All for You (9 page)

“One more time,” he said. “Watch me.”

He lifted the body armor over his head then secured first the straps closest to his belly and then the outer straps.

She knelt down and lifted her kit, stumbling a little under the weight. It would take some getting used to. She ripped the straps open on her body armor then struggled to lift the awkward mass over her head, and he made no move to help her. She needed to be able to do it herself. Even if he did it just this once, it would breed a dependency. She needed to know how to do this kind of thing. It was one of the basics that saved lives.

She struggled to get it over her head but finally she swung it into place. She searched for her straps and managed to secure both sets.

It was such a simple thing she’d done. An ingrained task that Reza could do without thinking. But for this civilian turned soldier, it was an accomplishment. She looked up at him with such pride in her eyes that he suddenly no longer saw Emily Lindberg, psych doc.

He saw Emily and a hundred other young soldiers before the war touched them. Saw her need to be inducted into the warrior caste without ever knowing what it cost.

But she wasn’t just another soldier. She was Emily, and just being around her was doing something to his insides, something twisting and writhing and hungry.

Something possessive. She wasn’t his. She couldn’t be.

But he had the strongest wish that she was.

W
e have to swing by my battalion headquarters before we head out to the training area.”

Emily followed Reza out into the bright Fort Hood morning, trying to get used to the weight she now carried in the form of her IBA. The weight was evenly distributed around her torso but it was still bulky and uncomfortable. Reza wore his like it was a second skin. She wondered if he had some kind of superhero gene because the man positively radiated power.

Yeah, her lady parts were getting all quivery. She really was pathetic. She’d done so well keeping distance between herself and the temptation of so many well-built, honorable men. The kind of men who would cause her mother to faint.

She peered at Reza as she walked next to him. His skin was darker on his jaw, the shadow of his beard already making an appearance. She caught herself wondering how often he shaved.

She rubbed her hands together and he glanced down at her. “Where are your gloves?” he asked as they approached the Humvee in the parking lot.

“What gloves?”

There was nothing but the silent pulse of his jaw. “Here.” He peeled his gloves off and thrust them at her. “I’ll get another pair out of my truck.”

“Why do I need gloves?” she asked, sliding her hands into the too big gloves. They were still warm from his skin and she smothered a ridiculous heat that spread through her body from the echo of his touch.

“Ammo shells, broken glass, shards of metal. All kinds of good reasons.” He climbed into the passenger’s seat of the Humvee and said something to the driver, a skinny dark-skinned kid who looked like he was about twelve.

Emily climbed into the back seat behind the driver and simply sat for a moment. Her first trip in a military vehicle. There were divots running down the center of the truck and a tarp separated the front from the back. There was some kind of radio system between Reza and the driver.

And the noise. As soon as they started driving the engine rumbled to life, drowning out all thought, all sound. It was a constant roar, like standing in the entrance of a cave as the sea rushed in. The thin seat beneath her vibrated and she felt every bump, every brake check.

She glanced at Reza, who was constantly checking the mirror to his right and the road in front of him. When they stopped at an intersection, he shouted something to the driver but she couldn’t hear him. The driver gunned it through the intersection and kept going.

The transition from the hospital complex to the area owned by First Cav was stark. Everything on Fort Hood was dated, but the buildings that housed the various battalions of the First Cavalry Division were ancient. Some of them looked like they should have been condemned and yet they stood proudly emblazoned with their unit logos and guidons waving in the easy spring breeze.

It was funny how the transition was subtle. The pride that the officers walked with over here. She hadn’t believed the hype about the division. Everyone ran around post saying “First Team” when they saluted her on those rare occasions that she ventured out of the clinic. They had to be faking that kind of enthusiasm, right? But as she rode deeper into Cav country, she started to think that maybe they really did believe that stuff about being America’s First Team.

They rolled to a stop beside a headquarters building sheltered beneath old oak trees. The driver killed the engine and Reza shifted back to look at her.

“You coming or you want to wait here?”

“What are we doing?”

“I need to check on a training plan to make sure that nothing went wrong on the range.”

Emily smiled but before she could speak, Reza’s lips curled ever so faintly at the edges.

“Come on. I don’t have time to translate right now.”

The driver shot Reza a funny look but said nothing. Emily wondered at the relationship differences that seemed so much more stark over here. The soldier barely spoke to his sergeant but when he did, it was with a reverence akin to awe.

