Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance

by Jessica Scott

  Shane had no idea how Nicole put up with all of Carponti’s antics, but she did. It looked like neither of them had slept. He was happy to see that there was laughter in Nicole’s eyes—so much better than the tears he’d seen in the other wives. Carponti had a wife who’d stood by him no matter how many times he went off to war. He was one of the lucky ones. Shane glanced around at the myriad of couples saying their last farewells, wondering how many of the wives and girlfriends would be here when they returned. And wasn’t that a cheerful thought.

  Nicole peeled away from her husband and ducked into the bathroom. Meanwhile, Carponti strolled up to Shane, dropping his assault pack next to him on the bleachers. “What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

  As he dropped his gear on the floor, Carponti removed his patrol cap, and Shane damn near choked on a laugh. He’d shaved his red hair completely off except for a tiny patch on the top of his head.

  “Is that supposed to make you look tough?” Shane asked, covering his mouth with his hand.

  Carponti shrugged and slid his hand over his ghost-white scalp. “You’re just jealous because I can still grow hair and yours has long ago surrendered the field to old age.”

  Shane scowled. “Are you drunk?”

  “Nope, cold sober. Wish I was still at home in bed with my wife, though. But no. Not drunk.” His grin spread across his face as he plopped down next to Shane, elbowing him in his stitches. “Watch out, here comes the sergeant major and oh, he looks so happy to see you.”

  Shane and Carponti both stood as the major approached. Carponti raised his voice several octaves as he imitated a deliriously happy teenage girl, as Shane, once again, wished that annoying people in charge wasn’t one of Carponti’s favorite pastimes. “Morning, Sarn’t Major. Did you bring a pillow and a blankie for the flight?”

  Shane shoved Carponti behind him as he assumed the position of parade rest, hands folded at the small of his back, his feet spread. Sergeant Major Giles didn’t laugh at Carponti’s smart-ass remark. A smirk didn’t even dent the creases in Giles’s hard-lined face. He glared, pinning Shane with a hard look. Light glinted off his smooth scalp.

  “Want to explain what happened last night?” Giles stopped in front of them, his feet braced shoulder-width apart, thumbs hooked on his belt loops.

  “Nothing that I’m aware of, Sarn’t Major,” Shane said, mentally willing Carponti to keep his mouth shut while at the same time hoping that Nicole would hurry back from the bathroom. If Carponti’s wife was there with them, maybe Sarn’t Major wouldn’t rip them new assholes …

  It wasn’t like Shane and Carponti hadn’t been grilled by the Sarn’t Major before. There was a period right after the last deployment when every single one of Carponti’s team had been arrested. All at once. Shane had managed to keep them from being thrown out of the army. Barely. And just his luck, his bullshitting skills were asleep at the moment.

  Sergeant Major pulled out a can of dip and slapped it between his thumb and index finger then stuffed a wad between the side of his cheek and his teeth. “So there wasn’t an assault on an officer last night at Ropers?”

  “Well.” Shane cleared his throat. “There’s a lot of confusion about what actually happened …”

  Giles jabbed a finger toward Shane’s chest, cutting him off. “Save your tap dancing for the commander. Did anyone get arrested?”

  “No, Sarn’t Major.”

  “Good. So explain to me how you’re the only platoon sergeant who hasn’t cleared the medical section.” He folded his arms over his chest and jerked his head toward Carponti. “Along with this delinquent.”

  Shane cleared his throat, praying Carponti would keep his mouth shut for a few more minutes. “Must have slipped my mind, Sarn’t Major.”

  It was a banner day that Sarn’t Major didn’t eviscerate him over that lame-ass excuse. Giles jabbed his thumb over his shoulder toward the medical line.

  “Now” was all he said before he moved off to some other hapless bastard. “You, too, smart-ass.”

  Shane swore beneath his breath as they walked over to the medical line, leaving their weapons with Ross, one of Carponti’s soldiers. Carponti, eager to get the process over with, elbowed his way in front of him. Something tore deep beneath the muscles in Shane’s abdomen and white pain blocked his throat.

