It's Always Been You

by Jessica Scott

  * * *

  “Whose files did you drop off?” she asked as they drove out of Fort Hood’s main gate.

  He couldn’t quite figure out what he was doing with the lawyer. She sat next to him in his truck, her hands twisting in her lap. She was nervous, that much he could tell. She was usually always so confident, so strict and businesslike.

  To see her a little nervous? A little vulnerable? It did something to his insides. Made him a little bit hungry for something he couldn’t have.

  He fiddled with the radio, needing something to fill the silence and derail his thoughts from the dangerous direction they were taking. “Remis, Bisco, and Hooch. Why?”

  “I want to mark them off on my tracker.” She pulled out a tiny notepad from her shoulder pocket and jotted down the names.

  “Tracker?”

  “I’m keeping tabs on every file that I’ve pushed out to commanders and how long they’ve had it.”

  Ben glanced at her. Her eyes were hidden beneath brown Wiley-X glasses. “That seems a little…”

  “Anal?”

  Ben lifted an eyebrow and suddenly found the leather of his steering wheel fascinating. “You said it, not me.”

  Olivia turned her head toward the passing traffic. The muscles in her neck tensed. “I’ve had problems with packets disappearing,” she said quietly. “Commanders not turning them in, sergeants not getting the required paperwork. Then I’m stuck answering for them and bad soldiers are still here. There was one time a commander decided to retain an NCO…”

  Her words faded. There was a memory there. A subtle undercurrent to her words. A tension beyond her usual stiffness. It filled the cab of his old truck, an insidious thing.

  “It still bothers you.” He turned toward the Country and Western store where she could get her Stetson.

  She clenched her jaw. It was a long time before she answered. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  He glanced over at her. “Must have been a big deal for you to be upset about it after all this time.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get over it completely,” she admitted. She lifted one shoulder and dropped it. She looked over at him, her mouth pressed into a flat, cynical line. “I failed to protect a family. The boss didn’t listen to me.” A deep breath, filled with regret. “A week later, the sergeant’s entire family was dead in a murder–suicide.” She paused and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “It still hurts. I wish it didn’t but it does.” A painful admission.

  “That was the case you told me about.” He didn’t bother to hide the sympathy in his voice.

  Her fingers tightened in her lap, her eyes dark with emotions as raw today as they must have been the day it happened. She hadn’t dealt with their deaths. Not at all. He could see that in the bleak emptiness looking back at him. “It’s all said and done now. Not much I can do about it except learn from my mistakes.”

  “Why do you do that?” he asked suddenly.

  “Do what?”

  “Brush things off.” He rolled to a stop at a light. “You get so fired up about things, so passionate, but when something hurts, you brush it off.”

  “I don’t like remembering painful things,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t help anything.”

  “Neither does running from the memories,” he said. He looked over at her, surprised by the vulnerability in her voice. “Everyone makes mistakes, Olivia.”

  Her smile was sad and filled her eyes. “My mistakes got someone killed,” she whispered.

  “You didn’t make the choice to go home to an abuser,” he said.

  “It’s so much more complicated than that,” she said. “The army protected him when they should have protected her.” She paused, looking away. “I could have done more.”

  She looked so lost, so alone. He reached for her then, because he couldn’t stop himself. He brushed his thumb over her cheek. A gentle touch. Something he shouldn’t have done but something he wouldn’t regret. “You can keep telling yourself that,” he whispered. “But it won’t make it so.”

  Silence wound between them. Her skin was warm beneath his touch. Her breath huffed over his knuckles. Her lips were parted, a tiny space that he had a sudden longing to taste.

  He searched her eyes, looking for what, he didn’t know.

  A horn blared behind him, jolting him out of the moment.

  She looked away, but not before he noticed the flush creeping over her skin.

  “Do you have a first sergeant now?” Olivia asked. The obvious change of subject wasn’t lost on Ben.

  He let it ride for now. Her admission revealed a complex woman beneath the hard adherence to the rules and regulations, and suddenly Ben found himself wanting to know more about the very real, very complicated person that she worked so hard to hide.

  There was more to this woman, so much more.

  And Ben wanted to know all of it. She pulled at him in a way that a woman hadn’t pulled at him in a long, long time.

  He parked outside the Western wear store and led her into the depths. A bell jangled over the door. The smell of leather permeated the air, thick and heavy and clean. Boots were stacked on boxes, displaying every style under the sun.

  At the counter an old man was steaming a Stetson. “Be with you in a second,” he said without looking up.

  Olivia looked up at Ben who shrugged. “Need some cowboy boots while you’re here? Embrace your inner Texan?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have an inner Texan.”

  “Everyone has an inner Texan. Most folks just don’t figure it out until it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yeah. They find out they really did have an inner Texan while they’re—oh, I don’t know—freezing their asses off in Alaska or South Korea.” Ben pulled a tan hat off one of the racks. “Think the sergeant major would like my substitution?”

  “Aren’t you the guy who wears the trucker hats just to piss him off?” Olivia asked, fighting the urge to grin.

