for the first time in...seven years?
Yes, seven years since he’d last seen her. Seven years since he’d buried his emotions for the last time. It had been a chance meeting, a crossing of paths at an airfield in Afghanistan. He’d been arriving; she’d been leaving. They’d almost walked past one another, both captains at the time, both loaded down with combat gear. A passing glance, a double take, a step away from his unit to shake hands, to grip her shoulder—only a minute available to ask an intense question.
How have you been?
Better now, she’d said, and he’d had a moment of insane happiness thinking she meant she was better now that she’d run into him. But she’d nodded toward the waiting jet and the long line of soldiers boarding it. That’s my ride home. I’ll see my son in twenty hours. Twenty! I can’t wait.
Her son. Of course. When Evan had last seen her at a tailgate party at their alma mater’s football stadium, she’d been carrying a toddler on her hip. She’d looked crazy in love with her child, laughing at his determined little face when his chubby hand made a grab for her hamburger. It was the moment Evan had realized what he wanted in life.
It was the moment he’d realized he was too late.
After the game, her husband—also an alumnus of their college, a guy who’d played baseball with Evan—had chosen to leave his wife and baby at the class reunion hotel while he went out with the single men in their group. No surprise there; Evan had known that guy’s habits too well after a couple of seasons traveling from university to university together on the varsity baseball team. That night, Evan had watched Juliet’s husband have one too many drinks, have one too many dances with women who weren’t Juliet, and he’d stepped in. Go home and appreciate what you’ve got—or another man will.
Evan had spent the two years between the alumni tailgate and Afghanistan doing his best to forget Juliet and her husband and her baby, but as he’d faced her on that airfield, he’d wanted to know if her husband had grown up and settled down. If they were still married.
He’d had to shout over the idling jet engines to ask a more socially acceptable question that would still give him the information he wanted. Is your husband still on active duty?
A quick shake of her head. No, he got out of the army last year. Good timing. He’s been able to stay home with the baby. Actually, my son is four now, not a baby. Crazy how time flies, isn’t it?
They’d looked at one another from under the brims of their Kevlar helmets. Evan had told himself he was happy for her. She was married with a child—exactly the life she’d once been afraid she’d never have because of her military commitment.
Evan had squeezed her shoulder one last time and let go. See? I told you not to worry. I knew you’d marry a guy who would take care of your children while you were deployed.
Evan had spent the rest of his year in Afghanistan pummeling his emotions into submission. Juliet, his college buddy, was happy. She was married, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wouldn’t lust after a married woman. He wouldn’t pine for a woman who was building a life with someone else. He hadn’t been smart enough to pursue her while he’d had the chance. It was over and done. She was the one who’d gotten away. End of story.
Except now she was standing here in his office at Fort Hood, telling him she’d been promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Her voice broke the silence as he continued to stare at the pin. “Don’t you remember dancing with me the night before graduation?”
Of course he remembered. Every word. Pinkie promise, or it doesn’t count.
“We’re both lieutenant colonels now,” she said. Her voice had not changed in seven years, not in sixteen. “Crazy how time flies, isn’t it?”
Their eyes met.
He felt something like anger. The seal on his memories had been broken. The emotions she was resurrecting were both painfully fresh and achingly familiar.
“I’m single,” he said, “but you’re not.”
“Divorced. He moved out for the last time three years ago. We’ve been divorced for two.”
Good God. All these years...trying to forget her, determined not to think about her. He hadn’t heard about the divorce because he hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from their old circle. It was easier to move on that way.
Except he hadn’t really moved on to anything. To anyone.
“Is divorced not the same thing as single?” she asked, and for the first time, her voice wavered. She dropped her gaze. Now she was the one staring at the silver rank of a lieutenant colonel. Her eyelashes were dark, feminine, alluring even as they hid her eyes from him.
After another moment of silence, she reached for the silver pin.
Evan closed his hand over the pin first. “That’s not the important question, Juliet. The real question is, shall we do this in the courthouse or a church?”
* * *
He couldn’t be serious.
Evan Stephens couldn’t be agreeing to honor their pact so easily. Why should he?
Suddenly, Juliet felt foolish for coming here to challenge him to keep it. It was a ridiculous promise. They’d practically been children at the time. They’d even sealed it by linking their pinkie fingers together.
Evan came to his feet. He was a battalion commander, and he looked every inch the military warrior. He couldn’t have gotten taller, but he seemed taller anyway. He was a little bigger, a little broader in the shoulders, and a lot more fierce in his camouflage than he’d been in shorts and flip-flops on a college green.
Her mouth felt dry.
She had things to say to him. To explain to him. The reason she wanted to gauge his willingness to honor their college pact. The gut feeling she had that he was the father her son needed.
Instead, she was mute as she watched him walk around his desk to stand before her, right before her, just close enough that she felt alarmed, and she took an involuntary step backward.
“Courthouse,” she said, her voice husky but still the voice of an officer. Decisive.
“You’ve already thought this through.” He took a step forward. “I’m fine with a judge instead of a minister, but what’s your reasoning?”
This is happening. This is really happening. And he was so very...real. Not a memory. Definitely not a senior in college. She’d grown into herself over the years, physically, losing the last of that lingering teen lankiness—but she hadn’t thought about the fact that Evan would have, too. He was all grown up, fully an adult, and damn, but a man in his midthirties was a man in his prime.
She cleared her dry throat. “The courthouse would be quicker.”
She was in high heels, but he still had to bend his head down an inch to bring his mouth to her ear. They might have been slow dancing, as close as he was to her, but he didn’t touch her with anything but his voice.
“Are we in a rush?
