Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance (8 page)

“This is the Surge. We all knew this time was going to be different.” Jen heard the
hollowness of her own words as she struggled to defend her friend’s husband. But sometimes she wondered what they did over there, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

“Jen, don’t make excuses for him. I know what he’s doing, and it’s not calling home. There is
always
time to call home. Hell, he called me right after a big fight in Najaf last time, just to ask me how my day went. It’s like he’s shut off or shut down. He never does stuff like this.” Laura rubbed her hands over her arms. “I just don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Jen stayed quiet, not sure what she could say to make things right again. Until her husband was home—permanently—nothing would be right in Laura’s world.

Laura released a hard breath and leaned away from the table. “The last thing I want is to put pressure on him. I know how hard it is for him as a commander. He’s got a hundred and eighty soldiers that he’s responsible for. But something is wrong, Jen, I know it in my heart.”

“Any idea what?”

Laura looked away. “I have no clue.”

“Can you tell him that? Tell him you need him to call home more, just to talk? It can’t be that bad over there, can it?”

“What kind of wife would I be if I finally get him on the phone for more than five minutes and I give him shit about not calling home enough? Gee, honey, I know you’re getting blown up and all, but I need you to let me complain about the lawn mower breaking last week.” She lifted her coffee cup, then set it back down without taking a sip. “I can’t do that.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“You mean other than cry on your shoulder? Not much I can do.”

Jen reached for her hand and squeezed. “Let me take the kids off your hands for a day. Or something. Why don’t you go to the library or relax or just take some time for you?”

“Because …” Laura closed her mouth. “I might. Sorry. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you.”

Jen laughed. “Um, pretty sure I owe you a meltdown or two. I dumped a whole lot on you when I was sick and my family didn’t bother to come down.”

“Yeah, well, the least I could do was be there when they wouldn’t. Your family sucks.” Laura tucked her hair behind her ear and finally smiled.

“And look on the bright side. At least you have hair when you’re giving me shit.” Jen smiled, still sometimes amazed that she could joke about what had happened to her. At least about some of the stuff. And it felt good to laugh. To be able to sit there and find something funny about the loss of her grandmother and her own brush with death. Anything was better than focusing on the missing pieces.

“Great, thanks for that memory. Just where I wanted to be right now.”

“At least it made you laugh.”

“Yeah, it did. I just miss him so much,” Laura said. “I’m so damned tired of being alone.” She smiled sadly. “I told him a couple of weeks ago that he’d been replaced by my vibrator. You know what he said?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Send pictures.”

Jen snorted coffee out through her nose. It burned and her eyes filled up as she tried to choke it back down. “Way too much information. Really.”

Laura’s laugh echoed through the small coffee kiosk, prompting several odd looks from those around them. “Man, you should have seen your face. Priceless, truly priceless.”

“Feel better now? I’m going to be smelling coffee for the rest of the day, thanks.”

Jen turned at the sound of running footsteps to see Nicole rushing toward them, a panicked look on her face. She stopped at the edge of their table, breathing hard, her keys clenched in her hand. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?” Laura sat up straight. Focused. Attentive. This was the Laura Jen knew so well.

“There are posts on the battalion Facebook page saying Vic’s whole platoon got hit.”

All the color drained from Laura’s face and she went deathly still. Jen’s own skin went cold as she stood. “I’ll see if we have any information on the hospital manifest yet. I’ll be right back.”

“I’m heading to the battalion headquarters,” Nicole said. “I’ll meet you over there.”

Nicole was gone before either of them could answer and Jen rushed to find any information she could. Since Jen worked in the hospital on base, she kept an eye on the incoming personnel from Iraq, giving Laura a heads-up whenever she could. What they did wasn’t technically illegal, but it worked when the regular systems were too slow. Not a single soldier from Reaper battalion had been lost in the medical system, and they weren’t about to start now.

