She believed he’d come home. As long as she continued to believe that, his world would continue to exist.
She brushed her thumb over his bottom lip. She blinked rapidly and the sight of her tears almost penetrated the cold empty space where his heart had been. “I just wish it got a little easier waiting for you, that’s all.” Her fingers wrapped around his dog tags, her thumb sliding along the chain. “But we’ll be here when you get back. We always are.”
He ran his fingers lightly over her face. The lie he’d told his wife so often sat like a concrete wall between them. She didn’t know that he’d volunteered for this deployment, for so many others, and he had no way of killing the lie without killing their marriage. “Don’t go getting a deployment boyfriend while I’m gone.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Laura wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling his neck. They stood for a long moment before Laura eased away.
Trent swallowed and let her go. Again.
* * *
Five hours later, Trent kissed his wife good-bye for the fourth time in six years. His four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter were getting antsy, climbing up and down the bleachers nonstop. As he walked away from the gym where he and the rest of his unit had checked in for the deployment, he glanced up at her in the stands. She was steady. Stoic. Trying valiantly not to join the ranks of the wives and children who were crying as their soldiers left them, assault packs and weapons in hand. God but he wished he didn’t have to go. That he was man enough to stay home and fix whatever was broken inside him. Wished that he was man enough to need her more than the heady, uncertain terror of war.
“You ready, sir?”
Trent glanced over at First Sarn’t Roy Story, a man who’d taught Trent the right way to kick in doors and the difference between knowing when to wipe a nose or whip an ass. The war was lined into Story’s leathery face. Fifteen years as an infantryman that had started in Mogadishu and continued with the long slog through Iraq.
“Are we ever really ready for this?” Trent asked, taking one more long look at his wife and kids. And then he turned away, needing to harden his heart for the battles to come.
Outside, Trent climbed aboard the bus that would take them to the airfield. Spouses filed out from the gym along the sidewalk. In the seat behind him, Sergeant Vic Carponti was harassing one of Trent’s platoon sergeants, Sergeant First Class Shane Garrison. He almost smiled. With those two around, things would never be dull.
He scanned the crowd, searching for his wife among the blurry faces of other people’s spouses lining the sidewalk. There. She held her vigil in front of a light pole, a tiny hand in each of hers. Beside her, Ethan stood bravely, tears streaming down his face. He held a tiny salute, his mouth pressed into a flat line as he tried to be a tough little man. Emma waved brightly at the bus, still too little to fully understand that Daddy was leaving for longer than a trip to the grocery store.
He looked away but it was far, far too late. When he closed his eyes, the image of his small family was seared onto his retinas as the bus pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the airfield.
“Never gets any easier, does it?” Story asked quietly, sucking on the end of an unlit cigar while he fiddled with a light on his helmet. There was little love left between Story and his wife. Story deployed to avoid his wife.
But Trent deployed to avoid his life. Because life back in the rear was too complicated, too loud, too chaotic. War was simpler.
The scar on his chest ached and he rubbed it, wishing he could forget the way his family looked as the bus pulled away.
He closed his eyes, trying to put them out of his mind. He didn’t want to remember his wife with her cheeks streaked with tears, or the raw grief in her eyes. He wanted to remember her face as she slept curled into his side. Or laughing with their kids. He needed to carry those memories into war with him. Because that was all that would steel him against the long hours and bone-crushing fatigue to come.
He had soldiers to command. His family would be there when he came home.
He hoped.
Chapter One
Fort Irwin, California 2008
One year later…
Trent walked out of the ops tent, needing a few minutes to himself. They’d just sent word that the wife of a kid in one of the companies was in the hospital. She was going into labor while her husband was enjoying the fun and sun of the National Training Center.
At least the kid wasn’t deployed. He’d be able to get home quickly. Sure, not as quickly as if he was back at Fort Hood, but still. It beat the hell out of trying to get home from Iraq.
The notification was something simple, and yet it had struck Trent that yet another soldier was going to miss the birth of his child because of the army.
He knew exactly how that felt, and right then bitter memories rose up, reminding him of everything he’d willingly squandered. The resurrected hurt was so raw, the regret so powerful, he nearly choked on it.
He should have been used to the hurt by now, but lately it seemed to be getting worse. It overwhelmed the dead space inside him, forcing him to feel things he didn’t want—and wasn’t ready—to feel.
He didn’t know how to feel them, how to deal with them. So for the moment he sat outside the ops tent and let the raging emotions storm inside him. Until he could get them under control. Until he could function again.
It had been happening more and more this year. The things he’d stuffed away had started having a nasty habit of reappearing when he least expected them.
He was starting to get too comfortable with the crazy, but at least now he was starting to recognize the warning signs. Which was why he was sitting outside the ops tent.
“So your BFF Marshall is looking for you.” Story walked out of the ops tent, a smirk on his face that only meant bad things for Trent. It was so strange calling him “master sergeant” instead of “first sergeant,” but Story wasn’t a first sergeant anymore. Just like Trent was no longer a commander.
