It's Always Been You

by Jessica Scott

  She took a deep breath and pressed on her throbbing knuckles, focusing on the pain so that she wouldn’t feel the tension that squeezed her heart every time she thought about her husband. She regretted sending him the divorce papers. She could admit that now, but she’d done the only thing she could at the time.

  She could still remember that stupid flare of hope when he’d stood in her office that day. Hope that maybe, finally, he had come home to her.

  But he hadn’t.

  And as time had ticked by and he’d refused to sign the papers and let her go, she’d moved beyond regret. Now, she wanted to move on with her life. Maybe someday she’d be able to think of Trent without the hurt and frustration that kept reminding her of everything she’d lost.

  “You have to pay us each a quarter,” Ethan said, stroking the fat orange hamster in his hands. Laura was seriously thinking about buying a cat—that would solve the hamster problem quickly enough. But it would be just one more thing to clean up after.

  And she wasn’t really up for the trauma of finding a dead hamster under the bed.

  She could only imagine the therapy bills.

  She pursed her lips and counted to ten… thousand. “Okay guys, why don’t you go play in the garage or something? Mommy has too many parts in here, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Or move anything. But she didn’t say that out loud, because that would only encourage them to run off with some vital component that would take her three days to identify and two more days to find online and order. A new dishwasher was not in the budget at the moment. Besides, she wanted to see if she could actually fix the thing herself.

  She shooed the kids and their accompanying hamsters out of the kitchen and made her way through the master bedroom to the cache of Band-Aids she hid in her bathroom. The kids were all too eager to use every bandage in the house if she let them, which always meant that she couldn’t find a Band-Aid when she really needed one. She’d resorted to hiding them like they were some kind of precious commodity. In her house, they were.

  Laura pulled down the shoebox that held the first aid kit. She held her breath as she cleaned the cuts on her knuckles with iodine, then wrapped gauze halfway down her fingers, covering the empty space where her wedding and engagement rings had once been.

  She paused, staring at her ring finger. Blood pooled on the pale band of skin there, as if her finger refused to forget the rings that had been there since forever.

  Her finger might not forget the rings but that didn’t mean it was a marriage worth waiting for. No amount of waiting or wishful thinking was going to change that. Trent had seen to that. And broken her heart all over again.

  She knew in her heart that they were finished. He had lied to her so many times about his deployments. That alone had destroyed her trust in him. And then there was the rest of it…

  She was ready for the pain to stop. Ready for her heart to stop waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting, so desperately, for her heart to stop beating for a man who was never coming home.

  A spike of melancholy pressed on her lungs. Damn it, what was wrong with her today? She was past mourning the death of her marriage. At least she kept telling herself that. So when was it going to stop hurting?

  She briefly considered a shot of vodka to numb the pain, but that wasn’t really a good idea since she was alone with the kids. She barely ever had a drink these days. She sighed and glanced wistfully at the discreet box on the top shelf in the bathroom closet. Droughts were not limited to alcohol.

  She had gotten used to it, this new normal. While the kids were vibrant chaos, full of life and joy, the married part of her life was… well, it simply was. There was nothing there anymore. No joy. No hatred. Just silence and cold detachment overlying a dull aching sadness.

  She simply wanted it to be over. And damn Trent to hell for dragging it out when he wasn’t even willing to fight for them. And the silence between them? Between her and the man she’d thought she’d love for the rest of her life?

  She sat on the edge of their bed, one finger rubbing absently over the bruised knuckles and her empty ring finger. She could hear the kids shrieking in the garage. One of the hamsters had gotten away. She smiled. She really didn’t mind them, not when the kids loved the judgmental little beasts so much. It was a gesture of kindness from a man who couldn’t be a father. She knew that.

  It didn’t make it hurt any less. She’d married him knowing what she was getting into, thinking her love for him was strong enough to withstand whatever the army could throw at them. Knowing that the army was a demanding job, that he’d be gone a lot. But that first deployment had done something to him, something deeper than just the visible scars on his body.

