Jericho (A Redemption Novel) (10 page)

He had to let her go. But he couldn’t give her up completely. Not their friendship. That meant something to him. That was something he would always think of fondly. She would be the good memory to get him through bad days.

He loosened his hold on her, slightly preparing to release her, but he couldn’t force himself to just yet. He needed a few more moments to soak up her sweet warmth. After a few moments she placed her hand on his knee. The touch almost undid him, but he didn’t ask her to remove her hand. But then it slid up to his thigh, and in a move that he never expected, she touched his cock.

He looked up at her. It had to be an accident. Sweet little Georgia could never be so bold, but she looked him in the eye and wrapped her fingers around him. Yes, she could be that bold. She was sweet, but there was another side to Georgia that he was forgetting about. One that screamed out to be let free.

“Georgia, what are you doing?”

“Just this time, love.” She rested her head on her shoulder as she slid her hand down his shaft. “Show me how to do this for you.”

He clamped his hand over hers, prepared to pull it away. It was the right thing to do. He knew he didn’t deserve this or her. He had done nothing in his life to earn it.

“Please,” she said, seeming to read his mind. “Show me.”

He turned his head to look down at her. She looked right in his arms. She felt right with her body nestled into his. “You’re absolutely beautiful. Did you know that?”

A slow, stunning smile spread across her face. His heart squeezed.
Mine.
It was a dangerous thought, but he still thought it. Actually, it was more as though he felt it. Shit. He knew he was going to carry her around with him for a long time, but he wasn’t prepared to keep her with him for the rest of his life.

He took her hand and slid it back up his cock and down again, squeezing her fingers more firmly around him. Yes, she was his. For tonight. She wanted to do this for him and he would let her. At this point he was powerless to stop her.

She kissed his mouth. He had dreamed about the way her pouty lips would feel on his. But he didn’t kiss her back. He didn’t taste her mouth or push his tongue past her lips to deepen their connection. Because he knew if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop. He knew if he started kissing her he would haul her into this bed and make love to her. And if he made love to her he would never be able to let her go.

She deserved more than him. More than a big, cowardly, wounded soldier.

He loosened his grip on her hand, letting her take over. She was a quick study, giving him long slow strokes that felt so good they were acutely painful. Her touch was everything he could have imagined, but it still wasn’t enough. He wanted more of her. He wanted her closer. He slid his hand up her back, under her bra, touching as much bare skin as he could manage.

“Georgia,” he breathed.

She moved her hand faster, seeming to know he was close to the edge. He pumped into her grasp, imagining what it would be like to have her all the time. Not having to steal moments in the middle of the night. Imagining what it would be like to know that when he woke up she would always be there.

Those thoughts proved too much. He came. Hard. His seed spilled all over her fingers. She looked up at him as if she wasn’t sure what had happened. But then she smiled at him again and stepped away to the sink to get a washcloth. She cleaned them both, and set her full pouty mouth on his one last time.

“Good night, soldier.”

* * *

Georgia slept soundly that next morning. She hadn’t expected to. She expected to be horrified at what she had done with Christian. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t regret it. She felt close to him when she hadn’t felt close to anybody for so long. And it wasn’t the type of closeness she felt with her sister. It was more than that, more intense.

He’d wrapped his big arms around her and made her feel safe and beautiful and all the things she had been missing for so long. She didn’t feel empty when she was with him. He made her feel powerful and womanly and sexy. He made her want more with him.

That scared her. She shouldn’t want what she could never have.

A little sadness settled around her heart. She knew she could never touch him again the way she had last night. They’d talked about it. She had promised. But she was glad she wasn’t the only one to feel madness. He felt it, too. It was in his beautiful words and the way his kissed her face and stroked her back.

He thought he was some kind of animal. She could never see him the way he saw himself or the way the rest of the world saw him. He was so gentle with her. He made her want to explore her sexuality. She hadn’t realized it was possible because she had never thought she would get over her rape.

It made her feel hopeful. Hopeful that maybe one day she could have a happy life with a man. So when she settled into bed that morning, instead of feeling guilty or shameful like she had been raised to, she dreamed of him and about how good she felt when she was wrapped up in his arms.

When she woke up two hours later she was still exhausted, but as much as she wanted to turn over and go back to sleep she couldn’t. Abby was sitting beside her, staring down at her. She was better than any alarm clock on the market.

“Hello again, my love.” She picked her up and lifted her over her head in an attempt to wake up her tired muscles. “You’re getting heavy. Now that you’ve turned one you’ve packed on the pounds.”

