“C’mon, Scarlett,” he took the cobbler from her stiff fingers and then wrapped his hand around hers and navigated them down the front walkway to the door. Chloe had time for one more deep, stabilizing breath while he rang the bell, and then the door opened and a tall, slim, sixty-something man with pewter-gray hair and ice-chip blue eyes stood in the entryway. He wore his pressed, dark blue polo shirt and starched jeans with the bearing of a dress uniform.
His stern expression cracked into a smile, and he clapped Michael on the shoulder. “Right on time, Major. And you must be Chloe.” He engulfed her hand in his and gave her a firm, precise shake. “Pleased to meet you.” Although he spoke at a normal volume, his voice held a booming, authoritative note. This man was accustomed to giving orders.
“Nice to meet you too, Colonel.”
“Come on in.” He stepped aside to give them room, and Michael’s hand at the small of her back guided her over the threshold. “I’ve got the grill warming out back, but we’ll swing through the kitchen so I can introduce Loretta and get you two set up with drinks.”
“You have a beautiful home,” she commented as they passed the open living room and dining area.
“Thank you. That’s Loretta’s doing. No matter where I’m stationed, no matter how rustic the conditions—and, believe me, there have been some damn rustic ones—she always manages to make us comfortable.”
The interior was as meticulously clean and stylish as the outside. Items from across the globe brought an eclectic mix to the beachy furnishings, but the order and arrangement kept the place from looking like a hodgepodge. Chloe immediately pictured the mess she’d left at Michael’s…rejected outfits tossed on the bed, makeup littering the bathroom counter. She could never pull off a home like this. A certain amount of clutter and disarray just seemed to spring up around her.
Still, under the House Beautiful surface, there was a depressing familiarity. She recognized the telltale signs of a military household, even though the Hardings’ souvenirs from places like Japan, Germany, and the Middle East were more upscale than the tourist-level knickknacks her father had carted home from his various deployments. Growing up, it had seemed to her as if every memento marked an argument between her mom and dad—about his career. His priorities. Did these walls bear witness to the same painful memories?
The colonel led them down a hall decorated with family photographs, including a boys-to-men progression of school portraits featuring what had to be the colonel’s sons. In the kitchen, a petite, auburn-haired woman in a flattering, peach-colored shirtdress stood at a granite-topped island, putting the finishing touches on a vegetable tray. Chloe fiddled with the neckline of her dress, suddenly self-conscious of her bare shoulders.
The woman looked up as they came in. “Michael,” she said, smiling warmly. She dried her hands on a towel and then came around the island and gave him a hug. “So nice to see you again.”
“You too, Loretta. Thanks for having us.”
“Thanks for getting engaged and giving us an excuse to celebrate.” She turned to Chloe, “Hi, Chloe, I’m Loretta. I’m thrilled to meet you, and, can I just say, I love your dress?”
Chloe found the warm smile directed at her. She nodded and attempted her own breezy, “Thank you,” despite her stiff cheeks. Maybe she didn’t quite pull it off, because Michael gave her an odd look, and handed her the cobbler. She offered it to the older woman. “And thank you for hosting us this evening, Mrs. Harding.”
“Loretta, please.” She peeled the foil back and inhaled appreciatively. “Mmm. I asked Stan to tell you not to go to any trouble, but now I’m glad you did. Stan, will you get our guests something to drink—I’ll take a glass of the Cabernet you decanted—while I see to a couple more things?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He strode to a bar area at the other end of the kitchen. “We’ve got wine, beer, soft drinks. What can I get you, Michael? Chloe?”
Michael wandered over to handle their drinks, and Chloe jumped on the opportunity to be useful. “Is there something I can help with?”
Loretta shook her head. “No, no. Get a drink and then go on out to the patio and relax.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “It’s all part of my strategy. I ply you with food and beverage and then I get the scoop on this happy development.”
“Oh, well…there’s not much to tell, really.”
