it.
She closed her laptop and headed down the stairs. The flip-flops that left her toes bare and the sundress that left her shoulders bare felt exotic. Her hair swished over her shoulders with each step and tickled her cheek. As a cadet, she’d only had an hour or two each night before taps when, if she stayed in her barracks room to study, she could let her hair down. At BOLC, she’d been able to wear it down when she was in civilian clothes, which had been most weekends. Now, she intended to pin it up only when she was at work. Luxury. Freedom. Control over her own hair.
There was music coming from the pool. She could smell burgers on the grill. Those were things she’d be able to put into words when she wrote to Drummer tonight. But she didn’t know how to describe the change in her life, this payoff for years of hard work, for years of voluntarily subjecting herself to strict rules and a demanding regimen, all with the hope that someday, she would be done and it would all have been worth it.
Someday was today.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. That quote would do, but she didn’t know who’d said it or in which book or movie.
I’m saying it.
Yes, she was. She’d arrived at the party—figuratively and literally. Chloe opened the gate to walk onto the white concrete pool decking. Life was good and it was only going to get better.
And that was when she saw...him.
* * *
Their eyes met across a crowded pool deck.
Thane had never seen her before. He would have remembered if she’d gotten out of a car in the parking lot or checked her mail in the stairwell. Her hair was long but not too long. Brown but not very dark, almost blond in the sunlight. She was tall-ish. And since they were staring at each other a moment too long, he could tell from this side of the pool that her eyes were as dark as his were light. She’d come through that gate smiling, like she was eager to be here, and that smile never dimmed as their gazes met and held.
He liked the way she looked.
Then the moment was over because she turned away to claim a chair, kicking off her flip-flops underneath it. She shook off a small case that dangled from her wrist by a strap and let it drop on the seat of the chair. It looked like a wallet. Thane’s law enforcement training automatically calculated the odds for a theft. She shouldn’t leave it sitting on a chair in plain view, even though this was hardly a high-crime area.
The apartment rent was just a little more than his monthly military housing allowance, an amount that increased as a soldier’s rank increased. Everyone here could afford about the same apartment, which meant everyone here was about the same rank, first or second lieutenants, a few bachelor captains, and a handful of mid-career sergeants whose allowances were equal to a new lieutenant’s. Not a hotbed of thieves, in Thane’s professional police opinion, but still, she shouldn’t leave a wallet out in plain sight like that.
She kept her back to him as she pulled off her sundress over her head. She wore a bikini underneath, but it was the sport kind like the female competitors wore on TV in beach volleyball or Ironman competitions. The suit suited her, so to speak. She wasn’t just slender, she was toned, the muscles in her arms and legs tight—nicely firm backside, too. He fully appreciated the sight of a physically fit woman baring an acre of smooth skin to the sun. Whoever had come up with the idea for a pool party was a genius.
She rolled her wallet up in the dress and tucked it in with her shoes underneath the chair, out of sight. Beauty, athleticism, common sense—he’d definitely never seen her around here before. Which meant the odds were that she was someone’s guest, which sucked, because the apartment residents were mostly male, so the odds were that she was here as some other man’s guest.
Or maybe not. She peeked to see if he was still there, a millisecond of a glance, before she pretended she wasn’t aware of him and studiously looked toward the barbecue crowd instead. The smile still lingered on her lips.
I’m still here, beautiful. It’s okay to be interested in me. I’m interested in you.
Thane tore his eyes away from that smile to look where she was looking. None of the men around the grill seemed to be searching for his girlfriend. Be single, be single. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Casablanca—in a flash, Thane thought of Ballerina and felt...guilty. Like he was cheating on her, which was ridiculous. They’d agreed they needed real-life friends and were both going out today to try to meet some. Instead, in had walked this beautiful woman, and his mind had chucked the friend quest far away and pulled the idea of a girlfriend close. That was fine, though. There was no reason in the world why he couldn’t find a real-life girlfriend. After all, a girlfriend could jump-start a car or give him a lift to the airport and do all those things a pen pal couldn’t do.
The woman—the very real woman—slid her hand under her hair and lifted it from the back of her neck for a moment. Then she let it go again, all that feminine hair falling over all that bare skin.
Thane looked away and took a deeper breath, a little extra oxygen to keep his thoughts from going haywire. But there was no doubt his thoughts were heading toward a whole new category of things that a pen pal couldn’t do.
“How about those Cowboys?”
One of the mailbox guys called the question to him while working the tap of a keg, filling a red Solo cup with beer. He held up one that was already full and nodded toward Thane with that look that said, Do you want one?
Thane took it from him with a nod of thanks. “I think the Cowboys will take the Packers tomorrow. You back from a deployment?”
“Yeah.” His neighbor shrugged.
“Thought so,” Thane answered. “Hadn’t seen you around in a while.”
His neighbor lifted his now-full beer in a bit of a toast, then sauntered away from the keg as Thane took a step in the other direction.
That was it, the complete guy conversation. Same as always.
It reminded Thane why he was here. He headed around the edge of the pool, walking with a purpose to get to the other side. He wanted someone to call him by his first name, and he knew exactly which person he wanted that to be.
“Chloe!”
And...damn it. There was the man she must have been looking for. Thane slowed his steps and took in the scene. The beautiful woman, Chloe, hugged the shirtless man who’d just run up to her with all the eagerness of a golden retriever.
Okay, so Thane wasn’t feeling too kind. The man slobbering for her attention was probably just a couple of years younger than Thane, and probably an officer, too. But that man had something Thane didn’t. He apparently had the affection of one woman named Chloe, whose smile for him was open, unrestrained. Dazzling.
Thane walked around the edge of the pool to her side. He was at the farthest corner from her, but even from this distance, that smile was everything. Some guys were breast men and some were into legs, and while Thane was all in favor of all of that, it was Chloe’s smile that really knocked his socks off. It was happiness. Who could resist happiness?
Apparently not the men around this pool. Two more men left the grill and hugged Chloe. She was surrounded. The guys all looked the same. Everyone
