A Marine of Plenty (3 page)

Opening the door for her, he slid back a step and let her enter.

“This isn’t where my brother slept, is it?” The quiet question opened a can of worms.

“No, ma’am. He shared a bunkroom with others and it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to sleep there.” The guys wouldn’t mind, but no way in hell would it happen on his watch.
And that has nothing to do with not wanting to share her attention
.

“Oh.” Disappointment rippled across her expression. She took a tentative step into the room and looked from the card table with its lamp and hard back chair to the cot-like bed ready to be made with the fresh sheets and blanket folded on it. Buttoned down and ready to go, the room was all hers and they’d moved the lieutenant’s few personal items for the duration.

He half-expected her to say something more, but stared around the empty room. The dark flak jacket and helmet made her positively tiny.

“Ma’am?”

Nothing.

Adjusting the clip on his gun and securing it, he swung the strap over his shoulder to free his hands. Debating whether he should overstep, he put aside the concern when her shoulders began shaking. Touching a hand to her back, he wasn’t prepared for her to turn and bury her face against his chest. He’d never been a fan of a woman’s tears or the sound of crying, but Jana’s near-silent sob rent his heart in two.

Her need overruled his objections and he wrapped his arms around her. The duel flak jackets made it awkward, but he doubted she noticed. If not for the trembling of her body, he wouldn’t even have known she still cried. His kid sister did the same thing when something upset her and she tried to hide it.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “No one else can hear you.”

The dam cracked, her gulp audible above the sub-vocal crying. A second whisper of sound rode the first and her shaking increased. Worried he might be making it worse, Charlie pulled away a fraction and studied her tear-stained face.

Instead of anguish, laughter creased her cheeks. Confused, he stepped back further. “Ma’am?” Had she cracked upon arriving in Afghanistan? The odd little high-pitched note punching the end of her laughter turned into a hiccup.

She tried to wipe away her tears and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I thought when I got here I’d—I’d feel closer to him and I do, and I don’t, and it’s surreal, and this room is so—empty.” Sucking in a noisy hiss of air, she plucked at the front of her jacket. “Can I take this off, please? I can’t breathe.”

A fresh tear splashed down her cheek and she beat at the snaps. Brushing her hand aside, he opened the catches and helped her strip out of it. The helmet came next. Disliking her pallor and shallow respiration, he ushered her back to the bed, sat her down, and urged her head between her knees.

“Breathe,” he ordered and rubbed her back. If she didn’t calm down in the next thirty seconds, he’d call for a medic. The woman had light hair—golden and soft— pulled back into a ponytail. Between her sweet personality, blonde hair and green eyes, he asked for trouble. She was exactly the type of woman he adored.

Mind on the job, Marine
.

Gradually, the shudders wracking her shoulders ceased and her hard pants slowed. Easing away, he squatted in front of her to meet her gaze. “Better?”

Sitting up a straighter, she swiped at the tears again. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually go basket case on strangers.”

“I didn’t see anything.” The least he could offer was her dignity.

“Thank you for that, for escorting me here, and for the letters you sent.” She swallowed.

Gut-checked, he decided the time for strategic withdrawal had arrived. “I’ll let you get settled in and cleaned up. The room has a private shower. It’s small, but you should have enough hot water at this time of day.”

“Wait.” She caught his arm before he could rise, and he stilled at the contact. Her hand was delicate, soft with rounded, well-manicured nails. She had no business being in Afghanistan. “Please.” She tacked the word on as though it were an afterthought. “You knew Robbie, right?”

Even expecting the question would come didn’t make it easier to face. “Unfortunately, not as well as you might have hoped. I
knew
of him. We’d been introduced and I saw him around, but we didn’t work together that often.” He regretted the disappointment flickering across her face.

“You wrote the nicest letter about him.”

“No one had anything bad to say about your brother. I didn’t know him, but I wished I had—after.” Guilt lodged like a dead weight against his chest. “He was a stand-up guy, well-respected, dedicated, and damn good at his job.”

“So you said.” A smile flickered around the corners of her mouth. She had the prettiest pale pink lips.