Abby frowned at her, apparently not liking Georgia’s joke. “Good God, what a face! If you’re giving me that look at one, what kind of looks am I going to get when you’re sixteen?” Georgia pulled her baby to her chest and held her tightly. Sixteen. Georgia was so tired she didn’t know if she was going to make it to see Abby’s sixteenth birthday.

The lack of sleep was starting to get to her. Her head ached horribly. Most days she went around with a headache until she forced herself to take some aspirin. Her body was starting to feel the effects, too. She ached all over. But as much as she wanted to get a full night’s rest, she couldn’t. She needed to spend time with her baby.

When she’d first learned she was pregnant, a counselor at the women’s center had brought up adoption. It was an option she had never thought about. But the counselor had told her that some mothers had a hard time coming to terms with how their babies were conceived, that once they were born they had a hard time raising the child of their rapist.

Georgia thought about it then. How would she feel raising a child who looked like Robert? Or acted like him? What if her baby grew up to have some major character defect like the man who made her? It was all terrifying to Georgia, but she’d taken the risk. Because even though the baby was half of him, it was half of her, too. And she knew she couldn’t give part of herself away.

She only wished she had some sign that she was doing the right thing for her child. The guilt never seemed to go away. Abby wasn’t going to have the life Georgia always thought her children would have. She wasn’t going to have a mother and father to love her. She wasn’t going to have the best of everything. She didn’t even have a mother who could give the best of herself because she spent so much of her time exhausted. But what could she do? If she switched to the day shift she might get some sleep, but she wouldn’t get to spend as much time with her daughter.

Georgia worked twelve-hour shifts. Abby would have to spend all day in day care. Even if the separation didn’t break Georgia, the cost of that would.

Right now she didn’t have a choice. Unless some divine intervention occurred, she was going to have to keep this up until she collapsed.

* * *

“You look less blown up, son,” General Lee said when he walked into Christian’s room the next morning.

Christian smiled, glad for the visit. Since Georgia had left him last night he had spent entirely too much time thinking about her and her touch and her smell and the way she felt pressed against him. Thoughts of her were driving him crazy. He needed a distraction. He needed to turn his thoughts from her. “Thanks. I think.”

“Don’t mention it.” He lowered his big body into the chair beside Christian’s bed.

The general, fresh back from his cruise, looked a little different himself. He was very tanned, almost the color of baked bread, and he was wearing blue jeans. Christian found the jeans more surprising than the pink shirt he’d worn before he’d left.

His shirt was still tucked in and his clothes were neatly ironed. But the thing that had changed most about the general was that he looked relaxed. The intensity seemed to have melted from his face, from his entire body. Hell, he looked happy.

“How was your cruise?”

“My wife liked it.” He shrugged in typical fashion. “She wants to go on another at Christmas. I agreed to take her.”

“Did you like it?”

“Didn’t have to pay for a single meal on the boat. I had steak nearly every night. Good steak, too. Not that stuff they served in the chow hall on base. Have you ever had molten-lava cake? Damn thing was like a chocolate volcano. It was good.”

“It’s okay if you like to cruise, sir. I hear senior citizens often enjoy them.”

The general’s brow furrowed. “You’ve become a real smart-ass since you were blown to hell.”

“It’s your fault. You went all soft on me.”

“Soft. I’d still give it to you good in a fight,” he retorted, and Christian believed him. “Listen. I have some news for you from your doctor.”

“From my doctor? Why isn’t he telling me?”

“Because I wanted to, and just because I’m retired doesn’t mean I still don’t have pull.”

Christian sat all the way up, nervous for the first time in a while. A million rapid-fire thoughts ran through his mind. “What is it?”

“You’re going to be released in two weeks.”

His gaze shot up to the general’s. “Oh?” At first he felt elated relief, but then he realized that leaving here meant he would have to return to life, and without the marines, he didn’t have one.

“You’ve been promoted.” He stood up and saluted Christian. “Captain Howard, congratulations.”

The news sent Christian reeling. Promoted? He thought he was going to be discharged from the marines, not promoted. He didn’t deserve it. He’d survived when he shouldn’t have. His men had died. His body wasn’t what it used to be—he had damaged skin and an arm he could barely move. They were going to let him go back and hold a gun and lead men? It didn’t seem real.

“Are you sure?”

“Would I lie to you about something like that? You were damn brave out there and your country appreciates it. The real question is what are you going to do now that you are eligible to go back?”

“I’m going to go back, sir,” he said without hesitation. “There is nothing else for me.”

