It's Always Been You (4 page)

She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Alone and unafraid, huh?”

He offered a cocky half grin and for a moment, the lines on his face relaxed and she caught a glimpse of the man beneath the tired warrior. There was so much more to this man than the tired warrior sitting across from her. “Something like that.”

Olivia looked away. The first packet was heavy in her hand. “The quick summary is that you have five drinking and driving, two assaults, three hot urinalysis tests and five soldiers caught with other intoxicating substances.”

“Define ‘other intoxicating substances’? What the hell does that mean?”

“Huffing, spice, bath salts.”

“Bath salts? What the hell are bath salts?”

Olivia pulled out her phone and pulled up a website explaining the drug. “They’re really new but we’re starting to see more of them. They’re meant to be a synthetic drug that mimics cocaine and ecstasy but they’re really bad stuff. Some of it is variants of plant food.”

Ben reached for her phone and angled it so he could see. His hand was big and rough against hers. Hot where their skin met. If he noticed, he didn’t give any indication. “Plant food?”

Olivia tried to ignore how his hand felt against hers. Because, oh yes, she’d noticed. Heat spread across her skin, sliding up her forearm and tingling down her spine. “Soldiers will smoke anything these days,” she said quietly.

“Why?”

“That’s a whole ’nother discussion,” she said, easing her hand out of his. “The short version is that intoxicating substances are prohibited by regulation and I advise you to do two things with these kids: send a strong message that this behavior won’t be tolerated but also enroll them into drug abuse counseling to send a message that you’ll help those who want it.”

Ben studied the paperwork in front of him. Tormented emotions flickered over his face and it was everything she could do not to ask him what was on his mind. She didn’t have time or reason to go crawling around Ben Teague’s head but that didn’t stop the want pulsing warmly over her skin.

“I know this kid,” Ben said quietly. “I served with him downrange last deployment but ever since he’s come home, he’s been nothing but trouble to the old commander. Zittoro has three previous drug charges,” he said.

“Private Zittoro is a different case. I recommend you separate him from the military under a
chapter nine
, rehab failure.”

She heard his quick intake of breath. Saw the conflict flicker over his sharp features.

He cleared his throat roughly in the awkward silence. “Zittoro… he’s got nowhere to go. He’s got a deadbeat dad and his mom is… well, she’s not winning any parent of the year awards.” His fist clenched on the table in front of her. “If I throw him out of the army, what happens to him? He’s an addict.”

She flinched at the pain in his words. Ben had only been a commander for a couple of hours but the strain was already obvious in his voice.

“You can’t save everyone,” she whispered. She waited until his eyes met hers. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

There was no comfort she could offer. This was the burden of command: to balance the needs of the army over the needs of the individual. A tightrope he had to walk alone.

All she could do was give him the facts and her opinion. But in that moment, she had the sudden urge to save him from this. “If you keep him, do you have the manpower to keep going to his room and making sure he hasn’t overdosed every night? Do you trust him enough to give him a weapon and believe he’ll do his job?”

Ben’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Guess not,” he said quietly. He leaned back and it was as if a wall of glass crystallized between them. “What other fun things do you have in there for me?”

Olivia wasn’t convinced by the sudden shift in Ben’s mood but now wasn’t the time or the place for digging any deeper. She reviewed the rest of the drug packets, watching him tense more with each one. She stopped after the last driving under the influence.

“Why is this bothering you so much?”

He offered a half-assed cocky grimace that failed to mimic the smile he was going for. A pretty shitty attempt to cover the darkness twisting beneath the surface. He took a deep breath. “I’m a big boy. I’ll do what has to be done.”

“I didn’t imply that you wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s not bothering you.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Let’s finish this up. I’ve got to get down to my company and start digging out from the mountain of crap that my predecessor left me.”

He brushed her off. The action was as insignificant as a paper cut.

She leaned back and picked up the next packet and wished it didn’t sting like it did. Then she made the mistake of meeting his gaze. There was such a dark lack of hope in his eyes. A bleak resignation to the things he was forced to confront. She almost reached for his hand. It would have been a simple gesture of support. But he looked at her as though a single touch might have shattered him.

