Loving the Wounded Warrior Read online

  Loving the Wounded Warrior

  Adriana Anders

  Copyright © 2018 by Adriana Anders, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Judi Perkins of Concierge Literary Designs & Photography, LLC.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All brand names and product names in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. The author is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Author’s note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Also by Adriana Anders

  About the Author

  To Terrill.

  About this Book

  She was my best friend's little sister—and the woman who ruined my life. O'Neal Jones was the last person I expected to run into on this mountain in the middle of nowhere. I wanted her, even if it was a bad idea. But this thing between us was dangerous. It tore through flesh and bone to sear my soul. Then, in the course of one night, she worked her way into my tent and my sleeping bag... The question was, could I heal my wounds enough to let her into my heart? Loving the Wounded Warrior is a sexy standalone novella, in the Love at Last series.

  Author’s note

  In the summer of 2017, I visited the Mount Baker Ski Area in North Cascades National Park with my Climbing Ranger brother. On our drive up Mount Shuksan, we passed a man pushing a wheelchair up the side of the road.

  I have no idea who he was or what he was doing, but like most writers of fiction, I couldn’t help but fill in the details. At the end of the day, we passed him again and, though he’d made considerable progress, his slog up that steep, winding road was slow. Needless to say, that man stuck with me. I wish we’d stopped that day to ask him his story, but we didn’t, and my mind wouldn’t rest until I gave him a story, complete with happily ever after.

  Happy Reading!

  1

  O’Neal

  * * *

  I swerved and almost ran my car off the cliff, pressed my foot to the metal too late, and wound up in a ditch, all to avoid…? I squinted. Why was that man pushing an empty wheelchair up the road?

  I lost my air—like a ball to the stomach—and my chest cramped where the seat belt held me back. All in the same second, shock and adrenaline spurred me to overcorrect, wrench the steering wheel hard to the right, shove my foot to the pedal and nearly crash into the rock face before the brakes finally kicked in.

  This would have been bad enough without an audience. With the man there as a witness, it was mortifying.

  What the hell was he even doing?

  By the time I got my breath under control, I turned with a start to find him bent right beside the car, peering through my window.

  “Ma’am? You okay in there?”

  I managed a shaky nod.

  “Need help?” he yelled to be heard through the glass.

  Shaking my head no, I tried to put the window down, but the car had evidently stalled. After another stunned second, I opened the door and the man was there, appearing efficient—if road worn—as he looked me up and down.

  My lips pushed out a mumbled “I’m fine,” and he stepped back.

  “Can you get it to start up again?”

  Why did he seem familiar? Shock, I guessed. I blinked at him for a few seconds before understanding set in.

  The car. Start it. Move it out of the road.

  I turned the key and nothing happened. Shit. Shit. Shit. I couldn’t afford a tow, much less repairs.

  I tried again, hands shaking so hard they jangled my keys like Christmas. Nothing. Close to sobbing, I tried to twist it a third time when the man reached through the open door and laid a warm hand over mine.

  “Put it in park.” How could he sound so calm when I'd just nearly killed him? Killed us both! My jittery eyes flew from the mountainside I'd missed by about two inches, to the hand I couldn’t hold still, to the man telling me things in some foreign tongue.

  He pointed at the gearshift.

  Park, park. Oh, right! I shoved it into park and tried again. The car turned over with its normal hiccup, which made my eyes prick with tears. Getting the old Forester to start was a miracle at the best of times, considering how many miles I'd put on it. And when was the last time I'd had the oil changed?

  On a still-shaky breath, I turned to give the man a smile, really taking him in. Again, I had an itchy feeling, like I’d met him somewhere, or maybe seen him on a show or something.

  He was big, but I didn't think overly muscular, though it was hard to tell with the thick coat he wore. My initial impression of dirt, I realized, was actually a dark, dark tan on a sun-creased face. Only the area around his eyes revealed his original fair skin color. His hair was a shaggy dark mess and his eyes, set deep in his skull, were a flat brown. The lower half of his face sported a couple days’ worth of growth.

  “You always drive on the wrong side of the road?” He broke through my perusal.

  “No.”

  “Get killed doing that on Saint Jacob.” He paused. “Any mountain, for that matter.”

  I drove constantly for work, but the fact was, I hated it with a passion. Always had. I hated maintaining this old car and hated the time spent alone on the road. It was a relief when I could bike to work. That hadn’t been feasible when the paper had sent me out here to Mount St. Jacob.

  “I’m a terrible driver,” I admitted. What was the point of prevarication?

  Apparently the words stunned the man, who let a surprised half smile slip.

  “Least you’re honest.” The look lingered and something about it made my pulse pick up. Maybe it was the way it dug those eye creases deeper, or the fresh lines that formed around his mouth, almost like dimples. Mostly, though, it was the way it took his gaze from flat and chilly to warm.

