Off Base Read Online Free PDF

smiled. “Father. Hi.”
    “Kenna.” His gruff, no-nonsense voice boomed down the line. “Staying out of trouble?”
    Her heart sank a little. “Yes, sir.”
    That wasn’t a lie, but she’d deserved the question. In the not-so-distant past, the lieutenant general’s phone call would have gone unanswered because she would have been busy getting up to no good. Acting out , her school counselors had said. At the ripe old age of twenty-two, she could look back and agree. Following her parents’ divorce, her mother had moved off base, which had led to Kenna being passed around every three days like a piping hot potato. She’d embraced her new role as a seeming nuisance by burdening her parents at every turn. Running away, getting picked up for public intoxication, shoplifting. It all ended five years ago when her father had a heart attack.
    Something miraculous had happened. The invincible lieutenant general had begun to need her. During his recovery, Kenna had moved in permanently, become his right hand. Cooked for him, cleaned, taken him to physical therapy and administered his medication. The two of them had grown closer in their own subtle way. Although, she now wondered if her imagination had invented that bond. As soon as her father was back on his feet, she’d been sent to live with her mother. Unfortunately, by then, her mother had moved on and married her boyfriend and gotten pregnant.
    Kenna had been on her own ever since. That’s how she intended to keep it. Because while she loved her parents unconditionally, she knew what happened when you loved someone too much. They only loved you back until your usefulness ran out. So instead of pretending she wanted that shiny romantic future like everyone else seemed determined to have, she left base every few months, met some drunk ex-frat boy with a chip on his shoulder and engaged in a meaningless one-night stand.
    It worked for her and no one got hurt.
    “Glad to hear it.” Her father broke back into her confidential thoughts, making Kenna cringe. Think about puppies or unicorns. “I need you here for dinner tonight, please. Nineteen hundred hours, on the nose. We’re having a guest.”
    “Yes, sir,” she responded tonelessly, although hearing he wanted her around filled her chest with helium. Her father might have—in essence—kicked her ass out, but that specter of the friendship they’d developed still loomed. “Do you need me to come early? I can throw something together—”
    “No, thank you. Tina has it covered.”
    Tina. Her father’s new wife. She and Kenna were cordial, but they didn’t exactly exchange chatty text messages or do makeovers on each other. Apart from the day Tina had exchanged vows with the lieutenant general in their landscaped backyard, Kenna hadn’t even been invited over once. Maybe that would change after dinner tonight?
    “Should I bring—”
    “We have everything. Just don’t be late.”
    She nodded even though he couldn’t see her. “I won’t be late. See you later, sir.”
    When she hung up, she ignored the sympathetic look from Darla.

Chapter Four
    Beck sipped the whiskey he’d just been handed from Lieutenant General Sutton. Truth be told, he’d never much cared for spirits. The occasional beer or two during a football game seemed to fit the bill fine without hindering his ability to think, but he welcomed the unfamiliar burn of whiskey now because the taste reminded him of Kenna. If that wasn’t a warning shot, he didn’t know what was. The girl made him think of being drunk and out of control. Made him want to get that way. Who needed the ability to think when his brain seemed determined to keep her image dangling in front of his eyes like a carrot? Flashes of her sparked in front of his eyes now. The feel of her mouth, the weight of her in his lap. Pathetically, he even thought of how she’d almost made him a sandwich. He wanted to pin her down and ask her why she’d wanted to make him a sandwich.