Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance

by Jessica Scott

  “Thank you. For everything.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but she stopped him. She didn’t bother to fight the blush that crept up her cheeks.

  “It’s the least I can do.” She smiled slightly. “Let go. Vic is outside waiting and you’re almost naked.”

  He shook his head and refused to let her hand go free. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  “That’s nice of you to say.” The moment was gone. She looked at him now, and just saw a patient who was grateful to regain a little more of the life he’d had before he got hurt. She tugged her hand free and cleaned up the remnants of his bath.

  * * *

  She dreaded the thought of leaving the room and walking by Vic Carponti. She kept her head down when she finally did leave, and she refused to make eye contact when she passed him in the hallway. Her hand burned where it had rested against Shane’s chest. She balled her fist as though she could capture the memory of Shane’s heartbeat inside of it.

  It took all of ten minutes for her cell phone to ring.

  “So I hear you gave the patient a happy ending to his bath?” Nicole asked.

  “That was fast.” Jen sighed. “Would it do me any good to lie?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I’ll say this, Carponti certainly has an active imagination.”

  “Ah, so something did happen. I knew it. Spill.” The glee in Nicole’s voice was contagious. Not so much so that Jen wanted to actually have this conversation, but still.

  “Nothing happened. I took Shane’s cast off. He was a little overwhelmed to have both of his hands back.”

  He had been more than overwhelmed. He’d been stunned into silence, and the way he’d looked at her, she’d have thought she’d conquered space instead of just cutting off his cast.

  For that brief moment, Jen had forgotten about the scar slicing across her chest. For that brief moment, she’d felt desired and beautiful. She’d believed him when he told her she was amazing.

  Reality had a way of crashing down on her, though—of reminding her that Shane would be leaving the hospital one day. How likely was it that he’d want anything to do with her after that? He’d probably just find someone else.

  “Nicole, will you stop? Nothing happened.”

  “Uh-huh. Obviously I’m going to have to beat it out of you. I’ll be at your house for dinner tonight at six p.m. sharp. I’m bringing food and Laura.”

  “Nicole, it won’t kill us if we don’t get together tonight. I’m tired.”

  “Honey, I might kill one of the neighborhood kids if I have to stay in another night. Besides, Laura needs a break.”

  “What’s your husband doing?”

  “Apparently he has duty, so he’ll be sitting at a desk all night.”

  Jen sighed, unable to generate a single good excuse for why she wanted to beg off girls’ night. “Would it help if I said I had laundry all over my living room?”

  “No.”

  “Not letting me out of this, are you?”

  “Nope.” She could practically hear Nicole’s grin through the phone. “I’m going to ply you with alcohol to get the details about Shane.”

  Jen rolled her eyes again. “Nothing happened.”

  “Uh-huh.” They hung up and Jen tried to come up with a rational explanation for what Carponti “thought” he’d seen. Maybe she could suggest he was on drugs.

  She was so screwed.

  Chapter 12

  “Where’s a good place to hide a body around here?” The door slammed open like a gunshot. Shane held his breath and waited for his heart to stop slamming against his ribs. Carponti stood at the foot of his bed, his face red beneath the beard he refused to shave. Again.

  “Who are we killing?” Every six months or so, Carponti lost his cool. The guy might be a smart-ass but he was just as quick to get pissed off as he was to laugh. The problem was that he was less diplomatic than Shane. Which wasn’t saying much at all.

  “Randall. He just cornered me at the duty desk and tried to question me about the missing equipment.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a reason for killing him.”

  “He accused me of dereliction of duty. Hell, I’m not even supposed to be on duty.” Carponti snorted. “He can derelict my balls.”

  Shane tried not to laugh. “Did he read you your rights?”

  “He started to, but I walked off.” Carponti paced the tiny space, his thumb tapping against his thigh. “I’m just covering for one of the guys as a favor so he can take his wife out for their anniversary. Because, you know, we haven’t all missed out on enough of those over the years.”

