The Embattled Road (Lost and Found Series) (2 page)

Even as he started shoving Marines out of the way, he knew it was too late. The monstrous machine hit the ground behind him and blew. For a heartbeat of time, everything stopped- sound, motion, thought. Then the blast struck him in the back, flinging him into the air. It seemed like he flew forever before landing with a sickening crunch on top of one of his men. Heat seared his body from shoulders to toes.

His burning world went dark.

Duncan jerked awake, then realized all he did was open his eyes. Reality smacked him in the face as he focused on the beige tile floor. Yep. Still at Walter Reed. Landstuhl Hospital’s floor had been pale blue with darker flecks in it. He remembered that much. Somebody had turned the page of the automotive magazine for him, but he was still strung up like a marionette, arms stretched out to his sides, in the medical contraption immobilizing his spine and protecting his burns. The mattress beneath him was hard. After three weeks in the same position, you’d think he’d remember. But no. Every time he woke up, he wondered why God hadn’t just killed him and gotten it over with. At least then the pain would end.

One of the nurses squeaked her way into the room. Pink rubber Crocs stopped beside his bed. What was her name? Lacey? Or Lainy? Something like that. He glanced into the edge of the mirror not covered by the magazine. She smiled at him, that professional nurse smile meant to conceal how very desperate his situation actually was. 

“How do you feel today, First Sergeant?”

He rocked his head as much as he could and closed his eyes. If she was going to ask stupid questions like that he wasn’t going to answer her. She circled the bed and he felt her tug at the sheet over his burnt back. “How is your pain right now?”

He sighed. She wouldn’t leave until he answered her. “About a seven.”

She hummed under her breath and moved to the IV stand, adjusting something there. Within seconds he felt a blessed wash of numbing heat roll through his body. Seemed like the only thing that made him happy anymore was morphine. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep his life away.

August 2007

“That fucking hurt!”

The grey haired doctor at the foot of his bed grinned at him. “Good.”

Duncan reeled against the mattress, in spite of the pain the movement caused his raw back. It had
hurt
. “Do it again,” he demanded.

Richards ran the weirdly shaped roller up his foot and for the first time in two months Duncan felt something. “It’s about fucking time. Why did it take so long?”

The doctor shrugged. “Well, in addition to the spinal shock you had the burns and the cracked vertebra. Your pelvis was broken in two places. It took time for all that to heal. Now the nerves are fixing themselves. I think a couple more months and you should be up and moving.”

“Months?”

“Yes, at least. Because I want you to take it easy. We can’t rush this, or it could set you back right where you started. You’ll end up in the chair permanently if we’re not careful of your recovery.”

Duncan let the information sink in, shocked. He would be fine, it would just take a while. He could stare at the walls a little longer.

His heart raced at the first glimmer of good happening to him in months. A huge chunk of his company ─those valiant men─ were gone and his career fried, literally. Uncertainty yawned before him like an abyss. But finally, that one little tickle had changed his life.

That following Saturday, anticipation thrummed through his body as he watched the clock. Sixteen thirty-four. Melanie would be here any minute. He’d debated calling her to tell her the news but decided he wanted to see the happiness on her face when he told her in person. In spite of the doctor’s assurances that she could handle whatever happened, she’d been slowly withdrawing. Maybe this could also be her galvanizing spark.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the hospital room door swished open and Melanie walked in, looking beautiful as always in the tan coat that matched her hair so perfectly. Her pale cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes glittered. She crossed to kiss him like she normally did but moved away from his side, instead choosing to stand at the end of the bed, hands folded in front of her. She kept her jacket on.

His gut twinged in warning.

“Melanie, are you okay? How was your drive from Columbus?”

“Fine, Duncan. A little busy but not too bad. You’re looking good.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. He’d shaved the stubble from his face and gotten his hair cut this morning, expecting her.

Narrowing his eyes, he cocked his head. Obviously she had something on her mind to talk about. Some instinct made him hold his own news close and wait as she fidgeted. Finally, she looked up at him with tears welling in her eyes. “Duncan, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here for you anymore.”

