A Soldier's Devotion. Cheryl Wyatt

team leader. He owns the DZ, Refuge Drop Zone, a skydiving facility west of town. He’s there a lot. I can’t guarantee he’ll know how to locate her or be free with information if he does.”

      Stallings looked doubtful enough for discouragement to handcuff her normally bulletproof courage and arrest her determination.

      But something about Vince called to her. He seemed an imprisoned soul with tortured eyes, and it had nothing to do with the wreck today. His pain dwelled deeper than the crash, larger than the loss of his bike.

      And no matter how long or hard or difficult, she was determined to get to the bottom of it—to ease the trauma life had put him through and to erase the anger that had been directed at her and everything she stood for.

      Somehow, this wreck was no accident. She felt God’s fingerprints all over it.

      Something stirred in her soul for Vince Reardon’s. As sure as the land had law, she had to get through to him.

      “You don’t need to be here,” Vince said to Joel and the rest of the team, who hovered in a restless horde as hospital triage staff wheeled him back to the emergency room after X-rays. “You should be on the field bringing a pilot back to his family. Not here bugging me.”

      Why hadn’t they gone?

      “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.