Homefront Sneak Peek

Tweet

[image error]

So I hope y’all are excited about Homefront as I am. Here’s an early look at the new book. It’ll be out on April 7th and available at all the usual locations.

Here’s the blurb:

He’s always loved her…

First Sergeant Gale Sorren waited a war and half a lifetime for a chance to get stationed near the ex-wife who left him years ago. When he finally musters the courage to see her, the life he imagined she was living was nothing close to the reality.

She’s never stopped loving him…

Melanie never stopped worrying about Gale each time he headed off to war. But he’s never been there when she needed him and she’s had fifteen years to steel her heart against him.

But when Gale moves to Fort Hood, he finally has a chance to make things right with Melanie and the daughter she raised without him.

Can Mel trust her heart to a man who has always let her down?

It’s available for preorder wherever you buy ebooks.

iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | GooglePlay | Amazon

Prologue

Tal Afar, Iraq

Shit days were nothing new. In fact, Sergeant First Class Gale Sorren was on a thirty-six day streak, and there was no sign that they were coming to an end any time soon. But he had to had to keep going.

No matter how much he might want to take a knee.

The funeral detail was somber and professional, the flight line dead silent now that the aircraft had killed its engines. His throat closed off. His eyes burned. He held his salute as the caskets moved slowly past, one after another in slow procession. His arm trembled from holding his salute for what felt like a lifetime but there was no way in hell he was going to drop it.

Three of his boys were heading home tonight.

There was no sadness. No raging grief. Only a sober, silent tribute to the fallen.

The rage would come later. Much later. For now, there was too much work to be done.

He dropped his salute and listened to his boys speak of the dead. Tell of their heroism. Their bravery.

Gale said nothing. There were no words that could get past the block in his throat. So he let his men speak of their friends while he stood watch.

He stood there, long after the rest of the battalion had left the airfield. The Air Force security guard came and went and came again. The kid had finally given up trying to get him to move hours ago.

It was probably for the best.

A stone skittered across the blazing asphalt. He watched it tumble to the edge of the tarmac and land in a pothole.

He glanced over at the source of the stone’s movement. His platoon leader, Lieutenant Sean Nichols walked up, hands in his pockets. He looked rougher than Gale felt. “What’s up, LT?”

Nichols wasn’t like the other LTs. He was older, a prior-enlisted officer who’d traded in his NCO stripes for a shiny gold lieutenant bar. Which meant he was a hardheaded pain in Gale’s ass. Still, Nichols was going to make a good officer. If Gale could keep him from still thinking he was an NCO. That was going to take some work. Being an NCO imprinted on some folks more than others and Nichols, yeah, Nichols definitely needed some work to smooth him out around the edges if he was going to make it as an officer.

Gale didn’t have the education to make the transition to officer. Or the patience to start at the bottom again and take shit from dickhead captains and majors who thought they knew more because they got paid more.

Gale liked Nichols for the most part. Except for his temper. They needed to work on that. After all, there couldn’t be two of them enrolled in anger management training. Sarn’t Major would have Gale’s nuts over that. One of them had to be the good cop and Gale wasn’t really cut out for the job. Nichols was learning though.

Nichols pushed his eye-pro up higher on the bridge of his nose. “First Sarn’t needs you at the company.”

Gale made a noise and tried to summon an ounce of give-a-shit over what the First Sergeant wanted. Maybe if the fucker left the office once in a while, Gale wouldn’t be strung out trying to take care of three platoons instead of just his own.

Finally, he shifted his weight and moved.

Maybe someday he’d find the grief for his soldiers.

But that day was not today. Not when they had a mission gearing up in about six hours.

He breathed out deeply and fell into step with his lieutenant. The walk was solemn and silent and filled with things neither of them could say. The war was nothing new. Both of them had spent more than their fair share of time in hell.

But sometimes, days like this just got the best of you.

He stepped into the dark interior of the company ops. Funny how a few pieces of plywood and a couple of extension cords suddenly made an office. He stopped short, though, when he saw the battalion command sergeant major standing with his first sergeant. Not extremely out of the ordinary. Except that Gale had the distinct impression Sarn’t Major was waiting for him.

Gale swallowed the tight knot in his throat that wouldn’t seem to budge. “What’s the occasion?” he asked, looking between the battalion’s two senior-ranking NCOs.

First Sarn’t handed him a sheet of paper. “You got a Red Cross message.”

The knot in his throat swelled, blocking his airway as he looked down at the handwritten note.

The room spun out at the edges when he saw Jamie’s name.

The words blurred together. Hospitalized. Stitches. Psychiatric ward.

He breathed deeply and looked up at his leadership. “When can I leave?”

It was the sergeant major who spoke. “I can’t let you go. Your daughter’s life isn’t in immediate danger. She’s safe. Your ex-wife didn’t request your presence.”

