Book of the Month: TAKE ME HOME: Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Ben pulled into the commander’s parking spot the next morning, grateful at least that he no longer had to worry about finding a place to put his truck in the mass confusion that was PT traffic on Fort Hood.
It had been so long since he’d actually come to a PT formation, he was a little thrown off by the fact that it was five fifty a.m. and he was conscious and at work. He was usually one but not the other. Now? Now responsibility dogged his every waking hour. He’d used his insomniac powers for good last night, getting all his required policy letters and other requisite paperwork updated.
Because nothing said “cover your ass” like a good set of policy letters.
He wasn’t sure why he was even doing all this work. He didn’t want the job and he was confident that any day now, LTC Gilliad was going to figure out that he’d made a huge mistake and tell him he could go find himself another job.
Ben could only hope.
His phone vibrated on the seat next to him.
He let that sink in for a moment.
It was five fifty in the morning and his phone was already vibrating. He parked the truck and looked at the text message.
Sir, this is PFC Walsh. The new first sergeant is here to meet you.
“Huh, how ’bout that.” Yesterday had been absolute chaos. He was reasonably certain that every soldier in the company, half their wives, and at least three ex-girlfriends had stood outside his office, looking to either piss on his leg, whine about the previous commander, or kiss his ass.
He didn’t have a lot of patience for any of that. Especially the ass-kissing part. He’d been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people parading through his office and all he’d been able to do was take notes and try to put faces to names. His lieutenants hadn’t been anywhere to be found, either. The last thing he was going to do was walk into his boss’s office and cry about too many people. Ben wasn’t a religious man but damn if he hadn’t prayed that the gods of war would send him a first sergeant.
Someone he could count on. Someone like Escoberra or Reza.
Because if God had meant for captains to run companies by themselves, he wouldn’t have made NCOs.
He grinned in the darkness at the phone. It looked like the gods had decided to answer his prayers. He killed the engine and headed into his company ops.
Five minutes later, Ben wasn’t sure where the Army had dusted off his new first sergeant, but he was more than a little impressed.
He’d heard of people described as six feet tall and bulletproof, but they rarely were. First Sarn’t Gale Sorren was built like a bear-a big one. Six and a half minutes into their conversation, Ben suspected that Sorren might be the myth turned reality.
His hand swallowed Ben’s and Ben was reasonably certain he’d felt bone break.
“Glad you’re here,” Ben said.
“Damn glad to be here, sir.” Sorren’s voice was deep, rumbling from some dark abyss that produced born leaders. Hell, Ben wanted to follow the guy’s orders. But that wasn’t how this relationship was supposed to work.
“Where are you coming from?” Ben motioned for his first sergeant to sit and took his own seat across from him at the conference table in the middle of the company ops.
“Fort Lewis,” Sorren said. “Just got the word that this job was open so I jumped at the chance.”
“They got you here for this job that fast?” The Army never moved people that quickly.
Ever.
Sorren grinned and the smile creased his entire face, from the corners of his mouth to his nearly black eyes. “I was already on my way here. Sarn’t Major asked me to sign in from leave early. Said something about keeping you from fucking things up too badly.”
“Sergeant Major Cox is the president of my fan club.” Ben laughed out loud and leaned back in his chair. Some of the fatigue from his not-sleeping habit receded. Just a little but enough to be noticeable. “I’m glad to see my reputation precedes me.”
“I’ve heard your name before.” Sorren snapped his fingers. “You were Escoberra’s platoon leader.”
Ben nodded, picking at a ragged nail. Just like that, a wave of crushing uncertainty and anxiety washed over him. “Yeah.” He frowned. “You know Escoberra is here now?”
“No shit? I’ll have to look him up.”
“Here’s the thing.” Ben sighed heavily and folded his arms over his chest. “He’s kind of in our company. But he’s in trouble.”
Sorren scowled. “What kind of trouble?”
“The kind involving Child Protective Services.”
“What the hell happened to him?” Sorren muttered. “All right; well, we’ll deal with that later. The family is safe?”
“Yeah. Escoberra stayed in the barracks all day yesterday.” That part was the truth. He didn’t know Sorren from Adam and he wasn’t going to start off by letting him know that Ben was playing fast and loose with the rules right then.
“That really sucks. Escoberra was a good dude.” Sorren rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess we’ll have to take the paperwork and get this ball rolling.”
