Broken Soldier: A Novel

by Clara Frost

  He went back into the store and headed straight for Pete’s department. It felt good to have a mission he could complete on his own. Pete was standing by the helmets, talking to another of the staff, another punk fratboy. They both turned around when they heard the click of Rafa’s prosthetic foot on the store’s tile floor.

  “Your girl leave you, dude?” Pete asked.

  Rafa took a deep breath, held it for a count of four. Combat calming techniques worked on blockhead fratboys, too. He hoped. “She’s outside.” He tried to slide around the two guys, but they didn’t move, leaving the aisle blocked.

  “Excuse me,” Rafa said.

  “She just feels sorry for you, you know that, right?” Pete practically sneered.

  “Look, I just need some rope, not any trouble.”

  “You gotta tie your girl down to get what you want? That’s sad.” The other employee looked embarrassed, but Pete kept going. “It’s too bad the Taliban didn’t get your dick, too. Or did they?”

  Rafa’s eyes narrowed. He knew exactly how this sort of conversation normally went, but it was the first time he’d been involved in one since the IED. The fratboy would jaw a little, then he’d get close, jab a finger into Rafa’s chest. He’d offer to take things outside, and then he’d swing a big, dumb overhand punch. It happened the same way in every bar fight in the world.

  “I killed fourteen hardened Taliban fighters the day I lost my leg. I’d tell you how many I killed before that, but you can’t count that high.” He spoke carefully, quietly so there could be no mistake about his earnestness. The way the kid’s eyes went wide told him that his message was getting through just fine. “Now are you going to let me get my rope, or am I going to put you in the hospital?”

  Pete scooted out of the way. “If you’re still here when I get back with my manager, I’m calling the cops, dude. I don’t care who you are.”

  Rafa nodded once, turned to the rope. Stupid monkey dance. Only way to handle it was to jump ahead, throw ‘em off guard. It was just lucky things didn’t have to get physical. Pete would never be able to live down getting his ass kicked by a one legged man.

  The store had good rope. Tactical rope. Rafa found a hundred foot piece of 550 cord in a muted midnight blue and headed for the registers.

  Pete and the manager never showed.

  #

  The cabin was in better shape than Emily remembered, even without Paul and Christa prepping it. It lay in a snow-covered meadow, its private ski lift stretching up the mountain behind it. The lights were already shining, enabled remotely by Christa. Slate gray clouds scudded overhead, promising fresh snowfall in the evening.

  All in all, it looked just about perfect for a weekend getaway.

  “I thought you said it was a cabin,” Rafa said. “That’s practically an estate.”

  “It belongs to Christa’s parents. They rent it out sometimes, I think.” She parked the car and led Rafa to the front door.

  It was even more gorgeous inside than out. A chandelier hung over the living room. Bearskin rugs lay on the floors. Wooden chairs and leather sofas were arranged around a massive fireplace.

  “Wow,” Rafa said. “Sure beats Kabul.”

  “They’ve upgraded since the last time I was here. I think the bedrooms are back this way.”

  They moved deeper into the house. The first bedroom had a king-sized sleigh bed covered in a big, fuzzy blanket.

  “Muy bueno,” Rafa said under his breath.

  Emily smiled. “That’s the guest room.” She continued on, pausing at a heavy oaken door. “We’re in there,” she said, pushing it open.

  The room on the other side dwarfed the guest room. A bed the size of a small country dominated the center. A thick, furry comforter lay atop it, and pale, wooden nightstands sat on either side. The whole room was pure rustic, practically a showroom for a vacation magazine.

  “Madre de dios,” Rafa said, looking at the bed.

  “It’s bigger than I remember.” Emily set her bag on the dresser. “Do you want to break-in your skis before Paul and Christa get here?”

  Rafa looked from her to the bed. “How long do we have?”

  Emily’s heart rate accelerated as a sly smile crept across his face. She licked her lips. “A few hours. Christa said Paul had to meet a client at 3:00.” She wasn’t sure if he was implying that they should break in the bed before hitting the slopes, but the tingling warmth she felt between her legs made her think it was a fine idea, indeed. She glanced at his leg, wondering how it would hold up out on the mountain.