“One of Trent’s soldiers.” She glanced at the sheet, just to make sure she didn’t make a mistake. “Aaron Osterman.”

Laura’s eyes instantly watered, but she brushed the sudden emotion aside—a reaction that unfortunately came from too much practice. Jen knew she should be used to Laura’s stoic calm, but it still amazed her. Laura cared and cared deeply for the men in her husband’s company and, by extension, those in the other companies that made up his battalion. Jen didn’t know how she coped with so many notifications—of deaths, of injuries—over the years. Each one took a toll. Each one had to remind Laura that Trent had almost been one of them. All men Laura had known, whose wives she’d helped support after their husbands’ deaths. How did she do that after she’d come so close to losing Trent herself?

In the back of her mind had to be the fear that someday Trent’s name could be on that list again, like it had been those horrible thirty-six hours early in the war. Jen would have to ask her how—why—she still did what she did with the families after what happened to Trent. But now was not the time.

“What are we looking at?” Laura made notes in her ever-present green notebook.

“Burn trauma and lower extremity trauma.”

“When’s he coming in?”

“Tonight.” Jen frowned. As hard as it was to break the news to family members that their soldier was wounded, it was so much worse to see wounded men and women sitting alone, day after day, week after week when no one showed up to check on them. Jen knew exactly how they felt, but it didn’t make it any easier. Which was another reason why she helped Laura. Every little bit helped. “Do you know if anyone
is
coming?”

“Yeah. I just sent a text back to battalion and checked our notification rosters. Becky Fitzpatrick. Fiancée,” Laura said, scribbling notes. “Okay. I’ll brief the rear detachment commander that we’ve got things taken care of here.” Laura shouldered her purse and stuffed her notebook back inside. She squeezed Jen close before she headed toward the door. “Thanks. For everything.”

Jen waited until she was alone to let a guilty relief prickle over her skin. Shane was safe. She hadn’t gotten the chance to know him well, but she still held her breath every time she saw a casualty report. The relief she felt for her friends’ husbands was real, but in a secret part of her heart, she was glad Shane’s name hadn’t crossed any of her lists.

* * *

Shane sat on the edge of his bunk and stared at the floor. He bounced one leg constantly, needing to exorcise the caged frustration churning inside of him. Goddamn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so amped up with nothing to do with the energy.

He cradled his forehead in his palm, needing to shake the deep foreboding twisting in his guts. Five nights ago, Jennings had been shot. Three days before that, Wallid had been wounded, but he’d returned to duty with nothing more than twelve stitches and his second Purple Heart. He was still in the fight.

Too many of his boys were walking around with Purple Hearts from being wounded by the enemy or with Combat Action Badges for engaging the enemy. Damn but he wished battalion would send some more soldiers into his sector. His platoon was on edge, overworked, and undermanned, with a battlespace that required two companies’ worth of infantrymen. He had sixty men, but needed more like two hundred to clear and
hold the real estate they’d been assigned. He rubbed his hands over his face and forced the dread down into a tight box.

A small, flat-rate U.S. Postal Service box poked out from beneath his bunk, partially hidden by his ancient, green sleeping bag. He had forgotten about it. Curious, he reached for the box, turning it until he could see the address label.
Jen St. James
.

A slow smile spread across his lips. He hadn’t expected this. She’d kill him if she knew how sick he’d actually gotten after landing in country. His platoon had been on the range, verifying their battle sight zeros and making sure they could actually hit what they shot at before heading north, and he’d been balled up on his cot, sweating and shaking and puking so hard he thought he’d crack bone.

But he wasn’t about to tell her any of that. He pulled his knife from its sheath and sliced the box open with a flick of his wrist. Shane swore softly as he dug through the white foam and a billion packing peanuts scattered on the floor.

Buried beneath the Styrofoam was a small, vacuum-sealed bag of brownies, a couple of boxes of salted almonds, beef jerky, and a small envelope with
Shane
scrawled on the front. He felt kind of stupid, but the smile wouldn’t leave his lips as he flipped her letter open.