A loud buzzing filled Gale’s head, blocking out the sound of the sergeant major’s words. “My daughter’s in the hospital,” he finally managed. “I need to be there.”

Sarn’t Major shook his head, his expression flat and emotionless. “That’s not going to happen, sarn’t.”

Gale couldn’t say what happened next. An urge to do violence slammed through him. He imagined driving his fist into the sarn’t major’s face and beating the lines off that sun-worn leather skin. All the rage, all the fury boiled up in a single violent flash.

The next thing he knew, he was back outside. Nichols’s hands were driving into his chest, holding him against the wall. “Stop. Sorren, fucking stop.”

Nichols’s words finally penetrated the fog. Sorren blinked rapidly and looked at his LT. He stopped struggling to get free.

Nichols took a step back but still kept his body between Sorren and the door. Gale stood there for a moment, reality crashing through the haze of violence, grief, and rage. Helpless, potent rage.

“I need a few minutes,” was all Gale could manage before he executed an about face and walked away.

There was no rage. No more red-tainted visions of violence. This was something more. Something he couldn’t name and couldn’t process.

Jamie was in the hospital. His daughter was in the fucking hospital and Melanie hadn’t requested his presence.

He barely felt the gravel beneath his boots as he walked back to his CHU. He was stuck half a world away in a fucking war that he no longer even hated, and there was nothing he could do.

He closed the door to his CHU. Locked it behind him with a solitary, metallic click.

He stood for a moment in the Spartan emptiness. There was a light coat of dust on the old leather chair he’d gotten from a major on his way out of country.

A box of unopened Pop Tarts had fallen over.

All around him was dust and dirt. There was an explosion somewhere in the distance. A pop of gunfire at the test fire pit. The war was fucking everywhere.

He stood there in the center of his CHU. There was something broken inside him when he couldn’t even cry over his fallen soldiers any more.

Something broken that he was unable to name that he couldn’t be there when his little girl needed him.

The air conditioner in his CHU kicked on. His cheeks were suddenly cool.

He lifted one hand at the unexpected sensation.

His fingertip came away wet.

He unclenched his other hand. The Red Cross message was still there, crumpled at his fingertips.

The Red Cross Message that told him his daughter was in the hospital.

The wetness on his cheeks grew colder, spread down his neck as the words on the paper blurred.

He dropped to his knees, doubled over as the violent, unrestrained grief ripped him apart.

Chapter 1

Fort Hood, Texas

If there was a hell, First Sergeant Gale Sorren was certain this was it. In fifteen years, he’d never been assigned to Fort Hood, and now he remembered with punishing clarity why he’d avoided the home of America’s First Team.

It was fucking hot.

He thought he knew hot. Hell, he’d spent enough time at Fort Benning and in Iraq to be intimately familiar with just how hot the planet could get.

But somehow, Fort Hood took hot to a whole new level. It was a dry heat, his last sarn’t major had said when he’d given Gale the news that he was getting his assignment wish and being sent to Hood.

It was just past the ass crack of dawn and the sun wasn’t even thinking about coming up yet, and it was already a hundred degrees. Next to him, his commander, Captain Ben Teague was busy being a smart ass. It was his totem animal, or so he said.

“I wonder if the Sarn’t Major would let us run in just our PT belts.”

Gale shot him his best are you high expression. Teague grinned and raised his hands in supplication. Teague was Gale’s commander and technically, that made him Gale’s boss but the commander/first sergeant relationship was . . . How had his old battalion commander put it once when Gale had threatened to kill one of his platoon leaders for getting drunk with the soldiers? It was an arranged marriage. A unique description, Gale supposed.

“I’m thinking that might get us both fired,” Gale said mildly.

“Really?”

“No, not really. It’ll get the sarn’t major’s boot surgically implanted in my ass.” Gale stopped a soldier and told him to tighten his PT belt around his waist. The new Corps sergeant major had a thing about uniform violations and a loose PT belt was a cardinal sin these days. “Besides, it could be worse.”

“How?”

“We could be patrolling Sadr City in this weather in full kit.”

“You know—”Teague snapped his fingers “—that is an excellent point.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked toward the PT formation area. “I really wish we didn’t have mandatory fun today.”

They were both in ACUs. Gale resented the hell out of any morning that didn’t start off with PT, but he damn sure resented it when he was forced to skip PT to go to breakfast. What kind of animals started their days with food? Give him coffee and a good six mile run any day of the week. “Don’t get me started.”

“At least there’ll be coffee.” Teague frowned and glanced at him. “There will be coffee at this kind of thing, right?”

