Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance (16 page)

Her throat bobbed. “I could have kept you here. You would have been angry, but you would have been safe.”

He gripped her hand tighter. “And someone else would be sitting here instead. Someone who might have had kids who loved him or a wife who actually gave a damn about him. It’s better this way.”

She didn’t respond. Shane refused to release her hand. That simple human connection felt so right and it was the only thing anchoring him to this moment.

“How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“It’s not true. You have a family, right?”

He snorted. “My mom’s an alcoholic who spends all her time in truck stops up in Kansas, and I have no clue who my father is.”

“There are other people who care about you, Shane,” she whispered.

“Not really.” He sniffed. “The one person who was supposed to care gave up, too.
It’s better this way,” he repeated, as though saying it again would make it true.

He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. Instead, she reached for the sponge and Shane braced himself for the shock of cold water. The other nurses never managed to keep it warm, but when Jen dribbled the water over his newly released shoulder, he was surprised to find it not just warm, but hot.

A bath was a shameless excuse to have her hands on him. To feel her cool fingers running over his skin through the warm water.

He closed his eyes. Her fingers slid across his back and heat followed her gentle touch. She slipped the washcloth up his neck and he shivered.

“Sorry. Thought the water was warmer than that.” She hadn’t even started on his chest yet.

“It’s fine,” he managed, not wanting her to take her hands away for any reason.

She studied him quietly for a moment, then traced her hands down his chest, her fingers running over the maze of scars that marked his skin. Each one of them represented a failure. He hadn’t been quick enough to keep Zublow from dying on the battlefield. He’d been too arrogant to wait for air support before he tried to rescue Widget. He hadn’t pulled Ross from the kill zone fast enough. Somehow, the weight of those failures seemed a little less heavy as she ran her soapy hands over his skin.

She adjusted the bed and had him sit all the way forward so she could spread towels beneath him. She leaned across him, the heat from her body radiating into his, and dragged the warm, wet cloth down his jaw. He closed his eyes, enjoying the warm caress of her fingers on his skin.
Bathing patients is a normal thing for a nurse to do
. He clenched his fists, his lungs suddenly tight. He was jealous. Jealous that any other man
had ever had her hands on him.

He captured her hand, rubbing her wet fingers between his. “Jen—”

He didn’t care that she was a nurse and he, her patient. He wanted her. This beautiful, stubborn woman who touched him and made him feel like a man instead of an invalid. Her heart-shaped mouth was so close. Her lips parted.

Warm water dribbled down his chest, cooling as it slid over him. He stroked her palm, making small circles with his thumb. Her mouth drew him and held him mesmerized. Just one taste and he’d let her go.

Neither was prepared for the door to slam open like a cannon. Or to see Carponti staring at them like he’d just found Jimmy Hoffa’s body.

If Jen had ever wished she could disappear, now was that moment. Carponti’s grin was as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s. Had he walked in on anyone other than Jen herself, she might have laughed with him. Instead, she felt like a guilty teenager.

“I’ll, ah, wait outside,” Carponti said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. For the first time since Shane had known him, he didn’t slam the door.

It took Jen all of a hot second to realize that Shane still had her hand captured against his chest. She was starting to enjoy this habit he was developing. A little too much.

“Shane—”

“Don’t pull away. Please.”

“Then let go.”

She could feel his heartbeat beneath her palm. Strong and steady, she could imagine
her cheek resting there instead. Just lying still and listening to his heartbeat. It was such a small desire.

She was hot and she was bothered and she needed to escape from Shane before she exploded.

“Thank you. For everything.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but she stopped him. She didn’t bother to fight the blush that crept up her cheeks.

“It’s the least I can do.” She smiled slightly. “Let go. Vic is outside waiting and you’re almost naked.”

He shook his head and refused to let her hand go free. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“That’s nice of you to say.” The moment was gone. She looked at him now, and just saw a patient who was grateful to regain a little more of the life he’d had before he got hurt. She tugged her hand free and cleaned up the remnants of his bath.