“You know there is life outside of the marines.” The general shook his head. “I’m not going to go into that with you again. You know how I feel about it. But if you’re going to stay in, you don’t have to go overseas. You’re a born leader. Have you ever thought about training new recruits?”

He hadn’t. He hadn’t thought about anything except getting cleared to serve again. “It’s something I might consider.”

The general nodded. “If I haven’t told you before, I’m proud of you, of what you did out there. You’re the kind of man who would make any father proud.”

“I did what I was supposed to,” he said, more to himself. The guilt of being one of the few who had survived still gnawed at him. He should have died with the rest of them and for a while after the attack happened, he wished he had. But that had all changed the moment he woke up in this hospital. “My father would have hated that I joined the marines.” He thought back to the serious man, who at heart was a gentle giant. “My mother would have lain in front of a bus to stop me. And if that didn’t work she would have tried to knock me out.”

“Why didn’t you go into the family business? Wasn’t that in the plans for you since you were a child?”

He had thought about that question from time to time. There was a place for him, or so he was assured by the man he had chosen to run the company in his father’s place. “My mother wanted me to be a doctor. My father never said that he wanted me to run the business, but I think he expected me to come back to it eventually. When they died I was twenty-one. I didn’t know anything about running a business. Especially one as big as my father’s.”

“But you still own the company?”

“I have sixty-five percent of the shares.”

“Have you ever thought about running it now?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I’ve been a marine for almost eleven years. I don’t think I could trade my combat boots for loafers.”

“I don’t think they make loafers in your size.” The general reached up and set his hand on Christian’s shoulder. “You’re not twenty-one anymore. You’ve learned a lot. You’ve led before. I can’t imagine leading a company is much harder than leading men into battle.”

“It’s just a different kind of warfare.”

“I’m not suggesting that you take over, but I am telling you that you have options now. You should think really hard before you make a decision.”

CHAPTER 10

“N
urse Williams.”

Georgia tried to force herself to not flinch when she heard her supervisor’s voice. Her head still ached despite the two sets of aspirin she had taken earlier that day and she wasn’t sure if she could politely handle much criticism from her boss tonight.

“Yes, ma’am.” She turned around, steeling herself for what was to come. The fact that the woman had thought she was sleeping with Dr. Allen still bothered her. She tried to let it go in light of what she had done with Christian. But that wasn’t the same.

Nurse Chestnut didn’t know what Georgia was doing with Christian, but Georgia knew she wasn’t the type of woman her boss thought she was. She’d thought that once she left her father’s home, she would be free from that kind of persecution. She had been wrong. And ever since the confrontation with Dr. Allen, Nurse Chestnut had been extrachilly to her. She went out of her way to check on Georgia’s work.

“Your review is coming up. I need you to make an appointment to see me so we can sit down and discuss it.”

“Of course.” It was a meeting that she dreaded, but she knew she did good work. There was nothing much Nurse Chestnut could take exception to.

“I’ll need you to come in early because I will not be staying late to conduct reviews.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, even though coming in early was a hardship for her. It was less time she would get to spend with her baby. But she would come anyway because she would not give her supervisor any more ammunition against her. “I’ll sign up for a slot that’s before I begin my rounds.” She turned to leave.

“One more thing, Nurse Williams.”

Damn.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need you to work a double shift next week.”

Everything inside of Georgia rebelled in that moment. There was no way she would go an entire day without seeing her daughter. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that I can’t do that. You know I have a baby at home.”

“Lots of other nurses have children at home. They do not seem to have a problem pitching in to help out.”

“Well, maybe they don’t, ma’am, but they have husbands or families to help them. I am raising my child alone.”

“This is your job, Nurse Williams. We are not here to accommodate your poor life choices.”

“Excuse me?” Georgia’s hands curled into fists. Her father had taught her to speak softly, to never raise her hand in violence to another person. But her father had been wrong about a lot of things. She wanted to knock this woman right on her behind.

“That was uncalled for. Your personal life choices are none of my concern.” Nurse Chestnut studied her, her narrow lips pursed. The disdain on her face was clear, and it had Georgia wondering what she did to deserve this treatment. “Just to be clear, you are telling me that you are not going to work the double.”

“No, ma’am. I am not. I have worked more hours than any other nurse on this floor. I cannot work anymore. And if you check my contract you will see I’m only supposed to work three twelve-hour shifts in a row, not four, but I do it because you have so few nurses willing to work the night shift.”

