The Lieutenants' Online Love

by Caro Carson

  “I doubt that.”

  “What is the code for ‘officer running on foot after the suspect’? I didn’t know. What if it had gone differently and you were the one who got tackled? What is the code for ‘officer down’?”

  “You can just say ‘officer down.’ We’re discouraging codes. They don’t mean the same thing from one town to the next. Use plain language.”

  “Really? And what was said on your radio that made you chuck your coffee and run?”

  He hesitated. She saw his jaw clench. “Nine-nine-nine.”

  “Which means?”

  “Officer down.”

  She threw up her hands. “Point proven. I wouldn’t have known to say nine-nine-nine if I’d gone into those bushes and found that you were the one who was pinned down. While you were trying to teach me a little lesson on how unprepared I am for this job, you put yourself in danger.”

  “Teach you a little lesson? You think I was intentionally trying to make you look bad?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a moment of silence on Thane’s part as they sat at a red light. Then he started shaking his head slowly. “In the middle of witnessing a suspect fleeing the scene, I stopped and thought to myself, ‘Hey, how can I make Michaels look bad? I know, I’ll make her call it in to the station when she doesn’t know how.’”

  Her mistakes had been broadcast to every MP working tonight, to the dispatchers and to the watch commander. Chloe’s first impression on the people she was required to lead wasn’t going to be good, and she knew it would be hard to overcome. She had Carter to thank for it, as if he hadn’t already gone low enough yesterday by pretending to be attracted to her when he didn’t even like her face.

  “Why wouldn’t I think that? You’ve already—” She wasn’t going to mention the pool. The flashlight incident would do. “You’ve already tried to make me look bad with your little flashlight stunt.”

  He shrugged, completely unconcerned. “I’m sure you did fine on the radio. I didn’t give you a task I didn’t think you could handle. You’re the one who gave yourself the task with the flashlights.”

  She didn’t want to go off on a tangent about flashlights. Controlled confrontation. “I need a radio before we do anything else tonight.”

  “I was already planning to stop at the station to get you one. I was going to get you a cup of coffee first. Forget it. We’ll just go to the station.”

  “Good.”

  It was hard to believe that just yesterday afternoon she’d been eager to eat an entire dinner with this man. Now, even a cup of coffee would taste sour if he was around.

  Chapter Nine

  Second Lieutenant Chloe Michaels was done being a badass—at least for the next twelve hours.

  She was almost home. Her apartment building was visible through her windshield. She parked her Charger and got out, putting on her patrol cap and pulling the brim down just so. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, trudging past the swimming pool without one glance toward the blue water...or the little table for two.

  Man, she was tired. It hadn’t even been thirty-six hours, just twenty-four since she’d reported for duty at the police station. She’d never admit it to a soul at the 584th, but twenty-four hours was a very long time to stay sharp and act her best among strangers in a strange place. She’d tried to make a positive first impression while mentally filing away her first impressions of everyone she met—which had seemed to be nearly every soldier out of the one hundred and twenty in her company. She was grateful that literally every soldier in the US Army wore a name tag.

  Chloe passed the mailboxes without stopping, since she didn’t care if there was a flyer posted for another poolside event coming up. She already had a close friend, thank you very much. As soon as she got to her apartment, she’d check in with Different Drummer. She’d been away from her laptop for so long, and she missed him. He already knew her; she already knew him. She could slouch on the couch and talk about Star Trek or Scottish poets, and Drummer wouldn’t be shocked or appalled or even impressed by the new lieutenant in the unit. He’d just laugh with Ballerina Baby.

  She started up the concrete stairs. At least she felt reasonably confident that she’d made it through the last twenty-four hours without shocking or appalling anyone, except maybe Lieutenant Carter. The night had been one long, unrelenting trial of having to deal with Carter, but the day had gone better.

  For one thing, she had a platoon sergeant who seemed to know what he was doing. Sergeant First Class Ernesto had decided she needed a tour of her new world, and she’d been relieved to have him escort her to the barracks, to the motor pool, to the dining facility.