“Do I look like I have the slightest idea what we’re doing today?” Gale needed to be spending time with his formation, not doing whatever the hell they were going to do this morning. He was still getting to know his troops and their issues—and there were a lot of them. Issues, that is. “It’s not like I spend my free time checking the battalion’s social roster.”

“Hell, I don’t know what you do on the weekends other than bailing kids out of jail. What do you do with your free time?” Teague glanced over at him and Gale braced for more sarcasm. “Do you even have free time—oh hey.”

Instantly his commander’s expression softened. Gale followed his line of vision to see Teague’s other half, Major Olivia Hale, talking to the battalion commander.

“I know what you do with yours,” Gale mumbled and tried not to be jealous of the new and shiny love between his commander and the battalion’s lawyer. Major Hale nodded at Teague in acknowledgement and turned back to her conversation with the battalion commander.

It was the subtleness of her gesture that convinced Gale that she and Teague had a good chance at making things work. They were a good fit. She kept Teague honest in more ways than one, and they were both very good at keeping things professional at work.

It was a nice change from all the drama Gale dealt with on a daily basis. Pissed off spouses, cheating soldiers, and everything between. Life in the Army sometimes felt more like a reality TV show than a professional organization.

He peeled away from his commander and headed to the front of the formation where his platoon sergeants were talking with each other. Sergeant First Class Iaconelli was the Headquarters platoon sergeant, and while Gale had his misgivings about a recovering alcoholic on the team, Iaconelli had proven to be a rock since he’d come to work for him.

“Are we set for the range tomorrow?” Gale asked Iaconelli.

Iaconelli nodded. “Roger, Top. Final checks today before lunch time.”

“Make sure we pull some camo out for shade.” When one of the other platoon sergeants started to protest, Gale talked over him. “We don’t need to practice being hardcore in the heat. We need to be able to shoot, and we can’t do that if soldiers are dropping from dehydration.”

Iaconelli nodded. “Got it, Top.”

Gale jerked his chin, and Iaconelli stepped away from the formation. “You talked to Foster today?”

Sergeant Dean Foster was on convalescent leave for surgery to repair a torn meniscus. He was also struggling with addiction to methamphetamines. “Roger. He called in like he’s supposed to.”

“How is he doing?”

“He sounded steady. I’m going to swing by and check on him after PT.”

“Good. If you get even a hint that something is wrong, I want every pain pill counted.”

“Roger, Top.” There was resentment in Iaconelli’s answer, too obvious for Gale to ignore.

“Something you want to say?”

Iaconelli looked out over the formation, grinding his teeth until the muscle in his jaw looked about to snap. “It’s hard enough staying sober without everyone looking at you like you’re using all the time.”

Gale said nothing for a long moment. “Are we still talking about Foster?”

Iaconelli didn’t look away. “”It doesn’t matter. But maybe give him the benefit of the doubt?”

Gale folded his arms over his chest and said nothing for a long moment. He wasn’t looking for a fight with his platoon sergeant. If Iaconelli needed to get this off his chest, then so be it. Finally, when Iaconelli let the silence stand, Gale spoke. “The fact that he’s still in the Army and recovering from surgery is benefit of the doubt.”

“You don’t know him,” Iaconelli said.

“And you do. And that closeness blinds you to the reality that he’s got a long hard slog ahead of him to stay sober.” No point in pulling his punches, regardless of whether they were talking about Iaconelli’s personal issues or Foster’s.

“Oh I’m very much aware of the road he’s on.” After another moment, he turned and stalked back to the formation. Whatever was eating at him wasn’t going to come out today. But soon. The situation needed watching. Closely.

Gale let the other man go. He didn’t need to get into a dick measuring contest with his platoon sergeant. Foster wasn’t one of Gale’s boys. He was just another soldier, another face in the crowd. If he soldiered, Gale would let him continue to soldier. If not, he was going home. Because Gale had a war to train his men for and he needed every single body able and fit to fight.

Another soldier who was distracting from the mission of prepping to head back to Iraq wasn’t going to garner much sympathy from Gale.

The cannon sounded, and Gale called the formation to attention and present arms as revile trumpeted over the installation. They saluted the flag, a moment of somber pride as the colors were hoisted up at the division headquarters. When it finished, Gale turned the troops over to Iaconelli.

Iaconelli was going to run the formation from Hood Street to Clear Creek Road and back again—coast to coast. Teague fell into step with him as they headed toward the parking lot.

“So. You call your ex yet?”

Gale sighed but said nothing. He never should have told Teague that his Melanie lived in Harker Heights and that he was still summoning the courage to call her.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

Several weeks had gone by since Gale had reported to Hood. He’d told himself that he needed to get situated first. That there would be time.

But he was lying to himself. Because the truth of the matter was he was afraid. Afraid of what it meant to live in the same town as Mel and Jamie. Afraid that if he tried to be a dad after all these years that he would fail miserably. Or worse, that Jamie no longer needed him because he’d been gone too long.

