BELONGING: Hope, Truth And Malice (Beauty 0f Life Book 3)

by Laura Acton

  Lexa shook that thought away. She wasn’t sure when it happened, but she realized that Dan had carved his own special niche in her heart. What that constituted … she wasn’t quite sure, but she knew she would walk through hell to save him. By the expression on his face—actually the lack thereof—a few minutes ago, it looked like she just might have to do just that. Dan needed saving—he deserved saving.

  Patch was mulling over everything since the rappel. He was afraid for Blondie—not physically, though that was bad enough in itself. He’d been shocked and totally relieved when he saw Blaze and Winds. There had to be a guardian angel watching over Blondie, maybe it was Brody. If so, he’d sent the one guy Patch knew would be able to help—Blaze.

  Upon seeing Blaze, he’d said the only thing that came to mind, the four words that would communicate everything to Blaze. Blaze would make it all right again, he and Brody always did. A little thought started to niggle at the back of his brain, maybe Blaze wasn’t the only one that could help anymore. He’d seen and heard Blondie’s new teammates reactions.

  There was that look of protectiveness Jon gave him. The concern he’d shown through words and actions. His gentle pat on the leg and strict words on not taking risks. Was Blondie still doing that?

  Then there was Lexa, the look of worry and her words showed her heart. The caress of Blondie’s hair was very telling. Jim glanced at her now and saw her eyes still fixated on Blondie. She was a petite thing—she was Blondie’s type, at least looks wise—he had nothing to judge personality with yet. But Blondie had a thing for delicate looking women with auburn hair. Not that Blondie got much of a chance to spend time with women while he was in the unit.

  He shifted his eyes to the Italian officer, the guy they called Loki—funny nickname. Jim almost smirked, Patch wasn’t much better. As he watched Loki, Jim was reminded of Brody. The two didn’t match physically in any way, but Loki had used humor like Brody did when talking to Blondie. Brody could always make Blondie laugh with his antics. Brody believed that laughter was important and healed the soul. With the blank expression that he’d seen on Blondie’s face, Jim knew that Blondie’s soul need healing.

  St. Michael Hospital – Air-Evac Pad – 9:15 p.m.

  Everyone was jarred from their thoughts, not realizing they had landed at the hospital until the doors slid open. They all jumped out and quickly assisted in getting Dan transferred to the hospital gurney. Then Dan was whisked away from them to the elevator.

  Heather Barkley watched them unload the patient. She was surprised to see Lexa among those helping. Relief and confusion sweep through her. Then she saw the blond head and lost her breath at the sight of him and his condition.

  Goodness gracious, she wanted to be the one to help—to fix him—but that wasn’t her job today. She turned to the group of three TRF officers, one paramedic, and two soldiers that were standing near the helicopter. All of them had expressions of distress and anxiety clearly displayed for all to see.

  She approached the group, but directed her query to Lexa. “My name is Heather. I’ll be your contact in the ER. Can you tell me the name of the injured officer for my records?”

  She was taken aback when six people gave her four answers simultaneously, “Dan”, “Blondie”, “Broderick,” and “Dantastic.”

  Oh my stars, it was gonna be painful to watch them wait. The blond man had forged bonds so deep and strong with those in front of her. She hoped he made it. She feared for them if he didn’t.

  “Shit! I should’ve gone with the doctor. I need to speak with him now. He needs to know that Blondie reacts very badly to several pain medications,” Patch said as he sprinted after the gurney.

  Heather could see the rigidity of all of them, like they would break into tiny pieces with the slightest bump. The paramedic’s words had just alarmed them and she wondered what he meant by ‘reacts very badly’. But she knew she needed to do something to ease the tension a bit.

  They unintentionally gave her the perfect solution when they had answered, Dan, Blondie, Broderick, and Dantastic. Heather smiled at the group and laughed lightly, “Ok, so can we agree on a name? Blondie’s certainly descriptive, but Dantastic is an awesome name. I’d love to see that up on the chart board.”

