Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LOW PAINED MOAN to his left greeted Sully as he drifted toward wakefulness.
He winced at the disgusting smell of whatever room he was in.
Forcing his eyelids to open, he blinked at the bare wood ceiling.
Cold sunlight streamed through the one window in this too-crowded room full of injured and anguished soldiers.
For a moment, he panicked, taking stock of all his limbs, trying to determine whether the unbearable pain he felt came from himself or the mangled people surrounding him.
Steaming up his defenses, Sully steeled himself against the clawing, nauseating mass of suffering. It was them. Not him. He exhaled slowly in relief.
“Finally up, are you?” A young nurse asked him, approaching his cot.
Her apron was covered in stains he was uninterested in examining, so he looked up at her face.
Wisps of her wavy golden hair had come loose from the tight bun she wore, glowing in the sunlight and softening her otherwise severe style.
“What am I doing here?” he asked in a voice that scraped his parched throat, then remembering his manners, added, “Sorry, I’m just confused. Nurse?”
She smiled kindly at him. “Nurse Jackson. Nothing to worry about. You were unconscious when your handsome friend brought you in. Doctor Browne said you’d be free to go as soon as you were up and able. How are you feeling?”
My handsome friend? What friend? Allison’s still injured.
“I’m a little tired.” He wracked his memory for the night before. Remembered being hunkered down with Private Smith, beyond that it was a blur. “I think I’m all right.”
She offered him a vibrant grin that eased the exhausted strain around her wide hazel eyes. “That’s wonderful to hear. We don’t get much of that. Captain Stone asked if you recovered before he returns, that you report to him.”
Captain Stone, his new commanding officer. Sully struggled to recall anything about meeting the man, but there was nothing beyond a fuzzy headache. He wasn’t surprised given how low his reserves had gotten.
Once the nurse cleared him to leave, Sully figured he had some leeway before he’d be missed, and besides he smelled like everyone else in this shithole. Showing up reeking of who knew what filth would make a terrible impression.
Sully retrieved his kit and made his way to the baths.
Climbing into warm water and washing off was all he could think of.
The fact he’d be in a giant vat with a bunch of other equally grimy men no longer disgusted him on the same level it once had.
Anything was better than the filth of the front lines or the gore of battle.
After he was sufficiently scrubbed and dressed in the single spare uniform he owned, Sully sought out Allison. If he was going to leave today, he owed his friend a farewell in person.
The little wooden building serving as a convalescence ward for Allison and five other wounded soldiers was one of many.
Sully entered the building and offered the nurse a polite smile.
She pursed her lips, forbidding, protective of her resting charges, but didn’t stop him from going to Allison’s bedside.
There wasn’t anywhere to sit and hardly room to stand between cots, which made it awkward, but Allison opened one eye, then the other as Sully approached. He shifted, trying to sit up in his bed, and grimaced at whatever it did to his wound.
“Don’t hurt yourself on my behalf,” Sully said dryly. “Just came to check on you before I leave. How are they treating you?”
Allison sent him a dazed sort of smile. It seemed they weren’t short on pain medication today. “’M, all right. Nurse Jopling’s real nice.”
The nurse let out a snort of laughter she quickly pretended hadn’t come from her as she busied herself with another patient.
Sully gave Allison a lopsided smile. “You’re tougher than you look, I guess. Don’t say I never said anything nice about you.”
Allison smothered a yawn then mumbled, “You’re nice too.”
This time Sully was the one who broke into a laugh. “Uh-huh. So, I came to say goodbye. Been selected for an assignment elsewhere. It’ll be a while before you’re back in the field anyway, but watch yourself. Okay?”
Allison’s brows pinched. He was so small in the cot. So vulnerable. It made Sully feel like shite, like the lowest scum that he was getting out of here and leaving him behind to fend for himself. “Y’feel bad going?”
Annoyed at himself because that was exactly it, Sully sighed. What happened to not forming attachments? “Mm.”
“Stupidest thing. ‘M glad one of us is getting out.” Allison yawned again, unapologetically. “Jus’ write sometimes. Might even miss you around.”
Heart aching, Sully gave him a smile. He was never good at goodbyes. For someone who felt so many emotions on a daily basis, he was the worst at expressing them. “Second I get a chance to. Take care.”
