Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance (3 page)

“I’m an infantry platoon sergeant. I say jump, my guys jump; they don’t even ask where or how high. That doesn’t equal nice.” He sucked in a deep breath and found himself wishing he’d had more practice being, well, nice.

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.” She turned and set her now empty beer bottle on the bar. “I’m going to run to the bathroom. Can you tell Laura if she comes back before I do?”

“Don’t females usually travel in packs to do that?”

“I’m a big girl.”

He watched her go, his blood singing with curiosity and something else. Just then, an elbow jabbed into his ribs, slamming right into the stitches he was doing his best to ignore. He didn’t have to guess who the elbow was attached to.

“Will you cut that out?”

“Who is that and why are you mooning over her?” Carponti’s speech was a little too smooth to be considered sober.

“I’m not mooning over anyone.”

Carponti snapped to the position of parade rest, slapping his hands together at the small of his back and spreading his feet. He swayed a little from the force of the movement. “Roger, Sergeant. My mistake.”

“Knock it off, asshole. I thought you were trying to have a good time tonight?”

“I am. I’m screwing with you, my number one pastime, Sarn’t G.”

Shane narrowed his eyes and studied Carponti, trying to decide if he was hammered. Anyone who’d been in the army for a hot second used the shortened sarn’t instead of fully pronouncing sergeant. He’d said it the right way, and without slurring, but that didn’t mean Shane’s suspicions about his level of intoxication were laid to rest.

Shane looked skyward, praying for a small dose of patience. Regardless of Carponti’s smart-ass ways, he was a damn fine infantryman. If he could ever get him to stop screwing off, he’d be one hell of a master gunner. But passing that course required studying and Carponti adamantly insisted he’d joined the army to avoid anything remotely associated with school.

“Where’s Nikki?” Shane asked, turning the conversation away from himself.

“The little girls’ room.” Carponti gestured toward the end of the bar, the same direction in which Jen had just disappeared.

Shane glanced over and his stomach tightened when he saw the one person who was more of a pain in the ass than Carponti could ever dream of being. Lieutenant Jason Randall—a thick-necked full bird colonel’s son—looked like he was lecturing one of
Carponti’s boys near the latrine. Seeing it, too, Carponti stiffened. “Looks like Randall has his fan club with him,” he said.

Shane shifted to get a better look at Randall’s companions. “Isn’t that the female clerk we’ve got in the motor pool now?”

“Yep.”

“Wonderful. She’s one of the few women serving in a maneuver unit and Randall is already leading her down the path of self-destruction. He should know better than to hang out with enlisted.”

“Pot meet kettle.”

“I’m not a private and I knew Trent before he ever became an officer.”

“Whatever. I don’t care what he does or who he does it with.” Carponti took a pull from his beer, then set it roughly on the bar. “Things are getting a little rough in here. I’m going to go over there to grab Nikki.”

“I’ll go with you.” Shane finished his beer, following Carponti into the crowd, not so much to watch his back, but to keep his sergeant from starting any fights. Lieutenant Randall had a small group of soldiers—including the new clerk—who treated him like a god. Shane suspected it was because Randall’s father was a brigade commander up at Fort Carson. No one in Shane’s platoon was in Randall’s fan club, but that didn’t mean Shane could give Carponti a pass if he hit him. Lieutenant Randall frequently assumed that Daddy’s rank translated into Randall’s authority. Add in the fact that he didn’t listen to anyone, and that made him not only a dickhead, but a dangerous one. Officers like Randall got people killed.

Literally.

And the soldier Randall was currently chewing out belonged to Carponti, which meant he belonged to Shane.

Shane was determined that Randall was not going to ruin his boys’ last night in the States, whatever it took. He just hoped Carponti wasn’t as drunk as he appeared to be, because otherwise tonight just might turn into the fiasco Shane had feared—one he would have to explain the following morning. He waded into the crowd and started coming up with a good story for the sergeant major.

Well, Sarn’t Major, what happened was …

* * *

Jen stood in front of the mirror, studying her profile. She tugged at her blouse, and then squared her shoulders, seeing a full, equal-shaped silhouette. Why couldn’t she get used to it? She reached behind her to adjust the band around her ribs.