He was not her problem. She didn’t do damaged and introspective.

Because there were people counting on her not to get distracted.

But looking at him now, she wondered about the glimpse of the tired warrior she saw behind those tormented brown eyes.

Ben walked into the Bandit company ops—his company—and noticed that everyone stilled as he walked through. No one approached. No one said anything but there was an undercurrent to the watchfulness. Almost as though they were waiting for the other boot to hit the floor.

This week was one for the record books. An entire battalion’s worth of commanders fired. Soldiers in jail, friends being accused of horrible things.

Ben didn’t want this job. He never had. He never wanted to balance the scales of his friends’ actions.

And yet, here he was.

Good times.

He stopped in the orderly room. All activity came to a grinding halt.

“It occurs to me that maybe the company probably should be called to attention?” Ben said. The ops sergeant glanced toward the commander’s office. Lights on. Looked like someone was home—oh joy. The former commander was there.

“That explains things,” Ben muttered.

Captain James P. Marshall the Third himself. Ben had to remind himself that Marshall was just another man, and not a good one at that. He was a bully and he was cruel.

The banality of Marshall’s cruelty, though, had permeated everything around him. None of the higher ups had a clue that Marshall had been poisoning the atmosphere across the entire battalion from the time he’d been a platoon leader through his time as a commander. That alone led Ben to wonder what the environment really was in this battalion for the soldiers who’d had to suffer under the yoke of Marshall’s shitty leadership.

Now? Karma had finally come through for him. Ben might not want to command but damn it, if doing so took Marshall’s power away from him? Oh, it was a beautiful thing. And this was a target of opportunity, one that did wonders for Ben’s shitty mood.

He walked into what was now his office and there was Marshall sitting behind Ben’s desk. As if he was still in charge.

“I guess you didn’t get the memo about needing a new job?”

Marshall looked up, his jaw tense. “I’m here to brief you on the legal stuff.”

Ben smiled and it lit up the shadows around his heart. He’d been waiting for years for Marshall to get what he deserved, ever since Marshall had tried to get Escoberra and Ben fired after their outpost had been overrun. “So yeah, I’m gonna need you to clear out your desk.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And get the hell out of my company.”

The words felt strange and foreign on Ben’s tongue. His company. Words he once would have embraced. Words that now tasted bitter.

But seeing Marshall’s expression twitch made it all better.

“Do you want to know about these cases or not?”

“Not really much you can tell me, seeing how you haven’t done jack shit about them.” Ben folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door. “You know, if it wasn’t for me having to clean up your mess, I would be exceptionally happy that you’ve been relieved.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“You always were a cowboy, Teague. Too idealistic to do what needed to be done. You should have fired Escoberra after your base got blown up, but instead you sacrificed your career for him.”

“Didn’t make a damn bit of difference, now did it,” Ben said mildly. As badly as he wanted to throw Marshall—physically—from his office, he figured he should probably refrain. Especially after the pissing contest with Major Hale in front of the battalion commander. “Looks like I get a chance to command after all.”

Marshall snorted. “You’re just going to fuck this up, too. You couldn’t make a hard decision to save your own ass back then; you think you’re going to be able to do this?”

Ben smiled. “I’ll do a better job than you. And I’ll do it without betraying everyone around me to save my own ass.”

“Mistakes were made on that mission,” Marshall snapped.

“Indeed they were. And I thought we were supposed to be responsible for our subordinates’ actions?”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘responsible,’ ” Marshall said quietly.

“And you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘loyalty.’ ” He brushed a piece of lint from Marshall’s shoulder. “Now, get the fuck out of my office and go mourn the end of your career.”

Marshall’s smile was ice cold as he stood, an inch from Ben’s face. The peppermint sting of Copenhagen snuff filled Ben’s nose and he fought the urge to gag. “You think this fiasco matters? Do you know who my father is? I’m going to be reassigned to the Infantry Center at Fort Benning and I’ll be commanding a real infantry unit in less than six months and all of this heavy armored Cav bullshit can kiss my ass.”