  “That was the worst excuse ever.”

  When Shane felt he could talk he said, “We didn’t have to see the battalion commander, so it worked, didn’t it? And thank you for keeping your mouth shut.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Carponti responded. Shane shot him a look that suggested otherwise. “I’m fully aware that assaulting an officer isn’t a good way to start my deployment.”

  Shane laughed, folded his arms over his chest, and scanned the line, seeing many familiar faces. Several guys had their noses buried in books but most of them were just talking trash and throwing insults at one another as the line inched forward. There were a half dozen nurses in blue smocks, poking and sticking the men with last-minute anthrax and smallpox and a dozen other vials of mysterious crap ending in x.

  A mass of soldiers stood in several lines, obscuring the view, but every so often he’d catch a glimpse of what was happening at the front of the lines. Each soldier stepped forward, and removed his Army Combat Uniform top, then rolled up the sleeves of his tan undershirt. Some would hold on to their weapons, others would hand them to a buddy before they went under the needle. Then he’d hand the nurse his records and wait to see how many needles were involved in this little medical party.

  Maybe he could bluff his way through the line. He’d banked on there not being medical processing today. Looks like he’d been wrong. He had to skip a full-blown medical exam. The minute the nurse saw the bandages taped to his belly, he’d be well and truly fucked.

  Most of the guys stood in silence as the nurse reviewed which shot—or shots—they needed. Shane grinned as one of the soldiers tried to convince his nurse to falsify his records so he wouldn’t have to get smallpox. It didn’t work. It never did. Shane scanned the crowd, trying to formulate a plan.

  The nurse at the front of his line caught his attention just as she raised a needle over a soldier’s biceps. Shane’s skin prickled with recognition as pale green eyes looked right past him and back to the soldier she was about to inject.

  Holy. Shit.

  Jen St. James.

  * * *

  Jen bit her bottom lip as she reviewed the medical chart in front of her. She searched for composure as she swabbed the GI’s shoulder. When she’d been asked to fill in for another nurse that morning, she had known there was a distinct possibility that she would see Shane again, but she hadn’t really counted on it … Now he stood just two soldiers away from her and she had no idea what to do next.

  He was even more incredible in broad daylight, and that was saying a whole lot, because he’d been pretty damn impressive last night. His tan T-shirt stretched across his chest like a second skin, making his shoulders look wider than they had last night, and she could see the outline of his dog tags beneath it.

  Shane’s friend stepped right up, instantly recognizing her. “Hey, aren’t you Laura Davila’s friend from last night? I’ll have your child if you let me skip the smallpox vac,” Carponti begged. “I will make Shane send you pictures of his—”

  Suddenly Shane’s palm struck him on the back of the head and Carponti’s freckled face went from grinning to groaning. Carponti stumbled forward and nearly collided with Jen before he caught himself.

  Shane covered his mouth and coughed, and she couldn’t tell if he was laughing or horrified. “Sorry about Carponti, ma’am. We don’t let him out to play very often.”

  “That’s all right.” Jen held out her hand for Carponti’s ID card. “The animals have to be let out sometime,” she added, with a lightness she hadn’t felt a moment before.

  Shane leaned toward her and her breath caught in her throat, his familiar scent wrapped around her. She want
ed to ask him what soap he used, because, damn, he smelled good. Then he spoke, his voice low in a conspiratorial whisper, and she forgot all about his smell when his voice reverberated off her skin. “If you could make this hurt a little extra, that would be great.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Carponti whined. “And just a reminder, I know where you’re going to be sleeping for the rest of the year.”

  Jen tried not to laugh at his antics while she quickly injected him with the vaccine and then covered the puncture with a bandage. “Keep it covered for the next ten days and don’t leave the bandage laying around.”

  “So putting it on Sarn’t G’s bunk is probably a bad idea?”

  “Um, yes.” She stamped Carponti’s record and handed it back to him. “Good luck this year.”

  “I don’t have to sign anything?” he asked, looking over at a soldier signing some orange form.

