by DahliaRose
He smiled at her. “Hey, sweetie, ready to pass me and give me my papers for Corbin?”
“There’s no other way to say it, Ian. I can’t pass you with Corbin or with army officials here,” Tasha said softly.
“Yeah, you can, just sign the papers,” Ian said with a grin. But his heart thumped in his chest.
“It’s not just about signing the papers, Ian. You barely, and I mean barely, passed any of the tests, and you were in constant pain,” Tasha explained.
“The pain will go away if we keep working on it.” Ian could feel his mood darkening. “If you pass me now, I won’t have to ship out for at least another six months. That’s plenty of time to get me good to go.”
“I can’t do that, Ian,” Tasha said. “I don’t think the pain or the numbness will completely go away.”
“How do you know that?” Ian shot back. “You’re just the therapist who is trying to take away my life!”
“Excuse me?” Tasha said in amazement. She stood up slowly and faced him. “So that’s what you think of me? I’m just the therapist?”
Ian needed to lash out. The urge was too great. He was losing everything he had ever known, and she was at the core of it. She was the target that would feel his rage. “Yes, just the therapist, you don’t know how my leg will be. You’re here to exercise me. That’s all, with all your Zen crap, and now you want to tell me I can’t be a solider anymore.”
“Wrong, Major,” Tasha snapped. “Corbin sent you to me because I have ten years training in this field and as a medical physician. The heat from the shrapnel, or the medic having to stop you from bleeding to death, damaged your nerves and the muscles in your leg permanently. You’ll be eighty- six percent on that leg at best when you are completely healed. That does not mean you can’t be a soldier. It means you can’t be the kind of soldier you want to be. Things change, Ian. Things change, and you have to deal with it.”
“What kind of soldier will I be, Tasha, hmm?” Ian goaded. “One like you who hides out in a rehab center instead of serving their country?”
“I was in Iraq,” Tasha pointed out.
“Yeah, doing what exactly? Playing Zen master?” Ian retorted.
“I understand you’re upset, Ian.” Tasha took a deep breath. “But there’s a position open here on base for a drill sergeant…”
Ian laughed sarcastically. “So that’s what this is about?”
“What?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know, Tasha.” Ian sneered at her. “So we bang a few times, say we love each other, and now you don’t want me to go in theater. You want me to stay home and play house with you instead of being a soldier. How pathetic do you think I am?”
It was Tasha’s turn to laugh. He could hear the hurt and anger that mixed in the tone. “You arrogant bastard. Let me tell you why I won’t sign your papers. Because you can injure those men you care so much about. Your leg acts up in the field and you can’t run with a fifty-pound pack on your back? Those men are in danger. You will probably have to take some kind of pain medication all your life at points. Your mind is not clear, those men get hurt. So please don’t you dare say I am keeping you down because I want to keep you here!”
This time when she looked at him, there was doubt in her eyes. “Did you do this, all this being with me, so that you could sweet-talk me into getting you back into active duty?”
He knew that was her biggest fear. He could see it in her eyes, and it didn’t stop his mouth from opening. He wanted her to hurt, just like he did, so the next words out of his mouth hit the mark.
“What else is there, sweet cheeks? You were a good lay.” He shook his head and whistled. “With all your dance moves, your body was like an instrument that I loved to play. But, baby, I wanted those papers signed, and that’s it. Love is a word men use to get what they want. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t play the game well enough.”
He saw the light die in her eyes and regretted his words instantly. Ian wished he could take back his words, but anger kept his mouth silent while he stared at her.
Tasha went over to her desk and scribbled something quickly. She handed him the paper and said in a tone that held no emotion, “My final assessment and evaluation will be going to Corbin and the army medical admin. Here’s your copy. You can get out now.”
“Tasha, I…” But the words clogged his throat.
“Get out now, Ian, before I do something we’ll both regret.” Tasha’s voice trembled as she turned away.