“Are you kidding? I pride myself on keeping my finger on the pulse of all the happenings around here, but you and Michael flew completely below my radar. I have some catching up to do. I’m going to pump you both for every single little detail.”
Chloe swallowed hard and sent Michael what she knew was an anemic smile when he handed her a glass of wine. He wrapped an arm around her waist and led her out French doors to the patio. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered in her ear.
“We’re screwed,” she whispered back.
An hour later, Chloe leaned back in her chair, exhaled a small sigh of contentment, and turned to soak in the apricot-raspberry sunset. Michael had his arm draped along the back of her chair and traced intricate, meandering designs along her shoulder with his fingertip.
As screwings went, this one had been fairly painless. Conversation had flowed during dinner but nothing too pointed. Mostly questions Michael had predicted—how had they met? How had Michael popped the question? There was no way to camouflage the short time line, but the Hardings merely echoed Mrs. Waverly’s sometimes-you-just-know sentiments. Michael succeeded in turning the conversation to other topics easily enough. The colonel knew his way around a grill and didn’t mind talking technique. He’d earned the right, as far as Chloe was concerned, because he served up baby-back ribs as good as anything she remembered from her Texas barbecue days. She felt herself starting to relax.
The colonel’s voice broke into her musings. “So, when’s the big day?”
Michael’s hand froze on her back. She cast him a quick glance that probably looked guilty as sin. Oops. They hadn’t thought to set a fictional date for their fictional wedding.
“We’re still in the planning phase, sir,” Michael replied, and casually ran his fingers along the back of her neck, as if to silently say, No worries. I’ve got this.
“Hmm.” The colonel pressed his lips together as he contemplated the information. The gesture gave him a mildly disapproving look and Chloe automatically tensed in her chair. She clasped her hands together in her lap.
“I understand you two are living together?”
Uh-oh. Now they were getting down to it. “Um—”
“Yes.” Michael nodded and dropped his hand to her lap. He threaded his fingers through hers to stop her from attacking the cuticle of her thumb. “Chloe had housing at Casa Clemente through her work, but the assignment she was on recently ended and, consequently, she needed to vacate her unit. Rather than go to the time, effort, and expense of finding a short-term rental, I asked her to move in. We can put the time and money we saved into the wedding.”
“What kind of work do you do?” Loretta offered an encouraging smile as she posed the question, and Chloe recognized a softball when someone was kind enough to lob one her way.
“I’m a massage therapist. I work through an agency called Helping Hands that places me in contract assignments all over the country.”
“Sounds exciting! How long are the assignments?”
“They vary. I’ve worked assignments anywhere from three weeks to three months. That’s pretty much my outside limit. Anything longer and I get a little restless,” she admitted. “I like to travel.”
“Oh, but, now”—Loretta’s eyes shifted to Michael—“now that you’re getting married, you’ll want to look for something local, right?”
“Right.” Michael lifted her hand and placed a soft kiss on her wrist, and her idiotic heart raced, even though she knew the sweet gesture was all for show. Then he smiled at her and winked. “She’s giving up her wanderlust ways for me.”
> “Don’t give them up completely. As a marine wife of twenty-five years, I can verify you get plenty of travel courtesy of the military.” Oddly, Loretta sounded content with that state of affairs. A similar comment coming from Chloe’s mom would have been the beginning of a long lament about the difficulties of life as a military wife.
“Another reason to set the date sooner rather than later,” the colonel added. “Now, I know the men see me as a stick-in-the-mud about things like this, but I don’t endorse officers just…shacking up. It sets a terrible example. You two are engaged,” he inserted, holding his hand up for silence when Michael would have spoken, “and that’s different, but if you drag the engagement out too long, fate has a way of complicating things. I disapprove of complications. A smart person avoids them.” He punctuated the statement with a sharp look at Michael.
