Homecoming Hero (9 page)

He had never wavered in his beliefs. Until his Humvee had hit the IED.

Wolf's steps grew heavy, but he made it to Stella and planted his palm on the car's hood. Breathing slowly, methodically, he lifted his eyes to heaven.
Lord, I need Your help. I need…

What? What did he want from a God that had abandoned him on that Iraqi roadside?

As soon as the question materialized Wolf knew. He wanted his faith back. He wanted to believe again. He wanted God to prove to him he wasn't here by mistake. That he still mattered.

And that maybe, just maybe, he was worthy of a woman like Hailey O'Brien.

Gulping for air, Wolf climbed into the car and sat behind the driver's seat. He leaned on the steering wheel and cradled his head on his forearms.

Dear Lord, I…

He didn't know what to pray for first, there were so
many requests running through his mind. He knew he wanted to find a purpose beyond himself, something that meant he was more than just a guy who'd randomly survived an IED attack, while better men had died.

But, wait, he already had such a purpose. He already had a worthy goal.

At last, he knew what to pray. “Lord, I need Your help with Hailey. I need Your guidance. But if You remain silent, if You refuse Your assistance, I will stop her from her dangerous quest somehow. I
will
find a way.”

No matter the cost.

H
ailey found Wolf sitting alone in his car. He leaned heavily on the steering wheel, with one foot resting on Stella's floorboard and the other flat on the concrete. He hadn't noticed Hailey yet, probably because he was looking straight ahead, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

All that masculine vulnerability radiating out of him took her breath away. Tears leaked out of her eyes. She brushed them away with a quick swipe. It was so easy to forget this big, charming man had just returned from a war zone where he'd lost four of his men, including his best friend.

Searching for the right words, Hailey wheeled the overflowing shopping cart out of the way of traffic and stopped next to him. “Wolf?”

He blinked once, twice, then swung around to face her.

The war of emotions raging in his gaze evened out at last and his expression cleared.

Wolf was back.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Hailey crouched down in
front of him. “I was worried about you,” she whispered, afraid to say the words too loudly.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and something moved inside her, something good and permanent and
terrifying
. She was falling for this gorgeous, sad, courageous man, and she wasn't sure what came next.

Wolf's gaze softened. “Thank you, Hailey.”

“For…for what?”

“For knowing what to do back there. For getting me out of the store before something bad happened. No one has ever cared about me like that.” His blue eyes flickered with gratitude. “I owe you. I—”

He broke off, blinked. Blinked again. He had more to say. She saw it in the way the muscles jumped in his jaw, but then his gaze filled with a different sort of intent and he leaned forward.

Hailey's stomach dropped to her toes at the same moment Wolf's mouth pressed lightly against hers.

He was actually kissing her. Right there, in the middle of the busiest parking lot in Savannah. And…and…
she
was kissing him back. Rather enthusiastically, if she did say so herself.

Surprised at her behavior, Hailey lost her balance. Wolf caught her with a hand behind her back, the movement enough to break the kiss.

He smiled slowly and her stomach performed a perfect roll.

“Well,” he said, still grinning.

“Well,”
she repeated.

“I didn't plan that.”

“I…I know.” She angled her head slightly away. This good-looking, flawed soldier had too much power over her, enough to make her start building dreams of happily-ever-after around him.

Was that why he'd kissed her? Had it all been part of his plan? To distract her from her goal?

“This doesn't change anything,” she said with only a hint of her usual conviction. “I'm still going to the Middle East.”

He knuckled a lock of her hair off her face. “I'd be disappointed if a simple kiss could change your mind that easily.”

Simple? Who was he kidding? There was nothing
simple
about that kiss, and they both knew it.

“Of course.” He twirled the errant strand around his finger. “I think it's only fair to warn you that I'm still going to do everything in my power to sway you to my way of thinking.”

“I'd be disappointed if a simple kiss could change your mind that easily,” she said, using his own words against him.

He laughed, a quick burst of humor. Finally, he looked like his old self again, enough that internal warning bells sounded the alarm in Hailey's head. “We have a lot of bags to unload,” she reminded them both. “We should probably get to it.”

He looked over her shoulder and grimaced. “Right.” He helped her stand. “Come on. We're burning daylight.”