  Once she never would have thought the silence would grow too loud or that his empty side of the bed would become too heavy to bear. Once she would have waited forever for him to come home to her.

  But forever was a long time.

  And her faith in their love had died long ago on some distant battlefield.

  Turn the page for an excerpt from the second book in the Coming Home series

  All for You

  Available now!

  Prologue

  Camp Taji, Iraq

  2007

  Sergeant First Class Reza Iaconelli had seen better days. He closed his eyes, wishing he was anywhere but curled up on the latrine floor in the middle of some dirty, shitty desert. The cold linoleum caressed his cheek, soothing the sensation of a billion spiders creeping over his skin. He had to get up, to get back to his platoon before someone came looking for him. Running patrols through the middle of Sadr City was so much better than being balled up on the bathroom floor, puking his guts out.

  He’d sacrificed his dignity at the altar of the porcelain god two days ago when they’d arrived in northern Baghdad. It was going to be a rough deployment; that was for damn sure. Dear Lord, he’d give anything for a drink. Anything to stop the madness of detox. Why the fuck was he doing this to himself? Why did he pick up that godforsaken bottle every single time he made it home from this goddamned war?

  The walls of the latrine echoed as someone pounded on the door. It felt like a mallet on the inside of a kettle drum inside his skull. “Sarn’t Ike!”

  Reza groaned and pushed up to his hands and knees. He couldn’t let Foster see him like this. Couldn’t let any of his guys see him like this. “You about ready? The patrol is gearing up to roll.”

  Holy hell. He dry heaved again, unable to breathe until the sensation of ripping his guts out through his throat passed. After a moment, he pushed himself upright and rinsed out his mouth. He’d definitely seen better days.

  He wet his brown-black hair down and tucked the grey Army combat t-shirt into his uniform pants. Satisfied that no one would know he’d just been reduced to a quivering ball of misery a few moments before, he headed out to formation, a five- to seven-hour patrol through the shit hole known as Sadr City in his immediate future.

  He was a goddamned sergeant first class and he had troops rolling into combat. They counted on him to do more than show up. They counted on him to lead them. Every single day.

  Maybe by the time he reached thirty days in-country, he’d stop heaving his guts up every morning. But sick or not, he was going out on patrol with his boys.

  The best he could hope for was that he wouldn’t puke in the tank.

  Chapter One

  Fort Hood, Texas

  Spring 2009

  “Where the hell is Wisniak?” Reza hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and glared at Foster.

  Sergeant Dean Foster rolled his eyes and spat into the dirt, unfazed by Reza’s glare. Foster had the lean, wiry body of a runner and the weathered lines of an infantryman carved into his face, though at twenty-five he was still a puppy. To Reza, he’d always be that skinny private who’d had his cherry popped on that first run up to Baghdad. “Sarn’t Ike, I already told you. I tried calling him this morning but he’s not answering. His phone is goi
ng straight to voicemail.”

  Reza sighed and rocked back on his heels, trying to rein in his temper. They’d managed to be home from the war for more than a year and somehow, soldiers like Wisniak were taking up the bulk of Reza’s time. “Have you checked the R&R Center?”

  “Nope. But I bet you’re right.” Foster pulled out his phone before Reza finished his sentence and started walking a short distance away to make the call.

  “I know I am. He’s been twitchy all week,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Foster. Reza glanced at his watch. The commander was going to have kittens if Reza didn’t have his personnel report turned in soon, because herding cats was all noncommissioned officers were good for in the eyes of Captain James T. Marshall the Third, resident pain in Reza’s ass.

  Foster turned away, holding up a finger as he started arguing with whoever just answered the phone. Reza swore quietly, then again when the company commander started walking toward him from the opposite end of the formation. Reza straightened and saluted.

  It was mostly sincere.

  “Sarn’t Iaconelli, do you have accountability of your troops?”

