Her Rebel Heart Read online

  She’d known she’d be baiting the beast by posting flyers for the Officers’ Ex-Wives Club in his building, but she hadn’t expected him to see her do it. But the truth was, James Robert College had a good number of nontraditional students. She didn’t see many in the Physics Department, but they were there. With the base so close by, many of those nontraditional students were former military wives, like Tara, going back to school after years of unsteady work experience due to frequent moves and the unwillingness of employers to take a chance on someone who might not be around more than a few years.

  “Chancellor-approved,” she said to Ron with a nod toward her flyer. “Have a nice day.”

  She started to step around him, but he blocked her way. “I’m not an officer anymore Kaci. You can stay here. I can stay here. We can stay here together.”

  “We’re not together, Ron. We never were. You never loved me enough to ask me what I wanted out of life, and frankly, I never did you the same courtesy.”

  “Okay. What do you want? What can I do?”

  “You can listen. And you can accept what I’m saying. And what I’m saying is that I’ve moved on, and you need to do the same.”

  He pointed to the flyer. “Like this? This is how you’re moving on?”

  “That ain’t about you. It’s about me.” And Lance. Her heart flopped over in her chest. This was definitely about getting over Lance.

  “Bullshit,” Ron said.

  “See? Right there. You can’t listen. You don’t hear me. I’m not saying what you want me to say, so you disregard it.”

  “I don’t—” He stopped himself, and his dark eyes narrowed. “You’ve never been the most rational person. Can’t fault me for trying to make you see clearer logic and push past your stubborn side.”

  “Nope. But I can tell you that my logic isn’t yours to clear anymore, and my stubborn side isn’t yours to deal with anymore.” And the man who brought out the best in her, who made her look at logic clearer and who had the patience to accept her stubborn side, didn’t want her.

  Ron’s lips parted. “You’re serious.”

  “Been serious this whole time.”

  She could see the light dawning. The understanding that she wasn’t rejecting him to hold a grudge or to make him pay or out of spite. That she honestly, truly didn’t want a second chance to be his wife. His jaw sagged, and he leaned against the wall beside the bulletin board. “I moved across the country for you.”

  “Ask next time. And listen.”

  This time, when she stepped around him, he didn’t stop her.

  “And stay the hell out of Germany,” she added as she pushed through the doors and into the frosty late autumn day.

  Because she might be able to make peace with Ron Kelly, ex-husband, but she needed to make sure he knew she was done with Dr. Kelly, research intruder, too.

  Besides, Kaci only had so much maturity in her for one day.

  * * *

  Lance couldn’t get his head on straight. Monday, he forgot his ID card and the squadron patch on his flight suit. Tuesday, he locked himself out of the house and almost missed a squadron meeting.

  He just forgot.

  He was deploying tomorrow, and his brain was simply gone.

  Because he couldn’t stop wondering how Kaci was doing. If she was dealing with her grief okay. If she was mad at him for not telling her he was deploying. If she’d gone back to the bar and hooked up with someone else. If he needed to worry about a pumpkin landing in his pool or his truck disappearing.

  If she’d talk to him if he called.

  If he should just wise up and quit thinking about her.

  But he couldn’t. It was as though when she’d left his house last Friday, she’d taken her chaos with her. But he’d adapted. He needed chaos. So he was making his own.

  And that wasn’t a good omen for this deployment.

  Or that ache he’d been ignoring in his chest.

  So Tuesday, when he should’ve been heading to sleep early before the long flight overseas tomorrow, Lance surrendered.

  He needed to see her. He needed her to tell him to leap off the ramp of his C-130 without a parachute.

  He needed to know she was planning to go to Germany.

  Her Jeep was in its parking place, so he let himself into the building and took the steps to her apartment.

  This time last week, he’d been happy in his willful ignorance about Kaci’s impact on his life. Today, his feet were in concrete boots. His heart bounced erratically.

  And for the first time since he’d set foot in his first ROTC class as a freshman in college, his career, his calling, was a thorn in his side.

  A white sign with pink curlicues announcing this as the site of the first Officers’ Ex-Wives Club meeting gave him pause.

  But he knocked anyway.

  He needed to see Kaci.

  He needed her to sass him. To tell him his ego was overinflated at the idea that he’d hurt her.

  To assure him he hadn’t hurt her.

  But the sign on the door wasn’t reassuring.

  Her smile melted off her face when her gaze landed on him. “Evening, Captain.”

  He opened his mouth, but, “Hey,” was all that came out.

  She lifted her brows. You got something to say, or you come here to take in the scenery? She didn’t say it, but he heard it anyway. If his heart hadn’t sped up and his gut twisted, he might’ve smiled.

  “Just wanted to check on you,” he said. “You doing okay?”

  Blue sparks flashed in her eyes, but the fluttering of her pulse in that soft spot of her neck told him she was just as uneven as he was. “With my cat dying, or with finding out a friend didn’t think it was worth telling me he was leaving the country soon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me ask you, sugar. How would you be doing?”

  Damn shitty, if he were being honest. “I asked around my squadron. Got a buddy who’s almost as good a pilot as I am who’s happy to go to Germany with you if you want. I’d trust him with my life. And I’ll pay for his hotel room.”

