Soldier In Charge. Jennifer Labrecque

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СКАЧАТЬ what she told Tara. She said she’d called you three times and you hadn’t returned her calls. Therefore, you must be gay.”

      “I guess it didn’t occur to her that I just wasn’t interested. I thought if I ignored her, she’d get the message.” He chuckled again. That was one way to get rid of her, he supposed. “Whatever. As long as she quits calling me. And it was more like three times a day.”

      “Ouch.” Murdoch winced.

      “Hey, I’m cool with letting her think I’m gay if it means she’ll stop harassing me. She’s definitely not my type.”

      Murdoch groaned. “Why’d you have to say that? Now Tara’s going to want to know what your type is.”

      They walked into the gym building.

      “Murdoch, how’s she going to know about this part of our conversation if you don’t tell her?” Mitch grinned. “Just keep your mouth shut.” A tall order for Murdoch.

      “In a perfect world, it would work that way, but Tara’s got a way of…”

      Actually, Mitch had seen Tara Murdoch in action. She did have a way. She’d make a helluva interrogator. “Fine. My idea of the perfect woman?” He thought about what constituted the ideal female. “Tall, thin, blond. Quiet. Athletic. Practical and organized. Someone who feels the same way I do about the military.” Yep. That pretty much covered it.

      They walked into the locker room. “Just for the record, while we’re on the subject, do you ever just settle for maybe five out of eight on the requirement list?”

      “What’s the point of having a requirement list if you’re going to settle?”

      “Maybe compromise is a better word.”

      Mitch shrugged and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “Compromise. Settle. Same difference. And the answer is no. Why have standards if you don’t stick to them?” He sat on the bench and began to unlace his boots.

      How many times had his dad sworn he was going to keep a job this time, only to last a whopping two weeks? How many times had his mother vowed to stay sober only to fall off the wagon again? At twelve, thank God, he’d gone to live with his mother’s parents and finally found some measure of sanity. His grandfather had retired from the Army and ran his household the way he’d run his career—organized, scheduled.

      Mitch had learned early on that you either did what you said or you didn’t. Good intentions didn’t count for shit and actions did all the talking. That’s what he embraced about the military—there was no room for the bullshit he’d grown up with. Life in the armed forces was cut and dried. Black and white. You knew exactly what was expected of you and you knew exactly where you stood. There was a rule and regulation for everything.

      If not for going to live with his grandparents and pursuing his own military career, he might have followed in his parent’s footsteps.

      “So, you think you can make dinner Saturday night?”

      Mitch pulled off the boots and followed with his sweaty socks. “Can’t. I’m heading down to Charoux for a couple of days. The old man—” his grandpa liked being called that “—is turning eighty and I’m bringing in some of his Army buddies for his birthday. There aren’t a whole hell of a lot of them left.”

      Mitch was looking forward to it. He only made the trip back home about once a year. Anything more and the old man accused him of “hovering” although Mitch always suspected his grandfather was determined not to be a burden. From the day Mitch had left Charoux, home had become whatever base he was stationed at for that moment in time.

      “You flying?”

      “Yeah.” He stripped out of his pants. His briefs followed. “No time for a road trip.” He enjoyed driving.

      “I’ll let Tara know.”

      Mitch snagged a towel and a bar of soap and headed toward the showers, leaving Murdoch in the locker room.

      He turned on the water and stepped under the warm spray.

      It’d be nice to take a break from the women Tara Murdoch kept throwing at him.

      Chapter Two

      EDEN’S PALMS BEGAN TO SWEAT as she approached the wooden sign that proclaimed, “Fort Bragg, Home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces.” But then again, maybe it was just because she had to pee and not because she was entering the confines of Uncle Sam.

      She’d flown in last night, picked up a rental car and checked into her hotel. She pulled up to the manned gate and waited behind three cars ahead of her for her base clearance. She’d been offered on-base lodging but had opted to shell out the money for a hotel room in civilian territory. She tapped her finger against the steering wheel, keeping time with the song on the radio. She was going to be late.

      Time management wasn’t her strong suit. She’d started out in what should have been plenty of time considering she was only fifteen minutes from the base. But she’d taken a wrong turn and wound up on some back road, then she’d passed the man selling late-season watermelons out of the bed of his pickup on the side of the road and the setting had such a quintessential Southern feel about it, she’d had to stop and chat with Junior Budgeton—that’d turned out to be his name. She’d taken a couple of photos and even a few candids when Junior’s grandson had wandered down to the highway from a clapboard house squatting on a hill for one of his “Pap’s treats”—a bright red slice of sticky, juicy watermelon with its green-rimmed rind. Bottom line—she was late.

      Finally, she pulled up to the gate manned by a soldier wearing the signature maroon beret of the 82nd Airborne. He was polite but definitely not Hot Jumper calendar material. After checking his list and her ID he waved her through with instructions on how to get to where she was going.

      Twenty minutes later—finding a parking spot had turned out to be far harder than finding the building itself—she hurried down the stretch of spotless military hallway as fast as her three-inch heels and pencil skirt allowed.

      Being late, and was she ever, was considered heresy at Fort Bragg’s Special Ops command center. Yet another aspect to love about the military—not. She was making the public relations, “thank you for having me here” call to the big office and then she’d meet with the public affairs people. She’d change afterward into jeans and flats.

      Thirty whopping minutes on base and she already felt stifled. For the hundredth time, she lamented getting stuck with this Army Paratrooper calendar.

      Damn Patti’s black little soul to hell for rooking Eden into this with limoncello and tarot cards. Her father would put it down to “artsy fartsy hyperbole” but she swore she could already feel the military’s rigidity shutting down her brain.

      Late, late, she’s late for a very important date. As The Alice in Wonderland refrain echoed through her head, she chuckled to herself—after all, stressing wasn’t going to turn back the clock—and put on a burst of speed as she turned the corner.

       Thwump.

      She collided with another moving force. She bounced straight off of a solid wall of soldier and her feet flew out from under СКАЧАТЬ