Heron's Landing. JoAnn Ross

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      IT WAS MORNING in Kabul, Afghanistan. Traffic was streaming through the Bagram Airfield gates: suppliers, contractors, civilian workers, local residents who were members of the ANA, the Afghan National Army. The sun was rising, the base buzzing as the day medical staff at the state-of-the-art Craig Joint Theater Hospital caught up with patients who’d transferred in or out during the night. Widely recognized as one of the most advanced hospitals in the US Central Command, as well as the premier medical facility in Afghanistan, CJTH had the admirable record of a 95 percent survival rate. Thanks to dedicated medical personnel like Army Captain Zoe Harper, who was currently assigned to the intensive care department.

       She was busy mentoring a local nurse, teaching her to tend to one of the unit’s favorite patients, a nine-year-old boy who’d been burned when the family’s propane tank blew up, when shouts started ringing out through the wing. Then automatic gunfire.

       Instructing the nurse to bar the heavy metal door, she threw herself over her patient just as the world blew up.

      When his phone alarm crashed into the all-too-familiar nightmare, Seth, drenched in sweat, dragged himself out of the inferno and threw the damn phone across the room. He resisted, just barely, taking a hammer to it.

      The events that invaded his sleep weren’t real. Or maybe they were. He had no way of knowing because the only facts the Army would share with him were that his wife had been working in the IC ward when security had been breached, allowing suicide terrorists dressed in medical uniforms to attack the hospital.

      She’d told him about her patients. Both military and civilian, but he could tell that the little boy, whom she’d been treating for six months, had been a favorite. She’d even asked Seth to send a box of birthday party paraphernalia and Star Trek and Star Wars figures. Which he’d done. She’d emailed pictures of the birthday party two days before her death. The boy had been grinning up at Zoe, who was wearing a silly, definitely not standard issue Princess Leia wig with her military scrubs. It was obvious the kid had fallen in love with her. As everyone always did.

      Her stories had created endless possible scenarios of her death. All were violent and horrific, and too often, followed Seth throughout the day. Which, in its own way, was even worse than the nights.

      And not just because morning meant going out into the world where he might be forced to interact with people, but mostly because the one person he would not be able to avoid was his dad. Who, if Seth arrived at the job site a nanosecond past the seven o’clock start time, would spend all damn day complaining about the supposed lack of the younger generation’s work ethics.

      Stumbling out of his side of the bed (he couldn’t make himself breach his wife’s cold, empty side), he let Bandit out to do his business, then opened a can of dog beef stew that had more vegetables than Seth ate in an average day. He figured he’d banked about a month’s worth at last night’s dinner.

      Drawn by the sound of the electric can opener, the mutt came racing back in, skidded across the wood floor, dove his head into the bowl and dispensed with breakfast in three huge gulps.

      He followed Seth into the bathroom and would have continued right into the shower if not barred by the ceiling-high glass door. The vet had explained that along with eating issues, separation anxiety wasn’t uncommon in rescues. Especially one who’d been all mangy skin and bones when he’d started showing up at the job site.

      Having learned to ignore the unwavering eyes watching his every move, Seth braced his hands against the tile walls of the shower, lowered his head and let the cold water pouring out of the rain shower slam down the hard-on that continued to taunt him every damn morning. Closing his eyes, he kept his hands flat on the walls because even getting himself off would feel like he was committing adultery.

      But not taking care of the ache wasn’t easy as he fought against envisioning what he’d be doing if Zoe was in this multihead shower he’d built solely with her in mind. She’d seen one СКАЧАТЬ