Seaview Inn. Sherryl Woods

hand. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen. Now I need to start thinking about dinner. Kelsey—that’s Hannah’s daughter—will be hungry after eating nothing but airline food today. I’m thinking fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, good comfort food. How does that sound?”

      “Like it’ll clog all our arteries,” he said. “And better than anything I’ve had in months.” He watched as she struggled to her feet. “You want some help?”

      Her expression turned indignant. “The day I can’t get into this house on my own two feet is the day I’ll walk away from it and check into that retirement home Hannah’s so anxious for me to move into.”

      The show of spunk made Luke chuckle. “I meant with dinner.”

      “Now, that I can use. You know anything about cutting up a chicken?”

      “I’m a surgeon. I think I can manage.”

      She gave him a startled look. “Well, I’ll be. I hadn’t heard that.”

      “My folks moved away before I went into medical school, much less chose a specialty,” he said.

      Luke waited with dread for her to ask him a thousand and one questions about why he was hiding out in Seaview Key, instead of back home performing surgery.

      Surprisingly, though, she just gave him a knowing glance and another pat on the hand. “Like I said, this is a good place for figuring things out.”

      Luke was counting on that. It was a far cry from the hospital in D.C., its hallways crowded with wounded soldiers whose souls were as shattered as their limbs. Compared to that or the hell that had been his life in Baghdad or the complications waiting for him in Atlanta, Seaview Key was pure heaven.

      Iraq, a few months earlier

      The calendar on the wall in Luke’s quarters had big, bold X’s marked through the days. Practically from the minute he’d arrived in Baghdad, he’d begun counting down the time until he could go home again. He’d signed up for one year of active duty, partly out of patriotism and partly out of a sense of obligation. The army had paid for his medical degree, and though he’d already served the required amount of time in return, he still felt a moral duty to sign up for another tour when guys he’d served with were sent to Iraq.

      He and Lisa had had a blowup of monumental proportions when he’d told her about his plan to volunteer for reenlistment.

      “You got out of the military, Luke,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “How can you even consider this? You’ve paid your dues. You have a family now. You have kids. Your medical practice is growing. We’re finally financially stable. If you walk away from it now, what will that do to our income? Do you expect us to live on a soldier’s pay?”

      He’d lost patience with her then. “Plenty of other military families are forced to do exactly that,” he’d told her. “Fortunately, we have a significant amount of money in savings and I’ll work it out with Brad that a percentage of the money from the practice will continue to provide for you and the kids while I’m gone. Come on, Lisa. You’re hardly going to starve and you know it. This is something I have to do. I have medical skill that’s badly needed over there.”

      “And that’s more important than your family?” she’d demanded angrily.

      “Not more important,” he’d said. “But sometimes you just have to do what you know in your heart is the right thing. If I can help to save just one kid’s leg so he’ll be able to walk again, then I have to do this.”

      He’d seen in her eyes that she just didn’t get it. Maybe no wife would, especially when he was volunteering to put himself in harm’s way. He’d only known that it was where he needed to be, what he had to do.

      Though she’d eventually resigned herself to his decision, she’d been no happier about it by the time he left. She’d pulled out every stop, heaped on every bit of guilt she could think of, and when the day of departure had come, she’d refused to see him off. He’d said goodbye to her and his kids at home. There’d been no one waving a flag or blowing him kisses when he’d finally taken off. He’d tried not to let it hurt, but it had.

      Once he was in Iraq, though, he hadn’t had time for regret. He’d barely had time to sleep. The days flew by in a haze of misery and pain, too many soldiers, too many hours standing over an operating table, his back aching, his eyes blurring from exhaustion.

      It was the successes that kept him going, and the e-mails from home. Lisa was good about that, at least, and so were the kids. As young as they were—Nate barely in kindergarten, Gracie only in second grade—they still managed to write, “I miss you, Daddy.” And every so often a package would arrive with home-baked cookies, photos of the birthday party he’d missed and drawings in crayon. The drawings went on the wall by the calendar on which he was marking off the days until he saw them all again.

      “Doc, there’s another chopper setting down,” Kenny Franklin told him. “The OR’s set up. You ready?”

      Luke tore his gaze away from the latest picture of his kids. “I’m on my way,” he told the young medic, already on his feet. He cast one last look at the snapshot, grinning at Nate’s gap-toothed smile. He’d gotten a whole dollar from the tooth fairy, he’d told Luke in an e-mail.

      He thought about that a few minutes later when he was examining the soldier whose face had been sliced to ribbons by the same mine that had ripped off part of his leg. Nate’s smile would be whole in no time at all, the missing tooth replaced by another one. The boy on the table in front of him, not yet nineteen, according to his records, wouldn’t be that lucky. He’d be lucky to live. Only a decade or so older than Luke’s little girl, and this boy had put his life on the line for his country.

      Luke had to steel himself against the tide of dismay washing over him as he snapped out orders and made his first incision. An hour later, it was over. The kid was dead. He’d lost too much blood and they hadn’t been able to seal off all the bleeders fast enough.

      “Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, Doc,” Kenny said.

      “Yeah, I know,” Luke responded. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

      On days like this it was hard to remember that he’d come here to save lives. It was hard, in fact, to remember why he’d left his home, his family, his life for this. If he thought about the devastation waiting for some family back home, if he thought about any of it, he wouldn’t be able to function. All he could do was head back to his quarters and try to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before the next transport came in.

      * * *

      “Luke!”

      The sound of Grandma Jenny’s voice snapped him back to the present.

      “Luke, are you okay? You’re pale as a ghost. Sit down for a minute and I’ll get you something to drink.”

      “I’m fine,” he said, then realized he was standing over a chicken with a knife in his hand. “I’ll just finish cutting this chicken up for you.”

      “I can do that,” she said, nudging him aside. “Sit.”

      Suddenly too exhausted to argue, he sat.

      “You want to tell me where you went just then?” she asked.

      “Not really.”

      “Something tells me you ought to be talking to somebody about it. Bottling up the things that upset you isn’t good.”

      “No, it’s not,” Luke agreed. But he’d talked this particular subject to death while he was in rehab and it hadn’t made the memories fade. If anything, they were clearer and more deeply embedded in his mind than ever.

      “So, talk. You said you’re a surgeon. Where?”

      “In Atlanta. At least, that’s where my practice is.”

      “You