by DahliaRose
Private Dancer
Copyright © June 2010, Dahlia Rose
Cover art by Anastasia Rabiyah © June 2010
Amira Press
Baltimore, MD 21216
www.amirapress.com
ISBN: 978-1-936279-28-9
No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and e-mail, without prior written permission from Amira Press.
Dedication
To my own soldier and hero. Retired or not you still make me catch my breath when you stand at attention and you speak of your military career with pride. As I promised, I will love you until eternity ends and days beyond that. XOXO.
Chapter One
The war was supposed to be over. The military forces had pulled out of the major cities of Iraq, and government heads were calling Operation Iraqi Freedom a success. Then why the hell are we still running missions to find insurgents in the middle of the night? Major Ian Scott thought grimly as the convoy of Humvees rolled on through the silent, dark night. There were twelve of them to each vehicle, with a gunner riding topside, searching the night with the heavy fifty-caliber machine. Ian was the scope man and head of the operation. This was his thirty-fifth birthday, and he was spending it on his third tour and on a mission. This was his night instead of being home in Georgia drinking a beer and shooting pool with his buddies.
“Happy birthday to me,” he muttered grimly.
His eye was trained through the nightscope of his sniper rifle as he looked for anything that moved in the night that was not supposed to be there. He knew that there could be one or two of them lying in hiding, waiting for an army convoy to pass by. It was easy to take a shot and run into the desert, but if he saw them, Ian knew his gun was quicker than theirs, and being in command, he had to protect his men. He shot first and asked questions later. The insurgents were not above booby-trapping bodies or anything they found alongside the road. He sure as hell was not going to give them a chance to do anyone in his unit harm. He brought them here two times and got them home safely, and by God he was going to do it a third.
“We’re outside the compound now, Major.” A voice mixed in with static came across his radio.
“Copy that,” Ian said calmly into his headpiece. “Units all stop. Gunners stand ready to fire. If you hear anything out of the ordinary, bring the noise.”
Ian got an affirmative from the Humvees behind him. His driver had already stopped the lead vehicle he was in.
“Okay, guys, lock and load with full armor. We’re going in hot,” Ian commanded.
“You expect a war, Major? You know there’s going to be, like, four AKs and a few goats in there,” one of his men teased.
Ian grinned. “All the same, boys, we go in tight.” He lifted his gun to his shoulder and gave silent hand gestures, directing the men to the points for best access and surprise to the enemy. “On me, on me,” he commanded.
They moved with trained precision to the entrance of the compound. The door was made of old slats of wood and tightly woven palm frond. One could not see through the creases in the wood. Ian pushed the door open slowly, and he winced when it gave a small creak. He pushed it open with his body and held it against the wall while he motioned his men through. As they filed in, Ian used a rock to hold the door open and took point behind his men. He tapped one soldier on the shoulder, who took his place. Ian moved up through his men to the front door. He lifted his fingers for the countdown from three to one before he kicked in the door.
“Get down, get down, get down!” Ian shouted.
They flooded the room with light and made sure it was secure. When everyone called clear, he lowered his gun and looked around. No one was there, but a cache of firearms and small rockets were stacked in boxes and leaned up against the wall.
“This sure isn’t four AKs,” one of his men said and whistled softly. “Hell, Major, this is all our stuff they’ve been stealing.”
Ian looked around. “There is a bunch of munitions here. Then why is no one around watching it?”
Realization dawned on Ian quickly. Something wasn’t right. No one would leave this amount of small arms unprotected.
“Move guys! Get out now! Move, move, move!” Ian shouted.
He shoved his men out of the door one after the other. They didn’t question anything. As a major and a commander of their unit, they knew Ian’s instinct was dead-on. And he was right. By the time he had the last man out and he was running behind them, he heard the tiny beep as someone detonated a bomb set in the middle of the munitions. The explosion sent him flying out the door as the small building was ripped apart. The heat sent small rockets up like fireworks. Everyone kept their heads down and stayed low to the ground until the munitions were finished exploding. Everyone knew a bullet was just as dangerous going off in the middle of a fire as it was being shot of a gun. By the time silence reigned for a few minutes, his men got up slowly from the ground, faces covered with dirt and soot. They all were laughing shakily at the experience they had just had and were relieved they all survived it.
With adrenaline pumping, Ian went to stand and fell right back down to the sand. Ian looked down, confused, wondering why he couldn’t use his left leg, and saw the blood gushing from a wound. One of his men rushed up to him, concern on his face, and while two others held his leg firmly trying to staunch the flow of blood, they screamed for a medic and held him down.
“I need to get up—I need to form a perimeter and get more guys from the FOB out here. This was a trap.” Ian struggled beneath their crushing arms.
“We got it, Major. Stay still!” one of his men ordered. It was the medic, and Ian looked up and saw the worry on his face. “Listen, Major, you got hit with shrapnel, and it’s still embedded in your leg. It cut an artery, and I am going to have to pull it out and get this bleeding stopped, okay? It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker, Major.”