  As soon as she look downward, his smile collapsed into worry. “Perhaps we should check the bindings,” he said.

  Emily tried not to let her disappointment show. There was no sense in getting ahead of herself. They had the whole weekend, and they couldn’t spend all of it in bed. She wasn’t even sure if that’s what he’d had in mind. It was a romantic cabin, but maybe he just wanted to do some skiing before he broke her heart.

  “Okay.” She made herself smile, refusing to be a downer.

  Rafa pulled his ski clothes from his bag and tossed them on the bed. He started stripping down to change without even looking her direction. Emily let herself watch for a few seconds, admiring the fine way his shoulders tapered to his waist. Scars covered his right side, a patchwork of pink and white. A bigger, uglier scar ran down the left side of his back, a jagged white ribbon on his olive skin.

  “Can you talk about how you got the big scar?” she asked.

  “On the left side?” Rafa slid on his shirt and turned, buttoning his pants. “Training accident on the bomb range.”

  “Oh.” She’d been expecting something more glamorous. Or maybe something more classified.

  He shrugged. “We trained hard. Accidents happened. I was lucky that my pack took most of the impact.”

  “Sounds like you’ve had bad luck with bombs.”

  He pursed his lips. “You could say that.”

  Emily felt silly as soon as the words left her mouth, but his reaction only heightened her embarrassment. It was supposed to be a relaxing, fun getaway, and she was starting it off by jamming her foot into her mouth and reminding her boyfriend of the attack that had nearly taken his life.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Not your fault. Come, you need to teach me how to ski.”

  Emily grabbed her jacket and followed Rafa out to the front of the house. “Christa said the lift was checked out a few weeks ago, so we should be good. It runs most of the way up the peak, but we can stop somewhere closer for you.”

  “That might be wise.”

  In the front yard, Emily helped him get his bindings attached. The actual ski boot on his left foot was easy enough, but the blade was a little trickier. The toe of the blade fit snugly into the boot, but the curve had to be secured back onto the ski. In the store it had seemed easy, but with cold fingers and slick equipment, it took more work.

  “If you fall and have trouble getting back on your feet, try unhooking the left boot first,” she said. She handed him his one lonely ski pole. “And don’t hesitate to tell me if you have trouble or there’s too much pressure on your knee. This is supposed to be fun, not painful.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He waited for her to snap into her skis, then pushed himself out into the yard.

  Rafael on skis looked an awful lot like a duck on ice. He couldn’t quite steer with his one pole, and his right ski kept flapping out, dragging him off the line he wanted to follow.

  “See if you can just angle the right ski inward,” Emily suggested. She stopped beside him, giving him a chance to adjust. “I think if you just snowplow with it at first, you can learn how to control the left ski more easily.”

  They took their time working over to the ski lift. He made it with a few wobbles, but no falls. The real test would be up on the slope, though. He wasn’t the sort to be happy snowplowing down time and again, and she just hoped that the first time
he truly had to plant and turn, the ski wouldn’t go flying. Or that his whole prosthesis wouldn’t go flying.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  The lift wasn’t much. A set of half a dozen simple chairs with a footrest for keeping the skis off the snow. The chairs looked to be evenly spaced on the lift, though she couldn’t see the top to be sure. The chairs only raised them a couple feet above the slope, but that worked out fine for her purposes. She didn’t want to go all the way to the top, anyway.

  “When we stop, just jump off,” she said. “We can catch another chair at the bottom.”

  The lift groaned into motion, carrying them along, up the mountainside. A cold wind blew down over them, nipping at their exposed skin. Emily let them get a few hundred yards up the slope before she hit the button to stop them. She waited for Rafa to hop off, then followed. The snow wasn’t a great powder, but so early in the season it wasn’t surprising. She glanced up at the clouds still building overhead. If they didn’t get fresh snowfall by morning, she was going to be surprised.

