The Colonels' Texas Promise

by Caro Carson

Evan walked into the kitchen to get a glass of wine for his bride.

  * * *

  “That was very devious of you.”

  Juliet took both wineglasses from Evan, then waited as he pulled his chair close to hers. “You got him to take ownership of his baseball season, you got him to agree to spend quality time with his mother’s evil kissing-friend, and you got him here for dinner tomorrow night before he could remember to object.”

  Evan’s smile seemed a little reserved.

  “It was a triple play,” she said.

  He took a breath as if he was going to say something, but he hesitated, then said, “I’m happy to help.”

  Juliet wondered what he hadn’t said.

  They sat back in their chairs. The fire crackled. The space heater hissed quietly. Through the glass door, the sound effects of a video game were mercifully muted.

  “I’m happy to help whether we’re married or not,” Evan said. “You don’t have to marry me to have me spend time with Matthew, okay?”

  Her world went silent, except for the pounding of her heart.

  “What are you saying?” But he’d spoken plainly. They didn’t need to be married. He’d gotten a taste of Matthew’s phase. He’d seen Juliet in full motherhood mode. Now marriage wasn’t so necessary, after all.

  “I’m saying I’d spend time with Matthew even if you didn’t want to sleep in my bed, to be blunt about it. I want that to be clear between us.”

  What had she missed over s’mores? Too much talk about Rob? That would be enough to make any potential second husband have second thoughts.

  “Are you—? Do you—?” She couldn’t breathe. This was her fault, all her fault. It had nothing to do with Matthew’s fixation on Rob; Evan had just said he’d help Matthew no matter what. It was about her.

  She’d freaked out by his king-size bed. Evan didn’t think she would be any good in bed, or he didn’t think she wanted to have sex with him at all.

  He was backing off.

  “Are you volunteering to be Matthew’s coach or something?”

  “I suppose I could, if they were shorthanded.”

  She’d ruined everything. He was going to mentor her son, but he didn’t need to be married to her. But I want so very badly to be married to him.

  “That’s not what Matthew needs.” She didn’t recognize her own voice—neither did Evan. He was looking at her in surprise. “He needs you. All the time, for a million different reasons. He needs to live with you, so I can see you every day. I don’t think I could stand it if you were only his coach. I want so much more with you.” Oh, God. What am I saying? “With him. I want so much...with you and him. And me.”

  “Juliet? Hey—”

  “I wanted—I wanted us. I wanted us to be a family.” Her lungs couldn’t seem to inhale.

  “Yes, I know. I know—Juliet.” Evan caught her wineglass before she knew it had slipped from her fingers, able to do so because he was crouched on his haunches in front of her. When had he moved from his chair?

  She was freaking out again. She covered her face with her hands.

  “Shh, Juliet. It’s okay. We’re going to be a family, yes. Definitely, yes. Come here.” He tugged on her wrists as he stood. “Come here.”

  I’m sorry I’m so scared. I’m not like Juliet-from-College anymore.

  But Evan was using her wrists to draw her arms around his waist. Then he folded her in a bear hug.

  It had been sixteen years since she’d had one of Evan’s bear hugs. It felt like some kind of Pavlovian response, a forgotten reflex, but she shuddered as a sense of safety flooded through her, quieting even more nerves than she’d known were jangling. She burrowed into him. She could breathe again.

  “I’m an idiot, Juliet. I just said something that had the exact opposite effect of what I was trying to say. I wanted to tell you that I wasn’t marrying you because of Matthew.”

  “He’s my baby. He’s a good kid. Why wouldn’t you marry me because of my baby?”

  “I wouldn’t. I would.” He squashed her tightly. “I don’t mean I’m not marrying you. You said yesterday that when men are nice to Matthew, it means they are trying to get into your pants. Those were your exact words. Do you remember?”

  She nodded into the side of his throat.