“Is the time getting to be too much for you? You are looking a little...stressed. Maybe this unit requires more work than you can handle. A transfer might be in order.”

“No, ma’am,” Georgia said firmly. “This unit is not too much for me. I have been doing my job well. All my patients are happy and all my paperwork is done on time. You have no grounds for a transfer. And frankly, I do not appreciate you implying so.”

Nurse Chestnut let out a small frustrated huff. “Well, I see this is a discussion we should have at your review. Please sign up as soon as possible. The sheet is at the nurses’ station.”

“I will sign up. And maybe I will bring a union rep with me.”

Georgia was still fuming by the time she walked into Christian’s room. She was so caught up in her own problems she forgot to greet him.

“I never thought I would say this to a woman, but I’m a little afraid of you right now.”

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed just like he had done last night. She wanted to go to him, to bury her head in his shoulder and squeeze him until all of her irritability seeped out of her. But she couldn’t. She’d promised she wouldn’t touch him again. And she had to be careful around him now. She couldn’t risk her job. Especially when she knew he was only temporary in her life.

“I have a headache,” she said truthfully. “But I’m fine. I bought you some pajamas. Your grafts are healed. You can wear real clothes now.”

He took the pajamas from her and stared down at the T-shirt and sleep pants in his hands. “You bought these for me?”

“No, I stole them from the store. Of course I bought them for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you need them, you ass,” she said, exasperated.

He grinned at her. “Sit down, Georgia. I thought you might go all shy on me after last night, but I’m glad to see you still have it in you to call me names.”

“I think I’ll always have it in me to call you names.” She sat down and allowed herself to shut her eyes. She’d thought things would be awkward between them, too. She’d thought that as time passed she would feel wicked about what she had done for him, but it had never come. She would always remember last night with fondness. “Talk to me, honey. You know I can’t sit down without falling asleep when I’m this tired. I might not wake up if I do.”

“I don’t like how exhausted you look. I don’t like you working all night.”

He sounded possessive. It pleased and annoyed her at the same time. “I don’t like tomatoes. There. Now we both have things we don’t like.”

“What’s the matter, Georgia?” he asked quietly. “Something happened to you today.”

She opened her eyes to find him studying her with concern. None of her other patients noticed, or if they did they didn’t bother to ask what was wrong. He could always read her, and the guilt for taking her anger out on him rose up inside her. “I’m sorry, sugar. My boss is on my case and that, combined with my headache, has turned me into a crank pot.”

“Nurse Chestnut.” He frowned, his face twisting into an expression some might call ugly. “Want me to beat her up for you?”

She smiled at his joke. He could be funny at times. She wondered why so few people saw that. “I think she could take you in a fight, love. But thank you for asking.”

“Thank you for bringing me pajamas.” He stroked the soft gray T-shirt in his lap as he looked at her. For a moment she imagined that his fingers were stroking her back. If she ever got married she was going to find a man who liked to give back rubs.

“I’m a little tired of having my ass hang out of these damn gowns.”

“I should have bought you some underwear, too. I’m sorry I didn’t think about it.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’ve done enough for me. I want to give you your money back for these, but I know you won’t take it.”

“You’re right. I won’t. It’s something I wanted to do for you. It’s nothing big.” She rose and held out her hand. “Let me help you put them on.”

He locked eyes with her and then his gaze fell to her lips. When she offered her help she did it purely as a nurse, but when he looked at her, she remembered what happened when she got near him. Tingles broke out all along her skin.

“You’re offering to help me strip down naked and then put your hands all over my body while we try to get these on?”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Yes. I don’t mind. In fact, it would be my pleasure.” She had never seen him fully naked. She dreamed about what it would be like to see all six foot six inches of him without clothes on. To run her hands all over him. To have that big body beside her or even on top of her. But those thoughts would have to stay in her dreams. It couldn’t happen in the hospital. It could never happen at all.

“No.” He shook his head. “Don’t touch me.”

“You’re no fun,” she teased, crossing her arms over her chest. Her nipples had gone hard from the moment he’d looked at her with need in his eyes.

She sat back down, hoping that the slight extra distance between them would turn her thoughts pure. “How was your day? I heard General Lee came to see you.”

“Is it news every time he walks into this place?”

“Yes. It’s not often that we have two-star generals walk through here, and the fact that he comes to see you makes us think that you must be pretty important.”

“The general has been like a father to me. Especially after the attack. A lot of my superiors have a hard time looking at me.”

“It’s not because of your burns, love. It’s because they feel guilty that you have to go through that while they run their wars from behind the scenes.”