  “Sir, one hundred and thirty assigned, one hundred and twenty-four present. Three on appointment, one failure to report, and one at the R&R center. One in rehab.”

  “When is that shitbird Sloban going to get out of rehab?” Captain Marshall glanced down at his notepad.

  “Sloban isn’t a shitbird,” Reza said quietly, daring Marshall to argue. “Sir.”

  Marshall looked like he wanted to slap Reza but as was normally the way with cowards and blowhards, he simply snapped his mouth shut. “Who’s gone to the funny farm today?”

  The Rest and Resiliency Center was supposed to be a place that helped combat veterans heal from the mental wounds of war. Instead, it had become the new generation’s stress card, a place to go when their sergeant was making them work too hard. Guys like Wisniak who had never deployed but who for some reason couldn’t manage to wipe their own asses without someone holding their hands abused the system, taking up valuable resources from the warriors who needed it. But to say that out loud would mean agreeing with Captain Marshall. Reza would drop dead before that ever happened.

  Luckily Captain Ben Teague approached, saving Reza the need to punch the commander in the face. The sergeant major would not be happy with him if that happened. Reza was already on thin ice as it was and there was no reason to give the sergeant major an extra excuse to dig into his fourth point of contact.

  He was doing just fine. One day at a time, and all that.

  Too bad guys like Marshall tested his willpower on a daily basis.

  “So you don’t have accountability of the entire company?” Marshall asked. Behind him Teague made a crude motion with his hand.

  Reza rubbed his hand over his mouth, smothering a grin. “Sir, I know where everyone is. I’m heading to the R&R Center after formation to verify that Wisniak is there and see about getting a status update from the docs.”

  Marshall sighed heavily and the sound was laced with blame, as though Wisniak being at the R&R Center was Reza’s personal failing. Behind him Teague mimed riding a horse and slapping it. Reza coughed into his hand as Marshall turned an alarming shade of puce. “I’m getting tired of someone always being unaccounted for, Sergeant.”

  “That makes two of us.” Reza breathed deeply. “Sir.”

  “What are you planning on doing about it?”

  He raised both eyebrows, his temper lashing at its frayed restraints. His mouth would be the death of him someday. That or his temper.

  Right then, he didn’t really care.

  He started ticking off items on his fingers. “Well, sir, since you asked, first, I’m going to stop by the shoppette for coffee, then take a ride around post to break in my new truck. I’ll probably stop out at Engineer Lake and smoke a cigar and consider whether or not to come back to work at all. Around noon, I’m going to swing into the R&R Center to make sure that Wisniak actually showed up and was seen. Then I’ll spend the rest of the day hunting said sorry excuse for—”

  “That’s enough, sergeant,” Marshall snapped and Teague mimed him behind his back. “I don’t appreciate your insubordinate attitude. Accountability is the most important thing we do.”

  “I thought kicking in doors and killing bad guys was the most important thing we did?” Reza asked, doing his damnedest not to smirk. Damn but the man tried his patience and made him want to crack open a cold one and kick his boots up on his desk.

  Except that he’d given up drinking. Again. And this time, it had to stick. At least, it had to if he wanted to take his boys downrange again.

  The sergeant major had left him no wiggle room. No more drinking. Period.

  “Sergeant—”

  “Sir, I got it. I’ll head to the R&R Center right after formation. I’ll text you…” He glanced at Foster, who gave him a thumbs-up. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Wisniak was at the R&R Center, Reza supposed?

  “You’ll call. I don’t know when texting became the army’s preferred technique for communications between seniors and subordinates. I don’t text.”

  Reza saluted sharply. It was effectively a fuck off but Marshall was either too stupid or too arrogant to grasp the difference. “Roger, sir.”

  “Ben,” Marshall mumbled.

  “Jimmy.” Which earned him a snarl from Marshall as he stalked off. Teague grinned. “He hates being called Jimmy.”

  “Which is why you’ve called him that every day since Infantry Officer Basic Course?”