  “Okay, so when I said I was happy to help with Matthew whether we were married or not, I meant that I didn’t want you to think the only reason I was offering to play catch or make s’mores was because you were agreeing to sleep with me. I’m not pretending that I’m interested in him because I want to get into your pants. I’m interested in him because I’m interested in him.”

  She scowled, even as she pressed her cheek into the bulk of his shoulder muscle. “That’s not what you said. You said you weren’t marrying me because of him. You wanted that to be very clear. Those were your exact words.”

  “I know. I hope this turns into something we can laugh about at some point.”

  He kissed her forehead like he was her friend, her brotherly buddy. “I wanted to make it clear that it works both ways. I don’t want you to sleep with me because you think that’s the reason I’m helping out with Matthew. I don’t want... I don’t want to be paid that way.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that. Honest.”

  “I have this friend. He and his wife barely tolerate each other, but he said they stay together for the sake of their child. It sounds miserable. Maybe that works for some people, but I don’t want to be married just to keep two adults in one house for a child.”

  “I tried it. For Matthew’s sake, I stayed with Rob even after I knew that he was never going to be a good husband. I can’t—” She couldn’t help the sudden tears in her eyes, but she refused to sob over her ex-husband. “I can’t do that again.”

  “And yet, you said this was all about Matthew. So be careful. I don’t want you to do that again, either.”

  She rested against him, soaking up his attention and his warmth and everything that was Evan Stephens. She loved...this feeling. It had nothing to do with her child. She wanted to keep this feeling forever. She wanted to keep Evan forever.

  “I meant I can’t go through a divorce again. When I divorced Rob, I lost a guy who’d let me down. Our relationship was a series of pleasant dates that seemed to be growing into something more, so I married him. When I divorced him, that was what I lost, just this one person I’d dated and spun hopeful romantic fantasies about.

  “He’d never been my friend for years, never friends with every one of my friends. I’d never relied on him for anything except perfect dates at perfect little places. He’d never fought with me, either, not once about anything before we married. He hadn’t been important to me before we started dating. But you, Evan, you—” Her breath hitched. “If I divorced you, I’d lose everything. I couldn’t do it.”

  Evan was quiet for a long time. She kept her face smooshed against his shoulder, her forehead pressed against his throat.

  Eventually, he dropped another kiss on top of her head. “Well, that’s convenient. I have no intention of getting divorced, either. So, let’s get married. We’ll sleep together for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with a sixth grader.”

  She did look up at that. “What kind of reason?”

  “How about because it will be fun?”

  “Fun?”

  “Because it’s going to feel good?” His smile started slowly, more of a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe because we’ve secretly wondered, for a longer time than we’d ever admit to each other, just how good it would feel together.”

  “Oh.”

  He captured that oh in a swift kiss. “Or, maybe, we should sleep together because we’re old enough now that we know it will feel insanely good to sleep together.”

  Then he didn’t have to capture her answer with a kiss, because she kissed him fi
rst, luxuriating in the freedom to kiss him like a lover, not a friend. She could kiss this gorgeous, strong, blue-eyed man as lustfully as she wanted, for as long as she desired.

  Or until the sliding glass door opened behind her.

  “Mom! Are you guys kissing again?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sunday night had ended in something of a debacle.

  A sixth grader’s fury was no small thing, which Evan had been humbled to learn. Juliet had nerves of steel. He’d admired them, he’d admired her, as she’d managed to get a muttered thank you for the s’mores from her child as they left, because we thank people for their hospitality and it doesn’t matter who they kiss you still owe them the courtesy and Evan made you s’mores so stop acting like they were poison, for Pete’s sake. Then she’d marched her child to her car. That had been the end of that. Evening over.

  Evan hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry.

  Monday morning began with the roundtable led by Evan’s commander, Colonel Oscar Reed, the brigade commander and Provost Marshal. Since Colonel Reed was running the meeting, Evan indulged in a bit of daydreaming, looking around the table and wondering if any of these officers could have handled a sixth grader’s tantrum as well as his future wife had.