“Georgia.” He took a deep breath. “You are entitled to your opinions about war, but I do not want to argue with you about them.”

She nodded, not wanting to upset him, but another soldier had come in that day. His arm had been blown off. The bones in his leg were crushed. It was getting harder and harder for her to see these young men coming in.

“It makes sense that the general likes you. You’re both terrifying.”

His lips twitched. “I thought you weren’t scared of me.”

“I’m not. Not in the way you think, at least. But I can see the similarities between you two. He probably sees himself in you. What do you talk about anyway? Where to find extrabig shoes? How to scare the poop out of lower ranking soldiers?”

Christian smiled and Georgia’s insides warmed. She loved it when he smiled. It transformed his often grim face. She would like to think he smiled more since he had been here. She hoped he wouldn’t stop smiling once he left.

“We usually talk about baking and wallpaper, but today he had some news for me.”

“Oh?” She braced herself.

“I’m going to be released in two weeks.”

She nodded, knowing that this moment was coming. “That’s wonderful for you. I’m sure you’re sick of it here.”

“I’ve felt useless for so long. I’m glad to finally be able to do something with myself.”

“And what will you do with yourself?” She looked into his beautiful green eyes, wanting so badly to hear the right thing.

“I’ve been promoted to captain. I’m going back to serve.”

Her stomach dropped. She’d known this was going to happen. She’d known that Christian wouldn’t feel like himself unless he was in the middle of a war-torn country. But she couldn’t take it. She couldn’t think about him going to the place where he almost lost his life.

“Congratulations.” She stood up, the need to cry coming on hard and fast. She didn’t want to do it in front of him. She didn’t want him to know that he mattered that much to her.

“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist, stopping her flight. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She tried to shake him free but it was useless.

“Don’t lie to me, Georgia,” he said softly. “Tell me.”

“This is your news. It’s not about me. I have nothing to say.”

“I thought you were my friend. I thought if there was anybody in the world who would be straight with me it was you.”

“Okay,” she snapped. “I think it’s stupid for you to go back. You did your time. You almost died for your country. I think you did all you could for the marines.”

“That’s not true. I can still serve.”

“You can and you will, but what’s the point? You alone aren’t going to stop the war. All you’re going to end up doing is dying. And you think it won’t matter because you have nobody here to mourn you but that’s not true, Christian. I will mourn you. I will cry for you. Why can’t you be done now?”

“It’s my life.”

“No! It’s your job. You don’t have a life. You use the marines as an excuse not to make a life.”

“Who are you to talk?” he said quietly. “What kind of life do you have if some scarred marine is your only real friend? You don’t work the night shift for the money. You do it so you can hide from the world, from other people. Your life doesn’t have to be like this.”

“Don’t.” She shoved his shoulder. “Don’t you dare make assumptions about my life when you have no idea what I went through. What I go through every day just to make sure my daughter is fed. You can turn it around on me if you want, but I didn’t choose this life. It happened to me, and I’m determined to make the best of it so that my daughter can have the world. You are not choosing life. You won’t be satisfied until they pull you out of the desert in a body bag.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t and I never will.” She wrenched her hand from his hold. “I hope you end up happy, Christian. I really do.”

* * *

“Hello, Miss Georgia,” Tobias called to her cheerfully when she walked into his room the next night.

She smiled at the boy even though she knew he couldn’t see her. His good humor was, at times, infectious. She could use some of that good humor today.

The argument she’d had with Christian still rolled around in her mind. It had kept her up all morning. She regretted that they had shared such angry words, but she didn’t regret what she’d said. He was just healing. He was just getting the use of his arm back and now he was prepared to go off and risk it all. But as a captain. Ten years of his life wasn’t enough time to give. She knew he felt guilty about being one of the few to survive, but when was it going to be enough?

She didn’t know why it bothered her so much. She’d known that it was coming. She’d known he was going to go back. She should admire him for his dedication. Instead she was mourning the life he could have had.

All the thinking made her headache worse. The pain from yesterday hadn’t gone away. It had intensified, almost to the point where she had a hard time lifting her head. Each noise made it worse. Every beam of light that hit her face was nearly excruciating. Every step she took was a Herculean effort.

Mrs. Sheppard had urged her to call in sick, but Georgia couldn’t. She would be off for three days after tonight’s shift and she wanted to save her sick time in case Abby grew ill.

“How are you tonight, Tobias?” She rubbed her temples, trying to relieve some of the pressure.

“Better. I can see a little more every day. I can almost see what you look like.”