Back to You

by Jessica Scott

  Her heart? Her heart didn’t matter anymore. She’d given up trying to piece it back together. Trent had broken her one too many times.

  Running off to war, leaving her alone.

  Lying to her about the most important things.

  She breathed deeply and focused on three p.m., when she could head out to pick up the kids at Shane and Jen’s. She loved Jen, she really did, but especially on days like today when Hayley, Laura’s babysitter, called in “sick” when she was clearly anything but so she could spend stolen time with her new husband. Laura would have preferred that Hayley be honest about it, but she couldn’t really blame her. She’d just gotten married and even though Laura’s newlywed days were a distant memory, she could still remember all the hope and promise of that first year.

  “Whoever pissed you off, it’s not the keyboard’s fault.”

  Laura looked up as Patrick walked in and sat down. “Hey. How’s Natalie?”

  “She’s good. Getting bigger and bossier every day.” Natalie and Ethan were in school together. Natalie wasn’t technically Patrick’s daughter but she was in every way that mattered. Patrick and her mom were in an on again-off again disaster of a relationship but Sammy had continued to let Patrick be active in Natalie’s life.

  Patrick was a good man. Sammy didn’t know what she was giving up.

  Or maybe she did. Sometimes, being a good man simply wasn’t enough to keep a relationship together.

  “So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked, minimizing her e-mail to be able to focus.

  “Don’t throw me out of the office,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “But I need to talk to you about Trent’s case.”

  Laura leaned back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest, and started counting to ten.

  “I know you’re having a hard time with him.”

  Laura sucked on her top lip for a moment before answering. “I wouldn’t necessarily call filing for divorce a hard time.”

  “And that’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Patrick…”

  “Just hear me out, okay?”

  She ground her teeth but after a moment nodded.

  “Listen, there’s no case against Trent. It’s weak at best. With the Article 32 about to start, we have a good chance of getting it stopped here before it goes to court-martial. But I need to plant doubt that the allegations against him are true.” He met her gaze. “I need you to do that.”

  Laura chewed on her bottom lip, playing his words over and over in her head, not understanding what he was asking of her. “What do you mean, you need to plant doubt?”

  “The primary witness against your husband, PFC Adorno—”

  “Oh, we’ve met,” Laura said dryly.

  Patrick’s smile was humorless. “Yes, well, that’s part of the prosecution’s problem. She’s alleging that Trent was inappropriate but the problem is that she and Lieutenant Randall were caught in their shenanigans downrange.”

  Laura frowned. “So you think this is a ploy to get herself out of trouble?”

  “Her and her husband. If they were working together to steal the missing weapons systems, then what better way to get out of trouble than to make this stuff up against Trent? Takes the focus off her and her husband completely.” Patrick leaned forward, tapping his index finger on the desk. “If I can cast Trent as a sympathetic family man who would never do anything like what she’s alleging, this case is all but dismissed. I’m not attacking her. All I have to do is make Trent look better than the story she’s telling and we’ve got a win.”

  “And you need me to paint on a happy face and be the loving wife.”

  Patrick shook his head. “No, I need you to be one half of a loving couple. And I need you to do it publicly where everyone can see it—in the PX, in the chow hall, everywhere. I need the officers on this board to believe exactly what I’ll be telling them on the day of the hearing.”

  She looked down at her empty ring finger, absently rubbing the bare skin beneath the bandage. “Everyone knows that we’re having problems, Patrick.”

  “Then make sure everyone knows you’ve fixed it.” He leaned back. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it was our best shot at getting this whole thing thrown out.”

  She looked up at him. “Why didn’t Trent ask me to do this?”

  Patrick swallowed and looked away. “He refused to drag you into this,” he said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t in a million years believe the allegations against Trent. I don’t think he would ever, ever be unfaithful to you.”

  Laura pressed her lips together in a flat line. “You’re wrong, Patrick. He’s been cheating on me for years. It was just with the army instead of another woman.”

  “Laura—”

  “Let me think about it,” she said quickly. “I won’t say no out of hand but I can’t make this decision on a whim.”

  Patrick leaned across the desk, gripping her hand. “I know this is hard for you, Laura. I know what I’m asking you to do.”

  She said nothing for a long moment and he gave her a sympathetic but firm smile. “Give it some thought, okay?”

  When she was alone, she sat there, staring at the picture of her family. Wondering how she was going to bring him back into the kids’ lives and then rip him out again. What he was asking wasn’t fair. He had no idea what this was going to do to her family.

  She glanced at the photo on her desk as she typed furiously, trying to get ahead of the flood of e-mails in her inbox.

  There was a quiet rap on her office door. “I’m not here,” she said quickly, looking up.

  Her fingers froze on the keyboard. Her heart stopped in her chest.

  Trent stood in the doorway. He had a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. His glasses hid the darkness of his eyes. There was a streak of dirt on his cheek. An assault pack hung limply from his left hand.

  A thousand emotions ripped through her all at once, rioting for supremacy as she drank in the sight of her husband.

