Page 1 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

Chapter 1

Staff Sergeant Finch McAllister always rose early. Having joined the army at eighteen, his body was long accustomed to waking before his alarm each day.

The barracks were stirring with the sounds of soldiers waking, and shuddering of old pipes somewhere behind the walls. He liked this slice of peace before the base came really alive and the day filled with orders, noise, and the press of bodies moving through the narrow hallways. This was his quiet time.

Finch rose, showered, and pulled on his army combat uniform. After lacing his feet into his boots, he tided his room.

His daily life had become predictable because the core habits he’d developed had remained consistent. He liked the familiarity of what came next, and the discipline of doing it well was something else that was now second nature to him.

Looking at his watch, he noted it was 5:00 a.m. His phone buzzed, signaling a call. Looking at his screen, he saw Blue Jay’s face. She was the oldest of his sisters.

“You know I work for a living, right? Unlike you,” he said by way of a greeting.

Looking at the latest framed picture on the small shelf opposite of everyone in his family but Finch and his younger brother Lynx, all of them smiling, he felt it again. A small tug of longing, but he wouldn’t give into that yet.

“Okay, so let me educate you,” his sister said. “I rise before the sun because your nephew is a vampire, clearly. Then there’s all the food I prepare for my children and that loser I’m married to⁠—”

“I heard that,” Jay roared from somewhere in their house.

“Then I have to⁠—”

“Got it, your job is way harder than mine,” Finch cut her off. “Was there a reason for this call, other than to insult me?”

“No, I just wanted to annoy you at five in the morning.”

“Job done, then. Now, if you’re finished annoying me, can I get ready to do some actual work?” Finch said.

“Because I don’t know what actual work is?” Blue’s tone was not happy.

“Go back to bed, and get out the right side, and tell your man I’m real sorry because clearly he married a crazy woman.”

“Love you, big brother,” she said.

“Love you, too, little sister. Now go nap.”

He cut the call, shaking his head. She’d always called him randomly—it was their thing—and usually just so they could throw insults at each other.

One day he’d have a family of his own with a woman he loved, and maybe they’d call Lyntacky home, but that was a few years away. Finch had things he wanted to achieve in the army first.

Looking at his phone as it signaled a message, he saw it was from Blue.

I managed to slip out to girls’ night, and Birdie may or may not have drunk too much and danced on the bar singing “It’s Raining Men.” But you didn’t hear any of this from me. Her backup singers were pretty good though.

The picture was of Birdie, his little sister, who had her head thrown back and was belting out a tune. It was the woman next to her that caught and held his attention. Nina Winters. Blond, lush, and distracting. She wore a pair of shorts that showed off plenty of her lovely legs. The T-shirt was tight and had him enlarging the picture. Hot, sexy, and plenty of other words he wasn’t proud of thinking at 5:00 a.m.

She’d been throwing him looks that said she was interested the last few times he’d gone home. Maybe next time he’d let her know he returned that interest.

He turned off his phone, left it on his bed, and walked out, thinking about the woman in the picture and what he’d say to her when he got home.

How about dinner, Nina? It wasn’t original, but to the point.

The hallway outside his room was just beginning to stir with the thud of boots on linoleum and the smell of bad coffee brewing in the common room.

Corporal Diaz, already kitted for the same exercise, nodded at him as Finch approached. “Briefing’s pushed up twenty, Sarge. Command wants us out before the fog burns off.”

Finch checked his watch again and did the math. Fog meant visibility was already going to be shit on the back roads, and pushing the timeline up twenty minutes meant less daylight margin if anything went sideways. Not that anything ever did. He’d run that route more times than he could count, and he knew every rut and bend of it the way he knew the inside of his own boots.

“Copy that,” he said. “We’ll grab some food and head out.”