After the War

by Jessica Scott

  “It’ll take that long to get out to Stillhouse.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He swallowed a hard lump that suddenly blocked his throat. “The least I can do is show up for Haverson’s farewell.”

  Silence crackled over the phone. “You’re still beating yourself up over not getting his chapter changed, aren’t you?” Morgan asked quietly, his voice gruffer than usual.

  “He doesn’t deserve an Other Than Honorable discharge because he popped hot for heroin. The Army made him an addict.” The truth. Enraging and ugly, but there it was.

  “It’s out of your hands, sir.”

  Sean cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. “Yeah, well. Either way, I’m going out there. You coming?”

  “Can’t let my commander do anything without his first sarn’t watching his back.”

  Sean smiled, wishing he’d had this kind of bond with all his enlisted counterparts. “Meet you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sean hung up and turned, staring into the still foggy bathroom mirror. The jagged scar running down his forearm was one of many. The faint starburst of white skin stood out against the darker skin on his shoulder. Smalls arms fire had glanced off the edge of his body armor and he’d been lucky the AK-47 round hadn’t done more damage.

  The visible scars, though, were nothing compared to the ones he carried on his soul. He turned away from the mirror, unable to stand the sight of his own reflection.

  Morgan said he’d made hard choices that day. Sean had made bad ones. He’d been young. He’d been dying to charge headlong into battle. Longing for the baptism by fire that he’d believed would make him a man.

  He hadn’t counted on the fire. He hadn’t counted on the memories making themselves permanent bedmates every time he closed his eyes. Hadn’t counted on the consequences when innocent people got caught in the crossfire.

  He’d lost track of many of the guys from that tour but tonight, he could say good-bye to one of them.

  And do his best to put some of the memories to rest.

  * * *

  The thing Sean liked about barbecues over full-blown parties was that at barbecues, people stood around and talked. They drank as they talked and they enjoyed good food. But the intent in the late evening as the full moon rose over Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir was to say farewell, not get shitfaced. So far, it looked like everyone was on board with that plan.

  The food was good. True to his word, Kearney was drinking Coke and manning the grill, shooting the shit with some of the men from Chaos Company.

  Sean glanced around, nursing a single Shiner Bock. For a while it felt like old times, but Sean felt like a piece of himself was missing. Sarah. There was no way he could have convinced her to spend an evening out with him. Not when she was a single mother. Not when she had a child asleep in her home.

  But he wanted to. He studied the bonfire, feeling the heat lick his skin. He shunted aside another memory of fire. Fire that burned and seared the hair from his nostrils. This heat was warm. A comfort. A reminder that there was still normalcy in the world.

  “Where’d you just go?” Haverson melted out of the crowd to stand next to him by the fire.

  Sean glanced over at his now former medic. His lips pressed into a thin line. “Just remembering how many asses you saved over the years. Including mine. Twice.”

  Haverson’s expression drifted far off. “Yeah, well. It was my job.”

  Sean put his hand on Haverson’s shoulder. “It was. You did everything you could and then some. You’re the best medic I’ve ever had.” Sean snorted. “I’m going to be sweating bullets the next time I have to go in sector without you.”

  Haverson sniffed and took a sip from his beer. “Yeah, well, you still got some good guys to patch your ass up the next time you get shot. Sean.”

  Sean laughed. “Couldn’t wait to break out the first name, huh?”

  “Shoot, we’ve been doing that for years. Now, though, I can do it without Firs’ Sarn’t digging in my ass.”

  Sean wished that the laugh he heard in Haverson’s voice wasn’t a shadow of his former smart-assed self. He wished whatever demon was hunting Haves would relent and give him peace. “I hope you find life as a civilian gives you a rest from the war.”

  Haverson shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m pretty much going to marry my pharmacist so I have a steady supply of Klonopin and Oxy. Sleep is a thing of the past for me. At least for the foreseeable future.”

  Sean ignored the warning that tingled at the base of his neck. He no longer had the authority to order Haverson into counseling. Or to see the doc. He opted for a different tactic. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, searching the younger man’s scarred face. For what, he wasn’t sure. Absolution? Maybe. “For the decisions I forced on you. The men were my responsibility. The decisions were mine alone.”

  Haverson took a long pull off his beer. “Doesn’t change the fact that people died. People in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You don’t get to change that, Haves.”

  “Then why be a medic? Why bring a medic to the fight at all? I could change it. Sometimes I got lucky. And other times?” The bitterness in Haverson’s voice rocketed straight through Sean’s chest into his heart. “Other times, we got fucked and there was nothing I could do about it.” He held up a hand. “I really don’t want to hear about Rule Number Two right now.”

  “You did your best.”

  “My best wasn’t good enough.” Haverson downed the rest of his beer and walked around the fire, melting into the darkness.

  Sean watched Haverson fade until he no longer moved in the shadows. He went and found Morgan sticking his finger in Kearney’s chest. “If you get arrested tonight…”

  Kearney held up his hands. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Morgan pointed at his feet. “Do you see this?”

  Kearney frowned. “Your boot?”