  She’d needed that break from Tha—Carter. Except for the minutes she’d spent in the bathroom, she’d been with him for every single second of each of the twelve hours in the patrol car. Even the bathroom hadn’t been much of a break; she couldn’t help looking in the mirror and wondering what was wrong with her face.

  Worse, Carter hadn’t been kidding about sharing an office with him. Little wonder that she’d jumped at the chance to go to the motor pool with her new platoon sergeant.

  The same office. The same office.

  She’d get through it. She had no choice but to get through it. Chloe slogged her way to the second-story landing and paused for a deep breath. Why had she chosen an apartment on the third floor? One more flight. Then she could collapse.

  At least her platoon sergeant had gotten a good impression of her before she’d even walked into the headquarters building. Nice to meet you, ma’am, had been followed immediately by Word is, you had quite the night.

  She’d held her breath as her platoon sergeant had told her what he’d heard. She knew he hadn’t heard anything from Carter, because she’d been with Carter. But whomever he’d heard it from, it was all good. Three-thirty must have seen her kneeling over the suspect, immobilizing his arm with her boot. He’d seen her kick the knife out of the way. She was particularly relieved to hear that, despite feeling like an idiot on the radio, she’d apparently come across as calm and collected when her voice had been broadcasted to every MP on post.

  The accuracy of the platoon sergeant’s intel impressed her. “Is all of this gossip, or did this come out on an official report somewhere?”

  “Gossip, ma’am?” Sergeant First Class Ernesto had pretended horror, making her smile as they walked down the line of their HUMM-Vs. “We’re all members of the United States Army here. We don’t have time to gossip.”

  “Sure, you don’t.”

  “But word can travel around here at combat speed. When the word involved the new LT, that invisible hotline between our building and the station just about burned up.”

  “In that case, thank God that hotline had a good report on me. I’ll take it.”

  Chloe reached the last step of her climb. The third-story landing could have been made of gold instead of concrete, she was so glad to see it. She unlocked her door, walked into the cold air-conditioning and stood there. She took her patrol cap off automatically, but she was too tired to remember what she was supposed to do next. In the dark apartment, the sky looked bright beyond the sliding glass doors to her balcony. The first colorful clouds of the approaching sunset were visible between the two buildings on the other side of the complex. Now she remembered: that balcony, that view, that was why she’d wanted the third floor.

  She sank onto her new, red couch. She ought to pour herself a glass of wine and drink it on the balcony...but she made no move toward the kitchen. First, she unlaced her boots and hauled each one off with one hand. She looked toward the kitchen. She looked out the sliding glass door. And then she turned and did a face-plant on her couch, which felt as welcoming as a bed of red roses.

  She slept.

  * * *

  Thane bunched the pillow under his head and tried not to be absurdly emotional about his pen pal.

  Ballerina was gone.

  Since the discussion they’d
had after their failed friend-experiment on Saturday, she hadn’t posted anything. Not one hello, not one silly sentence.

  He missed her. He’d been looking forward to talking tonight with a woman who didn’t annoy the hell out of him.

  He’d been stuck for a solid twenty-four hours in the Chloe Michaels show. The entire company was buzzing with positive crap about everything she did. Soldiers were bound to like an officer who wasn’t afraid to jump in during a physical altercation, but even the stupid stuff was working in her favor. The ludicrously formal way she’d conducted her inspection had somehow fulfilled everyone’s expectations of how a West Pointer ought to render military courtesies, as if his soldiers had forgotten that there were other West Point officers of various ranks already in the battalion, including the commander of the 410th, the operations officer on battalion staff—hell, Thane didn’t keep track of everyone’s commissioning source, but there were more. The point was, Michaels was far from the first one anyone had ever met.

