Forged in Fire

by Jessica Scott

  She tipped her chin. “Careful now. I might start thinking you’re making jokes.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look, I know the sergeant major asked you to run down these packets. So thanks for pushing the issue.”

  “All right, that does it. Who are you and what have you done with Captain Cranky Pants?"

  Bello made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a snarl. “Never mind, First Sergeant. Let’s just leave the status quo just like it is.”

  He stalked back toward the range, his spine stiff, the muscles in his neck bunched tight.

  She watched him go, unsure of where that awkward peace offering had come from and why she’d stuck to her old familiar pattern of screwing things up.

  8

  Sal lowered his cheek to the butt of his weapon and took up a good steady position. The edge of his body armor dug into his stomach. There was a rock grinding his hipbone and another one beneath his front elbow.

  He welcomed the pain. The distraction from the dull echo of the word “bully” that beat a steady rhythm with his heartbeat.

  He breathed out deeply and waited for the targets to pop up in his field of vision.

  One by one he leveled them, a fleeting satisfaction with every target he dropped. It felt good.

  Pop.

  The target stayed up. He fired again. Again it didn’t drop.

  Again. Again. Until his trigger clicked.

  The targets mocked him now, popping up and down as though they knew he was out of ammo.

  Anger burned in his gut that they didn’t have more ammo. He needed to shoot more. To take his men room to room. And instead, they got thirty rounds to qualify and that was it.

  He lay there for a minute, watching the rest of the targets pop up, then down again.

  And made a decision that was going to land him in the battalion commander’s office for violating a direct order but to hell with it.

  This was too important.

  He stood and waved to the NCO at the base of the tower. “Get everyone on their feet,” he said when Pizarro approached. He sincerely hoped that Delgado was getting shit squared away at battalion.

  “Sir?”

  “We’re not doing this bullshit anymore. We’re not going to engage the enemy on our stomachs; it’s time we started practicing like we’ll fight.”

  Realization spread across Pizarro’s face, followed by a wide grin. “Hell yeah, sir.”

  Pizarro strode to the tower and practically ran up the stairs to tell the tower NCO the change of plans. Sal gathered the men on the firing line.

  “All right, listen up. We’re going to change some things up a little bit.” He scanned the faces of the men around him.

  They trusted him, he realized. He’d only been here a few months and he’d been relentless in pushing them to train harder, but the men standing there in that semi-circle before him—he had their attention at the very least.

  It was not the response of a bullied formation.

  Washington was wrong.

  “Who here has fired their weapon at the enemy?”

  Half the formation raised their hands. “Good. You, you, you and you. You’re going to be new lane safeties.”

  “Sir, what are we doing?” LT Masters asked.

  “Just listen, LT,” Sal said. “When we hit the streets of Iraq in a few months, we’re going to be going room to room. That means we’re not shooting on our bellies. We’re not going to have time to take up a good sight picture. We have to identify the target and decide instantly if we’re going to shoot or not shoot. And we’ll get to that point.”

  He looked at the men around him. “We’ve got a choice. We can all qualify today or we can practice shooting the way we’re going to shoot downrange. On our feet.” A murmur of excitement rippled through his men. “I want every soldier at their firing post to fire from the kneeling position, then the standing position. We’re going to end this day with everyone walking and shooting.”

  The eyes of the newer soldiers, the ones without combat patches on their right shoulders, widened. There was uncertainty looking back at him now.

  He grinned. “Trust me, boys, it’s a hell of a lot harder than it looks. Hell of a lot more fun, too.”

  “Isn’t the colonel going to be pissed about this?” someone called from the back of the formation.

  Sal zeroed in on the speaker. “Last I checked, I was the commander of this organization, smart ass. And if I say we’re going to practice skills that are likely to save our collective asses, then we’re going to do just that. Unless one of you wants to run crying back to the old man that I’m not coloring inside the lines?”

  A few “hell no’s” murmured out of the gathered men.

  A hand went up at the back of the formation and he saw Holly at the edge of his men.

  “Gentlemen, fall in on your positions,” he said after a moment.

  “Do you have any instructors for the kneeling position?”

  He lifted one eyebrow and looked down at her. “You’re qualified in that position?”

  “Sniper qualified. I can shoot the wings off a gnat at 300 meters.”

  He wasn’t quick enough to hide his surprise but he didn’t miss the flash of disappointment that crossed her expression. She shook her head and turned to go, not hiding the mark his reaction had left on her.

  He’d been surprised. He’d never doubted that she could do it but given everything that had been going on in this unit, he wasn’t surprised that she was hurt by his response.

  He needed to fix this. He just didn’t know how.

  “First Sergeant.”

  * * *

  Holly stopped short at his voice, grinding her teeth and requiring every ounce of willpower to keep her expression blank.

  She stopped. She resented the hell out of it but she stopped.

  And waited.

  Waited until the crunch of his boots on the gravel brought him closer. Waited until his shadow merged with hers and he stepped in front of her. “There are no female snipers in the Army.” There was no venom in his voice.

