A marriage pact, sixteen years in the making.

The vow was simple. If they were single by the time they made lieutenant colonel, they’d marry. On the day of her promotion, Juliet Grayson is at Evan Stephens’s door to ask him to keep his promise. Juliet only needs a father figure for her son, but Evan hopes to be so much more. Can he convince a woman who’s been burned before to get close to the flame once again?

Despite a no-nonsense background as a West Point graduate, army officer and Fortune 100 sales executive, CARO CARSON has always treasured the happily-everafter of a good romance novel. As a RITA® Awardwinning Mills & Boon author, Caro is delighted to be living her own happily-ever-after with her husband and two children in Florida, a location that has saved the coaster-loving theme-park fanatic a fortune on plane tickets.

Also by Caro Carson

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The Majors’ Holiday Hideaway Not

Just a Cowboy

A Texas Rescue Christmas Following

Doctor’s Orders

Her Texas Rescue Doctor

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to Train a Cowboy

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Colonels’ Texas Promise

Caro Carson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09072-8

THE COLONELS’ TEXAS PROMISE

© 2019 Caroline Phipps

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2018-12-18

This book was written with fond memories

of the two friends who each told me they were

going to marry me if they hadn’t found anyone else

by the time they were thirtysomething.

But...

This book is dedicated to Richard, my husband,

who decided to marry me the day he met me.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“Attention to orders.”

The military personnel in the conference room came to their feet. Major Juliet Grayson was already standing at attention, as was her new commanding officer, who stood at her right. On her left stood the most wonderful person on earth: her son. Matthew was eleven years old and halfway through sixth grade, but he still looked boyish and acted goofy—most of the time. Not today.

Today, her little boy was trying to fill a man’s shoes. Juliet’s husband should have been here, standing at her left, ready to pin her new rank onto her uniform at this promotion ceremony. He was somewhere else. With someone else. Which was why he was her ex-husband.

“...special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities of Juliet E. Grayson.”

Fidelity. At least the US Army appreciated that quality.

“...she is therefore promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on this date by order of the Secretary of the Army.”

There was polite applause in the conference room and genuine smiles. Promotions were happy occasions, even when the person being promoted had only been assigned to the unit for a couple of weeks. Juliet hadn’t yet moved into a permanent house here at Fort Hood, Texas, but the conference room was still filled with at least two dozen well-wishers, including her commanding officer, several senior noncommissioned officers, and a few of their civilian spouses. The spouses had come to welcome Juliet’s spouse, of course, but she didn’t have one. She hoped they would make a fuss over her son. Matthew had insisted on wearing a necktie.

Her son might be dressed as an adult, but he was still kid-sized. Juliet bent down so he could unclip her shoulder board from the blue suit jacket of her service uniform. The rank insignia for a major, a gold oak leaf cluster embroidered onto the epaulet, was now a thing of the past. Matthew had her new shoulder board in his fist. Juliet suddenly wished they’d practiced the clipping and unclipping at home. He was just a child, and every adult in the room was focused on him; he might get flustered. His life had been rough enough without subjecting him to another potentially embarrassing situation. She should have thought of the possibility, should have shielded him from at least one small hurt, although she’d failed to shield him from the big hurt of divorce.

But after a moment of awkwardness when Matthew didn’t know what to do with the old shoulder board—Juliet simply held out her palm, so he could place it in her hand—he clipped on the new shoulder board with its higher rank, an insignia of silver oak leaves. Juliet was prouder of Matthew for the dignified way he was participating in this ceremony than she was with herself for being promoted. She winked at him, then stood so that her commanding officer could pin the new rank on her other shoulder.

Just like that, she was a lieutenant colonel.

It had only taken a few minutes...plus sixteen years of active-duty service. Sixteen years ago, she’d graduated from college, changed from her cap and gown into her brand-new army uniform, then raised her right hand and made a promise to defend the Constitution.

Sixteen years ago, she’d bid farewell to her tight-knit circle of college friends before taking her diploma and herself to her first duty station. Most of her friends had stayed in the city to start new careers. Two had stayed at the university to begin master’s degree programs. Out of their little gang of eight, only she and Evan Stephens had made a military commitment, volunteering their lives in the service of their country.

Evan Stephens. Blue-eyed, athletic, lover of beer and baseball and blondes, not necessarily in that order. Juliet was not a blonde. She and Evan—and the six others in their circle—were just friends and had been just friends since their sophomore year.

Sixteen years ago, she and Evan had gotten behind the steering wheels of their separate cars and left the campus for separate army posts, he to Missouri for the Military Police Corps, she to Arizona for Military Intelligence. But the night before graduation, after her parents had gone back to their hotel to sleep, Juliet had run into Evan on the college green. Under a full moon, they’d talked about their futures, just the two of them.

Their parents were proud of them, and she and Evan were excited to don their new uniforms, which shone with the single gold bar of a second lieutenant on each shoulder, but by that fountain in the moonlight, they’d dropped their ROTC cadet bravado and gotten real.

Do you think we’ll be stationed at posts we don’t want?

Do you think we’ll miss Christmas with our families next year?

Do you think we’ll see combat?

Do you think we’ll die?

These were concerns that didn’t come with the civilian careers their friends had chosen. More and more students had gathered on the central green, milling about in the moonlight. Then one student had gotten down on bended knee as he held up a little ring box to an excited girl. Or rather, a woman. They were adults now.

Juliet and Evan’s questions had taken a different turn. Evan had wondered why any civilian woman with a successful career would want to marry him and be dragged from post to post. She’d have to restart her professional life every few years, going back to handing out résumés and going to job interviews with each move. Juliet had wondered if any man would be willing to be left behind to take care of their babies on his own while she was deployed. A civilian spouse was pretty much guaranteed to face time as a single parent during the military spouse’s inevitable deployment or hardship tour.

I’m probably killing my chance of finding Mr. Right anyway, just by serving in the army. Military women have double the divorce rates of military men. Did you read that article?

Yeah, real nice of Colonel Hodges to post that crap.

Students from the college of music had shown up at the green with their violins and cellos for an impromptu jam session. Juliet and Evan had carried on the rest of their conversation as they’d danced with the crowd to stringed versions of current hit songs.

