All for You
Page 30
Ben knew all about it. It didn’t get you anywhere.
Foster walked back in carefully carrying the water. “Mission accomplished?”
“Yep. Right on target. And I even did it before coffee.” Ben sighed. “What’s going on?”
Foster shrugged. “No clue, but there’s a line of dudes outside the battalion commander’s office right now.”
Ben frowned. “Huh?”
“’Bout fifteen dudes lined up in the hallway,” Foster said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
“No shit?”
Ben walked out of the office and turned down the hall toward the conference room. Foster wasn’t kidding. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a line like this outside the boss’s office. There were sergeants and officers from every company in the battalion.
Ben stopped short, his breath caught in his throat. Escoberra stood near the front. His arms were folded at parade rest, his palms resting at the small of his back. He stood solid and unmoving. Ben stood there, frozen. Escoberra shifted. For a moment their eyes locked, and for a the briefest flicker Ben saw the warrior he admired and looked up to when he’d been a scrappy, smart-assed lieutenant. Before he’d failed to defend a man he’d have followed to hell and back again.
Escoberra was a warrior. It was Ben who had changed. Ben who had let the time and the bad memories drive him away from a man who’d been as close to a father figure as Ben could have asked for.
There were shadows in his former platoon sergeant’s eyes now. Deep and dark.
Ben took a deep breath. A single step toward a man he admired and looked up to. Heat crawled up the back of Ben’s neck. He wanted to ask. Wanted to say something to the man who’d saved his ass more times than he could remember.
“Escoberra!” The sergeant major’s voice rang out. Escoberra ground his teeth and looked away before snapping to the position of attention and disappearing into the sergeant major’s office.
It took everything Ben had to stand there while Escoberra walked away. He wanted to ask how the family was. How he was doing since the last deployment.
But Ben let him go. Because to say anything would be to acknowledge that the man in that hallway had changed. Ben didn’t know if it was the war, if it was some fucked-up trauma, but the war had changed him, changed them all.
And Ben no longer knew the man in that hallway. Shame burned on his neck, the weight of his failure heavy around his shoulders.
* * *
Ben broke into a wide grin as he walked into the conference room and saw an old familiar face. “Holy shitballs!”
Captain Sean Nichols looked up from his BlackBerry, his dark expression going from guarded to grinning the moment he recognized Ben. “Holy shit, you’re not in jail?”
“Very funny.” Ben gripped his old friend’s hand and pulled him into a one-armed man-hug. “Some things never change. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a job apparently,” Sean said.
Ben frowned. “Huh?”
“Apparently there’s some command positions opening up soon.” Nichols ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m supposed to interview today, but apparently there’s some massive shit storm going on.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Where have you been?”
“Iraq, Afghanistan, and back again.” Sean nodded toward the other officers in the room. There was a big dude in one corner who looked like a professional wrestler, talking with one of the first sergeants. “These all your guys?”
“Nope. Never seen any of them before,” Ben said.
The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Gilliad, walked in, followed by Sarn’t Major Cox and a small brunette major Ben had never seen before. She walked stiff and straight, her hair pulled back sharply from her face. Her sleeve was missing a combat patch. Ben found himself wondering how she had been in the army long enough to be a major but had somehow managed to miss the war.
He didn’t look away as she scanned the room, her eyes cool and appraising.
Ben wasn’t fooled. He’d seen that look far too many times.
She was a woman on a mission. Just what they needed: a lawyer on crusade. Ben didn’t do crusades.
They all snapped to attention as the commander walked to the center of the room.
“Gentlemen, welcome to Death Dealer Battalion. Congratulations; every one of you in this room will take command in less than a month,” Gilliad said.
Silence hung in the heavens for half a moment. No one moved. No one spoke.
Ben breathed in deep and slow, keeping the ragged edge on his emotions. “Uh, sir, I think there’s a mistake.”
Gilliad pinned him with a hard look. Next to him, the woman looked down at her paperwork, shaking her head, disapproval written on her pretty face.
“Teague, I’ll see you in my office.” Gilliad turned back to the other captains. “Bello, you and First Sarn’t Delgado have Diablo Company. Martini, you and First Sarn’t Tellhouse have Assassin Company. Teague, your first sergeant will be here before the week is out. You’re taking Bandit Company. Navarro, you and First Sarn’t Sagarian are taking Headquarters Company. Nichols, you and First Sarn’t Morgan are taking Chaos Company.”
“Sir—”
“Let the commander finish, Captain Teague,” Sarn’t Major Cox said quietly.
Ben ground his teeth and fought the anxiety twisting in his guts.
Gilliad cleared his throat. “Every company command team in this battalion has been relieved of their duties effective immediately. You all are the new team. Major Hale is going to help with transition on the legal side of the house. We have our hands full, gentlemen, and I expect you to clean house and get this unit back to fully mission ready.”
