Cheryl Wyatt - A Soldier's Devotion

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.”

“How’s the pilot?” Vince asked Petrowski through a door in a back room at the DZ the next week.

Chunka-chunka-chunka of a sewing machine whirred behind him. Chance, at its helm mainly to keep Vince company, paused as Petrowski stepped inside.

Vince surveyed this morning’s work lining the cubbyholes on the far wall. Neon parachute harnesses and canopies hung to his left.

Sewn canopies rested on a stainless-steel work desk against the wall behind him.

“Not sure yet.” Petrowski stepped over a parachute stretched across folding mats on the spacious floor.

Something in Vince’s gut said Petrowski was withholding information. His prerogative, he guessed. But every day that pilot remained unfound added sobering percentage to the possibility that he wouldn’t be found alive.

Joel entered. “What’s making you bark this time, Reardon?”

Vince tamped down his acrid mood because he didn’t want to stir the volatile pot and disrespect the authority of the man who was also his friend. “I mean no disrespect, sir, but there was no need not to send our guys to attempt that rescue last week.” Vince swiped up his plastic jug and swigged his water, wishing it was a cold beer instead. Then just as fast, the thought of tasting beer turned uncharacteristically sour. Way weird.

Maybe he had some undetected brain damage from the wreck. No other rational explanation for him not wanting to down a cold one.

Chance abandoned the sewing and knelt to fold the next chute in the lineup.