Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2) (24 page)

“Men with Reza’s experience are not replaceable.” He shifted slightly, angling his body toward her. He’d never seen her looking as utterly lost as she did now. She bruised his heart, shattering the wall he’d been attempting to erect around it since he’d walked away from her. He hadn’t wanted to need her, hadn’t wanted to crave her. But the fear he’d felt was a crushing acknowledgment of what she’d come to mean to him.

“I’ve seen it happen time and time again. It’s not what you know, it’s who. And Reza may be connected to a few of us around here, but no full-bird colonel is going to stick his neck out on the line for an enlisted man.” Her voice cracked a little. “He’s just another expendable soldier.”

Evan folded his fingers together. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I kind of do.” Her whispered words held a wealth of knowledge and dark certainty. “He has to get help.”

He looked down at her folded hands, her bowed head. She sounded defeated. Like she was tired of fighting. Maybe she was. He almost reached for her, though terrified she would shatter beneath his touch.

The wide double doors opened and a white-coated doc walked out. They stood as she walked up to them. “You’re here for Sergeant Iaconelli?” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Colonel Pillai.”

“Tell me you have good news?” Claire said.

The doctor smiled and warm relief prickled over Evan’s skin. “He’s incredibly lucky. He shattered his collarbone in two places. Seventeen stitches in his forehead. But considering how bad the accident was, it could have been much worse.”

Claire pressed her lips together and nodded. “Is there any chance we can see him, Ma’am?”

“Is there any chance either of you are in his chain of command?”

“Do past commanders count?” The words rolled easily off Evan’s tongue. He hadn’t been Reza’s commander in over a year, but the difference didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as it might have once.

Dr. Pillai smiled. “Sure. It’s got to be quick, though. We’re probably going to be moving him up to the ICU in the next hour.”

The doctor walked back to the front desk and buzzed them in. Claire lingered closer to Evan.

“She didn’t say anything about the toxicology screen,” Evan said softly.

“Even if he was drinking, she probably wouldn’t tell us.” She sounded resigned, as though it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to end Reza’s career.

Evan didn’t push the issue. In the end, seeing his former platoon sergeant nearly broke him. Half of Reza’s face was bruised and his left eye was swollen shut. His dark
skin was splotchy black and blue. He offered a lopsided grimace that Evan supposed was meant for a grin.

“You look like shit.” Reza’s words were slurred, his smile a little too cheerful. “I know what you’re going to say.”

Claire folded her arms across her chest, straightening slightly. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said softly.

Reza attempted to frown but winced as the movement jarred his stitches. “Okay, that wasn’t what I expected you to say.” He sighed, the smile fading. “I wasn’t drinking.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Evan said.

“I was up driving around half the damn night from
not
drinking. I couldn’t sleep and the walls were closing in on me.” He sighed and looked away. “I fell asleep behind the wheel.”

Claire plucked at the sheet on the edge of the bed, looking miserable and out of sorts. Evan rested one hand on her shoulder. Claire stiffened slightly, then relaxed beneath his touch.

“Reza, I love you like a brother but this has to stop. You—”

“I don’t need any lectures right now.”

“Yeah, well maybe it’s time you got a lecture,” Claire snapped. “I’d take a fucking bullet for you but you’ve gone too far. You need help, Reza. Before you kill someone.”

“Been there, done that, got the shitty T-shirt and the Bronze Star to boot,” he ground out. “I’m not in the mood for your shit, Claire.”

“Watch your mouth,” Evan said softly. He squeezed Claire’s shoulder gently as he chose his words carefully. “You’ve got two choices. You self-refer. The minute you’re released from the hospital, you get yourself back to Fort Hood and over to substance abuse and enroll yourself in rehab.”

“And option B?” Reza had long ago given up smiling.

Claire’s voice was flat. “There
is
no option B. You self-refer.”

* * *

“That went well.” Evan pushed his sunglasses on as they stepped outside. It took him a minute to realize that it was dark and he didn’t actually need the shades.

“If by well you mean he’s no longer speaking to us, it went swimmingly.” Claire stuffed her own glasses in the front of her uniform, between the Velcro and the zipper.

Evan put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her, briefly surprised when she didn’t pull away. “It needed to be done,” he said quietly.

