Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2)

by Jessica Scott

  “Sometimes, the only battle worth fighting is the one that lets you keep your integrity.”

  “Integrity doesn’t mean anything when you’re dead.” She shook her head, sadness threatening to spill down her cheeks. “I’ve seen that movie, Evan. The correct answer is that we die honorably. The right answer is that we cheat.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll choose to cheat every time if that means someone comes home alive.”

  He took a single step backwards. “That says more about you than anything else you’ve ever done,” he murmured.

  She said nothing for a long moment, and then the door closed quietly behind him, his words cutting her deeply. They shouldn’t have hurt the way they did. She’d given him what he wanted: an officer who would do her job. So why did he disapprove of her decision?

  And worse, why did it matter?

  Chapter Nine

  It was still snowing lightly the next morning as Claire and Reza drove up to the edge of the training area and pulled to a stop.

  Evan was at another training area, which was good. She was pretty sure he’d knocked on her door this morning. She’d ignored him. He was going to accuse her of being childish, but she wasn’t. She was pissed, and it wasn’t just because of their disagreement the night before.

  He’d hurt her. And she was pissed at herself for letting him get close enough for her to want what she could never have. She sucked at relationships. No amount of wishful thinking would change that. At least she knew where she stood with him now. It was better to cauterize the wound before it did any permanent damage.

  Funny how the road to hell was paved with all those unkept resolutions.

  As she was pulling her body armor out of the back of the truck, Reza approached. “Don’t you love wearing body armor?”

  Claire smiled. “We train how we fight,” she said dryly. “Wouldn’t want to break the rules and train out of uniform, now would we?”

  Reza snorted, then pointed toward the small group of soldiers near the edge of the training area. “We have a problem.”

  She sighed as she hitched her helmet up, tightening the chin strap. “What’s the problem?”

  “You’re looking at it.”

  Claire followed his gaze away from the SUV, and her eyes widened with disbelief as she took in the small formation. “This is it?”

  A single platoon stood in front of them, no more than thirty soldiers, and other than Lieutenant Engle the highest-ranking person was a sergeant.

  “Where the hell is the rest of the company?” she snapped, letting her frustration show. This was either deliberate incompetence or worse, a game of one-upmanship that was going to get someone killed. And where was Sarah? She pulled her phone out and shot her friend a text. No response. What was going on?

  Lieutenant Engle, her face flushed and pink from the cold, walked up, saluting sharply. “Ma’am, half the formation was pulled over to the weapons qualification range.”

  “Nice of the brigade ops officer to tell us they decided to change things up. What a waste of time.” She glanced at Reza, a frustrated resignation settling in her belly.

  “Go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had, right?” he said dryly, repeating Sarah’s words from the previous night.

  She scanned the group of soldiers in front of them as Engle walked off to inspect her soldiers. A couple of privates were busy inspecting one another’s gear. The tallest one, who looked like he belonged in high school, fumbled his fingers over the smaller one’s chin strap. When he jerked it too tight, his friend protested loudly, then glanced around to make sure they weren’t going to be caught screwing around.

  “God, were we ever that young?”

  “You might have been,” he said easily. “When I was eighteen, I’d just graduated from Basic Training at Fort Benning. Let me tell you, nothing we’re about to put these guys through has anything on Sand Hill.”

  “Sand Hill?”

  “The basic training side of Fort Benning. It’s separate from the main post.” His gaze shifted to some distant memory. “I was a drill sergeant there six years later.”

  She sighed and rubbed her gloved hands together. “When I was seventeen, I’d just moved from the grill to the register at McDonald’s.”

  “Fast tracking to management, huh?”

  “Nah. Just marking time until I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.” The sergeant called their group to attention and Claire frowned, hooking her thumbs into the shoulders of her body armor. “What’s your plan for today’s simulated chaos, Master Gunner?”

  He grinned wickedly. “We got the sim rounds.”

  “Really? How did you manage that?”

  “I gave the budget guy a hand job.”

  Claire choked on a laugh. “Say no more. Just tell me we didn’t break any rules.”

  “Nary a one.” Reza pulled on his gloves, a small smile playing across his face. “We’re going to shoot at them a couple times and blow some shit up, then bless them off as ready to deploy to combat.”

  “Is the shoot house about ready?”

  “Yeah. I’ll text you when we’re set.”

  They’d gotten the sim rounds. She couldn’t believe it. And they hadn’t broken a single rule to do it. Claire smiled. She might disagree with sending Sarah’s company through a shoot house but it would be a good experience for them. And the sim rounds would make it a little more real. Might as well make the best of the day.

  A day on the range beat the hell out of a day at the office anytime.

  Other than knowing there were sim rounds, Claire didn’t want to know what else Reza was planning for Engle’s platoon because she didn’t want to tip off the troops who were running through the exercise. It was common practice to watch the evaluators for cues on when the attacks were coming. If she didn’t know, she couldn’t tip them off, either accidently or on purpose. She had the basics of the plan and that was all she needed.

  The enemy didn’t give warnings in combat. So neither would the trainers.

