It's Always Been You

by Jessica Scott

  He was so furious at being told he was taking command. The rest of the men had stiffened with awareness. Excitement. Command was the greatest reward for an officer’s hard work—a chance to lead soldiers and make a difference. Olivia would command in a heartbeat if she could. Successful commanders made their units better places.

  Why didn’t this dark and angry captain want the job?

  She lifted her chin. Whether or not the pissed off captain took the job wasn’t her problem. Her job was to help clean up this unit. She’d been asked personally to assist by the division commander—she’d been on his staff many moons ago when she’d been a brand new shiny lieutenant and she’d loved working for him. He’d been decisive. He’d been a mentor.

  She hadn’t been able to say no when he’d asked her to help this battalion.

  “Gentlemen, I need time with each of you to go over the current status of your legal situations.” She pointed to the stacks of folders in front of her. “I’ve got each company’s information here. Please take your files and look them over before you come see me.”

  Gilliad nodded once in her direction. “Olivia is the best at what she does. We are going to clean this battalion up.”

  The angry captain shifted and she saw his nametag. Teague.

  “Motherfucker,” he muttered, loud enough for the entire room to hear.

  “Teague!” Sarn’t Major Cox exploded but LTC Gilliad held up his hand.

  “In my office. Now, captain.”

  Teague shoved off the wall and stalked out of the conference room, followed closely by the battalion commander.

  She watched him go, her gaze hanging on the man struggling with such fierce resentment at being given a great honor. What kind of man interrupted his battalion commander?

  What kind of man was so angry at the chance to be a leader?

  She pushed her thoughts away. He was not her problem. She focused on the men in front of her as they stopped by the conference room table.

  A tall, lean captain with dark hair and green eyes stopped near the table. “Sean Nichols, ma’am. Do we have any discretion in these cases?”

  “What kind of discretion are you talking about, Captain Nichols?”

  “In general. Do we get to say this kid did a dumb thing and he deserves a second chance?”

  There was nothing Olivia could say. She knew there was a difference between the right answer and the legal answer, and even the army answer. “That’s going to be a conversation between you and the battalion commander.”

  The tall captain nodded once and left, and after another moment, Olivia was alone in the conference room with the sergeant major.

  She didn’t quite know what to think of Sergeant Major Cox. He was her height but stocky and he looked mean as hell. She definitely wasn’t used to his kind outside of the hospital headquarters where she used to work.

  “Things are going to get rough around here, ma’am,” he said after a long silence. His voice sounded like gravel and rocks.

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “You start taking away people’s livelihoods and things start getting tense. So while I have no doubt that the new command teams can handle things, just watch yourself around here. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re having problems with any soldier.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” she said, not wanting to alienate the command sergeant major. “I’ve seen the misconduct you have down in this battalion, Sergeant Major. The quantity doesn’t even come close to some of the terrible things I’ve seen.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Cox rubbed his hand over his mouth. “One more thing. You see that?”

  He pointed toward a black cowboy hat with gold cord wrapped around the base that he’d carried in with him. “Yes?”

  “Get one. You can’t be assigned here without it.”

  She smiled flatly. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”

  She couldn’t care less about the silly hat, but she just smiled and nodded and headed to her next meeting.

  She was here to do a job, not buy a hat and the swagger that went along with it.

  Chapter Two

  “There really needs to be a good reason my phone is ringing at four a.m. on a Tuesday.” Ben leaned his head into his palm and held the phone to his ear. He’d just fallen asleep a half hour before and right then, he felt like committing murder and mayhem.

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  Ben sat up, instantly awake at the familiar voice. “Escoberra?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben blinked rapidly, trying to clear his brain and think about why Escoberra would be calling him this early. Or at all.

  Then he remembered. He was the commander.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No. Just. I need my commander here—and that happens to be you. As soon as you can get here.” His voice broke and the line went dead.

  Cold slithered down Ben’s spine as he sat for a moment. His hands shook as bitter, angry memories crashed over him, none of them good. He sat and breathed deeply, trying to let them go as opposed to stuffing them back down again.

  But they were relentless, pounding away on the inside of his skull like the thundering of artillery on a distant battlefield.

  His lungs ached but the memory came anyway. Once again, he was standing at the position of attention in front of his commander.

  “Sir, I gave the order.”

  “You were flat on your ass getting your guts stitched up.” His battalion commander looked at him. “The enemy broke through six t-wall barriers, killed four of your men, and you’re telling me you gave the order to pursue in direct defiance of my orders.”

  Ben exhaled sharply, the memory as raw as it had been four years ago.

  Funny how therapy never worked outside the office.

  But after a minute, he stopped thinking about when things had started fraying at the edges and focused on the here and now. And that meant getting his ass up and on post. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old sweatshirt. The jagged scar on his belly itched and he rubbed it absently before he rinsed his mouth then headed out the door.

  It didn’t bother him so much anymore. Except when it did.