Loretta laughed and elbowed her husband. “I think you just called us not so smart, Stan.” She leaned close to Chloe and stage whispered, “If you do the math on our oldest boy’s birthday, you discover he came along exactly seven-and-a-half months after the wedding…and that kid was a week late.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. Babies. They’re talking about babies.
“We’re not looking to have a…uh”—Michael cleared his throat and continued—“complication anytime soon. Definitely not before the wedding.”
“Then take my advice and keep the engagement short, son,” the colonel insisted.
“I don’t think either of us is envisioning a long engagement,” Michael replied. He aimed a questioning look her way and she had to give him credit for his acting ability. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was an attentive fiancé trying to feel out his bride-to-be on this important question. “But we have my family to coordinate and—”
“They’re right here in California, aren’t they?” The colonel phrased it as a question though he clearly already knew the answer.
“All except my little brother Logan, yes. He lives in Colorado.”
“Practically next door. Sounds like easy logistics on your end, Major.” The colonel turned to her. “Where’s your family, Chloe?”
The conversation was taking a dangerous turn, but she had no idea how to get it onto a safer track. “My dad lives in Texas.” She hesitated, unsure how much to reveal, and then decided to simply be honest. “My mom lives in Pennsylvania with her new husband. My parents split up when I was a teen, and I went to live with my grandmother in Mississippi.” A cough helped clear the lump from her throat. “She had a stroke almost eighteen months ago and passed.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Loretta piped up.
“Me too, but Grandma lived a full, happy life. She counted her blessing and taught me to do the same. The day my mom shipped me off to live with her was the best day of my life—though I didn’t know it at the time. She gave me the kind of secure, loving home my parents never quite managed.”
Loretta reached over and touched Chloe’s arm. “It’s difficult to build a secure home on a rocky marriage.”
Chloe nodded her agreement. “Yes. My parent’s divorce was long overdue. My dad is career Army and my mom detested everything about military life. She sank into a depression every time my dad got transferred to a new post. She hated packing up, leaving everyone and everything she knew behind, and having to put down roots in a new place. The only thing she hated more than moving was being left behind when he went on deployments.”
Michael settled his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, offering her comfort, without a hint of Stick a cork in it, Chloe. Nevertheless, she wished he’d put paralyzing pressure on her occipital nerve because she had to stop talking. Every word out of her mouth focused on the dark side of a military marriage—all the reasons she’d vowed never to get involved with a member of the armed forces. Why in God’s name couldn’t she muzzle herself?
“Deployments are hard,” Loretta sympathized.
Chloe nodded, vaguely aware she was twisting and untwisting her napkin in her lap. “We both worried about him a lot. In addition to the worry, Mom felt abandoned, and she doesn’t do ‘alone’ very well. It made her especially susceptible to…ah…attention from other sources. Their marriage spiraled to the point where my folks were both just”—shut up…shut up…for fuck’s sake, shut up—“bitter and disillusioned with each other. I can’t tell you how many times I promised myself I’d never be with a man in uniform.”
Silence rushed in. Her words seemed to hang in the air above the table. Michael continued to rub her shoulder, but, otherwise, she sensed a distinct lack of movement around her. She glanced up and found the Hardings staring at her. Nice work.
The colonel slowly nodded. “You understand,” he said quietly. “You know how challenging a military marriage can be. That’s good. I see too many kids today—and no offense to either of you, but when you’re on my side of forty, everyone on the other side of that birthday is a kid—who don’t have the first clue what they’re getting into. I’m pleased to know you’re going into this with your eyes wide open.”
Loretta nodded. “I agree. And I think the fact that you accepted Michael’s proposal, knowing everything you know about the unique issues a military spouse deals with, means you love him very much.”
The breath trapped in her lungs leaked out her nose. She looked at Michael helplessly, unsure what to say.
“I think it’s time for a toast,” the colonel declared. “To the three most important things in life—truth, love, and the U.S. Marine Corps.”