Slow songs.

They’d danced as a couple.

I don’t know why I’m worried about divorce, she’d said. I’d have to get married first, but I scare guys off just by being in ROTC.

You don’t scare me.

She hadn’t laughed. Evan hadn’t said it as a joke. His hands had felt strong and warm on her waist. She’d been dancing with her hands linked casually behind his neck. At his words—You don’t scare me—she’d looked up at him and realized how well she knew his handsome face after three years of shared cafeteria pizzas, study sessions at the library, Frisbee games right here on this green. She was going to miss it. She was going to miss him.

She was holding on too tightly.

She’d looked away. You’re so lucky, Evan. You can wait until you retire and then get married and have your kids.

Why can’t you?

Because we’ll be, like, forty-one years old at retirement. We’ll be colonels. Colonels are old. You’re a guy. You can have babies at forty-one, but it’s not likely I can.

Don’t be so sad. You’re worrying too much. Men are going to line up to marry you. You’re twenty-one and completely gorgeous—

She’d looked at him, startled. He’d caught the edge of one of his flip-flops on the grass and tightened his hands on her waist, but his voice had sounded very steady. I’ll marry you when you’re a retired old colonel. I promise.

And then he’d kissed her. She hadn’t known, hadn’t guessed, hadn’t given a thought to how warm his mouth would be. How soft his lips would be when the rest of his body was so hard. Hard shoulders she clung to. Hard thigh muscles her legs brushed against.

He’d ended the kiss, and this time, he’d been the one who looked away.

Her heart had pounded because this was wrong, all wrong. She was graduating. She was being sent to her first duty station, far away from his. He was her friend, and she should tease him like he was her brother, but she didn’t feel like teasing him. She felt like kissing him again, on the grass by the fountain, under the moon.

It would mess up all her plans. It would be absurd to start a new relationship mere hours before they were leaving one another to begin careers at posts that were thousands and thousands of miles apart.

They’d danced some more instead. As long as the violins had played, they’d danced. This is it. Goodbye to Evan, goodbye to all of my friends, to this green and this college and this life.

Her heart had kept pounding and the future had suddenly seemed more scary than bright. This was the last night she’d live in a city she chose. The last year she’d be certain she’d be home for Christmas. When would she see all of her friends again? When would she see Evan again?

She’d broken the silence. Why should I marry you as a retired colonel? I’ll be too old to have children by then.

He had laughed at that and gone one rank lower. Lieutenant colonel, then. We’ll be thirty-five or thirty-six, right? Plenty of time for making babies. If we’re both still single when we get promoted to lieutenant colonel, we’ll marry each other.

His laughter had chased away some of her fears. His promise, as silly as it was, had given her a fixed point of certainty in the vast, unknowable future. She’d let go of him and stepped back, but she’d held out her pinkie finger in the moonlight.

Evan had only scowled at her hand. Dudes don’t do pinkie promises. You have my word.

Dude, she’d mimicked him. Pinkie promise, or I won’t believe you.

He’d hooked her finger with his own and repeated his promise. If we’re both still single when we get promoted to lieutenant colonel, we’ll marry each other.

“Lieutenant Colonel Grayson, would you like to say a few words?”

Juliet thanked everyone for coming. She thanked her son for being there, and she joked that perhaps the promise of cake had been of equal enticement to the promise of skipping a half day of school. She cut the sheet cake with a tasseled sword her new unit kept on the wall for just such occasions, cutting neat square after neat square, but all the while, her heart was pounding like a college girl’s at midnight.

Juliet knew Evan had already been promoted to lieutenant colonel. The army published promotion lists that were avidly read throughout the military, so she’d seen his name when he’d been promoted below the zone, one year early.

She hadn’t seen Evan in person for years, not since a chance meeting on an airfield in Afghanistan that had lasted less than a minute. Before that, there’d been an alumni tailgate at a homecoming football game. She’d had a toddler-aged Matthew in her arms then, and she’d still had hope that her husband would grow into his role as husband and father, still hoped he’d become a more reliable man.

Juliet watched Matthew now, a preteen who was eating cake with the gusto of a little kid. He’d carried his plate over to a group of men in uniform and stood right in the middle of them as he ate forkfuls of frosting. He always gravitated to men in any situation, proof to Juliet that he needed a man in his life. Her father and brother lived too far away to fill in the gap left by her ex-husband. Matthew had no one to serve as a role model beyond a coach he might interact with for a few hours each week during Little League T-ball season, or a teacher he might have for one hourly class each semester.

Matthew looked so very young, despite his necktie, as he craned his neck back to watch the men as they talked over him. While he ate black and white cake layers, his eyes followed their conversation like it was a ping-pong match. Did the men remind him of his father? Or was he so fascinated because they were nothing like his father? Maybe he gravitated toward the authority and stability that uniforms represented, although it was because she herself wore a uniform that Matthew had just been plunged, yet again, into a new school in a new town in a new state. He might turn out fine despite his unstable childhood, or he might be scarred for life.

Matthew’s future was so uncertain, so unknowable—which meant hers was, too. She was so tired of facing down the unknown alone.

When Matthew caught her staring at him, she mustered up a smile, but she was thinking ahead to her plans for the immediate future. For this afternoon. After the cake, after she drove Matthew back to school, Juliet had somewhere to go.

Along with the promotion lists, Juliet had read that Evan Stephens was a battalion commander now, a position of great responsibility. Evan had been a reliable friend back in the day, and now the US Army clearly depended on him as one of their most reliable officers. The battalion Evan had been entrusted with was headquartered right here at Fort Hood. As of two weeks ago, so was she.

It was time to let Lieutenant Colonel Stephens know that she was now Lieutenant Colonel Grayson.

And single.

Just like he was.

* * *

Evan sat at his desk, busy with paperwork, bored out of his mind.

He flipped to the last page of the police blotter and initialed it. He was the commander of a military police battalion, a unit nearly 600 soldiers strong. The buck stopped here, on his desk. So did the police blotter.

Actually, the battalion had 589 personnel today. Evan always knew exactly how many lives he was responsible for.

