It's Always Been You (22 page)

His palms folded over her heart.

* * *

His phone rang from someplace far away. Olivia sighed and stretched as he rolled over, searching for his phone in the pile of uniform on the floor by the bed.

She wrapped her arms around his waist as he answered the call. “Yeah.”

Sorren’s voice crashed through the haze of sleep. “Sir, we’ve got a problem.”

Ben sat up, his blood pounding. “What kind of problem?”

“The kind of problem that involves you and me at Escoberra’s house right now.”

They made it to the on-post housing area in record time. A small crowd was gathered outside. Several of the NCOs were keeping them from going inside. Sorren met Ben at the end of the driveway with Carmen and Hailey. He hadn’t been able to keep Olivia from driving him.

He wished Olivia was anywhere but here.

“What’s the status?” Ben asked his first sergeant even as he embraced Carmen. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She pushed away from his embrace. “Just scared. Ben, he’s getting worse.” Tears tumbled down her face. “I just want my Jose back and I don’t know what to do. I called the police because he scared me.”

“Where’s Heath?” he asked, looking around for Carmen’s son.

“At a friend’s.”

“Escoberra’s destroying the place,” Sorren said.

Ben’s heart jammed in his throat.

A gunshot cracked through the silence. Ben froze, his heart slamming against his ribs as he fought the ingrained reaction to hit the ground.

His mouth went dry and panic and fear wrestled with rational thought for control.

He breathed deeply, looking between Carmen and Sorren. “Where the fuck did he get the gun?” Ben snapped.

Sorren folded his arms over his chest. “I have no idea,” he said roughly.

Carmen held up her hands. “I don’t allow guns in my house,” she said. “I don’t know.” She squeezed Ben’s arm. “Please help him, Ben. Please?”

Sorren looked over Ben’s shoulder. “Ma’am, you probably shouldn’t be here.”

Ben turned to see Olivia next to him. “Any legal advice?” Ben asked, needing anything to distract himself from the shitstorm in the house.

“He needs to be taken straight to the hospital,” she said quietly.

“I don’t need to read him his rights?”

Olivia shook her head. “Not right now. He’s a threat to himself and others. He needs to be contained.” She folded her arms over her chest. Ben wished he didn’t see how her hands shook. “Is there a reason why you’re not letting the police go in?”

“Because I don’t want him to get shot by some private who’s played too much Call of Duty,” Ben said simply. “Do we have a key?” Ben asked.

Sorren dangled it from one finger. “Already ahead of you, sir. You ready to do this?”

Ben breathed deeply. “Oh sure, why not.” He looked at his first sergeant. Ben glanced at Olivia. He wanted to tell her to get back, to go somewhere else. He suddenly very much wanted to shield her from this side of the army.

He didn’t want her to see him with blood on him. Or worse, bleeding.

She was determined not to wear that combat patch until she earned one. He’d just as soon she did not earn it today.

But he couldn’t say that in front of the entire housing area. She met his gaze and offered a short nod. Her eyes were anxious but she kept her silence.

He walked toward the house, Sorren in step next to him. He stopped near the front door. “Well, here goes nothing. I’m really not in the mood to get stabbed, shot, or have any other holes poked in me,” he said dryly.

“Not a good time for jokes, sir,” Sorren said.

“When is it not a good time for jokes?” Ben said.

“Sir, one more fucking joke and I’m going to stab you,” Sorren growled.

Ben took a deep breath and they went up to the house. He pushed open the front door.

“Escoberra?”

The silence in the house was eerie. There were no pets, no noise from the TV.

Just the silence of the damned. “Escoberra?” Carefully, they moved through each room.

Sorren peered into the kitchen. “First floor is clear,” he murmured.

“Escoberra, we’re coming upstairs, okay?” Ben tried to swallow but his mouth was dry. “Please don’t shoot me. I haven’t updated my insurance paperwork and all my money will go to my cat.”

Sorren slapped him on the back of the head.

A sound like a booted foot banged against the floor. “We’re coming up.”

There was a fist-sized hole near the railing. The fallen plaster crunched under their feet on the stairs. A picture lay in a pile of broken glass and splintered wood.

Ben held his breath as they went up the stairs.

They found him in Hailey’s room.

He was sitting on his daughter’s bed. One hand was streaked with rust-colored blood. Blood mingled with the pink patchwork on the comforter. His eyes were red and filled with tears. A bottle of tequila sat lopsided between his thighs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he whispered.

