Military Romance Collection

by E Cleveland

  Shuffling down the edge of the bed, I keep my weight off my foot as I get closer to the pile. As I lean over them, I can see that the top book isn’t a novel, it’s a journal.

  I guiltily look up to the door. Should I?

  My hand hovers over the moleskin cover and my eyes snap back down to the book. I can’t help but wonder what kind of guy kills a man in cold blood, but then goes out of his way to save a woman he doesn’t know. Cole doesn’t seem like the stereotype of a murderer or psychopath, yet the crime speaks for itself. Is there insight on these written pages? Is there an explanation for the sexy walking contradiction that swooped in last night and carried me away in his arms?

  I lean over the end of the bed and my fingers graze the cover. My skin tingles with excitement and nerves. I shouldn’t do this. I pull my hand away, but can’t help it from creeping back to the book, as if moving by its own quest for knowledge. Just for a flicker of a second, I imagine getting back and reporting his whereabouts to Senator Turner myself. A million dollars would change my life forever. And taking it away from a man who thinks it’s okay to force himself on a young woman in order to bring another man who executed a college boy, seems like a good way to earn it.

  My fingertips touch the soft book cover and I crack it open, I breathe in deep as I see a picture of a young, gorgeous blonde in a wallet sized photo smiling up at me.

  Who is she? Is this his girlfriend? His wife?

  I study her delicate features, she looks young, but it’s impossible to guess her age. I lift up the photo and get absorbed in a story I create in my head about this girl I’ve never met. How he loves her and had to break her heart when he left for the Canadian border. I put the photo down with a shaky hand and a twisted gut. I think I’m actually feeling… jealous of her.

  This is crazy.

  I almost close the cover when I see a handwritten letter folded inside the book. I lift the beautifully embossed stationery and hold it against my chest. I want to read it, but it feels so wrong. Like a line that shouldn’t be crossed in the sand. I close my eyes and try to find the inner strength to put it back down. The self-control eludes me and I unfold the page.

  Dear Cole,

  “Find anything interesting?” My eyes snap up to Cole standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips looking down his nose at me. Literally.

  I jump and drop the letter on top of the book and Cole lunges across the room, snatching it up. He lies it back down in his book and slams the cover shut, tucking it under his arm.

  “So, let me get this straight,” he glares at me, “I protect you, bring you to safety, fix you up and you repay me by ransacking my personal belongings the second you think the coast is clear? Does that sum this up?” He clutches the notebook tight in his hand.

  I swallow hard, my tongue feels thick and I can’t find my words. Hot tears spring to the corners of my eyes as I look down to the ground. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Everyone is always so sorry! After they get caught,” his voice rumbles making me tremble. “So, let me ask you again,” I can’t face him, but I can feel his eyes burning a trail over my skin, “find anything interesting?”

  11

  Abbie

  “Is this more of your top-notch detective work? Huh, Columbo? You think you’re gonna rifle through my stuff and find what? Details about the murder? Maybe a signed confession?” He sneers.

  I keep my eyes on the ground. Cole is blocking my path to the exit, not that I’d make it far on my ankle if I tried to run anyway. I never should’ve gone through his things. Why couldn’t I leave it alone?

  “Cause if you want to know anything you just need to ask,” his voice claps like thunder in my ears as his broad frame hovers over me. “You already know I killed him, so what more do you want? A play by play about how I stalked him, learned his routine, waited to sneak into his house to take him out? I’m an open book sweetheart, you don’t have to go poking around through my stuff to find out what you want to know.”

  I swallow hard, I can hear the anger blooming around his words like a nuclear mushroom cloud. The heat of his rage bursts from him like a radiation blast. I don’t want to say or do anything that’s going to make this worse. He doesn’t exactly sound remorseful about what he did, if anything, he sounds proud. Not that I’m about to call him out on it. I don’t want to become his next victim.

  “I was just trying to get a better sense of who you are,” the fear in my heart trembles in my voice. “I know I shouldn’t have looked, but after you helped me last night I guess I was looking for a reason to stop being so scared of you. I’m sorry,” tears spill onto my cheeks and I sniffle as I wipe them away quickly. I’m definitely not confessing my brief thoughts about selling him out and taking the money. I may not have much life experience, but I’m no idiot.

  Cole doesn’t speak. His silence is more terrifying than his words. At least when he was yelling at me I knew what was going through his head, now, I’m left guessing as he stands perfectly still keeping me prisoner of his gaze.

  “You’re right,” his voice is so soft that I can’t help but raise my head and peer up at him just to make sure it’s still the same man standing there.

  “I, I am?” I hold my breath, hoping the compassion and understanding I see in his softened features is real.

  “Yes, I didn’t think about your point of view, okay? I’m sorry. I was so focussed on getting you back here and mending your ankle that I never took the time to really imagine how scared you must be feeling. I know that from what you know about me it must be difficult to think I’m not some kind of monster, but I’m not. I’m not a bad guy at all. Look, if you think it’ll give you peace of mind to read through my stuff then go ahead,” he holds out the journal to me but I don’t move.

  Is this a trick?