He tossed the blotter into the outbox on his desk. Reading the blotter wasn’t strictly one of his duties. The MP station sent it directly to Evan’s commander, who was the Provost Marshal of Fort Hood and the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade. Colonel Oscar Reed signed off on it, and then his boss—the commanding general of III Corps—was sent a copy. But if Evan’s boss and his boss’s boss read the blotter, then Evan read the blotter. He was never surprised, never blindsided, not when he could prevent it.

It was rare for one of his MPs to make the blotter as either a perpetrator or victim, but it happened. If the brigade commander called him for more details, Evan always knew to whom and what he was referring, and he’d already taken corrective action. No surprises. No blindsides.

Being proactive had made him a good platoon leader. A better company commander. A great operations officer. His file was full of glowing evaluations from superiors who appreciated an officer who stayed ahead of problems and stopped them before they started. Evan had been promoted below the zone because of it, not only selected for lieutenant colonel, but promoted earlier than 90 percent of the other officers who had also made the cut. That had not been a surprise, either.

Evan sat back from his executive desk, a piece of burnished wood furniture that the army only provided for its upper echelon of officers. His career to this point had been conducted from sturdier, uglier, government-issued desks of metal and Formica. He turned his chair so he could look out the second-story window at the Texas landscape outside. Even his chair was executive-level now. This was it: the big time. Battalion commander. One of the most-prized, high-speed, low-drag positions in the US Army.

He was bored as hell.

If he were a platoon leader fresh out of school or even a company commander in his midtwenties, he would leave his office and go check on his soldiers. Like practically every soldier in the army, he wore his camouflage uniform with his coyote-brown leather combat boots daily, so he was always ready to jump into a situation. Boots on the ground: that was the best way to gauge a unit’s preparedness. He’d go to the motor pool and walk the lines of the hundreds of vehicles that were his responsibility.

But he was a battalion commander now. The only difference between his uniform and everyone else’s was the embroidered oak leaf cluster at the center of his chest, but that was a big difference. If he showed up at the chain-link gate to the motor pool, there’d be a flurry of activity. His motor pool officer would drop what she was doing and come out to escort him, a matter of military courtesy as well as her pride. The motor pool was Chief Braman’s domain. Nobody, not even her commander, roamed around her turf without her knowing what was going on.

The first sergeants of every company would appear within minutes, jogging over from their company headquarters. If Evan spotted anything out of line, the NCOs would get it fixed immediately—and chew out the soldier who had let it slip in the first place.

A simple walk through the motor pool might make Evan feel less restless, but it would pull too many people away from their day unnecessarily. He should and did conduct inspections of the battalion’s equipment without notice, but he didn’t jerk his people around just to alleviate his own boredom.

Evan turned his chair back around and continued doing paperwork in his combat uniform.

Three short knocks on the open office door were followed by Sergeant Hadithi entering silently to collect everything from the outbox. He deposited more papers in the inbox. Evan nodded; the sergeant briskly left to go back to his desk, the metal-and-Formica kind, one of several in the administrative office that acted as a buffer to Evan’s inner, more executive office.

A few minutes later, he heard the sudden creaks of chairs and the squeaks of wheels that meant his administrative staff had all come to their feet. Someone of a fairly high rank must have walked in. How ironic—maybe his brigade commander was pulling a pop inspection on him. He’d wanted something to relieve the tedium of this day, hadn’t he?

Evan checked his watch. Still not quite three o’clock. Would this day never end? He tossed his pen on his desk and waited.

Sergeant Hadithi reappeared. Three more knocks—but this time, the sergeant didn’t cross the threshold. “Sir, there is a Lieutenant Colonel Grayson here to see you.”

Evan drew a blank. “Colonel who?”

“Grayson, sir.”

Grayson. Good God, Juliet Grayson from college? It had to be. Just like that, out of the blue, Evan’s day rocketed from mind-numbing to adrenaline-inducing.

The sergeant pushed the door open wide and flattened himself against it.

Juliet Grayson walked in.

She was wearing the blue service uniform with its knee-length skirt and black pumps, her hair smoothed back into a military bun. The medals and ribbons and badges she’d earned were displayed in precise rows on her dark blue jacket, attesting to a career in the profession of arms that had been as demanding as his. She was no longer a carefree college student with golden-brown hair that fell freely to the middle of her back.

He still would have recognized her in an instant. She was still tall, still energetic, still full of purpose—

Still beautiful.

Still another man’s wife.

“Hello, Evan.” She turned to the sergeant and dismissed him with a nod. “Thank you.”

Sergeant Hadithi backed out of the room, closing the door behind himself. It shut with a quiet snick, the only sound in the room as Juliet crossed the carpet to Evan’s desk. He’d never seen her walk in high heels before, had he? Sharp as hell. Sexy as hell.

She set her hat on the corner of his desk as he began to stand, but then she leaned forward and planted her fist squarely in the center of his desk. She opened her hand and stepped back, leaving a shiny pin on his desk, a silver oak leaf insignia.

He sat back down.

“I was promoted today.”

That was all she said.

It was all she needed to say. The memories he’d spent so many years deliberately repressing broke free. The fountain, the moonlight, the promise—and now here she was.

He’d never been more surprised in his life.

Chapter Two

Evan kept his eyes on the silver oak leaf insignia.

The memories came crashing to the forefront of his mind for the first time in...seven years?

Yes, seven years since he’d last seen her. Seven years since he’d buried his emotions for the last time. It had been a chance meeting, a crossing of paths at an airfield in Afghanistan. He’d been arriving; she’d been leaving. They’d almost walked past one another, both captains at the time, both loaded down with combat gear. A passing glance, a double take, a step away from his unit to shake hands, to grip her shoulder—only a minute available to ask an intense question.

How have you been?

Better now, she’d said, and he’d had a moment of insane happiness thinking she meant she was better now that she’d run into him. But she’d nodded toward the waiting jet and the long line of soldiers boarding it. That’s my ride home. I’ll see my son in twenty hours. Twenty! I can’t wait.

Her son. Of course. When Evan had last seen her at a tailgate party at their alma mater’s football stadium, she’d been carrying a toddler on her hip. She’d looked crazy in love with her child, laughing at his determined little face when his chubby hand made a grab for her hamburger. It was the moment Evan had realized what he wanted in life.