  Ben grinned wickedly even as a flush crept up his neck. “You heard about that, huh?”

  “Everyone has heard about it. The clerks in the adjutant’s office were trying to figure out if Sergeant Major Cox had really kicked you in the tail on the way out of the ops.”

  Ben lifted both eyebrows, putting the hat back on the rack. “The sarn’t major might be grumpy but he’ll have to get up a lot earlier than that to take me out.”

  The old man behind the counter finished what he was doing and planted himself at the edge of the counter. “What kind of cord do you need?”

  Olivia looked at the wizened old cowboy like he’d lost his mind. “Um…”

  It took everything Ben had not to point out the obvious officer rank in the middle of Olivia’s chest. The old man took in Olivia’s confusion and grunted, “Officer,” before turning away to pluck the black and gold braided cord from a hook. “Here.”

  He handed her a Stetson and started fiddling with the cord while Olivia tried to figure out the two leather straps on the inside of the hat.

  Ben tugged it from her hands. “Like this.” He loosened the straps and put the hat on her head, tugging the leather straps over the bun at the base of her skull.

  She adjusted it. “It’s tight.”

  “It’s supposed to fit snug. Otherwise, it’ll blow off in the first gust of wind.”

  She glanced at his Stetson. “What are the knots on the front of yours?”

  Ben picked his own Stetson up. On the front of the cord were two knots on either side of the center loop. “Combat knots.” Olivia’s gaze flicked to Ben’s right shoulder. “Why does this matter so much to you?” he asked.

  “Because I haven’t earned a combat patch.” Olivia lifted the Stetson from her head and smoothed her hair back into place. She looked down at her new Stetson, gleaming black and unformed. “You earn your place in the world,” she said softly.

  She was lost, he realized. Adrift in the newness of being in the Cav, a new unit and on
e where she was utterly alone. But there was more to this than simply being in a new place. He stepped closer to her, close enough to see the blue streaks in her eyes, and gave in to the urge to tilt her face up to meet his gaze. “Who let you down, Olivia?” he whispered.

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. But she didn’t pull away from his touch. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  But it did. Oh, but it did. She mattered, but now was neither the time nor the place. He slipped her Stetson from her hands and handed it to the old cowboy. “Shape it up?”

  “No problem, boyo.”

  Olivia wandered off, clearly trying to avoid the rest of the conversation. Ben was tempted to follow her, to find out what was so damned important about earning the big horsehead patch, but something about the way she stared aimlessly at the wall of boots on display had him holding back.

  There was a strange truce between them now. She tugged at him.

  And despite everything that happened between them, he savored the delicious pull toward this complicated, driven woman. He wanted. He could admit that to himself, at least. He wanted to see if the passion he saw when she was at work carried over to the rest of her life.

  He watched her then and saw the damaged woman she tried to conceal behind a cool professional façade.

  And he let himself wonder what if.

  Chapter Seven

  Olivia was silent on the ride back to post. She felt rude but she couldn’t explain to Ben why wearing a combat patch was important to her. Why buying the Stetson felt pretentious and fake—because she didn’t feel like she belonged and the Stetson only accentuated that feeling.

  It wasn’t about fitting in. It was about legitimacy, about being good enough to deserve to wear the combat patch. It was about being part of a team that would stand with you when things went to shit. She was tired of pretending to fit in, only to find herself alone when things went a little nuts.

  The combat patch was important to her, more so than the Stetson that seemed so important to everyone. There were cases—too many cases—of officers flying to Kuwait and staying for thirty days, just so they could wear a combat patch. Their duplicity tainted the entire system and cut away at their credibility. Such cases might be just an urban legend but it planted a seed of fear. Fear that she would not be taken seriously.

  And Olivia needed her credibility. It was the most important thing she had. But trying to explain that to a man who wore his confidence with casual arrogance? Ben Teague had probably never had a hard day fitting in in his life.

  No matter how hard Olivia worked, she would never feel like it was enough. She would never trust that she would have someone standing next to her.

  And so she said nothing. Because it was better than opening her mouth and sounding like an insecure idiot.

  Ben pulled into the parking lot and parked his truck. Silence was heavy and thick and awkward between them. “You’re being quiet,” he said.

  “Just thinking about work,” she said, trying to brush off his concern. She wasn’t ready to do deep and introspective with him.

  Some things were better left alone.

  “You keep running away every time I ask a personal question.” His voice sounded off. She glanced back at him. “If you keep it up, I might think you don’t like me or something. Male egos are notoriously easy to bruise.”

  She blinked at his remark: offhanded but serious beneath the light comment. “You keep asking questions about something that isn’t there.”

  “What, you’re a Cylon? No human feelings? ’Cause that would be pretty awesome.”

  Her lip twitched. “I love Battlestar Galactica.”

  Ben lifted his sunglasses and peered at her. “Really? You lawyer types don’t like CSI and stuff?”

  She shook her head. “They get so much wrong, I can’t watch.” She sniffed. “I don’t get to watch much TV at any rate.” She glanced down at her watch. “I’ll send you a note later on the rest of the packets I need back. Zittoro’s should have been processed already?”