  Rafa made it about twenty feet before getting the skis turned the wrong way. She wasn’t sure exactly what he said, but it was Spanish and he didn’t sound happy. He ended up sliding a dozen feet on his left ski, then slamming down awkwardly, the prosthetic blade tangling and his right ski sliding on down the hill

  “Are you okay?” Emily asked, retrieving his errant ski and cutting back upslope to help him up.

  Rafa closed his eyes and nodded. “I’m making it.” He jabbed his ski pole into the snow and levered himself to his feet. Emily gave him his ski and stooped, helping him get it into place.

  “That feel okay?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  He set his feet and snow plowed all the way down the hill. Emily cut back and forth behind him, all her normal enjoyment sucked out by Rafa’s obvious discomfort. She wasn’t entirely sure he was telling the truth about the pain, but he definitely didn’t look like he was having any fun.

  She slid to a stop, taking care not to be flashy about it or to spray him with snow. “Do you just want to go back inside? We can try again tomorrow.”

  Rafa stood up straighter, smiling grimly. “I’m fine.” He pushed off toward the lift.

  As they rode up the lift the second time, Emily spotted Christa’s car coming down the lane toward the cabin. “There’s Christa and Paul,” she said.

  Rafa breathed a sigh of relief.

  “We can get off here,” Emily offered, stopping the lift.

  Rafa hopped down without a word. He angled for the house, his sky blue and cream ski jacket slumping at the shoulders. “I could really go for a hot drink.”

  Emily cruised along beside him. “Me, too.”

  A few drinks, a little music and who knew, maybe she could get him into bed early.

  Chapter 12

  RAFA wrapped his left hand around his coffee mug, savoring the heat. Emily tipped in an ounce or so of brandy and waited for him to sip it. It burned wonderfully on the way down, the heat and the alcohol both.

  “Is that enough?” She had a hopeful smile.

  “For now.”

  She desperately wanted him to have a good weekend, that much was obvious. He’d thought it would be fun, right up until he’d started down the slope and realized that he wasn’t going to be able to plant his right leg without losing his ski.

  Emily put the brandy back in the cupboard and stood beside him. He slipped his right arm around her waist, pulling her closer and savoring her touch. If they just spent the next two days inside the cabin, that wouldn’t exactly break his heart. He leaned forward, kissed her blonde head.

  “Did Christa and Paul seem weird to you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see them together much.”

  “Well, they hardly said a word to each other.”

  They had been a little “off” when they’d gotten out of the car. Christa had jerked a bag from the backseat and gone straight inside, not waiting for Paul. And after Paul had followed her into the guest room, they’d closed the door.

  Rafa took a sip of his coffee. “I thought maybe they were breaking in the bed.”

  Muted footsteps thumped across the hardwood, and Paul rounded the corner into the kitchen. “Nothing quite so fun.”

  Emily flushed, like she was embarrassed about Paul overhearing their speculation. Rafa just grinned at his friend. “You pick a fight with the lady?”

  “I didn’t pick it. It just sort of happened.”

  “Well, don’t let us keep you from the make-up sex.”

  “Rafa!” Emily swatted his arm.

  Paul chuckled. “I gotta make up with her first. When we got married my old man told me that I could either be right or I could be happy, but I couldn’t be both.”

  “And you’re taking the moral high ground?” Emily asked.

  “That’s why you’re the shrink.” Paul stopped beside the coffee pot, then sniffed. “You two sneak a little something extra into your drinks?”

  Emily slipped out of Rafa’s embrace and went to the cabinet. “A little brandy. Care for some?”

  Paul went to a different cupboard and came up with a proper snifter. “I’ll pass on the coffee.”

  Emily gave his glass a healthy splash.

  “I think Christa will be out in a few minutes,” Paul said. “You two up for a soak in the hot tub?”

  “The one in the master bath?” Rafa asked.

  “No way, bro. The one outside.”

  Rafa looked at him, confused.

  “I take it you haven’t seen it. This way, my man.” Paul beckoned for Rafa and Em to follow him.

