Broken Soldier: A Novel

by Clara Frost

  “I am.” Emily indicated Christa. “She’s the matron of honor.”

  The attendant’s eyes flicked to Christa’s belly, clearly visible well into her second trimester. “How soon are you getting married?”

  “November.”

  The attendant nodded. “Well, our wedding dresses are over here. Are you looking for something traditional or more contemporary?”

  “Traditional,” Maria said. “What do you have in black?”

  The attendant nearly tripped. “Black?”

  “It is very traditional in Spain.”

  “The wedding will be in Denver,” Emily said. “I’d prefer to go with white.”

  “You must at least consider black,” Maria said. “I would offer you the dress I wore, but I do not think it would fit you.”

  Emily blinked, not believing Maria just called her fat, but Maria kept going.

  “She needs something snug that can make her waist look thinner. And a heavy veil.”

  “Maybe she should try on a few of the white dresses,” Christa suggested. “Just to find something that fits. I’m sure we could get it made in black if necessary.”

  Maria’s eyes narrowed. “Very well.”

  “Mrs. Carpenter, do you want to look at bridesmaid dresses with me while she changes?” Christa inched toward the other side of the store. A second attendant emerged from the back and went over to join her. “I’d appreciate your opinion.”

  Maria huffed over to Christa, leaving Emily alone with her attendant.

  Emily felt like her blood pressure dropped 10 points with each step Maria took the other direction. She wondered how Rafa had ever made it through childhood.

  Em looked through a few dresses and found one that looked interesting. It had heavy embroidery down the bodice, and small pearls sewn into rows along the train. “Can I try this one?”

  “Sure.” The attendant took her to a changing room and helped her into the dress. “Do you want to show your mother-in-law?”

  “Not really, but I do want to show Christa.”

  The attendant laughed. “I don’t know that you can do one without the other.”

  They went back out into the store and Emily stopped in front of a mirror that showed her from all sides. Christa joined her, whistling quietly as she eyed the dress.

  “You make that look amazing.”

  “I don’t know.” Emily sucked in her stomach, checking how the embroidery altered her shape.

  Maria and another attendant came over, each with a dress draped over their arms. Maria shook her head when she saw Emily.

  “Too much belly, not enough breasts.”

  Emily looked at it again. “It does make me look a little fat.”

  Christa laughed. “Babe, if you think that’s fat, you’ve got another thing coming. Try being bloated all the time. And gassy. Good lord, the gas. I just blame it on the person behind me, though.” She turned, looking at the attendant with the bridesmaid dress. “You really should get that checked out, you know. It can’t be healthy.”

  The attendant blushed, and Christa started laughing. Emily waited, expecting her to stop, but the laughter kept going and turned into tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Christa said. “This just happens. The dumbest things make me all emotional.”

  Maria shook her head and left them standing there.

  “I’ll try on some other dresses, I think,” Emily said.

  The attendant helped her look through half a dozen more dresses, but Em didn’t really find anything that caught her fancy more than the first one.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” the attendant asked.

  “I like the first one, but it just doesn’t fit me right.”

  “We can alter it, if you like. Here, let me get your measurements.”

  “Okay, but can I think about it before I commit to it?”

  “Of course.”

  The attendant was helpful and pleasant, making it a painless experience beyond Maria’s occasional disapproving looks. The other attendant looked after Christa and Maria, and from Emily’s side of the shop, it seemed to be going better over there. They had three or four options hanging from a row of hooks.

  “I think I’m going to go check on them,” Emily said, leaving the attendant to make notes about the alterations. She headed over to Christa. “Finding anything?” she asked when she reached her friend.

  “I like the cut on this.” Christa held up a pale yellow, sleeveless dress. “The color is up to you.”

  “I haven’t decided on colors yet. I like it, though.” It had clean, flowing lines, tasteful and elegant.

  “How many bridesmaids do you plan to have?” Christa’s attendant asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Emily said. “None so far.”

  “Two,” Maria said. “From Rafa’s side.”

  Em wanted to tell her that it wasn’t her wedding, and that the bride got to make those decisions, but it wasn’t worth making a scene.

  “Well, I’ll just make note of this particular dress,” Christa said. “And we can come back some other time when we know how many we’ll need.”

  “Great,” the attendant said, taking the dress. “You ladies have a pleasant day.”

  If only that were possible, Emily thought. “Shall we go try another shop?” she asked once they were outside.

  “No,” Maria said. “I have seen enough of your American dresses. You must come to Madrid. We will find you a dress for a proper woman.”

  “If you’d like me to drop you off at your hotel, that’s fine,” Emily said. “Christa and I can shop alone.”

  Maria glowered, but nodded.

  It was an uncomfortable drive, though Christa tried to make small talk to keep things pleasant. Maria got out of the car at her hotel, wished them a very perfunctory goodbye and disappeared through the front doors.

  “So that could have gone worse,” Christa said once she moved to the front seat.

  “Not really.”

  “She could have talked you into a dress you hated. At least you can still go shopping with your mom, pick out a dress you actually like and present it as a fait accompli.”

  “I guess.” Emily squeezed the steering wheel. “She just gets under my skin without even trying.”

