For Love of Valor: A Bad Boy Military Romance

by Samantha Westlake

  I stalked away down the hallway. A second later, however, I heard footsteps from behind as Sebastian padded after me. "Wait!" he called out. "Come on, man, calm down! I know it hurts, but-"

  I cut off the rest of his words as I turned into another room and slammed the door shut behind me.

  My stomach growled, and I realized that I'd abandoned the food that Linda had been cooking on the stove. A part of me, to my shame, still wanted to go back to the kitchen and eat it, as if it was one last reminder of her! I fought that urge, climbed the stairs up to my bedroom and dropped down on top of my comforter.

  Another mistake. I could still smell her, the lingering fresh, clean scent of her, still touching my pillows and sheets. I grabbed a couple of pillows and threw them aside, finally grabbing one that didn't fill my nostrils with her scent and slamming it down beneath my head.

  What the fuck had happened to me?

  I never meant to get that attached to her. Hell, the whole flirting thing with her just started because she was getting under my skin, and I wanted to fuck with her in response. I'd tried to find ways to rattle and pester her, and I knew that most women squirmed when I started digging into their romantic side.

  But somewhere along the way, after a couple of the sessions that kept forcing us together so that I could get the prescription refills that I needed, I found myself actually enjoying the flirtatious comments, not just because I sometimes saw momentary cracks open up in her armor before she pulled them shut, sealed back up again. Occasionally, one of my dirty jokes shocked her to her core, and I'd see her eyes go wide and her mouth drop open. It only lasted an instant, but it gave me a rush of satisfaction that felt just as potent as when I lured a twenty-one year old bimbo back to my place for a wild romp in the sack.

  I kept flirting with her for that rush, never expecting anything to come of it. She wasn't my type. Too smart for me to con, too educated for me to buy, too flat-chested to fulfill my typical fantasies. When I thought of my perfect woman, I imagined a stacked Amazon, with the lush grapefruits on her chest and the ass that curved perfectly, the kind of woman who practically dripped sex when she walked into a room.

  Linda was not that kind of woman.

  And yet, she managed to slip into my mind, even after I left her shabby little psychiatrist's office. I kept on thinking about her, fantasizing about her, imagining how it would feel to peel off her clothes and uncover her body. It didn't feature any of the assets I daydreamed about, but I still, strangely, wanted her.

  She fended me off, and I never thought that anything would come of it.

  Until she let slip that she also thought about me, that underneath that professional shield, she'd been fantasizing about our bodies coming together as well.

  I redoubled my efforts, and this time, she responded. She dropped me as a client, telling me that this way, there wouldn't be trouble if anything ended up happening between us. She agreed to come to dinner with me, and next thing I knew, I had her back at my house, found her legs wrapped around my waist and lost myself in her moans as I took her, claiming her in the oldest and most carnal way.

  She'd said that I was no longer her client, and I assumed that this meant that her attempts to analyze and understand me had stopped. But now, I realized as I sank into my bed and pulled the blankets further over me, I knew that this wasn't the truth. She'd kept on poking, tugging at threads, unable to leave me alone. She needed to unwrap me like a present, peel away every single part of me to try and discover my secrets.

  I thought that I had found something real, but she'd been probing me the entire time.

  Had she known what she was doing? Even while I was fucking her, even as our naked bodies moved together and she moaned and arched her back as I filled her with my hardness, had some part of her mind, in the back of her head, been dispassionately analyzing the situation? Had she listened to everything I said to her as our naked bodies cuddled together and categorized it, used it to document my illness?

  My stomach growled again, and I punched it. Probably not a good idea, as the blow sent a wave of pain through me, but I didn't want to think. I didn't want to lay alone in this bed, surrounded by memories of the woman to whom I'd finally dared to open myself up, and who took my revealed heart and cut it open for study.