It was the moment he’d realized he was too late.

After the game, her husband—also an alumnus of their college, a guy who’d played baseball with Evan—had chosen to leave his wife and baby at the class reunion hotel while he went out with the single men in their group. No surprise there; Evan had known that guy’s habits too well after a couple of seasons traveling from university to university together on the varsity baseball team. That night, Evan had watched Juliet’s husband have one too many drinks, have one too many dances with women who weren’t Juliet, and he’d stepped in. Go home and appreciate what you’ve got—or another man will.

Evan had spent the two years between the alumni tailgate and Afghanistan doing his best to forget Juliet and her husband and her baby, but as he’d faced her on that airfield, he’d wanted to know if her husband had grown up and settled down. If they were still married.

He’d had to shout over the idling jet engines to ask a more socially acceptable question that would still give him the information he wanted. Is your husband still on active duty?

A quick shake of her head. No, he got out of the army last year. Good timing. He’s been able to stay home with the baby. Actually, my son is four now, not a baby. Crazy how time flies, isn’t it?

They’d looked at one another from under the brims of their Kevlar helmets. Evan had told himself he was happy for her. She was married with a child—exactly the life she’d once been afraid she’d never have because of her military commitment.

Evan had squeezed her shoulder one last time and let go. See? I told you not to worry. I knew you’d marry a guy who would take care of your children while you were deployed.

Evan had spent the rest of his year in Afghanistan pummeling his emotions into submission. Juliet, his college buddy, was happy. She was married, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wouldn’t lust after a married woman. He wouldn’t pine for a woman who was building a life with someone else. He hadn’t been smart enough to pursue her while he’d had the chance. It was over and done. She was the one who’d gotten away. End of story.

Except now she was standing here in his office at Fort Hood, telling him she’d been promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Her voice broke the silence as he continued to stare at the pin. “Don’t you remember dancing with me the night before graduation?”

Of course he remembered. Every word. Pinkie promise, or it doesn’t count.

“We’re both lieutenant colonels now,” she said. Her voice had not changed in seven years, not in sixteen. “Crazy how time flies, isn’t it?”

Their eyes met.

He felt something like anger. The seal on his memories had been broken. The emotions she was resurrecting were both painfully fresh and achingly familiar.

“I’m single,” he said, “but you’re not.”

“Divorced. He moved out for the last time three years ago. We’ve been divorced for two.”

Good God. All these years...trying to forget her, determined not to think about her. He hadn’t heard about the divorce because he hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from their old circle. It was easier to move on that way.

Except he hadn’t really moved on to anything. To anyone.

“Is divorced not the same thing as single?” she asked, and for the first time, her voice wavered. She dropped her gaze. Now she was the one staring at the silver rank of a lieutenant colonel. Her eyelashes were dark, feminine, alluring even as they hid her eyes from him.

After another moment of silence, she reached for the silver pin.

Evan closed his hand over the pin first. “That’s not the important question, Juliet. The real question is, shall we do this in the courthouse or a church?”

* * *

He couldn’t be serious.

Evan Stephens couldn’t be agreeing to honor their pact so easily. Why should he?

Suddenly, Juliet felt foolish for coming here to challenge him to keep it. It was a ridiculous promise. They’d practically been children at the time. They’d even sealed it by linking their pinkie fingers together.

Evan came to his feet. He was a battalion commander, and he looked every inch the military warrior. He couldn’t have gotten taller, but he seemed taller anyway. He was a little bigger, a little broader in the shoulders, and a lot more fierce in his camouflage than he’d been in shorts and flip-flops on a college green.

Her mouth felt dry.

She had things to say to him. To explain to him. The reason she wanted to gauge his willingness to honor their college pact. The gut feeling she had that he was the father her son needed.

Instead, she was mute as she watched him walk around his desk to stand before her, right before her, just close enough that she felt alarmed, and she took an involuntary step backward.

“Courthouse,” she said, her voice husky but still the voice of an officer. Decisive.

“You’ve already thought this through.” He took a step forward. “I’m fine with a judge instead of a minister, but what’s your reasoning?”

This is happening. This is really happening. And he was so very...real. Not a memory. Definitely not a senior in college. She’d grown into herself over the years, physically, losing the last of that lingering teen lankiness—but she hadn’t thought about the fact that Evan would have, too. He was all grown up, fully an adult, and damn, but a man in his midthirties was a man in his prime.

She cleared her dry throat. “The courthouse would be quicker.”

She was in high heels, but he still had to bend his head down an inch to bring his mouth to her ear. They might have been slow dancing, as close as he was to her, but he didn’t touch her with anything but his voice.

“Are we in a rush? How many children are we going to have before we retire?”

He remembered. He’d chosen the rank of lieutenant colonel because she would still be young enough...

She remembered, and he did, too, and it made something in her chest feel suddenly weightless.

But that wasn’t why she was here. Weightlessness wasn’t welcome. It only made her feel wobbly. This was supposed to be about Matthew.

“I already did that part,” she said. “I have a child.”

Evan touched her then, setting his hands on her waist lightly, but it gave her a little stability, a little strength. His eyes were really as blue as she’d remembered, a pure shade of blue that had left dozens of girls sighing in the bleachers at their college’s baseball stadium. She’d teased him for it, time and again.

Now those blue eyes were looking at her with something like...tenderness? Affection? Like he knew her. It had been so long since a man had looked at her so personally. Not as a subordinate or a superior. Not as a daughter or mother or commander or staff officer.

“I have—”

“A little boy named Matthew. I remember. Cute child.” The corners of Evan’s eyes crinkled just the slightest bit, a small smile at whatever he remembered about Matthew. “Did you have any more children after him?”

“No.” She supposed that was a reasonable question. It had been, gosh, seven years since that chance meeting in Afghanistan, when she’d mentioned going home to her son. But the question unnerved her, exposing how little Evan knew about her life. How could he have accepted her proposal as if he’d marry her no matter what, when he didn’t know anything about her? He hadn’t known she was divorced until two minutes ago. He didn’t know how many children she had. He hadn’t kept tabs on her.

She didn’t feel so weightless now. “Just Matthew. But I have full custody.”

“Rob never sees him?”