“I already did the paperwork.” Not entirely true. He’d meant to do the paperwork; he just hadn’t gotten around to it because every time he thought about it, his lungs tightened until he couldn’t breathe. “It doesn’t bother you?”
Sorren tipped his chin and looked at Ben, his expression hard and unreadable. “We have a job to do, sir. Whether it bothers me or not is irrelevant.” He sighed, then stood. “I guess that’s enough with the warm jaunt down Memory Lane. I’ll need your help getting the lay of the land, sir.”
“That eager for the bad news?”
“Oh yes. There’s nothing you can throw at me I haven’t seen before.” Sorren grinned, a gleam of anticipation burning in his dark eyes. He glanced at the clock over Ben’s head. “But first we’ve got to hold formation and do some PT. You a runner, sir?”
“Yeah, I run.” Who in the infantry-hell, the Army-didn’t run?
“Good. I figure we’ll put in a good six miles this morning. Give us a good assessment of where the formation stands.”
Ben took a deep breath, glad he hadn’t been drinking last night. There was nothing quite as terrible as puking the remains of a good night up onto Battalion Avenue and then getting back in formation, stinking of stale alcohol, sweat, and vomit, and finishing the run anyway.
“Good times,” Ben muttered, following the massive first sergeant out of the company
ops.
***
Olivia loved running. She didn’t care that she had to drag her dead ass out of bed long before the sun came up; she loved the feel of her feet pounding on the pavement and the sound of formations around her.
It was something sublime, like being part of a whole.
She stretched with a couple of the other staff officers and saluted the flag when the cannon went off at the corps headquarters.
She wanted to run at least five miles today. It wasn’t like the battalion commander expected her in her office, so she had the time. He’d instituted a new policy that staff officers would do PT. She’d heard that he’d caught a couple of captains in the operations office skipping PT in order to get a briefing done about a week ago.
It had not been pretty.
She turned down Battalion Avenue and started running, soon losing herself among the blur of grey and black-clad bodies, the rhythmic pounding of feet in formation pounding on the pavement. A mile into her run, she crossed over Clear Creek and headed toward the golf course.
A formation ran by, singing something bawdy and loud that probably contained fifteen EO complaints.
Then the silence and the darkness ran together, bleeding into one another until the only thing she could hear were the sounds of her own hard breathing and her shoes crunching on the leaves of the PT trail. She didn’t usually encounter many formations out here on the trails behind the golf course. A few pairs of runners now and again but it was much less crowded. It was peaceful, a different kind of being than out on Battalion.
“Come on, Zittoro. Stay with me, man.”
She knew that voice, knew it all too well. She rounded the corner on the trail. Ben walked with a skinny kid who couldn’t be more than a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He looked up when she ground to a halt nearby.
Ben met her gaze, grim determination in his eyes. He quickly looked away and focused back on Zittoro, who seemed to be having trouble breathing. “Come on, man, you got this. Let’s finish strong.”
Zittoro’s lungs heaved. “Just leave me, sir.”
“Not gonna happen. The way I see it, we got two options. You can walk in or you can run in, but whatever you choose I’m doing, too.”
“You just took command. You can’t walk during PT,” Zittoro said.
“Then do we have our option?” Ben grinned. “And I’m sure Major Hale would love to finish the run with us.” He looked at her, the dare clear in his eyes.
“Sure would,” Olivia said. She had no idea what was going on in Ben’s head but right then, if he wanted her help to motivate the kid, then so be it. It had been a long time since she’d run PT with soldiers. She missed it sometimes.
Zittoro looked between the two of them, then spat onto the dried out leaves. “All right, let’s do this.”
Ben looked at her, held her gaze a moment too long. Then she fell into step with the two men and they were off.
Zittoro was not a strong runner. Not by a long shot. Olivia probably could have walked faster, but a look at Ben was all she needed to see that there was more to this than just making sure the kid finished the run. His name was familiar, too, but at the moment she was drawing a complete blank.
In the end, she didn’t get in her five miles. She probably got closer to three, but by the time they made it back to the headquarters parking lot, the sun was already creeping over the corps headquarters. Olivia swiped her forehead on her PT uniform sleeve as Ben gripped Zittoro’s shoulder. “Good job today.”
Zittoro shrugged Ben’s hand off and looked sheepish. “Nah, you and I both know you’re blowing smoke up my ass,” Zittoro said.
