Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance (22 page)

“What?” she asked, smiling at his incredulous gaze.

“You are the single most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

“Maybe I’m a sucker for a man in a cast.” She shot him a quick look before sliding the chopping block toward him, and then went outside to put the steaks on. She was still smiling when she came back in, smelling like barbecue and heaven. “There’s just something missing without it.”

Here was a side of Jen he’d never really seen before. That night at Ropers, she’d been edgy. And at the hospital, she’d been confident and competent. Here, though, in her home? Here she relaxed. She was easy and comfortable.

The want burned inside of him. “I can break my arm again to get another one.”

She laughed as she pulled a bowl of potato salad out of the fridge, and dumped large scoops onto two plates. She paused, and looked up at him from beneath heavy lids. “Don’t do it on my account.”

He chopped the tomatoes into chunks and slid them to one side of the chopping block. It felt so incredibly free to have the use of both his arms. The little things in life had never seemed so huge until he couldn’t do them for himself.

“If I broke my arm, would you shave me again?” he said, a wicked grin spreading
slowly across his lips at the thought.

She cast a sideways glance at him. “I could probably do that for you,” she replied.

The thought of having her hands on him again made him ache. He followed her out onto the porch.

The porch encircled the house and was completely screened in. It allowed a little bit of Texas in without letting
all
of it in. They settled around the small patio table, and Jen doled out the food. The silence was comfortable, filled with the sounds of the night.

The sun hung low, casting reds, pinks, and oranges across the horizon that still threatened a storm. He winced as the memory of another red-streaked sky slipped in, the night of the attack that had sent him home. His throat constricted and he drank deeply to break up the knot. His heart beat faster against his chest, as the echo of the machine-gun thunder hammered in his ribs again. He pushed out a hard breath to force the memory back.

Crickets chirped in the encroaching darkness. There were no crickets in Baghdad.

Her hand covered his suddenly, pulling him out of the past. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just realized I can’t remember the last time I heard crickets.”

She squeezed his fingers. “When I first moved here, it took a whole summer for me to realize it didn’t cool off at night like it did back east.”

He turned his hand so that his palm opened beneath hers. “How long ago did your grandmother pass away?”

“Four years. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been that long.”

“How did she die?”

“In her sleep.” Jen pulled her hand back and picked at her potato salad. “It wasn’t
bad. She was in a lot of pain.”

“You don’t look like it wasn’t bad.”

“The fight that followed was the bad part. My family decided that her will wasn’t valid and that they wanted to fight over the house and the couple thousand bucks in her checking account.”

He studied her in the shadows. They danced over her features and tugged at his heart. He wanted to reach for her and soothe the hurt he saw in her eyes. He hated that anyone would hurt her over something so trivial as money.

She glanced up at him. “My grandmother raised me. My parents divorced when I was three. Dad’s out there somewhere, I guess, but Mom was killed by a drunk driver when I was six. It really hurt to lose her.” She released a deep breath. “Anyway. Do you need help tonight?”

He swallowed and shook his head. “I should be good. Thank you, though.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. He wanted to know what she’d been about to say but she left the table, clearing the best meal he’d had in he couldn’t remember how long.

The truth was that she’d crept into his heart when he hadn’t been looking, and now? Now he had no idea what to do next.

* * *

Despite trying to get back on normal footing, the space between them was quiet. Not quite to the point of being strained, but close.

She left him, needing some space to sort out everything in her head. He was just as quiet as she’d been at the end of dinner. She hadn’t felt like sharing the rest of her family
drama, how they’d tainted the memory of her grandmother’s life over a checking account. Or how her brother had accused her of faking her illness to keep the house.

She wasn’t ready to give voice to the fear that nagged at the back of her skull. She sighed and looked toward the closed door across from the kitchen.

Shane was there, on the other side of that door. Today had been overwhelming. She understood that. The bravado she’d grown accustomed to whenever he was around Carponti was gone, replaced by a deep disquiet.