  Carponti sank into the visitor’s chair. Shane watched how he cradled his bandaged arm against his stomach. Other than that one subtle movement, he seemed completely fine. “What do we do about that damned lieutenant?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t trust him. I never have. And I can’t get ahold of Trent—Captain Davila—downrange to find out what’s going on.” It frustrated him to no end that every time he tried to dial the number of Trent’s orderly room—the military equivalent of an office—he got a dead tone. Shane knew the number worked. At least, it had before he’d been evacuated out of theater and shipped home. Why was there such complete silence from Trent downrange? He knew the whole battalion couldn’t be in blackout communications for this damn long, so the lack of contact was driving Shane to distraction.

  “We need to figure it out, though, because the little weasel said he wants to find Osterman.”

  “Osterman isn’t in any condition to be hassled by Randall on a good day. Unless he’s getting his head straight? Is he in combat stress therapy or anything?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. The kid just mopes through his physical therapy sessions. He sits and stares at his bandaged leg like it’s the end of the world or something.” Carponti held up his arm. “It’s not. At least he doesn’t have to learn to jerk off with his off hand.”

  “Second time you’ve mentioned that.” Shane choked back a laugh. “I still don’t care.”

  “You should be sensitive to my feelings. It hurts that you don’t care about my problems,” Carponti said, faking a wounded expression.

  “Focus on the matter at hand.”

  “Oh, ha-ha-ha.” Carponti chucked a towel at Shane, who slapped it down. “Since there aren’t any good places for hiding bodies around here, do you have a better plan for dealing with Randall?”

  “You tell him you’ll talk to him but reserve the right to invoke your Article Thirty-One rights at any time. Keep copies of everything that you give him. I wouldn’t put it past him to forge a sworn statement. I told Trent he might have been falsifying the sensitive items reports.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Plot thickens, huh? What’s up with officers these days? They don’t make ’em like they used to.” Carponti kicked his feet up onto the edge of Shane’s bed.

  Shane reached down and shoved them off. “Guys like Randall are the exception. They don’t make it much further than captain, and that’s a good thing.”

  “Ah, you’re forgetting that Randall’s daddy is a brigade commander up at Fort Carson,” Carponti said, propping his feet up again. “But anyway, changing the subject. What’s up with you and Jen St. James?”

  Here we go. “How do you know her?”

  “Score one for avoiding the question,” Carponti said, making a tick in the air. “She’s a friend of my wife’s. Apparently, they’re doing some bizarre female thing tonight over at Jen’s house because I’m on duty.”

  “What kind of female thing?” He captured a mental image of Jen leaning into a mirror, swiping lip gloss over her bottom lip. His body tightened and he shifted. He didn’t need Carponti to think he was giving him a hard-on.

  “No idea. Toenails or something. My point, however, is this—if you don’t spill the beans, I’ll get the info from my wife.”

  “Look, she’s just doing her job. There’s nothing to tell.” T
hat had to be the worst dodge in history, but maybe he’d get lucky and throw Carponti off the scent. He didn’t want to dig into his personal life right now. Or ever.

  “That didn’t look like nothing,” Carponti commented. Shane grunted and turned the TV on. Of course, Carponti smelled weakness. Fuck. “And the fact that she’s cute as hell doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Sure. You haven’t had sex in how long? I mean, your wife moved out almost six months before we left. Your dick has to be pretty pissed at you right now. Have you even—”

  “My dick isn’t any of your business. My personal life isn’t, either. Drop it.”

  “Well, aren’t we touchy.” Carponti stood and stretched. “Guess I’ll just have to get the story from my wife.” He made an exaggerated yawn. “Later.”

  Carponti was gone before Shane knew it, leaving him with uncomfortable thoughts of Jen and his dick. Damn it, why did Carponti have to plant that visual? He did like her. His imagination was having his way with her at the moment and he closed his eyes, needing to banish the images from his brain. He was going to hell for the way he was thinking about her now.

  Because his imagination had her naked, her hips spread across his lap as she rode them both over the edge and into paradise.