Chills rippled over his skin. “You mean here at the hospital? That’s fine. If it’s too much of a drive you don’t have to do it.”

She shook her head, biting her bottom lip. “No, I don’t think I can be here for you.” She waved a hand at the medical equipment around the bed. “At all. With all of this.”

Duncan stared at her, hard, until she shifted uncomfortably. She dropped her eyes to her white-knuckled hands. “I know you’ll get better, eventually, but I need to move forward with my life.” Straightening, she stepped to the side of his bed and held out the engagement ring he’d given her a year ago. Dazed, he took the ring, folding it into his palm.

She folded her hands against her stomach, drawing Duncan’s gaze.  White-hot anger exploded when he realized what the swell beneath her hand meant. She’d worn the jacket to try to conceal it. “Ahh, it all makes sense now. So, who’s the lucky guy? Or do you even know?”

Melanie sucked in a breath. “Don’t be like that,” she implored. “What did you expect me to do? Go without companionship for nine months while you were gone who knows where?”

He looked at her incredulously. “Yes, exactly, just like I did. And are you serious? I was in Iraq fighting in a God damn war!”

She broke into harsh sobs, but he didn’t─ couldn’t─ soften. She looked to be a few months along, so, just before he got injured. Hell, even if he hadn’t gotten injured he’d have come home to find her knocked up by some other guy. Betrayal turned his stomach.

Something had nagged at him about the relationship anyway. She’d been remote since he’d gotten back, not very communicative. She’d moved to her parent’s house in Ohio. Hell, she’d only been up to Maryland to see him a few times since he got back in the States, and only called a few times besides that.

Melanie was needy and spoiled. He’d known that a long time ago. Honestly, in his heart of hearts, if he was honest with himself, he’d kind of been expecting this.

He looked down at his motionless legs. It was probably a hell of a downer for the party girl to think she was going to have to take care of him the rest of her life.

The fact that feeling had begun to return to his legs didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change the outcome tonight, so he kept the information to himself.

His
ex
-fiancée continued to weep beside the bed. Her audacity spiked his fury.

“Ok, Melanie, you can stop with the water works.”

She looked up at him from tear-drenched eyes that did nothing for him. She’d chosen her path.

“I’m sorry, Duncan. I wish things had turned out differently.”

He wasn’t interested in her platitudes. “Yeah, well, drive safe back to Ohio. Ship my stuff to my parents in Colorado.”

Her eyes widened at the dismissal, and she opened her mouth as if to argue. Instead, she snapped her jaw shut, turned on her heel and disappeared from his life.

The amount of relief he felt that she was gone surprised him. They’d been a little rocky to begin with, before he ever left for Iraq, but he didn’t think she’d betray him with such a flourish. He was a little regretful that he didn’t have anybody to share his news with other than his parents, who were on the other end of the country.

Lacey walked in just then, as if she’d heard his thoughts. She gave him a cautious smile. “I saw your honey leave. She didn’t look happy.”

He snorted. “She’s not my honey anymore. Guess she got tired of waiting for me. She’s pregnant.”

The nurse winced. “Ouch. Nice. Let me guess, she was lonely and needed companionship?”

Duncan looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

Lacey shook her dark head. “Sad to say, but it happens a good bit in here. You guys are long term, and a lot of people just can’t deal with the way their lives have to change.” She shrugged. “I’ve been doing this several years, and the ones that hang around the first few months post-injury will likely be around for a long time.”

He mulled that over as she fiddled with his IV. Some of the guys had family at the hospital day and night. Others didn’t have anybody. One Marine down the hall hadn’t had any family visit. Ever.

His parents had just left for home in Colorado. They’d been here for most of his recovery, until he’d told them to get back to their lives. They’d been reluctant at first, unwilling to leave him alone, but he’d persuaded them, promising that he’d relocate back there. It was the first time his father had left the family print shop for any length of time. Sam, his brother, was running it while they were gone.

He had to be honest with himself. The Marines had no use for a grunt in a wheelchair. Even a career man like himself. The thought of trying to find a job while restrained this way absolutely nauseated him, but no other option was available. His father had reassured him that there would always be a job available at the shop, but that would be the same as taking welfare.