“Can I have the gun?” Ben asked quietly.

Escoberra dropped it limply onto the bed.

Ben cleared it and handed it to Sorren behind him.

Escoberra reached for a tiny white rabbit. Blood streaked its pilled fur. The tequila sloshed but didn’t spill. “I got this for Hailey the day I adopted her.” He looked up at Ben. “I put my little girl in the hospital.”

Ben knelt on the edge of the bed. “This isn’t going to help.” He motioned to Escoberra’s bleeding hand.

“I can’t control it. It’s like there’s someone else running my body.” He lifted the bottle to his lips, his hands shaking violently. There was a soft pop as he lowered it. “I can’t keep doing this to them.”

Ben moved slowly, easing the pillowcase off one of the pillows. He folded it into a long strip and reached for Escoberra’s bleeding hand. The big NCO didn’t fight him as he wrapped the injury, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. Ben’s hands shook as he wrapped the wound.

“I think we need to head to the hospital,” Ben said quietly. He reached for the tequila. Only then did Escoberra react, his good hand tightening on the neck of the bottle. “Come on, man. Let me take this. Let me get you checked out.”

Escoberra’s eyes were flat and dull when he looked up at him. “My career is pretty much fucked now, isn’t it?”

Ben shook his head, fighting to speak past the lump in his throat. “One of the benefits of being in command. I get to make that decision.” He reached up, squeezing his shoulder. “And I think the first order of business is to get you checked out.”

“I’m a little bit drunk.” Escoberra’s eyes were glassy. Looked like that last shot of tequila had sent him over the edge.

“We’ll help you out,” Ben said. His stomach flipped beneath his ribs, filled with betrayal, fear.

But he shoved it down. He needed the rational part of his brain.

He could fall apart later.

“No cops?”

“No cops,” Sorren said behind him.

Escoberra slid to the edge of the bed, swaying hard. He was a big man but between the two of them, they managed to get him down the stairs and outside.

Carmen pulled away from her daughter and rushed up, throwing her arms around his neck. Escoberra lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Ben reached out, gripping Carmen’s shoulder gently. “We’re going to take him to the hospital.”

“I’ve got him, sir,” Sorren said.

A chubby military police officer walked up. “Are you the commander?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Ben said.

“You got this, sir?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah, we’ll take care of it.”

Ben and Sorren got Escoberra into the cab of Sorren’s truck. Carmen and Hailey followed them in their car and slowly, the crowd dispersed, leaving Ben standing there, feeling useless and empty and angry.

And wrong. He’d been wrong. He’d placed his faith in a man who had let him down.

He needed… he just needed a few fucking minutes to pull himself back together.

He stood at the edge of the corner lot in the military housing unit and tried not to fall apart.

He should follow them to the hospital. He should get cleaned up and get the blood off his hands. Twisted, violent memories collided, coated in bright fucking blood red.

“Hey LT, you okay?”

“My guts hurt.”

“No shit, Sherlock. You almost had a zipper self-installed.”

Ben tried to lift his head.

“Lay down and stay fucking still.”

He looked up at Escoberra. “What the hell are you doing to me?” he asked.

“Trying to keep your spleen from falling out,” Escoberra said. “Now hold still. The MEDEVAC is on the ground.”

Ben looked down at his hands. They were covered with blood. His heart slammed against his ribs. And then his hands started shaking again as the adrenaline rolled off him in waves, leaving him barely upright.

There were a million things he should be doing just then. A dozen other places he needed to be.

Instead, he stood, unable to move. Unable to stop his racing thoughts. His mind kept replaying the incident over and over and over in his head.

He bunched his hands into fists, breathing deeply, trying to get everything under control and failing badly.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye.

Olivia.

He was bruised. He was bloody.

He was shattered.

She looked into his eyes and did not see the man she’d come to know looking back at her. This man looked like Ben but in his bleak gaze, she did not see any trace of the man who laughed with her during sex. Or who’d struggled so much to hold on to his soul while executing the toughest of duties.

She took a single step forward. He flinched and the ingrained reaction hurt, cutting her deeply.

She stopped a breath away from him. His breathing was the only sound over the quiet that was falling over the now empty yard. Ragged. Rough.

