Renee Ryan - Homecoming Hero

Were the two dating?

Was it any of Wolf’s business?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was.

He’d promised Clay he’d keep Hailey safe. And safe meant safe. From all threats. That included the kind that came wrapped inside surfer-dude pastors.

Wolf nearly growled.

J.T. visibly pulled his gaze away from Hailey and refocused on him again. “So you were a friend of Clay’s.”

The words were spoken as a statement, an attempt perhaps to open up friendly conversation.

Wolf wasn’t in the mood. “I was with him when he died.”

“That’s tough, man.” Understanding flared in J.T.’s gaze and something else, something tragic. “I…” He shook his head. “There aren’t words.”

Wolf recognized the haunted look in the other man’s eyes. It was the same Molotov cocktail of nasty memories mixed with guilt he’d seen in his own mirror. “No. There aren’t.”

J.T. rocked back on his heels and then stuffed his hands into his pockets. He blinked once, twice. By the third try his expression cleared and the carefree pastor was back. “Welcome to FCC, soldier.” He slapped Wolf on the back. “Now come with me. You can tell me about yourself while we head inside.”

Yeah, as if that was going to happen.

Feeling trapped, he matched J.T. step for step. Something in the pastor’s manner warned Wolf to brace for impact.

What had started out as a long day was about to get longer.

All Wolf wanted to do was climb back on his bike and ride. It didn’t matter where. As long as it was anywhere but here. He still had most of his forty-eight hours of leave left. He could go a lot of places in that amount of time, even within the hundred-and-fifty-mile limit they’d given all returning soldiers.

At least J.T. had quit with the probing questions and Hailey had stopped looking at him with all that distrust in her eyes. Like she feared he was going to bolt at any second.

Okay, yeah. He wanted to take off. But he’d made a promise to Clay’s sister.

He wouldn’t break his word.

Pulling in a tight breath, he settled back against the metal chair Hailey had saved for him. He managed to sit through the Mulligans’ introduction before the fidgeting set in. He contained his twitching to a light drumming of his fingers on his thigh. But as the missionaries continued talking, nothing could stop the hard ball of dread clogging in Wolf’s throat.

Open mind, Wolf. You promised Hailey an open mind.

He took another breath. Slow and easy.

“It’s not numbers we’re after,” Harold Mulligan said. “It’s hearts.” The man paused, and then slid his gaze over the crowd with deliberate slowness.

Wolf took the opportunity to study the missionary. The man was just what he’d expected. Tall, scarecrow thin, middle-aged with sandy-blond hair and fervent eyes.

“No obstacles are too big for God,” Harold continued, pulling his wife closer to his side with an affectionate little tug. “Patty and I go where the Lord leads us.”

Patty smiled up at her husband. The woman could be anybody’s mother, thanks to her plump figure, curly helmet hair and polyester pants.

Harold cleared his throat. “Patty and I are on a faith journey that will impact eternity.”

Wolf blinked at that last sentence, only now realizing what was making him so antsy. Mr. Mulligan wasn’t saying anything of substance. He was speaking in fancy rhetoric—one lofty, Christian cliché after another.

Yet, throughout the room, heads bobbed in agreement to each hollow statement.

Had Wolf missed something here?

“We’re doing important Kingdom work,” Patty added with just enough gravity to earn her…wait for it…an other round of head bobbing from the crowd.

Wolf shifted, gritted his teeth. Swallowed hard.

Open mind, dude. Get your mind open.

“Our goal is simple,” she said. “We want to expand God’s Kingdom to unreached places.”

Yet. Another. Platitude.

Wolf couldn’t take much more.

Thankfully, Mrs. Mulligan turned her attention to the open laptop on the table in front of her. “It’s best if you see the people we’ve met for yourself.”

One keystroke later and a PowerPoint presentation popped up on the screen behind her. In the perfect splash of added drama, a contemporary praise song blared through the computer’s speakers.

For five solid minutes, photographs of men with haunted eyes and missing teeth, women holding impossibly small babies and children with lost appendages slid by on the big screen.

Unable to look away, unable to bear the sight of those sorrowful kids, Wolf’s stomach clenched. It was one thing for the men and women of the U.S. military to put themselves in harm’s way. That was their job, what they’d signed up to do in the recruitment office.

But the Iraqi children couldn’t choose for themselves. They had no control. And IEDs didn’t discriminate.

Wolf shifted in his seat.

Why did the missionaries have to show all those blown-up kids, he wondered?

Oh, yeah, right. He knew why.

This was propaganda. At its finest.

Even still, it was impossible to remain unmoved. Wolf swallowed a lump in his throat the size of a cannonball and proceeded to drum his fingers on his thigh. Faster. Harder. His foot joined the erratic routine.

Those kids. There’s too many to protect. It’s an impossible task.

The music hit a crescendo and Wolf glanced over at Hailey.

She was wiping at her eyes and sniffling. Her conviction was palpable, her passion for the wounded kids evident in the slump of her shoulders when one of their pictures hit the screen.

His job just got harder.

As though sensing his eyes on her, she glanced over at him. Helpless despair was etched on her face.

Wolf knew the feeling.

She gave him a wobbly smile. He smiled back, but he was pretty sure the gesture made him look less than enthusiastic.

Sighing, she reached out and covered his hand with hers, squeezed gently then let go. The light contact, though short, had a soothing effect on him—enough to make him relax against the back of his chair and focus once more on the missionaries’ testimony.

All right, he admitted it. The Mulligans might speak in Christian clichés, but their hearts seemed to be in the right place. Wolf still wasn’t comfortable with their presentation. It wasn’t what they were saying that bothered him so much. It was what they weren’t saying.

Not once did they mention the dangers that came with their posting in an “undisclosed location” of the Middle East. And didn’t that say it all?

They didn’t speak of insurgents or the bounties on Christian ministers’ heads. They didn’t allude to IEDs, except in the subtext—obviously the blown-up children got that way somehow. Bottom line, the Mulligans were giving only one side of the story.

Confused, Wolf searched out J.T. He spotted the pastor lounging against the door frame in the back of the room. His gaze was glued to the screen, his attention completely engaged.

What was wrong with the guy? Surely he saw the flaws in the Mulligans’ presentation.

The missionaries made it sound as if living in the Middle East was some sort of fun-filled adventure, with the added benefit of helping people along the way. Oh, sure, the wife spoke of her loneliness and missing her church friends, but she said nothing—not one word—about burkas or the deep-rooted hatred for Americans.

And nobody in the room but Wolf seemed to notice the glaring omissions.

Lambs to the slaughter.

He couldn’t take it any longer. “I have to get out of here.”

Hailey’s eyes widened. “But you promised,” she murmured. “You said you would stay and listen to the whole presentation.”