by Elle James
“That’s too bad.” He opened the door for her. “I just got here. That doesn’t give us much time to get to know each other.”
“That’s just as well.” Nora stepped through the door. “I don’t want to be accused of fraternizing. I’m too close to going back to spoil my record.”
Rucker chuckled. “Playing volleyball and sharing a table while drinking coffee won’t get you written up. I like the way you play. I’m curious to know where you learned to spike like that.”
“I guess that’s reasonable. Coffee first.” She led him into the chow hall.
The smells of food and coffee made Rucker’s mouth water.
He grabbed a tray and loaded his plate with eggs, toast and pancakes drenched in syrup. Last, he stopped at the coffee urn and filled his cup with freshly brewed black coffee.
When he looked around, he found Nora seated at one of the tables, holding a mug in her hands, a small plate with cottage cheese and peaches on it.
He strode over to her. “Mind if I join you?”
“As long as you don’t hit on me,” she said with cocked eyebrows.
“You say that as if you’ve been hit on before.”
She nodded and sipped her steaming brew. “I lost count how many times in the first week I was here.”
“Shows they have good taste in women and, unfortunately, limited manners.”
“And you’re better?” she asked, a smile twitching the corners of her lips.
“I’m not hitting on you. You can tell me to leave, and I’ll be out of this chair so fast, you won’t have time to enunciate the V.”
She stared straight into his eyes, canted her head to one side and said, “Leave.”
In the middle of cutting into one of his pancakes, Rucker dropped his knife and fork on the tray, shot out of his chair and left with his tray, sloshing coffee as he moved. He hoped she was just testing him. If she wasn’t…oh, well. He was used to eating meals alone. If she was, she’d have to come to him.
He took a seat at the next table, his back to her, and resumed cutting into his pancake.
Nora didn’t utter a word behind him.
Oh, well. He popped a bite of syrupy sweet pancake in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. She was only there for another week. Man, she had a nice ass…and those legs… He sighed and bent over his plate to stab his fork into a sausage link.
“This chair taken?” a soft, female voice sounded in front of him.
He looked up to see the pretty blond nurse standing there with her tray in her hands, a crooked smile on her face.
He lifted his chin in silent acknowledgement.
She laid her tray on the table and settled onto the chair. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”
“Fair enough. You don’t know me,” he said.
“I know that you joined the Army to get out of street life. That your mother raised you after your father skipped out, that you’re working toward a business degree and that your name is Rucker.” She sipped her coffee.
He nodded, secretly pleased she’d remembered all that. Maybe there was hope for getting to know the pretty nurse before she redeployed to the States. And who knew? They might run into each other on the other side of the pond.
Still, he couldn’t show too much interest, or he’d be no better than the other guys who’d hit on her. “Since you’re redeploying back to the States in a week, and I’m due to go out on a mission, probably within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, I don’t know if it’s worth our time to get to know each other any more than we already have.”
She nodded. “I guess that’s why I want to sit with you. You’re not a danger to my perfect record of no fraternizing. I don’t have to worry that you’ll fall in love with me in such a short amount of time.” She winked.
He chuckled. “As I’m sure half of this base has fallen in love with you since you’ve been here.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s love, but it’s damned annoying.”
“How so?”
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I get flowers left on my door every day.”
“And that’s annoying? I’m sure it’s not easy coming up with flowers out here in the desert.” He set down his fork and took up his coffee mug. “I think it’s sweet.” He held back a smile. Well, almost.
“They’re hand-drawn on notepad paper and left on the door of my quarters and on the door to the shower tent.” She shook her head. “It’s kind of creepy and stalkerish.”
Rucker nodded. “I see your point. The guys should at least have tried their hands at origami flowers, since the real things are scarce around here.”
Nora smiled. “I’m not worried about the pictures, but the line for sick call is ridiculous.”
“How so?”
“So many of the guys come up with the lamest excuses to come in and hit on me. I asked to work the nightshift to avoid sick call altogether.”
“You have a fan group.” He smiled. “Has the adoration gone to your head?”
She snorted softly. “No.”
“You didn’t get this kind of reaction back in the States?”
“I haven’t been on active duty for long. I only decided to join the Army after my mother passed away. I was her fulltime nurse for a couple years as she went through stage four breast cancer. We thought she might make it.” Her shoulders sagged. “But she didn’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. My mother meant a lot to me, as well. I sent money home every month after I enlisted and kept sending it up until the day she died suddenly of an aneurysm.”
“I’m so sorry about your mother’s passing,” Nora said, shaking her head. “Wow. As an enlisted man, how did you make enough to send some home?”
“I ate in the chow hall and lived on post. I didn’t party or spend money on civilian clothes or booze. Mom needed it. I gave it to her.”
“You were a good son to her,” Nora said.
His chest tightened. “She died of an aneurysm a couple of weeks before she was due to move to Texas where I’d purchased a house for her.”
