Broken Soldier: A Novel (3 page)

“That’s insane. Your insurance is taking care of you, right?”

“Yeah, they’re footing the rental. I’m supposed to wait a week, so I figure I’ll start looking at cars next weekend.”

“Well, if you need a man to go with you to intimidate the salesmen, you should call Rafael.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Scott had helped her find her coupe, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for Rafael to step into those shoes. Not yet.

“Tell you what, I’ll talk to Paul and find out if he had a good time. If you didn’t totally scare him off, we’ll set you up again.”

“Christa, I appreciate the effort, and Lord knows he’s handsome, but I don’t think he’s interested.”

“Honey, if he spent an evening looking at you in a cocktail dress, he’s interested.”

Emily snorted. “Boobs aren’t everything.”

“No, but they’re like 90% when it comes to men. Believe me. Half those guys that went past us glanced at my legs, but they positively ogled your chest.”

“Anyway...”

“Anyway, I’ll let you know about Rafa, okay? You would see him again, right?”

“I guess.”

Christa rolled her eyes. “God save us from guessing psychologists.”

R
AFA
 double-checked his phone, making sure he was at the right place. It said “Gulliver’s Bar and Grille” over the door, but the sign was cracked and the paint was peeling. It was not the kind of place he expected Emily to frequent, but the name was right.

He peered through the windows, trying to get a feel for what kind of people were inside. It looked like a yuppie skiing crowd. His slacks and button-up shirt were a touch overdressed, but the crowd was probably safe. He entered quickly, closing the heavy door behind him to keep the bell from rattling. A susurrus of sound hit him, conversations and laughter and the clink of glasses on the long granite bar top.

Emily waved from a small table across from the bar. He passed through the crowd, eyes on her the whole way. She looked amazing. Another dress, this one navy and with sleeves. Her legs peaked out from beneath, and he could see the full shape of her calves. He sat across from her, taking care to tuck his injured right leg under the table where it wouldn’t be a tripping hazard for anyone else.

“I’m glad you could make it,” she said.

“I’m glad to be here.” It bothered him to have his back to the door. He tried to tell himself that he was in the middle of the US. Men with guns weren’t going to just burst through.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m good. Have the police found your car yet?”

“They found it Thursday night.”

That sounded ominous. He waited for her to continue.

“It was totaled. Whoever had it ran it into a telephone pole north of Denver.”

“That’s terrible. You have a rental, no?”

“I do. I’m going to look at new cars tomorrow.” A waiter--thin, maybe forty, not dangerous--came over and took their drink orders. “So that’s me,” Emily said when the waiter left. “How are you doing?”

He shrugged. “I’m good.” As good as he could be, all things considered.

“So you’ve traveled a lot, right?”

He smiled. Innocuous conversation. That was a good thing. Probably. At least it meant that she wasn’t trying to analyze him. “You could say that.”

“So what was your favorite place?”

He spent a while talking about hiking in the Pyrenees and snorkeling off the coast of Portugal. She talked about jogging in the mountains in the warm weather months, skiing in the colder ones. It made him keenly aware of his leg, but it caught his attention, too. He yearned to run in the mountains again. Say what you would about Afghanistan, but it had pretty scenery. The mountains were what had brought him to Boulder, after all. That and the VA down in Denver.

“So what are you going to do after you’re discharged?” she asked. It caught him by surprise. His eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean?” Had she just been trying to lull him?

“I talked to Christa and she said that you were probably leaving the service. You said your family had been in the service for generations. It made me wonder if there was any other family business.”

“I see. The family business has been... I guess you could say conquest. My father is a consultant at a Washington firm now that he’s retired. I could probably find something like that, but I do not think it is for me.”

She leaned forward, balancing her elbows on the edge of the table. “What is for you, Rafa?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I will write a book?” He studied his good left hand. “Though typing one-handed is not the easiest thing in the world.”

“You could dictate it,” Emily said. “Take a recorder, go out on the trails and hike. Dictate a chapter or two. It works for a lot of people.”

