Authors: Holly Hart
"
H
ello
?" I call cautiously. Soldiers don't tend to like it when you stroll into their living quarters without asking – even if you are a pretty girl. It's probably best that I don't take my chances like that – after all, some of these guys are on a hair trigger after spending months on the front line. Better safe than sorry, especially if that means avoiding getting punched in the face. I've heard it happen…
N
o response
, though, so I stride more confidently into the hut. It's no more luxurious on the inside than it looks from the outside, so it's more or less the same as mine. From a room down the hall I hear heavy death metal blaring, and I hope to hell that that's not the one I have to knock on.
T
hankfully
, it's not. I walk down the corridor, stopping next to the room with the number five scrawled on it in marker pen. It's not exactly the way the Hilton does it, but it's just as effective, I guess. I rap my knuckles against the thin door.
"
H
ello
? Is anyone in there?" I ask nervously, knocking again. I'm in half a mind to just walk through the door when I finally hear something stirring inside.
"
F
uck off
, Dawson," a tired, irritable voice calls from inside. "I just fucking put my head down, alright? What does a guy have to do to get some rack time around here?"
I
cringe
– that isn't exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. On the plus side, I guess, at least someone's inside. "Private Jones?" I call, voice quavering. "You in there?"
A
decidedly less irritable
voice replies. I think he's realized that I'm a woman. It sounds bad, but the ratio out here is about thirty to one – men to women, that is – not the other way around. I've never got more attention in my life than I have here.
I
wish
I could say it was me, but I'm pretty sure it's just that I’m one of the very few pieces of pussy left on this base, and definitely one of the few not shacked up with somebody…
"
W
ho is it
?"
"
I
'm
Katie – I work in the base hospital –" I begin, but before I can finish I hear him standing up inside, knocking things over in his haste to get to the door.
"
H
old on
," he calls, "I'm coming."
I
'm not going anywhere
.
H
e opens the door
, hurriedly doing up his belt buckle, but still topless. He gives me what I think is meant to be a ravishing, alluring smile – but the last thing on my mind is falling in bed with this kid.
"
H
ow can I help you
, ma'am?"
"
Y
ou were
down at the hospital when the copter went down, weren't you?" I ask, watching his face fall as he realizes I'm here on business, not pleasure.
"
Y
es
, ma'am," he replies, more surly and less Casanova now he's realized that there's no chance of him getting laid. "That was a heck of a fuck up. Hey," he continues with a look on his face, "why you here?"
A
ll I can think is
that this kid had better never play poker. He's got the kind of face that gives away everything he's thinking about, and he’d get ripped apart.
"
S
ure was
," I agree with a smile, my heart racing now that I'm finally getting somewhere. "You were one of the guys who held the dog, weren't you?"
"
W
hy are you asking
, if you don't mind me asking, ma’am?" he says with a suspicious look on his face. I think my luck is beginning to run out with this kid, so I push on as quickly as I can.
"
H
ey
, you look tired," I offer, trying to make peace. "I'm sure you want to get back to bed, get that rack time, right?"
H
e nods
and I press on. "Listen, I'm just trying to do one of my patients a favor, you know? He was out there for months with this dog, and it's breaking his heart not to know where the poor thing is or whether it's okay…"
"
W
ait
, you're looking after Sgt Carson?" the bare chested kid asks, his face suddenly lighting up. "Hell, lady – you should have said. Man, that dude's crazy."
"
W
hat do you mean
?" I ask, confused.
H
e looks
at me like an idiot. Maybe I am, but to be fair to myself – I usually try to be – I
have
spent most of the last couple of days trying to keep the sergeant – once my lover – alive.
"
H
aven't
you heard what he did?" he asks me, his jaw dropping that someone might not have heard about
the
Sgt Mike Carson.
"
N
ot really
, we don't get much gossip down at the hospital," I admit. "Fill me in." Usually, I imagine, he'd have had a field day with an opportunity for innuendo like that, but his face was so full of delight that he could tell the story to someone new that he didn't even seem to notice.
"
I
heard
they're going to put him up for the Silver Star," he says.
"
T
hat's a pretty big deal
, right?" I ask. Again, the soldier standing in front of me looks at me like I'm an idiot, and this time I'll admit – I deserve it. In my defense, I've been working sixteen-hour shifts for weeks now and I'm exhausted, because I'm not usually that stupid – I have heard of the Silver Star before. I don't know how that slipped out.
"
A
pretty big deal
?" he mimics, his face a picture of bemusement. "You're damn right it is. It's only the highest military honor the army can give..."
"
S
o what did he do
? It must have been pretty impressive, right?"
"
R
ight
," he agrees, and seems to relax now that we finally found some common ground.