It was startling to hear her ex-husband’s name said so casually by someone else. For the past three years, if Rob had come up in conversation at all, it had been only as “Matthew’s father.” Polite, careful questions from new teachers: And will Matthew’s father be coming to the school play?

“He has visitation rights,” she told Evan. “He just doesn’t use them.”

Her polite smile was automatic. Matthew’s father lives out of state. However, my neighbor has agreed to be my designated caregiver if I’m unreachable in an emergency. For three years, her answers had been so polite, so practical.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said.

The teachers never said that. Sorry for her son? Sorry for her? For Rob? Evan didn’t explain himself further.

She explained herself instead, calmly—but her heart was pounding so hard, he ought to be able to hear it. “That means you’d be living with a child if we...if we went to the courthouse.”

“You still don’t scare me, Juliet.” He touched her face with the back of his hand, a light run of his knuckles from her cheek to just above her ear, before he leaned in again to speak softly into the ear he’d just barely caressed. “Children don’t scare me, either.”

“That’s because you’ve never lived with one.” But she couldn’t keep carrying off this calm conversation. She couldn’t pretend it was normal to be in Evan Stephens’s office on a Friday in February, discussing living together as a couple.

She moved away from his hand on her waist and paced a step or two before turning to face him. She let go of her dignity and her military bearing, threw her hands up and huffed out a sigh. “This is insanity. I can’t believe we’re even talking about following up on an old promise right now.”

At that, he half laughed as he half sat on the edge of his desk. “You can’t believe it?”

For the first time, she managed a smile and wrinkled her nose apologetically. “I guess you weren’t expecting me to pop in this afternoon. Sorry.”

“I hope you’re not sorry. That you’ll never be sorry.”

She didn’t laugh. He hadn’t been kidding. Again.

“You don’t have to honor an impulsive college promise,” she said, giving him chance after chance to take the easy way out. He could give her a smile, a friendly good to see you again, and tell her he had to get back to work.

“But you must have wondered if I would honor it,” he said. “You didn’t come find me after all these years to tell me to say no. Is ‘no’ what you wanted to hear me say, or just what you expected me to say?”

“I came to hear you say... I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t think you’d be...”

“A man of my word?”

“It was a silly pinkie promise, Evan. Nothing more.”

She said it, but she didn’t believe it. Their promise had meant something. In the back of her mind, this day had always been there. As long as Evan stayed single, there’d always been this alternate future on the horizon. She’d needed that fantasy future, some years more than others, so at every reunion, every get-together with anyone from their circle, she’d asked casual questions. Have you heard from Evan Stephens? What’s he up to these days? Not married, still?

The army was a small world. She and Evan had never been stationed together before, but on every post, she’d run into people who knew Captain Stephens or Major Stephens or Lieutenant Colonel Stephens. His rank progressed, but he was always single. Never married.

She hadn’t thought to ask about a child. He sounded so confident, saying children didn’t scare him, as if he knew what parenthood was all about. A man didn’t have to be married to have a child. Had there been an accidental pregnancy in his past?

Perhaps an intentional one. He could have been half of a couple who’d wanted to have a child but had no intention of ever marrying. He could have met a woman he thought would make a good mother for his child, and they might have decided to...to conceive a baby.

Her flash of jealousy was unjustified, considering the existence of Matthew, but she felt it all the same.

“Do you have a child?” she asked.

Evan shook his head. She couldn’t decipher the serious look in his eyes, but since he never took his gaze off her face, she had to mask her irrational relief.

“I knew you’d never married,” she said, “but I didn’t think to ask if you’d had any children.”

“You asked people about me?” The smile that was really just a crinkle at the corner of his eyes reappeared. That was easy enough to interpret: he was pleased.

“I had to. I couldn’t expect a married man to care if I’d been promoted to lieutenant colonel today.”

“No, of course not.” He pushed away from his desk and walked back into her personal space, still studying her. Then he raised his hand to touch her, and she held her breath, braced this time for that light brush along her cheek. After all, there was nowhere else he could touch her. Her jacket covered her arms to her wrists. Her black tab-tie held her white dress shirt closed at her throat. She was safe in her uniform.

She was not. He placed his whole palm on the side of her neck, warming her tight throat with the heat of his hand, holding her still as he bent his head and kissed her.

It was the college green all over again. The night air, the string music. The impossibly soft mouth of a very hard man. She might have made a sound, an unintentional mmm of delicious recognition, like that first bite of homemade food after months of army rations, or it might have sounded like a whimper at just how overwhelming it was to taste the real thing after years of trying to remember a flavor.

He spoke over her lips. “The courthouse it is, then.”

This close, she could feel what she couldn’t see. Under that easy confidence, his heart was pounding, too.

“You think this is a good idea?” She’d meant to state it as a fact, but her tone of voice had taken on a girlish kind of wonder.

“I do. I have no intention of waiting another sixteen years for the next kiss.”

He kissed her again, and she lost herself in that midnight feeling. Kissing him felt so very intimate. No tongues, no tasting—but oh, his mouth felt so sensual against hers.

She’d had her arms around his neck back then. Today, her suit was too constricting, but she wouldn’t have reached up to throw her arms around him anyway. They no longer saw one another day after day, semester after semester, so although he still seemed familiar, they lacked that casual familiarity. But she felt weightless and wobbly, so she held on to him, a hand on each of his upper arms. His body warmth carried through the camouflage fabric. The flex of his biceps felt insanely sexy as he moved to cup her face in two hands.

His fingertips were warm and gentle along her jawline, while the bulge of his arm muscle felt like steel. She breathed in at the contrasting sensations, parting her lips, and then he was tasting her, and she was tasting him. The instant rush of arousal—a throb, a wanting, a contraction low in her belly—was so strong, it was almost painful.

This wasn’t why she’d come. This wasn’t the point. This wasn’t supposed to be about feeling sexy or—hell—even remembering what sex was, or how they’d once talked about having babies together. No, this was about...something...

She dug her fingers into his biceps a little harder.

Something...making babies...

Matthew. Her son was the reason she was here.

Her gasp ended the kiss.

Evan Stephens, strong and terribly handsome, this more fierce version of the Evan she’d once known, laughed against her lips. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I am single on the day of your promotion.”