It made him that much more determined to get out of the chair.

Lacey paused beside his bed, an earnest look on her young face. Her pretty eyes were soft with understanding. “You need to know that when they walk out like that, it’s not the patient’s fault. It’s a failing in them, not you guys. I’ve been a nurse here for six years, and it always happens the same way. But the Marine always conquers and adapts.”

Duncan snorted at the way she dropped her voice and puffed out her chest for that last part.

“Well,” he admitted. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not that upset. I think I kind of knew it was coming.”

Lacey grinned and nodded her head. “I thought not. Besides,” she said as she turned to leave, “you’ve got much bigger things to think about.”

She wiggled his blanket-covered toes before walking out the door.

A week after he started getting sensation in his feet, they moved him out of the single unit room into a double occupancy. The threat of infection had passed, for the most part, and they needed the room for more wounded rolling in. His new roommate was Gunnery Sergeant John Palmer, incomplete spinal cord injury, or SCI, paralyzed from the hips down and angry at the world. It took Duncan a week just to get a ‘fuck you’ out of him. He eventually realized this was the guy that had no family, and it made Duncan all the more determined to connect with him, in spite of his surly attitude. Duncan watched two young nurses just out of school leave in tears because they tried to talk to the paralyzed Marine and had been ripped to shreds. The only nurse not outwardly affected by his nastiness was Lacey. She grinned when he cussed her out and shook her dark head. “If you weren’t so cute, Gunnery Sergeant, I’d smack that sour look off your face.”

“Fuck you,” he snapped.

She grinned that much more and sailed out of the room.

Duncan felt slightly offended on the sweet nurse’s behalf.

“Dude, they feed you. You better cut them some slack.”

“Fuck you,” he snarled, with no regard to rank.

Duncan didn’t try to correct him because he understood where the man came from. A week ago he’d thought he would be in the chair permanently, and it hadn’t been a good feeling. The tiny, living, feeling area that had stretched up to his ankles had reignited all his desperate hopes for a normal life.

Chapter Two

A week after Duncan moved in with Palmer, Chad Lowell rolled into the room, pushed by an orderly. His left arm was bandaged and there was a stump below the knee of his left leg, but Duncan grinned in spite of himself and gave a yell. He leaned forward as much as he could and almost fell out of bed clasping arms with his ex-Sergeant, genuinely glad to see his buddy. They’d been on two tours together in the desert and they worked together well, though Duncan was several years older. Chad had been injured months ago while they’d been on patrol, walking next to the Marine that had stepped on the mine, Mike Dodd. Dodd hadn’t survived but Chad had, in spite of the traumatic injuries to his entire left side.

He grinned and Duncan was relieved to see the easy-going character still in there. Though his eyes were haunted, his spirit still seemed strong. Duncan shook his head at the younger man. “I never expected you’d still be here. I asked a couple weeks ago but nobody would answer me. How the hell are you?”

Chad shrugged and motioned to the orderly standing behind him. “Fine. Getting the royal escort.” He looked up at the orderly. “Mind if we hang for a while? I’ll holler when I’m ready to go.”

The orderly gave a laid back wave and left.

Chad looked him over. “You look like crap, Dunc. When I heard you were part of that messy ‘copter crash, I knew it was going to be bad. What’d they tell you?”

Reaching above himself, Duncan used the bar hanging over his head to shift his weight on his hips. He was starting to feel when he’d been in one position too long. “I’m okay. Busted pelvis and a few burns. Spinal cord shock was the biggie. But my feeling is starting to come back.” He grinned in spite of himself, and Chad grinned with him. “What about you?”

“Ah, well,” Chad paused to clear his throat, “you knew my leg was gone. Luckily I still have the knee joint. I’m going to be fitted with a prosthetic next month.” The young Marine looked where his leg used to be. “Damn strange nothing being there.”

Duncan couldn’t imagine. As he looked at the Marine in front of him, changed for the rest of his life, it was hard not to get pissed at the country and all the suits who pretended to run it.