  “I think she was trying.”

  “No, that’s the thing. I honestly don’t think she dislikes me. She’s just that way. Rafa will always be her baby, and so she sees me as a child by association.”

  “That sucks.”

  Emily sighed. “I try to look on the bright side. She lives halfway around the world.”

  “That’s true. Are you actually planning to go look at dresses in Madrid? Maybe you could talk her into a diamond necklace instead. If you do, I want one, too.”

  “I don’t know, Chrissy. I’ll talk to Rafa about it, but I think I’m done shopping for the day. I’d say we should get a drink, but...”

  “After I have this baby, we will get drinks, I promise. I’ll pump enough milk to last a whole week if I have to.”

  “Deal.”

  Em dropped Christa off at her new place, and headed home, exhausted after just an hour with her future mother-in-law.

  Chapter 38

  EMILY was snuggled into the corner of the couch, glass of wine in hand and book open in her lap when Rafa’s phone rang.

  “Is that your mother?” She had been gone for a little over a month, but she’d called practically every day since she’d left.

  “No,” Rafa said, looking at the phone with a puzzled expression. He answered it and introduced himself.

  Emily looked back at her book, still listening with half an ear.

  “Yes, sir,” Rafa said. “Today? One moment. Emily.”

  She looked up, not fully paying attention. “Who is it?”

  “Colonel Rogers. He was wondering if he could stop by. Tonight.”

  Her attention snapped to Rafa. “From the Army? Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  She pushed the
book aside and sat up, kicking her wineglass over in the process. Pinot Grigio poured across the carpet. “Crap.” She scooped up the glass and hustled to the kitchen for a rag. Telling the colonel ‘no’ wasn’t really an option, she knew that well enough. He’d just find Rafa at work again, and then she’d only hear the parts of the conversation that Rafa thought she’d care about.

  “When’s he going to be here?” she asked when she got back.

  Rafa asked the colonel and came back with “7:00.”

  Emily frowned as she soaked up the wine. And what if they’d had dinner plans? “Fine.” She went to get another rag, not looking forward to having another guest on short notice.

  Rafa’s conversation ended quickly and he slid his phone back into his pocket.

  “What was that about?” Emily asked.

  “Said he needed to talk with me in person again.”

  “Did he say why?”

  Rafa shook his head.

  “Do you have any guesses?” She took her rag to the kitchen and tossed it into the sink. Rinsing it could wait.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe the timeline accelerated?”

  “So you think he wants you to decide tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” He didn’t say it with any conviction.

  Emily’s heart sank. It tore Rafa up enough to be discharged under a black cloud, and now this colonel was going to try to convince him to join up again? “Do you want go back?”

  Rafa paused midstride. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what I said. Do you want go back to the Army, as a contractor or whatever, but go back and do what you did before.”

  “In a way.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “Part of me does, yes. I trained and studied for years. I was good at what I did, Emily. Among the very best, to be perfectly honest. I know it. The colonel knows it. But...” He looked her square in the eye. “But I don’t want to lose you. Before I met you, I would have been driving to meet him half way.”

  “You were still active duty then.”

  “True.” He frowned. “But my point is that since I’ve met you, my life has changed in a way I didn’t even know possible. If I thought I could have you and my old life both, I’d consider it.”

  “But you don’t think you can?” A pit formed in her stomach, leaving her with an aching emptiness. What they had developed was wonderful, and she looked forward to every minute she got to spend with him, but she well knew how many years, how many decades, he had spent in service to his country. This was who he was. That was a siren song she couldn’t match. All the doubts, all the insecurities about being worthy of a man like Rafael, they bubbled up within her.

  Emily pulled out a chair from the table in the breakfast nook and collapsed into it, not trusting her own legs to hold her weight.

  “Not the job I had before. Not on the ground, in the mountains for a year at a time. But I could still help.”

  “And me?”

  “Well, we’d be married, but the Army wouldn’t allow you into Afghanistan. It’s too dangerous.”

  The pit in her stomach grew, threatening to envelop her and turn her completely inside out. She gripped the table with both hands, steadying herself. Losing him for months at a time would be bad enough, but to lose him forever?

  “I hate this. It’s such a roller coaster, Rafa. The wedding, the Army, I hate it. I hate how it makes me feel. I hate how it tears you up inside. I. Just. Hate. It.”

  Rafa looked away. He was in more pain than she’d ever seen him, even when his leg had been infected, and it made it even harder for her to know that she was the cause of it.

  “Then I’m staying.”

  Emily blinked, not believing her ears. “What?”

  “I’m staying with you. I’ve done my duty. I’ve done more than my duty. This war, whatever it is, they can fight it without me.” He pulled his phone out and started prodding the faceplate.

  “What are you doing?” Emily asked. Her voice shook with each word. She wanted to rush to him, to wrap him into a hug and then drag him straight to bed. She wanted to collapse into the floor and cry with the sheer joy of keeping him when she thought he would leave.

  “I’m calling the colonel and telling him not to bother driving up to Boulder. I don’t need to talk him.”