And I don’t need to think about her mouth or what she could be doing with it
.

Distance. He needed distance. “Miss Grimaldi, this isn’t going to be a fun three days for you.” Maybe she didn’t need his advice and she certainly hadn’t asked for it. “Are you really sure that you want to do this? It’s not too late to back out. No harm, no foul.”

I’ll make sure you’re on a flight back home tonight—where you belong, safe and sound
.

“Jana, remember? And I don’t want to back out.” She sniffled once. “You have brothers, Captain?”

“Charlie.” Acquiescing to her demand. “Yeah, I do.” Three brothers and one sister.

“Robbie was my only brother and older than me by four years. I can’t remember a time in my life when he wasn’t sticking up for me or picking me up after I hurt myself or helping me. Even when he deployed here, he used to send me pep talks in his letters. He called me on every holiday, just to see how I was doing. He never complained about going without and he never worried about himself. I’m never going to get another call or letter from him again. I never got to be the one to take care of him.” She sucked her upper lip between her teeth and went silent so long Charlie thought she might have forgotten him.

Exhaling, Jana leaned forward and clasped her hands. “I had a plan. I’ve been studying all about PTSD and therapeutic recovery and reintegration—I had a plan to be his person and be there for him the way he’d always been for me. But I don’t get to do that anymore, and I’m angry, and I’m sad, and I want to understand how this happened, and it’s no one’s fault—it’s what happened, but it didn’t just happen to him.”

“It happened to you, too.” He got that. An accident took his brother Brent’s leg years before and it happened to his whole family, too. “I wish I had the words to tell you how sorry I am.”

“I didn’t come here for that,” she murmured. “I promise you, this isn’t about blame or seeking some kind of restitution. It’s about doing something for Robbie. He loved the Marines so much. I can’t spend Thanksgiving with him, but I can spend it with all of you and make this the best possible Thanksgiving I can. I’m sorry I cried on you, but please don’t ask me if I want to go home. I have three days and then I’ll go, but until then, I’m here and all in.”

God help him, she was even prettier on the inside. His objections washed away in the face of such fierce devotion. “Okay. It’ll be my honor to help in any way that I can.”

A tremulous smile lightened the sadness in her face. “Thank you, Charlie.”

“My pleasure.” His body tightened at the thought. “But first things first. Take a shower, change your clothes, and then I’ll escort you to the mess and you can talk to the cooks.”

“Okay.” She rubbed a hand over her face again, as though trying to wipe away the tear tracks staining her cheeks. “How do I tell you I’m ready?”

“I’m right next door.” He pointed to the left. “Knock on the wall.”

The lukewarm shower did a great deal to restore her equilibrium. Jana couldn’t believe she’d cried all over the captain. Despite his fantastic letters, and the genuine apology in his behavior and words, he was a stranger, and she’d wept brokenly in his arms.

“And then I laughed.” She stared at the small round mirror affixed to the wall in the tiny bathroom. “Laughed like a lunatic.”

Talking out loud to yourself doesn’t make you any less crazy
.

Her emotions see-sawed between euphoria and depression. In clinical terms, she wasn’t coping well despite all her good intentions and plans. During the weeks leading up to the trip, while negotiating her security clearance and arrangements with the congressman’s office and the military liaison, she’d been so focused on getting to the base and being able to make the dinner, she hadn’t really given any thought to what it would be like to be there.

Where Robbie died.

Bracing her hands on the edge of the cold steel sink, she bowed her head.

Get it together. You knew it would be hard and that it would take everything to make this work
.

But even the mental pep talk couldn’t defuse the gut-churning anxiety ripping her inside out.

Breathing deeply, she concentrated on getting her erratic heart rate under control and the need to sob out of her throat. The clogging sensation choked her and she couldn’t think past the next ten seconds if she focused on her loss.

“So it’s not about loss, it’s about being thankful for being here,” she told her reflection sternly. Unfortunately, the blonde woman gazing back at her with too-wide, red-rimmed green eyes didn’t look like she believed the words at all. “Suck it up, princess.”