“Wow. And, let me guess, you blame yourself for not getting her to Texas sooner…?” Her gaze captured his.
Her words hit home, and he winced. “Yeah. I should’ve done it sooner.”
“Can’t bring people back with regrets.” Nora stared into her coffee cup. “I learned that. The only thing I could do was move forward and get on with living. I wanted to get away from Milwaukee and the home I’d shared with my mother. Not knowing where else to go, I wandered past a realtor’s office and stepped into a recruiter’s office. I had my nursing degree, they wanted and needed nurses on active duty. I signed up, they put me through some officer training and here I am.” She held her arms out.
“Playing volleyball in Afghanistan, working on your tan during the day and helping soldiers at night.” Rucker gave her a brief smile. “I, for one, appreciate what you’re doing for our guys and gals.”
“I do the best I can,” she said softly. “I just wish I could do more. I’d rather stay here than redeploy back to the States, but they’re afraid if they keep us here too long, we’ll burn out or get PTSD.”
“One week, huh?”
She nodded. “One week.”
“In my field, one week to redeploy back to the States is a dangerous time. Anything can happen and usually does.”
“Yeah, but you guys are on the frontlines, if not behind enemy lines. I’m back here. What could happen?”
Rucker flinched. “Oh, sweetheart, you didn’t just say that…” He glanced around, hoping no one heard her tempt fate with those dreaded words What could happen?
Nora grinned. “You’re not superstitious, are you?”
“In what we do, we can’t afford not to be,” he said, tossing salt over his shoulder.
“I’ll be fine,” she said in a reassuring, nurse’s voice.
“Stop,” he said, holding up his hand. “You’re only digging the hole deeper.” He tossed mo
re salt over his other shoulder.
Nora laughed.
“Don’t laugh.” He handed her the saltshaker. “Do it.”
“I’m not tossing salt over my shoulder. Someone has to clean the mess hall.”
Rucker leaned close and shook salt over her shoulder. “I don’t know if it counts if someone else throws salt over your shoulder, but I figure you now need every bit of luck you can get.”
“You’re a fighter but afraid of a little bad luck.” Nora shook her head. “Those two things don’t seem to go together.”
“You’d be surprised how easily my guys are freaked by the littlest things.”
“And you,” she reminded him.
“You asking what could happen? isn’t a little thing. That’s in-your-face tempting fate.” Rucker was laying it on thick to keep her grinning, but deep down, he believed what he was saying. And it didn’t make a difference the amount of education he had or the statistics that predicted outcomes. His gut told him she’d just tempted fate with her statement. Maybe he was overthinking things. Now, he was worried she wouldn’t make it back to the States alive.
Nora liked Rucker. He was the first guy who’d walked away without an argument since she’d arrived at the base in Afghanistan. He’d meant what he’d said and proved it. His dark brown hair and deep green eyes, coupled with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, made him even more attractive. Not all the men were in as good a shape as Rucker. And he seemed to have a very determined attitude.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d deployed. Being the center of attention of almost every single male on the base hadn’t been one of her expectations. She’d only ever considered herself average in the looks department. But when the men outnumbered women by more than ten to one, she guessed average appearance moved up in the ranks.
“Where did you learn to play volleyball?” Rucker asked, changing the subject of her leaving and her flippant comment about what could happen in one week.
“I was on the volleyball team in high school. It got me a scholarship to a small university in my home state of Minnesota, where I got my Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.”
“It takes someone special to be a nurse,” he stated. “Is that what you always wanted to be?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to be a firefighter when I was in high school.”
“What made you change your mind?”
She stared down at the coffee growing cold in her mug. “My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was a senior in high school. I wanted to help but felt like I didn’t know enough to be of assistance.” She looked up. “She made it through chemo and radiation treatments and still came to all of my volleyball games. I thought she was in the clear.”
“She wasn’t?” Rucker asked, his tone low and gentle.
“She didn’t tell me any different. When I got the scholarship, I told her I wanted to stay close to home to be with her. She insisted I go and play volleyball for the university. I was pretty good and played for the first two years I was there. I quit the team in my third year to start the nursing program. I didn’t know there was anything wrong back home. I called every week to talk to Mom. She never let on that she was sick.” She forced a smile. “But you don’t want my sob story. You probably want to know what’s going on around here.”
He set his mug on the table. “If we were alone in a coffee bar back in the States, I’d reach across the table and take your hand.”
“Oh, please. Don’t do that.” She looked around the mess hall, half expecting someone might have overheard Rucker’s comment. “You’re enlisted. I’m an officer. That would get us into a whole lot of trouble.”
“Yeah, but we’re also two human beings. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel empathy for you and want to provide comfort.”
She set her coffee cup on the table and laid her hands in her lap. “I’ll be satisfied with the thought. Thank you.”
“Doesn’t seem like enough. When did you find out your mother was sick?”
