Jericho (A Redemption Novel) (5 page)

“You deserve more than that, Christian.” She wanted to wrap her arms around him and soothe his hurt away. Maybe the world thought that because he looked so big and fierce that he didn’t have feelings like everybody else.

The world was wrong.

She took another step away from him, afraid that if she got any closer she wouldn’t be strong enough to walk away.

“I have to go now.”

He nodded. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Of course you will.”

CHAPTER 5

H
er skin was softer than he had imagined. He kept sliding his hands over her bare thighs, up and down, over and over, just because he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her.

She lay waiting on the bed beneath him. Naked. Open to him. Not tense at all. Not nervous or in a hurry like some of the other women he took to bed. Instead she lay quietly with a small smile playing on her pouty mouth, her arms opened to him. She knew they had all night, had forever if that was as long as it took. He leaned down and kissed his way across her collarbone.

She gave a soft little laugh and breathed his name in that husky Southern accent of hers. His cock hardened, grew to epic proportions, and it made the struggle to stay outside of her, to prolong their lovemaking, that much harder. But he wanted to taste all of her tonight, every inch of the sweet skin that he had fantasized about for weeks. He took her nipple in his mouth, suckling her. She sighed and moaned his name.

Even her moans were pretty.

Her gentle hands touched him everywhere. They pulled him closer. They held him to her. She wanted him and the knowledge of that made him want to shout from the rooftops.

“No more,” she told him. “I’m ready.”

He wasn’t. He wasn’t ready to stop kissing her curvy little body that had distracted him for so long. He peppered kisses down her stomach. He licked around her belly button, gave her little loving bites on the skin around her hips.

She laughed again. She was the only woman in the world who could be playful with him, who could laugh with him. Who wanted him just as he was.

He moved between her legs to enter her. She was ready for him, so wet he could feel it as soon as he touched himself to her lips.

Crash.

“Oh, shit, man. I mean, Lieutenant. I mean, sorry.”

Christian’s eyes popped open. He would joyfully murder whoever it was that had interrupted the best damn dream he ever had.

After Georgia had left him last night, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He always thought about her, but yesterday something had passed between them. Something more than he expected. She’d touched him, willingly, not because she was trying to make him feel better after what had happened, but because she’d wanted to. It was almost as though she couldn’t help herself.

The rational side of him knew that she was just being sweet. To not think of her actions in any other way, but his brain and his body were telling him otherwise. Now seeing her would be the best and worst part of his day because he knew that from now on every time she left him she would leave him wanting her.

“What the hell did I bump into?” his visitor asked, rubbing his hip. He had gauze wrapped around his head and dark sunglasses covering his eyes. “Hey! Is anybody here or am I going through all this shit for nothing?”

“I’m here,” Christian said. The kid, he couldn’t be more than twenty, was feeling his way along the wall. He was one of the ones Georgia had talked about. The war had cost him his vision. “There’s a chair to your left about six steps over. Watch out for the monitor. It’s on your right side, three steps ahead of you.”

“Thanks, sir.” The boy breathed out a sigh of relief. “Getting used to this being-blind thing sucks.”

“I can imagine.” All of Christian’s anger had melted away the moment he realized the boy couldn’t see. “Who are you, soldier?”

He grinned and saluted. “I’m Lance Corporal Tobias Clark at your service. Although I guess I ain’t gonna be a lance corporal anymore. They don’t let blind men serve in the marines, do they?”

“I’m afraid not, son. I’m guessing they don’t let burned and broken ones serve, either.” The doctors were avoiding his questions. With each passing day Christian was losing hope he would ever return to duty.

“I’m not so sure about that, sir. You’re a legend.”

Christian shook his head. “You must have me mistaken with somebody else.”

“Nope. They tell tall tales about you. Christian Austin Howard. The seven-foot-tall marine with three first names, fists the size of hams and the meanest face God ever created.”

“I’m nowhere near seven feet tall,” he said quietly. He was a full six inches away from it, but the rest wasn’t too far off.

“They say you made every man who served under you cry.”

“That’s not true.” It hadn’t been all of them. He demanded excellence, and when he didn’t get it there was hell to pay.