  “No. You’re just getting vaccinations. He probably needs an exam.” She paused. “Take care, okay?”

  Carponti moved off to the next station as Shane reluctantly stepped up to the medical station. She fought the tiny curl of her lips at seeing him again. It was a ridiculous reaction. But it felt good.

  “Hi,” he said, breaking the heavy silence between them.

  “Hi.” It was another moment before she held out her hand. “Do you have your records?”

  His jaw flexed. “No. The clinic lost them.”

  “Oh. I can pull them up here if you give me your ID card.” He handed it over and a moment later, Shane’s medical history flashed on the screen. “You missed your last exam. I can’t clear you until you have a periodic health assessment.”

  “Can’t you do that?” Shane said.

  She shot him a baleful look that said he should know better. “I can do the exam, but it has to be validated by a doctor. And no, you can’t skip your predeployment health screening. Unless you want me to get fired,” she added.

  “I’m healthy as an ox.” He stepped closer, so close she had to tip her head up to look at him. Last night, he’d dipped his mouth, just a little, and she’d met him halfway. “If there’s any way you can get me cleared today I’d really appreciate it … I need to deploy.”

  Jen then looked up at the man who had shielded her at the bar last night. At the man who, for one breathtaking, soul-blinding moment, had made her forget her own scars and inhibitions and made her feel sensual and beautiful and whole. She wanted to help him, but there were rules, very strict rules that could get her fired. Rules that invoked patient privacy and fit-for-duty standards. Too many commanders had bullied soldiers onto planes who weren’t fit to deploy. Broken legs or broken spirits, it didn’t matter, it was the commander who held the final vote. The tight rules were there to keep soldiers who weren’t healthy off the planes and out of combat until they were fully healed. Some never were. But it was the soldier who begged to deploy anyway, even though he wasn’t physically ready, that really tore at her soul.

  She looked up at the unspoken plea staring back at her from concrete-grey eyes.

  “I’m going to jail for this,” she murmured. She raised her voice, just a little. “Sergeant Garrison, would you step over here, please?”

  Jen motioned for him to follow her behind the white curtain, not missing the wary expression on his face. Last night he’d looked at her like she’d hung the moon. Now? Now he looked at her like she might be the enemy.

  “I need to take your vitals. Sit there.” She pointed at a chair then pulled out the blood pressure cuff, wrapping it around his arm. His skin was hot and smooth beneath her fingertips; the black tattoos writhed up his arm and disappeared beneath the cotton sleeve. She looked anywhere but in his eyes as she slipped the stethoscope beneath the cuff and listened to his heart. As she pumped up the band, his strong, solid heartbeat thumped in her ears over the hiss of air as she counted silently. Her gaze drifted down again to the outline of the dog tags pressed against his … wait a second. Beneath the soft tan cotton of his shirt, a small square outline caught her attention.

  “Shane, what is that?” She glanced at the area in question.

  He tensed, suddenly immobile. Totally still. No movement. No sound. The kind of still that her patients became when they were getting ready to lie to her.

  “What?” he asked, avoiding her gaze.

  “That lump beneath your T-shirt.”

  “Cut myself shaving,” he said, but his voice was tight.

  “You shave … your chest?” Jen asked weakly. She knew some guys did. She just never understood why.

  “Bad joke?”

  Forgetting his blood pressure, Jen tugged at the edge of his shirt, revealing a white bandage, stained with blood. Turning, she grabbed a pair of gloves and pulled them on, then quickly eased back the bandage. “That’s more than a shaving cut.” She finally met his gaze, confronting the emotions she’d tried to avoid. The torrent inside of her was nothing compared to the intensity looking back at her. Tiny flecks of green tinted the blue-grey of his eyes. Lines creased the skin beneath them and she very suddenly wanted to get as far away from him as she could. That or smooth her fingers over those lines after she asked him for the one thing she doubted he’d give her. The truth. “These are surgical incisions. Did … did you have surgery?”

