A Soldier's Devotion

“We aborted. Petrowski sent another team,” Joel said as though perceiving his question.

“Yeah, thanks to Stallings’ loose lips and a reckless-driving woman’s big mouth,” Vince bit out. Mostly because mentioning her mouth evoked pleasant images more than unpleasant memories of the collision she’d caused.

A paternally stern look entered team leader Joel’s eyes. But so what? It was his bad day and he had a right to be rude and testy. At least outwardly. Didn’t help matters that his skin burned like fire from scrapes and nurses’ merciless cleaning of them. Speaking of, Nurse Torture stepped toward the door. “I need to see another patient.”

“Good.” Vince started to fold his arms but stopped. Pain clenched his shoulders.

He didn’t want to see or talk to anyone right now and especially not the crazy lady who crashed his bike and brought a bomb of worry crashing down on his team.

Worry for nothing. “It’s not like the wreck was fatal.”

“No, but it could have been,” Joel said.

“Well it, wasn’t. So you can all go home.”

His teammates eyed one another, but refused to budge. If it wouldn’t hurt his scraped-raw jaw to cuss, he would.

Aaron Petrowski, commander over three pararescue teams within their joint task force, entered the room and stood by Joel. Both were strong military leaders and two of Refuge’s most well-respected men. They also had the most solid faith of anyone he knew. Not that he’d admit it to their faces.

Why couldn’t his dad have been that kind of man? Then maybe his childhood wouldn’t have been so humiliating. Son of the town drunk. That’s what he’d been known for. And he’d grown to despise pity because of it.

Petrowski leaned over his side rail. “Saw your bike. Or what’s left of it.”

Vince cringed inwardly.

Manny Peña knuckled Vince’s unscathed shoulder. “Boy, I think you got me beat. Word on the street is you had a world-class crash.”

Vince raised the head of his bed. “Yeah, but my accident wasn’t my own fault.” He made sure to inject heavy doses of sarcasm in his words.

Manny grinned. Then his face sobered. “Seriously, Reardon. I’m glad you’re okay.” He assessed Vince’s bandages. “For the most part.”

Vince despised the sympathy in his stocky teammate’s eyes. Or maybe it was empathy.

Manny had crashed a parachute a couple years back. The one jump in Manny’s history that he’d left the plane without his hook knife. When a line-over collapsed his main chute, he couldn’t cut it away. When he’d activated the reserve chute, it tangled on the malfunctioning main chute and he’d crashed into the only grove of trees for miles.

Vince’s respect for Manny ramped though. The dude had to have been in much more pain than Vince was in now.

Teammate Chance moved in. “Yeah. You’re blessed to be alive.”

Blessed? Since when did Garrison start using churchy words? If one more member of his team crossed over to the dark side—as Vince deemed Christianity—he’d…well, he didn’t know what he’d do. Be hard-pressed for partying buddies, that’s what.

For once the thought of alcohol caused a sour taste to settle in Vince’s mouth. For sure he’d smacked his skull.

Joel eyeballed Chance then Vince. “God protected you, bud.”

It was on Vince’s tongue to remark against that and say that God hadn’t protected him, Vince just cheated death. But something stopped him. Weird. He never would have thought twice about spouting something like that before. If nothing other than to rile Joel.

A knowing settled deep inside. He’d felt protected by someone much bigger than himself. He couldn’t deny that.

Joel was right. The wreck could have killed him. Or caused permanent brain damage or spinal-cord injuries. None of which showed up on the barrage of tests Refuge’s trauma team put him through in the past hours.

Minor injuries, arm and leg abrasions from the skid and a slight concussion from impacting pavement at high speed were his only diagnoses. Doctors were calling him a miracle. Whatever. His mind would normally refute the word with vehemence.

But for some reason, this time the word sobered him.

The foreign feeling that had filtered through him back at the accident scene when the woman prayed fell in around him again. Tangible. Soothing. Like warm water on a cold day. He felt drugged. But he’d refused pain meds.

“You’re skinned up pretty good,” Joel observed as a doctor salved Vince’s arm scrapes then bandaged them.

“Still. You should be overseas with someone really hurt. Ridiculous that you guys chose to stay with a bike-wreck victim over a pilot whose plane crashed.”

“You’re not just a bike-wreck victim, Vince. You’re our brother.” Ben Dillinger bumped gentle knuckles into Vince’s uninjured shoulder.

“No way were we gonna leave you, not knowing how bad you were,” Petrowski added.

Everything in Vince wanted to flail against the friendship that had caused his team to choose him over a mission.

But looking into the eyes of his team—Leader Joel, Mountain Manny, Gentle Ben, Compassionate Nolan, Wise Aaron, Shy Chance and Boisterous Brock—Vince couldn’t bring himself to scrutinize their decision. He’d have done the same for each of them had fate’s tables been turned.

He clenched his jaw against an agitating sense of belonging. One he didn’t want to grow too comfortable in. He didn’t feel deserving of their love and sympathy.

If he was a soft kinda guy, their concern could get to him as far as stirring his emotions. He blinked and cleared a foreign knot from his throat. Alien emotions rushed forward and pressed against the back of his eyes. Vince clenched his jaw and blink, blink, blinked.

The guys eyed him then one another, surprise evident.

His hackles rose. “What? Hospital’s dry. Makes my eyes water.” He ground his teeth and wanted nothing more than to go home and sulk alone.

No one looked convinced. He scowled and huffed.

A nurse entered, breaking the moment. “Ready to get out of here?”

He yanked down his side rail and stood so fast she jumped. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Laughing, she brandished his instructions. “Take it easy for a few days. Doc says no skydiving or dangerous activities for a couple of weeks.”

Vince opened his mouth to protest but Petrowski’s hand clamping his shoulder stopped him. “We’ll make sure he has desk or rigging duty until his doctor clears him.”

Rigging chutes? He’d rather eat overgrown slugs. But desk duty was worse than rigging. A sitter he was not. A rigger he could be and survive. Anger resurfaced over the woman who sent his day south. Two weeks? Not only would he be at risk of death by boredom, he’d miss important training sessions with recruits. And for what? To be holed up in a back room with a bunch of parachutes that he’d have to fold instead of fly. Better than desk duty though.

He bypassed the wheelchair the nurse brought him and limped with his team toward the exit. They stayed close but knew well enough not to try and lend a hand. Speaking of, something else hit him.

He faced his superiors. “I’ll still be able to launch Refuge’s community swim-safety program, right?”

The cautious looks Petrowski passed Joel told Vince he probably didn’t want to know the answer to that.

Once again, ire flared against the woman who caused these problems. He wrestled mental frustration at thoughts that the community programs would be delayed, therefore risking the sponsors’ continued support.

Pressure-cooked anger boiled inside his lidded emotions to the point of explosion.

“If Miss Russo knows what’s good for her, she’ll steer completely clear of me.”