Afraid to face the bitter truth that Melanie didn’t need him after all these years.

Maybe she never had.

* * *

Melanie Francesco stirred her coffee and made a polite noise while the captain next to her made idle conversation about one of the local pawnshops burning to the ground.

Melanie was reasonably certain that the fire had not been an accident, but she wasn’t in a position to comment. She was a liaison between the business owners and the real estate council and random speculation like that could cause problems for her office.

She fought the urge to check her cell phone for the thousandth time that morning. She told herself that Jamie was fine. She’d dropped her off at school that morning after the requisite fighting about whether or not the sky was blue or if the sun was actually going to come up tomorrow. Because all they did was fight.

The fights were exhausting, but it was the fear that kept Mel up at night. Fear that Jamie was slipping away again and Mel wouldn’t be there to save her next time.

The captain moved away, leaving Mel alone. She stole a quick glance at her phone. No text but no missed calls from the school either. It was relief that crawled over Mel’s skin. Jamie was still in school then.

She tucked her phone back into her purse as she spotted a friendly face, though, someone she wouldn’t mind actually talking with and made a straight line for her. Major Olivia Hale. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Mandatory fun and all that,” Olivia said with a smile. Melanie envied the woman—even in ACUs, which were not exactly made for women’s bodies, Olivia looked stylish and effortlessly well put together.

Melanie smiled back. “Life isn’t the same without you on the Council harassing the slum lords trying to screw over soldiers,”

“It was one of life’s true pleasures,” Olivia said dryly.

“There is no one to play the Faux Outrage Drinking Game with me anymore. The monthly meetings are epically more boring.” She sipped her tea, watching the room. “How’s life down in the new unit?”

“It’s good. I have a sense of purpose again.” Olivia smiled warmly.

Melanie set her tea on a nearby table. “So what are we doing here? And I’m not interested in the official bullshit line, either, so don’t waste your breath.”

Olivia grinned wickedly and it was the smile that Mel remembered all too well. The smile the other woman used when she was about to rip someone a new one. “Well, since you put it that way.” She took a sip of coffee. “We’re trying to build relationships that will strengthen the community. We’ve got a massive problem with soldiers being involved in misconduct off post and we want to get civilian agencies involved before the police get involved.”

And just like that all the pieces clicked into place. “So you’re bribing the landlords with shitty coffee and donuts in the hope that we’ll call you guys instead of the cops?”

“More or less.” Olivia set her coffee down and retrieved a folder from the table. “We’ve got this handy little quick reference guide with all the unit phone numbers. Kind of a cheat sheet of names and numbers to call. We even laminated it to make it durable. Isn’t it nice and shiny?”

Mel shot her friend a wry look at the other woman’s sarcasm. “Is this even legal?”

“I’m not going to offer an official opinion on what I think of this program.”

“Why don’t you approve?” Mel asked quietly.

Olivia sighed. “Because it enables some people’s misconduct to be hidden away and covered up. I prefer we work things through official channels. Transparency and all that.” Olivia smiled and it was laced with sarcasm. “Community outreach with the realtors keeps problems handled through informal networks instead of the Bell County legal system.”

Melanie opened her mouth to speak but the words locked in her throat.

The tea in her stomach turned bitter and cold, twisting with recognition and surprise at the last person she expected to see here today.

Gale.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as anxiety and something else knotted in her belly. For a moment, she thought about turning away. About hiding from the man who’d just walked into the room like he owned it.

But it was too late.

Because across the conference room near a tray of donuts and a box of coffee, her ex-husband’s eyes met hers and a thousand emotions slammed into her all at once.

The world tilted beneath her feet. He was supposed to be stationed at Fort Lewis halfway across the country. And instead he was here. In this room. At this moment. As a first sergeant?

And then he was there, just across the room. Closer than he’d been in two years. His jaw was iron, his shoulders broad and strong. It was criminal how good that uniform looked on him. And damn it, she was not going to notice these things about him.

But it was his eyes. His dark brown eyes were hard and filled with shadows now. Colder than she remembered. A smarter woman might have been intimidated by him. A younger woman might have already been wringing out her panties. But she remembered him for the boy he’d been. The boy she’d loved.

The boy she’d left.

He was not that boy anymore. And she was no longer the scared uncertain girl trying to find her way in the world.

She offered a tense, flat line in place of a smile. Defenses up, that’s what she needed. She could not do this with him right now. “I’m not exactly sure what the correct greeting is,” she said doing her damnedest to keep her voice level.

As though they were perfect strangers, talking quietly about unimportant things.

The silence between them swelled into a living thing, pulsing with raw and ragged emotions.