“I know that.” She refused to meet his gaze, looking out instead over the parking lot, which was illuminated by floodlights. “I suppose one of us should call back to Fort Hood and tell Colonel Richter. The hospital is bound to report it to the command. Because Colonel Richter needs one more thing to have kittens about.”

She started walking again, only to stop a moment later. His heart broke a little more for her. “Hey.”

She glanced at him, then looked away, as if afraid to hold his gaze long enough to let him see into her soul.

He dared to reach out and touch her jaw, urging her to look at him. For the life of him, he could not find the anger he’d harbored toward her since she’d slapped at him with hard realities and hurtful words. Now all he felt was sadness for her hurt. Regret that she was so closed off and distant that she couldn’t even trust him to be there with her. “You scared me today,” he whispered. “I thought it was you in the hospital.”

She said nothing, her eyes shimmering in the low winter light. She looked like she was going to spend the entire night lying awake and damn it, he wasn’t going to let her do that by herself. Not tonight. “You don’t look like you should be alone right now.”

“I can’t do this with you.” She met his gaze. “I can’t be the woman you need,
Evan.”

He slipped his fingers down her neck, his thumb caressing the soft skin at the edge of her jaw. “I didn’t ask you to marry me. Just stay with me tonight. Just tonight. Because honestly?” He leaned in, brushing his lips against hers and not giving a damn who saw. “I don’t want to be alone, either.”

* * *

They sat in the car in the parking lot outside the lodge. Cold seeped in through the doors and windows, freezing the silence around them. “When I was fifteen, my father tripped and fell on me. He’d been drinking.” She swallowed and stared into the darkness.

“The coffee table?” Evan murmured. “The scars on your back. Shattered glass?”

She nodded silently then pushed out a deep breath. “When I finally got to the hospital, I told them what had happened. They took me away from him because he admitted to drinking too much. They said he wasn’t responsible enough to take care of me. I spent the next three years in and out of foster homes. He died two weeks after I joined the army.” Claire sat in the dark, her boots resting on Evan’s dashboard, her chin resting on her knees. “My tenth-grade English teacher helped take me away from my dad. I trusted her. I talked to her about things at home. And she helped take me away from the only home I had.”

Her heart ached for the girl she’d been. So naïve. So trusting in the wrong people. “I was eighteen the first time I met Sarn’t Iaconelli.”

“It sounds weird hearing you call him ‘Sarn’t.’ ” His voice was a low rumble beneath the hushed blanket of night.

She smiled. Evan’s face was lit by the parking lot lights outside the lodge. “Yeah, well, he was Sarn’t Ike a lot longer than I was a sergeant.” She took a deep breath, letting the words come out without a filter. She’d held on to them for long enough.

“We were stopped just outside of Basra. Things had been quiet. Mostly. Little flare-ups but nothing major. We thought one division would win the entire war in less than a month.” She looked away. “I worked on the plan with my battalion commander. I trusted him. Looked up to him. God, I was such a fool.”

She opened the door of the truck, needing the crisp, cold night air to ease some of the pressure burning in her lungs. He followed when she climbed out.

Funny how she’d gotten used to having him around. Iraq. Fort Hood. Fort Carson. Somehow, Evan had wormed his way past every single one of her defenses until she found herself scanning the faces in a room looking for him. He tormented her dreams. Teased her with a hint of what could be.

It scared the hell out of her.

Evan followed her into the lodge, then into her room, and he closed and locked the door behind them. She felt him move toward her and she managed not to brace herself when he rested his hands on her shoulders. “Keep going,” he urged.

She took a deep breath. Then started talking.

“Reza and his platoon were pinned down just outside the Baghdad Airport. My commander shocked the hell out of me when he said he wasn’t going to let anyone go after them because we needed to capture the airport first.” She swiped at her cheeks to hide the tears. “You asked me who broke me? It was the battalion commander who I trusted, who I admired, who refused to let me go after my friend. Who tried to court-martial me when I did it anyway. It was my father, who wasn’t man enough to be the dad I needed. Everyone in my life I was supposed to be able to trust has let me down. Except Reza.” She sniffed. “It’s killing me to watch him waste his life at the bottom of a bottle.” She offered a watery smile. “You asked me once why I wouldn’t face you when we’re having sex? Because I’m afraid, Evan. I’m afraid you’re going to be just like everyone else in my life.”