  “I beg to differ.” She rotated her jaw to relax it from the tension. “I trained with the Australians on my last rotation in Iraq. Earned my sniper’s badge from them.”

  He stood in front of her, blotting out the sun like some kind of primitive, vengeful god. He radiated power and confidence and so much darkness.

  Why couldn’t she find a nice accountant to be attracted to? But oh no, her hormones had to stand at attention every time this guy came around.

  It was as disquieting as it was unexpected. It had been a long time since she’d been this twisted up over a guy—especially one that she alternated between wanting to throttle and wanting to strip.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to tell me you were a badass,” he said softly.

  “See, there you go making jokes,” she said. “I’d much rather spend my time teaching these boys to fire on the go. But whatever you’re going to decide, get on with it. Because I’ve got smart-ass comments to make on some evaluation reports before I go home tonight. The only question is whether I start on them now or after I teach some of your boys to shoot.”

  Every soldier on the range was watching them. Holly was going to get her ass handed to her in an epic and unforgettable way after this one.

  But Bello and his goddamned insistence on taking everything serious as a heart attack worked her last damn nerve.

  If only he knew just how seriously she took everything she did, he’d know he was barking up the wrong tree. This job was her life. Nothing meant more to her than being a soldier, being a leader. She lived for this job.

  And there he stood in front of her, blotting out the sun, telling her that his way was the only so-called right way to do the army. Well, she had damn near fifteen years of doing the army her way, and so far it had worked out pretty damn good for her.

  Until now, when she encountered Captain Take Everything Too Seriously.

/>   God, he was such a pain in the ass. And goddamn it, why did he have to be a sexy pain in the ass? That damn full bottom lip did nothing to detract from the sheer magnitude of wanting to shove her size eight boot up his ass and knock some sense into him.

  She almost smiled as the image from a coffee cup she’d seen in Cox’s office back in Korea came up from her memory: Officers. Making simple shit complicated since 1776.

  Somehow she didn’t think Bello would appreciate the humor. Since his sense of humor was either AWOL or it had died a slow, withering death from lack of care and feeding.

  She sighed when he didn’t move or say anything, or barely freaking breathe. “All right, well, me and my red pen are going to get our happy asses back on main post and start the paperwork.”

  She started to step around him.

  “Stay.”

  She clenched her fists by her sides.

  “Please.”

  It was the “please” that undid her. She turned and saw a thousand emotions flickering over his expression. She stood there for a moment and waited, wanting so badly to cross the line with him and knowing it was going to be a mistake if they ever moved beyond this verbal sparring.

  She focused on work. Because that’s what she was good at. “What’s your intent for this event?”

  “I want them to get comfortable firing from the kneeling and the standing positions. I want accurate, controlled fire. I want them to hit what they aim at and know what they’re aiming at.”

  She nodded once. “Got it. I’ll be at the other end of the firing line.”

  She half expected him to stop her but he let her go.

  She moved to the other end of the firing line and gathered a couple of the soldiers around her, half expecting them to ignore her because of the way things had just gone down.

  But when she looked around, she saw admiration. Curiosity.

  She could deal with that.

  She picked up one of their M4s and cleared it, dropping the magazine and making sure it was on safe. “So the fundamentals of marksmanship still apply no matter what your firing position,” she started.

  And fell into doing what she loved best. Training soldiers.

  9

  The lights were out in his office. The screensaver danced on his monitor. Sal sat in the dark¸ his boots up on his desk, twisting the lighter in his fingers, memories colliding in the space he hadn’t filled with work and other worries.

  He thought he’d chased the memories away with hard training on the range.

  He was wrong. As usual.

  Memories of events he shouldn’t have survived circled his defenses now, demanding to be let in, to have their way with the rest of the night, when he had no alcohol to drown them out and no escape to the gym to bury them beneath hard exercise.

  Sergeant Bello led his seven-man squad against a company-sized element of Viet Cong, disregarding his own safety and well-being to seize the objective.

  He closed his eyes, running his thumb over the letters pressed into the cool metal of the lighter.

  Vietnam veteran Sergeant Salvatore Bello was charged today in district court with two counts of domestic violence.

  Christ, where was all of this coming from? Why tonight? Tonight, the memories were closing in, like shadows taunting him in the nightmares he’d battled since the day the world he’d believed in had come crashing down around him.

  There was a quiet knock on his office door.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised to see Holly there but he was. She was cast in shadows, her face hidden from the dim light.

  “I didn't take you for a sit–in-the-dark-and-sulk kind of guy,” she said gently from the doorway.

  He clenched his fist around the lighter, determined not to fight with her. “You don’t know me very well.”

  “Fair enough,” was her response. “Guess Delgado took off before he told you but the arms room is secure, all weapons accounted for.” She folded her arms over her chest.

  “I’ll take care of it.” He couldn’t muster more than that. Old memories circled tonight, reminding him of what the complete and total destruction of self felt like.

