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

She clenched her hands together in her lap, swallowing hard against an urgent need to touch him.
    “What’re you doing downtown?” she asked by way of greeting.
    “I had a meeting with your brother about the sentencing hearing.” He glanced in the direction of Peter’s departure. “I underestimated how quickly word traveled in this town. I figured having a huge military installation on your doorstep would give y’all more to talk about than a shot-up tire. Apparently not.”
    “Slow news day.”
    “I guess.” He sighed. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Even the guys on the road crew look at me like I’m about to hit ’em. Ethan’s career was the only thing on my mind when I took that gun off him. It never occurred to me that I’d be starting off my new civilian life with a reputation for being a trigger-happy lunatic.”
    “Do you regret it?”
    He shook his head. “It was the right thing to do. My back’s a lot straighter than Ethan’s these days. I can carry this weight for him.”
    They sat in reflective silence. A car crept down the street and pulled in to a space in front of the bridal shop. A wind chime tinkled and swung in its spot outside the dry cleaner’s. A woman pushed a stroller up to the crosswalk, checking her phone while she waited for the light to change. It was a warm, peaceful, late-spring afternoon, but the storm raging inside Laurel’s stomach could’ve blackened the skies in an instant.
    When Grady spoke again, his voice was soft and unsure. “Where’d you run off to this morning?”
    “Work,” she replied instantly, then cringed at how lame that sounded. He deserved better—he deserved the truth. “I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
    “What kept you up?”
    “Thinking. About us.”
    He stilled beside her. “Did I push you too far? I know I sort of unloaded on you with all the war talk.”
    “No, nothing like that, I just—”
    “Last night was something special for me.” His tone was urgent, like he might lose these words if he didn’t get them out. “You’re special to me. I want you to know that.”
    “Oh, Grady.” Regret squeezed her heart like a vise—regret that she let things get so far so quickly, and regret that she couldn’t be the woman he needed. In that moment she’d never wanted anything more than she wanted to be his, but she gritted her teeth against that longing, achingly aware that the longer she let this go on, the harder it would be for both of them.
    “We want different futures,” she told him gently. “You need to find your place in this town, and I need to find my way out of it. If I didn’t care about you, I’d suggest we keep on having a good time together until I get my overseas posting, but even one more night like last night and I—”
    She pulled in a trembling breath, swallowing hard against the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat.
    “Another night like that and I don’t think I could leave you,” she finished weakly.
    She clamped her eyes shut, shielding herself from his reaction as she sent up a quick prayer that she was doing the right thing. When she opened them again, Grady hadn’t moved. His body was motionless, his expression blank. The only evidence that he felt anything at all was the whiteness of his knuckles where his fingers dug into his thighs.
    “So don’t leave me.”
    His voice was rough and gravelly, but the emotion behind it was wide open, like he was offering her his heart in outstretched hands. That flash of vulnerability was in such poignant contrast to his big, strong frame that for several seconds Laurel could barely breathe, let alone formulate her response.
    “I have to,” she managed when she could find her voice. “I have to get out of Meridian. I can’t be happy here, going through the motions, doing what everyone wants, suffocating underneath my parents’ expectations—”
    “Bullshit,” he declared with such sharp, sudden volume that an elderly couple on the