Chapter One
I pulled Carrie tighter to my chest, closing my eyes, even though I was fully awake and alert. I just needed a second to hold her. To breathe her in. I wanted to ignore life for a second longer, because today was the day I had to tell Carrie I have bad news, and I was not looking forward to it. But hell, I didn’t even necessarily know what the message was about yet. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions.
Maybe I was full of shit. Or…maybe it was bad news.
The sun came through the curtains, and I opened my eyes again, sighing. When I had woken up earlier, my first conscious thought had been: Please don’t let this all be a dream again. Please don’t make me wake up alone.
But then I’d breathed in her familiar scent that instantly calmed my racing heart, and I had relaxed again. It hadn’t been a dream. Thank f**king God. The real world was just as happy as my dreams—which made sense since she starred in both anyway. The woman I loved had forgiven me for secretly working for her father and all was right in the world. Her bright blue eyes were shut tight, her long red hair lay splayed all across her white pillow, and her soft lips seemed to be begging to be kissed.
Her ginger eyelashes were swept low, shadowing her pale cheeks. If someone would have told me last week that Carrie would be back in my bed, in my arms, and in love with me, I would have laughed and asked them what the f**k they were smoking.
Yet here she was. This was real.
And she was late for class.
“Ginger…?”
I kissed her lips, savoring the unique flavor that was my Carrie. I made sure not to press too close to her, though, and give her the wrong idea. Or maybe it was myself I was trying to remind. But either way, there wasn’t any time for a quick morning f**k.
I pulled back, and her lids fluttered open, showing me those baby blues I loved so much. “Hey,” she said, her voice soft with sleep.
“It’s time to wake up.”
She smiled up at me, stretching like a cat. “Why are you all the way over there?”
I trailed my finger down the little strip of skin on her stomach, right above her green panties. Would I ever get sick of seeing little pieces of her skin bared for me and only me? “Because you’re—”
Without warning, she snaked her arms around my neck, hauling me closer until I lay on top of her. So much for keeping my distance. Her hands played with the back of my hair. I loved it when she did that, and I had a feeling she knew it. She could ask me to walk along hot coals for her, and as long as she was playing with my hair like that, I’d do it happily.
Without hesitation, she kissed me, her tongue slipping inside my mouth and entwining with mine. Damn it, I loved it when she took the initiative, but I had to stop this before it went too far. I pulled back and unwound her arms from my neck. Then I scooted out of her reach. “You’re late for class.”
She sat upright, blinking rapidly. “I am?”
“Yep.” I rolled out of bed, and away from the woman who held my heart in her hands. “You get in the shower, and I’ll make you breakfast to go.”
“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder, bolting toward the bathroom in her tank top and satin underwear. I had to pause to appreciate the back view, but then I hightailed it into the kitchen to make her an egg sandwich.
I passed my phone as I went, snatching it up, and quickly called her a cab before setting it down on the counter. As I made her breakfast, I eyed the f**king thing as if it was going to jump up and bite me in the ass. Sometimes, I felt like it could. It had been the root of all bad things that happened to me lately.
First it had shown Carrie I was a liar. Then the call last night…
Nothing was definite yet. Nothing at all. But when you got a mysterious phone call from your commanding officer on a Sunday night…well, you could put two and two together pretty easily. In this f**ked-up world, someone was always a finger push away from starting a war with someone. And who were the first ones sent in?
Marines. Always the Marines.
But some small, stupid part of me couldn’t help but hope the call was nothing more than a red herring. God had a twisted sense of humor like that, didn’t He? It seemed like something He would do. Give me the sun and the moon, and then pretend like he was going to snatch away the sun. Then, at the last second, he’d laugh and be all, “Ha! I got you, didn’t I?”
I shook my head at myself. Was I seriously having a fake f**king conversation with God in my head? I was losing it. Losing my mind. I needed to look at this rationally.
Maybe the military thought there would be another attack in Egypt or something and were readying troops just in case. There were a hell of a lot of just in case situations in the military. It didn’t have to mean something.
The possible threat could fail to come to fruition. Then I’d get to stay with Carrie.
It’s not that I was scared to go fight for my country. I wasn’t. But I was scared of how Carrie would handle the news of me going. That’s not to say I didn’t think she was strong enough to handle it, because she was. She just worried about me.
I flipped the egg and popped some bread into the toaster. As I waited, I eyed my phone and replayed the message in my head. Screw this. I needed to hear it again. I picked it up and hit play.
“Sergeant Coram, this is C.O. Gunnerson. Report for duty at Pendleton Saturday morning at oh-eight-hundred, and be advised there will be news regarding a possible deployment for you in the near future.”
The commanding officer’s gravelly voice rang in my head, making me want to throw the phone across the room. But, instead, I slammed it down on the countertop, my heart thumping loudly. Yeah. That didn’t sound good at all.
I shouldn’t be surprised. This was a pattern in my life. The second things started to look up for me, shit always blew up in my face. Like the time I’d gotten the job of my dreams, only to learn it would require me to travel out of the country for ten months of the year. Or the time I’d gotten my Harley, and then an ass**le in a pickup truck smashed it into pieces.
This certainly wasn’t the first time I’d gone through this type of thing, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The toast popped and I set it down on the Saran Wrap. After putting the rest of her sandwich together, I poured her a to-go mug of coffee and waited at the door. She came charging out of the bathroom with jeans and my t-shirt on; her hair in a sloppy ponytail. Hot damn, I didn’t want to let her walk out the door.
But I knew I had to.
She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and came my way. “You giving me a ride?”