Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

home.
    He was not used to feeling so unmoored and off balance. Having Claire here didn’t help matters, either. But he was a professional and he wasn’t going to let Claire distract him from the reason they were here: to prepare the soldiers of Golf Forward Support Company to face that same war, that same chaos.
    It was a no-fail mission, and Evan Loehr did not fail.

Chapter Two
    An hour later, Evan stepped into the hallway and came to a grinding halt. Claire, it seemed, was staying in the room next to his.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered when she saw him. She sounded so disgruntled, Evan almost laughed. “My life is a cliché,” she added, but then shot him a smile he recognized. “I promise not to turn the music up to eleven if you promise not to have drunken orgies.” She snapped her fingers and wagged her finger at him as if she’d just had an epiphany. “No, wait. That would require you to have some kind of personality other than Captain America. Never mind.”
    “I’m not Captain America.” Evan started walking, irritated by the nickname that he should be used to by now.
    “What, that’s it? No snappy comeback?”
    “I’m not in the mood. So sue me.” He couldn’t even take a moment to appreciate the stunning transformation of Claire into civilian clothes. Her eyes were as deep as midnight in the shadows. Her hair tumbled down her back, reflecting the hallway lights like red star-cluster flares. He was fascinated by the change in her, a memory of another time mixing with the sight of her now. His blood stirred with latent arousal, making him want to feel her body pressed against him again.
    And if he kept up this line of thinking, he was going to end up in the gym tonight or taking a cold shower. Holy crap, he was a disaster.
    They rounded the corner, and Claire froze. Evan could practically see the hackles rising on the back of her neck. “Oh, perfect.”
    Evan stopped and frowned at the tiny woman coming out of the stairwell. Dim light made it hard to distinguish her from any other generic brunette, but he was prettysure he recognized her. “Is that Lieutenant Engle?”
    Claire breathed out heavily and kept walking, her shoulders stiff. Mildly curious about the strength of Claire’s reaction, Evan followed her. He must have missed the part where the professional disagreement between them had morphed into active hatred on Claire’s part. This ought to be interesting.
    First Lieutenant Mallory Engle stopped in her tracks when she saw them. Engle was the kind of cute and perky that gave female lieutenants a bad reputation. Back in Iraq, Evan had barely tolerated the ditzy officer, who seemed to care only about the latest brainless celebrity scandals. Claire’s patience had been significantly less than Evan’s on a good day.
    “So this is where she disappeared to,” Evan said under his breath as they approached. He’d barely noticed her absence from the headquarters back at Fort Hood.
    “God hates me. All the lieutenants in the army and I can’t get away from this one.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m going to slap the shit out of Iaconelli if he’s the reason she’s at the lodge.”
    Evan glanced sharply at her, wondering what exactly she was getting at. She didn’t honestly suspect Iaconelli would violate army policy by sleeping with the lieutenant, did she? Relationships—especially sexual ones—between officers and enlisted were forbidden.
    “Why are you here, Lieutenant?” she asked Engle. Only another officer could make the rank sound like a dirty word.
    Engle’s eyes widened a little bit, and she stiffened, attempting a slightly more military bearing. Which was pretty difficult, considering that her cleavage was helping to prop up the box she carried. “Well, um, I was looking for Reza—I mean, Sarn’t Iaconelli asked me to take him to get some food, but then he said he had some briefing, so he asked me to bring it upstairs for him and—”