“This is not what we are, Top. We’re supposed to be the good guys. Good guys don’t punch women in the face.”
Delgado shook his head. “We’re warriors, sir. We train our men to kill bad guys then we get our panties twisted when they bring some of that home with them?”
Sal swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “I can look beyond a lot of things, First Sergeant. I can’t look past this.”
Delgado swore violently. “Of all the politically correct horseshit, this one tops them all. Our boys are heading downrange in a few months. Pizarro knows the fight, knows how to handle them and you’re going to call the goddamned cops on him because he knuckled a fucking whore?”
Something inside Sal snapped. “Don’t, First Sergeant," he said softly. “Don’t justify his actions to me by attacking her.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets and found the lighter. Found comfort in what it meant to him. Helping him in that moment hold on to what he believed himself to be. And what he refused to become.
Because he wanted nothing more than to slam Delgado into the wall and drive those words from his mouth.
“Fuck this shit.” Delgado stormed out, slamming the door to the ops so hard the glass might have actually cracked.
Sal closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then one hundred. Heard Holly clearing people out of the ops to wait for the MPs in the back of the company headquarters.
Then he felt it. A soft, strong hand on his chest. He looked down and found Holly in his space. He was suddenly, painfully aware that they were alone and he had the sneaking suspicion that she’d arranged it that way.
He braced for some smart-ass remark. Almost welcomed it because at that moment, he needed a distraction.
“It sucks having to be the adult sometimes.” She was close, close enough that he could see the faint flecks of blue in her dark green eyes.
He made a noise, unable to speak just yet. Finally he lifted his hand, covering hers where it rested over his heart. “I think I may have just fucked things up with my first sergeant.”
“Probably.” Holly nodded. “For what it’s worth, I think it took a hell of a lot of courage to do what you just did.”
“What, call the cops on one of my NCOs?” Her hand was warm beneath his touch, a source of strength when he thought he might fall.
“No. Make the choice between what Pizarro brings to your company versus what he did to Sarn’t Freeman.” She paused. “Most men wouldn’t have noticed the makeup. Why did you?”
His other hand tightened on the lighter in his pocket. Reminded him of what he was. And what he wasn’t. “My stepmom thought she was better at hiding the bruises than she was.”
He watched a thousand emotions flicker over her face with that one admission.
“That kind of stuff stays with you,” she said softly.
“Yeah.”
They stood there for a long moment, silence wrapped around them. He wanted more. Wanted to pull her close and just lean on her for a moment. To absorb the strength and confidence that came from knowing who she was and what she was doing.
But he didn’t move.
Because that would involve sacrificing everything he’d built his life on and betraying it for how he was starting to feel about the woman who stood before him.
The lighter was cold in his hand now. It offered nothing. No way to navigate through this. No guidepost for figuring out how to choose between the men he led and the war he fought.
Instead, he stood with Holly. A beacon of clarity that made him want more than what the Army offered him, for the first time in his entire adult life.
14
It was dark. Wasn't it always dark when you really wanted to be in the light? Sal stood in the doorway to Holly’s office, not wanting to interrupt her when she looked like she’d finally grabbed a moment of solitude. She closed her eyes and looked like she wished with everything that she had that she was somewhere other than where she sat.
Her expression was relaxed, almost peaceful. Unguarded for once. There was a faint hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
“Bad day?” Sal asked from her office doorway.
“I was wishing I was on the beach,” she said without opening her eyes.
“You didn’t strike me a beachgoer.”
“I’m not. I like the idea of the beach more than the beach. I’ve had my fill of sand getting into uncomfortable places,” she admitted.
“Pizarro has been released by the MPs. I’ve got him under guard to keep him away from Freeman.”
“Good to hear. Here’s hoping it will give Freeman and Baggins a moment’s peace.”
Sal frowned. “You pieced together the Baggins thing, too, huh?”
“It’s weird how he’s so hung up on Freeman,” Holly said. “And she seems to genuinely care about him. I didn’t think females went for the funny guy.”
He narrowed his eyes, considering his words. “There’s no right way to answer that, is there.”
“Not really,” she said. “In all seriousness, though, this entire situation is a shit show. Baggins is hung up on Freeman. Freeman is on Probation for threatening to stab Pizarro and is either in an abusive relationship with him or trying to leave an abusive relationship with him.” She paused. “Why can’t we just do the normal stuff like train soldiers to go to war?”
“That’s my line.” Sal stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, this meets the definition of ‘shit show’ any way you look at it.”
“What a week,” she mumbled.
“Busy plans for the weekend?”
She shook her head. “Other than bailing shitheads out of jail, no, nothing remarkable. I’m going to go for a run out by the lake and get some sleep before the madness begins in”—she glanced at her watch— “approximately six to eight hours.”
“Well, we’re going to the range again on Monday.”