“Will you stop?” Laura said, stepping out of a bathroom stall. She moved to the sink to wash her hands. So much for going to the bathroom alone. And damn it, she’d gotten busted adjusting the form. Again. “You look great and the only one who doesn’t seem to know that is you.”

“I can tell.”

“Knock it off and have another beer, will you?” Laura reached for her, like she was going to plump her breasts together. Jen dodged with a horrified laugh, but ended up stumbling into someone else. Someone else turned out to be a beautiful strawberry blonde with brown mascara smeared beneath her eyes.

“Sorry!”

“Nicole,” Laura said at the same time. “Honey, what’s wrong? Carponti hasn’t been
arrested again, has he?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it. If he costs me my job interview at CID, I’ll kill him.” Nicole offered a watery smile. “I just hate that he’s leaving again.”

Jen bit her lip, unsure of what to say or how to act. Surrounded by army wives, she was seeing a sadness that was usually hidden behind smiling masks. She felt like she’d been granted access to a secret world, a special world filled with women like Laura, who spent as much time as single parents and deployment widows as they did with their soldiers. There was a deep discomfort in her as she watched Laura help Nicole repair her makeup, complete with emergency concealer and mascara.

“He’ll never know you’ve been crying,” Laura said, dropping the small cosmetics bag back into her purse. “We’ll get together with the rest of the family readiness group. Just like last time. Make sure everyone’s holding up okay.”

“Okay. Let me go round up my husband before he
does
do something stupid.” Nicole breathed deeply. “Sorry,” she said, turning toward Jen. “I’m Nicole and I promise I’m not usually this melodramatic.”

“It’s kind of understandable,” Jen said, but Nicole waved her comment off.

“Doesn’t matter. Put it away and smile. I’ll cry once he’s gone.” And with that, she dashed her fingers beneath her eyes once more and pushed through the door.

Laura leaned over the sink and checked her own makeup.

“How do you do it?” Jen asked her suddenly.

“Do what?”

“Act like Trent leaving is no big deal.”

Laura shrugged, but her smile wavered, just a little—just enough for Jen to see
through the facade. “It sucks. And I won’t lie and say I’m not tired and frustrated and irritated, either. But I’ve got to hold it together back here so he can go do what he has to do to come home to me and the kids.”

Jen didn’t know what to say. Laura’s strength and resolve awed her. Laura filled the silence with a smile.

“Come on. Let’s go find Shane and Trent.”

“Um, how about just your husband? Don’t pawn me off on Shane. The last thing he needs right now is to have to babysit the resident basket case.”

“How about you take care of him so he doesn’t spend the entire night worrying about his soldiers. That man never relaxes. He needs a distraction more than you do.”

Jen rolled her eyes and wished the thought of seeing Shane again tonight didn’t send a tiny thrill through her. It didn’t matter, anyway. Even if she was interested—which she wasn’t—he wasn’t available and neither was she.

He was leaving for Iraq. Tomorrow.

And she was damaged goods.

“Don’t pawn me off on him,” she said again.

“I thought I was pawning Shane off on
you
.”

Jen backed through the door and for the second time that night, plowed straight into Nicole Carponti … and into in the middle of a tense, awkward conversation.

“… Nice to me, considering …” The guy running his mouth was dark and good-looking, but that didn’t prevent his drunken sneer from ruining his looks. Nicole was braced, feet apart like she was ready to fight. Or run. Jen wasn’t sure.

Laura’s smile was tight as she stepped up next to Nicole. “Lieutenant Randall, I’m
sure you must have Nicole confused with someone else. Someone who isn’t married to a soldier in your company.”

Jen’s stomach pitched as her heart slammed against her ribs. It didn’t matter that Laura knew the drunk. The smell of beer on the man’s breath sent adrenaline pumping through her veins. Jen did not do confrontations. “Come on, let’s go.”

Carponti melted from the crowd and grabbed at Randall, shoving him toward the dance floor. “Get away from my wife, dickhead.”

Everything exploded into sudden violent action all at once. Fists and elbows descended and sounds like meat being beaten thudded to the beat of Toby Keith’s latest song. Chairs skidded across the floor and Jen found herself mesmerized by the absolute chaos bursting around her. She searched for a path through the melee, and then found herself pinned between a pillar and the dance floor, which churned now with bodies. Worse yet, she’d lost Laura and Nicole in the fray.

