by Caro Carson
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. You’ve been here two hours too long already. Go—and get your platoon leader out of here, too.” Tom had a feeling his lieutenants were hanging around since he was still hanging around, but they should go. He was only staying because he was the battalion duty officer.
Bull.
He was only staying because he didn’t know what the hell to do at his house.
He knew what he wanted to do at his house. He knew a dozen things he wanted to do with Helen at his house, in his hallway, in his bedroom, in the shower, on the floor. He could have Helen’s body, memory or no memory. He’d realized that after their first counseling session, when he’d murmured something into her ear in the lobby, and he’d seen the arousal in her face. She’d run to the pub then, to keep some distance. For whatever reason, she wasn’t running now.
Maybe he should. She’d said something else during that first counseling session, during that very first question about fame. Might as well get some fun out of it before you have to give it back. Could he do that? Could he enjoy pure sex with Helen, just for fun, knowing they’d be divorced by June?
He found a slit in the red plastic wrap, slipped his fingers in, took out a cookie. They weren’t chocolate chip, but these cookies were intended to make him happy, at least. Ernesto’s wife baked with love. Tom’s wife baked out of frustration. Desperation. Misery.
I feel awful when I make you happy, because it makes you want this fantasy version of me you have in your mind. It’s tearing me up to live like this, but you’re going to put me through it, just to preserve this image of yourself as this noble man who keeps vows.
“It’s not a punishment,” Tom whispered to himself.
I don’t have any memories miraculously coming back. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.
Stress-sleep-alcohol. That trio had obliterated his hopes for love-honor-cherish.
He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t survive having Helen’s body but not her heart. No more sex, no matter how incredibly mind-blowing they were together. He needed to protect himself better, because as it was, he could hardly stand looking at her and knowing that she would never remember. In fact, he’d been avoiding setting eyes on her, until she’d been in his line of sight at the brigade spirit run. To have sex with her now would be insanity, not when he was mourning the loss of her. She just looked like his wife, but she wasn’t his wife. Stress, sleep, alcohol.
Doomed.
They were doomed, and now they were only surviving until June came and she could move out of his house.
Or February. You could grant her wish and give her a divorce in February.
He pushed his chair away from the desk, violently. He could file? Him? That he would ever stand before a judge and say he didn’t want her was unthinkable.
But you don’t want her. You want the Helen you knew at the chapel. You don’t even know this Helen.
What he knew of her was this: he was hurting her. She was unhappy. If he cared for her, he’d let her go in February. To drag it out until June was, in her words, nothing more than his way to punish her for a memory loss she hadn’t chosen.
His desk phone rang. “Cross here.”
“Sir, this is Sergeant First Class Corning, watch commander.”
The watch commander? That was the senior noncommissioned officer who ran the MP station, overseeing the MPs who were on garrison duty. One company in the battalion was always on garrison duty, fulfilling the same role on Fort Hood that civilian police officers performed in towns and cities. The watch commander oversaw the MP station itself, including the holding cells. For the watch commander to call any battalion’s duty officer, there was most likely someone in the holding cells of a significant rank. At the very least, a first sergeant.
The brigade had only been dismissed a couple of hours ago. Which member of the leadership had already gotten drunk and gotten in trouble?
“Go ahead,” Tom told the watch commander.
“Sir, we’ve got a burglary in progress.”
For the love of—Which of the battalion’s buildings was being broken into in the middle of the day? The barracks? The motor pool?
“At your address.”
“Say again?”
“We got a 911 call from your home address, sir. Intruder, attempted breaking and entering. I sent Corporal Jones to pick you up—”
But Tom had already hung up the phone and walked out of his office, down the hall, long strides eating up the distance.
Helen. She was home. He had to get to Helen.
Corporal Jones came running into the building, sliding to a stop in the hall. He was on duty, wearing the black MP bulletproof vest, a loaded weapon in his holster, handcuffs on his belt. Tom wanted only one of those three things at the moment, the one that would hurt anyone who tried to hurt Helen.
“Sir! There’s a burglary in progress at your—”
“Go.”
The corporal turned on his heel and then Tom was running, they were both running, out the door to the patrol car that waited with its lights flashing. Tom didn’t need a weapon. He’d use his bare hands.
Helen. Screw the memories and screw the divorce and screw February and June. Helen had called 911.Sexy Helen, angry Helen, tearful Helen, Vegas Helen, it didn’t matter at all—Tom would kill anyone who hurt Helen.
Because he loved her.
End of discussion.
* * *
Helen was furious. Tom was going to be almost as furious as she was.
Helen couldn’t believe she was standing in her own driveway—Tom’s driveway—with two MPs and a man in civilian clothes who was loudly informing the world that he was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force, and she, Helen, that woman, was unauthorized to be in the house.
He wanted her arrested.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen. The first MP had arrived within sixty seconds of her 911 call. The second MP had been two minutes behind. She didn’t know the private and the corporal, and she didn’t think they recognized her, either. She’d only been in the brigade for two weeks, and troops in line companies didn’t work directly with brigade staff. The brigade headquarters building was even separate from the battalion headquarters building, where the line companies’ offices were located.