  Fifteen minutes later, he flashed his ID card at the emergency room entrance and asked at the desk for Escoberra.

  He was not prepared to see two young MPs guarding him. “Jesus, what happened?”

  Escoberra looked up, his eyes red and watery—from drinking or crying, Ben couldn’t tell. “Hailey. They said I beat Hailey.”

  Time froze as Ben looked at a man he’d worshiped and saw now as a broken, beaten man. “Is she okay?”

  Jesus, how old was Hailey now? Fifteen? Sixteen? Ben couldn’t remember. It had been so long since he’d seen her.

  “They’re checking her out now.” Escoberra covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know.”

  Ben sucked in a deep breath, his brain racing. What the hell was he supposed to do? He scrubbed his hand over his mouth. “I’ll go see if I can find anything out,” he said quietly.

  He stepped outside the small room and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes against the unexpected sting.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  He opened his eyes at the familiar voice. Captain Emily Lindberg stood near his shoulder, looking neat and prim in a white lab coat.

  Emily had started dating Sergeant First Class Reza Iaconelli, one of Ben’s good friends, a few months ago. Despite their being from completely different worlds, she and Reza worked together. Luckily for Ben, his best friend’s significant other was a resident shrink at the hospital.

  “You look far too awake right now,” he said by way of greeting.

  “I’ve been here since last night,” Emily said. “I’ve been mainlining coffee since about 9 p.m.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What’s got you in here?”

  Ben breathed out hard. “Apparently I’m a company commander now.”

  She
made a sympathetic noise. “Reza mentioned that.”

  “I have a soldier who may have put his—” Ben stopped, his throat blocked. There was a long pause before he cleared his throat roughly. “His daughter’s being examined. Can you help me find out any info?”

  He liked Emily, but for a brief second he thought she was going to grip his shoulder or show some sympathy. Ben wasn’t sure he could hold himself together. Not for that.

  “Sure. What’s her name?”

  “Hailey Escoberra.”

  “Give me a few.”

  Ben went back into the room with the two military police and Escoberra and stared at the cops. “Do you two really need to be here?”

  He shouldn’t be a dick but he didn’t like what their presence implied.

  He couldn’t wrap his brain around what it all meant.

  “Are you taking custody of him, sir?” the little female private asked.

  “Yes,” was all he said. It might have been true, it might not have. Ben didn’t know and he didn’t care. But he damn sure wasn’t going to let them continue to sit there and treat Escoberra like a criminal.

  “We’re going to need him to be brought to CID tomorrow,” the private said.

  “Call my ops tomorrow. Later today. Whatever.” Ben nudged a small black stool out from beneath the stainless steel sink.

  For a moment Ben thought they were going to argue but then, mercifully, they left.

  “What happened?” he finally said when he was sure he could speak.

  “I don’t know.” Escoberra leaned back against the wall, his face a mask of misery and guilt. “Hailey was arguing with her little brother and the next thing I know, we’re here.”

  Ben looked away. Down at his hands, clenched into useless fists in his lap. He wanted to ask but was terrified of the answer. If Escoberra was so drunk he didn’t remember doing it… Jesus, he couldn’t even think it.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Ben opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it closed again. The door opened and Escoberra’s wife Carmen walked in. Her eyes were red, her jaw set. She smiled sadly when she saw Ben. “Hey, stranger.”

  Ben stood and hugged the woman he’d asked to adopt him once upon a time when he’d been a renegade lieutenant and Carmen had love and giving and kindness to spare.

  She was everything his own mother wasn’t.

  “How’s Hailey?” he asked, wondering where Emily was.

  “She’s fine. Three stitches on her shoulder.” Carmen slipped from his arms and moved to Escoberra. She knelt in front of him, cupping his face. “She’s fine,” she whispered to her husband. “She wants to see you.”

  A sob ripped from Escoberra’s throat, violent and torn. He collapsed against his wife who knelt there, her arms tight around his neck.

  Ben slipped from the room, wishing he hadn’t been such a shit to let his friendship with Escoberra and his family lapse.

  “Hey?”

  Emily motioned for him to follow her. She closed the door in a separate exam room behind them.

  “This doesn’t bode well,” he said dryly.

  She didn’t smile. “The entire family is shutting down. No one will talk but the hospital has triggered a Child Protective Services case anyway.”

  Ben’s heart pounded in his throat. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means you need to call Olivia and get legal advice about what to do next.”

  Ben frowned. “Olivia?”

  “Major Olivia Hale. She’s a good friend of mine. Didn’t she just start working in your unit?”

  Ben thought of the rigid female major he’d seen in the conference room, what, yesterday? “Somehow, I don’t think she’s going to be up for a four—” he glanced at his watch. “Five a.m. phone call.”

  Emily moved then, sliding her fingers over his shoulder. His scars throbbed where she touched him. It took everything he had not to flinch. To stand straight and steady and hide his reaction from her.