Granted, she grew a little more and more in awe of Reza the more time she spent around him, but somehow she figured he’d be more comfortable with his men.

“What’s on your mind, doc?” he asked as he flashed his ID at the staff duty sergeant.

“Just wondering why the driver didn’t make conversation,” she said after a moment, following him down the hallway and trying not to feel like she was rushing to keep up.

“We don’t take warm showers together, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Emily laughed quietly. “Was that a line from
Heartbreak Ridge
?”

“You didn’t strike me as a war movie kind of girl.” Reza stopped short, studying her. “Are you honestly telling me you’ve watched that movie?”

Heat crept up her neck. “Before I signed up for the army, I wanted to know what I was getting myself in for. I watched every war movie I could find.”

Reza simply stared at her, his dark eyes glittering. She was sure he was laughing at her. “You know those were Marines in
Heartbreak Ridge
, right?”

“Of course.”

He cracked the barest grin. She supposed it was better than yelling at her, so there was that. She followed Reza down the hall toward two double-wide doors that led to a wide open cubicle farm.

“Sloban’s here,” Foster said. His face was streaked with dirt and dust and sweat. “Needs to see you before you head out to the range. Who’s this?”

Emily stiffened as the young sergeant in front of her snarled as she walked up behind Reza.

“Doc from the hospital,” Reza said next to her. “Where’s Slo?”

“In the ops.”

Beside her, she felt Reza stiffen. She was embarrassed, both professionally and personally, that they couldn’t find his packet. Foster’s eyes swept over her in a way that made her feel judged and found unworthy. She knew the empty space on her right shoulder set her apart, just like the knowledge that she was medical and not combat arms. Had his gaze been any more suggestive, she might have added the fact that she was also female to the list of reasons why his resentment was a tangible thing.

“We got to find that damn paperwork, Sarn’t Ike. The commander has been giving Sloban shit about his medical file.”

Reza said nothing as she followed him out of battalion and toward his ops. It was a dirty place. Run down with a fine coat of dust settled over just about anything that hadn’t moved in the last week. It was a long way from the sparkling buffed floors of the hospital or her clinic. It felt like another world.

Emily frowned as they rounded the corner and into the ops. There were five soldiers in there but instantly she knew which one was Sloban. His hands were in a constant state of motion; his eyes were haunted and hunted.

He wasn’t one of her patients but he was one of Reza’s soldiers. She walked over to him. “We’re working on finding your medical packet,” she said softly.

Sloban turned those haunted eyes on her and she felt a coldness to the very pit of her soul. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. After a moment, he looked at Reza.

“She works at the mental health clinic. She’s trying to help us find your file,” he explained. His voice was gentle. Soothing. As though he was trying not to spook the kid.

“My log says I sent it back to the board people,” she said. “We’ll find it.”

“Can’t you just make copies?” Sloban asked.

She shook her head. “I wish it were that simple,” she said. She didn’t remember his file. She wished she did.

Foster sighed hard. “Well, at least we know where it isn’t. Sloban is losing his fucking mind, you know that, right, Sarn’t Ike? The commander is being a real douche to the guys with medical issues.”

“Got it. I’ll talk to him.” There was an odd note in Reza’s voice that hadn’t been there a moment before. He glanced at Emily, his hand on Sloban’s shoulder. “Give me a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded, wishing there was something she could do to ease the strain and the fatigue she heard in his voice.

It was the fatigue of a warrior who’d fought one too many fights with no end in sight. Sloban was just one more soldier. One more life he could touch.

But who was there to hold him up when he stumbled? Who did Reza lean on in the bad times?

She sat in the company ops as he disappeared behind closed doors, a sinking feeling in her gut that she knew the answer to that question.

He had no one.

And that simple realization broke her heart.

Reza closed the door behind Sloban, fighting the urge to take a wire brush to Foster’s backside. He wasn’t really sure what had Foster’s panties in a bunch and he didn’t really give a shit, either. His attitude had sucked the last few days and Reza was itching to get him to the gym to beat the living shit out of him on the combatives mat to make him talk about whatever was eating him. Foster got PMS about once every six months and it took a good bout in the ring to get him to open up. Usually he had women problems but as far as Reza knew, there was no one serious in Foster’s life right now.

Unless he counted the stripper down at whatever name the club in Harker Heights was going by these days. Foster had been spending far too much time in that shit hole.