  Something about that warmth overwhelmed me; a ghost of a memory flitted by.

  “Have we met before?”

  He looked away. “Don’t think so.”

  I glanced behind him, to the wheelchair parked on the opposite shoulder of the curved road, its only passenger a worn backpack.

  “What are you doing out here with that thing?”

  After a second or two of confusion, he looked over his shoulder. “Climbing Mount St. Jacob.”

  “Pushing a wheelchair.” I cocked my head. “Flying an American flag.”

  “Just hiking.” He straightened up and stepped back. “Drive safe now.” The words were a dismissal. With a quick lift of the hand, he took off, leaving me alone in the darkening afternoon.

  Guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.

  I put the car into gear and let it roll back onto the road, thankful I hadn’t crashed into the mountain itself.

  Slower than normal, I drove around the first curve and then the next, shaking so hard my teeth actually chattered.

  It took maybe a dozen hairpin turns before my tremors stopped.

  What a day. Starting off with an assignment to cover the much-disputed pre-Thanksgiving week release of wild turk
eys into Washington State’s North Puget Sound region—an area where these turkeys weren’t, apparently, meant to live—hadn’t been my idea of a good time. I'd covered it, though, taken pictures, asked questions, gotten the protesters’ story and all that.

  The whole thing had the feel of a media stunt planned by some PR person, trying to get more business into the park just before the start of the ski season. They obviously hadn’t banked on the enviro-protesters, though. Or had they? None of this would have attracted an iota of attention if the wildlife people hadn’t gotten pissed about the release and made it into a story.

  I could see the headline now: St. Jacob Takes its Turkey with a Side of Protest. Gobble Gobble.

  And now a near miss on the steep gravel road.

  I exhaled, loud and deep, thanking every spirit in the universe I hadn’t run that guy over.

  Jesus, sometimes I hated this job.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking about that dude—so oddly familiar—pushing an empty wheelchair up one of America’s highest peaks, a week before Thanksgiving. I knew for a fact that the top of St. Jacob was covered in snow. I'd had to wear my crampons to get some good photos of the event, after all—not because the turkeys were released up high, but because they’d chosen the ski area for the press portion of the event.

  What the hell was the guy doing? Where was he going? Judging from his outdoor gear, he’d be spending the night up here. But what was up with the wheelchair? And where did I know him from? Because now that I’d calmed down a bit, I was sure I'd seen him before.

  That man wasn’t just hiking the mountain. Climbers took the more picturesque paths. They didn’t walk up the road pushing a wheelchair and flying the stars and stripes.

  There was a story here. Now that the shock of almost killing him had fizzled away, I could smell it. Whatever he was doing, it would be more interesting than the wild turkey release.

  In that moment, I had to know. What was he doing, pushing that chair up the mountain? As hell bent as an addict going after a fix, I turned that car around and raced back up the road.

  * * *

  Kurt

  The headlights hit my back, and I got one of those twitches behind my eye. That squeezy eyeball itch, in my experience, was never good. I had to fight the urge to shove Sebio’s chair to the side and follow it into the underbrush.

  I didn’t bother looking up when the car slowed to a crawl beside me. Had to be the blonde from earlier. The rattle in her engine announced her arrival like a set of sleigh bells.

  I tried to inhale, but as usual these days, couldn’t quite get a full breath.

  She lowered her passenger window. “Hey.” She paused, but I didn’t look at her. Just kept on walking.

  “Mr. Wheelchair Hiker Dude.”

  Nope, not paying attention. Didn’t care that she was cute, in a messy, hippie kind of way. The itch. Just remember the twitchy eye itch.

  “Dude, are you seriously going to ignore me?”

  “Might.”

  “You just failed.”

  I sighed. It was true, dammit. I just didn’t have it in me to fight this right now. I shoved the eyeball itch to the back of my mind and glanced briefly to the side, still plodding ahead. I had a mountain to climb, after all. “Help you?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Walking.” If I kept my attention ahead, maybe she’d let it go.

  “Where?”

  “Up.”

  “Hm.” I could almost hear her mulling over her options. Or planning her attack. “Why?”

  “You harass every random person you see?”

  “It’s just…the wheelchair. That’s pretty interesting. Right?”

  Did she expect me to weigh in on that? Nope.

  “There must be a story behind it.”

  The woman was part of whatever they’d done here today. There’d been a ton of traffic heading up this morning and back down just a little while ago. Hers was the last car to come down the mountain.

  Her driving skills were as bad as advertised, apparently. She seemed to be having a hard time keeping pace in her car and I picked up speed, although I wasn’t sure if it’d hinder or help. Probably get me killed.