Trent sat on the hood of a Humvee, smoking a cigar and contemplating his sixth cup of coffee since he’d come on shift twelve hours ago. He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose then glanced over as Story hopped up next to him.
Since they’d both been fired more than a year ago, they’d been hanging out on the staff together, responsible for nothing but PowerPoint slides. Funny how getting fired meant giving up the hard jobs in the army. You still got to stay in the army, but you just weren’t trusted with taking care of soldiers anymore. It was a punishment, being put in the easy jobs. Trent would have given anything to get his old job as a company commander back, but that wasn’t going to happen so he and Story and Iaconelli kept each other sane and avoided the new commander. Captain James T. Marshall the Third drove everyone fucking crazy.
“Should I be worried?” Trent asked dryly, adjusting his glasses again. He’d long ago given up getting upset when Marshall attempted to piss in his cornflakes. Marshall had been tapped to take over Trent’s company when he’d gotten himself fired and Marshall took great pleasure in reminding everyone that he was fixing all the things that Trent had screwed up. It grated on Trent’s last nerve every time the words, “Well sir, I’m still fixing the mess I was left when I took over” came out of Marshall’s mouth at staff meetings, but what could Trent say? He had gotten fired. It didn’t matter why. He supposed part of his penance for being a shitty commander was having to listen to Marshall without knocking his teeth out. He’d leave that for Story and a few of the captains like Ben Teague who were leading the insurgency on the staff. Trent had other things on his mind.
Like his wife. His two kids. The house that was no longer his.
He cleared his throat and tried to listen to Story.
“I don’t know,” Story said. “Marshall wasn’t screaming so I think maybe you should be okay?”
Sergeant First Class Reza Iaconelli, one of Trent’s former platoon sergeants, stepped out of the ops tent. �
�No, you should definitely hide,” he said, interrupting the conversation. “He’s bitching about having to transport you back to the rear early and he’s pretty cranky.”
Iaconelli was a big man: broad shoulders and built like an ox. He was steadfast and solid downrange but when they got home? Yeah, that’s when things went to shit for Iaconelli. He’d never met a bottle of alcohol that he didn’t like. He was lucky he still had a career but the sergeant major liked him. Trent respected his ability in combat enough to overlook any personal failings. Trent was the last one to judge someone’s personal failings.
He reined his thoughts back to the present and the feeling that flittered in the dead space around his heart. “I’m getting sent back?”
Iaconelli shrugged. “Maybe they’re finally going to court-martial your sorry ass,” he said lightly.
Trent flipped him off. “That would be nice, actually. If they’d at least get the damn thing over with. If I never see Lieutenant Jason Randall ever again, it will be too soon.”
“He is a special little fuckstick, that is for certain,” Iaconelli said, staring at the end of his cigar for a moment.
Iaconelli may or may not have threatened to kill LT Randall downrange. Twice. But all of Randall’s interpersonal hostility had been a sideshow, a distraction to keep Trent or anyone else from figuring out that he had been selling sensitive items and funneling the money to bribe the Iraqis to stop blowing their boys up. Randall had finally gotten caught and now was determined to take down Trent and anyone else he could with him. Iaconelli chopped the tip off his cigar and sucked on the end while he tried to light it.
“Too bad I won’t be around for his court-martial,” Story said.
“Did you get reassigned?” Iaconelli asked Story.
“Yeah. I’m deploying again in about two weeks. As soon as we get back from here,” he said.
“Your wife isn’t going to be happy,” Trent said quietly.
“Actually, she’s going to be thrilled. It’ll give her a chance to find her some twenty-year-old boy toy to keep her busy while I’m gone.” Story spat into the dust.
“So you’re still married because…?” Iaconelli sucked on the end of his cigar.
“Because it’s too fucking expensive to get divorced,” Story said. “I’ll take care of it after this next deployment. I’ll save up some money first, though.”
“Sure you will,” Trent said. “You’ve been saying that since ’04.”
It was Story’s turn to flip Trent off. “At least I’m willing to accept my marriage is over.”
Trent rubbed his heart, knowing his first sergeant hadn’t meant to score such a direct hit. At least not with malice. “Yeah, well, my divorce is complicated.”
“These things always are.” Iaconelli leaned against the truck. “Which is why I’ve never gotten married.”
Trent snorted and was going to make a crack but Marshall took that opportunity to step into the darkness outside the ops tent. “Davila, you’re going back to Fort Hood.”
Trent glanced at his watch. “It’s four-thirty in the morning.”
“And you’re going to be on a plane in three hours. Pack your shit.” Marshall turned to stalk off, mumbling about pain in the ass captains and not having enough time for this shit.
Iaconelli blew a smoke ring into the darkness. “God but he is such a charmer.”
Trent sat there long after Story and Iaconelli went back into the ops tent.
He wanted to go home. But now that it was happening, fear slithered down his spine.
It had started slow. One day he’d wake up, dreaming about Laura. Other times, he’d be in the mess tent and he’d think he heard her laugh. He’d hear a kid giggling on the TV and he’d look up, expecting to see Ethan or Emma.