“I can explain.” His voice was rough and deep.

“How long have you been here?” Her words were too sharp on her own ears. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to stave off the riot of emotion swirling in her belly. No matter how long they spent apart, ever single time they were around each other, thing went to shit in a rapid, predictable manner. She really wanted to avoid that at the present moment.

“A couple of months.” Gale cleared his throat and had the decency to look embarrassed. “I should have called you.”

“And yet you didn’t, so there we are.” She set her cup down, needing space, needing distance between them before she broke apart into a thousand ugly pieces in front of her peers and coworkers and a half dozen random strangers.

Gale’s hand was rough and strong on her shoulder. “Mel—”

“Don’t.” She moved away from his touch, barely keeping her voice low. “You don’t have permission to touch me.” Mel bit her lips together, sucking in a deep, hard breath. Gale lowered his hand and they stood there at an impasse.

A few weeks. He’d been in town a few weeks. No call. No note. Nothing. Hadn’t tried to see Jamie. Just move to town and don’t say a word.

That told her all she needed to know about where she and Jamie stood on his priorities. Just like always, the army always won. She bit down harder, trying to divert the pain in her heart to the pain in her lip. “Jamie will be happy to see you,” she said finally.

She didn’t mean to throw Jamie in the middle but that’s the way things were with them. It was the way it had been since . . . since always.

He stiffened. His hands flexed by his sides. Like he needed to do something with his hands that hopefully didn’t involve her.

“I meant to call.” There was a rough edge to his voice. A blade, like cut steal, ragged and raw.

“I’m sure you did.” Her words were brittle. She sucked in a deep breath and slipped past him, heading for the door in what she hoped was a relatively inconspicuous manner.

She needed a few minutes to put everything back in the box she marked Gale and did her best to ignore.

Because she’d be damned if she was going to cry over this man one more time.

Chapter 2

Melanie kicked the front door closed and sorted the mail: junk, bills, Jamie’s latest catalogue from that store in the mall that Melanie hated. She was of course, the worst mother in the world because she wouldn’t let Jamie shop there. Mel was all for women owning their own sexuality and all that but she drew the line at hyper-sexualizing her teenage daughter. If they both survived Jamie’s teenage years, maybe Jamie would thank her later.

She had her doubts, though. She put the envelopes in stacks, almost on autopilot until she came to a tan, card-sized envelope with a Fort Lewis return address. No name but then again, she didn’t need the name to know who it was from.

Her heart fluttered a tiny bit as she opened the belated birthday card. It was a squirrel holding a sign and wearing pink heart sunglasses. Happy Birthday Mel. – Gale.

In the fifteen years since their divorce, he’d sent a card every year and every year he’d screwed up the date. Still, it was a nice if empty gesture. He’d missed far more than just birthdays since their marriage had fallen apart all those years ago.

If she hadn’t seen him today, maybe she would have smiled at the stupid squirrel. But she had seen him today. Had been sorting through her reaction all damn day. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t sad.

She was… she didn’t know how to handle the news that he’d moved to Killeen. She’d never expected that. How had he even gotten here? The last time Jamie had asked her dad to move closer to them, he’d said something about burning in hell before the Army sent him to Hood.

And yet, here he was. He’d caught her off guard. Completely off guard. And she hated that more than anything.

There was a thump on the ceiling. Then the sound of feet moving from her daughter’s bathroom down the hall to Jamie’s bedroom. It was a normal sound. Nothing about it should have set her heart to pounding rapidly in her chest. But there was something off. Something that set the hair on the back of Melanie’s neck on edge. She’d ignored her gut once before.

And she would never make that same mistake again. She rushed upstairs to find the bedroom door locked.

“Open the door, Jamie.” Her voice was deadly calm. She was proud of herself, actually. She managed to smother the kick of panic that sucked the air from her lungs.

“Just a sec, Mom.”

“I’m going to count to three, then I’m kicking this door in.” She’d done it before. Jamie knew better. She knew not to lock the door. Fear gripped her throat, her voice tightening. “One.” More scrambling. “Two.”

The door swung wide, and her daughter rushed to fill the space. “What’s up?”

Melanie inhaled deeply. No drugs. No smell of feral teenage boy. Jamie stood there, one arm behind her back. “What were you doing?”

“Homework.” Jamie blinked innocently.

Melanie didn’t buy it for a second. “What’s in your hand?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

Fear licked at her spine. Jamie was lying. Again. She grabbed the arm Jamie held behind her and shoved the sleeve up.

Pale scars crisscrossed Jamie’s forearm, but no fresh marks. Relief slithered over her skin.

Jamie yanked away, her mock innocent expression shuttering closed into the belligerent look Mel knew all too well. “I’m fine, thanks,” she said.

