Continuing with her rounds, Grace Ann kept one eye on the clock, along with everyone else on duty. The orthopedic ward wasn’t the easiest of assignments and burnout was real. The wounded warriors they cared for put specific faces on the concepts of sacrifice and risks of a military career. But her sense of drive and commitment to helping others helped her, too. Whenever she saw hope or courage chase despair from the faces of recovering patients, it gave her positive ammunition against the ugly memories haunting her after her last deployment overseas.
Having one of their own in surgery for injuries sustained during a training exercise made each minute feel like an hour. There were risks in training, of course, but precautions as well. Drills and exercises weren’t supposed to be career-ending. Sure, accidents happened, but rarely enough in the current environment that most of them took fitness and wellness for granted.
Not anymore.
Like her, Kevin was a registered nurse; he was also currently a captain within their unit and a good friend. By some miracle, he’d survived a crash when the helicopter went down a few days ago in a crisis rescue training exercise staged in a remote part of Texas. His back broken, he’d somehow also managed to survive the transport to a local hospital for stabilization and another transport for reconstructive surgery here at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.
Grace Ann believed—had to believe—he’d come through the operation with flying colors and eventually be cleared to get back on duty. Any other outcome was unthinkable.
Kevin wasn’t just a friend or an extended part of her army family. He was the younger brother of Derek Sayer, the man she’d been sleeping with for the past couple of years whenever their crazy schedules allowed. They’d kept their friends-with-benefits relationship a secret, but if Keven didn’t pull through, if this surgery ended his career, how would she ever look Derek in the eye again?
Guilt prickled at the back of her neck and she blinked away tears she couldn’t let fall. She’d been on the roster for that training exercise. At the last minute, her orders had been changed. She’d remained at the hospital and Kevin had been sent her place. Although she had zero evidence, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the crash had been an attempt on her own life rather than an unfortunate accident.
She passed the nurses’ station again for another glimpse at the screen that showed statuses for all orthopedic surgery patients. Kevin had not yet been moved to recovery.
“What do you think it means?” an aide asked, worrying her ID between her fingertips.
Grace Ann thought of Kevin’s irreverent sense of humor and managed a smile. “He probably asked for a little liposuction or a tummy tuck while they were in there.”
The aide chuckled in agreement as a patient call signal sounded at the desk, and they parted ways to return to their respective duties.
Grace Ann was grateful for the full roster of patients and demands today. Whenever she stopped moving, the stinging regret threatened to paralyze her. Kevin had only been on that helicopter because she’d been passed over due to security concerns. Someone from her father’s past had decided to target the Riley children in what investigators believed was a revenge effort designed to cause the general the most pain.
A few months ago, her oldest brother Matt, an army major currently stationed at the Pentagon, had barely escaped the elusive madman’s efforts. What had started with a vague “you will pay” threat had escalated as the man set out to expose and embarrass the family. His plans had nearly killed Matt. At the same time, her car had even been vandalized with the now-familiar “you will pay” message the jerk favored. Investigators had dubbed him the Riley Hunter and were scrambling to unravel more about his real identity, why he’d gone on the attack and how he hired the mercenaries who carried out his orders.
In light of the ongoing investigation and the aggressive nature of the man calling the shots, the military was keeping a close eye on the locations and assignments of Matt, Grace Ann and their three younger siblings who also served.
No matter how the five of them protested, the decision had been made by those higher up the chain of command. Training exercises and deployments had been frozen. Communications were monitored for any mention of the general, Grace Ann or her siblings. Extra eyes, electronic and human, were tasked with keeping tabs on all of them.
Wallowing in the frustration after the fact wouldn’t change a thing. It would ease her mind and the fraying edges of her soul if she knew that those higher-ups were looking for clues that would prove the helo accident had more sinister origins, but it wasn’t her place to ask.
“Woolgathering, Major Riley?”
Grace Ann flinched at the nasal voice of Hanson Bartles, their current executive officer and assistant to the commander. Everyone called him H.B. when they could get away with it. Basically a decent guy, his talents ran to administration rather than hands-on nursing care. She supposed someone needed to have admin skills. Although they would never be friends and frequently butted heads on the priorities and how-to of running a field hospital, they got the job done.
She pulled herself together before facing him. “Good morning, Major Bartles.” He preferred proper titles to friendliness. A slender man, edging toward skinny, he had stiff posture, which always reminded her of the rigors of basic training. Never a comforting thought. The discomfort was only compounded by his precise military haircut, deep-set mud-brown eyes and razor-thin nose.
“If you don’t have enough to do, I could use help with the filing.” It was an old, humorless joke that never earned a laugh. Still, he kept at it, apparently believing one day the result would change.
“If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, we could use your help down here,” she countered as he fell into step beside her.
His narrow eyebrows lifted toward his hairline and then settled back into place. He might not be happy with her occasional sass, but she never gave him enough grief to take any action against her. “Any word on Captain Sayer?” he asked, pitching his voice too low to be overheard.
She shook her head. More guilt nipped at her heels. Of course H.B. had come down to check on Kevin. Everyone in their unit was on edge, and petty personality differences had to be pushed aside.
“I haven’t heard anything since the commander went down to the surgery waiting room to sit with his brother,” H.B. said. “David, right?”
“Derek,” she corrected automatically. Grace Ann had to work to keep her expression neutral as the warm, laughing eyes of Kevin’s older brother flashed through her mind. He would be too worried to laugh now. He hadn’t so much as sent her a text message since the accident. “That’s nice of her to wait with him,” she said of their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Molly Bingham.
Grace Ann had briefly considered going downstairs to check on Derek and managed to find every viable excuse to avoid that scene. Dodging him made her feel like a lousy person, a terrible friend with or without benefits, and added another layer to the guilt weighing her down. Eventually Derek would know she’d been on shift this morning. If she wasn’t careful, he’d learn she should have been on that helicopter instead of Kevin.
Probably a good thing he hadn’t reached out yet. What could she have said to ease his worry? Her more immediate concern was how she’d face Derek when his brother reached the post-op ward. Professionally, it was her job to be available to answer his questions, but she didn’t want to be professional with Derek. She wanted to lean on him, bare her soul and never stop apologizing. Another part, equally needy, craved distance from what was sure to be anger and resentment that his brother had taken her place and was now staring down a long tunnel of recovery.
She knew reality would fall somewhere in the middle.
The signal at the door between the surgical suite and her ward sounded and the wide doors parted. “You’ll excuse me, duty calls,” she said to H.B. without waiting for a response. Though she wished it was Kevin on that gurney—safely out of surgery—she was grateful to have