Always, though, he was alone. He’d wanted it that way for so long. He’d wanted quiet when they’d been running around his feet, shrieking and bickering like kids did. He’d craved silence at the end of the day when someone would get out of bed for a glass of water.
He’d certainly gotten the silence and the solitude.
And the oppressive emptiness of it all ate away at him. He’d thrown himself into work here in the California desert. He’d pulled eighteen hour days gladly. The longer he spent away from the war, the less he felt its siren call, luring him back. And somehow, work wasn’t enough anymore. Nothing he did pushed away the aching need to get to the one place he simply didn’t belong: home.
He was back in the States but he couldn’t go home. Not with an investigation hanging over his head and the potential for a very long jail sentence standing in front of him. And the worst part about the entire court-martial was that his brigade commander was changing command soon. If Colonel Richter left before the case was resolved, Trent would be at the mercy of the new commander—a new man with no loyalty to the soldiers he’d put in leadership positions.
It was not a comfortable place to be. The power plays between the senior officers never ended well for junior officers, and Trent? Trent was caught right now. He had to trust that Colonel Richter would take care of this before he left.
But a year after Trent had been sent home, Trent was running low on trust and patience.
Patience had never been his strong suit. Every other time he’d been home, he’d been prepping to go back to war. This time, the year had stretched in front of him like an unending slog.
It was the longest time he’d spent in the States since he’d gotten shot. It had taken him almost that long to realize just how badly he’d fucked up everything in his life that was supposed to be important.
His marriage. His kids. His family.
If there was a grade lower than an F at being a husband or a dad, he’d earned it. He’d come home from Iraq nearly a year ago—pending a court-martial and a divorce. And since then, nothing had happened. The case had been stuck in investigation mode forever. And the divorce? He just wasn’t able to sign the papers. His life had been frozen in carbonite on all counts.
The investigation had moved slower than molasses in winter. And he was glad.
Because standing out here in the California desert, he’d come to a conclusion. He wanted his family back. He wanted his wife back. When she’d slapped him with divorce papers last year, he’d refused to sign them, hoping that the investigation would go away and that he could fix things with her. But that hope had proved futile. The distance between them was too much. The warmth he remembered was gone, but still, he’d been unable to let her go. He couldn’t. Sure, they spoke on the phone or when he saw her at the office, but they were a few stolen minutes here, a quick chat about the kids there. There was nothing there to give him hope that he could fix things with her.
He’d volunteered to train soldiers anywhere he could so that he didn’t have to face the cold emptiness of the reality that he was no longer welcome in his own home. And if he volunteered, someone else wouldn’t have to.
Now? Now he sat in the middle of the California desert and thought about the new dad who wouldn’t be there for the birth of his child. He looked down at his wedding ring and thought of all the time he’d willingly given up.
He was a goddamned fool. He wanted her back. Damn it, he wanted his life back. The life with this woman who had once smiled and laughed with him and wrapped herself around him while she slept. Who was as beautiful changing Emma’s diaper as she was dressed up in an evening gown for the Cav ball. This woman who used to ask about his day when he called home at two in the morning, even after she’d been up half the night with one of the kids.
He sobered, his hands trembling at the thought of his children and the tiny family that had grown while he’d been away. The tiny family that overwhelmed him and terrified him and dropped him to his knees with a need so strong, it crushed his lungs until he could not breathe. He didn’t know how to feel good, but he knew he’d never figure it out without them.
He had no clue where to start. He had no idea how to be a father to his kids. Or a husband to
a wife who could barely look at him.
Trent hopped off the top of the truck. He had a phone call to make.
Because it looked like he was getting exactly what he wanted.
And it was time to figure out how to be the man his family needed him to be.
* * *
Fort Hood
“Son of a bi-iscuit!”
“Bad Mommy!”
Laura Davila wrapped her scraped and bleeding knuckles in a paper towel and prayed to the patron saint of army wives for patience. Her six-year-old dishwasher was currently spread in carefully laid out pieces across the kitchen floor and counters. And now the cavernous white interior was splattered with her blood. Awesome.
Her son Ethan looked up at her with disapproval in his dark brown eyes, and Laura flinched. “Sorry, honey. Mommy just hurt herself.”
“You said a bad word.” This from her daughter, Emma. “Agent Chaos said you’re not allowed to say those words.”
Laura glared at the fat brown hamster that was clutched in her daughter’s hands. Agent Chaos looked up at her with disapproving beady brown eyes. Sitting there, silently judging her.
She had joked with Trent that he should buy the kids a hamster when he returned from his latest deployment. By the time he came back, things between them had already crumbled but he still remembered the damn hamster. He’d bought not one, but two of the stinking, smelly creatures. The hamster cuteness factor did not override the pain in the ass factor of having to clean their cages every other day to keep the smell from overpowering the entire house.
Maybe if Trent had been around more over the last year, she wouldn’t have minded them so much. But instead of sitting at Fort Hood and working in an office like any other officer who was under investigation, he’d volunteered for several rotations at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin. He’d spent more time there than at Fort Hood over the last year. He might as well have just moved there.
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