Forged in Fire Read online

  “Is there a reason you’re this pissy?” he asked after a moment.

  She looked up at the ceiling and prayed she didn’t lose her temper. “No, Sarn’t Major.”

  Because what ailed her wasn’t going to be fixed by going off on a long-time mentor and friend. No matter how irritated she was.

  The meeting got back going again, all the command teams seated around the big conference room table. She felt Sal’s presence across from her like a physical thing. She deliberately avoided looking at him.

  Sarn’t Major Cox flipped the pages of the file she’d set in front of him. “Talk to me about Sergeant Freeman,” Cox said.

  “I think the better way to discuss it is to talk about Sarn’t Pizarro and his propensity for domestic violence.” Holly hoped he’d leave it at that.

  “You can’t just make that allegation,” Delgado snapped.

  Holly looked over at the other first sergeant. “You’re right; I can’t formally accuse him. But I can tell you what that sergeant told me. And we’ve got a big damn problem on our hands if you’ve got senior NCOs beating up their girlfriends.” She kept her voice level and calm.

  LTC Gilliad held up a hand. “We’ll get to Sarn’t Pizarro in a minute. Has Freeman seen mental health?”

  Holly ground her teeth and fought the onslaught of old memories. “I’m working on that, sir. Only confirmed that this was most likely happening recently.”

  “Is she deployable?”

  Holly bristled at the colonel’s question. “She’s been knocked around by one of your NCOs, sir. She’s not the one doing the abusing.”

  Gilliad didn’t even blink. “Still, she might not be stable after that. Should we take her downrange?”

  How many men were taken downrange without a question as to their stability or their capability? Men who were broken from life before the war or just the war or a combination of both?

  Their stability wasn’t ever questioned like that of a woman who’d been abused.

  It burned, oh god how it burned.

  She held her breath, working hard not to lay into the boss for his assumptions. She looked at Cox to help her out, to stand up for her, for Freeman.

  And instead, he was silently studying Delgado. She breathed out hard and answered the colonel’s question. "I'm working on that,” she said softly. It took everything she had to lash her temper back. Violently.

  The fit she was about to have was not to be unleashed on anyone. This was a behind closed doors, throw some shit at the wall bout of rage building—all because a female soldier had the nerve to go and get herself abused. Christ, it was like Pizarro wasn’t even part of the equation. It was all about Freeman.

  “I need a mental health evaluation done on her,” Gilliad said. “I want to know she’s stable before we decide if she’s deploying or not.”

  “Sir, what are you recommending we do about Pizarro?” Holly said. Her voice shook and she swore mentally. She needed to rein this in. Hard. And now.

  “Unless she’s pressing charges, there’s nothing we can do. They’re not married, they’re not cohabitating.”

  Holly snapped. “Oh Bull. Shit.”

  Gilliad looked up sharply. “You are out of line, First Sergeant.”

  “Me? Sir, you’re honestly going to sit there and tell me you’re not going to take any action against this guy because there’s no police report?”

  Gilliad steepled his fingers in front of his chest and leaned back in his chair. “What would you have me do, First Sergeant? What exactly can I call legal with?”

  Her mouth moved but no sound came out. He wasn’t wrong.

  Humiliation burned across her skin. “Roger, sir,” she mumbled.

  Her skin was too tight, stretched over her bones and squeezing the air from her lungs. The minute the meeting was over, she stalked for the front of the building, needing air and space before she came unglued for the whole world to see.

  She blinked fiercely and tried, so goddamned hard, to keep her temper from blinding her.

  And when she collided with a massive wall of army camouflage, she didn’t bother to stop. She kept going. Out of the battalion headquarters.

  “Holly!”

  She stopped when she realized that the sound was her name being shouted.

  Sal was there. Just there. Right in front of her.

  Hard concern looked down at her. “What happened back there?”

  She held up her hand. “I can’t do this. Not right now,” she said. She brushed past him into her company operations office. Closed the door to the bathroom and sank to the floor, finally letting the tears leak down her cheeks.

  Because no matter what the men in that room ever went through, their value as a soldier would never be questioned because they’d been abused or powerless or at the other end of a fist connected to someone infinitely more powerful than they were.

  And it burned. It fucking burned.

  * * *

  It took Sal half a lifetime before he knocked on the latrine door.

  He had to admit, it felt somewhat awkward to stand outside the female latrine like some kind of stalker.

  But what he’d seen on Holly’s face had left him little choice.

  Even if he wasn’t drawn to this woman, being a not-shitty human being dictated that he check on her.

  But standing there and waiting for her to unlock the door, he felt oddly powerless—and that was not a feeling he was used to. He didn’t know how to fix this.

  He was used to charging headlong into battle.

  And yet there he stood, on the closed side of a latrine door.

  He knocked again then heard the shuffle of boots on the concrete floor. The door opened a moment later.

  Holly was cast in shadows.

  “Do you always use the bathroom in the dark?” he asked.

  She lifted both eyebrows. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

  “I didn’t know you had a temper.”

  She tipped her chin up and stepped out of the darkness and into the light. Her eyes were red.