* * *

She dreaded the thought of leaving the room and walking by Vic Carponti. She kept her head down when she finally did leave, and she refused to make eye contact when she passed him in the hallway. Her hand burned where it had rested against Shane’s chest. She balled her fist as though she could capture the memory of Shane’s heartbeat inside of it.

It took all of ten minutes for her cell phone to ring.

“So I hear you gave the patient a happy ending to his bath?” Nicole asked.

“That was fast.” Jen sighed. “Would it do me any good to lie?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I’ll say this, Carponti certainly has an active imagination.”

“Ah, so something did happen. I knew it. Spill.” The glee in Nicole’s voice was contagious. Not so much so that Jen wanted to actually have this conversation, but still.

“Nothing happened. I took Shane’s cast off. He was a little overwhelmed to have both of his hands back.”

He had been more than overwhelmed. He’d been stunned into silence, and the way he’d looked at her, she’d have thought she’d conquered space instead of just cutting off his cast.

For that brief moment, Jen had forgotten about the scar slicing across her chest. For that brief moment, she’d felt desired and beautiful. She’d believed him when he told her she was amazing.

Reality had a way of crashing down on her, though—of reminding her that Shane would be leaving the hospital one day. How likely was it that he’d want anything to do with her after that? He’d probably just find someone else.

“Nicole, will you stop? Nothing happened.”

“Uh-huh. Obviously I’m going to have to beat it out of you. I’ll be at your house for dinner tonight at six p.m. sharp. I’m bringing food and Laura.”

“Nicole, it won’t kill us if we don’t get together tonight. I’m tired.”

“Honey, I might kill one of the neighborhood kids if I have to stay in another night. Besides, Laura needs a break.”

“What’s your husband doing?”

“Apparently he has duty, so he’ll be sitting at a desk all night.”

Jen sighed, unable to generate a single good excuse for why she wanted to beg off
girls’ night. “Would it help if I said I had laundry all over my living room?”

“No.”

“Not letting me out of this, are you?”

“Nope.” She could practically hear Nicole’s grin through the phone. “I’m going to ply you with alcohol to get the details about Shane.”

Jen rolled her eyes again. “
Nothing
happened.”

“Uh-huh.” They hung up and Jen tried to come up with a rational explanation for what Carponti “thought” he’d seen. Maybe she could suggest he was on drugs.

She was so screwed.

“Where’s a good place to hide a body around here?” The door slammed open like a gunshot. Shane held his breath and waited for his heart to stop slamming against his ribs. Carponti stood at the foot of his bed, his face red beneath the beard he refused to shave. Again.

“Who are we killing?” Every six months or so, Carponti lost his cool. The guy might be a smart-ass but he was just as quick to get pissed off as he was to laugh. The problem was that he was less diplomatic than Shane. Which wasn’t saying much at all.

“Randall. He just cornered me at the duty desk and tried to question me about the missing equipment.”

“Doesn’t sound like a reason for killing him.”

“He accused me of dereliction of duty. Hell, I’m not even supposed to
be
on duty.” Carponti snorted. “He can derelict my balls.”

Shane tried not to laugh. “Did he read you your rights?”

“He started to, but I walked off.” Carponti paced the tiny space, his thumb tapping against his thigh. “I’m just covering for one of the guys as a favor so he can take his wife out for their anniversary. Because, you know, we haven’t all missed out on enough of those over the years.”

Carponti sank into the visitor’s chair. Shane watched how he cradled his bandaged
arm against his stomach. Other than that one subtle movement, he seemed completely fine. “What do we do about that damned lieutenant?”

“I don’t know. I don’t trust him. I never have. And I can’t get ahold of Trent—Captain Davila—downrange to find out what’s going on.” It frustrated him to no end that every time he tried to dial the number of Trent’s orderly room—the military equivalent of an office—he got a dead tone. Shane knew the number worked. At least, it had before he’d been evacuated out of theater and shipped home. Why was there such complete silence from Trent downrange? He knew the whole battalion couldn’t be in blackout communications for this damn long, so the lack of contact was driving Shane to distraction.

“We need to figure it out, though, because the little weasel said he wants to find Osterman.”