“Well, we all need a little something now and again to lift us up. Don’t be late for work
call.”
“Whatever, sir,” he said with a grin. He paused then looked back at Olivia and smiled. “Thanks for finishing the run with me, ma’am.”
Olivia smiled. “No problem.” And then she was alone with Ben. “So you want to tell me what that was all about?”
Ben stuffed his hands into the waistband of his PT shorts. Olivia didn’t miss the way his sweat-soaked shirt outlined the lean, hard muscles on his chest or the way the uniform stretched tight across his shoulders. There was a hint of a tattoo beneath the edge of his short sleeve PT shirt. It drew her gaze like a compulsion. She had the deep, driving urge to push his sleeve slowly up that smooth, muscled skin and look more closely at the intricate design.
She gave herself a mental shake. Since when did she like tattooed men?
She breathed out deeply, thoroughly distracted by the idea of tracing her fingers over his forearm, then lower, to thread with his.
“Zittoro’s one of the kids we talked about yesterday,” Ben said.
Just like that, the name connected with the memory. It was always harder to put a name with a face. “He’s the kid I recommend immediately separating.” Her voice fell with the realization.
And there was something deeper here, something heavy beneath the way Ben had encouraged the kid, refusing to leave him.
Any other commander wouldn’t have tried to keep the druggie kid in the formation. Another commander would have left him, treated him like shit.
Despite Olivia knowing what the norm sadly was, to her there was something admirable in the way that Ben had stuck with Zittoro. Her mouth went dry as she studied him.
She licked her bottom lip, seeing something in Ben Teague she hadn’t expected. There was something deeper beneath the sensual, dark exterior. Heat radiated off him from the run and she caught a hint of his scent, something spicy and warm that made her want to step closer than she should. “Yeah.” His voice was thick, throaty.
He met her gaze then, watching her watching him. The world fell away until it was just her, just him, and she was tempted, far too tempted, to take a single step toward him. To feel the heat from his body wrap around her and draw her closer. To feel his heart beat beneath her cheek and feel his arms surround her. The need was strong, so strong.
She inhaled deeply as her heart slowed, blinked to break the thrall that held her there. “I’m sorry, Ben. I know you want to help him but I just don’t think you can.” She wiped her forehead again and took a single step backward. “I highly doubt the brigade commander is going to let you retain him, even if you wanted to. There are too many soldiers testing positive these days.”
“I know that,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Ben pulled his t-shirt out of his shorts and wiped his face. Olivia tried and failed not to notice the narrow band of hair on his belly or the deep golden tone of his skin against the black of his shorts. But it was the ragged scar running down the center of his abdomen that drew her attention.
Time stood still, moments ticking by with painful slowness. Deep pink against the tan skin of his belly, the scar traced down his stomach and curved along the top of his hip bone. She hesitated, curling her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching out to touch it with the tip of her finger. She looked up and knew in an instant that she’d been caught staring.
His eyes darkened but he didn’t look away. His throat moved as he swallowed. His lips twitched at the edges. Just a hint.
“You know, if you keep undressing me with your eyes, I’m going to need to file a sexual harassment complaint.” He lowered the shirt with deliberate slowness. It hung at his sides, untucked and out of regulation. “I feel violated,” he whispered.
“Ben.” His name caught in her throat. She swallowed, badly needing space from this man that made her lose her composure. “That looks like it hurt,” she said simply, trying to catch her breath.
He didn’t move. He stood a little too close. Her skin was a little too warm, craving that human connection that she missed. “It still itches sometimes.”
“How did it happen?”
There was a darkness in his eyes now, a tension tightening the muscles in his neck. One fist bunched by his side. “Shrapnel when our base was overrun.”
“Our?”
“Me and Escoberra,” he said softly. His eyes darkened, his mouth a flat line.
“That explains a lot,” she whispered.
“You have no idea,” he said. “He’s like family to me.”
“I’m sorry you have to do this,” she said simply. Because she was. She’d never faced something like this-she’d never had to process actions on someone she cared about.
“Thank you,” he said. He studied her quietly. “You haven’t deployed, right?”
“I have,” she said softly.
He frowned, folding his arms over his chest. His uniform stretched over his chest, drawing Olivia’s gaze to the raw power of the man in front of her. “I thought you didn’t have a combat patch.”