He looked at her back. Her shoulders were so tense he thought they would break. Beneath the anger over his loss of his unit was something more severe. He knew it as soon as he said the words. He had set himself up to lose the best thing that ever happened in his life. Ian walked out of her office and down the stairs. He noticed that even though the pain of the strenuous exercise was there in this leg, he was moving much more easily down the stairs. When he first came to her, the thought of those stairs was daunting. It was because of her he was getting better. But how could he look her in the face knowing she had held his life in her hands and destroyed it? Ian walked out into the Virginian afternoon and out of Tasha’s life.
* * * *
She didn’t know how she kept it together for the rest of the day. She couldn’t just cut and run. The rest of her clients needed her, and Tasha worked throughout the day. She felt as if there was a stone in her chest that made it hard to breathe. But she smiled and encouraged and treated her people like she always did while she was dying inside. It was lies, all lies! Her mind screamed that sentence over and over again until she wanted to grab her head and just shout with the agony of it.
She sat at her desk after her final client was gone and dialed the familiar number of Corbin. He answered on the first ring as he usually did. “Hey, dollface.”
Even a teasing tone did not bring a smile to her face. “Hey, Corbin, um, this is about Ian. I mean Major Scott.”
“What about him?” Corbin asked.
“I faxed you his evaluation. The most he is going to get out of that leg is eighty-six to ninety percent. I recommended partial active duty outside the field and if he goes back to Iraq. He cannot go back in theater, in a combat capacity.”
“Shit.” Corbin’s voice was fierce. “How did he take it?”
Tasha could hear the hollowness in her own laugh. “Not well, to say the least.”
“What’s wrong, Tasha?” Corbin asked. Tasha knew he would pick up something. Corbin always did.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” she lied.
“No, you’re not,” he said in a gentle tone. “You called him Ian, and I know for a fact that he moved out of base housing. I take it something went on.”
“Something that is over,” Tasha said firmly. “Hey, what do you think of me going back in for a tour or two? I need to get away from here.”
“You said you wouldn’t take another tour in, Tasha. Please don’t do anything hasty.” Corbin’s voice held worry.
“I won’t, Corbin. I am just thinking about my life right now,” Tasha explained. “I gotta head home, okay?”
“Okay, dollface, call me if you need anything,” Corbin said. “And Ian is an idiot for losing out on a woman like you.”
“Thanks, Corbin.” Tasha hung up the phone. Her friend’s words did not make her feel any better. In fact, the stone in her chest that once was her heart seemed to grow bigger.
She drove home and parked her SUV in the usual place. She pulled her bags and the groceries that she had just picked up out of the backseat and walked into the house. She knew he was gone even before she opened the door. The silence was almost deafening as she put her food away. When she went into the bedroom, the closet door was wide open. The small area where he had hung his clothes was empty. In his haste to pack, he had dropped one of his shirts that lay crumpled on the floor. Tasha picked it up and held it to her nose. This was the shirt he had asked her to take to the dry cleaners, so it still held his scent. Tasha inhaled deeply, and that is when the stone in
her chest broke apart and shattered into tiny pieces, leaving her hollow.
Racking sobs broke free as she crumpled to the floor. She held on to the shirt as if it was a lifeline to reality, and her tears fell hard. She slammed her fist on the floor, blaming herself for causing this in more ways than one. She should never have let him in, and she should never have allowed him to hurt her like this. She screamed and cried and raged until she lay weakly on the hardwood and allowed the silent tears to trickle out of her eyes.
“You’re not a real solider. You just practice Zen master crap.” His words filled her head until anger mixed in with the mind-bending hurt. She sat up slowly, wiping her eyes. She would show him. She would show him she could be both. Maybe her decision wasn’t a rational one, but it was the only one Tasha could make to take her mind off her heartbreak. She would wallow in sadness if she stayed around the rehabilitation center and came home to her now-empty house. She got up from the floor, walked to the bed, and sat down to take up the phone that lay on the bedside table. She dialed her commanding officer from her last tour in Iraq and reassigned herself to the 113th Battalion that would be heading back to Iraq in a week. At least there she could focus on the intense situation she would be in instead of Ian Scott. Tasha was heading back to desert life far away from home.