  Emily sat in the chair, gathering herself, while Rafa called his colonel. He paced across the living room, and when he finished with his call, he tucked his phone back into his pocket and came over to the table to sit beside her. When he reached across the table and took her hand, he was utterly calm and didn’t have the slightest tremor.

  “Now what?” Emily asked.

  “You tell me. We still have a wedding to plan, right? I feel like I haven’t done enough with that yet.” Rafa chewed his lip. “Do you love me?”

  Emily responded without hesitation, “More than anything.”

  “Then let’s get married.”

  “We are.”

  “No, I mean right now. What do you have on the calendar next week?”

  “A couple appointments. Harvey Windsor next Friday.” Her heart rate spiked back up. Was he seriously proposing that they--

  “So what are we waiting for? Let’s go somewhere, anywhere, and get married.”

  “Hawaii?”

  Rafa grinned. “Sounds beautiful.” He took his phone back out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hold on,” he said to her, and then into the phone: “Hi, you’ve reached Rafael Carpenter. I’m going to be in Hawaii for a week getting married. If you’d like to leave me a message, I’ll get back to you in early June. Probably. Have a nice day.”

  Emily didn’t know what to say. She could barely keep up with him. “Uh... what about your mom?”

  “She can leave a message. I’ll call her back in June.” He grinned again. “Come on, we need to pack.”

  “You’re serious about this? You’re not just messing with me?”

  He looked at his watch. “If we get to Denver before 7:00, we can probably get a plane out tonight.”

  Emily walked to her bedroom in a daze and started throwing clothes and makeup and shoes into a bag. Rafa came in and joined her, adding his small collection of shorts and t-shirts. She gathered her wedding dress, checking to make sure it was safely wrapped in plastic.

  “How are we going to take this?” she asked.

  “Put it in its own suitcase,” Rafa said.

  It was possible, maybe not likely, but possible, that she was dreaming, but she refused to pinch herself and find out. If it was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up.

  Chapter 39

  PACIFIC waves rolled up the beach, nearly to Rafa’s bare foot, warm and foamy and perfect. White sands glowed orange with the last light of the setting sun.

  An Army chaplain--with a photographer and a uniformed soldier at his back--stood before Rafa and Emily on a point of land surrounded on three sides by water, intoning the wedding vows. “And do you, Rafael Carpenter, take this woman, Emily Hale, to be your lawful, wedded wife, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

  “I do,” Rafa said.

  “And do you, Emily Hale, takes this--”

  “Yes, a thousand times yes,” Emily said, not even waiting for him to finish.

  “Then I pronounce you man and wife. You may--”

  Rafa didn’t hear the rest. Emily was already in his arms, mouth pressed to his. Warm and soft and alive and so absolutely perfect.

  When she finally pulled away for air, Rafa looked over her shoulder at the chaplain and the two witnesses. “Thank you, gentlemen. Rodney, I appreciate you coming out here on short notice.”

  “My pleasure, Rafa,” the chaplain said. “You call me if I can do anything to help you.”

  “Take care of yourself, sir,” said one of the witnesses, a lieutenant that had been in the Rangers with Rafa not long after he’d left West Point.

  The photographer snapped more pictures, getting pl
enty of Em in her wedding dress with her bare feet poking out beneath. The chaplain and soldier waved goodbye and headed back up the peninsula toward the hotel. The photographer followed soon after.

  Rafa wrapped his hand under Emily and lifted her, cradling her in his arms. “It is just us now.”

  “Good.” Emily squeezed him. “Emily Carpenter. It has a nice ring to it.”

  “It does.” She grinned at him, and gave him another kiss, so sultry he thought he might ignite.

  Rafa let his eyes linger over her. Even in the wedding dress, he could see the shape of her. The full curve of her hips, the perfect swell of her breasts.

  “I have an idea,” Emily said.

  “Oh?”

  “Take me to bed, or--”

  “Lose you forever?”

  “Exactly.”

  He carried her down the beach toward their cottage. The breeze blew in from the east, sweeping along the beach and carrying the fresh scent of the ocean with it.

  “Let me take a quick shower,” Emily said when they reached the cottage.

  Rafa looked at her a moment, considering that statement. A shower? Right then? “Sure.”

  She stripped out of her dress and threw it over the back of an armchair. Her lace underwear followed, giving him a glimpse of bare skin as she disappeared into the bathroom. The jets in the shower started up, and Rafa decided that he’d waited long enough. He left his clothes in the bedroom, not caring who walked past on the beach and saw him naked.

  The bathroom was tile and wood with a hot tub in one corner and the glass walled shower in the other, well worth the price he’d paid to book it last minute. Emily stood in a stream of water, watching him.

  “You took longer than I expected,” she said.

  “Did I?” Rafa asked, slipping in beside her. Scalding hot water pounded over them both, and steam was already filling the space.

  Emily slid her arms around him, cupping his shoulders and pulling him close. “I didn’t really expect to get past the bed.”

  “But we are already in here, no? Why wait?” Rafa pressed his mouth to hers, bearing her backward until he had her pinned to the wall.

  Her hands slipped to his waist. He let her drive, just for a moment, then took charge.