  Because if what Reza said was true, Emily was pretty damn perceptive; and Ben wasn’t really up for sitting on her couch and spilling his guts.

  And he damn sure wasn’t about to call the lawyer.

  Bad things always happened when lawyers got involved. Like hell was he going to call her.

  * * *

  Olivia walked into the emergency room a half hour later. Her stomach wrenched with an all too familiar anxiety.

  Teague hadn’t called her. She was there only because Emily had given her a heads-up about the platoon sergeant in the hospital with his daughter.

  Granted, Emily had given Teague the benefit of the doubt but Olivia had her own suspicions about what was going on. She’d seen too many soldiers shielded by commanders, soldiers who had done terrible things.

  She hoped she was wrong, that a friend of Emily’s wouldn’t do something like that, but the fact that Emily had called her and not Teague didn’t bode well.

  Olivia was braced for a fight—not exactly high on her to-do list first thing in the morning, but it was her job.

  She walked into the back and found Emily talking to the tall, angry captain from the conference room.

  He wasn’t angry this morning. He looked wrecked, as if part of his soul had been taken outside and stomped. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

  She knew that look, etched into the lines around his dark eyes—the look of someone devastated by a doctor’s words. Old memories collided with the sterile reality of the emergency room and she shoved aside the churning emotions she saw on his face to focus on the facts.

  She walked up, palming her keys, id card, and cell phone in one hand while she extended the other. “Captain Teague?”

  He accepted her offered hand. Olivia wished she didn’t notice the strength in his fingers, the heat in his touch.

  She didn’t want to notice. She couldn’t.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, keeping her voice mild. She looked between Emily and Teague.

  “I’ll let him fill you in,” Emily said. “I’ve got to go make my rounds.” She glanced over at Teague. “Are you going to be okay?”

  It was one of the things that Olivia loved about Emily—her endless compassion. Teague looked at her, his eyes bleak. The compassion Olivia had felt earlier was back, stronger, urging her to offer comfort where she knew it would do little good.

  She deliberately took a step back, needing personal and professional distance from the torment she saw in his eyes.

  “I don’t really have a choice now, do I,” he said to Emily. There was irony in his voice, a deep-seated anger below the surface.

  She wondered why Emily didn’t call him on his response. But then she remembered that Emily had said Teague was a friend of Emily’s other half, Reza.

  That would explain things.

  Olivia folded her arms across her chest. “So what’s the story?”

  “Supposedly, there’s a Child Protective Services thing being triggered?” He sounded unsure. “The family wants him to come home. What do I do?”

  “Why is CPS involved?”

  “I don’t know.” He refused to look up at her, staring instead at his feet.

  She had the distinct sense that he was hiding something but she couldn’t get a read on what it could be. “Why is the daughter in the hospital?”

  “Three stitches.”

  Olivia took a deep breath. They could be here all day if this was how he answered questions, one at a time and excruciatingly slowly. “There’s a mandatory three-day cooling off period. You have to order him into the barracks and give him a no-contact order.”

  He looked up sharply at that information. “His wife wants him to come home.”

  “His wife doesn’t get a vote,” Olivia said simply. She’d seen this movie one too many times. The wife loved her husband, loved him enough to bring him home after an incident of domestic violence.

  The story too often ended the same way—with a dead
wife.

  It was worse, so much worse, when there were kids involved. Her heart ached as memories unfurled inside her. Memories of a time long past that, try though she might, she couldn’t forget.

  People were counting on her not to forget what it felt like to be that little girl in the exam room.

  Olivia took a deep breath and focused on the here and now, shoving away the bad memories. Judge each case on its own merit.

  Teague straightened. “What do you mean, his wife doesn’t get a vote?”

  “You don’t have a choice in giving him the no-contact order and putting him in the barracks for the cooling off period,” Olivia said. “That’s dictated by higher headquarters.”

  She watched his eyes darken as the meaning of her words sank in.

  She braced for the argument. She narrowed her eyes, studying him, trying to get a read on the man in front of her as she listed the other formalities.

  “Okay,” he said simply after a pause.

  “You don’t look too happy about it,” she said softly.

  The muscle in his jaw pulsed; his neck was tight and tense. He looked away, down the shiny hallway. “I’m not.”

  Olivia let the silence hang on for a moment. “The first ninety days in command are always the roughest,” she said quietly.

  He grunted in response. “Thanks for the encouragement.”

  He pushed away from the wall and headed down the hallway. Olivia watched him go. He was hiding something.

  But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what.

  She’d have ample opportunity, though, in the coming months. She signed out of the emergency room and headed to her car, making a note of the case information for her spreadsheet.

  She’d never lose track of another case. Ever again.

  * * *

  “Captain Teague!”

  Ben stiffened behind his company formation. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Sarn’t Major Cox, not after spending the last two hours getting Escoberra and his family out of the hospital. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for keeping Escoberra away from his family.