Ben patted Marshall’s collar down. “Jimmy, Jimmy, what’s the weather on your world like? Because where I’m standing, you’ve been flagged by
division headquarters.
That means you’re stuck here at The Great Place until the investigations are complete. Which means that unless you’ve been giving the chief of staff of the army hand jobs in your spare time, you’re not going anywhere until this is over. And these things tend to take a very, very long time.”

Marshall’s face turned an unhealthy shade of purple. “Fuck you, Teague.”

“You’re really not my type. Oh, and let’s not forget how many future high-powered officers come out of Cav. You can call it bullshit all day long but your ticket is punched, sport. Daddy can’t save you. You might want to brush up on that résumé. I hear they need check-out boys at Walmart.”

Marshall’s nostrils flared. He was getting ready to start screaming. Ben could see it in the vein pounding in Marshall’s forehead. Good. It would give him an excuse to throw his sorry ass out of the office.

“Before you blow a gasket, can I remind you of something?” Ben leaned close, close enough to see the five hairs on the edge of Marshall’s jaw that the other man had missed when he shaved this morning. “You’re in my office now. So get the fuck out.”

Marshall grabbed his headgear off the desk and slammed the door against the concrete wall as he stalked from the small office.

The stink of Marshall’s snuff hung in the air after he left. Ben badly needed some air freshener. Maybe a scented candle or something. He sighed and glanced at the chaos on his desk. He didn’t even have time to look at his e-mail, which was probably just as well—his inbox had probably already exploded with pointless garrison stuff that meant little in the grand scheme of more important things.
Like the war.

It was probably just as well that the formal passing of the BlackBerry hadn’t occurred. It meant that Ben wasn’t tied to his e-mail. Yet.

He lifted one stack of files and skimmed the names written neatly on side tabs. Fifteen names. He’d be damned if he’d ask Marshall a single question about any of them. The soldiers and NCOs would help him figure it out.

Wouldn’t they? The way everyone had appeared incredibly busy when he’d walked through gave him pause. How bad were things down here in Bandit country?

He was going to have his work cut out for him. He’d never taken over for someone who’d destroyed the utter soul of an organization.

Fifteen soldiers out of a company of one hundred plus facing pending legal actions. That didn’t even count those already under investigation for a myriad of offenses, or the ones Ben didn’t even know about yet.

Ben sighed and sat down at his computer and laid his head on his desk.

Escoberra. Zittoro. Dear God, what the hell had happened to the warriors he’d known?

He needed to call Escoberra’s wife and check on her. Carmen Escoberra had put up with a lot over the years but something had to have changed.

The woman who’d sent them care packages every week to make sure they had food couldn’t have changed so much that she would have called Child Protective Services.

Why hadn’t she called Ben?

He sat up, rubbing his hands over his face. Because Ben hadn’t been part of their lives for years now. Not since the army had held Escoberra responsible for a bad attack and Ben had failed to defend him.

Ben stared into the distance. Escoberra would never put his hands on his family. That much Ben knew.

So what the hell had happened?

Grabbing his hat, he knew there was only one way to find out.

He hoped Carmen was home.

* * *

“Ma’am?”

Olivia looked up from the pile of paperwork on her desk and saw a young woman standing in her doorway. Definitely not a soldier, judging by the civilian clothes and the youthful fullness of her cheeks. “Can I help you?”

Her eyes were wary. Guarded. “My name is Hailey Escoberra, ma’am. I was wondering if you were the person I needed to talk to about my dad?”

Olivia noticed Hailey favored her left arm, cradling it against her abdomen in a very subtle movement that Olivia might have missed if she hadn’t been paying attention.

“Sure. Come in and have a seat.”

On the spectrum of strange things, a visit from a soldier’s family member wasn’t unusual—except that it wasn’t normally kids that came to visit her. Usually she met with spouses, begging for their husbands.

Sometimes, things ended up working out. Other times, far too often, they ended badly. Olivia blinked rapidly; the sight of this young woman in front of her mixed with memories of a little girl. They were not the same.

She took a deep breath, centering herself. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to leave my dad alone,” Hailey said quietly. Her voice was soft yet filled with iron.

