Homecoming Hero (13 page)

W
olf stood inside the country club, trying not to feel stiff and uncomfortable among the pretty people of Savannah. While he waited for the coat-check girl to return with his and Hailey's claim checks, he pretended not to notice the wary stares thrown his way, or the wide berth most people gave him.

Obviously, this particular country club didn't have a lot of military personnel among its membership. Like that was a big shocker.

He hid a yawn behind a slow, deep breath. His leg had started to ache hours ago, the lingering pain a constant reminder of what had happened that day in Iraq. Twice now Hailey had sent him reeling with her words of encouragement and forgiveness. She really didn't blame Wolf for her brother's death. He accepted that now, felt blessed by it.

If he was honest with himself, he'd rather be somewhere alone with Hailey, where they could talk, just the two of them. She'd be leaving for Haiti soon and he didn't want her boarding the airplane until matters were a little less volatile between them. Nevertheless, she'd
been incredibly brave this morning. It was only fair he held up his end of the bargain tonight.

Compelled, he glanced over at his lovely date. She was still speaking to the elderly couple she'd introduced him to when they'd first arrived. The Pattersons seemed nice enough. He shot a smile in their direction and tried to keep his thoughts clear, but they kept circling back to the conversation he'd had with Hailey on the beach.

Now that she'd forgiven him, she wanted him to forgive himself, as if it were just a matter of changing his mind-set.

Well, forgiveness wasn't something Wolf had much experience with, not with the sort of childhood he'd endured. Survival, now
that
he understood. Wolf had lived the first fifteen years of his life in a vicious cycle of abuse and poverty. But he'd gotten out. Was it now his turn to give back?

A warm sense of destiny settled over him.

In the next moment the coat-check girl returned. He took the two slips she offered him with a smile and then turned back to his date.

His breath hitched in his chest. Hailey stood alone now, under a beacon of golden light, her smile solely for him.

He took a moment to simply enjoy the view.

The woman was all female curves in a fitted green dress. The color matched her glorious eyes. She'd piled her hair on top of her head in a messy array of curls that managed to look very elegant. At first glance her hair looked dark, almost black, but under the light Wolf could see the deep red undertones. The color reminded him of cherry cola. His new favorite drink.

“What?” Hailey cocked her head at him, her brow furrowed into a cute little frown.

He closed the distance a bit more, inhaling her perfume. He loved that spicy, floral scent that was solely hers. “I didn't say anything.”

Her frown deepened. “You didn't have to. You have a strange look on your face.”

He twirled one of her dark curls between his thumb and forefinger. “I was just admiring the view.” He dropped his hand. “If I haven't told you already, you look beautiful tonight, Hailey. Really stunning.”

And Wolf was feeling incredibly tender toward her. The sensation made his heart pound so hard his chest hurt. Which wasn't altogether a terrible sensation, just…unsettling.

“Well, I—” She visibly swallowed. “Thank you, Wolf. You look beautiful, too. I mean—” she gave a little self-conscious laugh “—you look handsome. The uniform is working for you.”

He leaned in closer, catching another whiff of her precious scent. “But is it working for you?”

“Oh, yeah.” Her eyes looked a little dazed. “It's really working for me.”

“Then I'm glad I wore it.”

They smiled at one another.

“So where do we go next?” he asked, prepared to brave the rest of the evening for Hailey's sake.

“The first room on our left.” She hooked her arm through his and tugged him down yet another over-decorated hallway.

“What's in there?”

“The silent auction. Since we have over an hour before the dinner is served I figure we can see if there's anything worth bidding on tonight.”

“Sure, why not?”

For the next ten minutes, they meandered through
the room reserved for the silent auction. There were at least a hundred items up for sale.

There were fancy hotel stays with opening bids more than Wolf made in a month. There were weekend getaways, spa treatments, the latest electronic gadgets, lunches with dignitaries. But the one item that really grabbed Wolf's attention was the ridiculous opportunity to spend the afternoon with Uga, the famous bulldog mascot for the University of Georgia.

“Why would anyone want to pay money to spend the day with a glorified mutt,” he wondered out loud, looking down the rather long line of handwritten bids. He zeroed in on the most recent number recorded. “Would you look at that, someone bid eight hundred dollars. That's insane.”

“Shh.” Hailey looked over her shoulder with a horrified expression on her face. “Somebody might hear you.”

“Did you just shush me?” he asked, trying not to laugh. “Over a dog named U-G-A?”

She swung back around to glare at him. “Don't you dare make fun of my favorite bulldog.” She actually sounded offended. “And, for your information, his name is pronounced
Ugh-ah.
”

Apparently, it was up to Wolf to give the woman a reality check. All that oxygen-deprived air in the plane must have left her a little loopy. “He's a dog, Hailey.”

“You might want to take note, Captain Wolfson. People around here take their college football very seriously.
And
their mascots.”

“Let me guess,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “You went to the University of Georgia and now have an unhealthy fondness for smushed-faced dogs.”

“Smushed-faced dogs?” Head high, she yanked a
pen out of her purse. Keeping her eyes glued to his, she scribbled down a bid.

He leaned over and read the outrageous amount. “And you think I'm crazy for jumping out of airplanes?”

“It's for a good cause.”

He said nothing, mainly because he liked her all worked up like this. Not that he'd tell her so. He wanted to get out of here in one piece.

Giving in to a smile, Wolf took in the room with a quick swoop. “So this is how you used to raise money for all your causes? Pawning off stuff to the rich folks of Savannah?”

She didn't answer right away, but instead looked around the room as he had done, perhaps trying to see the situation from his perspective. “A silent auction might seem like an odd way to raise money.” She lowered her voice. “But some people will only give to a charity if they're getting something in return.”