Foster wasn’t his main worry. Sloban was, and right now Sloban looked like he was ready to climb the walls inside Reza’s office.

Reza pulled up a chair diagonal to Slo. “What’s going on?”

Sloban’s hands shook as he tried to find something to do with them. He said nothing. Reza didn’t expect him to. Since he’d gotten hooked on meth all those months ago, he didn’t say as much as he used to.

The warrior he’d known was now gaunt and strung out and pockmarked. His skin stretched too tight over his bones, his eyes were haunted.

“Are you using?” Reza asked.

Sloban looked down at his hands. “I’m trying. I’m trying so fucking hard not to screw up again, Sarn’t Ike.” He looked up, his eyes watery. “I need to go home. I can’t fucking stay here and keep waiting. Why is it taking so long?”

Reza glanced at the door. Emily was trying to run down the packet. It was more than anyone else in the medical system had done for any of Reza’s soldiers.

But it wasn’t enough. And Sloban was running out of time. He knew it. He could see the hunger in the kid’s eyes.

“If you use again, Marshall will stop the medical board with a court-martial,” Reza said slowly. “Slo, you got to stay clean.”

Sloban’s throat moved, his eyes darting around the room. “I’m trying.”

“How can I help?” Reza asked.

Sloban’s answer was a flat smile. “Just get me out of here. That’s all I need.”

He reached over and squeezed Sloban’s shoulder. “I’m working on it. Just stay with me a little longer, okay?”

Slo looked down at his hands and nodded. As promises went, it didn’t measure up but it was the best he could expect. The warrior Sloban had been was long gone.

But Reza wasn’t going to abandon the kid. He had no idea where the packet could be and short of raiding the hospital commander’s office, there was little he could do other than keep calling over there three times a day.

Sloban stood and Reza followed him out of the office. Emily stood by the door, watching everything going on around her in stoic silence. The kid slipped by Emily without so much as a glance. The entire office seemed to breathe a collective sigh.

Reza looked down at her as she stood. The body armor made her movements awkward. “You okay?” she asked as she followed him out of the company ops.

He said nothing for a long time. What could he tell her? That he knew the hunger that Sloban fought? That he knew how hard it was to stay sober and clean?

That he knew how this ended and it terrified him?

“I have to be,” was all he said instead.

She said nothing. But after a moment, her hand rested on his shoulder at the edge of his body armor.

A simple gesture, nothing more. But the marks on his arms burned where she touched him.

What would she say if she saw what he’d done to his body over the years? How would she react to the scars and everything else?

But instead of brushing her hand off, he simply reached up and squeezed it gently.

And for a moment, it was enough.

He rapped on the doorframe to Teague’s cubbyhole. “Where’s Captain Loehr? I need to make sure we’ve got clearance for the MOUT site today.”

Teague grinned and stood. “Perfect timing. I need a ride out to training.”

“There won’t be any training unless we get the green light from Captain America.”

Teague held up a folder. “You mean this? I swear, one range fire and you’ve turned into a timid little baby kitten afraid of his own shadow.”

Reza swore under his breath, wishing Emily wasn’t standing right there watching Teague show his ass—figuratively, of course. He wondered how long it would be before Teague tried to hit on her.

The thought made Reza’s spine stiffen as he glanced over at her.

Emily raised both eyebrows, her lips twitching. “Range fire?”

Heat crawled up Reza’s neck, along with a strong desire to throttle Ben Teague. “I may or may not have been involved in an incident involving a small fire here at Fort Hood.”

“Ha,” Teague snorted and grabbed his helmet. “He burned down three hundred acres of training area last year.”

“It was an accident,” Reza snarled. “Get your shit and let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”

“It’s always an accident,” Teague said. “What’s she doing here, anyway?”

“Wants to observe training,” Reza said, stuffing the paperwork in his cargo pocket. “She’s putting together an officer professional development program and asked for help.”

He saw Emily open her mouth then snap it shut as the wisdom of the lie took hold. It wasn’t actually a bad idea. He could practically see the shape of the good idea fairy forming in her thoughts. She pulled out a little moleskin notebook and jotted something down before climbing into the back of the Humvee.

He wondered if she always carried it even as she struggled to stuff it back into her cargo pocket. He watched as she moved, her body strong beneath the body armor. He’d thought she was prim and proper when he’d first met her but he was wrong.