She backed away in one jerky step. Evan let her go, lowering his hands in an almost lazy way to settle on his hips.

She forced herself to breathe slowly. She would not pant. She was in her thirties, she was a divorcée, she was the mother of a middle schooler, she was a lieutenant colonel, for crying out loud. She was not going to be flustered by a kiss, no matter how long it had been since she’d felt so aroused.

How long had it been?

An eternity.

Sex was like riding a bicycle, maybe. Once you knew how, you never forgot—but she hadn’t come here to ride a bicycle.

“You should meet my son first.”

“Yes, I should.” Evan smiled, a real smile, a flash of white teeth to go along with those sexy, smiling eyes. How many times had she seen him flash that cocky smile? Every time a cute blonde girl cheered for him at a baseball game.

Three knocks sounded at his office door. Evan had his back to it. He didn’t stop smiling at her, didn’t change the way he was standing with his hands on his hips, but he called out, “Enter.”

The door opened. “Sir, the brigade S-3 is requesting to schedule a commanders’ roundtable for Monday morning.”

Evan looked over his shoulder at the sergeant. “Put it on my schedule.” Then he reached for the patrol cap he had sitting on his desk, a sure sign that he was ready to leave the building. Everyone in uniform had to wear their cover—their hat—when outdoors. He handed Juliet her hat, its dark blue crown decorated with a gold eagle and the oak leaves of a field-grade officer. “What time is Matthew done with school? Does he have an aftercare program, or does he take a bus home?”

“I’ve been picking him up. We’re still in temporary housing. We’ve been at the Holiday Inn for two weeks.”

Evan shot her a look—she couldn’t guess the meaning of that one, either—before he headed for the door. He nodded to his sergeant as he gestured for Juliet to precede him out the door. “I’ll be out the rest of the afternoon, Sergeant Hadithi.”

“Yes, sir. Good afternoon, ma’am.”

“Good afternoon,” Juliet replied by habit.

She left the office with Lieutenant Colonel Evan Stephens by her side, matching her step for step.

They were really going to do this.

Chapter Three

Evan followed Juliet down the stairs and out into the crisply cool and brightly sunny Texas afternoon.

He followed Juliet.

Juliet Grayson was here.

He’d kissed her, and everything was still there. Everything that he hadn’t known how to handle at twenty-one. Everything he’d recognized too late at twenty-seven. Everything he’d tried to bury at twenty-nine. Everything he’d thought he’d never have in this lifetime.

Because I don’t deserve to have her.

He shoved the guilt deep down, where it had been locked away with his memories of Juliet. Now he could allow the memories of Juliet, but he wanted to keep the guilt buried deep. Maybe he’d inadvertently pushed the wrong man her way, but he’d done the right thing and stayed out of their life once he’d heard Rob Jones had gotten her to the altar. Evan hadn’t had anything to do with their divorce.

She’d gotten divorced anyway. She was free. Single. And she’d come to remind him of their marriage pact on the very day the conditions of that pact had come into play.

She’d come to do more than remind him.

You should meet my son first, she’d said, and he hadn’t been able to contain his smile. First. Before the actual ceremony, she’d meant, as if it were a foregone conclusion that they would be married. She had come not to say hello, not to reminisce, but to fulfill the pact they’d made the night before their graduation.

He needed to touch her again, to feel her skin so he’d know this wasn’t a miraculous mirage dredged up from subconscious dreams. He wanted to give her hand a squeeze of excitement or reassurance or something.

He could not. It would break regulations. There was no hand-holding between soldiers in the US Army, not even if they wore one another’s wedding rings. If Evan were wearing the more formal blue service uniform and if it were after dark and if they were attending a social function, then he would be allowed to offer her his arm to escort her through the parking lot.

That wasn’t the situation now. He was the battalion commander, being saluted by every single person they passed. She was being saluted as well, of course, since they were the same rank. He loved the way they both raised their right arms in sync and briefly touched the right corners of their brims to return the salutes. He loved the sound of her high heels on the concrete sidewalk. He loved the cool but sunny Texas winter weather. He loved every frigging thing about the whole frigging universe.

Juliet Grayson was here.

She stopped beside his vehicle. Since it was parked in a spot marked Battalion Commander, it was no surprise that she guessed which vehicle was his.

“A Corvette,” she said with a little laugh.

The memory was so clear, it was incredible that he’d forgotten it until this second. He laughed, too, and imitated the frustrated lament of a college-age Juliet. “Why is such a sexy car always driven by somebody old enough to be my grandfather?”

She shrugged a shoulder as she traced one metal curve, but her lips twitched with mischief. “I was right, you know. When I saw this car on my way into the building, I had a moment of worry that you were ready to retire to Florida.”

“Not yet. Nor for a long while.” He watched her feminine fingers sliding along his sports car. “We can enjoy this while we’re still young.”

Her fingers paused. That brief, familiar flash of Juliet’s teasing smile disappeared, leaving something more polite, more distant. “Unfortunately, they haven’t invented a Corvette with more than two seats. We’ll have to use my car when we go anywhere together. Party of three, not two.”

“Makes sense.” But he would take her for a long drive, just the two of them, top down, engine purring. Soon.

“School lets out in forty-five minutes,” she said.

He checked his watch, a simple reflex. The second hand swept in its circle. The minute hand had moved just a quarter of an hour since he’d last checked the time. Juliet had walked into his office fifteen minutes ago. It hit him hard: his life was never going to be the same from this moment on. In less than a quarter of an hour, everything had changed.

Was it possible for life to take a turn for the better so suddenly?

God knew it could turn bad in less time than that. A car accident could alter the course of a life in the second it took tires to screech and metal to crunch. An explosion could shatter the monotony of a base camp overseas. One minute, life was fine, and in the next, it would never be the same. He’d seen it happen enough times to enough people. They could pinpoint the exact moment their life had abruptly been set on a new path. Whether one of nightmares or prosthetic limbs, regrets or rehab, they hadn’t been ready for the sharp turn. No one was ever ready.

Evan hadn’t expected his life to take a sharp turn today for better or for worse. But as Juliet stood by his Corvette and told him about school schedules—spring sports teams had started practicing, but games didn’t start for two weeks—he knew his life would never be the same again. He’d been a confirmed bachelor fifteen minutes ago; Juliet Grayson had set a silver insignia on his desk, and now he was going to be a husband and a father—or rather, a stepfather. A family man.

