I'll Be Home for Christmas

by Jessica Scott

  “I think I’m going to have to adopt this early shopping plan more often,” Nicole said. “Even if this is a ridiculous hour to be out of bed on a Saturday morning.”

  Laura handed Emma a pen and notebook so she could doodle while she sat in the cart’s basket. “It’s the only way I can manage. All the crowds drive me crazy.”

  “I can understand that. I can’t beat my husband out of the house on payday in Killeen.” She pulled out the list of stuff she needed for Vic and tucked her hair behind one ear. This would be the last package she could send him if she wanted him to get it before Christmas. In case he might not get to come home, she still wanted him to have something to open on Christmas. “Does Trent have anything specific he needs?”

  Laura sighed. “I wouldn’t know because he hasn’t called me.”

  She mumbled the words so that her kids couldn’t hear but Nicole didn’t miss the worry beneath the bitterness in her voice. She placed her hand on Laura’s shoulder. “I’m sure he’s just busy,” Nicole said quietly.

  “When’s the last time Vic called you?” Laura said.

  “This morning,” Nicole admitted.

  “And Vic doesn’t have a phone on his desk.” She blinked rapidly. “I thought I could wait for him to get whatever he’s running from out of his system.” She bit her lip. “I just don’t know how much more I’ve got in me.”

  Laura ducked down the office supply aisle and Nicole headed toward the junk food section, giving her friend a moment to collect herself while she gathered junk food and other distractions for Vic. He’d developed a recent addiction to almonds for some reason, so she dropped a couple of tubs of trail mix and mixed nuts into the cart.

  For a man who ate like hell, he was an amazing physical specimen. He never went to the gym but his body was toned and tight from long hours on his feet. Unlike Nicole, who had to hit the gym every day or else.

  She turned down the Christmas aisle and bit back a twinge of sadness. God but she hoped he made it home. She wasn’t sure she could do Christmas alone. The last couple of times he’d been gone for Christmas, she’d gone home to see her dad. But her dad had left her last year. He’d gotten sick and within four weeks he was gone. His death had stunned her. And Vic? Vic had been her rock during the whole fiasco of sorting her father’s affairs, while her mother tried to take everything he had.

  She blinked rapidly and felt her phone vibrate in her purse. She dove for it, digging furiously, hoping it was Vic.

  It wasn’t. It was work. Nicole let it go to voice mail. She wasn’t in the mood to talk shop.

  Laura found her meandering near the Christmas aisle. Ethan, apparently, had not gotten the message about running off and so was constrained in the shopping cart with a coloring book. Laura looked much happier, despite pushing a heavier cart.

  “So, I’ve got this Christmas party next week for the families and two of my key volunteers decided to go into labor and have babies. I’m shorthanded. Can I please, please, please beg you to help me manage this chaos?”

  As a rule, Nicole tried to avoid the Family Readiness Group. It was great for spouses who needed help and guidance and mentorship, but Nicole always felt out of place. Not like she was better than everyone else, but she always felt like she didn’t belong when some of the wives would start talking about Pampered Chef or arts and crafts and Nicole couldn’t stop thinking about her latest case at work. She wasn’t the only spouse who worked but she was the only one in law enforcement.

  But this was Laura and she knew Laura was going through her own bad stuff right now with her husband. Nicole had meant to ask Vic if there was anything going on with Trent but she’d forgotten to when he’d called. She blamed him for the distraction.

  She smiled. His call had been a great distraction.

  “I guess,” Nicole said with a dramatic sigh. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Help with the food?”

  Nicole arched one eyebrow. “You realize I burn water, right?”

  “You can order it. I’ve got the FRG checkbook.” Laura looked relieved and Nicole was glad she could say yes. If only to help her friend.

  “So let me buy you coffee and you can talk me through everything you need me to do.” Nicole stopped in front of a small Christmas gnome. It had a bushy red beard and bright cheeks. There was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. Her throat tightened and she swallowed quickly, missing her husband badly.

