tomorrow, he wanted to take Matthew and her somewhere special. Somewhere they could relax, he’d said, some place Matthew might like, because Evan wasn’t done stacking the deck in his favor.
Tacos, then.
She’d tell him tomorrow, after she choked down a taco to be polite, that he was too kind and such a good friend, but that she realized how different their lives had become. They were no longer the same people who’d been friends in college. He deserved better than a divorced mother with a deadbeat ex. She’d let him go. After all, their pact hadn’t been signed in blood.
It had only been a pinkie promise.
Chapter Six
“No way.”
Juliet’s son said exactly what she was thinking, except she was thinking no way, as in that is not possible, while Matthew was saying it in a voice of amazement, like he’d gotten a gift ten times better than he’d been expecting: No waaay.
“Six Flags? Today?” Matthew turned to her, as excited as a puppy. “I’m tall enough for the really good roller coasters now, aren’t I, Mom? The big ones?”
Juliet stood in the Holiday Inn parking lot and tried to be the voice of reason. “I don’t know what the height requirements are, honey. I’m not sure this is a good idea for today.”
They were in the middle of a move. She was in the middle of a huge, life-changing decision. She had priorities, issues that needed to be settled. Yet Evan had just set her up to be the bad guy if she refused to go along with his plan, and a very old feeling of being the only adult in the situation settled into her chest unpleasantly. “We have a lot of things going on.”
“Oh, maaan...”
“Fifty-four inches tall,” Evan said. “Just for a few of the rides. A couple at fifty-two inches. The rest are forty-something.”
“How tall am I, Mom?”
“I’m not sure.” Juliet frowned at Evan. “How do you know all this?”
“I checked first. There are lots of coasters. We’ll ride whatever we fit.”
“Yes! Let’s go, Mom.”
“For Pete’s sake, give me a minute here,” she said.
Evan squelched a bark of laughter.
She rolled her eyes. “To catch my breath. I don’t even know how far it is to Six Flags. It’s not close, is it?”
“There are two within driving distance from Fort Hood.”
Matthew gasped. “Two! No waaaay.”
Evan winked—at her son, not at her. “Fiesta Texas in San Antonio and Six Flags near Dallas. Today is opening day for the year at both of them. Fort Hood’s in the middle, more or less. We can be at either one in just a couple of hours.”
“Awesome.”
“Tell me about it.” Evan held out his palm and Matthew smacked him a hard high five.
“Two against one. Not fair.” But Juliet’s protest lacked any oomph, not when Matthew actually, finally thought something about their new post was awesome. Still, Evan should never had made such a suggestion without checking with her first.
“Let’s make it three against nobody.” Evan’s attention was back on her, those ice blue eyes looking at her with unmistakable warmth. She’d been expecting to see triumph—but that would have been Rob. “You love a good coaster, Juliet. You always have. Nobody has to do anything else today, right?”
“I thought we were just going to get some tacos for lunch.” I have to tell you about alimony and Rob and all kinds of negative things.
“We’ll get tacos on the way.” Evan looked sternly at her son. “You weren’t joking when you said you had no homework this weekend, were you?”
“No, sir.”
“Just Evan, not sir. You don’t work for me.”
When Matthew looked her way, Juliet nodded her agreement, again, that he could call Evan by his first name. In a military town, it was no big deal for children to address adults by their proper ranks, Captain Smith, Sergeant Thompson, Mr. Cooper, but Juliet understood instinctively that Evan didn’t want to have a child who lived in his house addressing him as Colonel Stephens.
If they lived in the same house. They had so much to discuss...
“I don’t have any homework, Mom.”
“We’re still talking about a very long day.” Then again, it might take a very long day for Matthew to get comfortable enough to call Evan Evan. She did want to see if they could get along, didn’t she? Wasn’t that the most important thing?
Evan shrugged. “Three hours to get there, eight hours to ride awesome coasters, three hours back. We’ll be home by midnight.”
“This is going to be great.” Matthew thought the whole idea was so fantastic, he couldn’t imagine any reason they might not go. “I love coasters!”