  That released the pressure a little, but didn’t completely erase it.

  Jon looked at Heather and offered, “His given name is Daniel Broderick. Let’s just go with Dan for now. I’m his TRF Tactical Lead, Jon Hardy.”

  “Okay, Dan it is. If you would please follow me, I’ll take you to the waiting room,” Heather responded.

  They all followed her and on the way, she showed them where they could get coffee and pointed out her desk in case they had questions. She realized that they could probably use some privacy—they were in full gear and didn’t need the public gawking at them at a time like this. So Heather took the group to a private waiting room instead of the general waiting area.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  July 15

  St. Michael Hospital – Private Waiting Room – 9:20 p.m.

  Blaze, Winds, Jon, Lexa, and Loki nervously paced the room, occasionally glancing at each other wanting to start a conversation but not knowing what to say to each other. So the quiet tension hovered in the room like a heavy fog.

  Heather returned with a clipboard of paperwork that needed to be completed. She handed it to the TRF officer and said “Can you please fill out as much as you can for our records?”

  Jon looked at the paper on the clipboard and then back up to the nurse. “Don’t you have his records?”

  Heather gave him a small smile. “Sorry, no. He’s never been a patient here.”

  “But he’s been seen at several hospitals in Toronto. Can’t you just pull his records from them?” Jon asked.

  “Which hospitals?”

  Jon pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought. He looked back up at the blonde nurse with brown eyes and answered, “Mercy and Centenary.”

  Heather shook her head. “Sorry, we’re not connected to their records database. Please, just fill out what you can for now.”

  Jon stared at the paperwork a moment more, took the pen that Nurse Heather held out for him, and then he took a seat. That prompted the others to do the same, but the silence remained.

  Patch entered the room several minutes later. They all looked towards him expectantly. He shook his head indicating no update on Blondie and said, “Didn’t see him, only told the doctor what he needed to know.”

  He headed over to Blaze and Winds who were on one side of the room and gave them bear hugs. They immediately huddled together and began conversing in low voices that couldn’t be overheard.

  They put their questions on why Blondie was in Toronto and on the police force on hold and gave priority to discussing how to help Blondie once Patch explained what happened in the ravine when Blondie saw him. They all agreed the emotional shutdown was familiar, but the catalyst wasn’t the same, it was different here. They’d seen the three dead bodies and recognized one was a TRF officer. Maybe Blondie had formed another friendship like the one he had with Brody and loss had flipped the switch. They just didn’t know.

  The one thing they did know was that it would take something significant to knock him off-kilter like this. They all wondered if it was an accumulation of things, but they really had no idea what the past year had been like for Blondie. The three of them decided they needed to talk to someone on his team. But which one? They agreed some covert recon was needed to determine if they could trust anyone on his new team to help their brother through the emotional turmoil that was surely wreaking havoc on Blondie right now.

  Winds was selected to do the recon because Blaze was duty bound to report in regardless of what he’d told Hal. Blaze needed to contact Major White and let him know that he and Winds stayed behind because it was Blondie. He knew that Major White liked Blondie—he’d been Blondie’s Special Forces Guardian Training Officer. White would understand. And even though Patch
was off shift now, he needed to contact his partner Trey and let him know not to bother coming to pick him up from the hospital because the injured officer was a friend and he was staying.

  As Winds covertly watched the three TRF team members, he tried to decide who he might approach. The woman, Patch had said her name was Lexa, sat very still, elbows on her knees, face planted in her palms. He detected a slight shake of her shoulders. Winds could tell she was silently crying and didn’t want anyone to know. Interesting. Was it a girl reaction that she didn’t want to reveal in a male dominated field, or did she truly care about Blondie? Patch had said something about her telling Blondie that they would keep him safe. She was a possibility.

