Homecoming Hero

by Renee Ryan

  He was so large, so intense, so…close. Yet fear wasn’t the first emotion that ran through her. It was a strange mix of excitement and fascination. Like he’d claimed about her earlier, the man definitely intrigued her. “All right. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  In silent agreement, they resumed walking, still holding hands. Even though her instincts warned her not to get too comfortable, the connection between them felt so natural, so familiar, Hailey didn’t try to pull away.

  “Just like you said, I come from an old Savannah family, with solid roots and a legacy that can be traced back to the seventeen hundreds. There’s always been wealth and privilege in my family. But don’t think that means the O’Briens have ever taken their blessings for granted. My mother in particular took her position in society very seriously. She spent her entire life dedicated to her causes. She—”

  Hailey cut off her own words, a sense of loss and frustration mingling inside her. She knew she would never fill her mother’s shoes. And, much to her shame, there were moments when she was glad for it. Sitting on charity boards and supplying funds for various causes had never been satisfying. Unfortunately, it had taken Clay’s death to reveal that truth to her.

  With a gentle tug on her hand, Wolf slowed their pace. Hailey hadn’t realized she’d sped up.

  “What about your father?” he asked. “Tell me about him.”

  Glad for the change in topic, Hailey smiled. “He was the senior partner in the law firm my great-grandfather founded. Daddy was a really good lawyer but he was an even better father. He was kind, loving, firm yet fair.”

  “You were fortunate, then.”

  “I was,” she said, pausing to decipher what she heard in his tone. Bleakness? Envy? If only he would tell her more about his past. If only she could read his expression and decipher his secrets for herself. But the moon had slipped temporarily behind a cloud.

  Wolf cleared his throat. “Clay mentioned your parents were killed in a plane crash.”

  Instant pain unfolded in her chest and threatened to crowd out the breath in her lungs. Hailey couldn’t give in to her grief. Not in front of Wolf.

  She inhaled a ragged swallow of air and said, “My father was flying the company jet. My mother was his only passenger. They were coming to a University of Georgia football game. Clay and I were waiting for them at a private airport in Athens. We were supposed to all sit together at the game. I… We…”

  Before she realized what he was doing, Wolf swiveled in front of her and caught her up in his arms. “I’m sorry, Hailey. Losing both of them at the same time.” He made a sympathetic sound deep in his throat. “That had to be tough, especially with parents like yours.”

  With Wolf’s strong arms wrapped around her, Hailey gave up fighting the onslaught of emotions demanding release. Sighing, she rested her cheek on his shoulder and let the sorrow come.

  After a few endless moments of gasping for air, she was able to continue. “As hard as it was to lose them, losing Clay was harder.” A series of silent sobs wracked through her body. “He wasn’t just my brother. He was my best friend.”

  Wolf’s embrace tightened. “Clay was the best man I ever met.”

  She smiled into Wolf’s muscular shoulder. The leather jacket felt cool on her cheek. “Of course he was.”

  Murmuring an unintelligible response, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  After several minutes of Hailey clinging and Wolf rubbing her back soothingly, he set her away from him. The cold, damp air slapped her in the face.

  They set off down the beach again. This time, Wolf didn’t take her hand. The lack of connection left her feeling isolated and alone.

  “I know Clay joined the Army after your parents’ plane crashed. What about you, Hailey? What did you do after they died?”

  “I finished college with a degree in Latin and one in Greek. Then I earned another in Classical Literature.” She kept her voice even, or as even as she could under the circumstances.

  “I take it you like learning.”

  She shrugged. “With my parents dead and Clay in Iraq, school was my only lifeline, the only thing I knew.”

  “Understandable.”

  Why did he have to be so sweet? When he was here for all the wrong reasons? “Anyway, one of my professors told me I couldn’t take classes forever, not without an end goal in mind.”

  “He kicked you out?”

  Wolf’s outrage made her smile. “Not exactly, but she didn’t encourage me to stay, either. Since I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, I came home and took over my mother’s charity work.”

  “Is that when you decided to become a missionary?”

  “No.” She abruptly changed direction and ambled toward the water’s edge. This was where the conversation got hard.

  She pulled in a sharp breath. “There was something still missing. At Clay’s urging, I joined Faith Community Church and started taking Bible studies.” She dug a toe in the wet sand, kicked a ball of white foam in the air. “Within a year I could rattle off Scripture as well as any trained pastor.”

  Wolf drew alongside her. “That’s a bad thing?”

  “It was for me. I’d intellectualized my faith. Clay kept pushing me to get my hands dirty, but I didn’t know what he meant. And then…” She paused until she was certain she could speak without her voice breaking. “He died.”

  Just saying those two horrible, awful, painful words, tears welled in her eyes. She held them back with a ruthless blink and turned her head to look at Wolf. Even under the muted moonlight she saw her own sorrow mirrored in his gaze.

  That gave her the courage to finish with the honesty he’d requested. “Not long after his death, I realized what Clay meant. I was just playing at being a Christian.”