  But she was the newest. And she was female, which shouldn’t matter, but it did. Add in her good looks and the way she seemed equally comfortable talking to the most junior private or the battalion commander, and—well, she was a novelty, that was all. Thane just had to grit his teeth until the buzz died down.

  Between that eternally long ride-along and the steady stream of curious folks who’d come by his office all day, he’d only had a couple minutes of privacy to check his phone. Each time, the app’s white screen had been frustratingly blank. Nothing pink to pick him up.

  Now that he was home, he’d spent the last two hours trying to reach Ballerina.

  Nothing.

  The last time they’d talked, he’d given her advice, encouraging her to confront her adversary, but now he realized he hadn’t really had enough information. After the domestic he’d worked last night, he was worried. The image of the wife on the stretcher, bloody towel to her head, wouldn’t go away. She’d looked so frail compared to the man Thane had apprehended.

  Thane stared at the empty phone screen and wondered what Ballerina’s physical appearance was like. Was she frail? She worked out, he knew that, but if she was a wisp of a ballet dancer, should she really be confronting adversaries?

  She’d been upset by a man. She’d told him the friend-who-wasn’t-a-friend was male. What if she got hurt?

  The thought made his stomach turn, made every muscle in his body tense. Where was she?

  Hey, Ballerina Baby.

  His cursor blinked for long minutes.

  He’d been at work for only twenty-four hours, not thirty-six, so he wasn’t as tired as usual. Thane adjusted the pillow one more time and settled in to write her a letter.

  It’s been two days, but it feels like a week since I last talked to you. You are never far from my thoughts.

  That had been true once he’d gotten rid of Michaels. The moment her platoon sergeant had taken her off to the motor pool, Thane had checked this app. Before that, it had been all Michaels, all of the time—not all of it bad. He could still see the look on her face when she’d stood in front of the patrol car window, so that a victim wouldn’t have to see her abuser. Pissed off and protective, he’d thought at the time. Who would protect Ballerina like that, if Thane’s poor advice had caused her to be hurt?

  I hope you haven’t had any more run-ins with your friend that isn’t really a friend. I wish you could give me more details, because my imagination is running wild. When I suggested confrontation, I didn’t take into account that confrontations can turn physical. I’d only been thinking about speaking your mind, but this guy could be more dangerous than you think. If you have the tiniest bit of an unsettled feeling about him and his potential for violence, stay in public whenever he’s around. Has he ever tried to get you alone? I regret advising you to confront him without insisting on more details first. I forget sometimes that women are vulnerable.

  Probably because the women he worked with were MPs who were armed and trained. They’d stand on a man’s arm or kick away his knife. But Ballerina? Thane might have advised her to confront a man who could be twice her size, for all he knew.

  I wish I had some way to check on you when you go silent on this app. I worry about you, Ballerina. I’m afraid this new advice is too late. Please drop me a line when you see this, even if you don’t have time for a long conversation. Heck, a single word will let me breathe easier. So please, Baby, check in.

  Thane stared at his blue words a moment. No ironic quotes or movie references came to mind—just real worries. He set his phone on his nightstand. Whether he’d been up twenty-four hours or thirty-six, he needed to sleep. Tomorrow would be another long day at work, and he’d have to spend it with Michaels taking up space in his own office.

  Was it just Friday night that he’d been feeling isolated, a man who slept and worked and did little else? Suddenly, women had taken center stage in his life, women like Chloe Michaels. Hard to believe he’d ever spent an entire afternoon smiling at her in the shade. She was beautiful and smart and too confident for her own good. She was going to be a thorn in his side.

  Women like Ballerina Baby. He craved a conversation with her, but she was missing and there was nothing he could do about it. God, he hoped she was safe.

  Then there was the woman on the stretcher, a tragic image etched in his brain by flashes of red and white lights...

  Thane punched his pillow into shape. One good thing about working for twenty-four hours: he’d be able to sleep even with all these women on his mind.

  Eventually.

  Thane had to punch his pillow into shape a few more times before sleep would come.