  She’d pulled the pin on a grenade he’d been trying to keep dormant today at the range and he didn’t know how to put it back before it detonated. He didn’t want to be around anyone when it went off. He wasn’t fit for human company until it was contained or expended. Either outcome worked.

  Except right now, neither was an option. He was trapped, forced to sit still when he badly needed action, energy. Movement.

  He was unmoored. Drifting. And he hated it.

  He mentally shifted gears, needing to get away from the noise in his own head. “I gave Pizarro a no-contact order for Sergeant Freeman.”

  She shifted uncomfortably near the door. “For what it’s worth, I think there’s more there than what we’re seeing. I don’t trust him.”

  A wariness there now, a caution in her words. She was stepping into his company, offering opinions on his men. Commanders and first sergeants were autonomous. She was crossing a line here, a big one and he was pretty sure she knew it.

  “I don’t think you’re wrong,” he finally admitted. “When I saw him rise up on you the other day…I’d never seen that side of him before.”

  She pressed her lips into a flat line. “Why would you? Guys like him don’t buck up on guys like you. They push around women and skin small animals for fun.”

  “That’s a terrible visual.” He crept closer to the truth that he wanted desperately to ignore. “You think he’s hitting Sarn’t Freeman?”

  “It’s not outside the realm of possibility. The way he was yelling at her the other day? It makes sense of a lot of things.”

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck.”

  “Does that change things?” He wished he hadn’t heard the hesitation in her voice.

  “Yeah, it does. I can tolerate a lot. I can’t tolerate someone who hits women.” He looked up and found her studying him. “I should have seen it sooner.”

  She shrugged. “Again, why would you? He doesn’t interact with you the same way he does with me.”

  He nodded slowly. “Maybe. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t wrong about him.”

  “We all make mistakes.” It was a long time before she spoke again. “So does this mean you’re going to laugh at my jokes now?”

  He grinned and the unfamiliar movement felt awkward and tight. “Probably not. I don’t have much by way of a sense of humor.”

  “Now that’s a damn shame.” She tipped her chin at him. “We’re going to have to work on that. Maybe we’ll start with cats off the Internet and work our way up from there.”

  He shook his head in awe of her. “You really are like this all the time.”

  She lifted one shoulder. “Told you. Sarcasm is a life skill.”

  Sal gave into the fire burning in him. He stood and circled his desk slowly, so slowly. Afraid he’d run her off if he moved too fast.

  And then he was there, in her space. She looked up at him then and a thousand shadows looked back at him. A vulnerability he hadn’t expected. It whispered to him that she was not as strong and invincible as she pretended to be. Not by a long shot.

  “I e-mailed you the latest report on your legal packets,” she whispered. But she did not back away.

  “Do you ever talk about anything other than work?” His voice was thick. Need was a heavy thing pounding in his veins.

  “Do you?”

  “I can’t remember the last time I did,” he said. He boxed her in. She was pressed against the doorframe, but she could leave if she wanted. He’d never pin her in against her will. Never trap her.

  Never want to see fear of him looking back from her eyes.

  He leaned a little closer, until his mouth was a breath from hers. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “For what?” Her breath fanned across his mouth.

  “Helping me take my blinders off.”

  He lift
ed his fingers to her throat, felt her pulse scattering beneath his touch.

  “I made sure you’ll be squared away for the meeting with the colonel.”

  “What meeting with the colonel?”

  “The one we have at nine-thirty Monday with all the other commanders.” She licked her lips and he almost smiled at her attempt to keep the subject away from what was happening between them. “Do you not look at your calendar, sir?”

  “Sal,” he said suddenly. “When we’re alone, just call me Sal.”

  It was abrupt, this desire to suddenly stop being an officer around her. It came out of the darkness, surprising him with an intensity he hadn’t expected.

  “I feel like I should remind you that we are breaking at least three Army regulations right now,” she whispered. But her hand came up and rested against his chest, her fingers curling into his uniform.

  Need raced through him. “Do you care?”

  “Only if we get caught,” she whispered against his mouth.

  * * *

  She closed the distance between them, giving in to the temptation and the dark and terrible sin that Sal Bello represented in her life.

  His lips were softer than any man’s had a right to be. He stilled as she brushed her lips against his and then he opened, letting her taste him. Then he took over, his patience snapping like a physical break between them. He pushed her back against the doorframe, his hands framing her face and holding her exactly where he needed her.

  She opened for him and surrendered. For one brief stupid moment, she breathed out and let him take control. She didn’t have to think. She only had to feel the bolt of heat rocking through her. Striking the dormant needs inside her to life. She leaned into him, pressing her body closer to the flame.

  She wanted. Oh, god how she wanted this. Here was need and passion and something beyond work.

  Something that touched Holly the woman and ignored Holly the soldier. She made a warm noise in her throat.

  He looked down at her, his mouth hovering above hers, a thousand questions in his eyes, buried beneath the raw need looking back at her.