  “Do you know of a coffee shop that has a play area for two small children?”

  “No, but that is an amazing idea for some entrepreneurial soul,” Nicole said. “McDonalds?”

  “Done.” Laura sighed. “Thank you so much, hon.”

  “No problem. Let me finish getting stuff for Vic? I want to get it in the mail this weekend.”

  “Sure. I’ve got to pick up a few more things then I’ll meet you there.”

  Nicole nodded as her friend wandered off again in search of the things on her own list. Nicole studied the gnome with the bright red beard.

  He was on sale this week. She held him in her hands, wondering what would become of the little fella if she sent him to her husband. She was tempted to keep him here. Put him on the fireplace.

  She still had to decorate the house.

  Her eyes burned and she breathed deeply to keep the sadness at bay. She wasn’t quite ready to do that alone. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow she’d climb into the attic and get the decorations down. She put the little gnome back on the shelf and finished picking up stuff for her husband.

  * * *

  The door to the first sergeant’s office slammed as Garrison stepped into the small hallway. Carponti flinched but didn’t move from where he stood at parade rest, waiting for the ass chewing of a century.

  Lieutenant Randall apparently had no sense of humor.

  He dared to glance at Garrison, who stood for a moment in the silence that echoed after the slamming door. “Well, that was fun,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Carponti frowned and glanced back at the first sergeant’s festive door. “He doesn’t want to see me?”

  “Oh he does,” Garrison remarked. “But we should really get going before he changes his mind.”

  Carponti grinned as he followed the big platoon sergeant out of the company ops. “That’s a hell of a Jedi mind trick you’ve got going there. I’m impressed.”

  “You should be,” Garrison said roughly. “He threatened to have you busted all the way back to private.”

  “He can’t prove it was me. I have no artistic talent whatsoever.” Carponti grinned. “But you have to admit, the mural on the latrine wall is some really great artwork.”

  Garrison shot him a long-suffering look. “So great that unless I send the kid who drew it to brigade to work on the t-wall mural, both of our asses are going to be explaining things to the sergeant major.”

  “I am confident that Tigger will be happy to volunteer his talents to leaving our mark on the Iraqi t-walls.” It was tradition that whenever a new unit arrived in theater, they painted their unit crest on a t-wall or jersey barrier.

  Garrison sighed heavily. “Look, just stop getting in trouble for a while? We’re heading out on patrol and when we get back, I would really like to go to sleep instead of have to bail your ass out of a sling again.”

  “But you love me so you’ll do it,” Carponti said.

  “I love that you’re a fucking machine in combat and I can always count on you,” Garrison said. He paused. “And you’re damn funny, too.”

  Carponti sniffed dramatically. “You really should write cards.”

  Garrison grinned. “Shut up and get everyone ready. We’re leaving on patrol in two hours and I want everyone’s head in the game. Our high value targets are holed up near the soccer stadium. Maybe if we get these guys, we can get some intel on why the attack patterns are dropping.”

  “The soccer stadium that keeps getting blown up? Lovely.” Carponti sobered. “You’d think we wouldn’t be complaining about this.
Fewer attacks are a good thing, last time I checked.”

  Garrison shot him a sidelong look as they walked through the maze of jersey barriers back toward the platoon bay. “Normally I’d agree with you but there’s such a sharp drop-off that Trent thinks there’s another reason. Might be building for a massive attack or something. He’s worried about the changing pattern.”

  Carponti grunted. “He should be worried about calling his wife.”

  “Yeah.” Garrison was quiet for a long moment. “I guess he figures Laura will always wait for him. She’s waited this long.”

  “No woman can wait that long.” Carponti drummed his hands on the butt of his rifle. “Hell, I call my wife as much as I can and I’m still worried she’ll leave me for her deployment boyfriend. Or worse, a real boyfriend.”

  Garrison slapped him on the shoulder. “Nicole is the one woman on the planet with a sense of humor enough to match yours. She’ll never leave you.”

  “From your lips to the heavens,” Carponti said.