  “Sweet of you, but there’s no need. I’m perfectly capable of getting on an airplane by myself.”

  Her pupils had dilated and her breathing was shallow, but she blinked twice, then lifted her nose and stared him down as if she were daring him to call her on showing an ounce of fear.

  “I’d go with you myself if I could,” he said. Hell, he wanted to go with her. He wanted to hold her. Kiss her. Spend a whole week in a hotel with her. Yeah, he’d have to give her up during her conference hours, but he’d go to whatever parts of the conference he could. Watching her give a keynote speech about her research sounded oddly erotic.

  “Like I said. No need. Anything else I can help you with tonight?”

  This wasn’t sass. This was bullheaded push-through-it-until-he-goes-away. “Kaci, look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my deployment. I didn’t think we’d get as…close as we did.”

  She pursed her lips together. Her chest rose and fell quickly beneath her James Robert College sweatshirt, and her fingers curled into a ball.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “You need to leave.”

  The strain in her voice twisted a screw in his heart. “If I’d known it was important to you, I would’ve told you I was leaving. I didn’t realize—I ignored that it was important. And I’m sorry. If I could change it—”

  “You can’t, Lance. You can’t change it. And you can’t change me, and you can’t change you. So I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told my ex-husband this week. You need to go. I need to move on. You need to move on. And you standing here won’t change that.”

  His knees wobbled, and lightning shot through his veins. She was dumping him. Truly, finally, without question.

  They weren’t even together, but she was dumping him. “Kaci, you are the smartest, funniest, craziest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Don’t do this,” she whispered.
<
br />   He swallowed. This wasn’t happening. Two women, polar opposites, both wanting nothing to do with him in the span of less than three months. “I love spending time with you. I thought you liked hanging out with me too. Can we—all I’m asking is for some time. Some of your time. I want to call you. I want to send you email. I want to—I want to see you when I get back. You’re…” What? Special? How cliché could he get? “You’re you. And I’m not ready to let you go.”

  “To what end?”

  To having her in his life. In his home. In his bed.

  Every night. “I-I don’t know.”

  “You know what I know?” Her lower lip trembled. “I know I told you I need you. I know you know I don’t need anyone. But when I need you, you’re gonna be halfway around the world, serving your country. And the next time I need you, you might be there, or you might not. Depends on what the military needs from you. And that’s real honorable of you. But I’m not honorable. I’m selfish. I want to come first. When I finally hit that brick wall, when I have to get on another plane, when I’m sick, when someone I love dies, when my life falls apart, I need to come first. So long as you’re married to Uncle Sam, you can’t promise me that. So I’m gonna keep on taking care of me. And I’m gonna wish you the best, but this? Us? It can’t be anymore.”

  Panic scrambled his brain cells. “Kaci, you are the strongest woman I know—”

  “I play a good game. That’s it. You of all people should know that. And if you don’t, then I guess I probably don’t know you all that well either.”

  “That’s it?” Something new surged through his veins. Panic still, but a red-hot anger on top of it. “You’re telling me we’re done because of my job? You’re chickening out because of my job.”

  “Chickening out of what? What are we, Lance? Because last I checked, I was just something for you to do while you got over being dumped.”

  He tensed. “You can stand there and say that with a straight face after everything we’ve been through together?”

  “You gonna stand there and pretend you love me?” Her voice was soft, but strong as only Kaci could be. “Because if you can’t stand there and tell me you love me, if you can’t promise me you’ll put us first, if I can’t be your world and your galaxy and your universe, then there’s nowhere else for us to go. I can’t be your friend, Lance. I love you too much to settle for less than everything.”

  He felt as though someone had taken a jackhammer to his heart. “I’m not saying I don’t—” He swallowed hard. His gut churned. Was that fear? Dread? Guilt? “We’ve barely known each other two months,” he tried.

  She blinked rapidly against shiny eyes. “What was that you said a minute ago? After all we’ve been through? And that’s the best you’ve got? Go to hell, Lance Wheeler. I’m sure I’ll see you there someday.”

  The door slammed with the staccato bang of a gunshot, and Lance found himself nose-first in her sign for her damn club.

  He balled his hands into fists and barely held back from banging on the door. Punching the wall. Punching himself.

  She was right.

  He wasn’t in love with her.

  And if she was crazy enough to think friendship had to equal love, then he was better off without her.

  No matter what that bitter taste in his mouth, the sour roiling in his stomach, and the raw wounds on his heart suggested.

  Chapter 20

  Lance had been on enough deployments the past five years to know the routines.

  Despite his issues since Friday, his pre-deployment checklists were done, checkrides all signed off, bags packed, and the normal anticipation was licking at his heels. He knew his mission, and he knew he needed to be ready to get out there and get troops and supplies where they needed to be.

  But Wednesday morning, while family and friends gathered on the flight line for one last goodbye before the squadron went wheels-up, something was missing.

  Allison had been there for Lance’s past two deployments, but he didn’t miss her today. She’d always been pragmatic—Not like you and Goose are battling the MiGs, she’d joked both times. You’ll be home soon.