  She felt a teeny twinge of guilt for not telling Evan about the sim rounds. But he was off running a different exercise.

  He’d probably put a stop to it. He’d be dead wrong, but he’d do it because he hadn’t checked with the commander first. And Claire? Claire believed too strongly in training for chaos to let him overrule her. He’d be pissed but he’d get over it, and he couldn’t get angry because she hadn’t done anything to deviate from the plan or break the rules.

  Ask forgiveness, not permission. Life had been simpler when she’d hated Evan. Now everything involving him was twisted up inside her, far too distracting to be good for her.

  Claire pushed her ballistic eyeglasses up higher on her nose and scanned the staging area. Time to focus on the mission. These troops needed her to help train and evaluate them, and damn it, that’s what she was going to do.

  * * *

  Claire lifted Engle’s weapon. Holding it to her shoulder, she looked down the sight as she demonstrated the proper technique for entering a building and clearing a room. A room-clearing operation was one of the most dangerous missions troops ever had to execute, but this team was butchering the maneuvers worse than any she’d ever seen.

  LT Engle was frustrated and so was her team. Claire could understand that. She hated thinking that Engle’s platoon could be training on tasks more relevant than kicking in doors, but she was going with the plan. She just needed Engle to see that any training that focused on working as a team was valuable.

  She regretted ever hinting that they should check the block. Engle’s heart wasn’t in this training and it showed. Claire wasn’t going to let her quit, though. That was for damn sure.

  “You’re going in with your weapon down. That means if you have to engage your enemy, you’ve got to raise your weapon first.” Claire demonstrated how to hold the weapon so that she could fire the instant she had positive target identification. “Keep it high as you come in so that all you have to do is pull t
he trigger once you ID the target. It may seem like a small thing, but a few seconds can make a difference.”

  LT Engle nodded, her jaw set tight beneath the band of her helmet chin strap. “Roger, Ma’am. I didn’t train for this, so—”

  Claire thrust her weapon back at her and cut off her words. “Don’t give me excuses. Excuses will get someone killed. I got it you didn’t train for this, but you’ve deployed before so you, more than anyone, should know better than this. Learn it now, because that team is counting on you to get it right.”

  “I sat in the command cell reading weather reports on my first deployment, damn it, I didn’t train for this shit!” LT Engle slammed her weapon onto the ground. “If we’re doing this, the war has gone horribly, horribly wrong. We should be running convoys right now, not kicking in doors! We’re wasting time.”

  It took everything Claire had not to completely lose her mind. But that would have been a waste of taxpayer dollars for all that time she’d spent in anger management counseling. Evan would be proud, she thought bitterly.

  “You never left the base when we were downrange last deployment. You have no idea what to expect.” She kept her voice low and quiet as she stepped close enough so that only Engle could hear her words. “Never, ever, say that you won’t do this in real life, Lieutenant. You have no idea what’s around the next corner. You don’t know if you’re going to be running the roads or not. You’re going to war. Plan for the unexpected. Now get your head in the goddamn game and get your platoon through this mission like the army officer you’re supposed to be.”

  She didn’t soften her words with a smile or worry that the young lieutenant was going to think she was a bitch. She fully expected LT Engle to go running back to her battalion commander to tell her that Claire was picking on her. Claire didn’t really care either way, but she’d be derelict in her own duty if she let Engle keep making excuses.

  “Roger, Ma’am.”

  Claire ignored the faint spark of pride in her own heart when Engle lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Claire offered a slight nod of approval. “Okay. Do it one more time.”

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she frowned as she pulled it out and read the text message. Evan was on his way to her training area. She turned, just in time to see him pulling up in his truck. He pulled his body armor on quickly and a bolt of desire shot straight through her. Damn, the man looked good in body armor. She supposed that meant she’d spent way too much time in the sandbox if she thought men in body armor were sexier than in civilian clothes.

  “What’s going on?” he asked by way of greeting. There was no friendliness on his face; his body language was all business.

  Good. It was easier that way.

  “We’re running Engle’s platoon through the shoot house. We have a limited quantity of simunitions to use, but the request for pyrotechnics was denied.” She kept her tone short and to the point. This was business.

  He looked down at her, one brow lifting above his sunglasses. “So you didn’t try to do anything illegal to get pyro?”

  She cocked her chin at him and smirked. “No, Evan. I’m obeying the rules, remember?” The radio on her body armor chirped. “They’re getting ready to start again. I’m watching from the roof.”

  Evan followed her as she climbed the stairs to watch the training from the scaffolding on top of the shoot house that allowed her to observe the team’s movements. He took up a position on the opposite end of the building, leaning down against the wall with an ease she envied. A man Evan’s size could easily carry the extra fifty pounds of body armor. Claire could handle the load, too; it just took more effort.

  The exercise started again and the sound of ricocheting simunition rounds removed any ability to talk. At least the training wasn’t a total loss because they had the dummy rounds. The opposing force walked through the sim rounds as if the troops were shooting blanks, and Reza was having far too much fun. Claire smiled as he led the assault through the building, teaching the young soldiers how to position themselves to control a hallway. She shivered as Reza took two rounds to one arm. She knew for a fact that those tiny simulated bullets shaped like lipstick hurt like a bastard and they were going to leave a hell of a mark.