  “That’s right. Before you do anything stupid, I want you to remember one thing. My size thirteen will fit up your ass with the appropriate amount of force.”

  Sean laughed, hoping that Morgan’s good-natured warning to Kearney got through. This really was enough to get him fired if Kearney didn’t stay sober tonight. He slapped his hand on Kearney’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on Haverson. He’s having a harder time leaving than I think he realizes.”

  “Done.”

  Sean frowned as Kearney, too, faded into the darkness.

  “What’s on your mind, sir?” Morgan asked, pulling off his cigar. He wore jeans and a tucked-in, Western-style shirt. The boots he’d referenced were pointed toe Tony Llamas cowboy boots. For a man pushing forty, Morgan had the physique of a professional athlete. Lean and mean and built for punishing acts of physical demand required by the Infantry.

  “Worried about Haverson. I’m afraid that leaving his support—his buddies—is going to make things worse for him, not better.”

  Morgan stayed silent, the cherry on his cigar casting a red shadow across his angular features. “Hope you’re wrong. But I’m afraid you might be right.”

  He lingered at the barbecue far too long, until the fire died down and everyone had left with sober drivers and secure rides home.

  As Kearney had promised, there had been no drama tonight. Haverson had been laughing. Talking shit with Kearney who, for once, appeared to be keeping his shit together. But it was a long time before Sean headed back to his place, his heart and his memories a thousand miles away.

  His apartment lacked any welcoming committee. No dog. Nothing there to welcome him home but a few empty beer bottles and an old pizza box. He sucked in a deep breath, recognizing the melancholy mood for what it was, but was unable to pull himself out of it. He dragged his hand across his face.

  He needed oblivion. He needed an escape from the dull pain in his arm and the potent ache in his heart. He tossed back a single Ambien and washed it down with some water he cupped in his palm from the bathroom sink.

  Just tonight. For to
night, he would sink into oblivion and not dream. Not relive the horror and the blood and the smoke. For tonight, he wouldn’t hear the screams of the wounded or feel the heat of the fires.

  Just for tonight, he would sink into oblivion and sleep. He stripped off everything but his boxers and sank into the mattress that seemed to wrap around him and pull him into the warmth of a puffy cloud, just like the tentacles of the drug reaching into his brain and pulling him down into the darkness. Tomorrow, things would be better. Tomorrow, he’d get to see Sarah.

  There was always hope that tomorrow would be better than today. Today was gone forever and no matter how much he might want to change things, they were done, etched into the stone of history.

  Forever.

  * * *

  “Hello?”

  It was close to midnight. Her phone vibrated on the nightstand near her bed and yanked her out of the fitful sleep she’d barely achieved.

  “Sarah.”

  She sat up, instantly alerted by the muffled sound of Sean’s voice. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” There was a silence. “I shouldn’t have called.”

  “It’s okay.” She lay back in the bed, staring into the darkness and listening for the sound of his breathing. “Talk to me, Sean.”

  “I…I wanted to hear your voice.”

  She narrowed her eyes in the darkness. “Are you drunk?”

  “Not really,” he said after a moment. “I took a sleeping pill.”

  “Oh.” She’d had those nights. The nights where her mind would race around corners and through dark alleys, chasing memories that refused to lie dormant. “How was the barbecue?”

  A warm sound. “It was good. Sad.” He paused. “I’m worried about Haverson,” he admitted.

  “He’s on something.”

  “A cocktail of things,” he said, his voice sounding marginally clearer. “I don’t usually take pills.”

  “I don’t, either. But sometimes they help.”

  “Yeah.” A sigh. “You don’t realize how important sleep is until you don’t get it.”

  She leaned back in her bed, closing her eyes, listening to the ache in his voice. Trusting that he would get around to talking to her.

  Or maybe, he would just fall asleep. It tugged at her heart that he’d called her tonight when he was hurting.

  What if he’d been able to do that years ago, before their lives had fallen apart?

  “I wanted to hear your voice,” he said again.

  “You mentioned that.” She sighed deeply, her brain slowly waking up from the fitful sleep and keyed in on the sound of his voice. When the silence stretched too long, she stepped slowly into the breach. “Sean?”

  “Hmm?”

  He was falling asleep. Maybe she should let him. But he’d called and woken her up. Maybe she could be honest with him. For once. “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” There was an edge to his voice now. A rough tension that sounded like sex.

  “Because I liked…” The words caught in her throat. “You told me to think about you tonight.”

  She left the words hanging there. Wondering if he would piece together what she wasn’t quite brave enough to say.

  “What did you think about?”

  She swallowed the sudden dryness in her throat. “You.”

  “You’ll have to be more descriptive than that.” A quiet pause.

  “I’m not very creative.” A smile teased the edge of her lips.

  “I remember you being very creative,” he murmured. She heard the mischief in his voice before he’d finished his thought. “I was lying here. Alone in my bed. And I wondered, what’s Sarah doing right now?” His voice was low and thick. “Did I wake you?”

  Her skin felt hot and the ache between her thighs pulsed with each whisper of his voice over her ear. “No. I was just lying here.”

  “Hmmm.” The sound of his voice caressed her skin. “And you were thinking about me?” he asked softly.

