A Soldier's Devotion. Cheryl Wyatt

her. Then each other. Heavy silence fell. Stark. Foreboding. Like a cell block door slam. The hefty weight of all the eyes bearing down on her settled over her like a judge’s declaration of life without parole.

      Shades of suspicion turned Briggs’s narrowing eyes into a treacherous tint of blue. “Who wants to know?”

      She swallowed, feeling suddenly surrounded by dangerous men—a protective band of brothers—who had to be part of Mr. Reardon’s pararescue team. No other explanation for why they’d be so physically daunting.

      She refused to wilt. Her chin lifted. So did the man’s. Which rattled her like a box of banging gavels. Never let them see you sweat. She applied the courtroom principle to her body language.

      “I do.” She straightened her shoulders but softened her poker face and stuck out her hand, hoping he’d take it.

      “And you are?” he asked as he shook her hand.

      “Valentina Russo. My friends call me Val.”

      His eyes flashed recognition. His fingers snapped in the air. A slow grin came to his face. “The woman who crashed into his bike.”

      She licked parched lips. So they’d heard her name. Couldn’t be good. Especially since the emphasis landed on her crashing the bike rather than Vince. “Yes.”

      “I’m Airman Briggs. But you can call me Nolan.” Thankfully, his demeanor softened.

      She nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

      “What can we help you with?”

      “I just wanted to be sure he’s okay. Understandably, the hospital wouldn’t give out information when I called last week.”

      Nolan didn’t respond.

      She plucked nervously at her earring. “I haven’t been able to get him off my mind.”

      Nolan grinned. “The bear you sent in there? Or Vince?”

      Gentle humor in his eyes broke her nervousness. She loosed a laugh, which was more relief. “Vince.”

      Nolan nodded slowly and appeared to ponder her deeply. “How’d you know where to find him?”

      “Apparently your PJ team holds celebrity status in these parts. I asked around town and was sent to the B and B. A lady named Sarah directed me here.”

      “Did you say Sarah?” Nolan looked at the older man on their team, who set his clipboard down and came close. His face reflected acute interest in the conversation.

      “Yes. She guided me here, saying I’d probably find Vince here.”

      The redheaded teammate snickered. “Guided, wow. Sounds like something someone would do with an airborne missile.”

      Val stared at him. “I’m sure Sarah meant no harm by guide—I mean sending me here.”

      The older man grinned. “Relax, ma’am. Sarah’s my fiancée.”

      Nolan smiled. “Vince is tough. He’ll be all right. No permanent injury. But I think it’d be better for you both if you didn’t come around him.”

      The man whose tag identified him as Petrowski, and who’d proudly proclaimed Sarah as his fiancée, moved to stand alongside Nolan. “Least, not right now.” A slight grin smoothed rigid lines from his face.

      “It’s been a week since the wreck. You think he’s still that angry?” Val asked.

      “Now, now. Calm down, airman. I’m just the messenger,” came from inside the back room. Sounded like the sheriff’s voice. Only a little higher-pitched. Just then a growl gurgled from the room. The next instant the stuffed bear whizzed by her, hitting the opposite corridor wall.

      Nolan grinned at her. “Apparently so. Give him another week. At least.” His face grew serious. “He really loved that bike.”

      Which she’d learned from Eagle’s Nest’s mechanic was damaged beyond repair.

      Nothing is beyond repair in Your eyes, God. Not things. Not people. Help me at least give him part of his bike back.

      Maybe she should follow through with contacting Vince’s sister and have her try to use its salvaged parts to rebuild Vince’s bike. How wide was the rift between her and Vince? Would the sister even be willing?

      If so, it would likely take most of Val’s savings to do this. Savings she’d been counting on to buy a van and rent a facility to entertain the at-risk youth she’d moved here to help. Oh well. She’d just have to be more creative in thinking up alternate fun activities.

      Her insurance would probably cover most of the cost of a new bike, but it was doubtful that it would stretch to the custom rebuilding. If it did, the insurance company would want to choose the repairman rather than letting Val use Vince’s sister. If not, she’d just have to pick another place to take teens prone to trouble. Continue the work her aunt had started then grown too ill to finish.

      Not to mention she had a hard phone call to make.

      Her dad would blow his bad toupee when he found out she’d wrecked the car he and Mom had bought for her when she’d passed her bar exam. A ridiculously expensive car that symbolized prestige and privilege. An image she hadn’t enjoyed growing up under. He’d think she’d wrecked it on purpose. Ludicrous, but such was the way with her often eccentric and unreasonable father.

      “Anything else?” Nolan’s voice clashed into her thoughts.

      “Maybe. I wonder if you could tell me how to reach Vince’s sister.”

      Nolan’s raised his brows. “Lady, you really do have a death wish, don’t you?”

      The looks on the rest of the men’s faces said the same. The worst possible thing she could do was contact Vince’s sister.

      The stern warning in Nolan’s eyes suggested doing so would be like tossing gasoline on the flame of Vince’s rage.

      “But that’s the only hope of rebuilding his bike like his brother had it. The officer at the scene, Stallings, said she designed the bike Vince’s brother hand-built.”

      “She did. But that was before the brother’s death and subsequent rift that ripped their family apart. Trust me. You’d be better off to walk away from this altogether.”

      One flash of memory of the deep void of emptiness and pain in Vince’s darker-than-midnight eyes as he lay on the wet asphalt, and Val knew that walking away from this was exactly opposite of what God was asking her to do.

      Trust Me.

      Only it wasn’t Nolan but God impressing this upon her. An inner voice. Remembering the battle in Vince’s face as she’d prayed. Tiny sparks of hope in the most tortured eyes she’d ever seen.

      She’d looked deeper.

      And God had allowed her to see.

      And Vince had been too momentarily unguarded to stop her. What she’d seen was a little boy wounded by life and growing up into a hard and cold brooding man who refused to feel or even act as though he could feel. That kind of ultra self-protective pain.

      She saw it in the faces of abused and neglected children she lived her life to help. And in the dullness coating the eyes of teens nearly too late to help.

      And she’d seen it in Vince’s eyes.

      “I’m sorry. But I can’t walk away. Not from this.”

      Chapter Four

      She had some nerve.

      Vince stormed from the back room. His team tensed. Petrowski stepped between him and Miss Distraction. Mass distraction rather. A weapon of mass distraction. Yeah. That’s what she was.

      And he wanted no part of her.

      Vince didn’t