Ben blew out a low whistle. He’d never heard of something like this. Not in his entire life as a military brat or his own career. One commander, maybe two in rapid succession, but an entire battalion worth of leadership fired on the spot?
And Gilliad expected Ben to be one of the new commanders?
Not in this lifetime.
Gilliad continued. “The forward support company leadership is changing out, as well. That new command team will be on the ground shortly.” He glanced over at the small major. “Major Hale has my guidance. Your number-one priority for the next forty-five days is getting rid of the shitbag soldiers running this unit into the ground. I want the druggies gone. I want the dealers and the gangbangers gone. I want the fucking criminals out of my army. Am I clear?”
A murmured hoah went through the gathered men.
Ben said nothing.
His lungs had stopped working.
Command.
He didn’t want this. He couldn’t do it.
There had to be a mistake. The boss could find someone else.
He had to.
Because to command, you still had to believe what you did mattered.
And Ben hadn’t believed that in a long, long time.
* * *
Major Olivia Hale watched the captain at the edge of the room. His back was stiff and straight and he radiated unspent fury. She wondered at the tired lines beneath his eyes, the hard set of his jaw.
She wondered why he was so furious being told he was taking command. The rest of the men had stiffened with awareness. Excitement. Command was the greatest reward for an officer’s hard work—a chance to lead soldiers and make a difference. Olivia would command in a heartbeat if she could. Successful commanders made their units better places.
So why didn’t this dark and angry captain want the job?
She lifted her chin. Whether or not the angry captain took the job wasn’t her problem. Her job was to help clean up this unit. She’d been personally asked to assist by the division commander—she’d been on his staff many moons ago when she’d been a brand-new shiny lieutenant and she’d loved working for him. He’d been decisive. He’d been a mentor.
She hadn’t been able to say no when he’d asked her to help this battalion.
“Gentlemen, I need time with each of you to go over the current status of your legal situations.” She pointed to the stacks of folders in front of her. “I’ve got each company’s information here. Please take your files and look over them before you come see me.”
Gilliad nodded once in her direction. “Olivia is the best at what she does. We are going to clean this battalion up.”
The angry captain shifted and she saw his nametag. Teague.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered, loud enough for the entire room to hear.
“Teague!” Sarn’t Major Cox exploded, but LTC Gilliad held up his hand.
“In my office. Now, captain.”
Teague shoved off the wall and stalked out of the conference room followed closely by the battalion commander.
She watched him go, her gaze hanging on the man behind such fierce anger at being given a great honor. What kind of man interrupted his battalion commander?
What kind of man was so angry at the thought of being a leader?
She pushed her thoughts away. He was not her problem. She focused on the men in front of her as they stopped by the conference room table.
A tall, lean captain with dark hair and green eyes stopped near the table. “Sean Nichols, ma’am. Do we have any discretion in these cases?”
“What kind of discretion are you talking about, Captain Nichols?”
“In general. Do we get to say this kid did a dumb thing and he deserves a second chance?”
Olivia said nothing for a long moment, knowing there was a difference between the right answer and the legal answer and even the army answer. “That’s going to be a conversation between you and the battalion commander.”
The tall captain nodded once and left, and after another moment Olivia was alone in the conference room with the sergeant major.
She didn’t quite know what to think of Sergeant Major Cox. He was her height but stocky, and he looked mean as hell. She definitely wasn’t used to his kind outside of the hospital headquarters where she’d used to work.
“Things are going to get rough around here, ma’am,” he said after a long silence. His voice sounded like gravel and rocks.
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean?”
“You start taking away people’s livelihoods and things start getting tense. So while I have no doubt that the new commanders can handle things, just watch yourself around here. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re having problems with any soldier.”
“Thank you for the warning,” she said, not wanting to alienate the command sergeant major. “I’ve seen the misconduct you have down in this battalion sergeant major. The quantity doesn’t even come close to some of the terrible things I’ve seen.”
“I hope you’re right.” Cox sniffed. “One more thing. You see that?”
He pointed toward a black cowboy hat with gold cord wrapped around the base that he’d carried in with him. “Yes?”
“Get one. You can’t be assigned here without it.”
She smiled flatly. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”
She couldn’t care less about the silly hat, but she just smiled and nodded and headed to her next meeting.
She was here to do a job, not buy a hat and the swagger that went along with it.
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Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
/> Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Dear Reader
About the Author
An Excerpt from Back to You
A Preview of It’s Always Been You
Also by Jessica Scott
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Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Dawson
Excerpt from Back to You copyright © 2014 by Jessica Dawson
Excerpt from It’s Always Been You copyright © 2014 by Jessica Dawson
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Cover photo illustration by Melody Cassen
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: February 2014
Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.