“Are you a writer, too?”

“I dabble when I can.”

Rafa took a sip of his beer. It was weird how all of their conversations turned into a sort of jousting match.

He loved it.

So many people were just “nice.” They abhorred conflict, content to take the easiest path through life and fall willingly into the grave. A woman like Emily, one with a real fire, a real passion, it made him feel alive in a way nothing had for six months.

He looked up, realizing that she had asked him a question. “I’m sorry?”

“I asked if you wanted another round.”

He glanced at his glass, saw that it was empty. “Please.”

The second round was followed by a third, and then a fourth, and somewhere along the way Emily mentioned that Gulliver’s had the best scotch selection in town. By the time they had finished a flight of samples, his head was swimming.

“I think,” he blinked a couple times, trying and failing to clear his vision, “I think I should stop.”

“Me, too,” Emily said. He wasn’t sure if her eyes were unfocused, or if it was just his own eyes failing him, but they had both had a little too much.

He felt great.

Better than he had since leaving for that last
shura
.

Someone from the restaurant stopped by the table. “Can I call you folks a cab?”

“I think that would be a good idea,” Emily said.

Rafa nodded. He wasn’t driving home, that was for sure. “What part of the city are you in?”

“Out west, up the mountain a bit.”

“I’m out east.” He waved toward the bartender. “I’ll have him call a second cab.”

“Put your hand down,” she said.

He cocked his head. Was she inviting him to her place? “Are you... are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Rafa sucked in a deep breath. His stomach felt like it had butterflies in it, and he knew it wasn’t just the alcohol. He adjusted his right leg, feeling painfully aware of his deficiencies. How would she react if they...

No, better not to think of it. One step at a time, Rafinha.

T
RAFFIC
 was light so late in the evening, so it didn’t take long to cover the few miles to Emily’s side of town. As the cab pulled in front of her apartment block, she suddenly doubted herself. He’d been wonderful at dinner, but was she really prepared to invite him upstairs?

The cab eased to a stop and Rafa looked over. He reached across with his good left hand and set it on top of hers.  “Well, have a good rest of the evening. If you need help car shopping, perhaps you could call me?”

Emily met his gaze and looked into those smoldering green eyes. The cab felt suddenly stuffy, as if someone had opened the door of an oven. “Do you... I... uh...” She had to break the contact just to form words. “I know it’s a giant cliché, but do you want to come up for a cup of coffee? Or a brandy?”

“I would love to.”

Emily remembered to breathe. She pushed some cash to the cabbie, then climbed out of the backseat. Her legs wobbled as she led him to the front of the building. She wasn’t sure exactly what she planned to do with him, but if it didn’t end with both of them naked for at least a couple hours, she was going to be very disappointed.

T

“You weren’t kidding about being a reader,” he called into the other room.

“I was not. Cream or sugar?”

“No, thank you.” He slipped around the leather sofa and took a seat on the end. He still wasn’t entirely sober. There was no television in the room. He wondered if there was one in the bedroom. No, better to not entertain thoughts of the bedroom. The boys at the barracks had talked about the “cup of coffee” being the last step before the bedroom, but he didn’t want to get ahead of himself.

As if going back to her house after the second date wasn’t getting ahead of himself.

Emily came in with two steaming mugs. She still looked amazing. The navy dress hugged her hips and her bust, showing off her curves to maximum effect. It was all he could do not to stare.

“Thank you,” he said, accepting his mug. He took a sip and smiled. Even without cream or sugar, it had a heavy, sweet vanilla flavor.

Emily set hers on the end table opposite him and went to a small radio tucked onto one of the bookshelves. A moment later, quiet violin music started playing. “It will shuffle. I hope you like classical.”

“That works for me.” He held up his mug. “Your coffee is good.”

She shook her head. “It’s just from a pre-mix cup. Is it true that you special forces types take your coffee really seriously?”