  Ex-husband, she reminded herself. Or at least he was supposed to be.

  She wished that this were a normal homecoming. One where she would rush across the small space and crash into him. His arms would come around her and she would inhale the strong spicy scent of his skin. Feel the heat of his touch. Savor that first, wild kiss.

  Instead she had this. This empty chasm between them, echoing with loneliness.

  And she had no idea how to cross it.

  Chapter Three

  Her husband stood in her doorway and damn it if her heart didn’t act like he was a sight for sore eyes. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, weighed down by the heaviness of the war. There were tired lines around his mouth as though he’d forgotten how to smile. But his face was still the same. Lined more with weariness and too much time in the sun but that did nothing to detract from his looks.

  It wasn’t his looks that kept her longing for this man. No, it was a deeper, more secret part. The part of her heart that had loved a good man. An honest man. And part of her, the tiny part of her heart that soared when she saw him, still loved him.

  She wasn’t prepared to deal with this today. She stood as he stepped into her office. She wanted to go to him. To cross that space and feel his arms wrap around her like they had once upon a time. But that would be just another lie. Like when he’d told her that he missed her, that he’d do anything to be home with her and the kids. Like when he’d told her he’d never betray the vows they’d made.

  Just like everything between them these days.

  She shoved aside the crushing pain that threatened to break her yet again. In a thousand lifetimes, she would never be able to explain what he’d done to her. His quiet abandonment, the empty place in their lives he’d left unfilled.

  He looked tired. She wished she didn’t notice. Behind the rims of his thin black glasses his eyes—those gorgeous, almost black eyes—were filled with sadness and regret. There
was something more there now. A stark determination she hadn’t seen in… she couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked like this.

  For one moment, the lies and the fear and the sadness were forgotten and she savored the sight of her husband. A man she’d loved for as long as she could remember. But she couldn’t do this anymore. Not to herself. Not to their children.

  Damn it, she was tired of caring about this man. She’d thought she’d loved him enough for both of them. She’d never been so wrong in her entire life.

  “You’re home early,” she said. Her fingers found the pencil on her desk. It comforted her to have something to do with her hands. He said nothing for a long moment. She could have said hello. Could have been polite. Instead, her voice grated, sounding harsh against her own ears.

  “Yeah. I, ah, tried to call you.” Trent stuffed his hands in his pockets. She wished she didn’t see the fatigue etched into the lines around his mouth. She wished she didn’t still care.

  “Oh.” What could she say to that? What did it mean? “So why did they send you back early?”

  “They’re ready to start the hearing.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Is that good or bad?”

  He looked away, the muscle in his jaw pulsing. “I don’t know.”

  Silence stretched between them. Laura didn’t know what to say to fill the gap. There was nothing she could say so she focused on the best things to come out of the mess that was their marriage. “The kids will be happy to see you,” she said quietly.

  A half smile cracked the edge of his mouth. “How are the hamsters?”

  “Fluffy escapes once a week at least.” If hamsters were what it took to make conversation, she’d take it. Anything was better than the awkward silence that hung heavy and oppressive in the air between them.

  “They don’t cause you too much trouble?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Not too much.”

  He looked at her then, his eyes dark behind those glasses that really, really worked for her. She remembered when he’d gotten them. He’d been worried she wouldn’t like them. Who knew she’d had a thing for men with glasses?

  “Thank you. For letting me get them for the kids.”

  She tipped her head and cupped her chin in her palm. It had been almost a year since he’d bought those hamsters. “You’re welcome.” A simple response. The only thing she could say.

  Another silence. This one less damning. All because of a couple of fat, fuzzy rodents. She swallowed the nerves that tickled the back of her throat. “Where are you staying?” she asked quietly.

  She wanted him to ask to come home. Just once she wanted to remember what it felt like to have him in the house. To have another adult to balance out her life. To hear him in the other room or down the hall.

  She knew things between them were over but that didn’t stop the longing for just one blessed day of normalcy. Just one memory of the way things had been between them. Before the war had torn away everything that he’d meant to her.

  “At Shane and Jen’s.”

  Sergeant First Class Shane Garrison had been home from the war for the last year, recovering from injuries that had landed him in the care of Jen St. James, a nurse at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood.

  “I think they’re both terrified,” she said. A tiny frown drew between her brows. “Aren’t you going to be a third wheel? They should be preparing for their wedding, not having a houseguest.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. Trent pushed his glasses higher on his nose, then shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Shane insisted. Says he needs help with the wedding.”

  Laura smiled wistfully. “Jen is going to be a beautiful bride.”

  For a moment, Laura glanced down at her empty ring finger. She’d cried as he slipped the wedding ring onto her finger. His gaze locked with hers. For a brief moment, she was looking at her husband. No fear. No regrets. Just the man she loved looking back at her with the same love in his eyes. She blinked, and then it was gone so fast she wondered if she’d really seen it at all.