“That’s pretty harsh,” he said gently.

“Not really.” She sniffed again. “I mean, you turned me in to Colonel Richter after the range fire.” She swiped at her cheeks again, trying to smile at her own weak attempt at a joke. “Our track record with each other sucks.”

* * *

He pulled her against him and stroked his hands up and down her back, tracing her spine with his thumbs, unable to deny the harsh truth of her words, no matter how gently they were spoken. Up and down, again and again, he stroked her. Softly. Hoping to gentle the fierce violence of emotion raging through him. Too much raged inside him. Fear. Loss.

But it was the utter hopelessness he saw in Claire’s eyes that terrified him.

She was on the verge of giving up, of forgetting everything she’d fought so hard to become. Her stubborn need to hold the line, to do the wrong thing for the right reasons—all of it was what drew him to her. And tonight, she looked as though she’d lost her will to fight.

She lifted her head away from his chest. Her eyes were red and they threatened to spill. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry.”

She tried to smile but he stopped her, nudging her lips gently with his. He rubbed his nose against hers, lashing back the intense hunger he wanted badly to satiate. She met him halfway, opening her mouth beneath his. Her tongue darted against his, a warm, wet slide of heat against heat. It was Claire who deepened their kiss. Claire who stepped closer to rub her hips against his. Claire whose fingers traced beneath his T-shirt and caressed his skin.

Claire who spanned the distance between them.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” he whispered against her lips.

She closed her eyes, resting her cheek over the hard black lines covering his heart.
“I don’t want to be alone.”

This time, it was Evan who crossed the space between them. “You’re not,” he whispered.

* * *

They stayed that way a long time. Kissing. Petting. Quiet strokes, soothing the ragged emotions in each of them. Curled on the bed, fully clothed, their bodies touching, for once, only for comfort. The shift came quietly, a soft transition from soothing to sensual.

Evan’s fingers pressed up the back of her neck and tugged her hair free from the knot she wore. He threaded his fingers through her hair, rubbing her scalp gently. After an impossibly long silence, she shifted against him, relaxing into his touch, some of the sadness and grief and sacrifice burned away by its heat.

“You have magic fingers,” she murmured.

Evan stopped, lowering his head to the cradle of her neck, his entire body shaking. She frowned and turned to see him wiping his eyes. He looked at her then and laughed out loud.

“What?” Her lips twitched into an almost smile.

“Magic Fingers … it’s a sex toy company.”

Claire bit her lip but the laugh bubbled free, unexpected and welcome. “Do I want to know how you know this?”

He offered a nonchalant shrug, a smile lingering on his lips. “There’s a lot of time to kill on deployments.”

“With sex toys?”

“All I’m going to say is the source of the chlamydia in my company all those years ago was not a soldier.” His voice lowered just a little, his eyes darkening in the
shadows of her dimly lit suite. “And no, I never spent any quality time with Magic Fingers, in case you were wondering.”

She dragged her palms over his chest, savoring the feel of his hard muscles beneath her touch. He was solid. Real. She smiled. Evan made her laugh when all she wanted to do was cry. “I’m not so well acquainted with sex toys that I know their brands.”

“Well, thanks to my time in the trenches as a tank company commander, I learned all kinds of interesting things. Things you never expect to learn as an army officer.”

He stopped her as she parted the zipper on his uniform jacket, grasping her wrists gently. He rubbed his thumbs along the inside of her wrists. “Are you sure this is what you want tonight?”

“Do you just want to cuddle instead?”

“I could draw you a picture of a bunny. You could hang it on your fridge.” He released her wrists and shrugged out of his jacket as she pushed it off his shoulders.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to the side of his throat, feeling his pulse beat against her skin. His arms tightened around her waist and she felt his breath on her neck.

“You can draw me the bunny later.” She nuzzled his shoulder where the tattoo covered the scars he’d borne on his soul long before he’d etched them into his body, then reached between them, sliding her hand into his pants. “I’d much rather spend some quality time with your cock.”