  Captain Tom Cross, one of the four company commanders under Evan’s command, had recently announced that his wife was expecting a baby. They’d only been married a year or so, and this baby would be their first. They still had eleven long years to go before they could compete with Juliet in the parenting Olympics.

  Perhaps Major Aiden Nord, Evan’s operations officer, could have survived. He had twin girls, but they were only preschoolers. Still, there were two of them, which might total up to one sixth-grade boy.

  “If that’s everything, ladies and gentlemen, we can wrap this up,” Colonel Reed said, finally.

  That was Evan’s cue. “Sir, I do have one more thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Nothing to be nervous about.

  “It’s an announcement. I’m engaged.” Evan cleared his throat. “To be married.”

  Smooth—as if there were any other kind of engagement announcement.

  The shock only lasted a second. Then congratulations came at him from around the table.

  Colonel Reed sat back in his chair. “Well, well, well. I have to say, this is a surprise. A man stays single as long as you have, and you have to figure he’s escaped the ball and chain for life. When is the happy occasion?”

  “This Friday.”

  Colonel Reed didn’t hide his surprise. “This has been in the works a while, then. Did I miss Linda’s ring at the Valentine’s Day ball? You should have announced it there.”

  Well, crap. Evan had brought Linda to the brigade’s annual ball just two weeks ago. Everyone had met her. Everyone had felt like they already knew her, too, since she appeared on their televisions every evening.

  “Congratulations,” Aiden Nord said. “She’s really something. Bet they’ll show a clip of your ceremony on the news. They showed the sportscaster’s proposal.”

  “I’m not marrying Linda.”

  That got a moment of silence. No one was getting up and leaving, Evan noticed. This was getting too juicy, and a roomful of military commanders loved getting the inside scoop on anything that was happening. In other words, they loved gossip.

  Major Nord apologized. “I just assumed, sir, since the ball was so recent—”

  “I understand. Linda is a very nice woman. She just wasn’t...the one.”

  “So, if it’s not the weather girl, who is the one?” Colonel Reed asked, making air quotes when he said the one.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Juliet Grayson. Military Intelligence. She just PCSed to Fort Hood a couple of weeks ago.” He wasn’t smiling like a schoolboy, was he? No—but he probably had some dopey grin on his face.

  “An officer, eh? And she didn’t mind her fiancé taking the weather girl to the ball while she was unpacking moving boxes?” Colonel Reed was as nosy as hell. He was also one of the best men Evan had served with.

  “I didn’t know she’d arrived at Hood yet, sir.”

  More murmurs. That had sounded bad.

  “We weren’t engaged then.” He paused, then figured what the hell, and flashed a bit of his cocky, college-star, home-run smirk. “She didn’t ask me until last Friday.”

  The whole table loved that. So did Evan. Juliet had come and gotten him. That was going to make him grin for the rest of his life.

  “Better and better,” Colonel Reed said. “This is the best darned gossip since—Actually, now that I look around, you all are a bunch of sappy romantics. Let’s see... Stephens has only a week from the engagement to the wedding. How about you, Major Nord? You can top that, can’t you?”

  “I’m still engaged, sir. No wedding date yet.”

  Colonel Reed waved his hand impatiently. “Yes, yes, but there was something in there...”

  “I met India and proposed to her seven days later.”

  “That was it.”

  Down the table, Tom Cross coughed into his hand. “Amateurs.”

  Everyone laughed at that. Tom had met and married his wife the same day—in Vegas.

  Colonel Reed wasn’t done with Evan yet. “What’s your story? How long did it take you to pop the question, or should I say, how long did it take your fiancée to pop the question to you?”

  “She didn’t have to ask me on Friday, to be wholly accurate. I did propose first. I knew her for three years in college, so it took me three years before I asked her to marry me on the night before our graduation. Last Friday, she walked into my office and said yes.”