  “Take it,” he insists and I reach my hand up to gingerly pluck it from his broad hand.

  “It’s okay, I don’t need to read anything. I didn’t see anything anyway, well, just the picture of that beautiful girl,” I admit tilting my head as shame floods me.

  “That’s April,” his voice is flat and his thick lips pull down.

  “Is she your wife? Or your girlfriend?” I don’t mean to blurt out the questions, but like a curious cat that falls from a balcony and walks away only to do it all again a week later, I don’t learn my lessons easily.

  “No,” he runs his hand through his sandy hair and rubs the back of his neck. He looks at the book in my hands and then meets my gaze. In his deep blue eyes I can see the agony twisting inside him, “That’s my sister. And thanks to Trent fucking Turner, that entitled asshole Senator’s son, she’s dead.”

  12

  Cole

  “What?” She shakes her head slowly, “he killed her? I never read anything about that…” she squints off into the distance, like she’s trying to read the details in an invisible file she’s probably poured over a hundred times.

  “No, not directly,” I grind my teeth together as the pain of her loss stabs my heart. I look down at the dust clinging to my boots, trying to stop the tears pricking my eyes. I take a deep breath, sucking air deep into my lungs like a diver about to plunge into the ocean. That’s how I feel about my memories of her, like they could drown me with sadness.

  “What does that mean?” She asks softly, and I look back up at her. She’s searching my face for answers that I’ve still never spoken out loud about.

  “Trent Turner raped my sister,” I answer flatly. “She was seventeen and she decided to sneak into a frat party on campus. You know, sometimes I’ve thought about that, about how she snuck in and was drinking underage, and I’ve gotten so angry. Like, if she just would’ve stayed home and acted her age instead of sneaking into a party full of booze and college kids… why did she have to go out that night at all?” My voice cracks, and the tears I’ve been trying to keep inside fill my eyes. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, “but I’m not angry at her. How could I be? It’s not her fau
lt that Mr. Fucking Prep School decided to roofie her. It’s not her fault he took her back to his place slobbering and almost unconscious. It’s not her fault he recorded himself fucking her while she was passed out like he was some kind of hunter taking pictures of his prized gazelle,” I swallow hard but my throat is raw.

  Abbie jumps as I make my way to the side of the bed. “I’m just grabbing this,” I point to the water bottle beside the bed.

  “Oh, okay,” she watches me intently as I lean over and pick it up. My throat is parched and I take a huge swig of the cool, refreshing water.

  “Listen, I wish you’d just relax. I’ve already told you I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t you think if I was some kind of crazed serial killer I would’ve shown you that by now? Don’t you think I would’ve made my move?”

  “You’re right,” She nods and her long hair swings around her face. “I’m just nervous, like, only twenty-four hours ago I had a much different picture of who you were in my mind,” she explains.

  “Yeah, well, you were wrong. I wasn’t even going to kill Trent until he destroyed my sister’s life. I found out about the rape when I was on deployment, and I always knew I was going to come back and teach him a lesson, but with these,” I hold up my fists, “not a gun.”

  I remember how angry I was when I first found out about the assault. I went back to my barracks and ripped my room apart. I flipped the bed, tore the hangers out of my locker, kicked the door and dented the metal with my steel-toe boot. Did I want to kill him then? Absolutely. But I knew that I wouldn’t.

  I run my hand over my grizzly jaw and snap back to the present. Abbie is looking up at me and I hold out the water bottle to her, “Here, have some,” I offer.

  “Thanks,” she takes a sip, never moving her eyes from my face.

  She still doesn’t trust me.

  “I didn’t find out until I came back that he had recorded her. I guess that fucker spread the video around to his buddies and it leaked to the kids in her school. From what I’ve found out, she couldn’t get away from it. She’d go to school and kids would play it on their phones in the cafeteria, laughing at her. She stopped eating at the school. Then she just stopped eating, period. Her friend told me she would hide in the bathroom between classes and cry. Before that happened, she had the same dreams most high school seniors have, to have an epic graduating year. He took that from her too.”

  I lean down on my haunches so I’m not towering over Abbie on the bed. I realize I’m probably intimidating her.

  Her eyes are soft and her full lips twitch downward and she grabs my hand, “I’m so sorry. My heart hurts for her,” she blinks quickly.

  “I am too. The thing was, when I was in the desert, I didn’t know all that shit. I didn’t find out until I came home for her funeral. I got word from my commanding officer that I was being sent home because she died,” my voice breaks and I can’t stop the tears from falling this time. The pain is still fresh. The loss still doesn’t feel real. It hurts too much to wrap my mind around. “I couldn’t believe it,” I choke out the words and force myself to keep talking because I know if I don’t I’ll end up losing it. “They didn’t want to tell me it was suicide, but I pushed him. I mean, she was just a kid. A healthy kid with her whole life in front of her. Anyway, he told me she took her own life and I felt like he gutted me. I couldn’t breathe. My ears stopped working. I was numb.” I squeeze Abbie’s hand as I remember the helplessness I felt. How it hurt to breathe.

