Free Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance by Paige Notaro Page A

fact, there were large rectangular plots in the wall still left vacant, even after two years.
    The emptiness had once held my younger brother, Vaughn. But he had done something worse than die. He had left us for a black woman. He had walked out on the entire movement in front of the world.
    I wondered what would be left on this wall if my pictures had to come down too. Just my father and his dead wife.
    No, that was the meds talking. The meds and too many years pretending I wasn’t who I was.
    I headed to my old bedroom, still full of baseball posters and youth versions of the white nationalism messages below. I had lived elsewhere after high school until I enlisted.
    Maybe staying here would show me the path back to who I was. I had to find it myself. My father seemed lost in wayward dreams of his own.
    I had seen the different paths you could walk while serving overseas. You could hate the people you fought. You could simply serve your country. Or you could fight for the culture you wanted these people to have.
    This last idea had driven me. It was a cause I understood. For some, white nationalism was about hate and power, but I’d put it down in the Storm’s Soldiers wherever I could.
    The movement was not meant to be about beating others down. It was about finding refuge for our own people. I might be gathering weapons, but it was a means for defense, nothing more.
    I lay in bed and thought hard, but I still could find no room for what I’d done with Rosa. There was no room for her and me to be together. I could only hope not to hurt her.
    As I drifted off, though, my mind chose its own path. It threw images of a dark tender body, beating hot under my grip. It reminded me of her soft lips and the way her laughter had brushed my ear. It showed me the fiery temper which she had fought me at the hospital, and the tenderness with which she had held me when I was wounded.
    I could walk away from all that, it was true.
    But if I wasn’t lying to myself anymore, if I could give myself the truth - Forgetting her would hurt me at least as much as it hurt her.
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Rosa
    My morning-afters always went by like a sugar rush, and this one wasn’t an ounce different. The bright and cozy end-of-summer day just doubled the dosage.
    I went bouncing into work like I’d been drinking gummiberry juice. I smiled at people on the MARTA. At work, I danced through the hallways saying ‘Hi’ to everyone like I was a Disney princess.
    I even greeted Lilly with a surprise hug at the upstairs nurse’s station. I knew full well that would let the cat out of the bag. I just didn’t care.
    “Oh boy,” she groaned, bending me off. “Which member of the rogue’s gallery got lucky yesterday?”
    “What ever do you mean?” I asked, fluttering my eyebrows.
    She cupped her chin and studied me like an x-ray image. “Let’s see. Last guy was a bookie. The one before that was some underground street fighter. Who can top those two?”
    “Oh, come on. Mark wasn’t that bad. He only used his fist on other guys.”
    A lull sank over the normal buzz of our little nook. Lilly cleared her throat.
    “I mean he used fists to beat them,” I explained, looking around to the other nurse. “He beat up other guys. Outside of his fights, too. Ok, fine, he was a loose cannon.”
    “So this guy is probably a full-on gangster?” Lily asked.
    “Uh, no,” I said. “He’s actually a soldier.”
    “A veteran?”
    “Nope. A big, burly, active duty soldier. He’s down in Fort McPherson.”
    “Wow, you found a legal fix for your cravings. You sure he’s not like a war criminal or something?”
    “War hero, actually. He’s got a purple heart and everything.”
    Lilly’s brows arched. “Damn, that’s legit.”
    “Hell yeah, he’s legit. He even -”
    I was going to make up something around him being injured in the line of duty and ending up here. Then, I realized I didn’t want people knowing I was dating a former patient. I might