Read Online Here And Now (American Valor 2) by Cheryl Etchison - Free Book Online

delete the string of texts before setting her phone to silent.
    “Someone’s popular tonight,” he said, trying to be funny.
    But she felt anything but amused.
    “Given the choice, I’d rather not be.”
    T HINGS WERE PRETTY quiet the remainder of their dinner, which suited Lucky just fine. His friends in the 75th were always commenting on how calm and quiet he was. That an entire week could pass without some guys hearing him say a single word. His verbal thriftiness was never considered a negative though. If anything, the veterans said his quiet demeanor showed the hallmark of a great special ops medic, because when everything went to shit and someone’s life was on the line, the last thing that person needed was a medic who was highly excitable.
    So a quiet dinner for two wasn’t something he ever considered awkward or uncomfortable. Probably because most of the meals he shared with his father while growing up were virtually silent.
    But this Jekyll and Hyde thing with Rachel? It bothered him. A lot.
    When she arrived at his house, she’d been her normal chatty, happy self and within a matter of minutes she spiraled into a woman who would barely speak or make eye contact.
    Clearly, it had something to do with those text messages, which if he had to guess were from her ex.
    No wonder she was in such a hurry to move and didn’t want to spend one more night in his presence, let alone share a bed with him. Just the thought made him sick. He didn’t even know the guy and he wanted to commit bodily harm.
    Sure they got off to a rocky start her first day in the ER, but since they’d gone to breakfast and hashed things out, things had been far better than he expected. He liked her. He liked that she was funny and sarcastic and didn’t know a stranger—that she chatted with patients like she’d known them twenty years instead of twenty minutes. He liked that she, in stark contrast to Brittany, didn’t constantly talk about herself. She asked questions, she listened to the responses. Rachel was, in a word, genuine.
    Who wouldn’t want a woman like that? And what kind of man was her soon-to-be ex that he could affect her in such a way with a few text messages?
    When dinner was through, he didn’t give her too hard of a time about wanting to help him clear the table or rinse the dishes. Instead, he politely thanked her for her help and finished things up on his own. With the dishwasher started and the trash taken out, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, thinking they could both really use one right about then.
    He found her standing at the fireplace mantel looking at a photo of him taken in full kit, an American flag used as a backdrop. And he couldn’t help but notice she looked so, so sad.
    “Admiring my younger, pimple-faced self?” he asked while offering her a longneck, hoping to lighten her spirits a bit. It worked, but only for a split second when a slight smile appeared on her face, then vanished just as quickly. If he had blinked he would have missed it altogether.
    “This is how you looked back when—”
    She spoke so softly as she accepted the beer from his hand and he had a hard time making out what she said. And then when he did, it took several more seconds to realize she was talking about Ethan’s funeral. Rachel also happened to be right—the picture had most likely been taken the very same year.
    She moved to the next photo, one of him and his father taken at his graduation from Ranger School. “Your dad looks just the same.”
    “Don’t you dare say that to him. He’s likely to dump Brenda and ask you out.”
    She smiled a second time, this one lingering a little longer than his previous attempt. It was a small victory, but one he’d gladly claim.
    He took a seat in the recliner and she followed, settling on the sofa and tucking her feet up beneath her.
    “I do wish I’d known Ethan was considering the military. I would have told him to go air force or navy. I could’ve