  Memories of another time, another phone call, traced through her blood. The time he’d snuck a call on his commander’s phone as a young sergeant out in a training exercise. She’d laughed when he’d told her he was lying in the back of a Humvee, alone.

  Then the conversation had taken a dark and sensual turn. It was something she’d shared with him that she’d never done since.

  She bit her lip and nodded, wishing the ache in her blood wasn’t so strong. So demanding. “Yeah.”

  His laugh was low and quiet. “What were you thinking about?”

  Once, it had been a game between them, a sensual game that stimulated her body and her mind. Now, it was a connection. A touch, a caress. A way to be with him despite the distance and the darkness between them.

  “You,” she whispered. “You’d been gone for weeks.” An ache bloomed in her belly, spreading like slow fire through her veins. “I wanted you to touch me.” She slipped her hand beneath her tank top, her own fingers familiar and foreign against her skin. Her stomach clenched even as her nipples pearled into tight buds and she imagined his tongue on her flesh, tasting her, stroking her pleasure. She heard his breath in the phone and imagined his lips on her ear. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers beneath the waist of her sleep pants. The wickedness of what she was doing pulsed through her body, inciting the arousal to fevered levels. A need that demanded satisfaction only his touch would provide.

  There had been sensual heat in his question and she imagined him lying with her, the rough strength of his body scraping against hers even as his lips trailed wet and hot down her belly to her core with that relentless ache.

  “Where? Where did you want me to touch you, Sarah?”

  “My neck. Like you did the other day.” Arousal, slick and hot. “I used to like it when you licked me there.”

  “When I scraped my teeth over your pulse.”

  She closed her eyes, letting her imagination take over. Her skin ached where his teeth had been. She traced her fingers over the spot, imagining they were his. “Yes.”

  “I’d lick your neck,” he whispered roughly. “I’d kiss that space between your shoulder and your throat. Nibble on you there.”

  Her breath stopped. “What else?”

  “What else do you want me to do?”

  “My back.” Her words were thick, the ache between her thighs demanding. Potent and powerful. “I’d want you to kiss my back.”

  “You were always sensitive there,” he said. “What are you doing right now?”

  “Lying in bed,” she murmured. “Imagining you’re here.”

  “Are…” He cleared his throat roughly. It sounded pained. “Would you touch yourself?”

  “Shit.” A gasp, laced with pleasure.

  “What?”

  “That’s…really hot.”

  A warm laugh. Like liquid heat. “You should try it from my end.” His voice was clearer now. “Are you?” he asked. Heavy anticipation. She whimpered as she slid her fingers lower, over the mound of her heat where she throbbed, still covered by her sensible cotton panties. They were no longer sensible. They were a barrier to pleasure but still she hesitated, the pressure of her own palm creating a wicked sensation made more erotic by his words.

  “Are you aroused?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Wet?”

  “Mmm hmm.” She flushed, her skin hot—nervous and aroused all at once. There was anticipation in his words that mixed in her belly, creating more need that slid through her veins.

  “Are…are you touching yourself?”

  She swallowed, unable to move and slip her fingers beneath her panties into her own slick heat. She lied, enjoying the tease of his words that built into the need inside her. “Yes.”

  The memory of his fingers sliding against her aching swollen center was beyond foreign, a teasing mix of erotic and forbidden made all the more arousing by his voice against her ear. She ar
ched her back and inched her thighs apart, opening to the soft caress of his words. Almost, she stroked herself there. Almost gave in to the pleasure his words and her touch would bring.

  “What do you want?” His voice was barely a thick whisper now and she had a visual of him, naked and rough, the hair on his chest scraping against her nipples.

  * * *

  He was naked and aroused and imagining her open and spread before him like a beautiful, erotic canvas. In some dark corner of his mind, the fact that he was on the phone might have been disturbing, but the quiet gasps she didn’t even know she was making were driving him crazy. He ached to the point of pain but still he whispered in her ear and tasted her on his lips.

  * * *

  She thought about it. About sliding her hand down over the softness of her belly. Beneath the edge of her panties.

  Into the heat that ached for his touch.

  She was wet. It surprised her that she was. Swollen and slick—her fingers slid through the moist heat and she gasped.

  “Sarah.” Her name was a plea. “Tell me what it feels like.”

  “Warm.” She bit her lips as her fingers found that most sacred place. “Wet.” Too long. Far too long since she’d felt this sensual arousal. Since she’d felt whole and real and infinitely female. The scars on her leg were tight and stiff but tonight, they were secondary, the heat between them hotter than the memory of the pain. “I want your fingers there,” she whispered. “Stroking me.”

  “I want to kiss you there,” he said. “I want to taste you. I want your knees over my shoulders.” She closed her eyes, letting the visual take over. Imagined the feel of his skin beneath her fingers, the sweep of his tongue over her most sensitive flesh.

  She moaned quietly as her fingers sought the pleasure his words promised. “Yes,” he urged. “Come for me.”

  A small noise. “Harder,” he urged. “I’m right here. It’s my mouth on you. My fingers inside you. I want to feel you all around me.”