Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance (24 page)

She felt filled and sated and so deliciously feminine. She was still awake when his breathing went deep and regular. Then he twitched suddenly, like he was jolting out of a dream.

She pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. He didn’t say anything, but he tightened his arms around her in response.

“Carponti is going to be okay, Shane.” She pushed herself up on one elbow,
painfully aware that she was wearing nothing but a blouse. She might have shown him her scars, but that didn’t mean she was ready to go full frontal. Sex, sure. Naked? Not so much. “This wasn’t your fault.”

He dragged his hand over his face. “I should have pushed him. I should have made him talk to me. I’ve been so wrapped up in all my own bullshit, I ignored his.”

She planted her palm against his chest, anger sparking in her breast. She didn’t understand his need to hold himself responsible at all costs. She tried to remember how she’d felt when she first got sick. How she’d been convinced that no one would ever love a woman like her. How she’d considered having reconstructive surgery just to hide the scars, but had refused because she didn’t want to hide who she was. She still wondered what she might have done differently.

“You. Weren’t. There,” she said again. “You didn’t force him to drink all that Cuervo. You didn’t make him take too many Vicodin. You didn’t do that.”

He jerked away from her touch and a sudden coldness radiated from him. She wanted to comfort him, but something about him pushed her away. She suddenly very much wanted to get dressed.

“Shane, this isn’t your fault. You need to accept that.”

Her words rang hollow in the heavy silence and he scrubbed his hands over his face. She was more than a little surprised when his fingers twined with hers. “I still feel responsible. He’s one of my men. I’m supposed to see these things coming.”

She squeezed his fist. “You’re not Superman, and you’re not God. You’re human and you’re fallible just like the rest of us. What Carponti did isn’t your fault.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then pulled her down into his embrace. The
warm afterglow was gone, though, replaced by a distant chill.

In the silence, he laid his cheek on the top of her head. “I wish I could believe that.” He scoffed in the darkness. “When I first pinned on sergeant stripes, one of my squad leaders told me that now I
was
a god, as far as my soldiers were concerned. I was responsible for all they did and all they failed to do.”

“Shane, your soldiers are still their own people, and they still make their own choices.”

“You don’t understand. There’s no other job on earth that makes you as responsible as I am for my men. I’m responsible for their training. I’m responsible for the way they live. For the choices they make downrange, including each time they pull the trigger.”

Jen pushed up on her elbow again and looked down at him. “What do you think I do at work every day, hand out candy? Do you know what it feels like to lose a patient who you’ve spent weeks or months trying to save? Or to have someone look you in the eye and tell you they’ll be fine when you know they’re not expected to live through the night?”

Shane swallowed and looked away. “I—”

“Don’t tell me I don’t understand. Don’t tell me it’s not the same. No one understands life and death like soldiers do. Just like no one understands life and death like doctors do.” She couldn’t keep the anger from her voice, the edge that chased away any warmth that lingered between them.

“Jen, that’s not what I meant.”

She wriggled from the bed, careful to avoid the broken lamp. “I think it’s exactly what you meant. You’ve been so wrapped up in everything that you can’t do, you’ve
convinced yourself that the only thing you can do is soldier. Now you can’t do it anymore, so you’re just going to sit around and dwell on what might have been? Well, guess what, Shane? Life doesn’t work like that. We all have choices to make, but even if we knew the outcome of every single one, we still wouldn’t be able to control everything. I gave up my breast so that I could live—”

“That’s right, Jen, you made the choice to give that up. I didn’t choose to be here—”

“You chose to deploy. Remember? You begged me to let you go when you were still healing from your surgery. You made the choice to be over there. You can’t control how that turned out.”

“Don’t lecture me about choices! This isn’t about my choices.”

She dragged on her pants. “No, it’s about control. And you don’t have any, isn’t that right? You couldn’t control Carponti’s choices. Hell, you couldn’t even find the right words to talk to one of your soldiers. You look in the mirror and see a used-to-be soldier.” She snatched the rest of her clothes up from the floor. “Try taking another look in the mirror. You might be surprised by what you see if you really bother to look.”