Ian finally understood what was going on and nodded. “Do what you got to do,” he said and gritted his teeth, waiting for the pain to come. When it did, he could not help the cries of pain that escaped his lips. His leg burned as the shrapnel came out of his thigh, and the pain was excruciating as the medic went in to try to find the bleeding vein. Ian panted and breathed as much as he could through the pain. But as his medic tried to clamp off the bleeder in his leg, Ian phased in and out of consciousness. Finally, when his body could take no more, he left the reality of his wounds and floated into the bliss of nothingness. He barely heard them calling for a medical chopper to get him transported for treatment before everything went completely black.
* * * *
Four months later
The pack of soldiers who were running the test was already out of sight. Only two of them lagged back with him. They were two of his guys who knew what it meant to him to requalify for duty. Alongside them was his longtime friend Corbin. He was the drill sergeant running the testing that day. Ian had started out well, the scars of his wounds from only a few months earlier clearly evident under the army physical training shorts. The pace set for his reevaluation run was easy to match at first, but after a half an hour, his leg began giving him hell. Now he was barely inching along, limping while he ran.
“Come on, Major. Please let us just get you the medi-cart,” Joey pleaded. He was a Specialist First Class. Ian could remember training him when he came into his unit. Now he could see the worry in the young man’s gaze.
“No, I’m going to finish this trail,” Ian said through gritted teeth. With every step the pain in his leg was excruciating. He knew there was no way he could finish this with any kind of good time on record. But his stubbornness kept him moving on through the pain. He had aced the sniper test, ac
ed everything else. This was the only obstacle in his path to getting back to his job.
“Stand down, Major,” Corbin said gently.
“I can finish this.” Ian bit back a cry as pain shot through his leg.
“And I said stop. You can’t qualify at this rate.”
I outrank you, Corbin.” Ian’s voice was harsh when he replied.
Corbin placed his hand on Ian’s chest, forcefully bringing him to a halt. “Not out here, you don’t, and I said stand the fuck down before you injure that leg more.” He looked toward the two men who were with them. “You guys go get the medi-cart. We’ll wait right here.”
“Aww crap, Corbin, I can walk it back. I don’t want to sit in that thing,” Ian protested. The medi-cart was just a glorified golf cart with a big red medical cross. Most of the time you saw that rolling along at the casual pace of three miles per hour, you knew some soldier couldn’t cut it. It was embarrassing as hell to ride in one of those things, and he did not want to do it in the least.
“Yeah, well, what you want and what’s going to happen is two different things, Ian,” Corbin replied. “Now sit your dumb stubborn ass on the ground and wait.”
Only a few men could talk to him like that, and Corbin was one of them. They had seen boot camp and combat together. He could trust him with his life as a friend and a soldier.
“There’s no way I can convince you to pass me, huh?” Ian teased. He was half serious, testing the boundaries of a longtime friendship.
“Not a chance in this life.” Corbin gave him his hand to help Ian lower himself to the short grass. “Hell, I was even pushing it letting you take the test before the mandatory six months was up. Come on, Ian, what are you doing? You need to heal more before you do this crap.”
Ian stretched out his injured leg in front of him. It screamed relief as his self-imposed torture was over, but yes, the intense throbbing pain still beat like a drum through him. “I thought I was ready. My leg barely hurt.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad did it hurt this morning?” Corbin asked.
“Maybe a four or five.”
“Ian…”
“Fine, at least a seven, but that’s good lately,” Ian admitted.
“Damn it, Ian, why didn’t you say something?” Corbin yelled.
“I want to get back to my boys. I want to get back to my duties, man,” Ian shouted back. “What am I supposed to do, stay home and sit on my ass all day?”
“I don’t know, maybe relax and heal?” Corbin’s voice was sarcastic. “And what if the nerve damage never completely goes away? You won’t be able to qualify anyway.” His voice gentled. “Ian, you could be a kick-ass drill sergeant here. We need people like you to train the new guys.”
“This is you. Corbin, you have a wife and a couple of kids to go home to,” Ian replied and shook his head. “I don’t know what I would do without being able to go out with my unit.”
“You don’t have to leave the army, idiot. Just change it up some.”
Ian looked at his friend. He could feel sadness burn his chest. “That’s the thing, buddy. I don’t want to change it up.”
“Well then you’ll have to take advice from an old friend to get through this,” Corbin said firmly. He took a business card from his clipboard and handed it to Ian. “Go to her, and she’ll get your leg rehabilitated and in tip-top shape. She is a lieutenant and the best damn physical therapist I know. If there is one person who can fix your leg, if there’s no permanent damage, it’s her.”
“Tasha Lovell.” Ian said the name out loud and then read the address. “This is all the way in frakking Virginia!”
“I’ll make arrangements for accommodations for you,” Corbin answered mildly.
“Seriously, man, I can do this on my own, some free weights and some laps in the pool…”
Corbin was adamant. “Nope, you go to her and get better. If she does not sign off on you coming back here or being fit for active duty, then it’s a no go for me.”
“Jesus, you are a hard- ass,” Ian said and punched him in the shoulder.
“And you are the pot calling the kettle black,” Corbin replied.