Working in silence, they stashed the bags in the trunk. Ever the gentleman, Wolf helped Hailey into her seat before heading to his side of the car.

While he rounded the front end, she debated whether or not to bring up the incident in the store. Over the last week, she'd done considerable research about returning war veterans and their unique struggles. Wolf had some clear signs of battle fatigue, but not all of them.

According to one article, too many people pretended
nothing was wrong. But silence was often the biggest detriment to a soldier's healing. If Wolf was going to overcome whatever was bothering him, he
had
to talk about it.

Sorting through several different approaches to the conversation, Hailey waited until he shut the car door and turned to look at her. “Ready?”

She shook her head. “No. First, I'd like you to tell me what happened back there.”

“We, uh—” he looked quickly away “—kissed?” Yes. Oh,
yes,
they had. But that wasn't what she meant. “Lovely as it was, I'm not talking about our kiss.”

“You thought it was…
lovely?
” He didn't seem to know what to make of that.

“No, actually, I thought it was spectacular.”

“Yeah.” A very masculine grin spread across his lips. “It was.”

Refusing to let him sidetrack her—which, unfortunately, he was on the verge of doing—Hailey refocused the conversation. “I was talking about what happened in the store.”

His smile vanished, but he didn't seem as disturbed by the question as she would have expected. In fact, he looked like he wanted to talk. Which, according to Hailey's research, was a really,
really
good sign.

She relaxed back against her seat in relief, until she realized he wasn't actually talking. Not yet, anyway.

Perhaps he didn't know where to start.

She decided to help him out. “Were there too many choices in there? Was that what triggered your, um…reaction?”

His lips twisted into a frown. “Not exactly. It was that ridiculous argument I overheard.”

“What argument?” she asked, more than a little confused.

“There was a woman, just behind us, or maybe one aisle over, complaining about the low thread count on the sheets.” He shook his head in disgust. “She was making it sound like it was the end of the world because she couldn't find sheets soft enough for her guest room.”

Hailey furrowed her brow. Why would something so innocuous shove him close to the edge? “I'm not sure I understand.”

Wolf's eyes took on a hard expression. “There was such entitlement in her tone, like it was her
right
to have the softest sheets known to man, when so many people in the world don't even have a bed.”

His words triggered a surprisingly strong reaction in Hailey, a mixture of shame and guilt and conviction. Her greatest fear was that she'd end up like that woman, ungrateful for the advantages in her life.

“I know I overreacted,” Wolf admitted. “It's not that I begrudge people having nice things. That's what makes this country great. You know? The freedom to choose, to achieve, to go after whatever we want, whether it's good for us or not.”

Finally, Hailey understood what had happened to Wolf inside the store. “You want people in this country to appreciate what we have,” she ventured. “That's what got you so upset, the woman's lack of gratitude.”

He shrugged. “My anger was out of proportion to the situation. I've never been that furious in my life. Not even when my mother walked out and left me to care for my alcoholic father all by myself.”

What?
His mother had abandoned him? Hailey forgot all about soft sheets and sufficient gratitude. It took all her mental effort to fight off the powerful rush of anger
slamming through her. The emotion was so strong she could hardly breathe.

“How old were you when she left?” she asked, her voice sounding oddly calm, considering the fury building inside her. “Ten.”

So young? “Oh, Wolf, how awful.”

He looked at her oddly. “Didn't you say Clay told you about me?”

She nodded, unsure why he'd steered the conversation in that direction.

“Clay never told you about my childhood?”

“Of course not,” she assured him. “He wouldn't have betrayed your confidence like that.”

Instead of offering comfort, her words seemed to make him tenser. “I don't understand what you mean.”

There was so much confusion in him. Didn't he realize how loyal Clay had been to their friendship? “The circumstance of your childhood wasn't Clay's secret to tell, not even to me. He kept his descriptions to your character and how it showed in everyday, ordinary events.”

Like how Wolf always had time to play soccer with the local Iraqi kids, even when he was exhausted from a full day's grueling work. How he accepted the dangerous missions others didn't want to take. How he would speak with his soldiers, whenever, wherever, no matter the situation or problem.

So caught up in trying to remember the rest of what Clay had said, Hailey barely noticed Wolf shutting down again. With very controlled movements, he slipped on his sunglasses and reached for the ignition.