“You’re not allowed to block the door.” Melanie folded her arms as they prepared for the all too familiar battle.

“I can’t have any privacy?” Defiance looked back at her from Gale’s eyes lined with heavy black liner that no matter how many times she threw away, her daughter kept coming back with.

Melanie sighed heavily, praying for patience. “You know the answer to that question.”

“You know, you treat me like a criminal, I might as well act like one.”

Melanie held out her hand. “Phone.”

“You have no right—”

Her temper snapped beneath the weight of the fear. “I have every right. You live in my house, you live under my rules. When you go to college, you can make your own rules.”

Jamie slapped her cell phone into her mother’s outstretched hands. “I can’t wait.”

The texts were blank. All that meant was that Jamie had gotten better at deleting them before Melanie caught her. She was hiding something. Mel just couldn’t figure out what.

“Come do your homework at the table.”

“I’m fine in here.”

Melanie lifted her eyes toward heaven, grinding her teeth. “It wasn’t a request, Jamie.”

Jamie made a disgusted sound and slammed the door shut with a bang. Melanie briefly considered for the thousandth time taking it off the hinges entirely.

But that wouldn’t really do any wonders for trying to rebuild trust like their therapist kept trying to get them to do, now would it.

She walked straight into the kitchen. She started to pull salad out of the fridge, then stopped. Leaned against the counter and sucked in deep, hard breaths. Tears burned behind her eyes. Every single day was a new version of the same old fight.

Makeup. Phone. Homework. And those were the easy fights. They took up most of her energy, keeping the real fear buried. Waiting. Lurking in the dark for the right moment to strike back and remind her that she’d almost lost Jamie once.

That it could be happening again and Jamie would be able to hide it this time.

No, their therapist didn’t really understand the fear that Mel lived with. The fear of the tiny nicks in her daughter’s flesh. The blood that circled down the drain that left a faint stain that taunted Melanie with the epic levels of her failure as a parent.

The fear that her daughter was only pretending to be okay and that she was slowly spiraling out of control again, and there was nothing that Melanie could do to stop it.

Not for the first time, she wished she’d found someone to share the load with. But the few times she’d dated hadn’t really gone anywhere serious. She had her hands full with Jamie. Most men, even the good ones, wouldn’t stand for being second place. She didn’t blame them, honestly.

But damn, she was tired of being alone.

“Mom?”

Mel lowered her hands. Jamie stood near the wide arch that led into their living room, her books clutched to her chest. For once, she didn’t look like she was ready to fight at the drop of a hat. For a brief moment, she saw her little girl, looking at her with worry in her eyes when she’d caught Mel crying once. For a moment, it was just Jamie standing there.

Mel would do anything to hold onto that moment. To make it last longer than a few heartbeats.

Melanie lifted her chin and straightened. Took a deep breath and tried to change the tone of their evening. “Sorry. Rough day at work. Any preferences for dinner?”

“Macaroni and cheese?” Jamie said hopefully.

“Sure.” She wasn’t going to win any Parent of the Year awards for feeding her kid mac and cheese out of a box, but then again, your kid ending up in the hospital for cutting herself pretty much already ended any chances of that.

Oh, she knew on an intellectual level that it wasn’t her fault. That it was a mental health issue and blah blah blah.

But that didn’t stop the guilt that rode on Melanie’s chest. That burned beneath her heart every single day. Why had she missed the signs? What could she have done better? Why did she and Jamie have to fight so much?

It felt like they’d been fighting since the day she’d been born.

Jamie paused where she’d been setting her books on the kitchen table. She looked sideways at Mel and said cautiously, “It must have been a really bad day at work.”

“It was.” She couldn’t come up with the words she needed to tell her daughter about Gale. How would Jamie react? Mel honestly didn’t know. He hadn’t seen her since she’d been hospitalized almost two years before.

Melanie shrugged and offered a faint smile that she wished she felt. “So how’s school?” She knew she was supposed to ask questions that didn’t involve responses like fine or good. But she didn’t know what to ask any more.

“Fine. Sold any houses this week?” Jamie asked. Such a neutral question.

As though Mel hadn’t just been treating her like a suspect a few minutes before. Like Jamie hasn’t just caught her mom standing in the kitchen crying. “I’ve got a closing on Thursday.”

“That’s good right?”

“It is.” Mel pulled a box out of the pantry. Food was another thing they fought about. Mac and cheese was one of the few fail-safe dinners and tonight, she just wasn’t in the mood to argue. The doorbell rang. Mel paused and looked toward it. The UPS man was the only person who ever came this late in the afternoon. “Start the water?” she asked.

For once, Jamie didn’t argue. Mel wasn’t going to second guess the moment’s peace. She was sure there would be another fight before they went to bed. It sucked. There was no other way to put it.