“Osterman isn’t in any condition to be hassled by Randall on a good day. Unless he’s getting his head straight? Is he in combat stress therapy or anything?”

“Not that I’ve seen. The kid just mopes through his physical therapy sessions. He sits and stares at his bandaged leg like it’s the end of the world or something.” Carponti held up his arm. “It’s not. At least he doesn’t have to learn to jerk off with his off hand.”

“Second time you’ve mentioned that.” Shane choked back a laugh. “I still don’t care.”

“You should be sensitive to my feelings. It hurts that you don’t care about my problems,” Carponti said, faking a wounded expression.

“Focus on the matter at hand.”

“Oh, ha-ha-ha.” Carponti chucked a towel at Shane, who slapped it down. “Since
there aren’t any good places for hiding bodies around here, do you have a better plan for dealing with Randall?”

“You tell him you’ll talk to him but reserve the right to invoke your Article Thirty-One rights at any time. Keep copies of everything that you give him. I wouldn’t put it past him to forge a sworn statement. I told Trent he might have been falsifying the sensitive items reports.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Plot thickens, huh? What’s up with officers these days? They don’t make ’em like they used to.” Carponti kicked his feet up onto the edge of Shane’s bed.

Shane reached down and shoved them off. “Guys like Randall are the exception. They don’t make it much further than captain, and that’s a good thing.”

“Ah, you’re forgetting that Randall’s daddy is a brigade commander up at Fort Carson,” Carponti said, propping his feet up again. “But anyway, changing the subject. What’s up with you and Jen St. James?”

Here we go
. “How do you know her?”

“Score one for avoiding the question,” Carponti said, making a tick in the air. “She’s a friend of my wife’s. Apparently, they’re doing some bizarre female thing tonight over at Jen’s house because I’m on duty.”

“What kind of female thing?” He captured a mental image of Jen leaning into a mirror, swiping lip gloss over her bottom lip. His body tightened and he shifted. He didn’t need Carponti to think he was giving him a hard-on.

“No idea. Toenails or something. My point, however, is this—if you don’t spill the
beans, I’ll get the info from my wife.”

“Look, she’s just doing her job. There’s nothing to tell.” That had to be the worst dodge in history, but maybe he’d get lucky and throw Carponti off the scent. He didn’t want to dig into his personal life right now. Or ever.

“That didn’t look like nothing,” Carponti commented. Shane grunted and turned the TV on. Of course, Carponti smelled weakness. Fuck. “And the fact that she’s cute as hell doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Sure. You haven’t had sex in how long? I mean, your wife moved out almost six months before we left. Your dick has to be pretty pissed at you right now. Have you even—”

“My dick isn’t any of your business. My personal life isn’t, either. Drop it.”

“Well, aren’t we touchy.” Carponti stood and stretched. “Guess I’ll just have to get the story from my wife.” He made an exaggerated yawn. “Later.”

Carponti was gone before Shane knew it, leaving him with uncomfortable thoughts of Jen and his dick. Damn it, why did Carponti have to plant that visual? He did like her. His imagination was having his way with her at the moment and he closed his eyes, needing to banish the images from his brain. He was going to hell for the way he was thinking about her now.

Because his imagination had her naked, her hips spread across his lap as she rode them both over the edge and into paradise.

* * *

“I’ve got the wine,” Nicole announced, as she walked into Jen’s living room and
sank into the old couch that Jen refused to throw away.

The brown-and-white-striped sofa had been the most comfortable place for her to sleep when she’d been recovering from chemo. Laura had tried to convince her to get rid of all the things even remotely associated with her sickness, but she’d refused to part with the couch. She was funny that way.

“The two weeks a year my in-laws relieve me of my parenting duties are the only grown-up time I get.” Laura sank into the couch next to her, curling her feet beneath her. “I think I love my in-laws more than my husband sometimes. What are we watching?”

“
Sweet Home Alabama
. I’m on a Reese Witherspoon kick right now and if Vic has to sit through one more showing of
Legally Blonde
, he swears he’ll divorce me.” Nicole wandered back into the kitchen barefoot to grab some wineglasses, and started pouring a glass for each of them.