I'll Be Home for Christmas Page 6

  So they’d frozen together. And Iaconelli, being the charming SOB that he was, had stayed in his own cot, missing out on a prime bonding moment with his new platoon.

  Sarn’t Iaconelli had not seen the humor in the situation.

  Carponti continued to sew. There was something about the repetition of the needle. He could see why women did this sort of thing. Not that he was going to take up fashion design or anything. He glanced up at Iaconelli. “Did the LT find you?”

  Iaconelli sighed heavily. The fact that Lieutenant Jason Randall was a raging asshat was the single point of agreement between the two of them. And neither one of them was about to admit it. “No. I’m avoiding him. That little fuckweasel can kiss my ass.” He zeroed in on Carponti’s sewing. “And you need to put that shit away.” Carponti could have sworn he heard Iaconelli mutter It’s creeping me out but that couldn’t be right.

  Silence hung on between them for a long moment. Carponti didn’t like Iaconelli because he wasn’t Garrison. Iaconelli didn’t like Carponti because he wasn’t properly respectful. Carponti thought it wise not to mention that he’d failed basic customs and courtesies in infantry school. Things could be worse.

  They could have Randall as the platoon leader. It was bad enough trying to ignore him as the executive officer. For the life of him, Carponti couldn’t figure out why Trent hadn’t fired Randall’s sorry ass yet but that was officer business and Carponti tried to stay far, far away from that stuff. So things weren’t as bad as they could be. It could be worse but Carponti wasn’t in the mood to test the fates.

  “Yeah, well, if you don’t go find him, then the rest of us are going to have to suffer through him coming in here and honestly? LT Randall smells funny.” He looked up at Iaconelli with his best innocent expression. “So would you please go find out what he’s complaining about so we don’t have to smell him?”

  Iaconelli growled and stomped out of the tent, mumbling something about missing his old platoon and whiny little bastards. Carponti grinned and tucked the little stitch of cloth in his pocket. He headed across the FOB to the commo shelter and hopefully a call to his wife, then figured he’d stop by the company ops and check on Trent on his way.

  The closer Christmas came, the more depressing the sad little decorations looked. Someone had decorated the counter in the company ops now and there was quiet Christmas music playing as Carponti stepped into the dusty office.

  Carponti froze in the doorway.

  Lieutenant Randall stood far too close to the only female in the company, PFC Adorno.

  Carponti cleared his throat and strolled in, noting the way Randall jumped back. “I thought you worked in the motor pool,” he said to Adorno.

  She flushed and tucked her cropped dirty blond hair back behind one ear. “I did. I’ve been pulled up to work in the company.”

  Carponti frowned, watching Randall attempt to slink away. Oh, wasn’t that interesting. Relationships between officers and enlisted were forbidden but Randall was attempting to sleep with one of his direct reports? Interesting, indeed.

  He looked at the LT. “Sarn’t Iaconelli is looking for you.”

  Randall sniffed. “He knows where I work.”

  “God, you are one charming bastard, you know that, LT?”

  “Sergeant—”

  Trent wasn’t in the company so Carponti left before the LT could launch into another diatribe about Carponti’s military bearing and disrespect. Couldn’t have witnesses around when he told the LT to kiss his ass, now could he?

  * * *

  He dreaded her answering the phone. As much as he wanted to hear her voice, a tiny, selfish part of him didn’t want her to pick up.

  He didn’t have the energy to find a way to make her laugh. He was tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired that made him want to sleep for a week. Maybe then things would be okay.

  Maybe then he’d find his missing sense of humor.

  “Hey.” Her voice slid over his skin, a balm over all the ragged exposed wounds.

  “You awake?”

  Nicole’s voice was tired. “I’m working.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Her smile was soft and sexy. “It’s that case I can’t really tell you much about. I’m with my partner and we’re on the way back from Waco.”

  “He’s keeping his hands to himself, right? I don’t have to come home and, like, unleash my PTSD on him, do I?”

  She laughed quietly. “No, honey. David isn’t going to violate your precious.”

  He smiled, wishing they were alone so he could tell her how much he missed her. But they weren’t. So small talk it was. “So did you decorate the house for Christmas yet?”

  “I started but… it’s hard without you. Have you heard anything else about R&R? Are you still trying to get home?”

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m on the list for next week. If the fates align, the planets are all in conjunction and Sarn’t Ike doesn’t have his period, it’ll work out.” He paused, unable to tell her that he was thinking about pulling his leave until things settled down. It felt wrong to think about leaving his platoon over the holidays. But instead he said, “I really want to be there for you. I know this Christmas is going to be hard.”

  “Yeah.” A rustle of fabric. “I want you home, honey.”

  “I know. Trust me, I’m having a blast on my vacation over here in the desert. It’s so much fun getting blown up every day.”

  “Not funny.” She sniffed. “Is it that bad?”

  He shrugged even though she couldn’t see it and leaned forward, cupping his face in his hands. “It’s not that bad. It could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “We could be getting attacked multiple times a day.”

  “Not funny.”

  He smiled. “It’s a little funny.”

  “No, it’s not.” She was serious. Shit. He hadn’t actually meant to freak her out.