  He’d shrugged off the comparison both times too, though he hadn’t forgotten it. His passion for being in the air wasn’t about being Top Gun great. Didn’t have any need to prove he was the best. He just wanted to be one with the sky, serving his country.

  Today, his parents weren’t coming either. He had a better shot of running into Cheri overseas than he did of seeing her here stateside. Neither of which bothered him—yeah, he was missing the holidays this year, but so was Cheri. They’d go home together and celebrate in the spring.

  He skimmed a glance about the crowd, ears tuned for a sassy twang, even though he knew she wasn’t coming either.

  She’d said as much last night.

  And now, there was a hollow spot under his breastbone, and he felt as though he were leaving things unsettled here.

  He’d miss her.

  “You want me to send pictures of the pool parties?” Juice Box asked with a smirk.

  God help him, he was leaving his house in Juice Box’s care. “You’ll freeze your nuts off.”

  “Depends on who I bring with me.”

  “So much to learn, Juicy. So much to learn.”

  Juice Box angled closer and dropped his voice. “You nervous?”

  He had been on his first deployment, and he had no doubt that was what the kid was thinking about. He’d taken Lance’s spot in the next rotation so Flincher wouldn’t have to deploy again before he got orders to a new base. “Old hat by now. I’ll show you around when you get there. But I’ll fly back over there and kick your ass if I get home and find my house broken.”

  Juicy’s brows relaxed. So did his shoulders. “Cranky old man.”

  “Captain Wheeler?” A brunette with a pixie haircut, round cheeks, and a ruby smile squinted at him. “I’m Madeline Scott. Evan’s wife.” She put a hand to her round belly. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

  Flincher stepped to his wife’s side, holding a squirming little girl with two tiny pigtails that made her look like she had horns. “Still owe you, man.”

  “Nah,” Lance said. “Doing me the favor. Good to get in the extra flight hours.”

  But he wasn’t as excited to get out of Georgia as he’d been two months ago.

  And that little blondie Flincher was holding was making Lance think about his favorite blonde.

  Again.

  Would she go to Germany? Would she take any more crap from her fellow professors?

  Would she get back together with her ex-husband?

  Lance nearly growled.

  “You need anything, you let us know,” Madeline said. “Is your family here today?”

  “Just me.”

  The insta-pity in her eyes made his joints twitch. She patted his arm. “We’ll make sure to send you extra care packages. Hope you like drawings. Izzy here’s crazy with a crayon these days.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, we do,” Flincher said.

  We.

  Flincher had a family. The sweet wife, the adorable tot, one more on the way. Even Pony had a few buddies out to see him off.

  But not Lance.

  Because he’d fucked up with the only person in the world who would’ve wanted to be here for him.

  * * *

  Two weeks into December, Kaci and Tara hadn’t found any new members for their club, but they were doing just fine on their own.

  Kaci had gone to her doctor for antianxiety medicine. She’d made appointments to meet with fellow physicists from Austria, Japan, and six other countries while she was in Germany, and she had a hypothesis niggling at her that she wanted to investigate as soon as she got back. Her speech was ready and approved by the dean, and even her cranky, girl-hating, fellow physics professors hadn’t been able to find fault with it.

  Ron had canceled his plans to attend the conference too.

  The Physics
Club kids were tweaking Ichabod in anticipation of a watermelon-flinging contest coming in June that was within driving distance and, with Kaci’s endorsement, three of them had been selected for scholarships from the James Robert Physics Association alumni group.

  Life was good.

  Except she kept checking the base’s webpage for Lance’s squadron.

  It had been a slow news week when Lance and his buddies shipped out a few weeks ago, so they’d been covered on the local news.

  Tara had been working that night, and even though Kaci knew she should’ve put on a movie or streamed a TV show, she’d recorded the news and then watched, craning for any glimpse of Lance, reaching for Miss Higgs, who wasn’t there, stifling tears when Lance himself came on for an interview, steady and authoritative and heart-stopping in his aviator sunglasses and green flight suit.

  And she might’ve rewound it to watch it again.

  And another one or two—dozen—times.

  He was doing what he was born to do. Kicking ass and taking names. Keeping the world safe.

  So she needed to do what she was born to do. Make the world better through physics.

  She was trying not to throw up the night before her flight when Tara got home from her shift at Jimmy Beans. “You okay?” Tara asked.

  Kaci mumbled a mmph and nodded. Then tried to telepathically send Tara a message asking how her final went, since she was pretty sure if she opened her mouth, she’d puke.

  Tara missed the message.

  “Here. I picked up some ginger mints for you. They’ll help settle your stomach.” Tara climbed onto Kaci’s bed and peered in the pink suitcase. “Wow. Is that an Hermès scarf? What else are you hiding in your closet?”

  “You pass your finals?” Kaci croaked out.

  “Hope so.” Tara twirled a curl around her finger. “You’re going to do great, Kaci. You know that, right?”

  That was what everyone kept telling her. “I still wish he was coming with me.” Admitting the truth was painful, but admitting the truth to Tara was also a relief.

  “Aw, honey,” Tara whispered.