  If she hadn’t been watching him, she might have missed the slight tightening of his grip on the steering wheel.

  “Zittoro’s on emergency leave,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “I’ll have it completed when he gets back.”

  Olivia stilled, watching him. “When did he go on leave?” She didn’t bother to hide the suspicion in her voice.

  “Today. Emergency at home.”

  More lies. Olivia’s chest tightened. It was the same old song and dance. Commanders hiding their soldiers’ misconduct. Keeping bad soldiers in the army.

  Hiding the crimes that the “good soldiers” never committed.

  The anger rose from a bottomless pit inside her. Her breath was tight in her chest. “I’ll make a note of that for the battalion commander,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal. It sounded harsh and ragged to her ears.

  “Don’t do that.”

  She fought to keep the rage out of her voice. Fought for calm. “Why not?”

  “Because I haven’t briefed him on it yet. And that’s something a commander should tell a commander.”

  Olivia felt the leash on her temper snap. “You’re lying to me,” she said through clenched teeth. “Stop. Lying to me.”

  “This isn’t about you,” he said. “This is about me taking care of one of my soldiers.”

  Olivia’s hands shook. The cold plastic of the door handle burned her skin. She shoved open the door and slammed it shut, rounding the truck. She yanked open his door and jammed a finger in his direction. “You’re sitting on a packet. That soldier needs to be out of the army uniform and you’re sitting on it. You have no right—”

  “I have every right!” Ben stepped out of the truck, forcing her to back up or fall. “You met Zittoro. You saw the kind of kid he is. How can you push all of that aside and say he needs to be out of the army when he has nothing to fall back on?”

  “Because I’ve seen how this movie ends, Ben,” she whispered. “And it’s not going to have a happily ever after. Addiction doesn’t just go away with a little magical thinking.”

  “You don’t know that. He could get clean.”

  “He could.” Her voice caught on the ragged edge that threatened to choke her. “But you don’t have the right to keep him on active duty to take that risk.” She swallowed the bitter sadness of her words. “I wish it were otherwise but it’s not.”

  “Don’t tell me what I have the right to do or not do.” Ben radiated quiet, unspent fury. His eyes flashed, his mouth was a hard line, his words filled with quiet anger. “I’m a company commander or so everyone keeps telling me. If I want to sit on this kid’s packet so that he can get some goddamned college money, I’m allowed to do that.”

  “The packet is complete,” she said. “And you’re sitting on it. The battalion commander charged me with cleaning up this battalion. That means this soldier has to go home.” She tried to take a deep breath. Tried to fight the rage that burned behind her eyes and threatened to embarrass her.

  “And he will go home,” Ben said quietly, his voice low and filled with frustration and something else. Sadness lined with regret. It was killing him to put this soldier out of the army. This was a side of Ben Teague she’d never seen. Her heart broke for him even as she stood there and argued with him. “When he’s back off leave.”

  “Why are you protecting this soldier?” she whispered. The man who’d tried to make her laugh was long gone. In his place was this commander, this man who looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  An aching pity rose inside her. Raw and powerful. But she shut it down. She did not want to feel pity for this man.

  She’d been an army lawyer for years now. She’d seen the terrible things that soldiers did to one another. She’d seen the worst of the army and what that did to commanders who cared about their soldiers.

  Some took it as a personal failing that their soldiers had gotten into trouble. Others made it a crusade to thro
w as many soldiers out as they could.

  But all of them were worn down beneath the weight of the guidon.

  It hadn’t even been a week but she could see the change in him since they’d met.

  “It’s the right thing to do,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “How? How is throwing him out of the army the right thing to do?”

  “Because he’s an addict. And we don’t have the resources to treat him if he doesn’t want to get clean. And even if he does want to, that’s no guarantee. Addiction is a powerful thing.” She took a deep breath, remembering the lost kid she’d run with the other day. Ben couldn’t save him. Didn’t he see that? “You have to prepare this team to deploy into combat. You can’t do that if you’re chasing around after all the kids you refuse to send home.”

  He looked at her then, his eyes hard and flat. “Have you ever done this? Have you ever had to look in someone’s eyes and tell them they were going home when you know they’ve been through some horrific shit downrange?”

  “That’s not an excuse for doing drugs.”

  “I know that. Damn it, I know that.” He sighed roughly. “That doesn’t mean I can’t understand it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking burn to put him out knowing he’s got problems that are bigger than what he’s capable of dealing with.”

  “How does that make this the army’s problem?” she demanded, irritated at his recalcitrance to do his job.

  She could see him breathing hard. His breath forcing its way in and out of his lungs as he just stood there.

  His gaze flicked to her right shoulder, bereft of the patch she craved.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said quietly. He looked away, the veins in his neck standing out in stark relief against his skin. “He needs this. It’s one tiny bit of hope and if I can’t do something good for one of my guys, then nothing I do matters.”

  * * *

  Ben didn’t usually pick fights he couldn’t win. He didn’t usually fight at all. But that argument with Olivia played over and over in his head. She was going to ruin the one chance he had to do something good for one of his boys.