A PLACE CALLED HOME
Chapter Fifteen
Emily was alive. At least, she thought she was. A series of explosions were cooking off inside her skull, in perfect rhythm with her heartbeat, and she was reasonably certain that there were a thousand ice picks stabbing her in her eyes.
She’d joined the Army because she’d wanted to feel alive. She’d never felt more alive— and more wretched—than she did at that exact moment.
Something was wrapped around her like a snake, stealing the air from her lungs. She tried to move but whatever had her trapped was immovable. She shifted and tried to brace her hand and instead of feeling a mattress or a rug—or lord only knew what else she thought she should have been lying on—instead her palm connected with warm skin.
A heart beat slow and steady against her hand. She swallowed the passing wave of nausea and tried to open her eyes. Daylight pierced her retinas and made her long for the deep darkness at the bottom of a well. Or at least beneath a warm blanket.
Squinting against the harsh daylight, she peeked at her surroundings. The first thing she realized was that she was definitely lying with a man. But not any man.
Reza.
The next thing she realized was that they were on a couch. A couch she faintly recalled was deep, mahogany-tinted leather. She tried to shift and her skin stuck fast. Yep. Leather.
She wiggled and discovered that last night’s mind-blowing sex had not been a drunken dream. She squinted as the remnants of last night came into view: a tipped-over bottle of vodka on the coffee table.
Oh lord. Everything started tumbling back all at once. She vaguely remembered crawling down the couch toward him and hell, she’d cried like a baby. Then some time later, he’d taken everything that hurt and made it not hurt as much.
And now Emily was lying on the couch, very much naked and very much hung over.
She nestled closer to the man who held her pinned between his big body and the back of the couch. Really, was it possible to feel more secure? More warm and comfortable? Awkward morning after notwithstanding, the man did something to her insides. Not the right thing and certainly not the thing she’d been after last night, but still.
Lying there, listening to him breathing, with his arms like steel bands around her, the slow beating of his heart beneath her flesh, sparked something inside her. Something she had never dared to believe she could have. Someone real. Someone who cared about her because of who she was, not because of her last name.
What she had with Reza was the first real thing she’d ever had in her life.
Blood pounded in her skull, threatening to leak out of her ears. As nice as lying in his arms was, she really didn’t want to do the awkward morning after thing with him. Considering her very snug position between him and the couch, she was going to be hard-pressed to get out of there without waking him up. She could hope that he was as deeply asleep as he sounded but even that was no guarantee.
Slowly, she nudged his arm off her shoulder. When it sank into the couch without him so much as missing a breath between gentle snores, she released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Wiggling slowly, she inched down his body until she could get leverage between the couch and the space behind his hips. Hips that were, for all intents and purpose, covered only by a thick, fuzzy blue blanket.
She was tempted to peek at the man in all his glory but somehow that felt a little too close to stalker behavior. Besides, she’d gotten her fill last night anyway.
It seemed somehow wrong and possibly illegal to look at a man—no matter how well put together said man was—while he was sleeping. Of course, she didn’t think he was actually sleeping.
They were going to have to talk about last night. Not the sex. No, not that. But the drinking. She needed to know what she was dealing with—and she wanted him to trust her enough to tell her.
He’d been drinking a long time. That much she knew. Her heart broke for him all over again, thinking of the boy he’d been when his mother had died.
She finally extracted herself from the tangle of arms and legs and half-covered body parts on the couch and stood up. Emily groaned quietly as the movement set her skull to pounding all over again and went about finding her clothes. Good thing she didn’t have to…
Go to work.
She glanced at her watch. Holy crap, it was seven thirty. She was supposed to be meeting her boss for a run this morning. Panic swirled in her guts. At least, that’s what she hoped the sinking feeling was; otherwise she was about to ruin Reza’s floor.
She dressed quickly, finding her cell phone beneath the couch. With one last stolen glance at Reza, who had not budged the entire time she’d been rummaging around looking for shoes, car keys, and cell phones, she slipped out the front door.
She fired off a quick text, then simply sat, alone in the quiet of the driver’s seat, staring at his small house.
She should have left him a note.
Should have maybe said something cliché like “thanks for a good time”.
“Or not,” she mumbled, turning the key in the ignition.
She was going to be lucky if she got through this day without chopping up a couple of Excedrin pills and mainlining them in her office.
But she’d survived worse. At the moment, though, she couldn’t remember when.