“Wait.” She placed her hand over his. “Did you say
you had to take care of your alcoholic father? All by yourself?”

He let go of the key and sat back. “You caught that, huh?”

“But you were only ten years old.” A baby, really. At that age she'd had nothing more on her mind than dance classes, swimming lessons and what candy to pick at the movies.

“I grew up fast,” he said.

And suffered for it, she thought, in ways she couldn't possibly understand. A child should never have to be that responsible at such a young age. “I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you.”

“You have no idea.” He ran his fingertip along the steering wheel, round and round and round. “My father was a mean drunk.”

Hailey hurt for the little boy he'd once been. So much her heart ached. Not only had he been forced to become an adult at the age of ten, he'd clearly been wounded by the two people he was supposed to rely on most, his parents. Yet, despite all his hardships, Wolf had turned out to be an exceptional leader, a man others trusted with their lives.

Clay had said Wolf was the best person he knew. Hailey completely agreed.

Tentatively, she reached out and touched his hand. When he didn't pull away, she curled her fingers around his.

He stared at their joined hands for a long moment. “The Army is the only real family I've ever known. But now, after the bombing—” he swallowed hard “—even that's tainted.”

Unable to stop herself, Hailey pressed a tender kiss to his cheek, then fell back in her seat once again.

He touched the place where she'd kissed him, smiled briefly then dropped his hand and scowled again. “I go over the details of that day in my head, over and over again, wondering how I missed the signs of the IED.”

Hailey's eyes widened at the self-recrimination in his voice. “You don't actually believe the accident was your fault?”

“Maybe I do.” His words came out barely audible.

What a terrible, terrible burden to carry all these months. “Were you driving?” she asked. “Is that why you think you're to blame?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Clay was behind the wheel. Like always. But, Hailey, I was the Truck Commander.” He looked at her with genuine remorse in his eyes. “It was my job to be on the lookout for trouble.”

She supposed that argument made an odd sort of sense—to him. But it wasn't the full story. It couldn't be. He was leaving too much out. Nothing in life was ever that black-and-white.

“If my brother was driving, like you said, doesn't that mean he missed the bomb, too? And what about the gunner?” She pictured in her mind the Humvee Clay had once shown her. “If he was standing in the turret, wouldn't he have had a fuller range of vision than either you or Clay?”

“We all missed the bomb,” Wolf said quietly. “But it was my sole responsibility to see it in time.”

Knowing exactly what to say, Hailey touched his shoulder. “Wolf. I don't blame you for Clay's death.”

The muscles beneath her hand tensed. “Because of my negligence four good men are dead, including your brother. I stole your family from you, all because I missed something I was trained to see.”

The despair in Wolf's voice shook her to the core.
Now she understood why he was so determined to follow through with his promise to Clay.

“The explosion was not your fault,” she insisted, gripping his shoulder in earnest. “If you need someone to blame, blame the insurgents who laid the bomb. Blame the terrorists who hate us so much they fight dirty. They are the ones who stole Clay from us. And, yes, Wolf.” She leaned closer to him. “Make no mistake. We both lost our brother that day.”

Making a strangled sound deep in his throat, Wolf pulled away from her and reached for the ignition again. One twist of his wrist and Stella exploded into action.

Hailey jumped back at the awful sound. Even if she wanted to continue the conversation, Wolf wouldn't be able to hear her over the roar of the engine.

What a convenient way to end the conversation.

Only after he put the car in gear did Stella's obnoxious growl settle into a loud purr.

“Once we unpack the supplies,” Wolf said over the rumble, “I have a video I need to show you on my computer.”

Considering the grim twist of Wolf's lips and his cold, intimidating tone, Hailey knew she didn't want to see whatever was on that video.

But she would sit through the show, for no other reason than to prove to Wolf she didn't blame him for Clay's death. Then,
maybe,
he would stop holding himself responsible, as well.

 

The unpacking and subsequent organizing took longer than Wolf anticipated. The sun had gone down a full hour ago. With it, the temperature had dropped at least ten more degrees. Wolf's leg ached like an angry bear.

Rubbing out a kink in his thigh, he looked over
at Hailey puttering around in his kitchen. The mood had lightened between them, enough that he no longer wanted to talk—or even think—about what had happened in Iraq. He just wanted to enjoy her company.