  “Doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  “Come on, Wolf. Don’t you understand? Having a heart for causes is not the same thing as having a heart for people. The truth is…” She choked back a sob. “I’m a fraud.”

  Wolf stared into Hailey’s eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. He’d never seen such self-recrimination, or such conviction to change. Except, possibly, when he looked in his own mirror.

  Willingly or not, Hailey had just revealed her greatest fear—that her life was meaningless and without purpose.

  Wolf had lived with that particular terror himself. He’d lost everything that day in Iraq. His brothers in arms, his best friend, even his purpose. Or rather his surety in his future with the Army.

  He’d been questioning his life choices ever since. Rightfully so. But in Hailey’s case, she was dead wrong. “You’re no fraud. You’re the real deal.”

  “Not yet.” She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes and sniffed. “But I will be.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself. I saw you in action the other day, with those teenage girls. You touched their lives right in front of me.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with helping people in your own church?”

  “It’s not enough.” She batted at a strand of hair that had fallen over her face. “Not nearly enough.”

  “Oh, I get it now.” He laughed without a stitch of humor. “You think risking your life in a foreign land is the only thing that will make you a real Christian.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Her expression turned stormy. “You’re intentionally misunderstanding me.”

  Not even close. “Look, Hailey, giving men and women a uniform and a gun doesn’t make them soldiers. Nor will hopping on an airplane and flying to the Middle East make you a better Christian.”

  Her head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. “My brother thought otherwise.”

  A high-definition image of Clay’s pale face insinuated itself into Wolf’s mind. For one black moment, he was tempted to give Hailey all the gory details of her brother’s death. The sights, t
he sounds, the terrible smell of blood that haunted Wolf in his dreams.

  “No, Hailey.” The effort to restrain himself had his words coming out hard and fast. “Clay didn’t believe that for a second.”

  “He did. I have his e-mails to prove it. He died because he believed in the Army’s mission. I have to honor that. I have to honor him.”

  The sheen of tears in her eyes gave Wolf pause. But only for a second. “How do you plan to do that? By dying for your beliefs, as well?”

  “You’re being intentionally obtuse.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and stared out over the water. “J.T. understands my motives. Why can’t you?”

  Overwhelmed by an intense surge of jealousy at the mention of J.T.’s name, Wolf’s jaw tightened of its own accord. He swallowed. Hard. Then forced his teeth to unclench. “Don’t mistake a guy’s romantic interest in you with understanding.”

  Her head whipped toward him. “It’s not like that between J.T. and me.”

  “It’s always like that.”

  She spun away from him. “I’m through with this conversation.”

  “Well, I’m not.” He reined in his temper enough to walk calmly around her. “Despite what you think, Clay isn’t looking down from heaven waiting for you to prove you’re as courageous as he was. His last request was to make sure you stayed safe. I’m here to ensure that happens.”

  Her stubborn expression returned. The silence lengthened to an uncomfortable amount of time. In that moment, with her eyes telling him she would not back down, Wolf realized more arguing on his part would hurt his cause.

  A smart soldier knew when to walk away, or at least when to build a different plan of attack. “How many mission trips have you gone on?”

  Making a sound of dismay in her throat, she tried to maneuver around him.

  He blocked her retreat. “How many?”

  She lowered her gaze. “One.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It was enough,” she said to his feet. “It made me hungry to do more.”

  Which was admirable, in its own way. Yet the question still remained. Why the leap from a short mission trip to a permanent posting in the Middle East?

  “Where did you go on your one trip?”

  “Jamaica.” She slowly raised her head. “For two and a half weeks. And I’m heading to Haiti in a few weeks. I’ll be there for seven days.”

  Wasn’t that just great. The woman was basing a life-altering decision on practically zero field experience. The Army would never send a soldier overseas with such a gross lack of training.

  “A Caribbean island is nothing like the Middle East.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  Moving quicker this time, she twisted around him and began retracing her steps back to the car.

  Wolf followed hard on her heels. “Hailey—”

  “Don’t.” She thrust her palm in the air between them. “I have the money, the time, the desire. It’s not like I’m leaving anyone behind. Now that Clay is gone, I don’t have…anyone.”

  The catch in her voice broke his heart. “You have your friends and your church.” But even as the words slipped out of his mouth, Wolf knew how empty they sounded. Hadn’t he hated hearing them all his life?

  His frustration was making him careless. Why couldn’t the stubborn woman see she was making a mistake?

  “Hailey, I admire your passion.” At her skeptical glare he added, “I do. But you won’t be heading into a mission field that’s been well traveled. There are bad men over there with guns, men who hate women like you.”

  “What do you mean women like me?”

  “Christian women.”

  “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t go.” Her feet moved faster, kicking up large sprays of sand as she went. “Someone has to reach the desperate people living in that region. Why not me?”

  He could give her a thousand reasons. He focused only on the main two. “Because you don’t have the training or the experience.”

  “I’m getting both.” She pumped her legs faster. “Step one was Jamaica. Step two is Haiti. Step three…well, God will reveal that to me in time.”