Yeah, he'd already figured that one out on his own. “What percentage of the night's take goes to the kids?”

She blew a tendril of hair away from her face. “All the items are donated, Wolf. The foundation gets a hundred percent of the proceeds.”

Well, that was something at least.

“Don't look so disappointed,” she said. “This isn't a Christian organization, but the people in attendance do care about their community.”

She linked her arm through his and steered him out of the room before he could respond. “Come on, let's go take a look at the gardens. They're beautiful this time of year.”

He chuckled at her transparent attempt to change the subject. “Smooth, Hailey. Very smooth.”

“The money from the auction is only a portion of what we'll raise tonight,” she said, once they left the room.

“How else will you get funding?”

She slid a glance at him from beneath her lowered lashes. “We place a stack of envelopes at every table.”

“Envelopes?” He had no idea what that meant. “For what?”

“After the presentation the chairman of the board will get up and ask everyone to consider giving a donation directly to the foundation.”

Wolf rubbed a finger over his temple, trying to relinquish the pressure of the headache building behind his eyes. The people were here, like Hailey said, and they were providing money for a good cause, yet something about the evening felt off. He couldn't figure out what.

“Wolf. No matter why the checks are written, the important point is the children win out in the end.”

Okay, she had a point. A valid one. “Speaking of which, where are the kids?”

She stopped walking and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I haven't seen a single kid here tonight. Why not?” When he was young he would have given anything for the kind of meal they were going to serve later.

“The children can't be here tonight. It wouldn't be…it wouldn't be…” She looked at him helplessly. “Well, it wouldn't be appropriate.”

“Why not?”

She gave him a shrug. But something in the gesture increased the tension in him. “Oh, I get it. They aren't good enough for this crowd.” Just like he hadn't been good enough when he'd been a kid.

“No.” Her hand practically clawed at his arm. “That's
not what I meant at all. This entire evening is about the children, and the rec center we're going to build for them with the money we raise.”

“Have you met any of the kids yourself?”

“Well, no.” She dropped her head. “But I—”

He didn't wait for the rest. So this was the old Hailey. No wonder she'd been so determined to change. But had she really? She hadn't even met the kids she was supposed to be helping. He picked up his pace, not wanting to continue this discussion.

Hailey followed hard on his heels. She grabbed his arm and dragged him toward a door leading to an outdoor balcony.

The cold slapped him in the face, but she kept dragging him across the marble stones. Click, click, click, her heels struck like hammers to nails.

She stopped abruptly. The night closed in around them, like a phantom. The club's outdoor lighting provided just enough light for Wolf to see Hailey's troubled expression.

“Wolf, try to understand. This isn't a Christian organization.”

“You said that already.”

She started to say more but then shivered from the cold.

He unbuttoned his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. They stared at one another for a long, tense moment. She looked so tiny inside his jacket. Lost.

But was he looking at the old Hailey, or the new one? He hated that he didn't know for sure.

Ever since he'd walked into this place he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the life he'd lived as a child, how instead of writing checks for good causes his father had been too busy looking for his next drink. Wolf, like
many inner-city kids, had alternated between scrapping for food and dodging his father's fist.

“After tonight,” he said, “the people here will go back to their cozy existence where the most important problem they have to face is the thread count in their bedsheets.”

He knew he sounded bitter, but he couldn't untangle the ball of tension in his gut. “They don't understand the despair that comes from wondering if there's going to be a meal tomorrow.”

Not like Wolf understood it. Terrible memories bombarded him. Once, when his dad had gone on a month-long bender, Wolf had survived solely on the free lunches he'd gotten at school. The weekends had been nightmarish, but he'd lived through them.

In the end, the Army had been his ticket out.

But not every kid could take that route.

Something has to be done for the rest.
The thought was so clear in his head he wondered where it had come from.

“Oh, Wolf.” Hailey shifted closer to him. “This is what I've been trying to tell you ever since we met.”

“Come again?”

“Don't get me wrong, these types of functions serve a purpose. But you're right. Many of the people in there are just like you described. And for the last twenty-five years of my life, I was one of them.”

He heard the familiar sorrow in her voice, but tonight it sounded more like guilt than regret.

“I never got my hands dirty, Wolf, because no one ever taught me how.”

“That's your excuse?”

“No. Not an excuse. An explanation of who I used to be. But everything changed for me when Clay died.
He'd been planting seeds for months prior to the day of the bombing. His death gave me the final push.”

Wolf admired the courage it must have taken Hailey to take that hard look at her life. But her role model had been a hardened soldier stuck in a war zone. If only Wolf could see what Clay had put in his e-mails he might have a better idea how to proceed.

“I don't want to be insulated anymore.” Hailey wrapped his coat tighter around her shoulders. “I want to get to know the people I serve, personally. I want to live with them, cry with them, find joy and hope with them. I did a little of that in Jamaica. It's what I hope to do in Haiti and ultimately in the Middle East.”

Admirable, yes, but again Wolf was struck with the notion that Hailey was still living with blinders on, unable to see the need right next to her. “You don't have to go to the Middle East to do what you just described.”

“It's where Clay went.”

Yep, now he knew for certain. Her perspective was skewed. “Your brother was sent to the Middle East. Stop romanticizing what he did over there. He was a soldier who lived in a war zone, and all that that implies. People are killed on a daily basis. Some are even tortured in brutal, unimaginable ways.”

“Exactly.” Her conviction all but radiated out of her. “There are innocent people who live in those war zones. People who aren't trained soldiers. Somebody has to care about them. Somebody has to show them the love of Christ. And that somebody is going to be me.”

“How do you know it's supposed to be you?”

“I just do.”