Forged in Fire Page 10

  “She said she was going to pay back the money he lent her and leave him, then she went out with him again last night.” Baggins hung his head. “I don’t understand how she can forgive him.”

  Sal put his arm around Baggins’ shoulder. “You can’t fix that for her. You can’t change how she feels. All you can do is be there for her. No matter what.”

  Baggins looked up at him. “What if she never leaves him?”

  “Then you be a friend if it ever happens again. It’s hard for women to leave these situations.”

  “My dad hit my mom once,” Baggins said after a moment. “She pulled out the .308 and said she’d shoot his dick off if he ever touched her again.”

  “Good for her. Did he listen?” Sal was mildly impressed at Baggins’ mother’s ferocity. Pulling guns in domestics rarely ended well.

  “Never again. He was a perfect saint until the day she died.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said. “You planning on finishing that and getting to bed or what?” he finally asked.

  Baggins slammed back the rest of the beer, then crunched the can and threw it into the back of Sal’s truck.

  “I’m afraid to go to sleep,” Baggins whispered. “I see it all. Not every night. But sometimes? Like tonight? Every sound is like I’m back over there.”

  Baggins was no longer the cocky smart ass. He was a lost young man, a man who’d gone to war a boy and come home changed.

  A little broken.

  A lot messed up.

  So Sal sat where he probably shouldn’t have sat and listened until Baggins’ words slipped together and slowed to a stop. Until Baggins leaned against his shoulder and finally fell asleep. Hopefully he’d stay that way.

  He managed to get Baggins up to his room. It wasn’t that hard because the kid was a hundred and fifty pounds if he was an ounce. Sal had dragged bigger men through worse situations than climbing the barracks stairs. A few barracks doors were still open, but most of the partying that had been going on had long since quieted down.

  He dropped Baggins onto his bed, tossed a sheet over him, and closed the door behind him, relieved that he’d been too tired to drink more than a couple of beers before he’d finally crashed.

  He stepped onto the concrete patio and damn near ran down the last person he expected to see in the barracks at one a.m.

  Holly.

  11

  “Well now this is awkward,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. She closed the door to Sergeant Freeman’s room behind her.

  Sal stood on the concrete walkway. He looked tired. Worn down. Not at all the motivated warrior she’d seen on the range or the powerful man who’d stepped into her space and reminded her that they were both flesh and blood behind the rank on their chests.

  She wasn’t sure who she was dealing with at that moment. Worse, she wasn’t sure who she wanted to be dealing with.

  She turned toward the stairs that lead to the parking lot. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she said.

  He scowled but she could have sworn she saw the corner of his lips twitch. Damn, but he had a nice mouth: heavy bottom lip that was far too often pulled into a flat line.

  “Baggins was having a rough night.” Sal fell into step next to her.

  “What a coincidence. Sarn’t Freeman was, too. MPs were here. Luckily I got them to back off before anyone was arrested. I suspect you may have already gotten Balboa?”

  Sal glanced at her. “God, it’s funny to hear him called Balboa.”

  “How long have you been calling him Baggins?”

  “Since I’ve known him. When he was my driver downrange back in ’04." He slipped his hands into his jeans pockets as he headed down the stairs.

  Holly took a moment to admire his back. Seriously, she needed to get some sleep. Her brain was twisting up a work conversation with inappropriate thoughts about the man’s shoulders, despite his seriously cranky side.

  He paused on the step below her and she stopped to avoid crashing into him. “I sent an award up once with ‘Baggins’ on it. Never heard the end of that from my first sergeant. Commander didn’t think it was that funny.”

  Holly sighed. “Officers so rarely have a good sense of humor about these things. You should have been there the day we promoted the company mascot—a Chihuahua mix in case you were curious—to sergeant in front of the formation. The battalion commander was somewhat less than impressed.”

  “You’re making that up.” There it was again. That tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  “Hand to God,” she said, placing one hand over her heart. “I was in charge of a warehouse section in Korea as a staff sergeant before the war. The unit mascot had been a corporal for as long as anyone could remember. The soldiers thought it would be awesome to promote her in front of the formation and the company commander bit off on the idea. His boss, however, was less than impressed.” She grinned. “I have pictures if you don’t believe me.”

  In the dark passage of the stairwell, he stared up at her. His gaze was cloaked in shadows. “Have you always had this sarcasm superpower?” he asked. His voice was low. Thick.

  The silence around them was heavy. The barracks were quiet now.

  He radiated heat. A warmth that she badly wanted to take another step toward.

  “It’s a finely tuned life skill. Like wine, it’s gotten better with age.”

  He licked his bottom lip and bit it, nodding slowly before heading down the stairs. “Okay then.”

  “So what part of the story did you get?” she asked, changing the subject back to Baggins and Freeman.

  They stepped out of the darkness of the stairwell and into the flood of security light brightness.

  “He’s worried about her.”

  “Enough that someone calls the MPs,” Holly mumbled.