  * * *

  “I’ve got the wine,” Nicole announced, as she walked into Jen’s living room and sank into the old couch that Jen refused to throw away.

  The brown-and-white-striped sofa had been the most comfortable place for her to sleep when she’d been recovering from chemo. Laura had tried to convince her to get rid of all the things even remotely associated with her sickness, but she’d refused to part with the couch. She was funny that way.

  “The two weeks a year my in-laws relieve me of my parenting duties are the only grown-up time I get.” Laura sank into the couch next to her, curling her feet beneath her. “I think I love my in-laws more than my husband sometimes. What are we watching?”

  “Sweet Home Alabama. I’m on a Reese Witherspoon kick right now and if Vic has to sit through one more showing of Legally Blonde, he swears he’ll divorce me.” Nicole wandered back into the kitchen barefoot to grab some wineglasses, and started pouring a glass for each of them.

  “Really?”

  She shrugged as she handed out the drinks. “No. I never complain when he wants to watch Dune for the thousandth time, but every Reese Witherspoon movie ever made? You’d have thought I was cutting off one of his limbs.”

  Jen, who’d just taken a sip of her wine, choked. “Dune?”

  “Oh, not the remake. The original version. He calls one of his lieutenants a Harkonan.”

  Jen laughed and wished she didn’t know that calling someone a Harkonan was just like calling them a Napoleon. Only significantly less flattering.

  “Which lieutenant?” Laura asked. “Which one do you think?”

  “Randall?”

  “Got it in one.” Nicole snapped her fingers, and sipped her wine. Jen was suddenly aware that both of her friends were staring at her. Waiting.

  “So I take it Shane liked the new look?” Laura said finally.

  Heat crept up her neck. “I don’t suppose it would help if I pretended not to know what you’re talking about?”

  “Nuh-uh. Nice try, though.” Nicole shook her head and cupped her chin in her palm. “To hear Vic tell it, you were dry humping with the door wide open. I figured he was exaggerating.”

  Jen opened her mouth to speak, but Laura cut her off before she’d even drawn a breath. “So you were in a compromising position today.” Laura’s eyes widened. “Can we define compromising? You weren’t in his lap or anything, were you? ’Cause I would be really impressed if you were in his lap.”

  “No. Nothing that exciting.” It was so much more than that. How could she explain the delicious sensation of his skin beneath her fingers? Or the strong, steady beat of his heart against her palm? “It’s just he …”

  It wasn’t just desire or lust. It was as intense as it was private. It was something more. At least it was to her.

  “He …?” Laura prompted.

  “His emotions are just all mixed up with gratitude because I’ve been taking care of him. That’s all.”

  “That’s not what Vic says he saw,” Nicole said. She tipped her wineglass up and drained the contents, then topped it off.

  “Vic walked in on the tail end of a bath,” Jen snapped. “Not so unusual in my line of work.”

  “Touchy, aren’t we?” Laura studied her over the edge of her wineglass.

  “Can we just start the movie? Nothing happened.”

  “But something would have if Vic hadn’t interrupted,” Nicole said.

  Exasperation crept into Jen’s voice. “I don’t know. Why is this such a big deal?”

  “The big deal, m’dear, is that you’ve been acting like the world ended when you got sick,” Laura said. “The fact that Shane has broken through your shell is significant progress. I might just have to give him some pointers on how to get you into bed.” Her eyes sparkled wickedly and Jen threw a pillow at her, even as a laugh escaped.

  “Are we watching a movie or not?”

  Laura filled up Jen’s glass. “A toast first. To you.”

  “To taking chances on the good guys,” Nicole said.

  Jen stayed silent, clinking her glass with those of her friends. She was taking a chance. A small one. Even if it led to nothing, the feelings Shane inspired inside her were worth holding on to.

  They broke up Nicole’s Reese glom and decided on City of Angels instead. It wasn’t long before Jen blinked back tears. Meg Ryan’s character sat in a stairwell, constantly replaying the decisions she’d made in surgery, wishing she could have somehow saved her patient. She didn’t know an angel stood in front of her. Even if she had known, she still wouldn’t have stopped feeling guilty. Jen sipped her wine. It was all too easy to picture Shane sitting in that stairwell, arguing with the angel who had taken one of his men. Demanding that the angel take Shane instead.