“Which means this weekend will be extra rowdy,” she said. “The only thing worse will be when we get out of the field and they’ve got two weeks of pay saved up.”
He frowned suddenly. “How are you possibly caught up on everything? You just got here.”
“Nice change of subject. It’s called I delegate,” she said. “Another life skill. Like sarcasm.”
“You can’t possibly have read all your e-mails. The battalion sergeant major sends like fifty a day.”
She stood and reached for her headgear. “And most of them require no action and only a brief understanding of what was said. I’ve worked for Cox before. I know what he expects.”
This was news. “Really? When?”
“Korea when I was assigned up at Camp Red Cloud.”
“I’ve never been to Korea.”
She glanced over at him, watching him watch her. “A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you’ll never find.”
“That’s pretty harsh to say about a country.”
“I was talking about how our soldiers behave over there.”
He fell into step next to her as she locked up her office. “I’ve always thought those stories were exaggerated.”
“Not that much. It can get pretty rough when we come out of the field. And let there be some anti-American demonstrations that weekend. Soldiers damn near climb the walls to unwind. Prostitution—by American soldiers mind you—third country nationals as wives. Polygamy. BAH fraud. You name it, our soldiers have done it over there.”
“You sound a little cynical.”
They stepped out onto the back docks behind the company headquarters. The battalion area was quiet.
“There are a lot of people who would take issue with you calling our soldiers overseas evil,” Sal said after a moment.
She shot him a wry look. “Not all soldiers have served with honor and the sooner we remember that, the sooner we can deal with what this war has done to all of us. It makes cowards of us all—even good men who would stand up to evil.”
He stilled. He didn’t mean to. “What do you mean?”
> She sighed hard, remaining silent for a long moment. “We had a major over in Korea. He was married but had sleeping-with-anything–that-moved issues. Cox took issue with a field-grade officer treating his subordinates like they were his own private harem.” She sniffed. “The battalion commander disagreed. Cox was relocated somewhere down south and replaced with a yes man.”
Sal didn’t move. There was more there, more to the story than she was saying. More than she wanted to admit. He wondered at what she didn’t say.
“You wanted to know why I make jokes all the time?” she said softly. “Because the ugliness of what we face would break me otherwise.”
And then she did something that surprised them both.
* * *
Holly was comfortable with her own stupidity. She’d gotten used to making really bad choices before her brain really kicked in and put a stop to things.
But standing there with Sal felt like a new level of bad idea.
And she could not walk away.
It hurt, knowing this was a mistake. That she could never find someone that even remotely got her blood going who wasn’t an epically terrible decision.
But she was comfortable with her own stupidity.
So when she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned a little too close, she shoved aside rational thought and just let herself feel.
She brushed her lips against his soft bottom lip. He went infinitely still beneath her touch. He was tense and solid, frozen in place. She nudged his lip again, asking without words for permission. Permission to taste. Permission to touch.
Permission to step into the forbidden zone of pleasure that they both should be running away from.
But in that moment, between one breath and the next, a shudder ran through him. Then he threaded his fingers through the tight bun at the base of her neck and closed the distance between them.
And she was lost.
His mouth was perfect. Warm and soft, he kissed her like she was the most precious thing. He opened and slid his tongue against hers—a question, tentative. It was like he was waiting.
She opened for him, pressing her body against his full hard length. Savoring the feel of the man against her. A warrior’s strength wrapped around her, drawing her closer.
She knew the moment she stopped being in control. He cupped the back of her neck; his fingers were strong. Trapping her mouth, he deepened the kiss, taking her to a place where she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
She wanted nothing more than for this to go on forever. She arched against him, wanting, needing the intimate contact of his body against hers. Needing to feel alive and real and remember all the things she’d set to the side as she’d devoted her life to leading soldiers.
This. She’d missed this. She felt alive. His hand slid beneath her uniform top, finding the sensitive skin of her lower back. She shivered as his fingers danced over her skin, tracing some unknown, erotic pattern over her flesh.
“You like that?” he whispered against her mouth.
“If I say yes will you keep doing it?”
He made a noise in his throat and claimed her mouth. Here was barely restrained violence and arousal twisted together into something intense that threatened to overwhelm her.
There was no common sense that finally urged her to break the kiss. Still she nibbled on that full bottom lip, sipping from him before breaking contact completely. He lowered his forehead to hers. She expected him to say something. Anything.
Instead, the silence wrapped around them like a shroud, shielding them from the outside world. The world where their ranks didn’t matter. Where their lives would not be irrevocably destroyed if someone were to see them like this.
But she did not move away. There was a need here, a need to belong, to feel this man’s hands on her skin.
“The boss isn’t going to be happy about this,” he whispered.
She smiled against his mouth. “What are you, twelve? You’re going to run and tell him about your first erection?” She arched against him, feeling his length against her hips and wanting so badly to wrap her fingers around him.
He made a strangled noise and it took her a moment to realize he was laughing.