  “Hey, so I made something for you.”

  “Made something? What, do you have arts and crafts hour between patrols?” The laughter was back in her voice but there was an edge. Something sharp and wary. A barrier he didn’t want between them but a barrier he couldn’t scale nonetheless. Not then. Not at all.

  Because his rucksack was just too full of bad news for him to force any sarcasm through.

  “Yeah. I’ll give you two guesses.”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Really? Think back to the night I left.”

  She sighed and he heard the exasperation in her voice. Shit, he wasn’t usually this inept with her. “Man dress.”

  She laughed. But it wasn’t the same. Probably because dickwad David was in the car. He shouldn’t hate the man but Carponti was tired and feeling slightly peevish. David could have been Mother Theresa’s great nephew twice removed but at that moment, he was taking time from Carponti and his wife.

  He rubbed his thumb between his eyes, needing to tell her all the bad shit. Wishing he could unload some of it and she could tell him something good to replace the bad.

  Maybe he should have told her about Garrison but if she knew he was hurt, she’d worry. And she needed to focus on her job right now, not worry about what her husband was going through downrange.

  So he kept quiet and the silence grew on the line. Finally, his patience snapped. “Look, I know you can’t talk much right now. I’ll try to call again soon?”

  “Yeah. Hon?”

  “Yeah?” He frowned and waited, his breath catching in his throat.

  “I really hope you make it home for Christmas.”

  He swallowed. “Yeah, me too.”

  He disconnected the call before he let his temper get the better of him and walked out of the shelter and back toward his bay. Nicole didn’t deserve him being a douche bag at the moment but he’d really hoped she’d laugh at the man dress costume.

  And when she didn’t… okay, she had but not like she would have if she’d been alone.

 
; He dropped the little piece of fabric on his bunk as he grabbed his kit and headed toward the mission brief, trying to smother his disappointment. His one skill in life was making his wife laugh and tonight he’d fallen flat on his face. He tried not to let it bother him. He wanted to brush it off.

  He failed. The one thing he’d needed, badly, was to hear her laugh. To replace some of the miserable strain of the goddamned war with something good and pure.

  He barely listened as Iaconelli briefed the plan, his thoughts a thousand miles away, missing his wife.

  * * *

  Nicole stared at her cell phone in the dim lights inside the car and fought the urge to cry. The whole conversation was stunted and… off. Fear curled up inside her heart. Something was wrong. Vic was never serious unless something was wrong.

  She flipped the phone in her hands, unable to put the emotions churning inside her back in the box. God but she didn’t want to cry. Not at work.

  “You okay?” David’s gentle voice broke the silence. He was older than she was by at least fifteen years.

  “Not really,” she said, hoping her voice wouldn’t break.

  “Deployments are tough duty.” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, the movement creating little shadows in the interior lights. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.”

  “I’m worried about my husband,” she whispered. “He’s scaring me.”

  “I deployed on the initial invasion into Iraq,” David said after a while. “Desert Storm, not the Thunder Run. The news made it sound like we sliced through the center of Iraq and woke up in Baghdad. It really wasn’t that easy.” He paused. “It was the first time my wife and I had ever been apart. She wanted me to call home every chance I got.”

  Nicole looked at him. His weathered face was cased in shadows, his dark skin lined with experience. “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. There was stuff I couldn’t talk to her about. There’s still stuff I don’t bring up. And it’s hard because she wants to know what the war was like. I can’t talk about all of it.” He glanced at her quickly. “Going to war isn’t all PTSD and trauma. It’s just some stuff is hard to talk about.”

  “How did you make it through?” Nicole asked quietly. His words had struck home. She did want to know. She hated not knowing. It hurt her, knowing that Vic wouldn’t talk to her, but David’s words sank in. Maybe he couldn’t talk right now.

  “I talk to her when I can. Try to share some things with her. But mostly, she listened when I told her there was some stuff I just couldn’t talk about and I asked her to be patient with me.”

  “Is she?” She admired David. He was a mentor and a friend. It was difficult to picture him as less than a perfect gentleman.

  “She gets frustrated with me. I shut down sometimes. But yeah, she’s there for me.” He reached forward and turned down the air conditioner. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if she hadn’t stuck with me. Even when I was drinking myself stupid every night.”

  “You drink?” This was new information.

  “I quit. Wrapped my car around a tree about six years ago. CID stood by me and supported me while I went through treatment. So did my wife.” He pulled up in front of her house. The outside light shined like a beacon in the darkness. “So I can’t tell you what to do but if you still love him, hold on until he gets home. Give him some time to process everything.”

  Nicole swallowed the sadness blocking her throat and nodded. “Thanks, David.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

  She closed the door quietly behind her. It was reassuring that he didn’t pull off until she closed her front door and clicked off the outside light. The Christmas tree stood in the corner, a dark unlit shadow. She hadn’t managed to get the lights on it yet. Every time she started, she just got too sad.

  She turned her phone off vibrate and plugged it in next to the bed. Then she turned on the computer and logged in to Skype, hoping, praying that her husband would call her back.

