“You don’t have to honor an impulsive college promise,” she said, giving him chance after chance to take the easy way out. He could give her a smile, a friendly good to see you again, and tell her he had to get back to work.
“But you must have wondered if I would honor it,” he said. “You didn’t come find me after all these years to tell me to say no. Is ‘no’ what you wanted to hear me say, or just what you expected me to say?”
“I came to hear you say... I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t think you’d be...”
“A man of my word?”
“It was a silly pinkie promise, Evan. Nothing more.”
She said it, but she didn’t believe it. Their promise had meant something. In the back of her mind, this day had always been there. As long as Evan stayed single, there’d always been this alternate future on the horizon. She’d needed that fantasy future, some years more than others, so at every reunion, every get-together with anyone from their circle, she’d asked casual questions. Have you heard from Evan Stephens? What’s he up to these days? Not married, still?
The army was a small world. She and Evan had never been stationed together before, but on every post, she’d run into people who knew Captain Stephens or Major Stephens or Lieutenant Colonel Stephens. His rank progressed, but he was always single. Never married.
She hadn’t thought to ask about a child. He sounded so confident, saying children didn’t scare him, as if he knew what parenthood was all about. A man didn’t have to be married to have a child. Had there been an accidental pregnancy in his past?
Perhaps an intentional one. He could have been half of a couple who’d wanted to have a child but had no intention of ever marrying. He could have met a woman he thought would make a good mother for his child, and they might have decided to...to conceive a baby.
Her flash of jealousy was unjustified, considering the existence of Matthew, but she felt it all the same.
“Do you have a child?” she asked.
Evan shook his head. She couldn’t decipher the serious look in his eyes, but since he never took his gaze off her face, she had to mask her irrational relief.
“I knew you’d never married,” she said, “but I didn’t think to ask if you’d had any children.”
“You asked people about me?” The smile that was really just a crinkle at the corner of his eyes reappeared. That was easy enough to interpret: he was pleased.
“I had to. I couldn’t expect a married man to care if I’d been promoted to lieutenant colonel today.”
“No, of course not.” He pushed away from his desk and walked back into her personal space, still studying her. Then he raised his hand to touch her, and she held her breath, braced this time for that light brush along her cheek. After all, there was nowhere else he could touch her. Her jacket covered her arms to her wrists. Her black tab-tie held her white dress shirt closed at her throat. She was safe in her uniform.
She was not. He placed his whole palm on the side of her neck, warming her tight throat with the heat of his hand, holding her still as he bent his head and kissed her.
It was the college green all over again. The night air, the string music. The impossibly soft mouth of a very hard man. She might have made a sound, an unintentional mmm of delicious recognition, like that first bite of homemade food after months of army rations, or it might have sounded like a whimper at just how overwhelming it was to taste the real thing after years of trying to remember a flavor.
He spoke over her lips. “The courthouse it is, then.”
This close, she could feel what she couldn’t see. Under that easy confidence, his heart was pounding, too.
“You think this is a good idea?” She’d meant to state it as a fact, but her tone of voice had taken on a girlish kind of wonder.
“I do. I have no intention of waiting another sixteen years for the next kiss.”
He kissed her again, and she lost herself in that midnight feeling. Kissing him felt so very intimate. No tongues, no tasting—but oh, his mouth felt so sensual against hers.
She’d had her arms around his neck back then. Today, her suit was too constricting, but she wouldn’t have reached up to throw her arms around him anyway. They no longer saw one another day after day, semester after semester, so although he still seemed familiar, they lacked that casual familiarity. But she felt weightless and wobbly, so she held on to him, a hand on each of his upper arms. His body warmth carried through the camouflage fabric. The flex of his biceps felt insanely sexy as he moved to cup her face in two hands.
His fingertips were warm and gentle along her jawline, while the bulge of his arm muscle felt like steel. She breathed in at the contrasting sensations, parting her lips, and then he was tasting her, and she was tasting him. The instant rush of arousal—a throb, a wanting, a contraction low in her belly—was so strong, it was almost painful.
This wasn’t why she’d come. This wasn’t the point. This wasn’t supposed to be about feeling sexy or—hell—even remembering what sex was, or how they’d once talked about having babies together. No, this was about...something...
She dug her fingers into his biceps a little harder.
Something...making babies...
Matthew. Her son was the reason she was here.
Her gasp ended the kiss.
Evan Stephens, strong and terribly handsome, this more fierce version of the Evan she’d once known, laughed against her lips. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that I am single on the day of your promotion.”
She backed away in one jerky step. Evan let her go, lowering his hands in an almost lazy way to settle on his hips.
She forced herself to breathe slowly. She would not pant. She was in her thirties, she was a divorcée, she was the mother of a middle schooler, she was a lieutenant colonel, for crying out loud. She was not going to be flustered by a kiss, no matter how long it had been since she’d felt so aroused.
How long had it been?
An eternity.
Sex was like riding a bicycle, maybe. Once you knew how, you never forgot—but she hadn’t come here to ride a bicycle.
“You should meet my son first.”
“Yes, I should.” Evan smiled, a real smile, a flash of white teeth to go along with those sexy, smiling eyes. How many times had she seen him flash that cocky smile? Every time a cute blonde girl cheered for him at a baseball game.
Three knocks sounded at his office door. Evan had his back to it. He didn’t stop smiling at her, didn’t change the way he was standing with his hands on his hips, but he called out, “Enter.”
The door opened. “Sir, the brigade S-3 is requesting to schedule a commanders’ roundtable for Monday morning.”
Evan looked over his shoulder at the sergeant. “Put it on my schedule.” Then he reached for the patrol cap he had sitting on his desk, a sure sign that he was ready to leave the building. Everyone in uniform had to wear their cover—their hat—when outdoors. He handed Juliet her hat, its dark blue crown decorated with a gold eagle and the oak leaves of a field-grade officer. “What time is Matthew done with school? Does he have an aftercare program, or does he take a bus home?”
“I’ve been picking him up. We’re still in temporary housing. We’ve been at the Holiday Inn for two weeks.”
Evan shot her a look—she couldn’t guess the meaning of that one, either—before he headed for the door. He nodded to his sergeant as he gestured for Juliet to precede him out the door. “I’ll be out the rest of