  He swallowed, his jaw flexing, and looked away. The muscles in his neck visibly tightened. He breathed hard, his nostrils flaring. Finally, the answer ground from his lips. “Appendix.”

  Jen held her breath as she moved his shirt and saw the blood seeping around the edge of the bandage where she held it against his skin. This was a recent appendectomy. Really recent. What the hell was he thinking? She pulled the bandage off, and inspected the sutures. At least it had been laparoscopic surgery. Small wounds, one on his left side, the other at the base of his navel. The other bandage was still partially hidden by the rest of his T-shirt and the waistband of his pants. She reached behind her for a clean bandage, but Shane snagged her wrists.

  “Please keep this quiet, Jen. I know it looks bad, but really I’m fine. If I need to sign something to get you to agree to let me go, I will, but I’m asking you to pretend you didn’t see this.”

  The silence grew and still she didn’t speak as she pulled her wrists free and replaced the bandage. Finally, she looked directly at him, refusing to look away from the plea in his eyes. “Let me see your other stitches.”

  Shane lifted the rest of his shirt free from his pants, revealing his hard stomach, covered with a dark swirl of hair. Another white patch stood out against the dark hair at the bottom of his navel. And just like before, a bright red splotch of blood seeped through.

  “Oh, Shane,” she whispered as she reached and peeled the bandage back from the incision. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as she feared. The stitches hadn’t ripped, just stretched enough to leak. With an alcohol pad, she wiped the blood from the clean-shaven skin around his wound. She tried not to notice warm, smooth heat radiating from his skin. Thankfully, it was the warmth of a healthy male, not the intense heat that suggested infection. Gently, she pressed a clean bandage over the stitches. “They’re not ripped, but they easily could have been.”

  Sighing, she looked up at him, immediately noticing that his cheeks were clean-shaven, in stark contrast to the night before. Hidden behind the white curtain, a barrier had grown between them. A wall made of two blood-soaked bandages and a missing appendix.

  She swallowed and studied him closely, hating her next words. “Shane, you can’t deploy today. You’re days out of surgery. Technically, you should be on convalescent leave.”

  “Obviously, I’m not. I’m here and I’m getting ready to get on a plane for an eighteen-hour flight to the sandbox. With. My. Men.” He never raised his voice, but the intensity ratcheted up with each word.

  He was serious. He was trying to deploy. Today. “You could die.”

  “Jen, I’m going to run combat patrols in northern Baghdad. I figure my odds are fifty-fifty at best anyway
.”

  She took a step backward and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you deploy. The risk of infection alone …”

  Shane stood and stepped into her space, close like he had been last night only this time his voice was low and rough. Ragged. “Do you know what it feels like to have a kid die on patrol because his squad leader did something stupid? Something you could have prevented if you’d been there? Jen, this is the Surge. The last big push to try and stop the violence and stabilize Iraq. This is going to be worse than any year since the supposed end of combat operations. Don’t send my men to war without me. Please, Jen.”

  “You won’t do a damn bit of good if you’re laid up with an infection.” She tried to step back, away from the intensity in his words, the plea that was in his voice. But she didn’t. She’d never seen this kind of concern before.

  “Then I won’t get an infection. Tell me whatever I have to do, whatever pills I have to take to prevent it, and I’ll do it.” He glanced around, like he was searching for something, then he picked up a syringe to help him make his point, holding it in the palm of his hand. “You wouldn’t send the guys over there without their shots, right?”

  She tried to take the syringe from him and he closed his hand over hers. Jen shook her head and tried to free her hand … “Shane, that makes no sense and has nothing to do with you, but no, of course not. They need the immunizations to stay healthy.”

  He squeezed her fingers beneath his and grinned down at her, his eyes warm like they’d been last night. “Think of me as part of their stay-healthy plan.” He slid his fingers over the back of her knuckles, the gesture too familiar and too enticing all at once. The grin was now gone, the plea back in his eyes. “Don’t send my men without me. Please.”

  “You’re not God, Shane. You can’t control who lives and who dies.”

  “No, I can’t, but I can make a difference.”