like her to take advantage of the Army’s program that allowed her to go to college on their dime and become a commissioned officer.
It was tempting, earning her father’s respect, but she’d have to temporarily leave behind her status as a medic. The thought burned in her chest. She was already sidelined for a year, watching the home front, helping soldiers transition into and out of the Army, working with the families... Would it be worth it, walking away from her dream career for an even longer stretch of time, simply for the possibility of making her father proud?
She shoved the laptop aside. Researching colleges and ROTC programs would only frustrate her more. She’d be better off staring at the dark ceiling and praying to fall asleep.
Tomorrow, she’d turn the phone over to the military police and let them deal with it and the blue-eyed mystery man who’d saved her life.
* * *
The food court of the small shopping center at the Fort Campbell Post Exchange buzzed with hundreds of soldiers and their families, all trying to grab lunch and go. With a lot of the units rotated back home from deployment, the lines were long, and the noise was loud.
Jessica eyed the crowd, watching people mill about as she waited to fill her drink. Too many people in one place. She suppressed a shudder and watched a teenage boy wearing a backpack stride across the room, head down. Her muscles tensed, shoulders aching, as he wove his way through the crowd. It wasn’t until he walked out that she relaxed. In combat, backpacks, unattended bags, huge crowds—they all spelled trouble.
She’d been back stateside for five months, but the wariness hadn’t left yet. Likely, it never would. She still dodged potholes in the road, still scanned thick groves of trees for evidence of a sniper... Yesterday’s events hadn’t helped, to be sure.
As the man in front of her stepped away, she pressed her cup to the lever for ice, and then filled it to the brim with sweet tea.
Sipping her drink and hoping in vain the caffeine would waylay the effects of her sleepless night, Jessica turned from the drink machine and surveyed the room, trying to find an empty table with a view of one of the TVs. There. By the front window. If she could just beat the nineteen other people who’d probably spotted it, also. She took two steps from the fountain, and a body collided with hers, knocking her drink from her tray. It splattered to the floor, dousing her lower legs and covering her boots with sweet stickiness.
Cold tea ran inside her boots, soaking the tops of her socks. With a gasp, she stepped back, the cup squishing beneath her heel.
A young soldier stared at her, eyes wide as he took a step back. “Oh man.” He shoved a wad of napkins into her hand and retrieved her cup from the floor. “I’m sorry.”
Jessica didn’t even have to see his rank to know he was a very green private. The dark Army-issued glasses and gangly newborn colt stance told her without needing to see the rank on his chest. “Don’t worry about it, Private.” It wasn’t what she wanted to say, but taking her frustrations out on this poor kid wouldn’t help. She knelt and blotted at the drink on her boots, biting back words she’d have to repent for later, she was sure. “I can get another drink. And I have a spare pair of boots in my office.” Thankfully.
The kid still looked mortified. Fresh out of basic, he was definitely used to getting yelled out for every minor infraction, and was likely waiting for the tongue-lashing he thought he deserved.
Jessica pulled in a deep breath and straightened. “Really, it’s all good.”
The private looked down at the cup in his hand. “I’ll get you another drink.”
He was gone before she could protest that he really didn’t have to do that and was somehow back within minutes, even though the lines were still crazy long. Jessica didn’t question as he fed ice into her cup. “Um, Staff Sergeant? You missed a spot on your toe.” He started to reach down, then nervously pulled his hand back, aiming a finger at her left boot. “You were drinking tea?”
Focused on her shoes, Jessica nodded, and then took the cup he offered before he scampered off with another apology.
With her coveted table by the window now occupied by three soldiers, she picked up her tray and spotted another in the far corner of the room, the angle too sharp to see the TV. Oh well. She didn’t need to see the news anyway. She already knew all she needed to know. Her new brigade had shipped out without her, the chain of command claiming she should get more time stateside since she’d only been home a few months before her transfer to Fort Campbell. Her father was disappointed she’d been put in Rear Detachment, refusing to believe it was all about timing and not something she’d done wrong. To him, there was no value in her position. He’d never grasp the need for someone to be on the home front to act as liaison to the families, to support the soldiers who had deployed and to aid the transition for those coming and going overseas.
It was quieter in the corner anyway, away from the crowd. Sliding into the seat, she shoved a straw into her drink and unwrapped her hamburger, glancing at her watch. Half an hour to shove in hot chow and get back to the office before the next briefing.
She reached for her tea as a man slipped into the seat across from hers and laid his hand across the top of the cup. “Don’t drink that.”
Jessica sat back in her seat, trying to keep her jaw from going slack. The blond, blue-eyed soldier was the same man who’d come to her rescue yesterday—and he had to be out of his mind. “Do I know you, Staff Sergeant?”
“No, but trust me.”
Grabbing his wrist, the material of his uniform rough beneath her fingers, she lifted his hand from her drink. After staring down a gun and a knife yesterday, there was no room for fear in the middle of the crowded food court. She didn’t have time for this guy, even if he had saved her life, and even if he possessed the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. This current behavior was out-of-bounds. All she wanted was lunch in peace before an afternoon of listening to a commander who liked to hear his own voice. “Worst pickup line ever. You going to tell me next that I’d be better off going with you for drinks somewhere? That you—”
“Your drink’s spiked.”
“Right.” As a female in a predominantly male world, she’d heard every line in the book. This one not only took the cake, it sliced it and shoved it down her throat. “And you’re James Bond.” She reached defiantly for her sweet tea, but his hand was quicker, drawing the cup to his side of the table.
He couldn’t be serious. “What is your problem?”
But there was no amusement on the man’s face. His mouth pressed into a straight line, and a fairly recent scar ran from his hairline at his temple back toward his ear. It made him menacing. And deadly serious.
He was either telling the truth, or he was crazy and she should wave over one of the military policemen who tended to be around the Post Exchange for a lunch break.
Leaning forward, he slid her drink to the side. “When you’re a female, what’s the first rule you follow? Never let your drink out of your sight.”
“I didn’t.” Who was this guy to lecture her?
“You did. Just long enough for your clumsy friend to dump something in it. I watched him.”
The private at the drink machines? That kid was about as murderous as a toothless toy poodle. “So why didn’t
