Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance by Jessica Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

familiar and too enticing all at once. The grin was now gone, the plea back in his eyes. “Don’t send my men without me. Please.”
    “You’re not God, Shane. You can’t control who lives and who dies.”
    “No, I can’t, but I can make a difference.”
    “You really believe that? Enough to risk your life?”
    “Yes, I really do. There is nowhere I would rather be than at the center of the fight with my platoon.”
    Jen swallowed and looked away, finally pulling her fingers free. “I don’t understand you,” she whispered. He was willing to risk everything to deploy. He wanted to get on that plane with stitches that were barely healed, putting his life at risk … not that the war didn’t do that all on its own. “Why do you want to go so badly?”
    “My boys need me.” He lifted his free hand, like he was going to reach for her, then dropped it abruptly, squeezing the fingers he still held. “Don’t make me leave them. Not now.”
    “You could die.”
    “That’s going to happen anyway. It’s just a question of when.” He tucked his hands into the waistband of his pants. “I’d rather die doing what I love.”
    She turned away, staring at the form she’d need to sign in order for him to deploy. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to make a tremendous mistake, one that was potentially illegal and certainly unethical. But with one stroke of her pen, she gave him her blessing.
    Shane sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
    Jen poked her finger in his chest. “Don’t thank me. Anything happens to you, I’m responsible. And you still need your flu shot.”
    He smiled down at her, but there was no gloating in his eyes. Only a quiet victory. “You’re not God, Jen.”
    “No, but I am responsible for my patients,” she replied.
    He tucked his shirt into his pants, a faint smile at the corners of his lips. “Then you understand me.”
    She shouldn’t have been surprised that Shane didn’t read the form she handed him. He simply scribbled his name where she indicated. A sense of gloom settled around her heart. He rolled up the sleeve that had slipped down, baring his arm for the immunization.
    “Poke away.”
    She swabbed his skin and when she positioned the needle on his biceps, he caughther gaze one final time. “Be careful. I’m fragile.”
    Jen stared at him for a moment. His eyes glittered in the bright light. The sides of his mouth twitched. She looked at his wide chest, his heavy arms and rough hands. Fragile? Her lips quivered as she tried to hold back her response and failed. She covered her mouth with the back of her gloved hand and
laughed
.
    Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman really laugh. Not like this anyway, this full-blown laugh that sent a smile creeping across his own lips. He’d meant to make her smile, to ease the regret he saw in her eyes. But this? This laugh was its own reward.
    Jen wiped her eyes and answered his smile with her own. “I’m sorry.”
    “Glad I could help.” He slid his fingers across her knuckles and over the back of her hand, his fingers lightly circling her wrist. “Thank you for this,” he whispered.
    She finished with the shot and looked away, hoping he didn’t see the moisture filling her eyes. She stood there for an impossible moment, realizing that she had violated her ethics for a man she would probably never see again, knowing it was the wrong thing to do. It didn’t matter that he was a friend of Laura and Trent’s. He’d come into her life for a brief moment and made her
feel
.
    “Shane?”
    “Yeah?” He paused where he’d shrugged into his uniform top.
    Jen wanted to say something. To tell him to be safe, but what good would it do? He was the guy who ran toward the burning building while everyone else ran the other way to safety. “Never mind.”
    Instead, she held on to the one final moment she’d have with him before he left forthe only other place on earth hotter and more dangerous than