  Wolf easily kept up with her, even though his frustration made his steps jerky. “Hailey—”

  “Stop worrying about me. When the door finally opens to the Middle East I’ll be ready.”

  “You don’t have an assignment yet?”

  “No.”

  Well, that was new information. Maybe, just maybe, Wolf was going about this all wrong. From her own admission, Hailey wasn’t scheduled to leave for the Middle East anytime soon. And she wasn’t leaving for Haiti for several weeks. That gave him time to show her just how unprepared she was.

  Ideas came fast now. But at the moment, he didn’t bother sorting through them. He had a better idea. “Okay, Hailey, I see I’m not going to change your mind.” Not tonight, anyway. “Let’s call a truce.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re giving up?”

  “Yeah, I am.” He backtracked to her side. “For now.”

  Seconds of intense staring passed between them. Wolf experienced an uncomfortable pounding in his chest, the one that came every time he looked straight into those gorgeous, heart-stopping green eyes.

  “Something tells me you aren’t completely giving up on your quest,” she said at last.

  “A temporary truce is still a truce,” he pointed out.

  “In other words, I won’t be getting rid of you anytime soon.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  Her gaze sparkled with a contradictory mix of resignation and…pleasure? Wasn’t that interesting?

  “Cheer up, sweetheart.” Feeling generous, Wolf gave her the big, loopy grin that was guaranteed to make her eyes soften. “All that extra time together could turn out to be a win-win for us both.”

  Chapter Seven

  Wednesday dawned bright and cool. It was another beautiful winter day in southern Georgia. Fort Stewart practically sparkled with sunshine and birdsong.

  Far from being deceived by the idyllic scene, Wolf entered his office with a cynical heart. His soldiers weren’t adjusting to life in the States as well as he’d hoped. Of course, they’d only been home a week. Maybe they just needed time. And lots of attention from their commanding officer.

  Knowing the importance of what lay ahead of him, Wolf tried to keep his mind on work and not on Hailey. Not so easy, especially since he’d made a point of staying away from her these last five days.

  There was no doubt the woman was unprepared for the hazards of missionary work. But she had to come to that conclusion on her own. With a large nudge from Wolf, of course. The series of survival classes were the perfect vehicle to steer her in the right direction.

  In the meantime, Wolf needed to focus on the job the Army paid him to do. First order of business, he needed to decide what to do about the fight he’d just broken up at the PX.

  He flexed both his hands in frustration. His unit was already three days into reintegration training, yet the discussions and accompanying videos designed to help soldiers adjust to life back home weren’t taking.

  Today’s fight was not the first Wolf had come across this week. He’d also dealt with a handful of domestic disputes, never a favorite. And some of his soldiers were already showing signs of alcohol abuse. Despite their vehement denials.

  Wolf leaned back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hand. There were too many soldiers with too many problems for one man to address, especially a man suffering with his own readjustment issues.

  If he was going to have any chance of helping his soldiers, he had to help himself first.

  Decision made, he bolted from his chair and headed out of the office without speaking to his NCO.

  He’d put off this errand long enough.

  Ten minutes later, Wolf sat on the bottom row of bleachers at Cottrell Field and stared at the line of trees across the empty parade grounds. This was the plac
e where soldiers in the Third Infantry Division commemorated the best and worst of Army life.

  Alone with his thoughts and far too many emotions churning in his gut, Wolf began to regret his decision to come here today. Terrible memories poked at him.

  Refusing to buckle, he rested his forearms on his knees and kept his gaze locked on the long row of evergreens.

  His mood threatened to turn dark and turbulent, so he forced his mind back to a happier time, back to the welcome-home ceremony he’d participated in after his first tour of duty. If he closed his eyes he could still hear the music, still feel the energy and sheer joy of being home at last. He’d led his platoon through the tunnel of trees with a large grin on his face. The explosion of cheers from his fellow soldiers’ families and friends had made him feel light-headed.

  In that one moment, he’d mattered, perhaps for the first time in his life. He was no longer a mistake, as his father had always claimed, no longer the boy unworthy of love, whose own mother had abandoned him at the age of ten. As an officer in the United States Army, Wolf had shed his past and found his future. His life course had been set.

  Until the day Clay and the others had died. On his watch.

  Struggling to absorb the reality of his failure, Wolf kept his eyes shut and slowed his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. His skin had turned ice-cold, as though there’d been a sudden change in temperature. At least his hands remained steady. He was still in control.

  Snapping his eyes open, he stood.

  It was time to get this over with.

  With slow, determined steps he circled the perimeter of the parade grounds. His boots felt heavier than usual, but he kept moving forward, all the way to the line of trees dedicated to the fallen men and women of the Third ID.

  A burst of angry energy slammed into Wolf like a punch. But he didn’t stop moving. He tracked slowly down the row, reading each name scrolled on the accompanying plaques.

  His steps never faltered until he approached the four shortest trees, the ones representing his men. His personal loss.

  Images of the bombing besieged him. Flying metal. Stinging flames. His fellow soldiers’ screams.