“I was in Kuwait. I don’t feel right wearing a combat patch when I wasn’t in harm’s way.”
He frowned then, studying her carefully. “That’s an unusual attitude,” he admitted. “You know you’ve opened yourself up to problems down here by not wearing your patch, right?”
She lifted a single shoulder. “When I earn a combat patch for going to combat, I’ll wear one,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to wear it just for the sake of it.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “That’s either really brave, or really stupid,” he said easily.
Her own grin caught her off guard. “I’ll let you know how it turns out,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. What was it about this man who could so easily disarm all her defenses?
“Thanks for helping me out with Zittoro. He has too much pride to fall out around a female.”
She swallowed, tipping her chin to study him. “Why did you do that with him?”
Ben scrubbed his hand over his mouth. “Because he’s had a rough time of things. He’s a good kid who has problems. He’s still a soldier.”
Her heart caught in her throat at the raw determination in his eyes. “You want to save him.”
His mouth pressed into a flat line. “There are worse things for a commander to want,” he said roughly.
She took a single step toward him. It was stupid for him to care this much, this deeply about a soldier he couldn’t save.
“You have to know you can’t,” she whispered. The urge to curl her fingers over his heart, to reach out to him, was damn near overwhelming.
He swallowed, his movement violent and filled with hurt. “Maybe I have to try,” he whispered. “Otherwise, what’s the point of all this power and responsibility?”
There were so many things she could say to that. So many things that would make this harder, not easier.
Instead, she said nothing.
She looked away, her gaze landing on a couple of soldiers walking by, sporting their Stetsons. Something about those things made the troopers down here walk taller.
“Did you get yours yet?”
“You mean the black cowboy hat everyone wears here?” She shook her head, grateful for the reprieve from a painful subject. “Sarn’t Major Cox mentioned it.”
“Stetson,” Ben corrected. “You’re an officer. You need one before next Friday.”
She frowned, wishing she had her phone with her calendar on it. “What happens next
Friday?”
“We wear them instead of our regular headgear to Stable Call. It’s tradition.”
“Stable Call. I’ll assume you didn’t just speak a foreign language.” She smiled and it was warmer than it should have been toward Ben Teague.
“Mandatory fun. We all go to Legends Sports Bar and listen to our fearless leaders pontificate on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.”
Olivia smiled, grateful for the easy subject for once. Funny, she never would have thought talking about a silly hat would make her feel more at ease with him. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll add it to my to-do list. Where do I get one?”
“The Cav Museum or there’s a place off post off Stan Schlueter Loop.”
She swallowed hard. “They’ll take care of you at either place. Just tell them you need officer cords.”
“I have no idea what that means but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”
She met his gaze, unsteady in this strange truce between them. But Ben’s kindness was something out of the ordinary. And it stood in stark contrast to how he’d been that first day.
Ben swiped his cheek against his shoulder. “Thanks for running with me and Zittoro, Olivia,” he murmured.
“You already said that,” she said softly, undone by the quiet ease in his voice. “You did a kind thing. Kindness these days is in short supply.”
His smile was warm. “I’ll try to remember that.”
He stood a little too close. She could smell the heady mixture of soap and sweat, of man, primal and raw.
This man called to her. This man, who’d been kind to a soldier who’d fallen out of a run, tempted her to step out of her comfort zone.
This man, she needed to get far, far away from.
***
Ben walked into the company ops-into his company ops-to see a pissed-off first sergeant pacing the orderly room. It was just after eight a.m. and Ben had just come from the gym and a cold shower because the gym’s hot water had been out.
Because the universe was screwing with him.
“You know you can’t do that again,” Sorren said.
“Who pissed in your corn flakes?” Ben asked.
“You did, sir.”
Ben stopped short. “Sorry?”
“You can’t leave the entire formation to go back for one guy, sir. That’s what we have NCOs for.”
Ben breathed deeply. “I didn’t see any NCOs heading back to scoop him up.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll deal with them at first formation ’cause that is going to be the one and only time something like that happens.” Sorren downed his cup of coffee and Ben wondered if it had been hot when the big man had gulped it down. “Now take me through our problem children.”
Forty minutes later, Ben thought about offering Sorren a beer.
“I honestly didn’t think that was possible,” Sorren said after his fifth cup of coffee. He glanced mournfully at his mug then at the ancient coffee pot that looked like it was about to die at any moment.