“Carponti didn’t sign you up for another dating with herpes care package, did he?”

Shane stuffed the letter back into the box like a guilty teenager as Trent walked up to him. “Nah, just another random care package from a support-the-troops organization. Jelly beans and magazines and sunscreen.”

He nudged the box beneath his bunk, hiding Jen’s address. Something about the brief, distant contact with Jen had struck a chord with him, and he wanted to keep it private.

Trent blew out a hard breath and sat down on Carponti’s bunk. Carponti would have kittens if he found out Trent had violated the place where the magic happened—nightly—with the woman of his dreams. Nicole apparently enjoyed sending her husband dirty letters.

Briefly, Shane considered telling Trent what he might be sitting in then thought better of it. It was purely speculation and trash-talking on Carponti’s part, and to be honest, Shane just didn’t want to think about it. Damn, but he missed having a space of his own.

“I suppose you’re here about Randall?”

“Who else? I’m not really in the mood to deal with this bullshit. His or yours. So what happened this time?”

Trent looked tired. More tired and beat down than Shane had seen him in years. He wasn’t sleeping, that much Shane knew. He often saw him up at night, pacing outside the company tactical operations center or crouched over his laptop on the other side of the bay at three a.m. The Surge was more brutal than anyone had expected. Shane and the other senior leaders in the company all pulled their weight and tried to mitigate Lieutenant Randall’s incompetence. He was unreliable at best, untrustworthy at worst.

“Randall and Miller are fighting again. I don’t care why but I’m tired of playing mediator between whoever Randall has pissed off this week. You need to squash it. The troops are starting to notice and infighting isn’t what you need right now. No one does.”

Anger flashed in Trent’s eyes, quickly followed by fatigue. “I’m aware of everyone’s responsibilities. But I’m at a loss about what to do about it. Because in fourteen years, I’ve never run into something like this.”

“Two lieutenants not getting along is nothing new.” Shane nudged the box farther beneath his bunk and started lacing up his boots.

“Believe me, that I know. But I don’t trust him. And that’s a bigger problem than you neutering him in front of the troops.”

“Why don’t you trust him?” Shane had put the lieutenant in his place. And yeah, soldiers had seen it. So what? This was the infantry, not elementary school. Feelings got hurt. Suck it up. But he didn’t say any of that to Trent. Preaching to the choir and all that.

“I don’t know. If I did, I’d already be talking to the battalion commander about finding a replacement. I can’t articulate why. And if I can’t define the problem, I damn sure can’t find a solution for it. The boss damn sure isn’t going to let me fire someone on a whim.”

Shane studied his longtime friend and, not for the first time, wondered at the heavy load of worries Trent carried as an officer. Things had been so much simpler when they’d been sergeants together back at Fort Benning. “Pal, this is a tough one, but if you don’t trust him, you need to deal with it, sooner rather than later. I can tell you why I don’t trust him, but that’s not enough to go to the boss with. He’s going to get somebody else killed.” Shane stood and heaved his body armor over his head in a single movement. “This crap gets heavier and heavier every year. You coming tonight?”

“The alternative is prying lead out of your ass,” Trent said, handing Shane his Kevlar helmet. “And not on this mission. I’ve got to go see the equal opportunity adviser.”

“For what?” There was a time when the equal opportunity program had been value added, designed to teach tolerance and bring harmony between the races and the genders. Now, though, it seemed like it was just another way for disgruntled troops to complain when things didn’t go their way.

“Some bullshit. Don’t worry about it.”

Shane shrugged and fastened his gear around his torso. “Look, Trent, I think Randall is screwing up the maintenance. Parts aren’t getting ordered. I’ve still got two deadlined weapons systems. I can’t prove it. But it might be something worth checking out.”

“All right. I’ll look. You dropped this,” Trent said, reaching down and picking up a brown, legal-sized envelope.