What had made this little girl so strong? Hell, she wasn’t a little girl. She was fifteen, if Olivia remembered the reports correctly.

She gripped the pen on her desk. “I’m not doing anything to your dad,” Olivia said quietly. There was never a good response to something like this.

Never.

Because no matter what she did or said, the person in the seat across from her would want something Olivia could not give them.

“He didn’t mean to hurt me. It was an accident and he’s sorry. Just leave him alone so he can go back to work and do his job.” Her voice wavered a little, just a little. Nothing more.

“Sometimes, the people in our lives don’t mean to hurt us,” Olivia said. “But that doesn’t make the pain any less real.”

Hailey’s dark eyes flashed. “I’m not stupid. Who do I need to tell to get the army to leave my dad alone?” Her voice edged up a notch. Just a little, but it was enough to make Olivia’s stomach twist with nerves.

“Hailey, maybe you should talk to someone about your dad? I’m not really the right person…”

“They said you were the lawyer. They said you could make this go away.”

Olivia clicked the pen cap off. “I’m not sure who this ‘they’ is but they gave you wrong information.”

Hailey stood, still cradling her arm. “I don’t want any trouble for my dad. I thought the army was supposed to care about families.”

“We do care.”

“Then leave my dad alone,” she said.

She didn’t stomp from the office but it was a close thing.

The part of Olivia that wasn’t jaded and cynical admired Hailey’s love and devotion for her father.

The part of Olivia that had already seen this movie a time or two knew how it was likely to end.

All of the love in the world couldn’t save Hailey’s dad if he was hitting her.

Love betrayed was a terrible, terrible thing.

She wished she was wrong. She wished she had more faith in the power of love to heal men like Escoberra, who hurt everyone around them.

But she didn’t.

Because she’d seen the worst of it too many times.

And she’d be damned if she would leave Hailey to face this alone. Because Olivia knew all about facing these things alone.

She’d lived it.

* * *

Ben had never considered himself a hero but he’d never thought he was a coward, either.

But as he sat in Escoberra’s driveway in front of the little house in the Comanche III housing area, his stomach writhed and knotted. As he listened to some stupid shit on the radio, he struggled to find the courage to go and knock on that front door.

It was the second longest walk of his life.

Part of him hoped that Carmen wasn’t home. That he could absolve himself of his sense of guilt and say that he’d tried.

But she opened the door.

Her eyes went wide when she saw him.

Then she opened her arms and Ben stepped into her loving embrace. She wasn’t much older than he was but she was more a mother to him than his own had been.

“You’ve been away too long,” she whispered, patting his back.

He squeezed her tightly. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She released him, patting his cheek. “Don’t let it happen again. We missed you. Come in. Have something to drink?”

“Water’s fine.”

The house was impeccably neat, just like it always was. It smelled warm, like home.

But there was a shadow here now. And that shadow was the reason Ben was there.

“I suppose you want to talk about last night?” Carmen asked, handing him a glass.

“No point in delaying the obvious,” he said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I had gone to sleep because I was supposed to be at work early. The next thing I know I hear screaming and crying. Hailey is on the floor and Jose is holding a towel to her shoulder.” Carmen busied her hands in the sink, washing dishes Ben was reasonably certain were already clean. “Neither of them will tell me what happened.” She looked over at him, her eyes hard. “I won’t talk to the police, Ben. Don’t ask me to.”

“I wasn’t going to. I just… I wanted to know what happened. If he—”

“Is it true you’re his commander now?” Carmen asked, stacking a plate in the drying rack.

“I am. I don’t want to be, but I am.”

“Then you can fix this,” she said.

“I’m going to try,” he said softly. Because it was the truth.

He didn’t know what had happened but if Carmen still had faith in her husband, then damn it, Ben would believe in him, too.

He didn’t know how he was going to protect his former platoon sergeant but he was damn sure going to try.

* * *

Nine o’clock and Olivia was finally ready to call it a night. She’d made decent progress on the packets today after Hailey had left the office. Despite that, she was running on an empty stomach and the tension in her neck had finally reached the point where she had to stop and take some Motrin.