“I think it’s going to take a lot more than coffee to get through all this.”
“We’ve got our work cut out for us, that’s for sure.” Sorren scrubbed a big hand over his jaw. He was the kind of guy who needed to shave three times a day. “We need a better coffee pot than this fucking relic. Where the hell did that thing even come from?”
“A twelve-dollar one from the Goodwill, most likely.” Ben thought longingly of the espresso machine in the battalion headquarters. Maybe he’d start a coffee fund and get one for the company ops. Maybe he’d lead a stealth mission to steal the espresso machine. “New generation doesn’t believe in caffeine. They’re all about the energy drinks and soda.”
Sorren made a disgusted face. “What the hell is wrong with kids these days?”
Ben kicked his feet up on the table. One of the legal packets slipped over the edge and onto the floor. Ben just sat there looking at it for a long time.
Zittoro, Anthony. The name written in neat block letters. Ben stared at it over the edge of his coffee cup, resting his elbows on his knees. The packet would end the career of a once solid infantryman who hadn’t been able to beat his addiction and could no longer stay in the fight. And Ben had to put him out of the Army knowing the kid had nowhere to go.
Ben looked into his own coffee cup and wished he could find some smart-ass comment to lighten the weight around his heart.
He looked up to find Sorren watching him.
“You don’t want this job, do you, sir.”
It wasn’t a question.
Instead, he said nothing. Because there were no words to describe the fierce tension rioting inside him.
“What makes you say that?” was all he said after the silence hung on too long.
Sorren shoved Ben’s boots off the table, then leaned down to pick up the folder. He tossed it onto the table and sat back down.
“Why don’t we clear the air on this right now,” Sorren said. He leaned forward and Ben leaned back.
Right then, his first sergeant was pissed and it was all directed straight at Ben. Once upon a time, he might have been intimidated. Now? Now he was just tired. Far too burned out and cynical for his age.
“We’ve got eight months to get ready to head back downrange. Whether or not you go with us is up for discussion.” Sorren jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “I’ve got a job to do but to do that, I need you to do yours. So whatever angst or teenage drama or unresolved trauma you need to overcome to do your fucking job, I need you to get over it. I’ve buried enough soldiers. I’m not going to let another petulant captain ruin my men.”
Ben rocked slowly in his chair, contemplating the myriad of things he could say. His First Sarn’t was like most senior NCOs, wary of the officer corps that led them. Far too many officers had thrown their senior enlisted man under the bus to save their own asses.
His throat constricted with a wave of guilt. Escoberra had taken the hit when their base had gotten overrun, despite Ben trying to shield him.
Goddamn it, he was going to take care of Escoberra this time. He wouldn’t fail a second time.
But Sorren’s words hit home with an accuracy born from experience. Ben wondered just how much beer it would take to get Sorren to open up.
There would be time for that some other day.
“I’ll do my job, First Sarn’t.” He had no idea how he was going to do that, but he’d figure it out. Maybe start drinking at lunch or some other self-destructive habit. Get Emily to give him some free therapy.
“I hope so, sir,” Sorren said roughly.
Instead, Ben set the coffee cup on the conference room table and stretched. “Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way. Want to go take a warm shower together and sing kumbaya?”
Sorren just looked at him for a minute. A tick at the corner of his left eye jumped. Ben seriously wondered if he’d be able to move fast enough if Sorren tried to take a swing at him.
Sorren’s sudden laugh surprised him. “All right then, sir.” He stood and slapped Ben’s shoulder and damn near knocked it out of joint. “Let’s go to the motor pool and get some work done.”
Ben turned around in his chair to see Sarn’t Major Cox standing in his orderly room. Sorren moved to his feet quickly and called, “At ease!”
Ben frowned. “Has hell frozen over?”
As usual, Cox didn’t appreciate the joke. “I need a few minutes of your time, Commander.”
***
“I’m sorry? I don’t think I heard you correctly.” Olivia reached for her water bottle, hoping to push the lump down in her throat.
There was a fellow major sitting across from her. He was a thin man-wiry would be an apt description-and his eyes shifted constantly, darting around the office she had yet to claim as her own.
There was a sharpness about Major Denis that had her backbone up. There was something lethal about him that had nothing to do with the bad things in this battalion, but everything to do with the man himself. She’d decided she didn’t like the Death Dealer battalion executive officer the minute she’d met him. Five minutes was all it had taken to turn that dislike into active loathing.