Chapter Six
Ian walked back onto home turf in good ol’ Georgia and the military base he was stationed out of. Calls of hello filled his ears, and he waved back, feeling the familiar happiness of being there, but knowing he was not actually ever going to get to work with some of these guys in a combat capacity again.
He went up to the offices of the base and took the route that would lead him to Corbin’s office. His name was written in bold on the outside of the door, and Ian pushed it open without knocking. Corbin looked up and went back to what he was doing without a word.
Ian sat down. “I’m back.”
“I see that,” Corbin said without looking up.
“What are you working on?”
“Your evaluation and possibilities in the United States Army, the one you love so much.” Corbin’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
“What’s your problem, man?” Ian snapped. He was not in the mood to deal with Corbin’s pissy attitude.
“Nothing at all.” Corbin’s eyes flashed fire as he flipped papers. “Let’s see here. Your evaluation given to you by one of my good friends whose heart you broke was a ninety, which means you can be on partial active duty.”
“So you heard. She came running to you,” Ian replied.
“Fuck no. She didn’t tell me. I heard it in her voice,” Corbin pointed out. “One thing about Tasha, she would never cry on my shoulder. Now back to your scores. You are not allowed to be back in country in a combat capacity. But you can be there as officer, which will go well with your new bronze medal.” Corbin threw a box on the desk. “Yay you, so you can be on the FOBs, or you can be here and become a trainer for some of the elite units we have coming up. What’s your choice?”
“Wait, wait, can I have at least some time to think about it?” Ian asked.
“Nope. You were rearing to get back, to the point that you fucked over a very good woman. So now you can’t have time.”
“Listen, Corbin, things didn’t work out, okay? Shit like that happens every day,” Ian explained.
“Not to Tasha.” Corbin slammed his hands down onto the desk. “I have known that girl since she joined up. Self-esteem so low it scraped the ground, because her family treated her like crap, and she thought the army would help get her away from them. Even then she found a man who swore he loved her, but then as her career moved forward, he hated the fact she was making more money than him. She had goals and a life. You know what he did?” Corbin asked Ian, who shook his head no. “He got drunk and tried to beat the crap out of her one night, and she was so scared to defend herself he busted the bone over her eye. And that was the last one until you.” Corbin pointed a finger in Ian’s face. “You come in and do the same damn thing, only worse, because you were petulant because you didn’t get what the fuck you wanted.”
“Goddamn, I didn’t know any of that. Why didn’t she tell me?” Ian said. He swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Because she was not going to let you or anyone pity her. She moved past it and was better for it.” Corbin pointed at him again. “You may be my friend, but you are an asshole. So what, you can’t go shoot at bad guys in a godforsaken country? You had a woman who loved you, one you could build something good with, and you threw it away because you wanted to be G.I. fucking Joe.”
“It’s my life, Corbin. It’s all I know,” Ian said softly.
“Well then maybe it’s time you see something else beyond what you know.” Corbin looked back down at his papers. “Anyway, it’s too late now.”
“What do you mean?” Ian asked.
Corbin gave him a direct stare. “I don’t know what you said to her, but she signed back up to a tour in Iraq. She is shipping out with the 113th tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, God, no!” Ian felt dread pour into his very core.
“If anything happens to her…” Corbin swallowed. “She better come back, Ian, or I swear to God I’ll break your other leg, and you are dead to me.”
Ian could understand why Corbin said what he said. He deserved it. Everything he’d said the other day came flooding back. It had never really left, because every night since he left and he tried to sleep, her face was in his dreams. The hurt in her eyes was always the last frame before he woke up. He caused this, and now she was putting herself in danger.
“I have to go to her.” Ian stood up suddenly, wincing because he forgot his injured leg. “I need a flight out ASAP.”
“You could go now or later. The point is she signed the papers. There is no stopping this now,” Corbin said.
“She can’t leave unless she knows I’m sorry.” Ian ran his hand through his hair. “I’m an ass. I am such an ass!”