Finally.

The euphoria took him utterly by surprise.

“Juliet.” Damn it—were his hands shaking? He clasped them behind his back, a soldier’s stance, parade rest.

Juliet had fallen silent at the way he’d said her name.

He forced himself to relax. At ease.

She was waiting for him to say something else. How many times had he seen her look at him just like this? Waiting for him to help her haul somebody’s parents’ used couch up a flight of stairs. Waiting for him to pour some rum they were too young to have into her can of Coke at a party that wasn’t supposed to be held in the dorm. Waiting for him to dance with her by a fountain on the green.

“What, Evan?”

I feel like I’ve been waiting my entire life for this minute.

He couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say anything. He could only look at her—he couldn’t look away from her, a vibrant, vital woman who was about to become a vibrant, vital part of his life, a life that had just changed radically.

He forced himself to speak, even if emotion made his voice a little too rough, a little too low. “I forgot... I’d forgotten how you looked.” I forced myself not to think about it.

“Oh.”

“I’m saying this wrong. I didn’t forget what you looked like,” he admitted to her. To himself. “I forgot how it was. How good it was to have you as my friend. How good it is to have you here, standing right here. To watch your face as you talk. To hear your voice. It’s—”

“I know what you mean. It’s really different to see you in 3-D after so many years of only having those old photos from college.”

She’d looked at photos of him, for years.

He could not touch her. Not here. Not now. But soon.

She’d come to get him at his own office, a very Juliet move. When she wanted something, she’d always gone out and gotten it. And now she wanted him.

She could have him.

“I’m overwhelmed.” His voice was still rough, but he was sure now what he meant to say. “I can’t get enough of looking at you. I’m overwhelmed that I’m going to have such a very beautiful wife.”

She closed her eyes. He watched her hand close into a fist on the roof of his Corvette, and then she spoke, although there was a note in her voice that didn’t quite sound like any note he’d heard from her before. “Do you think this Corvette could get us to the courthouse and back in forty-five minutes?”

At that, he laughed—and stepped back from her. “Don’t tempt me.”

She looked at him then, and damn near blushed—no, she did blush, heat reddening her cheeks on this cool February day. This senior army officer, with her overseas stripes on her sleeve and her chest full of ribbons and medals, was blushing.

She kept her chin up and her eyes on him. Not a blush; she was flushed. That note in her voice hadn’t sounded familiar because it held arousal, the anticipation of passion, and she’d never spoken to him that way in college. Everything in him tightened in response, but he was standing in his battalion’s parking lot.

“I looked it up, and the courthouse is open until five,” Juliet said, but despite any flush of desire, her tone had already changed. More practical, less passionate. “But they stop issuing marriage licenses at four thirty. We’d have to rush.”

“You’re serious.”

“There’s a three-day waiting period in Texas, but they’ll waive it because we’re active-duty military.”

The caveman part of him wanted to rush her into the car and take her to the nearest judge to claim her as his, permanently, but he was too experienced, too well trained by the army to do anything but think coolly when emotions were running hot. Something was off. “What about your son?”

Her jaw clenched. Her fist clenched. “He’s in a phase that can be... It might be just as easy to simply let Matthew know it’s a done deal.”

“You want to go to the courthouse with me and then pick up your son and introduce me as the man who just married his mother?”

“Yes.” She dropped her hand, relief written all over her face. “Do you think we have time?”

“Juliet, that’s insane.”

“All of this is insane. I already said so in your office.” She laughed.

He didn’t. She’d forced that laugh.

It was her turn to check her watch. “If we took my car instead, we could go from the courthouse straight to the school. As long as there isn’t a line at the county clerk’s office, there might be enough time that way.”

It was his turn to frown. He’d bet she had no idea how anxious she sounded. “It’s been a long time since I was eleven, but I don’t think I would have been too happy to be left out like that. You wanted me to meet him first. What changed while we walked from my office to my parking lot?”

She dropped her too-determined smile. “There’s a chance that when you meet Matthew, you’ll change your mind.”

Not a chance. “I already told you kids don’t scare me.”

“Mine might. He was wonderful this morning, pinning on my rank. I just never know from day to day if I’ll get the wonderful Matthew or...or not.” Her frown was genuine, her next declaration emphatic. “It’s just a phase.”

“Are we talking about a phase like he’s gotten into drugs or he’s been sucked into a gang?”

“No, nothing like that. That was a very military police kind of thing to ask, by the way.”

“It happens.” Eleven years old. What had it felt like to be eleven years old?

“He can just be so difficult. Deliberately contrary.” Juliet ducked her chin a bit and peeked up at him from under the brim of her hat. “He’s been hard to live with, admittedly, but I’m certain it’s just a—”

“A phase. I got that. So, we’re talking about a kid whose dad doesn’t come to see him and who got sent to live at a new post by the US Army. He’s been living at the Holiday Inn for two weeks, and he had to change schools in the middle of the year. That kind of phase?”

She stilled, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights. A very beautiful deer with golden glints in her brown eyes, which he let himself remember for the first time in years how much he’d always admired. He’d noticed it one day in their junior year, when he’d made fun of her safety goggles in a chemistry lab. He’d never told her that he saw gold in her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re not a parent?” she asked.

“You don’t have to be a parent to realize that’s a lot on a kid’s plate. This is a bad idea. I don’t want to make things harder for him.” He opened the car door to get his sunglasses.

“You’d like him if you met him.” She blurted out the words.

He snapped his attention back to those golden-brown eyes. The way she’d taken a step closer, the way her hands almost reached to stop him—did she think he was going to get in the Corvette and drive off without her? Was she afraid he’d drive off without her?

It was hard to imagine Juliet Grayson afraid of anything. Evan grabbed his sunglasses, shut the car door and silently cursed the impossibility of having this conversation in his battalion parking lot. In uniform. He wished he could hold her, hug her against his chest until some of the tension that was humming through her subsided.

“I think you would,” she said more quietly.

He could only reassure her with his words. “I’m sure I’ll like him. He’s your kid.”