In for a count of four, out for a count of four
. She flexed her grip on the hard metal and, bit by bit, the drowning sensation receded.
I can do this
. She could knock on the wall, summon the captain back, and head over to the mess. The food would not cook itself.

Rinsing the last of her tears away with a splash of cold water, she brushed her hair out and braided it, then dressed in a fresh T-shirt and jeans. She’d have to put the flak jacket back on—
how do they wear the beastly things and run miles at a time?
—and the helmet before she made her way to the kitchens.

Or did she?

Padding over to the wall, she knocked on it once and fished a pair of socks out of her duffel. She’d barely perched on the edge of the cot when the captain knocked on her door.

“Come in.” She tugged one of the socks on. She hadn’t bothered to lock the door when he left her earlier. He entered, all geared up.

I wonder if he has to sleep that way?

“You’re not ready?” He didn’t walk all the way in, but waited in the hall.

“No—I just realized I don’t know where the mess is and whether I needed my flak and stuff for that trip, or not.”

“Always.” Clipped and stern, his expression brooked no arguments. “If you’re not in
here
, I want you geared up.”

Chewing her lip, she pulled on her boots. They were old army surplus and very comfortable, but steel-toed to protect her feet in the uncertain terrain. “Um.” She squinted at him. “You want me to cook in all of that?” Between the heat of the ovens and the work, the gear would add to her overall discomfort.

“If you’re not in
here
,” he repeated, slowly. “I want you geared up.”

“Okay, so that’s a yes.” She sighed, dreading the way the head protection would mess her hair.
Like I need to be worrying about that right now?

“Ma’am, this isn’t a safe place. At no point should you feel safe enough to take your helmet off outside or in, unless you’re in here, which is still not one-hundred percent secure.” He eyed her, caution and wariness marring his gaze. “It only takes once—one misstep, one moment of comfort, and a stray bullet.”

Apprehension wrapped icy fingers around her spine. It only took once for Robbie, too. She couldn’t imagine his work in the field left him any less geared up—in fact, he likely had more. The gear hadn’t protected him.

“Okay, duly noted. If you don’t mind giving me another minute?” She picked up the heavy jacket and swung it on. Her back protested almost immediately.

“Not at all.” Walking a couple of steps closer, he brushed her hands aside, buckled up the jacket, and fixed the buttons before grabbing her helmet and offering it to her. “Always let us double check that you have everything in place. The Kevlar in the vest can stop a bullet, but not the force of it. You’d still take a hell of a bruise.”

He adjusted the collar and buttoned it together. The urge to make a gurgling sound bubbled up. The poor captain seemed to be doing his level best to protect her and she struggled not to descend into juvenile antics.

“Your throat always needs to be covered, too,” he admonished, and waited for her to buckle her helmet before retreating. “Ready?”

“Sir, yes, sir.” Okay, a little juvenile, but he had that one coming.

He grinned, and her heart stuttered at the absolute beauty in his raw, masculine face. The smile softened the blunt edges and turned darkly handsome into downright sexy. A second shiver chased up her spine, but had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the forbidden.

“Good.”
Did his voice just drop into the low, husky range?
He glanced both ways down the hall and motioned for her to follow. Wiping her sweat-slicked palms against her jeans, she wanted to groan. If she didn’t get off the mad little see-saw, it would be a thoroughly unpleasant trip for all involved. Lagging behind him, she wanted to keep her distance, but Charlie had other ideas.

Stopping, he frowned at her. “When I move, you move, unless I tell you otherwise, and you need to be here.” He pointed to the space right behind him. “On me, at all times.”

She wanted to be on him, all right. The thought practically tingled on her tongue, and she bit down to keep from blurting it out. Waiting until she closed the gap between them, he started walking again. Instead of going outside, he led her through a maze of corridors. The building was at times finished and unfinished—like a cobbled-together mobile home, only the cement walls were far sturdier than manufactured materials.

At a set of double doors, they encountered another brace of Marines, the three men nearly identical in their heavy gear and helmets. They flanked her, keeping her in the center of their square and pushed their way outside.