His inability to get through to Osterman had knocked him back a few paces. She hoped that she had at least lifted some of the burden he carried by offering him a place to stay. But she was worried that he wouldn’t bounce back. For all his tough talk, Shane was a man searching for a purpose.

She took a deep breath and stepped back onto the porch. She’d felt the full force of the demons he wrestled with tonight, swirling in the darkness around him.

Shane was out there, too—he’d wheeled himself out through the sliding glass doors of her guest bedroom, and was facing the fading sunset, watching the impossibly huge Texas sky fade into an inky blackness that could only be seen at a distance from city lights. He’d taken his shirt off, and she wasn’t about to object to the view. Light from the bedroom painted his pitch-black tattoos in shadows and light.

His legs, though, remained covered by a cream-colored chenille throw from the edge of the bed.

He looked into her eyes when she sat down on the bamboo patio sofa next to him. The wood creaked as she shifted to pull her legs beneath her.

Crickets filled the silence between them.

So much for anything being easy with this man. At the end of the day, she could guess at what was bothering him, but she didn’t want to. She hugged her arms to her chest and decided to simply be, rather than hounding him with questions. She would just sit, and be there if he needed her.

The lights from the house backlit his profile and she studied him. Strong. Steady. Troubled.

After a moment, he dropped his head back against the wall behind him. Shane’s voice was quiet in the evening darkness when he finally spoke. Like he was testing out his words carefully before he voiced them.

“I had no idea what to say to Osterman today.” He scrubbed his hands over his jaw. “I haven’t been at such a loss with one of my guys since I was a brand-new sergeant.”

Jen tucked her hair behind her ear and waited. The urge to reach for him, to offer comfort, was strong enough to be a compulsion. But he didn’t want comfort right now. She wasn’t even sure he was seeking absolution. The recrimination in his voice suggested he wanted judgment.

Shane shifted and the wheelchair creaked under his weight. “I don’t have any way to relate to what he’s going through. Carponti nailed it dead to rights. I’ve still got ten fingers and ten toes.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not hurting. That doesn’t mean you can’t relate to him.”

“Yeah, actually, it does.”

“No, actually, it doesn’t. You don’t have to have similar injuries to have similar emotions, Shane.” Now she reached for him, threading her fingers with his. “Just because you haven’t lost a limb doesn’t mean you’re not hurting. It’s not like you just got a
scratch and were returned to duty. You know what it feels like to get sent home before your team. Just like he does.”

He flinched and looked away, but he didn’t pull his hand free. “It feels like shit.”

“I know.”

Instantly his gaze returned to her, intense and fierce. In the darkness, her scar throbbed against her bones.

“You don’t know that, Jen. You’re a nurse, you’re not a patient. You’re not a platoon sergeant who left his entire platoon in the middle of a firefight.”

She shook her head and removed her fingers from his. “You’re not just a soldier to your men. Carponti isn’t just a squad leader, is he?”

“No, he’s a pain in the ass.” But there was no vehemence in Shane’s voice.

“Don’t you think you should give yourself a bit of a break?”

Shane snorted. “I’m divorced, in a wheelchair, and homeless. I can’t do a fucking thing to help my guys when they’re hurting the most. I don’t need a break, I need to get back to my men. Until then, I’m just another statistic.”

“What you need to do is take some time to heal. And you’re more than just a number.” She tipped her head at him, breathing deeply to gather the courage she needed. He was in deep, so far down the hole he’d fallen into he couldn’t see any way out. “If you believe that, then maybe you need a different perspective on things.”

She reached for the top buttons of her blouse and flicked them open rapidly before she lost her nerve. She kept one side of her clothes pressed to her torso and lowered the other, holding the shell of her bra and the form in one hand. She knew what he saw when he looked at her.

A half-inch-thick scar crossed her chest where her left breast used to be. Red and puckered, it stood out starkly against the white of her skin.

“Being hurt only defines you if you let it. You’re more than just a wounded GI, Shane. You need to get over it and start focusing on getting better.”

