A Man Alone

And then, slowly, the reason for his leg injury came back to him. As the man beside his bed stood quietly, images of the mission formed before Thane’s shut eyes. The sounds. The loss of his team. The girl, Valerie. And…a woman’s face. She was dressed in a tight-fitting black flight uniform with absolutely no insignias anywhere on it. She hovered over him, a worried look on her beautiful face. A helicopter…yes, he remembered being in a shaking and shuddering helo. And his leg. No…. Somewhere in his drugged, spacy mind, Thane recalled another woman in a black uniform saying he was going to lose his leg. No! Panic surged through him. As it did, it began to wipe away his semiconscious state. The floating sensation was erased by the surge of adrenaline now flooding his bloodstream.

“Easy, Son….”

Thane opened his eyes. His leg was still attached. Wasn’t it? He was breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling with effort. Reaching out with his right arm, alarmed at how weak he was, he clawed at the covers near his knee.

“You still have your leg.”

Relief shuddered through him and Thane ceased his efforts to see if his heavily swathed and bandaged limb was really there or not. He couldn’t feel his leg, just the ache throbbing upward from it. A groan emitted from his parted lips as he fell back on the pillows. Heart pounding heavily in his chest, he knotted his right hand into a fist.

“My leg…” Thane felt Trayhern’s hand tighten briefly on his shoulder, as if to reassure him. He desperately needed that small act of kindness right now.

“From the after-action report I received, Captain Hamilton, they said a rocket launcher was fired. Apparently, according to the approaching helo rescue team, you dived behind a wall just in time. The rocket exploded into the rock just in front of you. I’m sure you don’t have memory of that—yet.”

Thane weakly moved his head from side to side. All he cared about, all he wanted, was to know that his right leg was still a part of him. The person on the helo had been wrong, thank goodness. He couldn’t stand the thought of not being whole. Not being able to go back to the Corps and be a career officer.

Nostrils flaring, he tried to settle down. His emotions, he discovered, were like the wild horses of Arizona that he’d once seen on the ranch where he’d grown up. Focusing his eyes on the somber looking man named Trayhern, he held his dark blue, penetrating gaze.

“My leg? What else?”

“According to the surgeon, they’re worried about infection.”

“Don’t let them take it….”

Morgan squeezed his shoulder again and felt the powerful muscles beneath the gown Hamilton wore. The man was in top shape. As a Recon Marine, he’d have to be. “We’re going to do everything in our power to see that you keep your limb, Captain.”

Panic seized Thane. “You mean…I might lose it?” No! No, that can’t happen! His heart raced with anguish as more and more of his drug-induced state was wiped out by another surge of adrenaline.

Morgan held up his hand. “I’ve got an idea, Captain. I need to make some phone calls. When I come back, I’ll have more answers and a plan of action for you. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you keep that leg.”

Thane closed his eyes. Pain was now drifting up his leg into his thigh, and knotting his gut. He bit back a groan. “I won’t lose my leg—sir,” he declared between clenched teeth. “Hell will freeze over before I allow anyone to cut it off….”

Morgan saw the dangerous glint come into the younger man’s eyes, the black pupils constricting and a look of stubbornness entering. Lifting his hand, Morgan said, “No one wants to see you walking on two legs more than me. I’ll be back, Captain.”

Thane was completely conscious the next time Morgan Trayhern came in, an hour later. The nurse had him sitting up, and had given him an IV drip of morphine for the after-surgery pain, but he was much more alert. The nausea in his stomach had abated, for which he was grateful. His gaze kept going back to his right leg. Dr. Del Prado had come in less than fifteen minutes ago and given him the prognosis. He didn’t leave much hope that he’d keep it in the long term. That scared Thane. Scared him a lot.

He looked up eagerly as Trayhern walked toward him. The man was ex-military, no question. And Hamilton knew the legend about him. Every marine did. The fact that Morgan had been a marine was a godsend. Marines always took care of their own, and it was apparent that Trayhern was going to do the same for him. That gave Thane hope despite the brutal words of the Peruvian doctor.

“Things are set into motion, Captain Hamilton,” Morgan informed him as he halted at the side of his bed.

