Historical Romances
THE LIGHTKEEPER THE DRIFTER
The Tudor Rose Trilogy
AT THE KING’S COMMAND
THE MAIDEN’S HAND
AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS
Chicago Fire Trilogy
THE HOSTAGE
THE MISTRESS
THE FIREBRAND
Calhoun Chronicles
THE CHARM SCHOOL
THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER
HALFWAY TO HEAVEN
ENCHANTED AFTERNOON
A SUMMER AFFAIR
Seeking: Private Duty Nurse (Upstate New York)
PostingID: 146002215 Avoid scams by dealing locally
Reply to [email protected]
Senior accomplished gentleman seeks end-of-life nursing care, full-time, days and nights.
Qualifications:
age twenty-five to thirty-five
female (not negotiable)
must have a positive attitude and a sense of adventure
must love children of all ages
must be open to relocation
no emotional baggage
nursing skills and valid state certification a plus
Benefits:
medical, dental, vision, 401(k)
weekly paychecks with direct deposit
Rustic accommodations provided on Willow Lake in the Catskills Wilderness.
Prologue
Korengal Valley, Kunar province, Afghanistan
His breakfast consisted of shoestring potatoes that actually did look and taste like shoestrings, along with reconstituted eggs, staring up at him from a compartmentalized tray in the noisy chow hall. His cup was full of a coffee-like substance, lightened by a whitish powder.
At the end of a two-year tour of duty, Ross Bellamy had a hard time looking at morning chow. He’d reached his limit. Fortunately for him, this was his last day of deployment. It seemed like any other day—tedious, yet tense with the constant and ominous hum of imminent threat. Radio static crackled along with the sound of clacking utensils, so familiar to him by now that he barely heard it. At a comm station, an ops guy for the Dustoff unit was on alert, awaiting the next call for a medical evacuation.
There was always a next call. An air medic crew like Ross’s faced them daily, even hourly.
When the walkie-talkie clipped to his pocket went off, he put aside the mess without a second glance. The call was a signal for the on-duty crew to drop everything—a fork poised to carry a morsel of mystery meat to a mouth. A game of Spades, even if you were winning. A letter to a sweetheart, chopped off in the middle of a sentence that might never be finished. A dream of home in the head of someone dead asleep. A guy in the middle of saying a prayer, or one with only half his face shaved.
The medevac units prided themselves on their reaction time—five or six minutes from call to launch. Men and women burst into action, still chewing food or drying off from the shower as they fell into roles as hard and familiar as their steel-toed boots.
Ross gritted his teeth, wondering what the day had in store for him, and hoping he’d make it through without getting himself killed. He needed this discharge, and he needed it now. Back home, his grandfather was sick—had been sick for a while, and Ross suspected it was a lot more serious than the family let on. It was hard to imagine his grandfather sick. Granddad had always been larger-than-life, from his passion for travel to his trademark belly laugh, the one that could make a whole roomful of people smile. He was more than a grandparent to Ross. Circumstances in his youth had drawn the two of them close in a bond that defined their relationship even now.
On impulse, he grabbed his grandfather’s most recent letter and stuck it into the breast pocket of his flight jacket, next to his heart. The fact that he’d even felt the urge to do so made him feel a gut-twist of worry.
“Let’s go, Leroy,” said Nemo, the unit’s crew chief. Then, as he always did, he sang the first few lines of “Get Up Offa That Thang.”
In the convoluted way of the army, Ross had been given the nickname Leroy. It had started when some of the platoon had learned a little—way too little—about his silver-spoon-in-mouth background. The fancy schools, the Ivy League education, the socially prominent family, had all made him fodder for teasing. Nemo had dubbed him Little Lord Fauntleroy. That had been shortened to Leroy, and the name had stuck.
“I’m on it,” Ross said, striding toward the helipad. He and Ranger would be piloting the bird today.
“Good luck with the FNG.”
FNG stood for Fucking New Guy, meaning Ross would have a mission virgin on board. He vowed to be nice. After all, if it weren’t for new guys, Ross would be here forever. According to the order packet he’d received, his forever was about to end. In a matter of days, he’d be stateside again, assuming he didn’t get himself greased today.
The FNG turned out to be a girl, a flight medic named Florence Kennedy, from Newark, New Jersey. She had that baby-faced determination common to newbies, worn as a thin mask over abject, bowel-melting fear.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” demanded Nemo, striding past her. “Get your ass over to the LZ.”
She seemed frozen, her face pale with resentment. She made no move to follow Nemo.
Ross nailed her with a glare. “Well? What the hell is it?”
“Sir, I…Not fond of the f-word, sir.”
Ross let out a short blast of laughter. “You’re about to fly into a battle zone and you’re worried about that? Soldiers swear. Get used to it. Nobody on earth swears as much as a soldier—and nobody prays as hard. And I don’t know about you, but I see no conflict there. Pretty soon, you won’t, either.”
She looked as though she might cry. He tried to think of something to say to reassure her, but could come up with nothing. When had he stopped knowing how to speak kindly?
When he’d grown too numb to feel anything.
“Let’s go,” he said simply, and strode away without looking back.
The