  I crawled out of bed, standing back up and glaring helplessly around the room. She thought that I needed help? She looked at me as a broken man, with pity? Fuck her. I could handle myself. I was doing just fine, had been doing fine before she ever stuck her nose into things. I still had more money than I could spend, still had a handsome smile and a muscled body and pulled more ass at the club than anyone I knew.

  I took a step forward, intending to go find something to eat – and stumbled, dropping down to my hands and knees on the floor as my bad leg gave out with a burning stab of pain that shot all the way up to my hip.

  Fuck. The leg hadn't acted up for the last few days, and I'd almost forgotten about the old injury. Maybe it had even been healing a bit; I probably just tore something when I was smashing those chairs downstairs, put a little too much weight on it. I groaned, lifted myself back up on my good leg, and hobbled into my bathroom to grab the bottle of pain pills in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror.

  It was empty.

  I stared at the empty little orange bottle, thinking back. After the second or third session with Linda, the pain had stopped. I had another prescription from her, but hadn't bothered refilling it. Why, if the leg finally seemed to be healing on its own?

  And now, I didn't have any more meds for it.

  There was always another solution, though. I clumsily made my way back out into my bedroom, headed for the large armoire that stood against one wall. I pushed the rows of suits aside and reached for the back, where my fingers curled around the glass neck of a bottle that I'd hidden away in case I needed it on a rainy day.

  Well, that day had come, and it was fucking pouring down inside of my head. I pulled out the bottle of scotch, sloshing the amber liquid inside. Less than half full, but I knew that it would help both the pain in my leg and the agony inside of my head.

  I popped off the lid and took a long swig, letting the fire wash its way down my throat and burn away the foul taste of betrayal. The heat settled into my stomach, warming me and making me feel a little better about myself. I sent another gulp down after the first, stumbling back from the armoire over to my bed.

  Just a few more swallows later, the rest of the scotch was gone. I frowned at the empty bottle; I'd thought that it contained more. Oh well. I tossed it aside and watched as it clunked off of the carpet and rolled into a corner.

  I stood back up, now a little unsteady. Those gulps of scotch would help for the moment, but they wouldn't last me the full night. I needed to head out, grab another. I could try our house's bar, but since Sebastian moved back in, our family bar ended up dry more often than not. My brother never seemed to remember to restock anything that he finished.

  I made my way down the stairs to the first floor without taking too many stumbles, headed out into the front hall. I flipped open the box of keys on the wall, grabbed the key to my car. The scotch burned steadily in my belly, but I still had the coordination to drive. Things weren't spinning around me yet. I had plenty of time to go out and get another few drinks – and then I could always find a cab home, or just call one of the bimbos in my phone to get her back into my bed with me.

  I got my key into the car's ignition after a few missed tries, and started up its engine. I floored the car down the driveway and away from my house, away from memories of Linda. I headed out to go find a nearby liquor store or bar, go get myself good and drunk.

  In my head, I heard the whispering of old voices, ones that had left me alone for the last few weeks. I almost welcomed them back as old friends, even as they accused me of killing them. And it was the truth, wasn't it?

  I never told Linda about that, it was true. But she didn't need to know. No one needed to know about
the truth, and I knew how they'd look at me differently if they found out.

  I was a murderer. I hadn't killed them with my own gun, but I'd led them into that ambush, made the mistakes that got them killed. It was my fault, and the voices never let me forget it. This was my punishment, my Hell, for the sins that I'd committed.

  I pushed the accelerator down further to the floor, squinting as heavy white snowflakes swirled out of the darkness to plaster themselves against my windshield. Nearly to the edge of our property. I knew where the nearest liquor store was, had paid it plenty of visits. Hell, I probably ought to have just bought the damn thing, so at least I'd keep some profit from the money I spent there.

  I turned the wheel at the end of the driveway, but I didn't realize how fast the car was still traveling. I felt a sickening looseness under my hands as the tires locked up and slid across the freshly fallen snow, the car skewing sideways. I knew to steer into the skid, but the darkness outside, the swirling white snowflakes, made my head spin as the scotch sloshed back and forth inside me. I twisted the wheel, once again mashing the accelerator-

  A sudden crunch, a jolt that seemed to tear my entire body in two, and then blackness.

