Anything For You: A Coming Home Short Story Read Free

not going to help me out with this whole Valentine’s Day thing, are you?” Shane took her tray and dumped it with his onto the conveyor belt.
    “I was serious. An evening on the couch watching a movie sounds wonderful to me. Maybe you could rub my feet.”
    “I like where this is going.” He placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her away from the elevator to the stairwell.
    She didn’t wait for the door to close behind them. The stairs in the hospital were not a low traffic area, but for a moment, she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the joy of him pulling her close. Their lips met in a fierce kiss that left her wanting more.
    Footsteps on the stairs above them ended their interlude before they got carried away, but he kept his hand on the small of her back as they climbed to the third floor. The simple touch carried such a fierce protectiveness in it.
    “I’ll see you later,” she said, brushing her lips against his.
    He nodded. “I don’t think Sarn’t Major will keep me long.”
    She watched him until he disappeared around the corner. She had never hidden her worry about him going back to full duty. She’d never hidden her fear that he would go back to war and that she might lose him.
    But she wasn’t about to let her fear take something so important away from him. If he decided to get out of the Army, it wouldn’t be because he was afraid of losing her. It would be because it was something he wanted to do.
    Jen would just have to figure out a way deal with it, just like Army wives everywhere had always done.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Shane left the sergeant major’s office, not entirely certain why he’d been called there to begin with. A vague, unsettled feeling sank in his stomach during his ride home. Sergeant Major had confirmed Carponti’s suspicions that Ike was screwing up, but there was more. Much more. Corruption at all levels of command. Shane was needed at work. He knew that. But until he was one hundred percent healthy, he was heading home instead on Sergeant Major’s orders.
    Home. He was heading home. It was Jen’s house, but she’d made it his, too. She’d opened it to him when he’d been without options from a divorce gone bad. She’d amazed him then, and she amazed him still.
    Sergeant Major Giles’ words echoed. He wanted Shane back in the fight, and Shane wanted to be back in the fight. Except now he had something to lose, something important to him. Jen would never ask him to give up the military, but as he turned down the long gravel drive to her small ranch house, he wondered if he shouldn’t consider a civilian life. He could be a trainer here on Fort Hood. Be home every night. Maybe he should look at his options.
    He glanced at the paperwork on the passenger’s seat. Paperwork that was about removing one life-changing option.
    He needed to talk to Jen about the vasectomy. Carponti was right: Jen was going to be pissed when he mentioned the word. But how could she not understand where he was coming from? The risk to her life was not something he could live with, not even for a child.
    He left the paperwork on his seat beneath his patrol cap and walked into the home he shared with the woman he loved. And when he stepped through the front door, things had never been more right.
    Because Jen stood in the kitchen, wearing nothing but one of his big , white t-shirts and a smile.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Jen was nervous. She was always nervous when she didn’t have on a bra and her prosthetic. But Shane’s reaction when he saw her was more than enough to ease her worries.
    His gaze darkened as he approached. “Oh, now this is nice,” he said sinking into the chair in front of her and sliding his hands around her waist. He tugged her gently down until she either had to crawl into his lap or fall against him. Either one worked for her, but she decided his lap was the better option for what she had planned.
    “What did I do to deserve this?” he teased.