Caro Carson - The Colonels' Texas Promise

Matthew looked so very young, despite his necktie, as he craned his neck back to watch the men as they talked over him. While he ate black and white cake layers, his eyes followed their conversation like it was a ping-pong match. Did the men remind him of his father? Or was he so fascinated because they were nothing like his father? Maybe he gravitated toward the authority and stability that uniforms represented, although it was because she herself wore a uniform that Matthew had just been plunged, yet again, into a new school in a new town in a new state. He might turn out fine despite his unstable childhood, or he might be scarred for life.

Matthew’s future was so uncertain, so unknowable—which meant hers was, too. She was so tired of facing down the unknown alone.

When Matthew caught her staring at him, she mustered up a smile, but she was thinking ahead to her plans for the immediate future. For this afternoon. After the cake, after she drove Matthew back to school, Juliet had somewhere to go.

Along with the promotion lists, Juliet had read that Evan Stephens was a battalion commander now, a position of great responsibility. Evan had been a reliable friend back in the day, and now the US Army clearly depended on him as one of their most reliable officers. The battalion Evan had been entrusted with was headquartered right here at Fort Hood. As of two weeks ago, so was she.

It was time to let Lieutenant Colonel Stephens know that she was now Lieutenant Colonel Grayson.

And single.

Just like he was.

* * *

Evan sat at his desk, busy with paperwork, bored out of his mind.

He flipped to the last page of the police blotter and initialed it. He was the commander of a military police battalion, a unit nearly 600 soldiers strong. The buck stopped here, on his desk. So did the police blotter.

Actually, the battalion had 589 personnel today. Evan always knew exactly how many lives he was responsible for.

He tossed the blotter into the outbox on his desk. Reading the blotter wasn’t strictly one of his duties. The MP station sent it directly to Evan’s commander, who was the Provost Marshal of Fort Hood and the commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade. Colonel Oscar Reed signed off on it, and then his boss—the commanding general of III Corps—was sent a copy. But if Evan’s boss and his boss’s boss read the blotter, then Evan read the blotter. He was never surprised, never blindsided, not when he could prevent it.

It was rare for one of his MPs to make the blotter as either a perpetrator or victim, but it happened. If the brigade commander called him for more details, Evan always knew to whom and what he was referring, and he’d already taken corrective action. No surprises. No blindsides.

Being proactive had made him a good platoon leader. A better company commander. A great operations officer. His file was full of glowing evaluations from superiors who appreciated an officer who stayed ahead of problems and stopped them before they started. Evan had been promoted below the zone because of it, not only selected for lieutenant colonel, but promoted earlier than 90 percent of the other officers who had also made the cut. That had not been a surprise, either.

Evan sat back from his executive desk, a piece of burnished wood furniture that the army only provided for its upper echelon of officers. His career to this point had been conducted from sturdier, uglier, government-issued desks of metal and Formica. He turned his chair so he could look out the second-story window at the Texas landscape outside. Even his chair was executive-level now. This was it: the big time. Battalion commander. One of the most-prized, high-speed, low-drag positions in the US Army.

He was bored as hell.

If he were a platoon leader fresh out of school or even a company commander in his midtwenties, he would leave his office and go check on his soldiers. Like practically every soldier in the army, he wore his camouflage uniform with his coyote-brown leather combat boots daily, so he was always ready to jump into a situation. Boots on the ground: that was the best way to gauge a unit’s preparedness. He’d go to the motor pool and walk the lines of the hundreds of vehicles that were his responsibility.

But he was a battalion commander now. The only difference between his uniform and everyone else’s was the embroidered oak leaf cluster at the center of his chest, but that was a big difference. If he showed up at the chain-link gate to the motor pool, there’d be a flurry of activity. His motor pool officer would drop what she was doing and come out to escort him, a matter of military courtesy as well as her pride. The motor pool was Chief Braman’s domain. Nobody, not even her commander, roamed around her turf without her knowing what was going on.

The first sergeants of every company would appear within minutes, jogging over from their company headquarters. If Evan spotted anything out of line, the NCOs would get it fixed immediately—and chew out the soldier who had let it slip in the first place.

A simple walk through the motor pool might make Evan feel less restless, but it would pull too many people away from their day unnecessarily. He should and did conduct inspections of the battalion’s equipment without notice, but he didn’t jerk his people around just to alleviate his own boredom.

Evan turned his chair back around and continued doing paperwork in his combat uniform.

Three short knocks on the open office door were followed by Sergeant Hadithi entering silently to collect everything from the outbox. He deposited more papers in the inbox. Evan nodded; the sergeant briskly left to go back to his desk, the metal-and-Formica kind, one of several in the administrative office that acted as a buffer to Evan’s inner, more executive office.

A few minutes later, he heard the sudden creaks of chairs and the squeaks of wheels that meant his administrative staff had all come to their feet. Someone of a fairly high rank must have walked in. How ironic—maybe his brigade commander was pulling a pop inspection on him . He’d wanted something to relieve the tedium of this day, hadn’t he?

Evan checked his watch. Still not quite three o’clock. Would this day never end? He tossed his pen on his desk and waited.

Sergeant Hadithi reappeared. Three more knocks—but this time, the sergeant didn’t cross the threshold. “Sir, there is a Lieutenant Colonel Grayson here to see you.”

Evan drew a blank. “Colonel who?”

“Grayson, sir.”

Grayson. Good God, Juliet Grayson from college? It had to be. Just like that, out of the blue, Evan’s day rocketed from mind-numbing to adrenaline-inducing.

The sergeant pushed the door open wide and flattened himself against it.

Juliet Grayson walked in.

She was wearing the blue service uniform with its knee-length skirt and black pumps, her hair smoothed back into a military bun. The medals and ribbons and badges she’d earned were displayed in precise rows on her dark blue jacket, attesting to a career in the profession of arms that had been as demanding as his. She was no longer a carefree college student with golden-brown hair that fell freely to the middle of her back.

He still would have recognized her in an instant. She was still tall, still energetic, still full of purpose—

Still beautiful.

Still another man’s wife.

“Hello, Evan.” She turned to the sergeant and dismissed him with a nod. “Thank you.”

Sergeant Hadithi backed out of the room, closing the door behind himself. It shut with a quiet snick , the only sound in the room as Juliet crossed the carpet to Evan’s desk. He’d never seen her walk in high heels before, had he? Sharp as hell. Sexy as hell.