Shane dragged his gaze from that jagged scar to her face. She met his gaze and dared him to pity her. She didn’t see the slightest trace of that emotion. What she saw, instead, stunned her. Awe. Yes. Amazement. Yes. But not pity. He sat speechless as she turned her back to him and readjusted her clothing. She didn’t know what to expect when she turned back to face him.

“I know a little bit about learning to live again. I know about being so weak and helpless you want to die. I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and hear that little voice that whispers you’ll never be whole again.”

“Then maybe it’s time you heard something else.” He tugged on her hand until she moved closer. His fingers hovered over her shoulder. The hard planes of his cheeks were shadowed, his eyes hidden in the darkness now. “You are absolutely amazing.”

“Thanks, Shane. That’s really nice of you to say.”

“Screw nice.” His voice was a low growl in the darkness as he reached for her. Before she could react, he’d half dragged her across the handles of the chair.

His bare chest was hot and hard beneath her fingers as she gripped on to him for balance. Then nothing else mattered as his mouth claimed hers. He stroked her lips apart with his tongue, demanding. Taking. She knew in the space of a single second that she would never again feel this potent intensity that pulsed into her with a single kiss. Her fingers curled into his flesh, above the black lines swirling around his shoulders, and she
lost herself in his taste, his touch.

She shifted and opened for him, taking him inside her mouth. He groaned and heat bloomed inside of her, trailing down her belly and throbbing at her center.

She traced her fingers over the tattoos covering his heart, down his massive arms as desire ached inside her. He went completely still as her fingers trailed over his skin, and then she felt his heartbeat. A subtle vibration beneath her touch. He tightened his fingers in her hair and angled her mouth to take her deeper, filling her. His touch chased away the darkness of her own doubt. In that moment, she felt whole and beautiful and fully alive.

“You don’t know how bad I’ve wanted to do this again,” he whispered raggedly against her lips.

* * *

Shane could not remember ever feeling so completely aroused in his entire life. She was the sweetest pleasure he’d ever tasted. Her fingers explored his chest and no single touch had aroused him so completely. He slipped one arm around her waist and tried to drag her farther into his lap. God but he wanted her. Just her. Naked. He wanted to bury himself inside of her, to lose himself in her soft warm depths.

Her hips bumped into one of the pins sticking out of his thigh and brilliant pain exploded. He swore before he could stop himself, and Jen froze. She traced small kisses over his jaw, his neck, his ear, and the pain slowly receded. He skimmed his fingers over her face, easing her back.

Her eyes were dark, her lips a swollen shadow against her pale skin. His hands found hers, stopping her explorations.

“Jen, you make me crazy,” he whispered against her lips. So damn beautiful she hurt his heart.

Her breath brushed against his cheek as she pressed her lips to his ear. “So why did you stop?”

“Really?”

“No, I was kidding.”

He hesitated for a moment before he reached for her again, angling his mouth to taste all of her before she could change her mind.

He tipped his face up before he cupped hers with his fingertips. He kissed her, wanting so badly to take her inside and make love to her. A distant ring shattered the moment. He closed his eyes and she rested her forehead against his. “I don’t suppose you can ignore that?” he murmured.

“Not really.”

She extracted herself from his lap and walked into the house, leaving him aching and hard. The moment was gone now, but it left a promise of something more in its wake. Seconds later, Jen slipped back onto the porch. Her movements were quick, controlled, her lips pressed into a thin line. It was her eyes, though, that gave her away. Still, he never imagined her next words would steal the breath from his lungs.

“Carponti’s in the hospital.”

Shane dragged his hand over his face and closed his eyes. He didn’t say anything as she drove them to the hospital as fast as her small car could take them. He wasn’t allowed in the back where the emergency room team was working on Carponti. Jen could have joined them, but she opted to stay with Shane.

“Too many people just get in the way.”

He would have paced if he thought it would do anything to unleash the rage churning inside of him. He would have torn the pictures from the walls. Instead, he sat, the bitter feeling of absolute uselessness churning inside of him.