“They say you tried to pull every man in your unit away from the wreckage after the rocket attack and that you refused to get treated until they saw to everybody else first.”

That part he couldn’t dispute, because he didn’t remember anything that had happened the day of the blast. Only the spotty images he sometimes saw in his dreams. One doctor said that he couldn’t remember due to a blow to his head. Another doctor said that he didn’t remember because he didn’t want to, because his brain simply couldn’t handle the trauma of seeing so many of his men die.

“I couldn’t tell you about that. I don’t remember what happened.”

“I believe it, sir. I knew you couldn’t be as mean as they made you out to sound after hearing that. So what, you went all crazy on a nurse. I burned myself with a firecracker once and it hurt like a bitch for two weeks. I can’t imagine how mean I might get if half my body was all burned up.”

“Thank you, Tobias.” There was something about this kid he liked immediately. He was open in a way that people never were with Christian. “How did it happen, son?” Christian made a motion toward his eyes that Tobias couldn’t see.

“You mean the blind thing? On patrol in Baghdad,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Roadside bomb got me and a few civilians. I was in armor so my body was protected, but the damn blast burned my eyes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s all a part of it, I guess. I’m actually kind of lucky. I can get out of bed. Word around here is that you can’t yet.”

“That’s the thing about being seven feet tall—when you get hurt it takes more than one person to get you out of bed.”

“How many does it take?”

“Ten.”

Tobias chuckled. “Wish I could see that.”

“What are you going to do now that you can’t go back?” It was a question Christian had for himself.

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. I’m only nineteen. Can’t be sitting around for the rest of my life. Miss Georgia tells me that blind people can do the same jobs as everybody else, that I could go back to school and become whatever I wanted. But I never liked going to school. I wanted to join the marines the day I learned what one was.”

“You talked to Georgia about it?” he asked, feeling a sinking little lurch in his belly. He knew that she was just being sweet to him, that he was no different than any other man on this floor, but a part of him wanted to be more to her than that. It was a foolish thought.

“Well, yeah.” Tobias grinned. “I try to talk to her as much as I can. We all do. She’s the best-looking nurse in the whole dang hospital. Or so I hear. But she’s just real nice, you know? Them other nurses treat us as if we are just a part of their job. Miss Georgia cares. She got me some information on a Seeing Eye dog and she found a teacher that’s gonna teach me Braille. She even called my mama and asked her to bring me my own pajamas just because she thought I needed a little bit of home.”

“She’s sweet.”

“Yup, that’s why her boss, Nurse Stick Up Her Ass, don’t like her. Because we all do. She’s always on her case. But Miss Georgia never does anything she’s not supposed to. She would never risk her job. She’s got her baby to feed.”

“Baby?” Christian’s head spun at that word. He had no idea that sweet little
young
Georgia was a mother. He’d never once heard her mention a child. But then again, they never talked about much of anything. He knew nothing about her.

“She’s got a little girl, not even one year old yet. I’d bet she’s a good mama, too. If she takes this good of care of us, imagine what she’s like with somebody she loves.”

“Tobias!”

He startled. “That’s my mama looking for me. If you ever need anything, sir, some food that don’t taste like dirt, an extra blanket, anything, you let me know. I’ll have my mama bring it to you. I figure since we’re neighbors we should be seeing each other from time to time.”

“I don’t get very many visitors. I would like that.”

“Tobias!”

“Coming, Mama!” He stood up and felt his way along the wall. “It was nice talking to you, Lieutenant Howard. You helped me win a bet.”

“What?”

“I bet Rivers that you were a decent man. He bet that I would leave here crying like a baby. It’s nice to see that you didn’t live up to all the hype.”

* * *

“Mama, no!”

Abby woke up cranky from her nap. She had been fussy all evening. She wasn’t sick. Georgia checked her temperature a half dozen times. She wasn’t hungry. The child had more than enough to eat. She was just in one of those moods where she didn’t want to be put down. And if Georgia had her way she would hold her until she settled. But she didn’t have her way. If she didn’t leave right now she was going to be late for work.

“Georgia, she’ll be fine. Just give her here.” Mrs. Sheppard held out her arms, but Georgia had a hard time handing her baby over.

