All for You by Jessica Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

and pulled on a pair of jeans and tugged a long-sleeved t-shirt over his head, keeping his back to the mirror. He didn’t need the visual reminder of what he’d done to his body over the years tonight.
    Tonight there were too many memories circling. There was no reason for the ghosts to be haunting him. Some nights were just worse than others.
    Grabbing a bottle of water, he stuffed his wallet into his pocket and palmed his cell phone. He pulled his Stetson out of his truck and climbed into Ben’s passenger seat, hoping tonight would be uneventful. Reza wanted to unwind tonight, if only to prove to himself that he could handle it.
    His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out.
    Leaving for NTC tomorrow. Stay out of trouble. He grinned at his phone. Claire had an uncanny ability to contact him when he was about to tip over the line. But he wasn’t. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night.
    He had this.
    Ever since that mission in Colorado, when she’d laid it on the line and forced him to confront the fact that he had a problem, he’d refused to fail her again.
    He slammed the door shut.
    “What took you so long?” Teague asked.
    “I was doing my makeup,” Reza said with a grin he did not feel.
    “You look pretty, honey. Try to leave some of the girls for us tonight.”
    Reza leaned his head back against the seat as Teague turned up the radio. Marilyn Manson blasted through the cab, the bass from “The Beautiful People” thumping in Reza’s chest. It reminded him of the pulse of a fifty cal. A powerful comfort.
    Abruptly, the music ended.
    “What crawled up your ass?” Teague demanded.
    Reza sighed. “Just first sergeant bullshit. Docs busting my balls at the office. Marshall being a pain in the ass. Same shit, different day.”
    Teague turned off the highway, heading toward Belton Lake. “Sometimes I think it’s easier being deployed.”
    “We’re heading to the MOUT site next week. Ought to break up the monotony.” Reza took a sip from the water bottle, unable to avoid the reaction inside him that wished it was something stronger.
    Excitement burned through him. He couldn’t wait to head out to the Elijah MOUT site, the mock-up city where they practiced urban operations. He loved running the boys through kicking in doors and fighting house to house. He got a charge out of it.
    It was the only place that felt like everything fit. Everything else was just a pause until he could get back to training or better, to war. Training soldiers for war was what he did. It was what he was good at.
    He wasn’t supposed to be some expert at mental health and suicide prevention.
    The damn doc was wrong. Everyone couldn’t be a soldier. He knew that truth down into the marrow of his bones. He had the scars on his body to prove just how wrong she was. The army needed soldiers and no amount of time on the head doc’s couch could turn a spineless weakling into a warrior.
    He’d dealt with far too many so-called leaders of men who’d refused to leave a bunker when the mortars started falling. Far too many grown men who’d frozen the first time their convoy had gotten blown up and refused to ever leave the base again.
    He didn’t blame them for the fear. But he didn’t respect them either.
    Terror was part of combat. A heady marriage of fear and adrenaline and death. It was the most potent of drugs, he thought, twisting the cap on the water bottle. Combat rewired the brain like nothing else. And his blood was now hardwired to needing the fix.
    He glared at the bottle, wishing he was strong enough to control the urge and have just one drink.
    But he knew he wasn’t.
    Combat was his only addiction now. He needed it.
    It was just a matter of time before he got back to it.
    *  *  *
    Emily walked into Talarico’s , burned out and exhausted from the week. She’d processed nearly a hundred medical packets on top of her regular patient load. She’d put in five eighteen-hour days and she’d barely scratched the