“Yeah, I pointed that out,” Corbin retorted dryly.
“I love her, Corbin, and I have to fix this somehow,” Ian said. “Help me get a message to her.”
“I’ll try, buddy, but you know she’ll be gone for eight months,” Corbin pointed out. “You could take a flight later.”
“No, I’m going to get there in time to see her and be waiting in Virginia when she gets back,” Ian said with determination. “I’m going to take that drill sergeant job there.”
Corbin grinned. “Well go, man. Go try to catch a flight and see your woman and make this right. I’ll get a message to her.”
“Thanks, man. I owe you!” Ian called as he rushed out the door.
“Yeah, you do!” he heard Corbin yell as he rushed down the hall. He had to get to Tasha and let her know he loved her. He hoped his prayers and love would keep her safe in the field until he could hold her again. He made it to the airport, but the flight was delayed because of bad weather. It seemed everything that could happen did happen, and he had to take a connecting flight since there were no direct ones. By the time he got to Virginia and headed toward the Air Guard base where the flight would be leaving to take the battalion in country again, the plane was taxiing down the runway, and it took off overhead while he stood there helplessly watching. He closed his eyes and made fists at his sides and wished to heaven that Corbin got the message to her.
* * * *
“Lieutenant, I grabbed a message for you from the desk just before we were leaving.” Tasha looked up as her commander handed her a piece of paper. “I think the private at the desk got something on it. It’s pretty smudged.”
“Thanks.” Tasha looked down at the crumpled note. If anyone saw her now, they wouldn’t have thought she was dancing in her studio just a short week ago. Now she was dressed in military digital camouflage and wearing boots. In the seat next to her was her pack. While the other soldiers in her unit were looking at pictures and mementos of home, she stared out the window silently, not having a
nyone to write home to and no love to go back to.
Tasha shook her head and unfolded the note. Most of the message was smudged and unreadable. She made out Call me ASAP and then Corbin. She sighed in frustration. He knew full well she would call him and his family when she got settled. Unless Emma was pregnant again, she did not know what was so important. Children were something she always wanted, but now that seemed like a distant dream. It was more of a possibility when…
Tasha gave herself a mental shake. Don’t even say his name, she warned herself. Putting all thought out of her mind, she went back to staring out of the window, watching the clouds pass. All looked peaceful in the blue sky, but inside she was filled with turmoil and anxiety.
* * * *
Four months later
Tasha crossed another month off the calendar that hung on her wall. She shared the small space with a fellow female soldier, and they had tried to make it as homey as possible. She missed her home but not the heartache. Remembering Corbin’s note she felt a little guilty for not calling him back. But he was a connection to Ian, and those were memories she wanted to forget. Tasha looked on her side of the wall, where there were just a sparse few things and a book to keep her company in her downtime. On her roommate’s wall were pictures. Letters and so much more sent from home were placed in special places with brightly colored thumbtacks.
She picked up her heavy pack and went outside their home away from home and closed the door. They were down one medic, and she had volunteered to ride in a convoy heading into one of the provinces of Iraq. She had been doing that since she got there, volunteering to go into dangerous situations. Each time she came back, it was a heady sense of accomplishment that she did her duty and made it back to the FOB safely. But mostly in those situations, she didn’t have time to think about anything back home, and she liked it that way.
The convoy rolled out with her in the second Humvee in. The bumps and dips of the unpaved road jostled the medic bag next to her, and she caught it before it fell to the floor. It had bottles of morphine and other vital medicines encased inside the bright red vessel. She was taking no chances that any of them broke. They were only an hour into the drive when the gunfire sounded and voices started to crackle from the radio. It was a mad rush to stoop and form a barrier. It wasn’t the first one of these she was in, so Tasha followed the routine. She opened the door of the Humvee and rolled out holding the bag to her chest and hit the desert sand. Usually the gunfire was intermittent, so everyone knew it was one stupid guy with a gun. But this time bullets were digging into the sand around them in rapid succession. They were in the middle of a full-fledged ambush.