But she was still wearing her ACUs. The unit patch on her shoulder, the vertical stripes and the dragon’s head of the 89th MP Brigade, matched theirs. When she’d been given the all clear to exit the house by the dispatcher, she’d zipped up her jacket, put on her patrol cap and walked out with authority. Both MPs had snapped to attention and saluted, but she’d seen the surprise and question in their eyes, so she’d returned their salutes, tapped the unit patch on her shoulder and said, “Brigade S-3.”
She wasn’t going to jail today.
But this jerk in her driveway was completely blowing her secret about living with Tom. The two MPs on patrol were probably in the 410th, because that company was currently on rotation for garrison duty, but they would surely know who the commander of the 584th was. They probably saw Tom almost daily in the dining facility, around the offices, at the motor pool. If not, the computers in their patrol cars had already informed them that this house belonged to the commander of the 584th MP Company. The rumor mill was about to get very, very busy.
All thanks to this jerk, who’d scared her to death by rattling the sliding glass door and jiggling the kitchen window to see if it would open. She’d been barefoot, relaxing on the couch, when she’d heard those unmistakable sounds of forced entry. She’d honestly thought someone had seen the diamond ring on the windowsill and was trying to break in. Since she was an MP, she knew better than to go all Rambo and confront an intruder herself while she was barefoot in a brown T-shirt. That’s what on-duty, armed MPs in bulletproof vests were for. It’s what they loved, as a matter of fact. Sh
e’d rolled off the couch, scooped up her boots, run at a crouch into her bedroom and locked herself in—an instinctive move that took less than two seconds. She’d dialed 911 before it had been three seconds.
“I called 911,” the jerk announced.
“Didn’t we all?” she said sarcastically. She was all cool authority now, but for a few moments on her bedroom floor, her hands had shaken as she’d laced up her boots, her body pumping out adrenaline because there’d been the very real possibility that she was about to engage in unarmed close-quarters combat with an intruder.
A third patrol car came down the street, running with lights and sirens, because if there was one thing you did not screw with, it was another MP—or his house. Frankly, having three patrols respond was understated when the reported crime was at the house of an MP company commander. The watch commander was doing a good job restraining the rest of the patrols.
But all this attention wasn’t good. This incident was going to be included in the police blotter. The blotter was a summary of the post’s law enforcement activity that was delivered daily to Colonel Reed, who was the provost marshal of Fort Hood...and to the commander of III Corps, a three-star general.
Living in on-post housing had its disadvantages.
I’m sorry, Tom, but you’re not going to be my dirty little secret much longer. She flushed at the thought. Dirty? Yes, they’d gotten down and dirty in the hallway this morning. But little? She’d had her palm on the ceiling. There was nothing little about Tom Cross. Nothing.
The third patrol car braked hard to stop. The passenger door opened, and Tom himself stepped out. Six foot two with every muscle ripped, Captain Tom Cross looked like he was going to kill someone.
Her knees went weak. I slept with that.
She saw his gaze go from her to the jerk and the jerk’s car, to the two MPs, back to her—a fraction of a second. The MPs came to attention and saluted him. The jerk crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Well, well, well, it’s about time—”
“You.” Tom spat the word at the man, startling him. The man shut up.
Tom returned the MPs’ salutes as he walked right up to her, right up to her, much too close. But he didn’t touch her. “You’re okay.” He said it as a statement, but she knew he wanted to hear it from her.
“I’m okay.”
He nodded once and turned around. “Report.”
The corporal was the highest-ranking, so it fell on him to report to the furious captain. “Sir, we received a 911 call that an attempted burglary was in progress at this location. Shortly after that, we received another 911 call that there was an intruder in the house. It was unclear to us that these were two different callers. We thought the earlier attempted break-in had succeeded, and now there was an intruder in the house, but when I arrived on scene, this man claimed he’d made the call, and that he’d seen someone in the house. We covered the house with weapons drawn and gave the order for the intruder to come out. Captain Pallas was in the house, meanwhile, still on the line with dispatch, so we clarified that she was the alleged intruder. Weapons were holstered and then dispatch instructed her to exit the premises.”
“She is the intruder.” The jerk pulled out a military ID, offering it up between two fingers like he was deigning to let the MPs touch his card. “This is the home of an active duty soldier. Tom Cross is authorized to live here, and only Tom Cross. The US Army does not provide housing to girlfriends and other...recreational relationships. I do believe the army is still as strict on that principle as the air force is. She needs to go.”
Helen was watching him closely, this arrogant man in the driveway, so she saw the way he was looking at Tom as he turned to him. His smile held contempt. “I do hope this doesn’t hurt your record permanently.”
“You idiot.” Tom said it as a quiet rasp as he got in the man’s face. “Weapons were drawn. You bet her life on the MPs’ training and the dispatcher’s ability to reach them by radio.”
Helen believed, truly believed, Tom was going to strike the man. The moment was suspended in time as the two men faced off and then Helen saw the resemblance in their profiles, and her stomach lurched.