Thane felt a semblance of relief and released a breath of air from between his tightly compressed lips. Somehow, Trayhern’s husky words, the look in his dark blue eyes, reassured him. “What’s in motion, sir?”

He smiled a little. “Several things. Just lie back and relax, Son, and I’ll fill you in on what we’re going to do.”

Morgan saw the hope in the man’s tense features. There was more color flooding into his face, making his cheeks look ruddy. The eaglelike alertness in his dark green eyes settled directly on him. Hope filtered through Morgan as he laid out the plan.

“I’m taking you stateside on a Perseus-owned jet that’s being readied at the Cusco airport. I have a trauma physician on board who will monitor you all the way back. We’re landing at the Sedona, Arizona, airport, where you’ll be met by an ambulance. You’ll be taken directly to the Red Rock Hospital. I’ve talked to their head bone doctor, Jonathan Briggs, who’s one of the best in the nation, according to Dr. Del Prado.” Morgan smiled a little, triumph in his tone. “I talked personally to Dr. Briggs just a little while ago and he’s willing to take you on as a patient. Not only that, but I’ve talked to your mother, Judy Hamilton, to let her know that you’re all right and you’re coming home. At this same hospital, they have one of the best physical therapists in the state. And a masseuse who works with this therapist. I’ve also contacted a local homeopath, Rachel Donovan-Cunningham, who has agreed to work with you on your case. Dr. Briggs has no problem using alternative medicine right along with standard treatment. He’ll be reviewing your records and X rays as soon as we get you to the hospital.”

Morgan saw the man’s eyes flare with shock, though he didn’t understand why. He added, “Dr. Briggs is one of the best bone surgeons in the U.S.A. The very top. I wanted you in the best of hands, Captain Hamilton. I didn’t want you put in a military hospital somewhere. I know you were probably expecting that, but since you’re on our payroll and it was our mission, you’re not obliged to go to military hospital. We pay for everything, if that’s what has you worried. I take care of my people, Captain. They get the best. And wherever the best are located, that’s where you go to heal. The fact that your hometown is Sedona, is a lucky stroke. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that Dr. Briggs is there and that’s where I’d put you, anyway.”

Morgan smiled a little, pleased with the way things were falling into place. “Besides, your mother was thrilled with the idea that you would be so close to home. In my experience, having family around, people who love you, is an asset in a long-term war of recovery, Captain. No one can guarantee you’ll keep your leg—yet. And I know the importance of family, loved ones and friends in a battle like this. All it can do is help you in the long run.”

Stunned, Thane lay there taking it all in. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. What the hell was he going to do? Knotting the material beneath his hands, he stared straight ahead. Hurt pumped through his chest with every beat of his heart. Home. Not exactly a word that he jumped up and down with joy over. And his mother…

His throat constricted as he rasped, “Sir, with all due respect, I don’t need home in order to keep my leg.”

Scowling, Morgan heard the edge in the man’s low tone. He saw a flicker of emotion in his narrowed green eyes. Sensing something was wrong, Morgan stood there for a moment digesting the officer’s tightly spoken words.

“Captain, I was once badly injured. When I came to, I was in a foreign hospital surrounded by people who spoke a language I didn’t understand. I had no one. No family. No friends. I remember how alone I felt. How I cried at night in the darkness of that ward. For me, the pain of that was a helluva lot worse than the pain in my head and the rest of my body from the wounds I sustained. Looking back on that period of my life, I’m sure I’d have recovered far more quickly than I actually did, if I’d had people who loved me around.”

Thane swallowed hard. Pain was arcing through his heart. It felt like a fist was surrounding the organ and squeezing it to death. His nostrils flared. He tried to squelch his feelings. It was no use. “There’s got to be another bone doctor in the U.S. Isn’t there, sir?”

Morgan heard the desperation in the officer’s tone, saw it clearly in his taut expression. “Dr. Briggs is the best in the country. I want you in his hands.”

Dammit! “Then, sir, I’ll remain at the military hospital at Camp Reed, instead.”

Tipping his head slightly, Morgan tried to ferret out the truth behind the marine’s tautly strung words. “When you have a home? A ranch to go to?” There was disbelief in his tone. He saw Hamilton struggle mightily with anger that flashed momentarily in his eyes. His mouth thinned considerably.