  That stopped him cold. He’d only known her for a brief time but she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who fell apart after an ass-chewing. He took a single step closer.

  But his hands remained at his sides.

  “What happened?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “Bad memory chose an inopportune time to resurrect itself.” She looked away, avoiding his gaze.

  “Must have been pretty bad.”

  She pressed her lips together. “They generally are,” she said. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out.

  “Talk to me,” he whispered.

  She stood there, silent and unmoving. She might as well have been a statue but for the faint huff of breath between her lips. She looked away and he could see the muscle in her jaw pulsing as she ground her teeth. He recognized the bad habit for what it was.

  Finally she met his gaze. “I can’t.” He caught the faint quiver of her bottom lip. “But ask me again sometime. When there’s wine and therapy chocolate.”

  She tried to step around him.

  He caught her before she could. His palm on her shoulder, colliding with the uniform and the large horse head patch on her left shoulder.

  He held her there. Just a moment when she was stiff and rigid and unyielding.

  And then she surprised them both. She lowered her head to his chest.

  A brief, blinding admission of weakness. Or of maybe just not being strong enough to stand on her own at that moment.

  He simply stood and let her lean. Until she looked up at him and he was lost.

  He leaned in before rational thought could kick in. Leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. A hesitant gesture. One meant to comfort more than seduce. Her breath huffed across his lips and he tasted cinnamon and something sweet a moment before she parted for him.

  A taste, nothing more. A flick of his tongue brushed against hers. Something simple. Something profoundly seductive
and compelling in that kiss.

  She swayed against him, their uniforms blocking the full contact that he wanted.

  He cupped her cheek gently as she eased back. “Was that your idea of a comfort thing?” she whispered, her voice thick.

  “I’m not sure what I meant for that to be,” he said honestly. “But I don’t regret it.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I—thanks for letting me lean,” she said.

  “It happens to all of us.”

  She tipped her chin up at him. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who has to lean very often.”

  He pressed his lips into a flat line. “It doesn’t happen often,” he admitted. “But when it does, it’s a terrible sight to behold.”

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out of the shoulder pouch. Sal wasn’t sure if he was relieved or upset by the interruption.

  * * *

  “First Sarn’t Washington. May I help you, sir or ma’am?”

  “My name is Elizabeth Paul and I’m Rachel Freeman’s probation officer. She missed her hearing today and I’m trying to verify where she is before we swear a warrant out on her.”

  Holly lifted both eyebrows and looked over at Sal. “Probation officer?”

  “I spoke with a first sergeant a few weeks ago. Balboa?”

  “I haven’t spoken to a First Sergeant Balboa,” she said, keeping her voice mild. And oh wasn’t this an interesting turn of events.

  “He told me she’d be at the hearing when he was here with her last week.”

  Holly frowned, rubbing her eyes. “Ma’am, how old did this first sergeant look to you?”

  “He did look a little young.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Listen. I appreciate you getting in touch with me. What’s she on Probation for?”

  “Assault and battery. Fleeing the scene of an accident.”

  “Can you e-mail me the information on Sergeant Freeman’s Probation?”

  Holly rattled off her official e-mail account and got the Probation officer’s contact info, then tucked her phone away.

  “This probably wasn’t a good news call, was it?” Sal asked.

  Holly snapped her fingers. “Got it in one,” she said. “Freeman is on Probation for assault. And Baggins, apparently, is a first sergeant.”

  Sal raised both eyebrows. “Ah hell,” he muttered. “That explains so much more than the half-assed excuse that he couldn’t get someone on the phone.”

  “Doesn’t it, though?” She sighed. “I will be very surprised if this assault charge doesn’t somehow involve Pizarro,” Holly’s throat tightened with the words. It hurt to have to question Freeman’s story again just when she thought she’d figured things out.

  Sal scrubbed his hand over his face and swore quietly. “Why the hell didn’t Baggins come clean?”

  “Have to admit, this doesn’t look good for either of them right now,” Holly said.

  Sal rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Let’s see what the Probation officer says,” he said after a moment. And hoped that there was some rational explanation for all of this.

  Otherwise, things had just gotten a little more interesting.

  13

  Holly knocked on the door of Captain Emily Lindberg's office and remembered instantly why she liked the younger captain, despite the fact that she was a doctor and doctors usually made terrible officers. They’d met at a finance briefing at the Copeland Center that had gone horribly wrong, and then bonded over bad coffee while waiting in an endless line. There was a passion in Emily that was hard to miss—she genuinely cared about the soldiers she treated.

  Holly had seen her again only briefly while she’d been in-processing, but Emily had given Holly her card and said if she needed anything from the psych department to look her up.

  “Guess you weren’t really thinking I’d call in that if-you–need-anything card so soon, did you, ma’am?” Holly said by way of greeting.

  Emily grinned. “Come in, First Sergeant. Nice to see you again. I take it you survived your finance briefing?”

  “Barely,” she said. “Almost waved the white flag and let them keep my leave days from my last tour in Iraq.”

  “What brings you in?”

  “Deep dark trauma and personal turmoil,” Holly said dryly. “Not mine, of course.”

