Owen swallowed the lump in his throat. “Please, Doc.”
The physician shifted his stance, his shoes squeaking again with his nervous movement. When he gazed at Owen, empathy filled his eyes. “I can’t. My role is to submit your medical records. However, if you don’t agree with the board’s decision you can appeal. Other than that, the best I can do is wish you good luck and safe travels.”
Then before Owen could ask him to reconsider, the doctor scurried off.
Couldn’t make an assessment? Somehow Owen doubted that. More likely he didn’t want to get involved.
New plan. Hope for the best but work his ass off to show improvement ASAP in case he had to appeal his discharge.
Screw the doctor’s luck. What he needed was a damn good therapy program to keep him motivated no matter how tough it got. One where the staff would work as hard for his recovery as he did, but who would care that much, and how was he supposed to find them?
“I hear you’re leaving us tomorrow, so this caught you just in time,” Mrs. Wharton, a tall, dark-haired nurse who managed any crisis with a cool head and keen intelligence, said as she approached.
He accepted the white priority-mail box, noting the return address. Mrs. Baumgartner, 234 Fuller Road, Service, Texas. He smiled envisioning the woman. Slight frame, dark hair and round face, he saw her as clearly as when he’d been in her classroom at Service High School. Funny he could recall those details, but not the word for what she did.
Inside the package, he discovered a square tin and a packet of letters bound together with a blue ribbon with white stars. When the heady, rich smell of chocolate wafted over him, a picture of him and Landon pooling their allowance in elementary school to buy three plates of Mrs. Baumgartner’s brownies at a library fundraiser one year flashed in his mind. They’d hid behind his parents’ barn and eaten every delicious bit of rich chocolate goodness, damn near making themselves sick.
He shoved the tin into the nurse’s hands. “Take these and share ’em with everybody.”
“Don’t you want some?”
“I don’t like chocolate.”
How would he face Landon’s parents? Worse yet, how would he face Addie knowing he’d failed to bring her husband home?
Forcing the memories into his mind’s recess, he flipped through the letters until he saw a familiar angry scrawl.
What had Ryder Maddux done now to end up in detention? When Owen received the teenager’s first letter a couple months ago written under duress from detention, he’d been surprised. He couldn’t see Carly—responsible, hardworking, determined to follow every rule Carly—having a brother who got in trouble. From the frequency of Ryder’s correspondence, Owen suspected the teenager spent more time in detention than in class.
Carly Maddux. His first love and his first heartbreak.
In addition to her Texas sun-kissed skin and long brown hair with midnight-blue eyes that drew a man in and held on tight, Carly’s smile could brighten anyone’s day. An outdoorsy, rather-ride-a-horse-than-go-to-a-party girl, he’d loved her more than he thought possible.
After high school, he’d come close to begging Carly to go to Texas A&M University with him, but she’d refused. He couldn’t remember where she’d gone to college, but knew she’d received a master’s degree in speech-language pathology, and then returned to Service to work at Horses for Heroes. Since then, she’d carried on her mother and grandmother’s legacy of helping disabled veterans.
Hello, that’s you now, you know.
He opened her brother’s letter and started reading.
Dear Owen,
Yup, I’m stuck in detention, and Mrs. Baumgartner’s making us write letters again. She said it’s something productive to do since we hadn’t done much else lately. As if anything in high school is worth squat. It’s not like I’ll use this crap after graduation. Especially calculus. Who the hell has ever used it outside of school? But Carly can’t get that. She thinks the world will explode if I fail calc. What’s the big deal if I blow off a few classes and flunk a couple tests my senior year?
But everything is a big deal to her. I hear you two dated in high school. Seriously, dude? Tell me she was different then, cause otherwise you must’ve been some kind of sick. And not in a good way. But since you’ve known her so long, you got any ideas of how to get her off my ass? So far, ignoring her and telling her she’s not my mother and can’t tell me what to do isn’t working.
Miss Little Goody-Goody needs to lighten up and get a life because she damn sure can’t live mine. You’d think she was forty because all she does is work and bitch at me. Maybe if I spike her iced tea she’ll mellow out, but I’m not sure there’s enough alcohol in town to getthatjob done. The only other thing that might help is if she got laid, but who would want her?
’Course everyone here thinks she’s a saint because she’s running the damned horse therapy. All I ever hear is how great Carly is for giving up her life to help raise me and for continuing Mom’s legacy. What BS. They don’t know what she’s really like, but I do.
Well, Owen, I’ve hit a page of writing. I can turn this in and sleep until the bell rings.
Owen folded the letter and returned it to the stack. What was going on between Carly and her brother was more than normal teenage rebellion. What worried him was how Ryder’s anger had grown over his letters.They don’t know what she’s really like, but I do.
If he chose two words to describe Carly, he’d pick honest and compassionate. That was why her career made so much sense. She’d spent her life helping disabled veterans. First as a volunteer at Horses for Heroes, then on staff, and now as the executive director.
What had she told him about her volunteering when they’d dated? Something about how the program paired traditional therapies with horseback riding and somehow that helped veterans. Sometimes when nothing else had. He saw Carly’s blue eyes sparkling with pride and accomplishment when she talked about being part of the team who helped a vet regain movement or find relief from the PTSD keeping him chained to his house.
Carly, practical and realistic, with the soul of an optimist and the heart of a fighter, possessed a steel will that refused to let her, or anyone around her, give up. That was what he remembered about her. That and how she kissed him senseless.
