Read Online First to Burn by Anna Richland - Free Book Online Page A

dining facility.
    “Imagine a dress if you want.” She started to shrug, but the move would lift her chest, so she turned and spoke over her shoulder as she moved away. “I’ll imagine practical pants.” Whatever her mother had sent, she doubted it would be practical, unless it was a nail file. “I hope being that close to something the army didn’t issue won’t cause you problems.”
    “If I have a heart attack, I’m confident I’m in good hands.” He came even with her in three strides.
    The image of leaning across his body to press his chest flashed in her mind, so real that her arm spasmed on the smaller box until its corner dug into her waist. She’d almost reached the end of temp city, rows of tents for soldiers taking breaks from more remote outposts. By comparison, the plywood hut she and Jennifer shared with four other females seemed posh.
    “Where you headed?” he asked as they approached the rows of prefabricated housing that marked the main area of Camp Caddie.
    “Bravo 8.” Revealing her hut location felt like giving out a phone number at a bar, but this afternoon she couldn’t blame alcohol.
    His glasses re-covered his eyes. “For leave.”
    “Oh.” She’d misinterpreted his question. Maybe she had read too much into all his conversation. “Rome.”
    “Ahhh.” His sigh reminded Theresa of someone sinking into a hot tub. “Lucky you.”
    “I know.” She lifted the smaller box. “Guidebooks.”
    “Meeting someone?” A casual, polite question. He wasn’t fishing for her dating status.
    “No. Planned it myself. The books should be enough, although I might join a Vatican tour. I’ve read that—” His sideways smile made her want to slap a hand over her inner babbler.
    “So.” He stopped walking. The banter, and his smile, faded. “Someone sent the clothes and shoes?” His attention fixed her to the gravel.
    “My mother.” Her throat clogged and breathing took effort. Too much dust.
    He leaned closer. “Did she include anything else...”
    Two tiny Theresa reflections stared at her, brown butterflies pinned to his lenses.
    “...tempting?” he finished.
    “Umm.” Flirting. Not her strength. His mouth came closer. She couldn’t think and watch his lips at the same time. “I mean—not unless you lose, oh, fifty pounds. Even then I doubt the clothes would match your, ah, active lifestyle.”
    Lame, lame. She wanted to slap her forehead, but he laughed obligingly. “A mother who doesn’t send cookies?”
    “Cookies? Oh.” Her shoulders fell away from their tight bunch by her neck. “Yeah, of course. She knows I have sergeants to bribe.” Grabbing the subject change would remind him of their different ranks.
    “This particular sergeant is very bribable. And carrying your incredibly heavy box.” He sagged as if the contents had turned into concrete.
    “Fine.” They were close to her quarters. Time to retrieve her box before someone saw. “Lend me a knife?” She’d pay him off and send him on his way.
    He shifted the box to his other hand and pulled a serrated blade from his thigh sheath. The blade stretched from her fingertip to the base of her palm.
    “Nothing small about you, is there?” Crap. Her cheeks flamed when his shoulders shook with laughter. She closed her eyes but couldn’t erase his white-toothed grin from inside her eyelids. “I didn’t mean—” She swallowed. “I give up. Go ahead.”
    Holding the box between his forearm and shirt, he slit the tape and sheathed the blade with an economy of movement a surgeon would envy. At this distance she could see the pulse beat in his throat, but the thump-thump in her ears had to be her heart. If she placed her hand where his fingers hovered, above his thigh, she’d feel his quadriceps. Last night in her bunk, she’d squeezed her leg to recall the living steel that she’d accidentally gripped on the Black Hawk flight, but her own muscle had nothing in common with his. Today he stood next to her, a