She swallowed the sadness that welled in her throat every time she remembered coming home to find out her mother had been keeping her illness from her. “It wasn’t until I went home for Christmas in my senior year that I realized she’d been lying to me for a while.” She laughed in lieu of sobbing. “I don’t care who they are, old people don’t always tell the truth.”
“How long had she been keeping her sickness from you?”
“She’d known the cancer had returned halfway through my junior year. I hadn’t gone home that summer because I’d been working hard to get my coursework and clinical hours in the nursing program. When I went home at Christmas…” Nora gulped. “She wasn’t the same person. She’d lost so much weight and looked twenty years older.”
“Did you stay home that last semester?” Rucker asked.
“Mom insisted I go back to school and finish what I’d started. Like your mother, she hadn’t gone to college. She wanted her only child to graduate. She was afraid that if I stayed home to take care of her, I wouldn’t finish my nursing degree.”
“I heard from a buddy of mine that those programs can be hard to get into,” he said. “I can see why she wouldn’t want you to drop everything in your life to take care of her.”
Nora gave him a watery smile. “That’s what she said. As soon as my last final was over, I returned to my hometown. I became her nurse. She lasted another three months before she slipped away.”
“That’s when you joined the Army?”
She shook her head. “Dad was so heartbroken, I stayed a few months until he was feeling better. I got a job at a local emergency room. On weekends, my father and I worked on cleaning out the house and getting it ready to put on the market.”
“Is your dad still alive?” Rucker asked.
Nora nodded. “He lives in Texas. He moved to a small house with a big backyard.” She forced a smile. “He has a garden, and all the ladies in his retirement community think he’s the cat’s meow. He still misses Mom, but he’s getting on with his life.”
Rucker tilted his head. “When did you join the military?”
“When Dad sold the house and moved into his retirement community. I worried about him, but he’s doing better.”
“And you?”
“I miss her. But she’d whip my ass if I wallowed in self-pity for more than a moment. She was a strong woman and expected me to be the same.”
Rucker grinned. “From what I’ve seen, you are.”
Nora gave him a skeptical look. “You’ve only seen me playing volleyball. It’s just a game.” Not that she’d admit it, but she was a real softy when it came to caring for the sick and injured.
“If you’re half as good at nursing, which I’m willing to bet you are, you’re amazing.” He started to reach across the table for her hand. Before he actually touched her, he grabbed the saltshaker and shook it over his cold breakfast.
“You just got in this morning?” Nora asked.
Rucker nodded.
“How long will you be here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? I thought when people were deployed, they were given a specific timeframe.”
“Most people are. We’re deployed where and when needed.”
Nora frowned. “What are you? Some kind of special forces team?”
His lips pressed together. “Can’t say.”
She sat back. He was some kind of Special Forces. “Army, right?”
He nodded.
That would make him Delta Force. The elite of the elite. A very skilled soldier who undertook incredibly dangerous missions. She gulped and stopped herself from reaching across the table to take his hand. “Well, I hope all goes well while you and your team are here.”
“Thanks.”
A man hurried across the chow hall wearing shorts and an Army T-shirt. He headed directly toward their table.
Nora didn’t recognize him. “Expecting someone?” she
asked Rucker, tipping her head toward the man.
Rucker turned, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. “Why the hell’s Dash awake?”
Nora frowned. “Dash? Please tell me that’s his callsign, not his real name.”
Rucker laughed. “It should be his real name. He’s first into the fight, and he’s fast.” Rucker stood and faced his teammate. “What’s up?”
“CO wants us all in the Tactical Operations Center,” Dash said. “On the double.”
“Guess that’s my cue to exit.” Rucker turned to Nora. “I enjoyed our talk.”
She nodded. “Me, too.”
Dash grinned. “Tell you what…I’ll stay and finish your conversation while you see what the commander wants.”
Rucker hooked Dash’s arm twisted it up behind his back, and gave him a shove toward the door. “You heard the CO, he wants all of us.” Rucker winked at Nora. “I hope to see you on the volleyball court before you leave.”
“Same. Good luck.” Nora’s gaze followed Rucker’s broad shoulders and tight ass out of the chow hall. Too bad she’d only be there another week before she shipped out. She would’ve enjoyed more volleyball and coffee with the Delta Force operative.
He’d probably be on maneuvers that entire week.
She stacked her tray and coffee cup in the collection area and left the chow hall, heading for the building where she shared her quarters with Beth Drennan, a nurse she’d become friends with during their deployment together.
As close as they were, Nora didn’t bring up her conversation with the Delta. With only a week left at the base, she probably wouldn’t run into him again. Though she would like to see him again, she prayed he didn’t end up in the hospital.
Breaking Silence
About the Author
ELLE JAMES also writing as MYLA JACKSON is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of books including cowboys, intrigues and paranormal adventures that keep her readers on the edges of their seats. When she’s not at her computer, she’s traveling, snow skiing, boating, or riding her ATV, dreaming up new stories. Learn more about Elle James at www.ellejames.com