  The guy they called Loki was sitting off in a corner staring at the ceiling while one knee bounced vigorously up and down. His hands clasped and unclasped together constantly. Winds could see his emotions clearly written on his face, he cared and was distressed. Loki almost looked as if he was in physical pain himself, yet he oddly exuded a sense of purpose. Patch had said Loki joked with Blondie, called him Dantastic and Wile E. Coyote. That was a fascinating mix and could work.

  Winds noticed that Jon, the tactical lead, was as taut as a strung bow and had been scowling at the forms for quite some time. He’d seen that same look on Blaze more than once over the sixteen years they’d served together. Jon was pissed at himself for some perceived failure to the men under his command and trying very hard not to explode. Understandable with one dead and one injured. That look was how Blaze had gotten his nickname. When he couldn’t contain his fury, Blaze would blaze red hot with rage and could burn anyone and anything in his path.

  The last time Blaze had that look was when Mason found out that the guard that denied them access to Blondie had been one of the guys that beat the crap out of Blondie as he was preparing to leave. If only they had known Blondie was leaving that day.

  The Major had ordered them to the gun range that day. If he hadn’t they would’ve been in the barracks when Blondie came to pack up his things. They could’ve talked to him, but more importantly they could’ve prevented Murphy and the others from beating the shit out of Blondie. Although, Blondie had done a fair number on Murphy. But four against one odds wasn’t right.

  Winds shifted his gaze to Blaze for a moment. Man, he could see Blaze was struggling again. They all felt guilt for how they’d reacted after Brody died, but Blaze carried the most. Blaze keenly felt he had failed both Blondie and Brody. He had been the one to relay that shit-for-brains Major Plouffe’s all clear to fire order to Blondie. They’d lost two of their brothers that day all because Plouffe was an idiot and didn’t ensure the entire recon unit was clear before he gave the order to fire. As far as Winds was concerned, it was Plouffe’s fault that Brody had been there.

  In the days following Brody’s death they’d visited Blondie in the hospital. They’d almost literally lost him that day. If not for Baboon starting CPR when Blondie collapsed after finding Brody, Blondie would also be dead and gone.

  Blondie was devastated, as they all were, at Brody’s death. Blaze couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Blondie—it was too painful for him—for all of them. Blaze believed he was responsible for the desolate, shattered pain he saw in Blondie’s eyes. It physically hurt Blaze to see the pain he’d caused the kid. Blaze became physically ill after each visit to Blondie those first three days. His best friend, his brother, had a cast iron stomach normally, but Blaze wasn’t able to keep anything down for days after Brody died.

  It was too painful for all of them to witness the bleak wasteland, pain, and anguish in Blondie’s eyes, so they avoided looking at him. None of them could find the right words to soothe Blondie’s tormented soul and shattered heart. So they said nothing.

  They realized too late … after he left … that they should’ve said something, anything. They’d totally and unequivocally fucked up and failed Blondie when he needed them most. Winds vowed he wouldn’t fail the kid again if given a second chance. God, he hoped for a second chance with all his heart.

  Winds turned his gaze back to Jon and could see that the tactical lead was losing his battle with control. Jon was surely gonna blow soon. What he exploded about would be telling. It might give them the opening to talk to him. Winds thought that it was funny how rage often did that more quickly and effectively than smooth talk. Probably because rage was pure, hard, raw, intense, and hard to fake. The explosion was definitely coming soon.

  Jon had only filled out Dan’s name and where he worked. He had been staring at one particular box on the form not knowing what to enter. Berating himself for how badly he’d messed up when Dan joined the team. He should know the answer, but he didn’t. He knew it for everyone else. Why not Dan? What did this say about his leadership abilities?

  Heather had just opened the door to allow Bram and Ray to enter the waiting room when Jon hit the tipping point of his anger.

  Jon stood and threw the clipboard with all his might across the room slamming it into the wall as he raged, “Dammit, Dan. I’m sorry! I should know this. Dammit all to hell, you cover our backs every damned day and I don’t even know your goddamned date of birth.”

  Heather, Loki, Bram, Ray, and Lexa stared at Jon’s outburst. The team suddenly felt just as guilty as Jon because they all realized they didn’t know Dan’s birthday either.

