Boots on the Ground: Homefront, Book 1 Read Free

orthopedics specialism instead of emergency medicine. She’d moved back to Meridian like her parents wanted, once a week she watched her brother’s kids so he could take out his wife, and she’d never so much as kissed a man with a tattoo.
    She played so strictly by the rules that she might as well have written them, and what good had they done her? She was lonely, bored and so full of frustrated energy that sometimes she wanted to start screaming and never stop.
    She pressed harder on the accelerator, flying around turns and surging over the gentle rises of the prairie. What if she didn’t turn around? What if she didn’t stop? What if she kept driving until she ran out of gas, then picked up and started over wherever she landed? Maybe she’d get a job as a waitress in some tiny town in Texas, and she’d fall in love with a sexy cowboy, and no one would know she was a doctor until one day a tornado hit, and she climbed through the debris to save the mayor’s child, and then—
    The chassis of her car clunked in and out of a deep pothole, and then there was a sound like a shot fired, and the car listed so heavily to the right that she barely managed to keep it on the shoulder. She hit the brake, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel as the car shuddered and skidded at the abrupt drop in speed, until it finally came to a halt on the side of the highway.
    For a moment Laurel sat still, listening to the bugs chirping in the long grasses on either side of the road. She had a pretty good idea of what she would find when she got out of the car, and she wished more than anything her brief escape had lasted a tiny bit longer.
    Finally she retrieved her high-heeled shoes from where she’d kicked them off and swung open the door. She knew as much about cars as most people did about orthopedic surgery, but even to her untrained eyes the diagnosis was easy. She had a flat.
    She reached into her purse for her phone, and uttered a curse when she unlocked the screen. No signal bars—she was too far out of town.
    “Goddammit,” she barked, snatching her bag out of the car and slamming the door. All she wanted was to go for a mildly irresponsible drive. Was that really too much to ask?
    Apparently so. With a huffed sigh, she slung her purse over her shoulder and began making her way back down the highway, her heels clopping against the asphalt in the otherwise silent evening. She was a mile past the gravel-road turnoff that led to a dingy-looking bar that usually had more Harleys than cars in the parking lot. It wasn’t ideal, but they’d have a landline, and it was better than sticking her thumb in the air and hoping she wasn’t about to live out the plot of a slasher flick.
    By the time she reached the edge of the bar parking lot twenty minutes later, Laurel’s hair was tangled, her feet were swelling out of her peep-toes, and she could feel sweat soaking her bra—but when she took one look at the three beer-bellied, leather-vested men smoking outside the front door, she seriously considered turning around and high-tailing it straight back to her car.
    The men stopped speaking as she approached, and she had a sudden memory of walking into one of the more heavily male-dominated classes in medical school and getting the same reaction. She lifted her chin and smiled at each man in turn. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
    “Evenin’, miss,” one of them replied. The other two nodded, which she decided was sufficient. She held her head high despite the wobble in her step and pushed open the door.
    It clattered shut behind her, and Laurel paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior. There were more patrons than she expected for somewhere so far out of town, although a quick scan told her she was the only female. A couple of gaming machines stood against one wall, neon-lit beer logos pierced the gloom and country music blared from the stereo system.
    It was a down-homey, cowboy-style dive bar. It was about as