“And Rob’s.”

“I know he is. I know Rob, and I know you were married to Rob. This isn’t news to me.” Evan felt a touch of relief that she wasn’t afraid to bring up potentially difficult subjects. That was the Juliet he knew.

“It doesn’t bother you?” she asked.

“No.” An incredible lie, but now was not the time to confess how jealousy had nearly eaten him alive. “That has nothing to do with anything. When I said it’s a bad idea, I meant it’s a bad idea to spring a marriage on any child as a done deal. We can get married when the courthouse opens on Monday as easily as today. Matthew and I can meet under a little less pressure. You and I can spend the weekend catching up.”

He wasn’t going to say they’d spend the weekend getting to know each other, because they knew each other. They’d always known one another. Time had passed, and they’d had separate experiences during that time, but nothing had changed them. He was still Evan. She was still Juliet.

“You have a roundtable scheduled for Monday,” she said. “I’ve only been at Fort Hood for two weeks. I can’t show up Monday morning and ask for the day off. I can’t ask for any day off next week.”

“Next Friday afternoon, then, so we’ll have the weekend afterward. I’ll wear my blues to work. We’ll go straight to the courthouse.”

She clasped her hands behind her back—had they been shaking like his?—but she didn’t nod or agree.

“Why today? Is there some legality I need to know about?” Evan tried to imagine what that could be. The army could be a minefield of legalities that affected soldiers’ lives. “Are your household goods going to be put into long-term storage if you don’t give them a delivery address today? Are your orders for Fort Hood going to be changed if you’re not married?”

“I hadn’t even thought of those things. Stop, or I’ll have even more to worry about.”

“Then why do you want to go to the judge right this minute?”

“Because you said...” The flush was back—no, a blush. This time, she looked embarrassed, not aroused. She turned away from him, just slightly, and fixed her gaze on the colorful sign in front of the building that was painted with the battalion’s crest. The green shield depicted a gold gauntlet in a fist, enforcing order.

“Because I said what?” He watched her face as she put her thoughts in order.

“I’ve been in the army too long. For a minute there, I thought the best course of action would be to exploit my advantage. Strike while the iron is hot. Allow you no time to regroup after my ambush. If I let you stop and think about it, you might choose to retreat.”

“Not a chance.” He said it out loud this time.

“There’s always a chance, but you should have that chance. And I shouldn’t assume everything is a battle.” She turned her face toward him once more. “Forget I tried to rush it. I’m sorry about that. Back to the original plan. You should meet my son first, before you decide anything.”

She was afraid he was going to change his mind and leave without her. Juliet: afraid. Incredible.

“I already decided. If a week could make any man change his mind, then you shouldn’t be with him anyway. You deserve better.” You know that—but he choked back the words, because her brown eyes suddenly glittered not with gold, but with unshed tears.

She tugged the brim of her hat down a half inch.

Time had passed. They’d had separate experiences, for certain, and hers had included a man who had changed his mind and broken a promise, hadn’t it? Rob Jones had been so much less than she deserved.

Evan shoved down the guilt. “Juliet, I won’t change my mind.”

“Twenty minutes ago, you didn’t know I was divorced. You didn’t know I was stationed at Fort Hood.”

A sergeant passed behind Juliet. Evan returned his salute without taking his attention off Juliet. He looked her squarely in the eye, unafraid, as sober and serious as he’d ever been about anything in his life. “You and I are getting married because we’ve had sixteen years to think about it, and neither one of us has changed our mind.”

They stared one another down for a moment.

The memories continued to bombard him, the times they’d gauged one another just like this, each holding their ground during debates over chemistry lab hypotheses or proper pizza toppings. In retrospect, he could see that their showdowns had been frequent but fearless, because they’d been so certain that their friendship wouldn’t be changed by championing opposing views. They’d opposed each other on lab reports and pepperoni just for the heck of it sometimes, because it was always invigorating, often fun, and it had made the rest of their friends either groan or place bets on which one of them would concede the point. Now here they were, debating how and when to get a marriage license. It felt natural.

Surrounded by the sights and sounds of his everyday life—the beige building, the battalion sign, the people in camouflage crossing the sidewalks—Evan was struck anew by the miracle of Juliet restored to his life, standing here, right before him, right in the middle of his ordinary world. He shook his head slowly and started to smile.

“Lieutenant Colonel Grayson, can we please get in your car and continue this conversation somewhere, anywhere, away from here? I can’t touch you or hug you or have any kind of normal interaction with a woman I’m so damned happy to see, because we’re standing outside my own headquarters.”

“You’re happy to see me?”

“Ecstatic.”

“You want to hug me?”

“You have no idea.”

“Hmm.” She pressed her lips together skeptically, another expression he knew so well. It tugged at his heart. He hadn’t thought about missing Juliet’s expressions. Now that he didn’t have to miss them any longer, each one was making him realize in how much denial he’d been all along.

She pulled out a car key from somewhere in the vicinity of her skirt waistband. “Being in a car isn’t going to make us invisible, but I’m parked over there.”

“Lead the way.”

But she didn’t move. “You made a valid point. It’s been sixteen years. Next Friday will work.”

“Yes, it will.”

But she didn’t smile. In fact, she’d barely smiled at all in the past twenty-something minutes. Juliet had always been smart and sharp and driven, but she’d also been joyful. He knew her expressions, and her smile had been the most frequent of them all. Even at the end of a deployment to Afghanistan, she’d smiled on that airfield. Had life dealt her so many negative experiences while they were apart that smiles were less frequent than skepticism? That talking about her current life required stoicism?

There’d been nothing stoic or skeptical in that kiss in his office.

She kissed like the Juliet he’d known, the woman who loved life. She’d been the ringleader, the friend who’d coaxed everyone else to go to new places, to taste new foods, even to wear crazy hats or face paint, just for fun.

He was a man who didn’t like surprises in general, but to realize Juliet had lost her joy in life was the least welcome surprise of all. Evan assigned himself a new mission in life: to bring a little fun back into hers.

A lot of fun.

Exploit the advantage. Strike while the iron is hot. Give her no chance to retreat.

“We have some time before school’s out. Let’s go to your hotel room and get you out of that uniform.”

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