***
Reza watched her leave through half-closed eyes, still feigning sleep. He’d felt her move the moment she’d awakened but he’d stayed still, wondering what she was going to do.
The fact that he’d slept wrapped around her said something in and of itself, about the way their budding relationship had started changing the moment they’d first slept together. Nothing built on a foundation of yesterday’s tragedy could survive an awkward morning after.
Truth be told, he never spent the night with the women he went home with. If he wasn’t truly convinced that God had abandoned him a long time ago, he’d swear there was someone watching over him. But Emily had started drinking and, after the day they’d had, he hadn’t tried to stop her.
He didn’t know why he’d told her about his mother last night. Wasn’t sure why he’d let that fact slip out. He’d never told anyone else.
He’d just buried that pain, too.
And then the war had started and brought him back to hell.
He watched her tiptoe out of the house, unable to resist the temptation of watching her leave.
Fear rose up that she was leaving. That she wouldn’t come back.
He shoved it down. She’d come here last night. She’d stayed with him despite how he’d tried to push her away.
A piece of the cold, empty wasteland inside him was less empty today.
He wanted her to stay. But he was too much of a coward to say the words.
So he watched her tiptoe from his house. And missed her the moment the door closed behind her.
He rolled onto his back and threw one arm over his chest, idly scratching his stomach. He supposed he needed to get up and get going. First order of business was to check on Wisniak. Then he needed to finish up all the admin chaos that had come out of Sloban’s death.
He sighed and shifted on the couch. He wanted to pick up his phone and call Emily. Ask her to turn around and pull back into his driveway. To walk back through the front door and slide her arms around his waist so he could bury his face in her neck and just hold on to her and try to forget about the morning he still had to summon the energy to face.
He pushed himself upright and kicked his feet up onto the table, staring longingly at the empty cans on the coffee table. He had more in the kitchen. It was only a few feet away. Then he could get started on filling out the casualty paperwork. And making sure his guys were okay.
And somehow start to bury the memory deep so that he’d forget about the whole thing. For a while, at least. Until Sloban’s ghost joined the legion of others that refused to leave him alone and drove him back into the bottle he was trying so desperately to forget.
Something nagged at the back of his neck. Foster had taken yesterday entirely too easily. Granted, he and Sloban hadn’t exactly been BFFs but that didn’t explain Foster’s cool response to the entire morning’s epic charlie foxtrot.
He closed his eyes and sighed. He was already late. What difference did it make if he slept off the hangover for another hour or rushed into the eight a.m. traffic? Breathing deeply, he caught the scent of Emily’s shampoo on the couch pillow. Soft, sensual; it still reminded him of the beach.
His phone vibrated somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. He contemplated ignoring it but even that was probably too much. Marshall was going to be at it again, calling him, demanding to know why he wasn’t at formation, why he didn’t have accountability of his troops. Damn, sometimes he wished the sergeant major had simply thrown him out instead of tying him to this relentless parade of nagging and babysitting.
The phone stopped but before Reza could breathe a sigh of relief, it started buzzing again. Groaning, he rolled over, feeling around until he found the offending electronic. He didn’t bother to look at the number before he pressed the little green button that answered the call.
That was his first mistake.
Claire Montoya’s voice pierced his thoughts. “Where have you been?”
Panic wasn’t one of Claire’s strong suits but given yesterday’s events, the fear in her voice was somewhat warranted. Granted, at some point in their relationship, Claire had appointed herself his guardian and well, Reza loved her. Sometimes, however, the mother hen routine went a little overboard. Reza grinned. Maybe he should tell her he wished she’d get pregnant so she’d have someone else to worry about instead of him. Somehow he doubted she’d appreciate the humor.
“Hi, honey,” he said dryly.
“Not funny. I’ve been texting you since last night.” Her tone softened. “I heard what happened. Are you okay?”
“Yes, Mom, I’m fine.”
“So you’re being a dick about this,” she said.
“No.” He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, the bristles scraping his palm. “Sorry. I feel like shit and I’m just cranky.” They’d argued fiercely about his drinking when he’d first come back from rehab several months back.
“How much did you have to drink?”
So much for that plan. “A couple drinks, then we went to sleep.”
“We? What, are you the royal ‘we’ now? You and your dick make a team?”
