Page 28 of In Every Chapter

I grunted through another rep. “You know?”

“Stephanie told me about it.”

Right. Because his younger sister was best friends with mine. “How is Steph?”

“You can see her next week and ask her yourself.”

I eyed him cautiously. “Are you trying to set me up?”

“Heck no!” Gabe barked a laugh. At my raised eyebrow, he amended, “You’re a great guy, and I have nothing against you personally. But military guys aren’t her type.” He glanced out the window, jaw twitching with a frown. “She wants stability. And this? Well, it’s anything but that.”

I’d heard about Hiram Addams abandoning Stephanie after her mother left when she was a child. And Gabe was right—this lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. Which made finding the right woman that much harder.

Maybe Liam was right. I did need to live a little. Not that I’d ever admit it to him.

“All right, I’ll go.”

“Good.” Gabe nodded, spotting my weight bar. “I don’t want to see you on base for at least a week. I know you have the time for it.”

“But—”

“Nope. You’re gone.” He fixed me with a hard look when I sat up from the bench in protest. “You have good people at your back, Grey. Let them in.” With a punctuating nod, he added, “Come for dinner? Ivy has something for you to take to Delilah.”

“You already knew I’d cave?”

Gabe pounded me on the shoulder. “Nah. But I was prepared to order you off base if it came to that. Consider yourself lucky. Some of Liam’s ideas were . . . creative.”

I shuddered at the thought. Looked like I was Idaho bound at last.

Chapter twelve

Paisley

“Are you going to be okay?” Greyson asked, hovering over the open passenger door of Juliet’s RAV4 while I buckled my seat belt.

I was getting tired of the question, but the shower had made me feel more human, so I pasted on a benign smile. “Yup.”

Even though I’d only come home from the hospital yesterday evening, I was going stir-crazy from the attention. Juliet was staying with us while Liz and Stephanie crashed at her place. Greyson had been incredibly attentive, and that attentiveness terrified me. I was used to doing things for myself. When I was sick, I got my own medicine. I didn’t have someone waiting on me hand and foot.

A girl could get used to that sort of princess treatment. But you won’t because you have Jared. Then again, Jared was missing in action right now and hadn’t brought me soup when I’d had the flu over Thanksgiving.

Juliet slid into the driver’s seat. “Ready?”

I nodded.

Greyson still hesitated, and Juliet leaned into my space to scowl at him.

“Grey, I’ve got her, okay? Now please close the door so I can get on with my kidnapping scheme. The girls are waiting.”

Greyson opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, but when I chuckled at Juliet’s choice of words, he relaxed and closed my door. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sunshine-yellow phone. “Your, uh, phone broke in the accident. Thought you might be needing it.” He held it out to me through the open window.

“You got me a new phone?” I asked, wide-eyed.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t a big deal. There was no salvaging your old one, so I had Brett swing by with a new one earlier. But I got everything transferred over.”

That . . . should not sound so attractive coming out of his mouth. “I . . . thank you.” I took the offered device and stared at the screen. “I don’t remember my password.”

“I turned it off so you can set something new.”