  She remembered what he’d said about his mother, how she wasn’t really in his life. Had anyone ever worried about Shane the man, rather than just Shane the soldier? What had his injuries done to him emotionally? Had he even considered what the rest of his life would be like? And what if he never healed enough to return to the fight? Would he accept a life behind a desk instead of leading troops? What would that do to a man like him? As Jen fell into sleep that night, she wondered if he was capable of loving anyone aside from his soldiers. Could he ever devote his life to something other than his men?

  * * *

  He raced toward the burning vehicle at a dead sprint. One of his boys was pinned beneath it, struggling to break free from the approaching flames. As Shane closed the distance, he saw that the soldier’s arm was stuck, wedged between the door and the Humvee. He kept running, but until he closed that final gap, he couldn’t see who was trapped through the smoke.

  The soldier turned toward Shane, revealing his face.

  Carponti grinned in Shane’s direction. “Hey, Sarn’t G! Watch this!” Carponti grabbed his M4, his arm suddenly free, and put the barrel in his mouth—

  Shane exploded awake, every vein in his body throbbing in time with his racing heart. Carponti’s blood burned against his brain and Shane gouged his fingers into his eyes, trying to scrub the horrible sight from his memory. Shame threatened to choke him when he saw that his fingers were trembling.

  Carponti. Why the hell was he dreaming about Carponti? What was wrong with him?

  The door to his hospital room slammed open. “Speak of the devil,” Shane muttered as Carponti strolled in, his bandaged arm held against his stomach.

  “What the hell are you doing asleep at this hour? It’s past lunch. Get up. We’re playing spades.” Carponti slammed a deck of cards onto the little rolling table that was positioned next to Shane’s bed, and lowered one of the bed’s rails. “You can move those
sorry excuses for legs or I can, but I’m sitting down.”

  “Don’t be such a dickhead.” Shane frowned. If there was any hint that his dream held even a fragment of truth … Hell, what could he say? Hey, man, you okay? I know you lost an arm and all— He seemed fine. So why couldn’t Shane convince his subconscious that he was? “In case you forgot, these things are still a pain in the ass to move.”

  “Boo hoo. At least you’ve still got ten fingers and ten toes. Well, somewhere in there anyway. Ready?” Carponti positioned his good hand and his bandaged arm against Shane’s hips.

  It wasn’t like moving his legs was something new. Daily, the nurses and physical therapy interns came in and moved them for him. Lifting, stretching, and sending brilliant, exploding pain radiating throughout his body. But if the hell of therapy meant he didn’t get any blood clots or more infections, so be it. They kept saying his legs were healing, but it wasn’t fast enough for Shane. He wanted out of this goddamned bed and back on his feet. There was too much work to do and he wasn’t getting any of it done sitting on his ass.

  Together, they lifted Shane’s legs gently and eased them over, creating space for Carponti to sit. Shane hissed in a breath and held it, bracing for the pain that would come from moving his legs. For once, Carponti wasn’t a bull in a china closet.

  “You can’t play spades with just two people.”

  “Sure you can. You just lack imagination.” Carponti pushed the deck toward Shane. “I haven’t figured out how to shuffle the deck, though. You’re going to have to do that. No cheating.”

  Shane spread the cards out between them, dividing the deck in half. Carponti swore as he struggled to pick up the cards Shane had tossed toward him. “Shit, this was a terrible idea,” he muttered.

  “Here.” Shane pushed the cards into a stack and handed them to him. “Other than not being able to shuffle cards, how are you doing with all of this?” Better to name the elephant than beat around the bush.

  Carponti shrugged and began peeling one card at a time off the top of the deck. “I’m fine. Nicole is kind of freaked out about the whole thing. But shit, it’s not like my dick got blown off. I’d probably have killed myself if TC hadn’t made it home.”