  However, Blaze, Winds, and Patch burst out in uncontrolled, deep rolling laughter. This caused all five TRF members and Heather to turn and gape at them like they had lost their minds.

  Winds struggled to get control and tried to explain between gasps of laughter, “Shit, the kid did it again. Sorry, don’t mean to laugh, but it’s too damned funny. The same thing happened to us the first time we had to take Blondie to the base hospital and he was unconscious. Blaze raged and threw a clipboard across the room for the same damned reason.”

  Getting himself under a bit of control, Winds shared, “Blondie had been with us almost four months, saving our butts more times than you could count, and we didn’t even know his birthday. We felt like shit for not knowing, like we failed him somehow. But then Brody told us that he didn’t even know it and they’d been thick as thieves for a long time. We had to resort to hacking into his file to find out his damned birthdate.”

  Blaze shook his head still chuckling. “Surprised the hell out of us when we found out how young he really was. His field skills were so impressive we thought he had to be older than he looked, like maybe twenty-six to thirty. We were wrong, he really was just a kid—Blondie was twenty-one, just shy of twenty-two.”

  “So, what’s his birthday?” Lexa asked, still somewhat shaken by the outburst and the realization that she didn’t even know Dan’s birthday.

  “Should make you hack it too, make this sense of déjà vu complete. But I won’t—it’s February 9. That would make him twenty-eight now,” Winds supplied with a smile.

  The ice was broken now. TRF and Special Forces introduced themselves. They laughed and joked about good times and told each other about the crazy, embarrassing, and astonishing things that Dan did. It helped each of them push away the fear and helplessness they currently felt. They had found a unique way to cope for now and it solidified in the minds of Blaze, Winds, and Patch that they had found new allies who cared for Blondie.

  Heather stayed in the room and listened for a while. She was amazed at how they were all helping each other through this terrible time. They did it with humor—forging new friendships and connecting through memories of one remarkable man.

  The image she now had of Dan didn’t match with her first impression. He was one of those rare men that went above and beyond to protect others. Heather could tell that he was special to them and they all really cared about him. She truly hoped he would be okay. She quietly left the room and went to the ER nurses station. She went directly to the nurses’ chart board and with a broad smile erased Broderick and wrote Dantastic and thought, Yes, that’s more appropriate!

  Home of Da
vid and Genevieve Plouffe – 10:20 p.m.

  Nick and Walter exited the home of Aaron Plouffe’s parents. That was a difficult thing to do, but Aaron’s parents deserved to told in person. It was an emotionally draining thing to do.

  They had no information they could share officially yet. The NRB interviews and statements had to be taken and reviewed before they could give the family any details. Not that they knew how Aaron died. The only person that could tell them that was unconscious and at the hospital.

  Nick rubbed his face as he and the Commander made their way down the sidewalk to the SUV. Nick couldn’t get the image of Aaron’s fiancée collapsing into her soon-to-be father-in-law’s arms. Nick hoped the stress of Aaron’s death didn’t cause Tammy any problems.

  Images of Lillian, Jon’s late sister-in-law, came to mind—she couldn’t handle Joe’s death and Joey was orphaned because of it. He hoped that Tammy fared better. She seemed to have a good support system in place with Aaron’s family. They had left the number for grief counselors, too.

  Sadly, families of officers had a lot to cope with. Their loved one put his or her life on the line to help others every day. When their loved one went off to work, they had no guarantee that they’d return home at the day’s end. It was hard on families, especially spouses—it was why the divorce rate was so high for officers. Not everyone could handle that level of stress.

  Nick realized that there were no guarantees that anyone would return home at the end of the day. His wife and son were killed by a random act of violence—gunned down outside Martin’s daycare. Gangs had just caused another death today. If he could obliterate gangs and their violence from this world he would. Nick knew that tonight he’d get little sleep. Thoughts of Aaron, his wife, his son, and Dan would plague him.