  A door past the master bedroom opened out onto an open air deck. A dusting of snow covered everything, but Rafa could see the outline of a hot tub. “Do we need a broom?”

  “I’ll get it.” Emily ducked back inside, leaving Rafa alone with Paul.

  “Are you and Christa having trouble?” Rafa asked once Emily was out of earshot.

  “We got into it on the drive up here. Nothing major.”

  “If you need some time to take care of it, we can make ourselves scarce,” Rafa offered. Skipping out on the rest of the skiing wasn’t going to break his heart.

  “Nah, she’ll get over it.” Paul’s eyes darted toward the door.

  Emily came out, a wide-headed push broom in hand. Rafa tried to intercept her to take the broom, but she shook her head. “I’ve got it.”

  He wanted to argue, but at the same time, he knew it would be much harder for him to manage a broom that size than it would for her.

  Emily made quick work of the snow. Paul got the hot tub cover off and the water flowing. Rafa just stood around and watched.

  He caught Emily by the elbow as she passed him, heading back into the house with the broom. “Em, I don’t have a swimsuit.”

  She grinned, pulling him into the house after her. “Me, either.”

  He thought about that a minute, blushing when he realized that she simply wasn’t planning to wear a swimsuit. “Are Christa and Paul going to be okay with that?”

  “Okay with what?” Christa asked, coming down the hall the other direction.

  “Skinny dipping in the hot tub,” Emily said.

  “I don’t mind,” Christa said, “As long as you promise to look Paul straight in the crotch and start laughing.”

  “I’ve been doing that since we were both eight years old,” Rafa said.

  “Then it’s a deal.” Christa breezed past, heading outside.

  Rafa followed Emily across the house, watching the bounce in her step. An embarrassing fear took him. There was no way he was going to be able to hide his very amorous interest in her if they were both naked. If it were just her, he didn’t think it would be a problem, but with Christa and Paul?

  He hoped the hot tub had some serious bubbles.

  #

  Steam clouded the air over the hot tub. In
the water the temperature was a muscle relaxing hundred and two degrees, melting the flurries that came near.

  Emily slid her hand up Rafa’s thigh, stroking along his quad. He had his arm around her shoulders, and his hand clenched as she brushed his manhood. If she’d had any doubt about his physical interest in her, it was utterly dispelled.

  Paul and Christa sat across the tub. Whatever Paul had done to upset her, Christa was well and truly upset. Emily knew she’d be hearing all about it sooner or later. Probably sooner.

  “So the summer after our freshman year of college Rafa and I went to Madrid together to spend a few weeks with his mom’s family.” Paul had a very lawyer-ish tone, the kind that meant he was about to tell some Very Important story. “We were what, about nineteen?”

  “About,” Rafa said.

  “So old enough to drink in Spain, but still young enough that we had an excuse to be really foolish.”

  Christa snorted. “Never really grew up then, did you?”

  “Anyway,” Paul rolled his eyes at his wife, “We went out to a downtown disco with this girl that Rafa was seeing, what was her name?”

  Rafa’s breathing paused, just for a second. “Just a girl.”

  If Emily hadn’t been actually touching him, she never would have caught it, but whoever the girl was, she must have meant something to him once.

  “Right, so just this girl,” Paul continued. “We get to the club and it’s all eardrum-shattering music and cute Spanish girls. Rafa and... whatever her name was go off dancing. I find my way over to a couple girls and start trying to chat with them, but it’s so loud and I’m not sure they even spoke English. Well, I don’t really even have a chance to extricate myself before their boyfriends show up. Big, tough dudes, right? And I was maybe a hundred fifty pounds back then. So they start jawing at me in Spanish, and I’m an idiot and yelling at them in English, so the next thing I know, I’ve got four dudes dragging me outside.

  “They get me out to the alley behind the building, and one of them comes up with a knife. I figure I’m about to either die or go to the hospital or both. And then here comes Rafa, flying out the back door. He sized them on the run and took the guy with the knife out before any of them even had time to turn. One guy got a good gut shot in on me, but Rafa punched him right in the kidney--”