  Chapter Twenty

  LINDA

  *

  To Callie's utter surprise, I didn't really want to drink the wine.

  "You're sure?" she asked, looking askance at my still mostly full glass. "I find that after a few drinks, calling him and apologizing doesn't seem nearly as fun as heading out to the burlesque club in downtown and stuffing dollar bills into the G-strings of sexy men. And I was kind of planning on making that our next activity."

  I tried to smile, but it slipped off my face like water droplets running down a window. "I know it's not my fault," I said, shaking my head and wrapping my arms tighter around the couch pillow I held in my lap. "If it was my fault, something that I did, I would definitely want the drink. But I did the right thing, I know that."

  "You did," Callie nodded, patting me on the back. "But it still sucks that you're being punished for it."

  I leaned against her, feeling her short brown hair brush against my neck. For some reason, I always expected it to feel as spiky as it appeared, but it turned out to be soft and yielding, almost like the fur of a kitten. "I just need to hope that he understands," I said softly. "And maybe, once he calms down, he'll realize that he isn't yet fully healed."

  We sat together on the couch in silence for a few more minutes, just leaning against each other. Callie still held her own wine glass in her lap, but didn't lift it up to her lips. After a while, she picked it up and set it back on the coffee table in front of us, out of reach.

  "So what do you want to do instead?" she eventually asked. "Not see any men at all, tonight?"

  I shook my head. "Got any other suggestions?"

  "Actually, I do. There's a new season of Gilmore Girls. Why don't we put that on, make a bunch of popcorn, and shout at the screen whenever they do something stupid?"

  A smile forced its way out onto my lips. "That sounds nice."

  Callie rubbed my back one last time, and then hopped up to her feet. "Let's do it!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together and bouncing on the balls of her feet. The action reminded me that she spent her days as an elementary school teacher, cheering on a bunch of kids, and my own smile grew.

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "You're on popcorn duty," Callie decided, pointing her finger at me. "I'll handle getting a bunch of blankets and pillows, so that we can build ourselves a fort. Meet back here in ten minutes!"

  "It's a tiny apartment; it's not like there's anywhere we can go where we'll be out of earshot of each other," I had to point out, but she'd already turned and dashed off to my bedroom. I laughed and climbed up from the couch, setting my own untouched wine glass aside and heading into the kitchen to make a few bags of popcorn.

  Two episodes and nearly three hours later, the popcorn bowl was running empty despite being refilled twice, and I felt much better. We lay on my floor in a sea of pillows and blankets that Callie had scavenged from my bed, other chairs, and even the hall closet. Some of the popcorn sat on the carpet in front of the television from when we'd thrown it at characters making particularly stupid choices, shouting at them to reconsider and think things through, but most of it went in my stomach. I felt comfortably full and wonderfully warm, distracted from thoughts of Richard.

  I wondered whether my memories of him would return after Callie left, when I crawled back into bed. He'd only stayed over at my place a few times, since his giant mansion featured every amenity that we could possibly need, but I still sometimes caught a faint whiff of his scent on my sheets or pillows.

  I'd miss him. I missed him now, even while distracted by Rory and Lorelai's antics. He was the only man I'd slept with in a long time, and if there hadn't been that little part of him that he refused to share, I could have imagined spending a long time with him. Richard had hidden depths, a kind streak that, although he tried his hardest to hide and cover it up, still shone through in his moments alone with me. He'd take me roughly, dominate me, but he always paid close attention to me, ready to immediately stop if anything was wrong, always trying to find new ways to give me pleasure.

  "I could have loved him," I said aloud, making Callie jump a little from where she'd lain with her eyes fluttering sleepily.

  "What?"

  "Richard," I said softly, looking down into the empty popcorn bowl. "If things had turned out differently, I might have loved him."