“No.” Abby buried her face in Georgia’s neck and the working mother’s guilt stabbed her a little harder.

“I have to go, baby cakes. Please be good for Mama and go to Mrs. Sheppard.”

Abby gave her a mutinous look and shook her head.
No
was one word she had mastered quickly. There wouldn’t be any reasoning with her today. As if there was ever any reasoning with an eleven-month-old.

“You make me feel horrible,” she told her daughter. Stupid tears started to cloud her eyes. She never cried, but leaving her daughter, maintaining this life, was getting too hard. Sometimes she just wanted a break from it. Or somebody else to shoulder some of it. Just a little of it.

“That’s the thing about being a mother,” Mrs. Sheppard told her as she tugged the angry baby from her arms. “Your children will always make you feel horrible. If they don’t, then that means you’re not doing your job right. Now go on.” She pushed her through the door. “You don’t want to be late, and when you come back here to get her in the morning you are going to sit down and have pancakes and bacon with me. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Georgia tried not to glance at Abby as she turned away. She looked betrayed, as though she was two seconds away from breaking down, but there was nothing Georgia could do to fix it right now. Nothing besides stay. And she couldn’t do that. In the end she did this all for Abby.

Her daughter’s wails came just after Mrs. Sheppard shut the door. It took everything inside of her not to turn back. So she ran down the stairs to her car and cried all the way to work.

* * *

For the first time since he arrived at the hospital, Georgia didn’t smile at him when she entered his room. Her eyes were a little red. She looked as if she barely had the energy to walk.

Christian sat up, ignoring the throbbing pain that traveled through his ribs. If he could he would pick her up, carry her to the bed and tuck her in. Which was weird for him. It was an urge he’d never had with a woman before. When it came to beds and women, Christian didn’t usually associate the two with sleeping, but Georgia looked so damned tired, and ever since he’d learned about her baby he wondered when she had the time to sleep at all.

Or more important, when she did sleep was she alone or was there a man there to keep her warm?

“What are you doing, Lieutenant Lunkhead? Lie back down.”

He grasped her hand as soon as she got near and closed his fingers around her slender ones. She looked up at him with wide eyes, surprised by his move, but he didn’t let go of her hand. “What’s wrong? You were crying.”

She nodded and gently rested her other hand on top of his. “That was hours ago. You shouldn’t be able to tell.”

He was able to tell because he spent so much time studying her face. He would know immediately if anything was different. “Did you get into a fight with your husband?”

He held his breath as he waited for her answer.

“I don’t have one of those.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Don’t have one of those, either.”

He exhaled. He didn’t know why. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Nothing was ever going to happen between them. “Then why were you crying?”

“My daughter,” she admitted with a sigh. “Did I ever tell you about her? I have a baby girl named Abby, and she didn’t want me to leave for work today. She never wants me to leave for work, but today she cried. I could hear her screaming all the way down the hallway. Every night I have to be here while somebody else puts my child to bed and it kills me. I’m not even the first person she sees when she wakes up in the morning. I work nights because we need the money. If I could change things, I would, but there doesn’t seem to be any other way.”

“What about her father? Doesn’t he help out?”

Georgia stiffened at the question. “Abby doesn’t have a father.”

He should leave it at that. It was none of his business but something inside him needed to know more about her. “Do you have anybody to help you? What about your family?”

“No family, either.” She shut her eyes for a moment as if she were in pain. “My next-door neighbor watches her overnight, but sometimes I worry. She never complains, but she’s in her mid-sixties and retired. I wonder if leaving a fussy baby with her is the right thing to do.” She shook her head. “Why am I telling you this?”

“I asked.”

“Well, aren’t you a nosy thing tonight? I’m a mess, Lieutenant Howard.”

She absently ran the tips of her fingers across his knuckles for a moment. Damn her. Did she have any idea what her little absentminded touches did to him? If she ran her fingers over his knuckles and he felt it all over, what would they feel like running down his back, or his arms? What would they feel like on his naked chest? She looked into his eyes and seemed to read his mind because she blushed and pulled her hand beneath his.

“Get your big paw off me. I’ve got to check your grafts.”