He cupped her cheek. “We have to keep this thing under wraps.” He brushed his mouth against hers. “You have more to lose than I do.”
“I had my middle name changed to discretion.”
“What was it before?”
“Trouble.”
He smiled at her and it was blinding. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you’d change it. Trouble seems to fit you pretty well.”
“So, then you like to live dangerously?”
He made a noise deep in his chest before he nipped at her bottom lip. “Smart ass.”
It was a long time before either of them moved.
15
He made it through the entire night without any calls and spent Saturday nursing a beer and catching up on things he never had time for during the week. Things like laundry—something that normally didn’t take an entire afternoon, but since he was out of underwear he had to tackle that problem first.
So when the phone rang on Saturday as the sun sank into Stillhouse Hollow, he was both surprised that it had taken until Saturday and disappointed that his momentary reprieve had ended.
But since it was Holly—and he’d started thinking of her that way since that mind-blowing kiss—he couldn’t be too upset. Even if it likely wasn’t a social call.
“I’m heading down to Ropers,” she said. “Your favorite shitheads are about to get arrested. Have I subjected you to my diatribe about how much I hate that bar?”
“Why are you going?”
“Because I’m the first sergeant who drew the short straw tonight to be on call for exactly this situation.”
He almost smiled at the irritation in her voice then frowned when his brain finally registered what she’d just said. “You’re going to a bar fight on your own?”
“Yes? This is part of my duty description as a first sergeant,” she said mildly.
Sal dragged his hand through his short hair. As much as he admired her strength and competence, it was a whole different ballgame when it came to her stepping into Ropers on her own.
“Ah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” And how was that for an eloquent disaster?
“I’ll let you know how it goes and if there’s anything we need to notify the boss about,” she said.
“Holly.” But the words he needed got stuck in his throat and the line went dead before he unstuck them.
He looked at the phone for a moment, his mind trying to register what had just happened. She was on her way to Ropers. It wasn’t as if she was going to be able to stroll in there in uniform and the crowd would part like the Red Sea, and a bunch of drunk wannabe cowboys would instantly start listening to her like she was the second coming of Charlton Heston. What the hell was she thinking?
But it wasn’t anger that dominated his emotions. It was fear that had him swearing under his breath as he pulled on his boots and a t-shirt and rushed out the front door. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the seedy dive bar that was Ropers but he damn sure wasn’t about to let Holly deal with his shitheads on her own.
It was a quick ride to Business 195 in Harker Heights, where most of the bars were located on the edge of town. Ropers had always been a country bar but it had changed names at least six times since Sal had been here. The owners kept getting arrested for serving underage girls or not doing enough to keep drugs out of the bathrooms, or a variety of other offenses.
Sal pulled into a dark corner of the parking lot, surprised he actually found a space with all the police cars out front. Whatever had been going on had been going on for more than a minute because there was a crowd of entirely too intoxicated grown men dressed up like cowboys and their girlfriends out front. He scanned the faces for a familiar first sergeant and didn’t see her.
Shutting down his immediate worry, he approached the first officer he found. She was about a foot shorter than he was but looked mean as a pit bull. “Captain Bello, ma’am. I heard you’ve got some of my idiots?”
She gave him a quick look, obviously not impressed by his worn navy blue t-shirt and jeans, before she handed him a clipboard that had a half-dozen military ID cards pinned to it. He sighed and gave them a look. “These two are mine,” he said.
He was going to whip Pizarro’s ass when he got his hands on him. And Baggins was going to get the ass-chewing of a lifetime.
The cop waited for him to tuck the ID cards into his pants pocket. “Good, then you can go in the bar and figure out how to get him out without us arresting him.”
“Is there any reason why you didn’t just go in and arrest him?”
The cop hooked her thumbs into her utility belt. “We like to let you guys handle your own when we can. Too many of y’all are far too willing to pull a gun since the war started.”
Sal ran his tongue over his teeth, not happy with the explanation, even if it made perfect sense. He sighed. “What did he do?”
“Pissed on the bar. On some really angry cowboy’s boots. I’ve got two officers inside trying to get things settled down right now but he’s bigger than the bouncers.”
“He’s going through a rough spot,” he said. She shot him a look that clearly said no shit Sherlock, then held up her hand to motion for him to proceed into the bar.
It was dark and filled with smoke, some of it from cigarettes, some from smoke machines. Jason Aldean blasted from the speakers, overpowering any thoughts he might have attempted to entertain. He realized he was holding his breath, scanning the bar for Holly, then released it. Where the hell was she?
He felt a twisted relief when he found her at the edge of the bar with Pizarro. She’d somehow positioned herself between one mean-looking cowboy and his platoon sergeant. Pizarro was gone, swaying on his feet, and for once he didn’t look like he was going to do violence. He was incapable at the moment, apparently, but it had been a long time since he’d seen Pizarro this wasted.
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