Read Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance for Free Online

Pretty minor, as blessings went, but he’d take it. “She was on Dad’s case worse than usual.”
    Already walking down the back hall toward her room on some private errand, Katie didn’t reply. Caleb made his way to the living room, where he took in the devastation three rowdy schoolkids and a dog had wreaked on his house in the span of a few hours. Open magazines covered the rug he’d sent home from Turkey. Couch cushions, blankets, and a folding chair formed some kind of rickety structure in the corner. There was a mystery puddle of clear liquid on the hardwood.
    He shook his head at the wreckage and started putting the couch back together.
    When he’d bought this place after 9/11, converting his savings and reenlistment bonus into the down payment, he figured he was probably heading into combat. He’d wanted the comfort of knowing that one day the war would be over and he would move home to Camelot and live in his own house.
    He’d seen himself with a wife eventually, and maybe a kid or two. Police or security work to keep him busy. He’d never thought he would get deployed to Iraq three times in five years, or that he’d end up staying on in the army for another decade. He just hadn’t been able to walk away. Not when his men still needed him.
    Never had he imagined he’d end up back home at thirty-three, a small-business owner with his baby sister as a roommate.
    Not that he regretted any of it. He’d left home a cocky, aimless kid in search of new people to charm and adventures of the sort the Midwest didn’t have on tap. And he’d found them in Germany, Sarajevo, Iraq—but the military police had also given him the mission he hadn’t known he was craving. A day-in, day-out struggle to make a positive difference thousands ofmiles from home.
    The army had taken fifteen years of the best he had, and he considered it a fair exchange for what he’d gotten in return. He’d served with honor. Now it was time to put his family first.
    He surveyed the scene. Better, but he needed paper towels. While he was in the kitchen getting them, Katie came in, wet a rag, and began wiping down the countertop, her short black hair swinging around her face.
    “You should try not to get so mad at Mom,” she said.
    “She’s mean to him, and he’s weak. It ticks me off.”
    “She can’t help it. It bugs her that Dad doesn’t remember things anymore. She thinks he just needs to try harder.”
    “Yeah. It’s a problem.”
    Before the stroke, Derek Clark had been a model husband and father. He’d managed the Camelot Arms Apartments with a capable good cheer, and he’d provided a decent living for the family. These days, the physical therapists pronounced him recovered, but he remained easily distracted. His short-term memory was pretty much shot. He seemed oblivious to how much his condition had deteriorated.
    It made Caleb feel like shit to think about it, so he tried not to.
    Katie exhaled loudly, blowing off steam, and opened the fridge door to put away a few bottles of salad dressing.
    “I don’t get why she doesn’t just call me when this stuff comes up,” Caleb said.
    “She doesn’t want to bother you.”
    “She’s supposed to bother me. Being around for her to bother me is the whole reason I moved back here.”
    “I know that, Caleb. She knows it, too, but she’s used to you being gone. I think she’s afraid to depend on you in case you decide to reenlist or something. Give it time, huh?”
    Unconvinced, he grunted his assent. He’d already given it six months.
    Katie pulled the trash can out from under the sink and started shoving used disposable cups and cutlery in it, her mouth set in a grimace he’d seen too often lately. Between working as his office manager, studying for the online college class she was taking, and nursing whatever private pain she’d brought back from Alaska, she had too much on her plate.
    All of them did. Mom and Dad’s apartment complex was aging, getting more