  “People tend to act a little funny when someone they care about is doing something stupid,” Sal said.

  “Fair enough. But maybe screaming at each other in the quad in front of half the battalion isn’t the right answer, either.”

  “He’s a little drunk.”

  “Does he get mean when he’s drinking?”

  “Not since I’ve known him.”

  Holly glanced over at Sal. “You realize that you’re about twice the size of his girlfriend? Men don’t typically get shitty with dudes that are your size unless they are really, really intoxicated. You know, in case you were wondering,” she said.

  “You were right about Pizarro.”

  “Yeah, I was going to call you about that. How the hell do we handle this one?”

  “I have no idea. We can’t restrict her to the barracks because it’s punishing her, but I can’t put him in the barracks to keep her away from him. And they’re clearly ignoring the no-contact order.” He scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “Which part?” Holly asked softly. They stopped near his truck.

  “All of it,” he said. “I’ve never been a big fan of domestic abuse myself.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to mirror his stance and put her hands in her pockets. She hadn’t spent enough time on staff for that bad habit to develop. She tucked them into the waistband of her jeans.

  “I’ve dealt with a lot of it over the years.” She looked away. “You can’t help some people.”

  Sal took a single step closer, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body, the warmth radiating around her. She wanted so badly to lean her head on his chest and just lean for a moment. Let someone else carry the load for however brief a snapshot of normalcy she could manage.

  “I think Baggins is trying to help her.”

  “I’m going to try to get her to see one of the psych docs I know. She needs counseling.” She looked up at him. He was close enough that she could see the faint outline of stubble against his jaw. “Baggins might need some, too. No one ever talks about the men who love women in these situations.”

  Sal said nothing for a long moment. She met his gaze, daring fi
nally to lift her eyes away from his jaw to those blue-black eyes. “Sounds like you know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice a murmur.

  “It’s complicated,” she replied softly.

  And suddenly she wasn’t sure who they were talking about any longer.

  * * *

  It was stupid, standing this close to her. Stupid to see the softness of her face in the shadows, the gentle lure of her mouth. He simply stood for a moment, unable to step away.

  Whatever the hell was happening between them, it was something he was not prepared to deal with. He’d been an infantryman his entire life—women weren’t usually his right hand man.

  He didn’t know how to do this. It wasn’t that she was a female—he’d worked with females on the staff before. No, there was something about this female, this woman that drew him in.

  He couldn’t tell if it was her sense of humor or her competence that shredded any doubt about whether a woman could hold her own against a company of men.

  It was her strength that drew him. She stood there, toe to toe with him, and had gone rounds with him over his soldier—pushed him to do the right thing. Pushed him to act.

  It wasn’t often that he let people push at him. But this first sergeant, with her irreverent sense of humor—she was something else.

  Something he found himself drawn to.

  “I have to tell you,” she said after a moment when neither of them moved.

  “Hmmm?” He swallowed hard.

  “I’ve never actually had this problem before.”

  “What problem?”

  “The problem of having a thing for an officer.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Define ‘thing’?”

  Her lips twitched. “If I have to spell it out for you, we’ve got bigger problems than this thing, whatever it is.”

  “Is ‘thing’ what all the cool kids are calling it these days?” He wasn’t quite sure what they were doing. Standing a little too close. Was this flirting? Was this what that felt like? Sal was no saint, not by a long shot, but he hadn’t really made time for a relationship since his last girlfriend had packed her stuff and moved to Utah because he was deployed all the time.

  “‘Thing’ is such a versatile word,” she said softly. Her eyes glittered from the overhead lights in the parking lot. “But whatever this thing might be, we should probably discuss it somewhere that is not the barracks parking lot. Because you know, cell phones and all that—and while this thing is interesting, I’m not quite willing to throw my panties to the wind and risk my career over it.”

  Sal took a step back and tried not to laugh. She was serious—it was a risk for both of them. But still.

  “We need to compare notes over Freeman and Baggins,” she continued. “But as much as I’d like to get some coffee, it’s almost one a.m. We’ve got the meeting tomorrow morning with the boss to go over legal packets.

  “I’ll send a note to the battalion commander about the call,” Sal said.

  It was amazing how quickly work stepped in and crushed whatever the thing was that had been blooming between them for that brief instant.

  “Copy me and my commander on it?” she asked softly.

  He nodded, wishing he could recapture that forbidden sensation from a moment before. That delicious tug of desire that had him stepping into her space. That warmth in her eyes that promised laughter and inappropriate humor—things he’d forgotten about since the war started.

  Things he’d made himself set aside on that terrible day when he’d learned that a coward’s blood ran through his veins.

  He ground his teeth and took another step back.

  “Where’d you go just then?” she asked softly.

  “Just an old memory,” he said when he was able to trust his voice again.

  “They’re funny that way, aren’t they? Sneaking up on you when you least expect it.” She leaned against the hood of his truck. “And it’s never the good ones that sneak up on you. It’s always the ones you’d give your left nut to never remember as long as you live.”