She touched his shoulder gently. It was the same strong man she’d come to know beneath her fingers. The same solid man beneath her touch. “Ben,” she whispered.

Slowly, he turned to look at her. His eyes were filled with unshed emotion. She ached for him. “Let me take you home,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I have to go to the hospital.” His voice sounded like broken glass.

She glanced down at the blood. He shook his head, answering her unspoken question. “I’m fine,” he said shortly.

“You’re not fine.”

“I don’t have a choice.” His smile was brittle and humorless, and he pressed his lips into a flat line. “I’m a big boy, Olivia.”

She knew he’d just been through a traumatic event. But knowing it didn’t make the pain of his harsh distancing any easier to bear.

Now was not the time to pick that fight.

“I’ll drive you,” she said, refusing to let him push her away.

“You’ll get blood in your car.”

If he was trying to piss her off, it worked. “Don’t be an asshole, Ben. Get in the goddamned car.”

When she could trust that he’d follow her down, she led him to her vehicle. Silence hung on between them on the short drive to the hospital. It hung on as he walked into the emergency room and caused a minor panic until he explained that the blood wasn’t his.

They sent him to the back and let her go along. He disappeared into an exam room and when he didn’t come out, she followed him.

She found him bent over the sink, scrubbing his hands furiously. Scrubbing, scrubbing. His face a mask of bitter concentration.

The water in the sink ran clear and still he scrubbed. He dragged paper towels from the dispenser and scoured his skin.

Her heart broke for him.

She approached him carefully. Slipped her hands into the water and captured his hands. The water nearly scalded her but she did not yank away.

Slowly she urged his hands out of the blazing hot water. “Stop,” she whispered. She held his hands to her chest, ignoring the water penetrating her jacket. She simply held them there, waiting, hoping she could break through the shell-shocked haze and see the man she cared so much about.

Finally, finally in the dim silence he met her gaze.

She could do nothing but wrap her arms around him. He stood there limp as she held him. Then slowly, he leaned into her and put his arms around her.

The only thing that mattered was the grief in his eyes. The blame and self-loathing that looked back at her.

Sorren walked in without knocking. He didn’t even blink as Olivia took a step away from Ben’s embrace.

Sorren held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it, ma’am,” he said roughly. “Sir, you’re needed.”

Ben frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Escoberra’s not cooperating. We need you to do that direct order thing.”

He turned toward Olivia. She urged him toward the door. “Go. I’ll wait for you out front.”

He was gone, a shadow of himself. He was functioning purely on autopilot. She knew it. Sorren knew it.

But she wondered if Ben knew it.

And worse, she wondered what would happen when he finally surfaced from the haze.

* * *

It was nearly sunrise the next day when Ben finally stepped out of the emergency room. Hospital lights illuminated the grey pre-dawn and dark silence stretched out across the now deserted installation.

“It’s quiet at dawn,” he murmured, hiding his surprise that she was still there. That she hadn’t left him.

Olivia stuffed her hands in her pockets and nodded. “Yeah.”

He stopped walking and looked at her. “You’ve been here all night.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble?”

She shrugged again. “Had something more important to do,” she said softly.

“Worry about me?”

“Maybe.”

He swayed on his feet as fatigue finally conquered the adrenaline that had been keeping him upright.

Olivia was there, slipping an arm around his waist and pressing to his side. “Let me take you home,” she said. Her voice was gentle but brokered no argument.

“I’m not going to be much company.”

She lifted her chin to look up at him. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

He glanced down at his hands. Searched the shadows for signs of blood. They were still red and raw from the hot water and scrubbing he’d done earlier.

Olivia’s hand slid over his. He looked at her. “I have to call my boss,” he said quietly.

She waited near the car as he palmed his cell phone and called LTC Gilliad. “Sir, it’s Captain Teague. They’ve got Escoberra stabilized. They’re admitting him.”

“Good work today, Ben. That NCO is alive because of you and your first sergeant.”

Gilliad’s words ran hollow. Ben tasted bile in his throat. “Roger, sir.”

“Get some sleep.”

Ben’s first thought was to say something flippant about taking the party into next week, that sleep was a crutch. But he was too fucking worn down. “Roger, sir. Here’s hoping I don’t have to call you until Monday.”

“We can only hope,” Gilliad said.

Ben hung up the phone, too bone-dead tired to bother putting it back into his pocket. It sat, cradled limply in his hand. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes, fighting to keep the fatigue and soul-crushing sorrow from washing over him.