Tom grabbed the ID from the man and turned to hand it to the MPs. “Go ahead and write up what you need to. Captain Pallas is authorized to live here. Colonel Reed approved it. We’ll be in the house.”
“Reed?” the jerk said. “Oscar Reed? He’s condoning cohabitation now, is he? In direct violation of regulations? We’ll see what his superiors have to say about that.”
“Get in the house.” Tom waited until the man had taken a few steps toward the door, close enough for Helen to hear Tom speak quietly, with contempt in his own voice. “Dad. Get in the house with Mom. She is in the car.”
Dad. The roiling in Helen’s stomach stabilized into a knot.
“She’s better off there. I’m in no mood for any more female hysterics.”
“Go and get your wife out of the car. What is wrong with you?”
As his father—his father!—brushed past him to head for the car, Tom walked into the house. Helen stayed right beside him. The second they were inside, he shut the door and pulled her around to face him. He didn’t let go of her arms. “Helen, I need you to be my wife.”
“What? I am.”
“I mean—don’t tell them we’re getting divorced. Don’t—I don’t want them to know about the blackout or Reed’s orders or any of it.”
“But why? These are your parents.”
Tom suddenly grabbed her close, smashing her against his chest. “Thank God, you’re okay. I lost ten years off my life when that call came in. Helen.” And he kissed her hair, her temple.
She’d hardly had a chance to process that emotional outburst when he let her go and answered her question. “Because my father will use you as a weapon—you, the memory of you, the fact that you were ever important to me. He’ll twist it and make it ugly, and I don’t want the son of a bitch to have the pleasure.”
There was a fine tremor in his body now. She felt it in his hands on her arms. She’d felt it this morning, when she’d had all of him against the wall, all his attention, all his desire. His breath on her neck, that shout of surrender—passion.
His fingers tightened on her arms. “I’ll give you what you want.”
Sex? He was going to give her more sex?
“I’ll divorce you in February.”
Oh. Yes, of course. That was what she wanted.
The door behind him opened. He didn’t look away from her, but silently mouthed one word, just as she’d done in Colonel Reed’s office: Please?
She nodded, and he turned around to face his parents.
Her new in-laws.
Helen took Tom’s hand in hers and held on tightly.
Chapter Twelve
“Hello, Mom.”
“Hello, son.”
Helen watched as Tom bent down to give his mother a brief kiss on her cheek. The perfectly coifed and contained woman reached up and patted his cheek, gently, twice. Then she tucked her hand back in her husband’s arm like a debutante at a ball and stood there with a vacant smile on her face.
Wow. That was all the affection Tom got from his own mother? The woman didn’t seem particularly cold or nasty, though. She smiled and looked very content.
Some families weren’t demonstrative, Helen supposed. Since Tom’s was not, it occurred to Helen to let go of Tom’s hand, but his fingers were laced firmly with hers. Okay, then. They’d be the affectionate branch of the Cross family tree.
Today. Just for today.
Tom held her hand but faced his father squarely. “To what do I owe the pleasure of the ambush this time?”
“Your mother thought her only child should be visited for the holidays.”
Tom spoke to his mother. “Then you could have invited me to Christmas dinner.”<
br />
“Oh, goodness,” she said with a little shake of her head. “Your father’s schedule is so full.”
“Today was the only time convenient.” Brigadier General Cross set his sights on Helen. “However, I would not have agreed to come if I’d known my wife would be exposed to a woman her son saw fit to entertain in his home.”
“Oh, goodness,” Helen said drily.
Tom squeezed her hand and she glanced at him to see if that squeeze meant behave. These were Tom’s parents. She needed to keep her snark to herself—even when she was faced with condescension from a couple who apparently thought they were living in a previous century.
But Tom was looking at her with something like approval. Pride?
“Before you get warmed up for a lecture about the sins of cohabitation, allow me to introduce Captain Helen Pallas, my wife. Helen, these are my parents, Alice and Norman Cross.”
“It’s General and Mrs. Norman Cross,” his mother corrected gently.
“Wife?” General Cross asked. “This is what you meant when you said Reed had authorized this woman to live in your housing?”
Helen didn’t like being referred to as this, but she tried to channel her inner supportive wife and kept smiling politely. She could practically hear Russell scoffing in her brain. You couldn’t be a supportive wife if you tried.
“What kind of marriage is this?”
“There’s only one kind, Dad. Two people, commitment until death do you part.”
Until Valentine’s Day.
“But where is your ring, dear?” his mother asked.
That was Helen’s cue to speak. “I left it by the kitchen sink.”
Tom’s parents just looked at her in silence. Had she said the wrong thing? Was she supposed to do something?
“Thank you for reminding me. I’d better go get it before I forget.” She let go of Tom’s hand and went into the kitchen. I need you to be my wife, he’d said, and now she understood what he’d meant. His parents were so...difficult. Judgmental. They thought it was outrageous that he was married. They’d put him through the wringer if he tried to explain that she had no memory of the wedding, or that she’d been ordered to live here until they could file for divorce. If Tom told them they’d met and married the same day, they would respond with scorn.