“I need the files on Captain Marshall.”
“Again, Major Denis, I’m not sure how you think this works but I deal with your battalion commander on these things.”
He cleared his throat, shifting in his chair. “I’m working legal actions for the battalion commander. I’m trying to get caught up on the legal situation before the briefing.”
Olivia felt the anger start to simmer someplace deep inside of her. “I’m under specific orders to deal only with commanders on several of these cases. This is one of them. So while I appreciate your desire to get caught up-” and she made air quotes around “caught up” just in case he missed her point- “I’m not giving you those files.”
Denis’s face darkened as a flush crept up his neck. “Fine. We’ll see what the boss says about this. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know how you’re negatively impacting the processing of legal actions.”
Olivia set the water bottle down roughly and stood. “Don’t threaten me,” she said quietly. “I’m the very last person you’re going to swell up on and try to intimidate. And if you don’t like the way I’m doing my job, go find someone who gives a damn, because I’m not the one.”
Denis stood and leaned over her desk, trying to force her to either sit down or step back. She did neither. “You think you can come down here and just run things the way you want? We do things differently down here. You’d better learn that.”
She stood her ground, refusing to back down. She glanced over his shoulder at the man who’d just stepped into the doorway. “Captain Teague, did you need something?”
Ben stared hard at Denis quietly, but Olivia could see the restrained tension in his stillness. Without taking his eyes off Denis, he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “Just need a few minutes of your time, ma’am.”
“What are you doing here, Teague?” Denis asked. “You’re supposed to be in the motor pool conducting inventories.”
Ben’s smile was ice cold, his fingers tight around a dinged-up water bottle as he slipped his phone back into his pocket with his other hand. “Commander business,” he said mildly.
The tension between the two men was palpable. Something physical and something real. She wondered at the history between them. But this wasn’t the time to ask. Ben didn’t take his eyes off the skinny major as Denis shuffled out of the office, leaving a trail of grease hanging in the air after him.
“Nice timing,” she said, gesturing toward the chair recently vacated by her new BFF. “What’s the story there?”
“That would take a hell of a lot longer than we’ve got right now.” Ben glanced over his shoulder and halfway out of the office to make sure Denis was gone. “He was my commander, once upon a war. Between us girls, you might want to watch your back with that one. He’s a nasty little fucker.”
Olivia chewed on Ben’s words for a moment. “Oh, I already figured that out.”
Ben shook his head as he sat and folded his hands in his lap. “No, I don’t think you’re following. He’s well connected and he could easily start something at echelons well above your pay grade that could get you into a world of shit.”
Olivia’s skin went cold. She tucked that little piece of information away someplace safe. Maybe she’d need it, maybe she wouldn’t, but she wasn’t one to brush off advice. She reached for her water bottle.
“Well, I appreciate the warning.” She twisted the lid off her water bottle. “What can I help you with?”
He tapped his finger against the lip of his bottle. “I have a problem.”
She waited for him to continue, not wanting to poison the well by jumping to conclusions. Warmth spread over her skin as she sat with him. Recollection of that morning’s earlier conversation hung in the air between them. A jagged scar that she’d wanted to trace with her fingers. Her gaze dropped to his belly, covered now by his uniform. Scars like that changed a man. What had he been like before his body had been marked by the war?
What had he been like?
She looked up to find him watching her. Heat rose inside her, heat that she had no business feeling toward this man. She licked her bottom lip, wishing that things were simpler. That she wasn’t a bundle of screwed up everything, and that he wasn’t as dark and wounded as she suspected he was.
She couldn’t save him.
No matter how much she might want to take away his pain, his memories were his own.
Still, that knowledge didn’t stop her from wanting to soothe some of the jagged pain she saw in his eyes.
She needed some distance, and some perspective on the complicated man in front of her.
She let the silence stand between them until he found the words he needed.
“Sergeant First Class Escoberra.”
Olivia swallowed but stayed quiet. Cold washed over her skin. She couldn’t afford to jump to conclusions but damn it was hard. “What about him?”
He turned the cap on his bottle. On. Off. “Is there any way to speed this thing up?”
Olivia sank back in her chair. He wasn’t asking her to break the rules. At least, she didn’t think he was. “What’s going on?”