  "Might have?" she repeated. "Lindy, I don't think that love works that way."

  I glanced over at her. "What do you mean?"

  Callie shrugged, reaching up to wipe some of the sleep from her eyes. "It's too late for philosophy discussion," she groaned. "But I think that love is something you know about right away."

  "What, you look at a guy and fall in love? Is that what happened with our hot waiter from the brunch place?"

  "No, I don't look at a guy and fall in love with him," she said, her eyes unfocused and speaking softly. "But I look at a guy and I fall in love with who he could be. I see all his best traits, and I imagine spending forever with them, how they'll fit with my own. And I think that, if he wants to be the best man that he can be, that love becomes stronger and more real with every day spent together."

  The psychiatrist part of my brain wanted to point out problems with this, reasons why it wouldn't work. I squashed those thoughts, however, and reached over to put my arms around Callie. "I like that," I told her. "Falling in love with a man for who he could be, not for his imperfections and flaws."

  "If everyone was perfect, we'd never have to work for anything," she observed, hugging me back. "And that's part of why love, true, real love, is rare, I think. People want it to come ready-made; they don't want to have to work at it to build it for themselves."

  I could have built that love with Richard. Laying there on the floor with Callie, I tried to imagine loving him, truly caring about him so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

  It wasn't hard to imagine at all.

  My daydreams started to swallow me, even as Callie's eyes again began fluttering next to me – but I was jolted out of them by a buzzing noise that suddenly cut into my introspection. "Cell phone," Callie muttered.

  "Yours?"

  "No, mine makes bird chirping noises when it rings. The kids love it. That's got to be yours."

  I climbed up to my feet and crossed the treacherous sea of pillows and blankets on the floor, making my way over to the little kitchen table where I'd left my purse. I reached inside and tugged out my vibrating cell phone, frowning at the number. I didn't recognize it, but I swiped across the phone's screen and held it up to my ear.

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, is this Dr. Bisson?"

  "Yes, speaking," I answered. "Who is this, please?"

  "This is Dr. Carter, with the Hennepin County Medical Center." I frowned, wondering why the
area's trauma center was calling me. "We just had a car crash victim come in, and you're listed as his doctor of record..."

  Dr. Carter said something else, but my mind blanked it out. "Do you have the patient's name?" I asked, even as the blood in my veins chilled and turned to ice.

  "I do. One moment." I heard the doctor flipping through charts. "Here it is. Richard Stone – he's got you listed as his most recent doctor. Is there someone else that I should call?"

  "No, can you just hold on one moment?" I lowered the phone, cupping my hand over the bottom, and looked over at Callie with wide eyes. "What do I do?"

  "What happened?" she asked, although she'd almost certainly already heard everything.

  "Car accident, he says. And if they're calling me, it's probably serious." I couldn't think. My mind felt as though someone had stuffed it full of gauze. "What do I do?"

  Callie didn't hesitate. "Tell him we're on our way," she answered, standing up and brushing popcorn crumbs off her shirt. "You can drive, since I've had some wine, but I'm still coming with you."

  Ordinarily, I might have protested, but now I felt a huge rush of gratitude towards Callie for being willing to drop her peaceful night and come with me to the hospital. She truly was a great best friend.

  "We'll be there in just a few minutes," I told Dr. Carter. I got the room number from him, jotting it down on the back of my palm with a ballpoint pen, and then hung up.

  Hennepin County Medical Center wasn't too far away – the largest Level 1 trauma center in the region, it sat right in the middle of downtown, with an attached parking garage. We hurried into the hospital, the place lit up with bright lights and bustling with activity despite the late hour. I immediately headed for the emergency room, walking around the circle of rooms surrounding the central nurse's station until I spotted Richard's room number.

  I paused at the entrance to the room, taking a deep breath as my heart sped up inside my chest. Callie stepped up beside me and reached out to lay her hand softly on my shoulder.