Thunder Running Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d turned up at the ID office as soon as it opened, hoping it would be empty and limiting the risk of running into someone he knew. But the woman who accepted his paperwork hadn’t so much as blinked at the date on the marriage certificate, and now that it was over he realized how paranoid he’d been. This was the army. They’d seen it all.
    He stretched and yawned, wondering what to do with the hour remaining before the start of his duty shift. Tara won the fight over who got to spend the night on the couch, but the queen-size mattress might as well have been the floor for all the sleep he got.
    He’d thrown together a vegetable stir fry while Tara scraped scorched bits of salmon off the baking sheet, and the atmosphere over dinner was companionable if somewhat stilted, like they were two feral cats sizing each other up, deciding whether they’d need to fight to protect their respective territories. What strange accord they’d seemed to find had been banished so thoroughly by the smoke alarm that Chance thought he must have imagined it. Tara was back to being one wrong word away from ornery, and he kept the conversation light and superficial until it was time to say goodnight.
    As soon as he switched off his bedside lamp his mind started to race, except his thoughts weren’t circling the question he expected, namely what the hell Tara Lambert was doing in his house. Instead he fixated on her lips, her breasts, the faintly discernible outline of her nipples in the thin T-shirt she’d worn to sleep in. His breathing quickened with memories of how she’d tasted, how her sweet scent had cut through the stuffy air in the hotel room, blackberries and vanilla, long-sought delicacies yielding to his hands and melting against his tongue.
    He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to think about anything else, until with an exasperated sigh he admitted defeat and slid his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. He’d no sooner closed his fist than a door slammed downstairs—Tara was in the bathroom directly below the far corner of his bedroom. He snatched his hand up to his stomach and flopped onto his back, readying himself for a long, painful night.
    â€œHey, McKinley, I was wondering what happened to you.”
    Chance turned to see Sergeant Carl Watkins, one of Echo Company’s team leaders, heading toward him. He raised a hand in greeting.
    â€œYou know if you hadn’t texted to say you were all right that I would’ve been beating down your front door,” Carl chided. “And I spent the hour up until then kicking myself for not following her car. Since when are you in the habit of accepting rides from random women who leap out at you in parking lots claiming to be your wife?”
    â€œShe is my wife.”
    Carl rolled his eyes. “Come on, man, what’s really going on?”
    â€œI’m serious, we’re married. I was just in there turning in a DD-1172.”
    â€œOh yeah? Prove it.”
    Chance handed him the copy of the marriage certificate he’d brought for the application. The amusement drained from Carl’s face as he read it, and by the time he handed it back his expression was grim.
    â€œI figured you’d hit the card tables during R&R but I didn’t realize you walked away with a wife.”
    â€œIt was roulette, actually.”
    â€œUnbelievable.” He shook his head. “The whole company is thrilled to pull R&R during Christmas and you spend it in a casino, managing to get the Missouri version of a Vegas wedding? Why didn’t you go home like normal people?”
    â€œMy mom’s been a cocktail waitress my whole life. I grew up in casinos. In a way, I was home.”
    â€œI guess that makes it okay, then,” Carl drawled sarcastically. “Now explain to me how you drove into Kansas City expecting to leave with a hangover and an empty wallet and wound up married