“Some of us do. Before missions, guys like to have routines. Rituals. In the old days soldiers sharpened their weapons. Some still clean their guns, but others will take an hour to make themselves a perfect cup of coffee.”

“So what about you? Do you have pre-mission rituals?”

“Not anymore.” He didn’t have missions anymore. No need for rituals. But that wasn’t what she was asking and he knew it. “My job was to make sure my men were prepared and that I knew every last detail about the mission.”

“So you studied a lot?”

He smiled. “Every mission was like the night before final exams. And if I screwed up, people died.”

“Wow.” Her eyes strayed to his empty cuff.

He tucked his good hand over the cuff. “It turns out there are worse things than death, too.” At some level, every soldier, at least every experienced soldier, knew that. They all lost friends, and they all saw ruined bodies go home.

When he was young he’d thought he was immortal, but as he’d gotten to his late 20s and had lost too many men and too many friends, he’d learned better.

“But you’re here. You’re alive. You’re moving around and--“

“I feel sorry for myself sometimes. I know I do and I know I shouldn’t. There are others that have it worse though.” He twisted in his seat. “Have you treated any PTSD patients?”

She nodded.

“PTSD is a tricky thing. I spent a lot of time with guys at Walter Reed talking about it. Most people, and I mean like 99% of civilians and probably 95% of the armed forces, react badly to really intense stress. Seeing a buddy die beside you. Having a bomb go off close enough to leave you deaf for six hours. It leaves a scar on the inside.

“But some people it doesn’t affect. They are so locked in on who they are and what their mission is, that anything that happens, happens. These are people so absolutely sure of themselves and their role in the world, that violence and stress is like just an occupational hazard on the level of traffic jams and broken printers.”

Emily watched him, her fascination obvious. It made him feel like a specimen under the microscope. He realized that he was sitting on the edge of her sofa, so he slid back and tried to look more relaxed than he really felt. Telling war stories didn’t do a thing for him, but talking about the psychology of a warrior? That could keep him going for hours.

“So what kind of person are you?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t had any nightmares, if that’s what you mean. I’m a tiger without its fangs, I guess.”

“Perhaps.” She rose and collected her empty mug. “Care for another cup of coffee?”

Rafa pushed himself to his feet. “You don’t have anything a little stronger, do you?” He followed her to the kitchen, stopping at the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room.

Emily took his cup and set it in the sink, then pulled open a cabinet beside the fridge. She produced a pair of bottles. “Port or cognac?”

“Yes.” He grinned.

She poured two glasses of port and gave him one. “I’m in the mood for something sweeter.”

They went back to the sofa and sat, though this time she sat beside him, only a few inches away. He ached to touch her, to stroke that beautiful blonde hair. She was sending all the signals, but he waited.

She took a sip of her port, then set her hand on his knee.

#

His left leg was granite-hard, and when he shifted toward her, she could feel the muscles move. It felt like something out of a scifi novel. Liquid steel.

He set his hand on hers and squeezed. “I think...”

Emily turned her head up, looked into his eyes again. His face moved forward, and their lips collided. The world dissolved down to that one connection, so warm and soft.

His kisses came gently at first, but soon his urgency grew to match her need. His stubble rubbed her chin, rough and manly and pure sex. Their tongues fought a pitched battle between their lips. Emily pulled away gasping and laughing.

“You don’t kiss fairly!”

Rafa looked at her with a mixture of shock and desire. He pushed his hair from his eyes. “You don’t either.”

“I can see where this is leading.” She threw herself at him, catching him by surprise and bearing him down onto the couch. She laid across him, her body pressed tight to his, and planted another kiss on his lips. One of his legs slid between hers, and they snuggled closer together, intertwined.

He tucked one arm behind her back, holding her to him. The other traced over her flank, her hip, feeling her curves. Her dress rode up, exposing her thigh, but she didn’t care. Every inch of skin he touched burned, and her desire increased with the flames. Their tongues warred, hot and sweet. He tasted of coffee and alcohol and man.