  Trent looked away, clearing his throat roughly. No, she hadn’t been seeing things.

  “When is the wedding again?” he asked.

  “Four weeks.”

  “That’s going to go by fast,” he murmured.

  Laura glanced down at her watch. “I need to get the kids,” she said quietly, ending the moment before it really began.

  Silence filled the gulf between them, a silence that once again felt absolute and unbreakable.

  She lowered her gaze and it collided with the ring he still wore on his left finger. She looked away, wishing she hadn’t seen it.

  But she had. He still wore his ring. He hadn’t signed the papers. What was he waiting for? Why couldn’t he just let her go?

  She looked up then and met his gaze. And what she saw looking back at her shocked her. Ripped away at the bandages that had held her heart together and slashed every protective barrier she’d put in place.

  His mouth crooked at the corner. His eyes were dark and hungry, his gaze locked on her, devouring her. Looking at her like she was the most precious thing in the world to him. The man who cherished her, who made her feel loved. Who reminded her of the aching desire she felt for him. For just an instant, the damaged warrior in front of her had slipped away, revealing the man she’d loved. Whole. Determined.

  Hers.

  But then his expression shuttered closed, leaving the man she’d come to know. The man who was distant and closed off. The speed of it almost gave her whiplash. She’d believed him when he’d told her he had to go, that the army needed him. That he couldn’t argue with the powers that be.

  All the while, he’d been volunteering for deployment after deployment. Leaving her and the kids willingly time and time again. Leaving her hoping and praying for the day when he would come home to her.

  She knew in her heart of hearts that day would never come. Because no matter how much she might wish it, the man who stood before her, tired and beaten down by the war and the weight of his own sins, was not the man she’d married.

  “I’m going to be around for the next few weeks,” he said. His voice was soft, his words sharp. “I’d like to see the kids.” A hesitant pause. “I’d like to see you, too.”

  She stopped breathing. She searched his eyes, looking for a glimpse of the old Trent, but he was gone. Maybe he’d never been there. Or maybe he’d simply been wish fulfillment. Maybe her husband was really dead and gone and the man in front of her was a shell; nothing more.

  That wasn’t true. The man in front of her had been forged in fire and come out steel. He’d been cut from the mold of a warrior, an ancient god of war.

  The warrior in front of her had perfected the art of war. He knew his profession. He took pride in it. He’d given it everything he had. She knew that now.

  But the warrior had sacrificed for his skill. He’d sacrificed his ability to love, to laugh, to smile. She saw the warrior now for who he was.

  Because the man in front of her was not the man she’d married.

  He was not the man she loved.

  * * *

  Trent knew fear. In that moment, he knew naked, soul-crushing fear as he waited for his wife’s response to his tentative gesture. He refused to think of her as his ex-wife. She wasn’t. Not yet.

  He had to fix this.

  A better man would walk away. Would release her from the purgatory of their sham of a marriage.

  But Trent was not a better man. He loved this woman. He’d always loved this woman.

  The overwhelming love that he felt for her was there. Like a sleeping thing waking from a long dormancy. It was fragile. Malnourished.

  But there, stretching after a long slumber.

  He held his breath, waiting for her response. Held it until his lungs burned and his hands shook. Still she didn’t respond. She toyed with the pencil in her hand. Rolled it along the edge of her desk calendar.

  �
��The kids will be glad to see you,” she whispered finally.

  It was a dodge. An obvious one.

  He could let her go, let her slip away.

  But that’s not what he wanted. And he’d seen her gaze flicker to his wedding ring. He hadn’t made that up.

  She didn’t want this either.

  But fear was a powerful thing. He recognized the look in her eyes, the stiffness in her posture—it was like looking in a mirror the moment she looked back at him. He deserved that. He’d failed her so many times in so many ways. But right then, gazing at her copper eyes and dark copper hair, what he truly saw was her strength. The strength to love his children, to keep their home together.

  To walk away when he hadn’t been enough.

  Now? Now he needed her strength in a different way. He needed her to be strong enough to stay. To give him one more chance. And if he was going to deserve her, that had to start now.

  “I was wondering if I could catch a ride with you?” he said, stepping into the breach and facing the possibility that once more, she would back away.

  He didn’t know how to just be around her. He wanted to be alone with her. Just to see what it felt like. It had been so long since it had been just her and just him. When he’d come home after getting shot, all he’d wanted, all he’d needed, was time with his wife. But Ethan had been little and needy in the way that toddlers often were.

  The kids had needed her more. And after too many late night diaper changes and dirty sheets, he’d stopped vying for her time. He couldn’t take any more from her. Not when the kids were taking so much. How could he ask her for more time for himself? But he supposed not wanting to ask for more time was how the distance between them had grown into the impossible chasm that stood between them now.

  He had to find a way to get her to need him. To want him. A simple ride alone would be a start. A single step on the journey that would take him a lifetime to manage. If he got that far.

  Right now? He was just hoping for a yes. And as the silence grew, so did his dread that what he would hear would be no.