  He watched Garrison walk off. He hoped that maybe after they got back, Garrison could get some sleep. Carponti buried the niggling worry that taunted him, whispering on the back of his neck. He headed off to start rounding everyone up, wishing he had time to call his wife before they headed out on patrol. He wanted to hear her voice. Needed to. She was his personal good luck charm. As long as she was there in the world, things would be okay.

  Chapter Five

  Nicole’s phone vibrated next to her bed, dragging her out of her fitful sleep. She blinked and glanced at the alarm clock. Three in the morning. She groped for the phone and saw a mass text message from Laura, sent to everyone on the Family Readiness Group roster.

  We have information about an attack. There are injuries but no casualties. Please stay off social networks until we have confirmation of who has been hurt. I will do my best to keep everyone informed.

  Nicole sat up, instantly awake, and wiggled the mouse on her computer. Once upon a time, she would have thought it was strange sleeping with a laptop next to her bed, but now? Now it was an easy way for Vic to call her, so she left Skype logged in.

  But tonight, her inbox was empty. Nicole swallowed the fear and dialed Laura’s number.

  “Hey,” Laura said.

  “You don’t sound like you’ve been to sleep.”

  “I haven’t.” Laura sounded exhausted.

  “How can I help?”

  Laura sighed quietly. “You can’t. There’s nothing we can do right now but wait for more information. And even then, it’ll take time for the casualties to be sent from Germany to here. My inbox is going nuts right now.”

  “That’s understandable.” Nicole rubbed her eyes. “We’re all scared.”

  “Yeah,” Laura admitted. “Me too.”

  “Still no word from Trent?” God but Nicole’s heart broke for Laura. Her husband was still in silent mode, and Laura? Laura’s patience was reaching a breaking point. She’d never seen her friend more upset.

  “No.”

  Nicole clicked refresh on her inbox, wishing an e-mail would magically appear and tell her that Vic was okay. She fought the blind panic at his silence.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Laura. “I’m so sorry.”

  Laura said nothing for a moment and Nicole was almost positive her friend was biting back tears. “Me too. Listen, I’ve got to get some sleep. Can I call you if I need help?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  The line went dead and Nicole sat there for a long moment, clicking refresh on her inbox. Just a couple more times. She looked down at the phone and flicked the vibrate off. If Vic called, she wanted to hear it.

  She curled up onto her side, staring at the blinking cursor on her computer screen. Her eyes burned, but the fear was too raw, too real. She blinked the tears back, trying her damnedest to keep the ragged fear from breaking free. She stared at the empty inbox as her vision blurred. And clicked refresh again and again as the tears spilled down her cheeks. Just once more before she gave up and tried to go back to sleep.

  * * *

  Carponti sat next to Garrison’s bed in the open bay of the combat hospital. The hospital was eerily quiet, the silence smothering and oppressive. The chaos and noise and static that had been buzzing around the hospital bed was gone now, leaving nothing but the septic silence. His ribs ached and his chest throbbed but he wasn’t in the hospital for his own—comparatively minor—injuries.

  They’d gotten blown up. They’d captured their high value target, but the cost? The cost had been really fucking high. The soccer field had been blown all to hell and had taken out Garrison and damn near taken Carponti out, too. His ribs hurt where that rocket had knocked him off the truck. Thank God and army contractors for body armor that worked. And for guys with shitty bomb-making skills.

  There was a tube down Garrison’s throat and they were getting ready to move him to the airfield for his flight to Germany. Because the rest of him was pretty banged up. He lowered his head to the bed again. His throat wasn’t working right and it was hard to breathe. He blamed his bruised ribs. Couldn’t be the raw sadness threatening to overwhelm him. No, couldn’t be that.

  Carponti tried to talk but every time he opened his mouth, his throat closed off again.

  There was blood on the floor. They hadn’t gotten around to cleaning yet.

  The chaos was gone now but for Carponti, the only thing he heard was the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor over the black tattoos on Garrison’s chest.