They heard the tiny siren of the medi-cart wailing coming up the trail, drawing the attention of everyone who was around.
“Holy hell, couldn’t they not do the whole siren thing?” Ian rolled his eyes in exasperation.
Corbin laughed and patted Ian on the shoulder. “Suck it up, buddy, and let’s get you patched up.”
After he was loaded up with a foot outstretched, the medi-cart went off along the trail back to the training facility of the army. Every group of soldiers on the trail stopped and lined each side and stood straight with a tight salute. Corbin had told him that they had already heard of the major who was fighting against pain to get back to his post. They showed their respect and honored the bravery of a comrade in arms. It was that way even in front of the armory, when he was helped out and into a wheelchair. It was that kind of unity he wanted to get back to. It touched him that even this new generation of soldiers was learning a long-standing tradition. He would go to this lieutenant and do what it took to get back to being a hundred percent. How hard could it be?
Chapter Two
Dressed in his ACUs, or Army combat uniform, Ian stood outside and looked up at the white building in Virginia. It was already after four in the afternoon. It looked like an old estate house covered in vines and even had a gazebo out front. This was not a typical rehabilitation center. This had a homier feel. If it weren’t for the soldiers coming in and out either limping or using prosthetics for missing limbs lost in war, he would have thought he was visiting someone for afternoon lunch outside on the wraparound patio. He walked inside, up to what he assumed was the front desk. An older lady looked up at him with a smile. She had warm eyes and a welcoming personality to greet patients.
“Good afternoon, how can I help you today?” she asked.
Ian cleared his throat. “I’m, um, Major Ian Scott. I’m here for my evaluation with Tasha Lovell.”
“You mean Lieutenant Tasha Lovell?” The older receptionist prodded him with a slight frown. Ian could see she was a stickler for formality.
“Yes, ma’am. I have an appointment with the lieutenant.”
“Well then, she is in her rehab center in the upstairs of this building. It’s the doors on the left of the stairs.” The older lady frowned again. “I don’t understand her New Age stuff, but it seems to help the boys in uniform, so I’m not going to complain. You can take the lift there if your leg can’t hold you up to take the stairs.”
With that, she turned her eyes back to the paperwork in front her, effectively dismissing Ian. He shook his head. It just went to prove that no one should judge a book by a cover. Her warm, friendly face contradicted the prickly personality she had. The lift she spoke of was one of the chairs attached to the stairs for older people to use. Ian would not even think of using that, so he slowly took the stairs one at a time with his cane. By the time he got to the top, his leg had begun to throb, and he hated the weakness that now trapped his body. When he opened the door of the rehabilitation rooms he was directed to, he was not feeling in the best of moods.
Instead of a set of workout benches, weights, exercise tables, and treadmills he knew were associated with normal rehabilitation, he saw a wide room with wooden floors that shone to perfection. Mirrors adorned both sides of the walls from ceiling to floor, and rails went along the middle of the glass surface. Some kind of sexy jazz mix of music that Ian could not recognize played and filled the room, but nothing compared to the vision in front of him.
She was dressed in this kind of lilac, long bodysuit with a sheer see-through skirt that flowed around it. Every curve and dip of her body was emphasized when she moved in dance. Her body made graceful jumps and landed as light as a feather. Just as quickly she began another move to match the tempo of the music. Ian found himself holding his breath more than once in anticipation of what she wou
ld do next. In the next few minutes of her routine, she never failed to disappoint. Instead she mesmerized him with every step of her dance. The crescendo of the music built and built, and so did her movements. The look on her face was one of pure pleasure. On the very last note, she performed a small jump with a twirl and landed in a low crouch with her head against her knees. Her long, dark hair flowed onto the floor, and then the room was silent.
Ian stood silent as she stood up. He actually didn’t know what to say for the first time in his life. Lieutenant Tasha Lovell was an amazing beauty. She looked up and smiled, and it made her face radiant. Ian tired to get his composure together when she grabbed a towel and walked in his direction.
She held out her hand in greeting and with a warm smile of her face. “You must be Major Ian Scott.”
“Usually a lieutenant salutes the major,” Ian said, not taking her hand. He was afraid if he did he would pull her into his arms and kiss her. So instead he used the formality of his rank as a shield.
Tasha laughed. “That’s not going happen, Major.” She went over to her desk and waved him over to sit down. Tasha picked up his file and read through the notes. A frown crossed her face for an instant before she looked up at him. “You have some serious nerve damage here. Why didn’t you just take the one percent disability and retire?”
“That’s not who I am. It was offered, and I refused,” Ian snapped. “Listen, Corbin said you could help me get back to my unit.”
“Corbin should have told you I might be able to get your range of motion back in your leg,” Tasha snapped. “I make no promises. I’m not a miracle worker.”
“Exactly what do you do here?” Ian looked around. “There’s no rehab equipment.”
“I have some in the other rooms, including two heated whirlpools and treadmills and all that good, shiny metal stuff you guys like. But that’s not the main part of my therapy. I use holistic methods as well, and my main focus is dance.”