“How did I know Juliet Grayson’s kid would love coasters?” Evan put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder and looked from her boy to her, as pleased as he could be with himself.
It struck her: He’s trying to make me happy.
She had to wrap her mind around the novelty of it. He wanted her to be happy, and he’d remembered that she loved amusement parks, once upon a time. This wasn’t a power struggle. This wasn’t a disregard for her parental authority. This wasn’t Rob; this was Evan.
She dug in her small purse for the hotel room key and held it out to Matthew. “We’ll be there after the sun goes down, so you need to get your jacket. And mine. The blue one. And grab—”
Matthew had already snatched the key from her hand and taken off at a run to go back into their hotel.
“—a couple of bottles of water, too,” she shouted after him. She didn’t quite look back at Evan. “That ought to save us ten bucks. Theme parks are so expensive.”
Evan stepped up behind her and did that thing again, setting his hands lightly on her waist. It was somehow even more intimate when he was behind her, bending his head to speak into her ear. “This is my treat. Good morning, by the way.” He pushed her loose hair away from her temple with his own cheek, then kissed her lightly near the corner of her eye.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I love your hair down. Having it up all the time in uniform makes it seem all the more exotic when it’s down.”
That was a Casanova line if she’d ever heard one. She turned around and put a little space between them. “Nice line, but you’ve only seen my hair up for less than a day. I was talking about the tickets. You don’t have to pay for our tickets.”
“I suggested the date. I’ll pay for the date.” There was the slightest hint of steel in his voice.
“This isn’t going to be cheap. You shouldn’t have to pay for two extra people. It’s more like an outing when there’s a kid along, not like a date.”
“Juliet, don’t. Just—don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pretend this isn’t a date. It is. And don’t pretend this is going to break the bank or empty my wallet. I’ve been a bachelor my whole career. I’ve got the sports car and the newest TV and the best gaming systems, because I don’t have much else to spend money on.”
He closed the space between them and put his hands on her waist again. Why did he do that so often? He’d only touched her so intimately that one time, on the college green...
He gave her waist a little squeeze. “Since I’m a bachelor on a lieutenant colonel’s salary, and since you know exactly how much that is, I can’t even impress you by buying you ice cream and souvenirs. That won’t stop me from trying. I’m not only paying for the tickets, I’m paying for the super tickets that let us skip lines.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is. I hate standing in lines when I don’t have to.”
“You’ll spoil Matthew.”
“Good. I want to spoil you, but I’ll start with your son.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “You’ll regret that. You don’t spoil the child when you have to live with the child.” Then she could’ve bitten her tongue out. It came back to her now. She’d decided last night that she’d lay out all the concerns he needed to consider before making a commitment. Here she was, teasing him back, when she should be serious.
But Evan was the one who got more serious. “I’ve regretted worse things.”
The man kissed so very skillfully. Persuasively. He kissed her lightly, softly. With a light lap of his tongue, he coaxed her lips to part on a little breath, and he invaded her mouth gently, nothing crude, nothing that said he wanted this kiss to lead straight to sex. He kissed her as if he enjoyed kissing.
Kissing just for kissing’s sake...
Evan’s hands were cupping her face, his fingers in her hair, when a car engine started and she remembered where she was.
She covered his wrist with her hand. “Matthew will be back any second.”
Evan let his gaze roam over her cheeks, chin, forehead before he let go of her face. He didn’t back up one inch.
She didn’t move, either, because her legs had turned to jelly.
She didn’t like it. She’d come to Fort Hood for a purpose, and it hadn’t included losing her mind while being kissed by Casanova in his office or in his car or in the parking lot of her transient lodging.
“You never kissed me like that,” she said, hearing the resentment in her voice. “Before. In college.”
That familiar blue gaze dropped to her mouth one more time. “Like I said, I’ve had far worse regrets.”
Then he stepped back and turned away. Matthew came pounding up to them at a run, and Evan switched from serious to smiling. “Got the jackets, Matthew? All right. Let’s go have some fun.”
* * *
The Fireball coaster was designed to send its train full of passengers around a loop. Just one loop—over and over and over.