“You spoke to my mother, sir?”

The words were icy.

Disgruntled, Morgan said, “Yes. Why?”

“And she was ready to receive me with open arms?” Thane couldn’t help the sarcasm dripping out of his mouth.

Uneasy, Morgan said, “Yes. She was, first of all, relieved that you were alive. And when I told her of my plan, she was the one who suggested that she could have your room turned into a makeshift hospital room once you are released from the Red Rock facility. In fact, she said her part-time housekeeper is working on the room as we speak. Clearly, you’re upset, Captain. Care to clue me in on what’s going down here?”

Anger drifted through Thane. His fists unknotted. He wiped the gathering beads of sweat from his furrowed forehead with a weak swipe of his right hand. Breathing hard, he glared up at Trayhern.

“Family differences, sir.”

Morgan knew that whatever the problems, they weren’t any of his business. “Your mother gave no hint of any ‘problems,’ Captain. And based upon that, one of my assistants is working directly with her to get your old bedroom ready to receive you when you get out of the hospital.”

“Sir…I’ll go anywhere other than home when I get out of the hospital.” Thane nailed Morgan with a deadly look. “Anywhere but there.”

Morgan grimaced. Great. He hadn’t anticipated this. “I’ll see what I can do, Captain. No guarantees, however. Dr. Del Prado made it clear to me that you were going to need twenty-four hour care once you were out of the hospital. I happen to think that home is a helluva lot better place than some apartment. Besides, you’re going to need a lot of help. Your mother said that the woman who works for her part-time also works at the hospital.”

“Who’s that?”

Morgan grimaced. “I think she said her name was Paige.”

“Paige?” Thane closed his eyes. He remembered that name from his high school days. A beautiful, shadowy, mysterious girl named Paige Black. She was half Navajo and half Anglo. A scared little rabbit of a girl with long, black, shiny hair, a thin, graceful body. As he recalled she was so excruciatingly shy that she always walked with her head down so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact with anyone.

“Paige Black, by any chance?” he demanded.

“Yes…I think that’s her last name.” Morgan cleared his throat. “Paige would be charged with your daily care, Captain. She’s a registered nurse and a licensed masseuse. Your mother would not be in charge and she understands that. She approved of Paige taking up residence in her home while you are there. She said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Opening his eyes, Thane stared glumly up at the man. “Anything would be better than my mother, sir.”

“I see….”

No, he didn’t, but that didn’t matter to Thane. He wasn’t going to air his family’s dirty laundry in front of Morgan Trayhern. Thane also knew he didn’t have enough money to rent an apartment in Sedona for any length of time, as it was expensive real estate. Morgan was being more than patient and generous about this, and fortunate to get him a bone specialist like Briggs. Right now, keeping his leg mattered more to Thane than having to live under the same roof with his mother.

“I can tolerate the situation if Paige Black is going to be my nurse and take care of me,” he growled.

Morgan sighed internally. “I’m glad to hear that, Captain. Like I said, it has been my experience that home is the best place to heal.”

Not in his view, Thane thought, but he didn’t argue. “Thank you, for everything. I’m tired now, sir. I need to sleep.”

“I understand. Take a nap, Captain. My assistant is getting everything ready for a departure at 0600 tomorrow morning. We’ll be landing back on U.S. soil five hours after takeoff.” He squeezed the officer’s shoulder. “You’re in good hands, so just relax.”

After Trayhern left, Thane opened his eyes. He was tired, but he wasn’t sleepy. His heart in turmoil, he looked out the window and heard the noise from the traffic below. The sky was a deep blue, with a few wispy clouds. It was around noon, from what he could make out.

“Dammit…”

His softly whispered words, filled with pain, drifted eerily around the room. Home. He was going home. The last place he wanted to be. What kind of twisted fate did he have?