  “So listen,” Carponti said. “When you wake up—” He cleared his throat roughly. “When you wake up,” he tried again. His voice broke but he kept talking because otherwise, he was going to sob like a fucking baby. He scrubbed both hands over his face. He reached for Garrison’s hand. The one that hadn’t gotten all blown half to hell along with the rest of him. It was warm and listless. Missing the strength and courage of the man Carponti looked up to and wanted to be when he grew up.

  “Listen, you’re going on a flight. And you’re gonna wake up at some point. Be nice to the nurses. ’Cause they’re going to take care of your grumpy old ass until you get better. And you need to hurry the hell up and get healthy because you know who they’re bringing in to replace you? That asshole Iaconelli from battalion.” He dropped his head to his hand where it covered Garrison’s. They hadn’t waited a day to bring that guy down to the platoon, still reeling from the complex attack that had taken out their fearless platoon sergeant and a couple of the other guys. “So you need to get back here really soon because he’s liable to throw my ass out of the army.”

  “Sergeant?”

  Carponti pinched his eyes before looking up. There was a major wearing scrubs at the end of the bed. She looked like she hadn’t slept in about three weeks but there was a sharpness in her eyes. This was a familiar routine for her. Carponti wondered how the hell she—how any of them—kept going when all they had around them were the broken and the bleeding.

  She’d done this too many times to be upset by another mangled GI. But Carponti would never get used to it.

  Not this.

  “We’re getting ready to go.” She took a step closer and put her hand on Carponti’s shoulder.

  It took everything he had to keep from shattering from that single, human gesture. He swallowed a couple of times before he could speak. “So you’re not going to chop off any body parts while he’s unconscious or anything?”

  She smiled gently. “We hope not.”

  Carponti snorted quietly. “That wasn’t really a helpful answer.” He tried to offer up a smart-ass grin and failed. “He’ll be okay, right?” he managed.

  “We’ll do our best.” Her hand squeezed his shoulder gently. “It’s time for you to go.”

  He nodded and stood. He patted Garrison’s hand awkwardly. “Don’t die, all right, old man? ’Cause there’s no telling the amount of trouble I can get into without your old ass keeping me in check.”

  He walked ou
t then, before his voice broke any more.

  Couldn’t let the boys see him cry. They had another mission in twelve hours. So he stuffed all the emotion down and bolted it closed.

  He’d face that fear and sadness and everything else some other time. Another time when hopefully there would be lots of booze to ease some of the pain. But for now? Now he stuffed it down and went back to work.

  Because that’s what Garrison would expect him to do.

  * * *

  “Sergeant Carponti!”

  Carponti kept walking, ignoring the voice of that hell-spawned lieutenant. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with LT Randall on a good day and today was definitely not a good day.

  “Sergeant, I’m talking to you!”

  Carponti’s temper snapped and he rounded on the LT. “What the fuck do you want, LT?”

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” Randall sneered.

  Carponti sighed dramatically. “You weren’t hugged enough as a child, were you?”

  “I’m not in the mood for your smart mouth, Sergeant.”

  “And I’m not in the mood for yours.”

  Randall stepped into his face. “Your buddy Garrison isn’t around to protect you now. I’m going to have your ass before this deployment is over.”

  Carponti smirked. “You can’t do anything to my ass. That’s a violation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

  “You think you’re so funny.”

  “I know I’m funny. You, on the other hand, have no such redeeming quality.” He patted the LT’s chest. “What the fuck do you want? I’ve got a squad of men waiting for information on their platoon sergeant, who just got blown all to shit. Oh, but you wouldn’t care about that because you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘care.’ ”

  “I need your paperwork on the sensitive items report.”

  Carponti swore and stalked off.

  “I wasn’t done talking to you, Sergeant.” Randall grabbed his arm.

  “I’m done talking to you, LT. Go find my LT for that officer bullshit.” Carponti rounded on him, yanking his arm free. “And if you put your hands on me again, I’m going to break your fucking hand.”