  He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his lips. “You really never stop, do you?”

  “Ha! Finally. You can smile.” She cupped her chin in her palm and for a moment looked completely relaxed. “I was going to have to break out a voodoo doll or something. Thought I was losing my skills.”

  He leaned against the hood of his truck, too, bracing the toe of his boot on the driver’s side tire. He didn’t realize he had the lighter in his hand until she ran her fingers over his, urging them to open.

  His heart stopped in his chest. Her fingers were cool as she looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

  He could have stopped her from taking the lighter. Could have closed his fist over it and kept the totem private.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead he stood very still and watched as she turned it over in her fingers. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil because I am the meanest motherfucker in the valley.” Her voice was smooth and soft, at odds with the harsh words. She looked up at him. “This is from Vietnam.”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t a question. “How did you know?”

  “My first battalion sergeant major was a Vietnam Vet,” she said quietly. “I was the commander’s driver. He had one on his desk.” Her gaze went very far away. “I made the mistake of moving it one night when I was taking out the trash. It was my first experience with PTSD.”

  He waited for the punch line. Another moment passed and it still hadn’t dropped. It was then that he realized that she was serious. He swore softly. “What happened?”

  “Grabbed me by my throat and shoved me up against the wall.” She set the lighter down gently in his palm, her fingertips brushing against his skin. “It’s fun thinking you’re going to die from a war that ended before you were born when you’re eighteen years old.”

  “I’m surprised you’re still here. In the army, I mean.” The lighter suddenly felt heavy and cold.

  “The battalion motor sergeant pulled him off me.” She shrugged. “The nineties army was a different time, right?”

  “Did you press charges?”

  She smiled sadly. “Not every act of violence is a criminal offense. He was a good sergeant major—he just had a lot of demons that were a hell of a lot bigger and meaner than he was.” She bit her bottom lip. “I understand that now in ways I didn’t when I was younger.”

  “Before the war?” he said softly.

  “Yeah. War changes everything, doesn’t it?”

  She met his gaze and saw a fellow warrior looking back at her. One tested by the same fires. Molded and changed by them. "Yeah, it really does."

  12

  Holly sighed and silently counted to one hundred as the staff meeting from hell dragged into its third hour. She contemplated getting up to go to the bathroom but figured since everyone else was engaging in some kind of tough man bullshit to see who could hold it the longest, she wasn’t going to be the first to break.

  It was stupid, but then again so was this meeting.

  Having gone through the legal packets in agonizing, eye-bleeding detail, they were now going over missed appointments.

  Individual by individual.

  Their soldiers were going to war in less than six months, she had about a million e-mails to answer, a live fire training exercise to get ready, and she was sitting in a meeting wasting her time.

  They hadn’t even gotten through Bandit Company yet.

  She glanced at the sergeant major, who looked like he was being kept alive by dip and pure stubbornness.

  The next slide advanced on the screen.

  “Praise Jesus, it’s Chaos Company,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What was that, First Sergeant?” Sarn’t Major Cox asked pointedly.

  Well, no point in denying it, she thought. “Just pointing out how happy I am to have finally reached Chaos Company. Four more hours and we should be at Gun
slinger, Sarn’t Major.”

  “You have somewhere better to be?”

  “Actually, Sarn’t Major, yes.” She motioned to the names on the screen. “While I appreciate that this is meant to be a mind-numbingly painful exercise that is designed to punish us for not having one hundred percent deployable soldiers, I also respectfully submit that perhaps the point is made and we can update you by e-mail to keep the inmates from running the asylum while we’re trapped in here?” And I have to pee. But she kept that to herself.

  Sarn’t Major Cox didn’t look like he was in the mood to hear about her pending incontinence. He simply stared at her silently. Then another ticked by. She felt the wrath of the other first sergeants beating down on her neck but damn it, what was she supposed to do? Her damn mouth had gotten her in trouble yet again.

  “Take a break, gentlemen,” he said finally.

  Oh good. This ought to go well.

  The other first sergeants left the room and she couldn’t help but feel like they were leaving her to her crucifixion.

  “Want to tell me what that’s all about, First Sergeant?”

  “After I pee, Sarn’t Major.”

  Cox laughed out loud, snapping the tension in the room like a rubber band. “Goddamn, Holly, why the hell didn’t you just get up and go?”

  She wasn’t actually that amused. “Seriously? Why are you doing this? This meeting is cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “You see why, right? The other first sergeants don’t know what’s going on with their people.”

  “You act like they don’t know anything, Sarn’t Major.” She stood, heading toward the door. It was a good thing she’d served with Cox many moons ago when she’d been a scrappy staff sergeant and he’d still been a crusty ass old NCO.

  He was still crusty. He was just grumpier now.

  “Go. I’ll get the updates from you on Diablo and Gunfighter later.”

  She dropped a slide deck in front of him. “Every status update on every soldier in both companies who has medical issues. Real and fake,” she added. “I even color-coded them for you.”