"
I
mpressive doesn't really cover
it. This guy fought off hundreds of fucking Taliban. There were just two of them – and the dog, of course – on this hill, and they found dozens of the bastards lying on the ground. He put bullets in them all, man. I mean – ma’am…"
M
y stomach turns a bit
. I'm a nurse, after all, not a soldier, so all this glorifying of death doesn't always sit completely right with me. I think the kid can kind of sense that because he's quick to mollify me.
"
T
rust me
, this guy saved hundreds of lives. He's a god damn hero."
"
H
ow
?" I ask.
"
H
e was
up there doing overwatch" he says, looking at me expectantly. It quickly becomes clear to him that I have absolutely no idea what that means.
"
I
t was just him
, his buddy and the dog up on that hill, but there was a base about two clicks up the road, and they hadn't finished building the walls up yet. If they hadn't given those guys the warning, trust me – the hospital would have been a hell of a lot busier than it was."
I
blink
, and suddenly, I can see Mike up there on that rocky hill, firing away at an insatiably aggressive and violent enemy and I realize exactly what kind of guy my patient is. The kid's right. He's a hero.
"
W
hat about the dog
?" I press. "What happened to it?"
"
T
hey took
it to the pound," the kid says, looking at me doubtfully. “I don't know if you'll get it back."
"
W
hy not
?" I ask desperately – the last thing I want is to have made it this far, only to fall at the final hurdle. I don’t know how I’ll be able to go back to Mike without Jake’s leash pressed between my hands.
"
T
here's a shortage of dogs
. It'll probably already have been sent back out to the field…"
"
T
hey wouldn't do that
, would they?" I ask, horrified. Sometimes I forget that I'm on a military base in the middle of a warzone, but that just seems so heartless to me. Any fool could see the bond between Mike and his dog. It would be frankly evil to break them apart.
H
e looks at me sadly
, as though he doesn't have the heart to break the truth to me. The look's enough.
I
know
what I'm up against.
C
hapter Five - Mike
A
month ago
, hiking up a five-thousand-foot-tall mountain with a forty-pound rucksack on my back would have been a piece of cake – but looking at the metal bars in front of me, my stomach fills with an overwhelming sense of dread, and all I want to do is turn around and hobble back to my hospital bed.
"
W
hat if I fall
?" I say, eyeing the rehabilitation equipment doubtfully.
"
Y
ou're a big boy
, aren't you?" Katie bites back with a sly grin. She's right, I know what I need to do, but that doesn't make it any easier. We still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that three months ago, I fucked her like she’d never been fucked before, and as soon as I was finished, I left to go to war.
What must she think of me?
"
D
o
you think playing me like that's going to work?" I grin. "I know what you're doing…"
"
P
laying you
?" She smiles back, flirting with me as wickedly as she did that night. "What makes you think I'm messing with you? I'm just doing my job…"
"
B
ut seriously
, what happens if I fall? Won't my stitches open up?"
"
M
aybe
," she says with a sad look on her face, "but if you don't start trying to walk now, while the tissue's healing…"
"
T
hen what
?" I ask, concerned by the sudden turn the conversation's taking.
"
N
o
, I don't want you to worry. It's nothing," she says, flicking her hair in a nervous gesture and turning away, pretending to busy herself with clearing up the detritus left after a previous rehab session. It doesn't fool me; I know what she's doing – she's just trying to distract me from a truth she doesn't think I'm strong enough to hear.
"
Y
ou can't just say
that!" I protest. "I'm obviously going to worry now," I say, hobbling over towards my crutches and grabbing her gently on the shoulder. The thrill of the touch sends me spinning for a couple of seconds – I still can’t believe I’m so close to the woman I spent so many weeks fantasizing about. I want to look at her – actually, I want her to see me – to see what affect her slip of the tongue has had on me.
H
er soft
, delicate skin feels warm to my touch, and I don't know what comes over me, but I leave it there for perhaps a second too long. I quickly realize from the subtle widening of her eyes and the tightening of her lips that I might have overstepped the mark.
"
I
'm sorry
, ma' am… I didn't mean to –" I begin, but don't finish – because just as I start saying it, my left crutch slips from under me on the unforgiving, slippery plastic floor, and I start tumbling to the ground. The crutch drops to the floor with a clatter and I stick my arm out quickly, reflexively, and grab hold of one of the parallel metal bars that I'm supposed to be doing my exercises on – and as quick as a snake, from the other side, Katie grabs hold of my torso. At a hundred ninety pounds, I'm too heavy for her to stop completely, but she does a pretty good job of protecting my bad leg from bearing the brunt of the fall.
A
ll of a sudden
, I'm sitting on my ass on the cold hard ground, my left hand still gripping so tightly to the metal bar I caught hold of on my way down that my knuckles have gone white. A jolt of pain rocks my legs, and as I'm processing it – slowly, because my brain seems to be running at half speed, if that – Katie says something.
"
Y
ou were saying
, Mike?"
I
look
to my right and see, with horror, that I brought her down with me. All thoughts of self-pity suddenly drain from my head.