  She slipped out of her clothes and into one of Vic’s shirts. She tried not to cry as she sprayed his cologne on her wrists, needing the familiarity of his scent even if she was missing the warmth of his body in the bed next to her.

  But when she slipped between the sheets and pulled a pillow to her belly, she let the tears come. Great, wracking silent sobs broke through and she cried until she couldn’t stop.

  “I just want him home.” But it was a plea to the darkness that no one heard.

  Chapter Seven

  Iaconelli’s hands weren’t shaking. Carponti watched his new platoon sergeant as he talked with LT Miller just to be sure. Nope, no shaking.

  Which meant one of two things: either Iaconelli’s DTs had finally eased back or he’d gotten his hands on some alcohol.

  Carponti wasn’t a betting man but he was willing to bet Iaconelli had found some booze. Any and all sins were available in Iraq; you just had to know where to look and be willing to pay for them. He supposed it was just like America after all.

  Carponti took a pull off his Dr. Pepper and debated his actions. It had been less than a week since Garrison had gotten sent home and Iaconelli was no more integrated into the platoon than he’d been at the start of this little adventure.

  It didn’t help that two more guys were getting stitched up at the aid station. But they were coming back with a prescription for Motrin and a good night’s sleep. Carponti couldn’t blame Iaconelli directly for them getting hurt but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. He couldn’t keep drinking on the patrols. He didn’t care how much of a functioning alcoholic the man was; his drinking was going to get someone killed.

  It could have been worse. He kept reminding himself of that. He reached his hand into his pocket and felt the little piece of fabric that made up the man dress.

  It had been funny when he’d started on it a few months ago. He’d sat on his cot and thought about taking pictures and sending them to his wife. Now, after that last phone call, he started to think it was just stupid. He’d wanted to call her back but every time he’d tried to break away, something had come up.

  He felt like an asshole leaving the last conversation like he had. It wasn’t her fault she’d been working that night. Carponti had been a shit and he knew it. He wanted badly to call her back, damn it.

  But if he was honest with himself, and he really didn’t make much of a habit of telling himself lies, he was terrified to pick up that phone. He was afraid she wouldn’t answer. That maybe the distance on the line hadn’t been his imagination.

  That maybe, this time, she’d finally gotten tired of waiting for him to come home.

  Things were weird between them this deployment. He knew it was him not calling as much. Putting space between them. He didn’t have it in him to pick up the phone and listen to her talk about work. He used to love hearing her talk about nothing at all. Now? Now he just couldn’t summon the energy to care. He was too tired. Too worn down. The war was kicking his ass and he didn’t know how to be normal on the phone with her. Maybe that made him a prick but the war—the war was taking everything he had right then.

  He hoped she’d understand. Maybe he’d get to go home next week after all.

  The thought of getting on a plane and leaving his boys, though… He wasn’t sure he could do it. He knew the commander would let him stay if he told him he wanted to push back the R&R dates. Captain Davila wouldn’t argue, especially not since he’d just lost Garrison as one of his key leaders.

  “Sarn’t Carponti!”

  Carponti stuffed the fabric back into his pocket and pasted on a bored expression as he turned. “Yes, your highness?”

  LT Randall’s skin tightened over his bones as he kept coming and stepped right into Carponti’s personal space. “You will call me fucking ‘sir,’ you arrogant little bastard.”

  Carponti didn’t really think about what happened next. He blinked and the next thing he knew, s
trong hands were dragging him off the LT. Iaconelli’s big hand shoved him backward. “Cut the shit, Carponti,” Iaconelli growled.

  But Carponti wasn’t done. He squared off with the lieutenant, ignoring Iaconelli’s attempt to pull him off. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, you scumbag motherfucker.”

  “Goddamn it, Carponti!”

  They were nose to nose. Randall’s face was swollen, just like his fucking ego, but there was triumph in his eyes. “You just crossed the line. I’m going to have your rank for this, Carponti,” Randall sneered.

  “Good luck with that,” Carponti spat.

  “That’s not how this works, Sergeant.” Randall spat the word. “You will respect my rank.”

  Carponti shoved Randall a step backward. “That’s exactly how it’s going to work. Stop harassing my guys because of your incompetence, lieutenant. You lost the fucking equipment, you find it. But leave my goddamned men alone.”

  The veins in Randall’s neck stood out against his skin. Carponti was reasonably certain the man was going to have a coronary.

  It would have been one memorial ceremony he’d have been happy to attend.

  Iaconelli finally moved his hand off Carponti’s chest and stepped into the fray, shoving Carponti back and stepping between them. “LT, what’s missing?” he asked.

  Carponti frowned as one of the guys came up to watch the fireworks. It was Neal Sloban, a guy who’d been with Carponti since the middle of the last rotation.

  “Since when did Iaconelli become a voice of reason?” Sloban muttered.

  Carponti shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe his horoscope told him to play nice today.”

  Sloban shook his head and walked off as Carponti continued to watch the de-escalation between the two, like Iaconelli was some kind of lieutenant whisperer. Randall finished gesticulating wildly and stomped off. Iaconelli hesitated a moment before he walked back toward Carponti.