She opened the door looking down, expecting her latest book.

Instead her gaze fell on a pair of dusty combat boots. Boots that damn sure weren’t supposed to be on her doorstep.

And they damn sure weren’t supposed to belong to Gale.

* * *

Gale had done dumber things in his life. But at that moment, he was having a hard time remembering any. Oh he’d had a plan. It had involved apologizing and trying to explain. As half-assed plans went, it wasn’t the worst idea ever.

He wasn’t really sure what his reception would be.

Okay that was a lie. He was pretty sure Mel was going to take one look at him and rip his spine out because he didn’t call first. He’d be lucky if she let him explain before calling the damn cops and having his ass carted off to jail. And wouldn’t that be a fun call to make to Captain Teague or his sergeant major?

He’d been sitting in the cul de sac near her house for the past hour, unable to get that morning out of his head. Replaying it over and over again. Almost, he’d driven away. Twice.

Then he got sick of himself for being such a goddamned coward.

And now that he was here, he had no idea what to do.

Except, now he was standing on one side of her door and she was on the other, and neither of them was saying a damn thing.

Melanie hadn’t moved. There was no expression in her eyes. No anger. No hate. None of the thousand violent emotions that had slammed into him across the miles and the years when he’d told her he wasn’t going to be able to come home and help with Jamie.

What do you mean, you’re not coming?

You didn’t request my presence, Mel. They’re not letting me.

Your daughter is in the hospital and because I didn’t write the words “I request your presence”, they won’t let you come home?

Why didn’t you write the fucking words?

He shoved the memory away violently. He couldn’t face that day again. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Now, there was nothing but cool detachment looking back at him.

A cool detachment that flooded the dead space inside him and tried to make him feel. Tried and failed. Frozen. He was frozen. His heart pounded in his ears. All he could do was stare at the woman his ex-wife had become.

Time hadn’t changed the shape of her face or the curves of her body. She’d cut her hair. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the soft sleek dark hair brushing her shoulders. He was used to it longer.

It was so much easier to distract himself with how she’d changed than to face the reality of the time that had passed between them and everything he’d missed along the way. Two years was a long time to not see your daughter. To avoid the truth of just how badly things had gotten between them.

It wasn’t nearly long enough for him to get over just how badly he’d fucked up. As a husband. As a father.

There was nothing he could do to make things right. There was no success as a soldier that could make up for those other failures.

He knew that now. After years of hoping to unfuck things, he finally accepted there was nothing he could do to undo the damage he’d done. He’d given the army everything he he’d had.

And he could never get that back.

The war, work, all of it was a convenient excuse to be a shitty father and a terrible ex-husband.

He swallowed the dryness in his mouth and shoved his hands in his pockets because he didn’t know what else to do with them. “Hi, Melanie.”

And wasn’t that fucking eloquent? Christ.

“Daddy?” A squeal from the kitchen. “Daddy!”

Jamie bolted toward him from across the house. She rushed past Mel and into his arms, and Gale found himself hugging someone who was no longer a little girl.

“Hey, Peanut,” he whispered. He breathed in the scent of her hair. His daughter. His eyes burned. He’d almost lost her.

His arms tightened a little more as the memory of helpless agony and regret crashed over him. He bit back the emotion, refusing to let his daughter see him cry.

He set her back to look at her. She was taller now. Her hair long and straight and dark. But most importantly, she was healthy. And whole.

She looked so much like Melanie when they’d been younger.

“You’re all grown up.” His voice was thick. She was no longer the little kid with too much leg that he’d taken to the Dallas Zoo. To the San Antonio Zoo. To Six Flags.

He hadn’t spent nearly enough time with that little kid before he’d shipped off on his latest deployment. She was no longer a tween. No longer the little girl he remembered, despite the fact that she hadn’t been that little girl in a decade or more. His memory seemed to be stuck with her at about nine or so.

He could still feel Jamie’s little fingers curled around his hand when she’d been little enough to look up to her dad with adoration in her eyes that he’d done nothing to deserve.

“Oh my God, Daddy, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She turned to glare at her mother. “You didn’t tell him he couldn’t come, did you?”

Melanie flinched beneath her daughter’s verbal assault. In that brief moment, he saw the tired lines around her mouth, the fatigue in her eyes and he wanted to ask what was wrong.

Instead, he turned away, back to Jamie.

“I didn’t tell her I was coming.” He took a deep breath, taking the edge out of his voice. “And don’t talk to your mother that way.”

Jamie rolled her eyes. “Sure, Dad. Whatever. Are you staying for dinner? Please say yes.”

Gale looked at Melanie and held his breath. Melanie didn’t look irritated. She looked…tired more than anything.