She didn’t slam the door behind her but it was a close thing. She couldn’t get back to sleep after that, couldn’t forget the anger that had been etched onto his face. He hadn’t asked for a lecture. He’d needed comfort.

She stared at the ceiling and considered the truth that she might have pushed him too far, too fast.

He really didn’t know what to expect before he rolled into her kitchen. Truth be told, he’d sat behind the closed door of Jen’s guest bedroom and contemplated how hard it would be to wheel himself to the base.

Considering it was over fifteen miles away and he’d been in a wheelchair for exactly forty-eight hours, it didn’t seem like a likely course of action.

Shane had never been a coward before. At least, not that he remembered. The first time he’d been in a firefight downrange, he’d pissed his pants but kept on going. His sergeant at the time had told him it happened to all of them at one point or another. Pissing himself didn’t make him a coward, it only meant that he was combat tested.

But this? This was different. This was worse.

Shane snorted and dragged his hands over his face. He’d screwed up last night. Big time. It didn’t help that Jen was wrong. He’d come to that realization somewhere around four-thirty in the morning. She simply didn’t understand the responsibility he had toward his men. He was supposed to see stuff like this coming. He was supposed to know his guys and know when something was off. Wasn’t that what the army had drilled into him ever since he’d pinned on his sergeant stripes? And now she was trying to tell him this wasn’t his fault? No, it might not have been his fault, but it was still his responsibility.

He’d heard her moving around in the kitchen for the better part of an hour, but he
couldn’t move past the barrier of his own inaction. So he sat, unable to find even a trace of courage for the coming confrontation. He wasn’t good at apologies. His failed marriage was a testament to that. So was his life as a sergeant. He’d been a good one. He hadn’t had to apologize often.

Having finally summoned up the resolve to face her, he pushed himself through the French doors. He did it too quickly, though, and they rebounded, banging into his leg. Pain shot through every nerve ending in his body and exploded in his brain.

Breathe. His only thought was to breathe through the pain. In through his nose. Out through his mouth. Deep, hard breaths to keep the pain burning in his throat from tearing free.

Instantly she knelt by his side. Her fingers were cool against his skin. It was the only thing he could feel through the pain and he latched on to it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered before she could speak. “Look, last night—”

“Please, don’t say it was a mistake.” She squeezed his forearm. “Whatever you say, just don’t say it was a mistake.”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said quietly.

She sighed, and relief surrounded both of them, permeating the space between them. “Okay. Then how about I stop interrupting.”

“That would be great.” She offered a mock scowl and he reached for her. Her fingers were smooth beneath his rough ones, reminding him again of the stark differences in their lives. Her fingers healed. Shane’s ended lives. How could he hope to make her understand his savage need to get back to his men when their very lives were built on such polar opposite foundations?

He looked at her now and remembered how she’d looked in the bar that first night. Her hair brushed against her cheeks, framing her face. It had always been her eyes that had claimed him, had marked his soul. Those grass-green eyes looked at him and he felt exposed. Like she knew his every sin, every secret.

The words he needed escaped him, leaving him mute. She didn’t push through his bullshit today, and it took him a moment to recognize the feeling inside him as regret.

“We need to leave for the base in about a half hour. Do you want coffee?” Her voice was quiet, and it did nothing to conceal her disappointment in him. She wished he’d said more, done more. He could tell in the stiff awkwardness between them now.

“Yeah. That’d be great, thanks.”

That awkwardness stood between them like a wall. Shane felt his own inaction clutch at his throat. He wouldn’t get a second chance to fix this. He’d screwed up. He’d driven away the one person who could look past his tattoos and bad attitude and get to the man inside. He sat in her kitchen and saw the one thing he hadn’t known he’d feared.

Her, walking away.

* * *

Jen watched him as he rolled down the hallway toward physical therapy. She watched him and wished he could get past all the baggage that kept him stuck in that chair. She wished he could just be the guy he’d been before he’d gotten hurt.

