Hard Beat

There’s an iota of relief from the constant worry that floods me, but it does nothing to abate my need to see her, hold her hand, breathe in the same air as her. “Thank you,” I whisper with an acknowledging nod, “and I’m sorry about…” The doctor waves his hand in a never-mind gesture in regard to my apology for how I struggled against him.

When I eye Sarge again, the look on his face says he already knows I’m not going to back down. “Tell me you’ve got some way to get me to her or else give me a goddamn phone so that I can manage it.”

A war of wills happens between us before his eyes flicker over toward the doctor and then back toward me. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not doing shit until the doc clears you to leave.” Then Sarge and the doc meet each other’s eyes in a silent agreement. They’d better not be fucking with me right now or I’ll walk out of this sterile prison on my own accord and get to her any way I can. I have to see her. It’s the only way I think I’ll be able to stop this ache in my chest that has nothing to do with the blast.

“You’ve got twenty-four hours to get me there,” I demand even though I know I don’t have a single leg to stand on. I’m not military perso

“You need to rest now,” the doctor says as he looks up from his clipboard, the stern warning reinforced by the look in his eyes. Shit, now that I know Sarge is going to work on getting me to Beaux, that she’s currently stable, I realize just how fucking much my head is pounding.

So I let my head fall back against the pillow and inhale a deep breath as I close my eyes. I instantly feel better without the bright light of the room, but my mind still wanders.

Still worries.

Still relives that look on her face as she ran toward me, knowing I wasn’t going to make it to save her in time.

Chapter 22

There’s a lot of time to think on a seven-hour flight.

A lot of time to look at the same five photographs of Beaux from the morning of our embed mission over and over. Her silhouette against the sky, her cautious smile, and the selfie we took together that shows two people in love.

Except only one of them knows it.

I try to sleep to escape the pain in my body and the more prevalent ache in my heart, but the deep rumble of the C-17 Globemaster III transport vibrates through my chest in a way that prevents me from getting any real rest. I feel like I’ve been in the center of a tornado, both mind and body battered and bruised and heart put through a wringer. Thank God that Sarge was able to pull some strings so I could hitch a ride on a plane of medical evacuees heading to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany just beyond my twenty-four-hour time frame.

From my tiny little jump seat at the front of the plane so that I’m out of the way of the critical care team taking care of wounded soldiers, I can overhear the medics relaying to one another they need to buckle up for landing.

I owe Sarge big-time. I’m sure he’s breaking every rule in the military handbook to get me on this flight, but I think he blames himself a bit for what happened. And he shouldn’t. It’s not his job to watch Beaux or me on an embed. It’s not his responsibility to know Beaux has a soft spot for dogs and that she was going to see a wounded animal and want to help.

No. That’s my job. And once again I failed – and I have berated myself over it left and right in the past thirty hours. I’ve gone over the entire chain of events and blame myself for getting caught up in my conversation with Rosco without looking around more, not that that would have solved anything. Beaux made it clear on more occasions than I care to count that she’s stubborn and has a mind of her own.

I just have to hope she uses that obstinacy right now to fight like hell to overcome her injuries.

The frustrating part is that I don’t even have enough energy to be mad at Beaux for not following the rules, because all I want is to see her. The measly bits of information I’ve gotten haven’t told me shit.

Sarge got me on the transport but hadn’t been able to get me any other information beyond that she was stable. And stable doesn’t mean shit to me. Stable could have so many variations that my mind has gone over and rejected every single one of them while the minutes have crawled by without any updates on her condition.

When the wheels touch down, the jolt makes me wince as my head gets jarred from side to side and my sore muscles ache as they tense up. My knee jogs in anticipation from the fact that I’m minutes away from Beaux now, and the pressure in my chest has intensified now that I’m here.

And for some reason as I sit in this beast of a plane as we taxi across the tarmac, I begin to question myself. Am I making more of my feelings for Beaux because of everything that happened to Stella? Am I overly attached to her, considering how long we’ve known each other? Has the coincidence of what’s happened made me marry the feelings for both women together?

What in the fuck am I thinking? I swear to God it has to be nerves along with the hit I took to the head that’s making me think crap like this. Because I know how I feel about Beaux without a doubt. I go to scrub a hand through my hair and stop when I remember how sore my scalp is, settling for ru

I knew how I felt about her on our rooftop date when we blew bubbles together. I knew how I felt about her as we walked side by side into the destruction of the village bomb site. It’s never been more clear to me than right now, even with the anxiety over her condition and doubt trying to weasel through the cracks all of my fears have left in my psyche.

What I feel for Beaux isn’t that lust-to-love crash course feeling that Stella used to tease me about. Fuck no. This is so completely different, and yet I can’t even explain it to myself. When I think of Beaux, there’s an ache in my chest, a warmth in my gut, and a fear in my heart kind of feeling like someone used Super Glue and it just won’t let the hell go. It’s like even if I wanted to rid myself of her, I don’t think I could.

Love. It’s an incredibly euphoric and unbelievably scary feeling all at once. I think the only thing that could make me feel more vulnerable is if I’d told her I loved her and she didn’t say it back.

Like I did to her on our last date.

Holy shit. How fucking stupid was I? Trying to be cool and play by old-school rules when I knew all along that things were different with Beaux. The never-say-I-love-you-back-or-it-doesn’t-mean-the-same-thing philosophy didn’t apply to her. Damn it to hell, if I say it, I mean it, so why did I ever hesitate? Is it because I thought that it was too quick to feel this strongly about someone? Well, I do.

Now she’s lying in a bed somewhere, not knowing how much I care about her. There’s nothing that’s going to stop me from telling her I love her now.

Nothing.

The ride to the medical facility feels like it takes the same amount of time as the flight: forever. The minute I step foot in the lobby of Landstuhl, I forget all of my aches and pains from the blast, the stitches in my shoulder, and the gash up the back of my calf – all of it – because my body is ru

After the rigmarole of the front desk, checking in, getting a visitor’s clearance sticker, it takes everything I have not to scream at the lady behind the desk who I’m sure is sweeter than sugar to just hurry the fuck up because I have a woman upstairs I need to see.

And time is of the essence.

Impatient, I can’t wait any longer as she turns around to call and inform the intensive care unit that Beaux has a visitor. Time is wasting. I ignore the dull throbbing in my head and jog toward the elevators, knowing that I get to see her in mere moments is the only thing I can focus on, each moment overshadowed by the anticipation of the next.