She drove him to her house and he simply closed his eyes and tried to stay awake. He wasn’t sure if he dozed, if the sleep that pulled at him had actually managed to lure him into slumber but the next thing he knew, they were at her small home.

He tried to smile, he really did. But his bones felt just too fucking heavy. She silently closed the door behind him.

Then her arms slipped around his waist. Her palms folded over his heart. She simply stood there, pressed against his back, her body solid and soft against his when he wanted to crash to his fucking knees and collapse.

Her arms tightened around him then released him. “Go take a shower,” she said, slipping around to his front. Her fingers were cool on his cheek. “I’ll make breakfast.”

Ben swallowed and lowered his forehead to hers. His fingers rested on the side of her neck and he simply stood, absorbing the heat of her skin against his. “Olivia,” he whispered.

She brushed her lips against his. “Go. Shower.”

He nodded and stripped off his bloodstained clothes. The shower seared his skin. Ben stepped beneath the water and let it scald his face and neck but he knew, knew that no matter what, the stain of Escoberra’s blood would forever be on his hands.

* * *

His uniform was gone when he stepped out of the shower forty minutes later. He hooked a towel around his waist and padded into the kitchen to find Olivia chopping an onion on the center island.

She glanced up at him. She’d tied her hair up in a ponytail, releasing it from her daily bun.

The fog in his head was clearing. The grief was fighting for release but still, Ben fought it. He wasn’t ready to go there. Not yet.

Today was a win. No one had died.

Except for Ben’s faith in the men around him. His blindness had nearly cost Escoberra’s entire family.

She smiled up at him. “Omelets?” Her gaze flicked down at his towel.

He flushed. “It smells fantastic.”

“I’m not much of a cook, but I do know how to do this much.”

He leaned across the counter and kissed her. A gentle kiss. Nothing more. But loaded with all the things he couldn’t say.

He wanted to tell her she was right; that he’d been a blind fool. But the words were lodged in his throat and he was terrified that if he started talking, everything would tear free.

And he wasn’t ready to fall apart. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

* * *

The crash would come soon. Olivia knew it from too much previous experience. Ben could have been a raging asshole tonight and she wouldn’t have left him alone.

He padded back into the kitchen as she pulled the eggs off the stove. She set the pan in the sink and went to him then, wrapping her arms around his waist. She brushed her lips against his. “Eat. And here’s hoping we don’t end this horrific night with food poisoning.”

His laugh surprised him. She saw the flicker in his eyes. As though it was wrong to crack a joke at that moment. “That’s not very encouraging,” he said, nudging the pile of eggs with his fork. “But I’ll take my chances.”

She picked at her own food while he ate, her stomach twisted into too many knots to keep much down. “This is fantastic,” he said, clearing his plate.

He sat there after he finished, his gaze a hundred years away, staring at memories only he could see.

“Hey.” She padded over to him and slipped her fingers into his, urging him to his feet. He followed her down the hall to the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped, his eyes bleak.

Then she crossed the space between them, kneeling in front of him. She slipped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his heart. Its beat was slow and steady and real beneath her cheek. His arms came around her effortlessly and held her tight. He rested his head against the top of hers. A simple, powerful embrace. “I’m so fucking tired,” he whispered against her hair.

“Sleep is an excellent plan,” she said, tipping her lips up to brush against his.

She crawled into bed next to him, shifting until they were both comfortable.

“I don’t sleep well,” he whispered when they were both settled. She rested her head on his shoulder, her palm over his heart.

“It started after I got blown up.” His voice rumbled beneath her cheek. “That’s how I got the tattoo. I was awake at all hours of the night. Tattoo parlors are open.” He turned, brushing his lips across her forehead. “I started it because I wanted to feel again. I wanted to hide the scars.” He shifted, his arm tightening around her.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

He breathed in deeply. “It didn’t help me sleep.”

She curled her fingers into his chest. There was nothing for her to say. Nothing that could ease the pain or the fatigue in his voice. She simply stayed with him.

And waited until his breathing evened out, until sleep pulled him under before she closed her own eyes, nestling closer. As she drifted down into troubled sleep, she couldn’t help but worry about what tomorrow would bring.

In that space between sleeping and waking, his hand came up and covered hers. He threaded his fingers with hers, his grip warm. Solid.

Real.