  And with that truth bomb dropped, Evan gathered up his papers and left the boardroom, grinning so hard, he gave up and called it a smile.

  * * *

  Monday evening was as perfect as any family could want.

  Matthew’s grudge against Evan for kissing his mother a second time—the horror—didn’t last long once they started throwing the baseball in the street in front of Evan’s house. Before the first toss, Evan had adjusted the laces on Matthew’s glove, which had earned him points, and then he’d put on his own well-worn glove, which Matthew thought was even more cool. Evan had let him choose one of his ball caps to wear, to keep the setting sun out of their eyes. He was trying to give Matthew a sense of control when his world had changed beyond his control. Maybe choosing a ball cap was trivial, but it didn’t hurt to try.

  For half an hour, they threw the ball to one another. Evan demonstrated the proper form, like placing a hand over the ball the second it hit the glove, so it wouldn’t bounce out. Matthew really liked that one. He told Evan he’d dropped two balls last week, so the coach had moved him from second base to the outfield.

  Evan demonstrated how to shrug it off. “So, we’ll work on catching fly balls this week. That’s what you’ll need to be able to catch as an outfielder.”

  “We can do that?”

  “Yep. We’ll start with a tennis ball, because it can be easy to get hit in the face when you’re beginning.”

  “I know, right? It’s scary when the ball just falls out of the sky onto you.”

  Baseball was followed by spaghetti and meatballs, and that was followed by all three of them playing a Lego video game together. The game required them to work together as a team to get their characters through an obstacle course. When they made it to the end, after nearly an hour of shrieking and laughing and calling out instructions to each other—Jump off the ledge! Just jump!—they all sat back on the couch, exhausted.

  Matthew was in the middle. Juliet looked at Evan over her son’s head. He knew exactly what she was thinking, so he nodded in approval. The timing would never get better.

  Juliet smoothed down a piece of Matthew’s hair. “Honey, I have some really big news to tell you.” />
  And that was the end of the perfect family evening. Monday ended much the same as Sunday had, with Matthew’s fury a palpable thing and Juliet’s nerves of steel allowing her to stay calm as she marched her son out to her car.

  Evan hoped Tuesday night would end differently.

  Just how long did a phase last, anyway?

  * * *

  Evan left his headquarters as early as he thought he decently could.

  He was the boss. He could leave whenever he wanted, but he was rarely the first to leave.

  He was also a family man now. Evan was anxious to be home when Juliet got off work and came over with Matthew, so they’d have time to throw the baseball again before dark. It might help after the drama that had followed their big news.

  I have to live with him for the rest of my life? Matthew had wailed. But that had been Monday. This was Tuesday.

  Once Evan got home and changed into some track pants to play catch, it became very obvious, very quickly, that one day had not cooled down Matthew’s emotions one degree.

  Evan knew this, because the little skunk was trying to bean him with a baseball.

  Fortunately, Matthew couldn’t throw worth a damn. He was throwing with all the force he could muster, though, and if a ball went wild, somebody’s car might get dinged.

  Evan threw the ball to Matthew, using just enough force that Matthew could handle the impact when the ball hit his glove. The ball hit his glove because Evan threw with the kind of accuracy one developed by playing ball from childhood through intercollegiate championships.

  Evan tapped his chest. “Right here, Matt. This is where you’re aiming.”

  Matthew hurled the ball, letting his eyes close as he grunted with effort. The ball went far to Evan’s left. It took every bit of speed, every bit of muscle memory Evan had, to make that catch before the ball hit his neighbor’s car. He made the catch. He still had the skill, but he got no satisfaction from using it tonight.

  He held the ball in his hand, then tossed it back into his own glove, where it landed with that satisfying thunk. Tossed it. Caught it. He turned back to look at Matthew, gauging him while he kept tossing the ball, catching it, letting the sound soothe him as he decided how to handle a miserable boy who was testing him past an acceptable limit. Physical harm was out of bounds. Always.