Moving his gaze angrily around the quiet room, Thane felt panic. He wanted to run. And then he laughed bitterly. Hell, he didn’t even have two useful legs to run anywhere on! And now he’d have to face his mother. That prospect made his gut clench and knot. For years he had avoided his mother and the ranch where he’d grown up. Even though he craved to have someplace to call home, he knew that place wasn’t with his mother. Oh, she had tried to instill the love of her family’s ranch and the land into him, but he’d ferociously resisted it. And yet in times of quiet, which weren’t frequent in his hectic life, his foolish heart would crave that place known as the Bar H. Home. And he’d catch himself and instantly deny he had any such longing. The Corps was his home, he reminded himself sternly.

His mind moved swiftly to thoughts of Paige Black. Instantly, his stomach unknotted. When Thane closed his eyes and pictured her soft, oval face, her skin that sunset-gold color that belied her mixed heritage, the thick, long folds of shining black hair that emphasized her high-cheekboned face, his heart settled a little. The panic he felt began to ease, too. In high school, Paige had been a shadow. Everyone had teased her and her two older sisters about being shy little rabbits. Oh, it wasn’t right that they had been treated like that, but Thane knew why it had happened. The Navajo people too often suffered from prejudice, and since Paige and her sisters were part Navajo, they had been branded by the white kids.

Sighing, he realized that during his high school years, he’d always been more than a little aware of Paige’s quiet, unobtrusive presence. He’d been too fearful to approach her, afraid she’d reject him outright because he was an Anglo. Not that he’d ever made fun of her. No, Thane’s prejudice didn’t run in that direction. Her large, liquid eyes had always reminded him of a beautiful, graceful deer, and he’d never forgotten them. He’d wondered, from time to time, what had happened to her. Well, now he’d find out because of fate. His life…his leg were being entrusted to her care.

She must have gone on to Yavapai College to become a registered nurse, he mused. He knew it was a nice little college with a satellite in Cottonwood, which was only thirty minutes away from Sedona. He was glad she’d made something of herself. In a way, he was surprised, because Paige had always been passive and shy. Four years of college required a lot of persistence. Somewhere beneath that quiet, graceful demeanor, she had a backbone of steel, and that made him grin with pleasure.

The Blacks had a small ranch, he recalled, a struggling one where they raised sheep to produce wool for their large extended family, most of whom still lived on the reservation. The Black family was renowned for their Navajo rugs, which were sold for very high prices around the world. Those rugs brought money so the whole family could survive. But a Navajo family was large and extended, and the money never went far enough. Everyone had made fun of Paige’s parents having a ranch off the res. But conditions in the Sedona area were perfect for raising sheep. Back then, it wasn’t accepted that Navajo could survive off their reservation. But the Blacks had, out of pure guts and perseverance. Thane respected the hard-working family for that. They worked twelve hours a day, a hardscrabble existence, but they had succeeded.

What did Paige look like now? Thane wondered. Life had taken them in very different directions. He’d gone on to Annapolis at age eighteen and into a career as a marine officer. He had wanted to follow the illustrious footsteps of his father, who had been a Marine Corps general.

Scowling, Thane remembered how his mother had divorced his father when Thane was only twelve years old. She’d wanted to go back to her family’s ranch to raise him. She’d wanted a steady place for him to grow up and become a young man rather than be shunted like a Ping-Pong ball from one Marine Corps base to another every two years. Bitterly, Thane recalled the nasty divorce and the judge making a decision that, yes, he would go to Arizona to live with his mother until he was eighteen.

Thane had always hated that decision. Hated his mother for divorcing his larger-than-life father. Thane felt once more the white-hot grief of being separated from his dad, whom he adored and took after in every way. He hated the years spent at the cattle ranch because he had only been able to see his father once a year—if he was lucky. His dad had been overseas for three of those painful years of separation, and during that time Thane never saw him at all. It left a big wound in him, a lot of anger toward his mother. She had no right to do what she’d done. Thane could never understand her reasons or her dreams. Or her.

But then, he reminded himself bitterly, he didn’t exactly have a great track record when it came to understanding women, anyway. Too many of them reminded him of his mother in one way or another, and that scored the still-open and bleeding wound deep within him.

Home…I’m going home. What a hell of a fix. What was he going to do? His mother was fifty-eight years old now. He hadn’t seen her in ten years. Then, two years ago, his father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Thane had seen her at his funeral in Washington, D.C. and had spoken stiltedly to her. She had pleaded with him to settle their differences and be a family once again, but he’d steadfastly refused. His father had died a lieutenant general in the Marine Corps, a man widely respected and well loved by those in his command. Thane tried to mirror him in every way. He’d loved his father deeply. And seeing his mother at the funeral only exacerbated his grief over his father’s passing.