She suspected he’d never been a great orator, or one for flowery speeches or eloquent letters. If he’d ever gotten the chance to write a response to that care package she’d sent, she’d bet money that the note would have been short, perhaps written into a preprinted Hallmark card.

Just because he didn’t have many words didn’t mean they weren’t the right ones. She had hoped she’d gotten through to him last night. His silence this morning convinced her otherwise. His inability to talk to his men, to be the leader he once was, was driving him quietly to the edge. He worried about everyone but himself.

Jen didn’t know what to say to Shane. He worried about others so he wouldn’t have to face his own reality. A reality that might not involve a future in the military.

“What are you daydreaming about?” Nicole asked as she slid up to the nurse’s station.

“Hey. How’s Vic?” Jen asked. She wasn’t about to dive into her own problems, when Nicole obviously hadn’t even left the hospital last night.

“He’s good. His stomach is empty and he’s whining like crazy for McDonald’s Hotcakes. That’s where I’m headed now.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Jen raised both eyebrows. Nicole looked like she was in no condition to drive, let alone fetch Hotcakes. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m great. Vic’s okay. What else do I need right now?” Her voice cracked and Jen was instantly around the counter, wrapping her arms around her friend. Nicole sagged against her. “I’m so fucking tired,” she whispered.

Jen bit her lips together. It was exhausting caring for someone else, even someone like Vic, who claimed not to need any help. He’d insisted he was fine and they’d all believed him. Now they knew differently, and worry was a constant presence for Nicole and all of those who cared about him.

Jen held her friend, offering the only thing she could. Someone to lean on. “It’s okay, Nikki,” she whispered. “It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to not be okay all the time.”

Nicole straightened and dragged her fingers beneath her eyes. “I’m fine.” She smiled thinly. “I have to be. Now, I have to get Hotcakes.” Her phone chimed and she pulled it from her sweatpants pocket. “And Fritos, apparently.”

She was gone before Jen could say another word.

“What is it about these people that make them so determined to be okay?” she mumbled. Nicole was determined to be fine. Shane was determined to be fine. Carponti, despite what had happened last night, seemed determined to be fine. Was she the only one who ever crashed and burned out so badly that she didn’t want to get out of bed for a week?

She looked down the hallway toward where Shane had disappeared, and shook her head. There was no reaching him.

Eventually he was going to wake up and realize that no, he was not okay.

The question was, what would happen when that day came?

* * *

Shane’s finger hovered above the elevator’s buttons. He sighed and pressed the three until it lit up. He sucked in a deep breath as the doors closed. How would Carponti act? Would he look different?

After damn near fourteen years in the army, Shane was no stranger to suicide. Carponti wasn’t the first to have tried it. It was so much worse than losing a soldier to enemy contact. At least then there was someone you could blame. What could you say to a guy who’d tried to kill himself barely twelve hours ago?
Hey, pal, you’re looking good
.

He knocked softly, the coward in him almost wishing that Carponti didn’t answer.

A loud “Yo!” crushed that hope, and he pushed open the door.

Out of every possible scenario Shane imagined, the one that greeted him shocked him the most. Carponti sat up in the bed, an IV taped to his left forearm, munching on a bag of Fritos and watching a football game. He had an open jar of salsa and a twenty-ounce Dr Pepper on the tray in front of him.

“Come on! That was pass interference!” Carponti chucked a chip at the TV, only to have it land on the Dallas Cowboys blanket covering his legs. “Cowboys are down and the refs are totally screwing us.”

“Where’s your guard?”

“You mean that sorry sack of shit Randall tried to post in here? He left.”

“What do you mean ‘he left’?”

“Just what I said. It’s not like I was going to kill myself or anything.” Carponti glanced at Shane and offered the Frito bag. “You look like shit.”

Anger exploded in Shane’s chest. “Maybe because I was up half the night worrying about you.”

Carponti pulled back the bag of chips, chewing slowly. “Nice to see you, too. What the hell’s your problem?”

Shane breathed deeply, slowly, trying to get a handle on the urge to smother the smart-ass.