Allison tried to roll his eyes, but they sort of drifted shut instead. “Gonna. You too.”
With a short nod Sully gently patted Allison’s good arm. “Sure thing. See you around, Allison.”
When he left, Sully found an officer he recognized to ask for directions to where he could find Captain Stone. Captain Stargel shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest. The lieutenant he came with might, though.”
The building pointed out to him was off the beaten path, in an area reserved for important people.
Sully knocked on the door and waited, hands loosely held behind his back.
The door opened, and all the air rushed from Sully’s lungs.
Pale blue eyes, so permanently etched into his memory that he hadn’t forgotten a single detail of them, held his gaze.
“You’re…?” Sully didn’t know what question he was trying to ask. Finally, he settled on, “I’m looking for Captain Stone.”
Elliot’s pretty pink lips twisted in a cheap approximation of a smile. “You’ve found him.”
Sully blinked twice. His exhausted mind scrambled for a proper response. Concern, warmth, and a confusing mass of something all tangled in longing and guilt radiated from Elliot. “I don’t understand.”
“Why don’t you come in? We’ve got quite a lot to discuss and the sooner we leave the better.”
Elliot was Captain Stone, Sully’s new commanding officer and the man who requested his reassignment. Following him inside, Sully turned the information over in his mind. He didn’t like the conclusions he was coming to. What was Elliot expecting?
There was a woman with pitch-dark hair pulled back from her face, sharp eyes watching him intently.
She was seated on a chair near the window, in a man’s uniform.
Something about that jogged memories he hadn’t been able to grasp earlier.
They’d appeared unexpectedly and he’d—Sully’s eyes flashed to Elliot.
Those velvet lips were just as soft as he remembered them being in Chicago.
His heart stumbled, heat rising in his cheeks, and his chest tightening.
The woman cleared her throat as awkward silence gripped them.
“Right,” she said, when it became obvious neither of them was going to speak first. “Lovely to meet you Corporal Sullivan.” She stood, holding out her hand to shake, and Sully accepted.
Her grip was firm. “Lieutenant Bell, though the boys have adopted that one’s silly nickname for me.
I’m sure soon enough you’ll do the same. ”
“Bellona suits you,” Elliot said with an unrepentant grin in her direction.
Despite her exasperation, she exuded fondness for Elliot with a strength Sully envied. His closest ally in Europe was lying in a bed wounded. Hell knew when he’d see him again. If he ever would.
“Nice to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant,” Sully said politely, and she gave him a friendly nod in return.
“Right, I’m off to ensure we’re properly kitted out for the return journey. Don’t suppose you know how to ride a motorcycle?”
Sully stared at her, incredulous. Did she? “Uh, no. Never had a reason to learn,” he said, feeling suddenly underprepared for this assignment.
“Sidecar it is,” she declared, resting a hand on one cocked hip. “Don’t worry, we’ll teach you at the house.”
“The house?” Everything was happening so fast, Sully’s head spun.
A thousand questions battered him, and he could feel his temper igniting.
There was something secretive passing between Bell and Elliot.
Not Elliot. Captain Stone. Here he was Captain Stone.
First names would absolutely not be passing between them.
And he needed to wrap his mind around the fact that the man who starred in every fantasy he’d indulged in for months was now his superior officer.
He didn’t like the way it made his skin itch with apprehension.
It would be too easy to slip up and give them away.
“Our headquarters. Near Amiens, on our side. Far enough away that we can work without interference. Anyway, I’m sure Captain Stone,” she said his name pointedly, accompanied with an unsubtle stare. “Will fill you in. I’d best be off.”
What’s that about? She mad at him for something? What did he do?
With a last polite incline of her head she was off. Sully was left to flounder for some thread of a thought to grasp at. He turned to Stone, crossing his arms and reclining slightly against a bare wood wall.
“Start with why the hell you chose me for a team there’s no way I’m qualified for,” Sully suggested, the aggression in his voice making his head ache. Made his heart ache too, but he was doing his best to pretend it didn’t.
“That’s utterly preposterous. If you weren’t, they would never have sent me your file.
You are perfectly qualified.” His defensive posture gave him away.
There was something Elliot wasn’t saying.
It was there in his mood too. He was all over the place, so Sully couldn’t get a read on what he was hiding, but it made his blood boil.
“That doesn’t answer the question,” Sully bit out.