“Damn….” he rasped.

The word echoed weakly around the silent room.

Only the fact that Paige Black would take care of his needs on a daily basis made going home anywhere near palatable. Thane felt like he had been thrown from the skillet into the fire. And yet his only objective while riding this emotional maelstrom was saving his leg and getting the hell out of his mother’s house as soon as possible, going back to work as a marine. Above all, he wanted his old job back. And one way or another, he was going to accomplish it. Nothing else mattered. Nothing.

Chapter Three

Thane spent his time on the Perseus jet that flew him back toward the States writing letters of condolence to the wives and families of the men he’d lost on the mission. It was a task demanded of him because he was the officer in charge of the Recon team. Even if it hadn’t of been, he’d have written. These men were his friends; they were like younger brothers to him. His handwriting was shaky and his eyes filled with tears again and again, until he was done. Sometime after that, with his hands folded over the last letter he’d written, he fell into an exhausted sleep.

At some point, someone gently removed the heartfelt letters from beneath his hands, which rested on his blanketed stomach. It might have been Jenny, the trauma physician, or Morgan himself. Thane wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. Both were from the military and he knew they understood.

When he awoke, they were within an hour of their destination. Morgan was up in front, speaking on a phone, at a makeshift desk with papers surrounding him. The rear of the Lear jet had been revamped to make it easy for patients like Thane, who lay on a gurney with tubes hanging out of him, to ride with relative ease. Pain had awakened him. Jenny, who was in her mid-thirties, with short red hair and sparkling green eyes, adjusted the IV drip to give him more painkiller to ease his discomfort.

As soon as she did, Thane lapsed once more into a deep, almost comalike sleep. He was sure his need to sleep was due to many things: his injuries, the trauma of the surgery, his escalating emotions and grief over the loss of his men, his concern over what these losses were doing to the families, among other things. And, beneath it all, lay something he didn’t look at very closely: the fact that he was going home to a mother who was more a stranger to him than a parent. And to a house he’d hated growing up in because he’d considered it a prison. The weight of all those emotions raged through him, unchecked.

The next time Thane woke up, he found himself in a pale pink room. It took him a few minutes to realize that he was in a hospital—more than likely Red Rock Hospital, in Sedona, Arizona. It was a far cry from the Cusco hospital. This room was cheery in comparison, with fuschia venetian blinds, green plants hanging near the window and several paintings of flowers and landscapes. His leg was suspended, once again, with a set of pulleys and he noticed he wore a pair of light blue pajamas. The bed covering was a deep fuschia color and matched the venetian blinds. To his left was a huge set of windows, and he could see he was on the ground floor. There were shiny-leafed pyracantha bushes along the bottom edge of the window. Beyond that, he saw the gorgeous spires and buttes of Sedona.

New emotions filtered through him as he gazed upon the red rock country where he’d grown up, noticing once more how the red sandstone was sandwiched between layers of white rock as it spiraled high into the dark blue sky. Turning his gaze from the late evening dusk that hung over the small community, he saw there were a number of bouquets of flowers in the room—bright red, rust-colored, yellow and pale lavender wildflowers from around the area. He would recognize these flowers anywhere and he welcomed their sweet scent over the antiseptic odor he’d encountered in the Cusco hospital. There was no mistaking that it was June in Sedona, for summer had come to this tourist town in all its colorful splendor.

The door to his room cautiously opened. Thane turned, his heart thudding hard in his chest. A young woman dressed in a pale blue smock and loosely fitting dark blue slacks, a stethoscope around her neck and a chart in her hands, moved quietly into the room. She gave him a shy, hesitant smile.

Thane recognized her at once. It was Paige Black. The fear that had knotted his stomach when he’d thought his mother had come to visit him dissolved instantly. A warmth flowed through him at the sight of her. How had she grown so beautiful? Her eyes were large and damp looking, as if she’d been crying recently. Yet the look in them welcomed him with undeniable warmth and recognition.