  “Of course,” Teague said solemnly. “It is my sacred duty to screw with him whenever I can. He was potty trained at gunpoint.”

  “Considering he’s a fifth generation army officer, probably,” Reza mumbled. Foster walked back up, shaking his head and mumbling creative profanity beneath his breath. “They won’t even tell you if Wisniak has checked in?”

  “I practically gave the lady on the phone a hand job to get her to tell me anything and she pretty much told me to kiss her ass. Damn HIPAA laws. How is it protecting the patient’s privacy when all I’m asking is if the jackass is there or not?”

  Reza sighed. “I’ll go find out if he’s there. I need you to make sure the weapons training is good to go.” Still swearing, Foster nodded and limped off. Too bad Foster wasn’t a better ass kisser; he’d have already made staff sergeant.

  But Marshall didn’t like him and had denied his promotion for the last three months because Foster was nursing a bum leg. Granted, he’d jammed it up playing sports, but the commander was being a total prick about it. It would have been better if Foster had been shot.

  “Damn civilians,” Reza mumbled, glancing at Teague. “I get that the docs are only supposed to talk to commanders but they make my life so damn difficult sometimes.”

  “They talk to you,” Teague said, pushing his sunglasses up on his nose and shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “That’s because they’re afraid of me. I look like every stereotype jihadi they can think of. All I have to do is say drka drka Mohammed jihad and I get whatever I want out of them.”

  “A Team America: World Police reference at six-fifteen a.m.? My day is complete.” Teague laughed. “That’s so fucking wrong. Just because you’re brown?”

  Reza shrugged. Growing up with a name like Reza Iaconelli had taught him how to fight. Young. With more than just the asshole kids on the street. He’d learned the hard way that little kids needed a whole lot more than attitude when standing up to a grown man.

  “What can I say? No one knows what to think of the brown guy. Half the time, people think I’m Mexican.” He started to walk off, still irritated by Marshall and the unrelenting douche baggery of the officer corps today. They cared more about stats than soldiers. It was total bullshit. The war wasn’t even over yet and it was already all the way back to the garrison army bullshit that had gotten their asses handed to them from 2003 on.

  “Where are
you heading?” Teague asked.

  “R&R. Need to check up on the resident crazy kid and make sure he’s not going to off himself.” He palmed his keys from his front pocket. Reza slammed the door of his truck and took a sip of his coffee, wishing it had a hell of a lot more in it than straight caffeine.

  He ground his teeth. Things would have been different for Sloban if they’d gotten things right. If he’d gotten sober sooner. But no. He’d dropped the ball and Slo had paid the price.

  He’d rather have his balls crushed with a ball peen hammer than deal with the R&R Center. He hated the psych docs. They were worse than the bleeding heart officers he seemed to find himself surrounded with these days. Just how he wanted to start off his seventy-fourth day sober: arguing with the shrinks.

  Good times.

  * * *

  “I don’t really think you understand the gravity of the situation, Captain.”

  Captain Emily Lindberg bristled at the use of her rank. The fact that a fellow captain used it to intimidate her only irritated her further.

  Add in that he was standing in front of—no, he was leaning over—her desk trying to back up his words with a little threat of physical intimidation and Emily’s temper snapped. Captain Jenkowski was built like a snake—tall and solid and mean—and he was clearly used to bullying his way through docs to get what he wanted.

  Well not today.

  She inhaled a calming breath through her nose and spoke softly, deliberately attempting to keep her composure. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand. Your soldier has experienced significant trauma since joining the military and his recurrent nightmares, excessive use of alcohol to self-medicate, and inability to effectively manage his stress are all indicators of serious psychological illness. He needs your compassion, not your wrath.”

  “Specialist Henderson needs my size ten boot in his ass. He sat on the damned base last deployment and we only got mortared a few times. He’s a candy pants wuss who has a serious case of I do what I want-itis and now he’s come crying to you, expecting you to bail his sorry ass out of a drug charge.” Emily could practically see smoke coming out of the big captain’s ears.