Gale swallowed. He’d made things worse by coming here tonight. Granted, he’d had a shitty plan in the first place but things were rapidly going to hell. He took a step backward. “I’m sorry, Mel. I’ll…give me a call and let me know when a better time is?”

She met his gaze silently. Across the gulf that spanned the distance between them, for one brief moment, he saw the girl she’d been: carefree and daring and full of life. The lines around her mouth had been smiles once, her eyes bright and shining and laughing.

But that girl was gone now. Disappeared beneath the smooth mask of polished professional Mel. She shifted subtly and the illusion vanished, leaving the harsh reality of their lives standing between them.

“There’s never a good time around here,” she said mildly before she headed back toward the kitchen. “You can stay if you’d like.”

Gale stepped into her home. She’d painted since the last time he’d been here. There was a new rug in the living room and a big picture of a faded, black and white barn with a bright red door. Dark cherry hardwood gleamed beneath his dusty boots. The furniture was something heavy and solid. He guessed their old raggedy secondhand rocking chair was nowhere to be found.

He felt out of place, but what did he expect? This was Melanie’s space, Melanie’s life.

He wasn’t a part of it.

He walked into the kitchen, not wanting to get caught mentally inventorying her place. Mel stood by the stove and Jamie leaned on the counter, moving a wine glass out of the way. Gale had half a thought that Jamie couldn’t be drinking but Mel wouldn’t allow that. Right?

“So when did you get in?” Jamie asked.

“A few months ago. I was getting settled before I called.”

“Glad to see we’re a priority in your life,” Jamie said.

He ignored the arched eyebrow Mel shot in his direction before she turned away. He supposed he deserved that. He looked around for anything to talk about. Goddamned, when had he become so inept?

“You are.” The words were flat and lifeless. Hollow. His gaze landed on a biology textbook on the table and he seized on it as an excuse to talk about anything other than why he hadn’t come by sooner. “You’re taking biology?”

“She’s failing biology.” In went the macaroni to the water and Gale didn’t miss the emphasis on failing. Steam rose over the pan but Mel didn’t turn around.

“Biology is so boring,” Jamie whispered in a voice that was damn sure loud enough for her mother to hear.

Gale glanced at Mel and didn’t miss the tense set of her shoulders. Her back was stick straight

“You need to do well in school, kiddo. You want to go to college, right?”

Jamie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

“No idea what you want to be when you grow up?” Gale said, leaning over to look at the papers scattered near her book. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be homework or what but what he could tell was that it was an unorganized disaster. His OCD started pinging and he fought the urge to sort through the pages.

“Not really. I mean I think I want to go into journalism, maybe. I like writing. And honestly, when am I ever going to use this stuff in real life?”

“Writing is an important life skill.” Gale stuffed his hands into his pockets. “But I used biology all the time in Iraq.”

Jamie’s eyes went wide with curiosity. “Really? How?”

“Biology was actually important over there. We had to watch out for different viruses and bacteria in the food. The feral animals are all vectors—”

Jamie’s face lit up. “Oh, I know what that is. It’s something that transmits a disease, isn’t it?”

Gale saw Melanie glance over at their daughter. Her expression was slightly more relaxed now but guarded, still very guarded. Why could he do nothing right with her? Then again, maybe showing up on her doorstep at dinnertime unannounced was a bad place to start if you wanted not to piss off your ex.

Yeah, he had the shitty ex-husband role down to a T. He should probably count himself lucky that she’d let him in the house to begin with.

“Yeah. See, real world biology.” Mel pulled the milk out of the fridge. Gale badly needed something to do other than stand there. It felt strange and out of place to have her cooking with him just standing there. He took a step closer. “Is there anything I can do?”

She paused, her deep blue eyes hesitant and guarded. Not angry, though, so he supposed that was a start. “It’s boxed macaroni and cheese.” Mild words belied the edge beneath them.

Gale opened his mouth to speak then snapped it closed. He couldn’t blame her. He should have called first.

Damn it.

Mel stepped away and started mixing the macaroni again as it boiled. He couldn’t say why he was here or what he’d hoped for. It was stupid really. The truth was he was a better soldier than husband or father and he always had been.

Hell, there was a reason why he worked so hard. He was good at the army. It wasn’t a job to him. It was who he was. It was what he was good at. He knew how to lead solders, how to get their confidence up to be the first man in the stack. How to whip their asses when they got arrested for stupid shit then get them back into shape so they could still go downrange and kick some ass.

Here in Mel’s kitchen, surrounded by the only two women in his life, he felt…awkward.

He didn’t like the feeling. But after the last deployment, he’d made a promise to himself that he was going to get his ass to Hood come hell or high water. He was going to figure out how to be a goddamned father.

And now that he was here, he had no fucking clue what to do.

iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | GooglePlay | Amazon [image error]