Chapter Twelve
Michael stepped onto the Hardings’ front walk and felt a strong urge to kiss the ground like an astronaut returning to Earth after a long, hazard-fraught mission. Instead, he kept one arm around Chloe and a smile plastered on his face. The Hardings stood together, framed by the doorway, waving good night. Then Mrs. Harding called out, “Wait! Your cobbler pan… Stan, can you—”
“I’m on it,” the colonel assured her and disappeared into the house.
Loretta motioned them closer to the door. “I’m not sure he’ll find it. I may have put it in the dishwasher. Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
That left Chloe, highlighted in the glow from the entryway, with a dark purple dusk as a backdrop, looking up at him with smoky gray eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“Why? You were”—he moved closer—“perfect.”
“You really think so?” With her chin angled up toward his face, her breath tickled his lips and he imagined pressing them against hers. “There were a few spots where I thought I sort of screwed up.”
He brought his mouth another millimeter closer to hers. “Absolutely not. You nailed this evening. They couldn’t get enough of you.”
She gave him a faint smile. “They’ll get over it. Everybody does.”
A part of him wondered if he would, before she moved on, but all he said was, “I’m going to be the most pitied man on base when you dump my ass.”
Her smile widened. “That’s not how it’s going to go down.” She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair; let her nails massage his scalp. “You’re going to get cold feet and call off the engagement, and I’m going to fly off to parts unknown to try and put my shattered heart back together.”
He was ready to point out that nobody in their right mind would believe he’d called things off when her eyes drifted to his mouth, her lips parted, and suddenly he couldn’t think of anything except spending the rest of the night tasting the dips and curves of her lips. He slid his hand down to the small of her back and pulled her against him. Her soft parts yielded to his hard ones.
She tipped her head and grinned up at him—an extremely sexy grin. “You remember when I excused myself to use the restroom after Stan and Loretta toasted to our long, happy future?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t really have to use the restroom.”
“You didn’t?”
She shook her head slowly, still smiling like a schoolgirl with a secret. “Nop
e. I had a wardrobe issue to attend to.”
“Uh-oh. Wardrobe issue?”
“My thong was bothering me, if you must know. It bothered me all evening. I think the darn thing shrank when I washed it and, well, it was a little bit too tight.”
A mental picture of her standing in the Hardings’ powder room with her skirt hitched up, struggling to get comfortable in a too-tight thong suddenly filled his mind. His body reacted instantly and predictably. He moved his hand from the small of her back to the curve of her butt. “Anything I can do to help?”
She raised her chin and brought her mouth a fraction of an inch closer to his. Her breath feathered over his lips. “I solved the problem. I went ahead and took it off.”
He swallowed and ran his palm over her backside. He could feel a lot through the soft fabric of her dress, but he couldn’t feel any panty lines.
“Am I a naughty girl?”
Holy shit, she was standing there on his commanding officer’s doorstep with no panties on. Parts of him that had zero interest in toeing the line told him to reach up under her skirt, and…
“Here you go.” A square, Pyrex baking pan appeared in his peripheral vision. Loretta’s sudden appearance startled Chloe, who jumped about a mile, effectively diverting his skirt dive.
“Whoops!” Loretta smiled at them and fanned her cheeks. “Mercy. I remember those days.”
“Sorry,” Michael said and took the pan.
“Oh, please. Relax. You’re off the hot seat.” She waved them off her doorstep. “Go! Have fun.”
No need to tell him twice. He nodded to their hostess, corralled Chloe from the other side of the planet, and hustled her down the walkway and into the Cherokee. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the Hardings’ front door close. He came around to the driver’s side, got in, pulled the door shut, and stared at Chloe.
She stared back at him. The sound of her quick breaths filled the interior of the Jeep. Her tongue darted out and licked her lips.
Falling for the Marine (A McCade Brothers Novel) (Entangled Brazen) Page 12