Reza couldn’t help but grin, despite the feeling that his skull was trying to split itself open. Vodka never seemed that good of an idea the morning after. Then again, few drinks ever did. But a stiff drink would more than heal his aching head.
“My dick and I are always a team, not that that is any of your business.”
Silence greeted his comment.
“Damn it, Reza, you promised.”
A lump rose in his throat. “It was just last night,” he said. “Shit, Claire, don’t cry.”
“I’m not.”
“Liar.”
She made a choked sound. “Just tell me you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Claire. No range fires. Nothing got blown up.” Except Sloban. “I’m getting in the shower and heading to work.”
“Okay.”
He paused. “Thanks for checking on me,” he said after a long moment. Reza hung up the phone and summoned the willpower to get off the couch. He kicked his clothes into a pile near the bathroom and stumbled toward the shower.
A half hour later, he was mostly functioning. But he was not prepared for the text from the sergeant major’s driver that he was wanted in the command group. Fifteen minutes ago.
The morning was off to a great start.
***
“Were you drinking?”
Reza stood at parade rest in Sergeant Major Giles’s office behind closed doors and contemplated the end of his military career. He was a few years short of retirement. Unless he got them to throw him out for a medical reason, he’d leave with nothing.
One night. One goddamned night he’d fallen down and he was getting a wire brush run over his ass.
He could lie but he had the sneaking suspicion that Giles already knew the answer to his question.
Reza sniffed and scrubbed his hand across his jaw and decided on the truth. “Figured getting brains blown out all over me was a pretty solid exception to the no drinking rule, Sergeant Major.”
Giles chewed thoughtfully on the end of his cigar. “Well, you get points for honesty,” he said after a while. “What the fuck happened yesterday?”
A ghost slid up the back of Reza’s spine. “I wish I knew, Sarn’t Major.” He sighed heavily. “I wish I knew.”
“No warning signs? Nothing?”
“Nothing. He hid his meth problem pretty well until we caught him.” Kind of like Reza had hidden his drinking problem until he hadn’t. “Sloban never talked to anyone. He just buried it all under the meth.” And I didn’t ask, Reza thought bitterly. He’d left him at the mercy of dickheads like Captain Marshall. And by the time Reza had sobered up, it had been too late.
“Sit down, Ike.” Reza sat. “What I’m going to tell you does not leave this office.”
Reza nodded sharply but said nothing.
“The brigade commander has opened a formal investigation into Wisniak’s allegations. Until then, he wants to keep everything quiet.” Giles tapped his finger on the edge of his keyboard. “Is the kid safe?”
“Yeah, Sarn’t Major. He’s good.”
Reza thought of the droned out expression on Wisniak’s face the last time he’d seen him. He was heading to Wisniak’s room as soon as he was done here.
He’d fucked up with Sloban. He wasn’t going to do the same thing with Wisniak.
The kid deserved better.
Reza was going to do better.
“How fast will the investigation move?” Reza asked, wondering how long he could keep Wisniak functioning and away from Marshall.
“Fairly quickly, I hope. The boss has called in some outside lawyers to get a fresh set of eyes on this thing.” Giles leaned forward. “Here’s the thing, Ike. Colonel Horace needs a damn good reason to remove Marshall from command and right now, he’s got nothing but allegations from a kid who wanted the pay but never wanted to be the leader the rank on his chest demanded.”
Reza nearly cringed as the echo of his own thoughts came back to haunt him. Everyone judged guys like Wisniak harshly. Including Reza. He had no idea how to fix something like this. Wisniak had made allegations against the company commander but the brigade commander wasn’t going to act on them until he had all the facts. It was a prudent decision even if Reza disagreed with it. The important thing was to keep Wisniak safe.
“I believe him, Sarn’t Major,” Reza said quietly. He wondered if Wisniak ever had anyone believe in him.
Reza certainly hadn’t.
Giles sniffed. “I do, too. Marshall’s arrogant enough to think he can get away with this kind of thing.”
He swallowed hard. Giles had never let him down. Not once. Not even when Reza had nearly ended his career over his drinking.
“Last night needs to be the last time you drink. You can’t keep falling off the wagon.”
Reza nodded.
If Wisniak was walking the knife’s edge because of something that happened between him and Marshall, then taking him out of the company—essentially sending the message that something had happened—might tip him off the ledge.
Reza ground his teeth. He had to stay sober. Too many people were counting on him.
And he could not screw up again.
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