Ben’s eyes flashed darkly. Just a moment before he looked away, down at his hands. “I can’t go into that with you,” he said quietly. “But it would mean a hell of a lot to me if we could get his case wrapped up. I don’t care how it ends but we can’t have this one dragging out forever and a day.”
There was a warning there. A plea. “There’s little we can do until Child Protective Services finishes their investigation,” she said quietly.
Ben studied the water bottle in his hands.
“You still want to defend him?” Olivia couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice.
Ben met her gaze. “You know why,” he whispered.
Frustration clawed at her. How could she get him to see that the man he was defending was not the man he knew? Or maybe he was.
But Ben needed to see the truth before he made any more decisions. He needed to understand what his platoon sergeant had done to his daughter-a man he defended so willingly.
She searched through the stack of files until she found Escoberra’s. Flipped it open and tossed it onto her desk. “Before you say another word, explain to me how this happened. Then we’ll have this conversation again.”
Ben looked at the pictures, then looked away. “Jesus Christ.”
***
Hailey-Escoberra’s stepdaughter-oh God, Hailey. Her back. Black and blue bruises covered her back in the photos. Ben could see knuckle marks embedded in her pale skin, the open slash on the front of her shoulder.
Ben covered his mouth, feeling sick, his brain rioting denial even as his eyes remained glued to the pictures.
Slowly, Ben shook his head. “There’s got to be something we’re missing.”
“Does that excuse his action if we are?”
Ben’s gaze collided with hers. “I can’t believe this man did this to his little girl. He loves that kid. He loves his family.”
But the doubt twisted in his guts like a knife.
“All the love in the world doesn’t explain this,” she said quietly. Olivia crossed her arms over her chest. Ben had never seen her angry before. Her pale skin flushed. He wished he didn’t notice. “Stop looking for ways to break the rules,” she said.
“I’m not asking to make this go away. I asked if we could speed this up at all. There’s a mile of difference between the two.”
“Not in my world,” she said.
“Well, this isn’t your world,” he said, standing and leaning over the desk. She didn’t even flinch. “It’s mine.”
“That’s not true.” She stood, anger radiating off her. “You want to know about trauma? How about having a young woman sit across from your desk, begging you to let her husband come home? Pleading that he didn’t mean it, that things were going to change?”
Ben leaned back, blown away by the force of her anger.
“You want to know trauma, Captain Teague? How about that young woman dead less than a week later? And the man she loved so…damned…much? He killed her.” She slammed Escoberra’s packet on the desk. “So don’t sit there and defend this and expect me to sit back and believe that man is a hero.” She jammed her finger against the packet. “Because I’ve seen heroes do some terrible fucking things.”
Ben folded his arms over his chest, anger ripping at him. He’d come here to ask for help and instead, she’d torn into him. “Escoberra isn’t that man,” Ben said, his voice cold.
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“And neither do you,” Ben snapped.
“I know what I see in that packet. I see a man who is capable of incredible violence.”
“And I know a man capable of incredible love.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
She stepped back, her features hard, the anger a tangible thing in the room. “I need his mental health evaluation done ASAP.”
Ben ground his teeth, hating that he had to do that to Escoberra. But those pictures planted a seed of doubt now, and it nagged at the base of his skull, whispering that he might be wrong. “We’ve got the appointment in two weeks.”
“They can’t see him sooner?”
Ben shook his head. “You obviously don’t know how things work around here.”
“I just came from working at the hospital. Things weren’t that slow there.”
Ben snorted and swiped his water bottle off the desk. “You really have no idea how the rest of the Army works, do you? You’ve spent your entire career safe and sound up in some headquarters while the rest of us have been getting our asses handed to us.”
Something dark flickered over her expression. A haunted memory, something bent and gnarled.
Something that hurt.
She shut it down as quickly as it appeared but not before Ben saw it and wondered at its source. What had hurt her so deeply that it could sneak out like that?
Ben knew all about being hurt. About memories that haunted the darkness, memories that kept him from sleeping.
But he’d be damned if he was going to ask about hers.
“Don’t sit there and think you know me, Ben,” she whispered. “Because you don’t know me at all.”
He twisted the top off his bottle. “You’re right. I don’t.”
Ben stalked out of the office, wishing he hadn’t seen that moment of vulnerability in her eyes. Wishing he hadn’t seen the pictures of Hailey.
Wishing he didn’t have to deal with any of this.
But he did. And goddamn it, Escoberra owed him some answers.
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