Everything turned to slow motion. She needed to get out of the way, but her feet suddenly felt like lead weights as Carponti and Randall grappled and stumbled toward her.

Strong hands yanked her hard to the right so fast her neck popped.

Shane. A ridiculous relief flooded through her, tingling over her skin.

He braced his hands on the bar on either side of her shoulders to keep from being jammed into her again. “Sorry. It looked like you needed a hand. You okay?”

The fight spun out of control around them, but at the moment, she was cocooned between his body and the solid wood of the bar pressing into her back.

His voice was warm and smooth over the uproar. “I’m going to drag Carponti
outside and beat him.”

She almost laughed at the mixture of resignation and irritation in Shane’s voice. It sounded like he’d spent one too many nights saving Carponti from trouble.

It might have been half an hour or five minutes, but the next thing Jen knew, the crowd had parted and she was outside. She wrapped her arms around her belly and walked around Randall and Trent, who were arguing loudly in front of the soldiers and spouses who’d trickled out into the parking lot. Shane was busy stuffing soldiers into cars or cabs, depending on their sobriety level. Laura leaned against the hood of her car, next to Nicole, who had an amused look on her face.

“Is this how they always spend their last night in the States?” Jen asked.

Laura looked more like a centerfold than a mother of two who’d just escaped a bar brawl. Her friend was either halfway to well lit or furious. Or maybe a little bit of both. Jen couldn’t really tell.

Nicole laughed and brushed her hair from her face, sending a whiff of smoke and perfume floating through the thick Texas night air. “It is for me. Vic is constantly pulling stunts like this.” She shrugged. “I love him and I guess that doesn’t come with a ‘but,’ you know?”

“Guess this is what I get for trying something different. The last few times Trent left, I was either pregnant or nursing, so no, bars weren’t really an option.” Laura’s voice cracked, and with it, Jen’s heart. She wasn’t really close to any of these men, and yet, a sudden sadness welled up inside of her that she could not understand.

“If he’s peeing in the bushes, I’m thinking this is the end of the night,” Nicole said, as Carponti stumbled from behind a parked car, tugging at his zipper. Shane and Trent
bullied Lieutenant Randall into a cab. “And hey, no one went to jail. That’s always a plus.”

Laura cracked a wry grin. “Looks like he’s one of the last ones. Nicole, can you get Carponti out of here? I won’t be able to get Trent to leave until all his boys are home.”

“Sure. See you tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

Nicole snagged her husband and urged him toward their car in a backward waltz that was at once a drunken stumble and an erotic dance. The silence wrapped around them like the dark shadows at the edge of the parking lot.

“Are you bringing the kids tomorrow to see Trent off?” Jen asked.

“No.” Laura’s throat bobbed as she looked into the floodlit parking lot, her eyes settling on her husband. That single word nearly broke Jen’s heart. She wrapped her arm around Laura, who rested her head on her shoulder.

“I should be used to this by now,” Laura whispered.

“I don’t know how. It doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you say good-bye.”

Laura sniffed and straightened as Trent slammed the door of Randall’s cab closed. “I don’t say good-bye. I say see you soon.”

Having shipped the last of the soldiers home, Shane and Trent finally approached them. Jen could see why Shane had stayed to mop up. He looked so different from Trent, whose black hair and wire-rimmed glasses made him look more like a warrior monk. Shane was pure fighter, all black ink and hard angles. There was no dichotomy to him, like there appeared to be with Trent.

“Ready to head home?” Trent asked, wrapping his arms around Laura’s shoulders.

“Absolutely. You okay to get home, Jen?” Laura lips curled in pure wickedness. It took Jen all of two seconds to realize what she had in mind.

“Laura, don’t you dare,” Jen hissed as she scanned the parking lot, searching for a way out of her friend’s scheme. She wanted to entertain her curiosity from a distance, not up close and personal.

Shane hooked his hands behind his back, looking more relaxed than he had at the beginning of the night. Jen frowned and for a brief moment, thought that he’d actually enjoyed himself during the fight. “Trent, take your wife home. And I better not see you at the gym before ten. I’ll take accountability until First Sergeant gets there.”