  “Of course.” Emily grinned.

  It felt good to bullshit with the doc. Someone who didn’t take her sarcasm as a pathological personality defect. Like a certain other captain she knew.

  “No, seriously. I’ve got a sergeant I’d like you to see. She’s apparently on Probation—that we just found out about, mind you—and she’s admitted to me that she’d been involved in a domestic abuse situation until very recently. I know there’s the whole patient confidentiality stuff but if you can at least let us know what you think the true assessment of the situation is?”

  “Sure thing. What do you think?”

  Holly shook her head. “I’m not going to poison the well, if that’s okay. I’ve talked to her before and I honestly can’t tell if she’s bullshitting me or if things are just seriously crazy. That’s where you come in. I need you to help me cut through the bullshit.”

  Emily nodded. “I’ll shoot you a note later today after I meet with her.”

  “Thanks,” Holly said as she stood.

  “You got lucky. I just happen to have a cancellation that the front desk hadn’t filled yet.”

  Holly headed back across post to the company ops and stepped into the middle of chaos.

  Which was apparently how everything in this battalion ran.

  MANAGEMENT BY CHAOS. She needed to get a coffee cup made with that saying on it.

  Freeman and Pizarro were currently being kept apart by the executive officer and her company commander.

  Freeman looked like she was ready to draw blood, although evidently she already had. Pizarro had a trail of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Y’all have two seconds to explain to me what’s going on before I call the MPs and let them drag your sorry asses to jail,” Holly said. “You,” she said to Freeman. “Over there. You, over there.”

  “Firs’ Sarn’t—”

  “Not one goddamned word, Sarn’t Pizarro. Not one,” Holly snapped.

  She looked at her executive officer. “Go get Captain Bello. Tell him we’ve got a situation over here.”

  “Why aren’t you at your appointment?” Holly said to Freeman.

  “What appointment?”

  Holly narrowed her eyes. Oh, now wasn’t this interesting. The weepy, innocent girl from the barracks was gone in the flash of those two words. Then, just as quickly, the feigned innocence was back.

  “I mean, I’m sorry, Firs’ Sarn’t. I wasn’t aware of an appointment.”

  Holly studied Sergeant Freeman and her transformation carefully for a moment. She looked contrite. She sounded contrite. So what was off? It was the flash she’d seen a moment before when Sarn’t Freeman had responded without thinking and hadn’t had her carefully placed shields up.

  Holly turned to her commander. “Ma’am, I need an LT to escort Sergeant Freeman to the hospital. She’s getting a direct order to report to the doctor. And if she decides to disobey it, we can add it to her counseling packet for the Article Fifteen we’re getting ready to start processing.”

  Sergeant Freeman looked like she was about to argue but the door to the company ops opened and Sal stalked in, his first sergeant close on his heels.

  “Perfect timing, gentlemen.”

  * * *

  Sal’s heart slammed against his ribs the moment he saw Holly once again squared up with Sarn’t Pizarro. She stood in the center of her ops, controlling the situation like the warrior she was.

  Still, it took a moment for him to realize that she was safe. Unhurt.

  He was mildly surprised that Pizarro was actually listening to her but there he was, standing by the conference room table, bleeding silently.


  “What happened?”

  “From what I can gather, Sarn’t Freeman decked him,” Holly said.

  Delgado raised both eyebrows. “You got your ass whipped by a little girl?”

  Pizarro flushed and wisely said nothing. Holly bristled but Sal spoke before she could. “I don’t think that’s really the issue at hand, First Sergeant,” Sal said mildly.

  “Get your ass back to the company,” Delgado said.

  Sal watched the exchange. The way Pizarro straightened when Delgado spoke to him. The way his chin lifted and his shoulders went back.

  This was more than the power of a first sergeant to direct his men. It was something else that gave Delgado this kind of power over Pizarro.

  “Hold up, Top,” Sal said to his first sergeant, then turned to Pizzaro. “Why did she hit you?”

  Pizarro lifted his chin and said nothing. Sal raised both eyebrows. “That’s the way you want to play this? Okay, fine.” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the MPs. “I’ve got an NCO here who just assaulted another soldier. I need an MP unit down here to take him into custody.”

  Delgado grabbed his wrist. “What the hell are you doing, sir?”

  “Calling the MPs.”

  “He was the one assaulted,” Delgado snapped.

  “You didn’t see the black eye that Freeman had camouflaged,” Sal said. Holly looked up sharply at his comment but said nothing. “If she hit him, I strongly suspect it’s because he hit her first.”

  “I’ll deal with this, sir,” Delgado said.

  “Not this time, Top. This has gone too far.” Sal felt Holly’s eyes on him, felt the weight of her unspoken expectations settle around his shoulders.

  “If he gets a domestic violence conviction, we can’t take him downrange because of the Lautenberg Amendment. You realize what you’re doing, sir?”

  Sal looked pointedly at his wrist, where Delgado still restrained him. For a moment, he thought Delgado was going to swing on him. Then, he released Sal’s wrist and took a step backward.

  “Your mind is made up on this?” Delgado asked sharply.