  Significantly less so than the real thing, but still. They stung. It was good training.

  Then Reza turned and started shooting the people on his team. It was utter and complete chaos as Engle and her team tried to figure out what was going on. It took forever for Engle to realize Reza was pretending to be an insurgent.

  Claire flinched when Reza went down under a barrage of sim rounds. She almost interrupted the exercise, but then Engle stepped up, surprising her. She directed two young soldiers, a specialist and a private first class, to do a proper search. Then they tried to secure Reza quickly, moving him out of the line of fire and into a room they held for their prisoners.

  At least, that’s what they were trying to do. She glanced at Evan, who was watching the training with a pale, drawn face.

  Then everything went to hell below her. Reza did not go quietly. He wasn’t supposed to. The two troopers struggled to get him under control and the scuffle attracted the attention of the sergeant, who left his position to help secure the prisoner. Engle followed him, trying to help shore up the hole in their defenses. The opposing force, three sergeants and two privates, picked off Engle’s platoon one by one as they struggled to secure the prisoner and hold their defense. It was like watching a bad movie in slow motion. One by one, the platoon was sidelined, forced to sit in a corner once they were defeated and taken out of the fight.

  A tight knot of frustration rose inside Claire as she watched the platoon, bereft of any experienced combat leaders except for LT Engle, struggle to hold their positions and call for additional support.

  It was a slaughter. A full-blown clusterfuck that, if it were real, it would have ended with a dozen letters home. Frustration burned in Claire’s chest as she called a halt to the training.

  She didn’t give a shit if they were here all night. They were doing this over.

  * * *

  Claire was already moving down the stairs by the time everyone finally realized that the exercise was over. Reza had Engle pinned in a corner, going off about how she was irresponsible for not holding her position. Engle struggled with tears of frustration and for once, Claire actually felt bad for her.

  “At ease!” she shouted over the top of the chaos. Instant silence settled over the chaos. “Sarn’t Iaconelli, take them outside and run through a play-by-play on ground and capture every single thing they did wrong. Then we’re running this mission again until they get it right. I don’t really give a rat’s ass if we’re here all damn night.”

  “What the hell is going on, Claire?” Evan rounded on her once they were alone, his face white with fury. It was all Claire could do not to step back from the raw emotion that slammed into her. Evan was pissed. Evan Loehr did not lose his temper, not like this. This? This was barely restrained fury, not the calm, rational response of a man who never lost control. “Why was Iaconelli acting like an insurgent?”

  “Because it’s realistic. Do you know how many casualties we’ve had from people supposedly on our side?”

  “That’s not part of the training plan.”

  “No one got hurt, damn it, and Engle was learning. Her whole platoon learned a good lesson today,” Claire said.

  “There isn’t time for this. We’ve got a close-out briefing with the brigade commander in an hour.” His voice was filled with ragged frustration and a hundred tormented memories. “They need to pack it up and head in.”

  “We’re not ending training on a bad note,” she said quietly. “Half-assed or not, they’re getting it right before they walk off this assembly area.”

  “You think adding in some dummy rounds is enough to teach supply clerks how to do this?” He unhooked his chin strap and yanked his helmet off. “Hell, there are trained infantry squads that can barely do thi
s battle drill and you’re trying to teach Combat Barbie how to lead an assault? You can redo it all night long and she’s not going to get it.”

  “And you can be as insulting as you want, but they’re going to get it right before we leave tonight.” She did not raise her voice, but that didn’t stop the latent anger from seeping out. “And the brigade commander specifically said he wanted every team going in to know how to clear a room and secure a position on top of all the other stupid shit he’s got everyone doing. I don’t care if we miss the next three briefings—they’re going to repeat it until they get it right.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “Don’t tell me you’re going to go against what the commander wants?”

  “Now isn’t the time or the place for that argument,” he snapped.

  “I never deviated from the training plan, Evan. I can’t help that everyone isn’t here. But I’m going to train the folks I do have.” Claire shook her head, refusing to budge. This was far bigger than whatever was eating at him. “What would you rather they take with them downrange? The fact that they all just died in the shoot house? Or the fact that they took a victory home with them tonight?”

  Evan threw his Kevlar against the wall. “Claire, you know as well as I do that Engle can’t lead a fucking assault. She can barely make it to work on time.”

  “And that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still got to run missions with this team downrange,” Claire shouted, finally matching his anger with her own.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Reza close the door, effectively preventing anyone else from seeing them. It didn’t matter. Their voices carried over the walls of the shoot house.

  “Aren’t you always telling me that we’ve got to meet the commander’s intent? He wants them to know how to do this.” She deliberately did not rise to the bait. There was something more important at stake than her ego or her wounded pride. “So instead of picking a fight with me, let’s fix it and get it right. By the numbers, if that’s what it takes. If it’s the only thing we do today, let’s do that,” she said quietly.