  Abbie doesn’t interrupt, but tears are forming in her eyes. She gives me time to get some control without pushing me to continue. “The entire plane ride home, I jut kept reading the last letter she sent me. She still didn’t tell me about the video or the kids in her school, but she told me life was feeling out of control. She said she was finding it harder and harder to stay optimistic that she didn’t know if she could ever get her life back to normal. That she didn’t even know what normal was supposed to feel like anymore. But,” my voice cracks and a tremble runs through me as I remember her words written on the page I’ve read a hundred times, “she ended it by saying she had one thing that still gave her hope.” I breathe in a shaky lung full of air, “That she still looked forward to when I was coming home. She said she couldn’t wait to see me,” hot tears splash down my face and I pull away from Abbie’s hand to wipe them away.

  “Trent Turner took that away from me. He might not have put a bullet in her, but he still killed her. What he did was much worse, because he killed her soul long before he ever took her life.” My chin trembles and I try to get my emotions under control.

  Abbie moves forward to the edge of the bed and throws her arms around me, “I’m sorry Cole,” I look up at her and she’s crying too. I wrap my arms around her and let my tears fall as I hold her against my chest.

  “Me too,” I agree. “Me too.”

  13

  Abbie

  I sniffle and nuzzle my head against his broad, hard chest. His arms feel like a stone wall around me, guarding me from danger. I can’t imagine his heartbreak, his pain. Even considering the hell his little sister went through springs fresh tears to my eyes. I try to swallow the lump growing in my throat as I wrap my mind around what he told me. This man that I thought was some kind of sociopath, is really a hero. He knew he would be sacrificing his career, leaving his family, his friends and living in isolation forever after killing Trent, but he did it anyway. For her. His seventeen-year-old sister who would never grow up to have any of those things.

  Just like he did for me.

  He stopped Cecil from stealing what wasn’t his. If he hadn’t knocked him out and taken me to safety, I could have suffered the same fate as his sister. I don’t want to think about how a brutal attack like that would’ve shaped the rest of my life.

  Cole runs his heavy hand through my hair and I close my eyes letting the calm wash over me.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble against his shirt.

  “For what?” Cole moves back, holding my arms in his hands and peers into my face. When he looks at me like that, I feel like he can see everything I try to hide inside. My fears, my dreams, my desires…

  I shake my head and try to push the feeling away as my cheeks flush with heat at the thought. Especially the last one. I hope he can’t tell how my body tingled when we held hands, or how an unfamiliar warmth rushed over my skin as he held me.

  “I know I don’t understand what you’ve been through, I won’t pretend I do, but I know what it’s like to lose someone who means so much to you.” The lump in my throat grows as my mother’s face floats through my memory. Not how she looked at the end, when the cancer spread through her like wildfire, but how she looked when I was a little girl. When she would smile down at me as she pushed me on the swings or how beautiful she looked when she used to sing me my bedtime songs as a child. That’s how I like to remember her now, in our happiest moments together. In a time before I ever understood the word cancer, let alone had my life ripped apart by its hands.

  Cole engulfs my hands in his palms. He watches me patiently as I sort through my thoughts.

  “I lost my mother to cancer a few months ago,” I squeak as I strain to keep the endless flow of tears I have for her, contained. “She raised me alone, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. We just had each other.” I take a shaky breath, “I know it’s not the same as your sister, but when I buried her I felt like a wind blew out the fire in my soul.” My chin trembles and fat tears betray me, sliding slowly over my cheeks.

  Cole nods and squeezes my hands, he leans into me and softly drags his thumb over the tracks of tears. “I’m sorry you lost your mother,” he leans forward and places his forehead against mine. His comfort soothes my aching heart as I listen to birds tweeting outside and the wind rustle through the pines. It’s such a simple gesture, but it speaks volumes.

  Cole pulls back and clears his throat loudly, “I should get you some breakfast,” he turns his head and wipes his face quickly with the back of
his hand. “Let me help you up,” he holds out his hand as he stands back up. I watch his face transform as he pushes his sadness down, forcing it away. He juts out his scruffy jaw and his blue eyes grow more determined. I wish I could do that. I wish I could just compartmentalize my feelings the way he seems to be able to. I wish my mother’s death didn’t always feel like a gaping wound pumping out blood with each heartbeat.

  “Yes, please,” I grab his hands and let him pull me up. Throwing my arms around him, he supports me as he guides me across the room.

  Hopping on my good foot, I follow him to the single chair he has set up next to a small table. He eases me down and I can’t help but smile at how someone so big and so strong can be so gentle.

  “Okay, I’ve got instant coffee and oatmeal, the flavored kind, does that work for you?” He doesn’t really wait for my answer, busying himself with getting a pot filled with some water from a jug.

  “Sounds perfect,” I agree, tilting my head back into the streaks of sunlight breaking through the window. As the sunlight kisses my skin I enjoy a sense of peace washing over me.

  I couldn’t be happier to be so wrong about someone. Tilting my head, I watch as Cole busies himself in his kitchen and realize, I haven’t felt this content in a long, long time. Not since the days before Mama told me she got the diagnosis. A smile spreads over my face and tension I’ve been holding in my shoulders rolls away as I settle back in the chair, enjoying every second of this moment.

  14