  “You seriously not gonna tell me what you’re doing?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m a reporter, from the Daily—”

  “Absolutely not.” Hell, no. The eye twitch turned into an ice pick in my brain. I drove myself harder up the mountain. The last thing I needed was the media getting involved.

  “You’re clearly pushing that chair up for a reason. Why don’t you let me tell people what—”

  I stopped, hot and tense, rage too close to the surface, and turned. “Back. Off.” I didn’t shout the words, but they came out on a growl. After shoving the brake down, I stepped to the window and leaned in—possibly more threatening than I intended. Maybe not. “I’m not a sound bite, lady. Got it? This isn’t about entertainment. This is personal, and it’s none of your goddamn business.” I swiped an arm across my face, surprised to see sweat when it was so cold outside. “Please.”

  I listened to her breathe for a few seconds. Then, just as I pulled away, she shocked me with a whispered, “Kurt Anderson?”

  The sound of my name on her lips sent a not entirely pleasant fizzle down my body. I examined her more closely. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m O’Neal. O’Neal Jones. You and my brother were best friends. Jared Jones? We went to school together.”

  The eye twitch went crazy. Back up, it screamed. Run away. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “You were a couple years older.”

  A couple? More like a few. She’d been a freshman when I graduated.

  There was a smile in her voice when she went on. “I wasn’t a cheerleader or homecoming queen or anything like that. You’d never remember me.”

  I'd been clueless in high school. Big and cocky and spoiled as hell, but I'd recognize this girl—now woman, I guessed—until my dying day. “I know who you are.”

  She blinked. “Oh.”

  I dredged up an ounce of friendliness, although what I really wanted was to ignore her and forge up this mountain. “How’s Jared?”

  “Good. He’s good. Never left the area. He’s a contractor now.”

  “Long way from the East Coast, O’Neal.”

  She put the car into park as if settling down for a cozy chat; just hanging with her big brother’s best friend, standing on the side of a road in the cold, while Sebio’s wheelchair stood just beyond, alone and unattended. My hands missed the rough rasp of the fraying electrical tape I'd wrapped around the handles, and though my feet hurt, they were happier slapping the pavement than standing still. It was when I stopped moving that everything screamed at me.

  “There aren’t a lot of jobs for scrappy young reporters. The Dispatch hired me, so here I am.” Still bent at an awkward angle, her silhouette turned to face forward, where her headlights carved two golden cones into the quickly darkening evening. Shit. Time to set up camp. “What about you? Weren’t you headed off to play football at some fancy college? Notre Dame or something?”

  I sucked in a breath, shoving back the disappointment that still welled up at those memories. “Injury. Kept me out after my third year.” It made sense to stop there, but my mouth ran on. “Joined the Corps after that.”

  “You didn’t stay in school?”

  “Never really my thing.” That felt like a lie, but I ignored it. And, because I wasn’t moving, that messed-up memory popped up: Homecoming game, senior year. The whole thing was a jumble, from the second the Mustangs’ linebacker brought me to the ground to squinting at the stadium lights after regaining consciousness. I'd been taken out on a stretcher, rushed to the ER, where I'd spent more time blinking, brain fuzzy and wrong. Everyone left me alone at one point and Jared’s little sister had shown up, out of nowhere, with a cell phone and a pad of paper. Little and tough and blonde, with a big streak of blue in her
hair and piercings all over. The first time I’d seen my best friend’s little sister, I hadn’t even realized she was a girl, but that night, at the hospital… Christ, she’d been cute. And not kitten cute, but all curves and concern.

  Of course, Jared had nipped that in the bud by threatening to kill me if I ever looked at her like that again. The eye twitch picked up at the memory of what happened the next week, when her newspaper piece came out and the kitten showed her set of piranha teeth. Jesus, what a load of crap.

  “You came to see me at the hospital.”

  She didn’t answer right away. Softly then, “Yeah.”

  “You wrote that piece, with me as centerfold.”

  “Centerfold?”

  “All those stats about brain injuries, and then you snapped that pic of me, looking like hell in the hospital bed. I even told you it wasn’t my first concussion. You were Jared’s sister. I trusted you.” And maybe wanted her a little too much.

  Christ, what a nightmare. Weird how details came back, like her gravelly little voice. It hadn’t lost that rough nap, even now. “You sure know how to wreck a guy’s life, lady.”

  Something around her jaw toughened before she spoke. “What’s with the wheelchair, Kurt?”

  A minute ago, her persistence would have annoyed me. I wasn’t sure what had changed. The memory, possibly, of how eager she’d been, all full of hope and fervor, champing at the bit. Her, but also me. And now…

  God, I was dog-tired. Too exhausted for this. Not just my muscles and bones, but my brain. Or my blood or something.

  I glanced up the long, steep road ahead of me and felt every step, every crunch, every breath I'd need to get to the top. After that…

  My eyes cut back to the girl who was now a woman I barely recognized.