  * * *

  Chloe woke to the sound of a car engine, and another.

  And another.

  They were muted by the sliding glass door, but the fact that there were so many must have permeated her consciousness enough to wake her up. She forced her eyes open and blinked at the gloom of her apartment. The dim sunlight outside her sliding glass door hadn’t changed. It was still sunset.

  The engine sounds faded in the distance. Where was everyone going? It was like an evacuation order had been given, an order she’d totally missed.

  Orders. The army.

  “Oh, crap.” It hit her all at once. It wasn’t sunset; it was sunrise. Sunrise in the army meant it was time for PT, or physical training. That meant calisthenics, the daily dozen, followed by group runs with cadences being called to keep everyone in step.

  Here at the Two Rivers apartment complex, that meant half the residents were all leaving at the same time to get onto post before 6:30 a.m.—and it meant Chloe was late.

  She ignored every sore muscle in her body, every stiff joint from sleeping on a sofa rather than her bed. She’d slept on worse, on dirt, branches, rocks. She’d slept sitting up in trenches she’d dug. This discomfort was nothing.

  She stripped out of her ACUs, all the way to the skin, on her way to her bedroom. She pulled out the top drawer of her childhood dresser and grabbed some fresh underwear. She wrestled her way past the strong elastic of a clean sports bra, yanked open the second drawer and pulled out the black T-shirt of the army’s physical fitness uniform. Jeez, she hadn’t had a chance to shower since reporting to duty Sunday afternoon. It was Tuesday morning. She ran into her bathroom, threw on some deodorant and then her shirt.

  In shirt and underpants, she brushed her teeth, then looked in the mirror—screw you, Thane—and fished all the bobby pins out of the remains of her bun, tossing them onto the hard counter, where they skittered off in all directions. With the elastic ponytail holder clamped in her teeth, she started ripping a brush through her hair. Fast.

  Move, move, move, to be late is to be dead...

  They’d killed her for lateness at West Point, that was for sure. Each simple tardy to class had resulted in four hours of walking the area in Dress Gray—with a rifle, of course, just to make the suck more of a suck—back and forth over a paved square that was surrounded on al
l sides by barracks buildings, in silent monotony, hour after hour. What kind of punishment was there in the regular army? What would the commander do to her?

  He couldn’t do anything that would be worse than the way she was blowing the positive first impression she’d made yesterday. Twenty-four hours of good work would go down the toilet when she came rushing up, panting and late, to the PT formation. Her whole platoon would know she’d failed to make it on time.

  Her stomach hurt.

  She was starving. Lunch yesterday had been a long, long time ago. That was okay. She’d done worse, gone for days without food during survival training. How far did the company run on a typical Tuesday? Two miles? Three? She could handle that without any fuel in her body.

  She used her hands to pull her hair back into a ponytail, a style allowed only during PT. Pants. She bolted back to her bedroom dresser, yanked open the second dresser drawer, then paused. Was she supposed to wear the PT uniform’s pants or shorts on this post? They’d been in pants at Leonard Wood, but it was so much warmer here. What had this post’s commander authorized as the uniform? She jogged to her bedroom window and peeked through the blinds, hoping to spot someone else on their way to PT.

  Half the cars in the parking lot were gone. The ones that had woken her had probably been the last few, doors slamming and engines revving, peeling out of here because they were running late. Even though only a couple of minutes had passed since she’d woken, there was no way she’d make it downstairs, drive to Hood, park at the headquarters building, run to the PT field and be standing in front of her platoon by six thirty.

  She still had to go. Better late than never, she supposed. But she returned to the bathroom at a walk, not a run. She was thirsty. She could run three miles hungry, but not dehydrated. PT wasn’t a life-or-death situation, but that kind of foolishness could turn it into one, or at least into something serious. She’d seen people pass out in run formations, hitting the pavement and getting trampled by the next row. Chloe filled her cup with tap water and chugged it down while watching herself in the mirror.