Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 by Rebecca Crowley

and he didn’t leave a message.
    The barista passed over her coffee, and she dropped a dollar’s worth of change in the tip jar, figuring she needed all the good karma she could get after last night. She was well aware that repaying Grady’s unparalleled trust and selfless intimacy by disappearing while he slept was in the top five lowest things she’d ever done—or did that make it the bottom five?
    Shaking her head at her own rambling thoughts, she plunked down onto one of the green benches lining Main Street. What did she do now? Call Grady and say Thanks for the painful disclosures, but I like you too much to see you again ? Carry on the pretense of the relationship, knowing all the while that she had no intention of staying with him? No, that wasn’t an option—given the speed at which she was falling for him, it soon wouldn’t be a pretense. It would be a sincere, deep-rooted attachment that would hurt like hell to rip out.
    So she was back to square one—whatever that meant. After all, what was square two? And where were these squares anyway?
    She set the coffee cup down on the arm of the bench—the caffeine was making her delirious. She had to focus on the task ahead. She had to find a way to let Grady down.
    Laurel was so absorbed in her circular thinking that she didn’t notice Peter’s approach, and startled when he sat down beside her.
    “Sorry.” He raised a hand. “I heard you and Grady had a falling out at the College Heights block party, so when I saw you sitting here looking upset I thought maybe you needed a sympathetic ear.”
    She stared at Peter for several moments, but it wasn’t with annoyance at the wildfire way gossip spread in this town, or exasperation at his blatant attempt to catch her on the rebound. Instead she took in his neatly combed hair, his furtively sanguine eyes and his perfectly pressed sleeves and wished with all her heart that she could fall in love with someone like him—that she was the kind of woman whose most fervent desires were a big house, a tolerable husband and a seat on the fundraising committee at the PTA. Life would be so much easier and less complicated if she could just bring herself to want what everyone else wanted for her.
    “I appreciate it,” she replied honestly. “But I’m fine. Just taking a coffee break.”
    Peter flattened his palms on his thighs. “Look, Laurel, you know I’m crazy about you, and I’m not going to pretend I’m disappointed that things haven’t worked out between you and Grady. I can see that you have an adventurous spirit—that’s why you want to do this overseas stuff, and that’s why someone like Grady appealed, especially with all the action at the bar that night.” He pivoted on the bench and took one of her hands in both of his. “But he’s a loose cannon. Not only was his friend so drunk he could barely stand, Grady took his gun and shot a car for no reason. Maybe it seems like harmless, boys-will-be-boys fun to you, but you can’t seriously consider a relationship with a man who—”
    “Hello, Peter.”
    They jerked apart as Grady drew up in front of them. He crossed his arms, his expression locked up tight.
    “It is Peter, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
    “We were just talking,” Peter insisted, shooting up from the bench with his palms held out in a gesture so needlessly self-defensive that Laurel rolled her eyes.
    “I know.”
    “I’ve known Laurel a long time and I want to be a friend to her. I’m not trying to muscle in on—”
    “I know,” Grady repeated more firmly.
    “I should get back to the office.” Then, with as much subtlety as an Apache helicopter, he leaned in to murmur, “Think about what I said,” before retreating down the sidewalk.
    Grady took Peter’s place on the bench and her heartbeat went into overdrive. The nearness of his body, his scent, his heat, set memories of the night before loose from their moorings and floating up into her mind.