Once a Marine. Loree Lough
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
ZACH’S DAD HADN’T said a word since ending the “Your daughter has been rushed to the hospital” call from the Vail Police Department.
Halfway into the nearly two-hour drive, his dad said, “Keep your eye on the speedometer, son. Last thing we need is to lose half an hour while some state trooper flexes his muscles.”
Under normal circumstances, Zach might have shot back with a teasing, “Dad, you sound like a hippie.” But there was nothing normal about the situation, and this was no time for jokes.
“You okay up there?” his mom asked.
No, he wasn’t. But admitting it would only add to her stress.
“I’m fine.” He glanced into the rearview mirror and met her gaze. “How ’bout you? Holding up?”
She sighed heavily. “I’ll feel better when I see her.”
Yeah, he could identify with that. Hopefully, his sister’s condition wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as what his imagination had cooked up: Libby, broken and battered. Libby, unconscious. Libby, connected to tubes and monitors...
Zach shook off the ugly images and focused on the dark highway and his dad’s white-knuckled grip on the grab handle above the door. Who needed reminders of how much his dad hated driving the interstate with all the gasping and floor stomping going on in the passenger seat? Unfortunately, I-70 was the quickest route from their ranch outside Denver to Libby, all alone in the Vail hospital.
He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that violence had followed him home from Afghanistan, where bloodshed and battles were an almost daily occurrence. He thought he’d left the ugliness of war behind when he moved his gear back into his boyhood bedroom three weeks ago, but then, the phone call from the police.
Nothing would make his parents happier than if he decided to stay and help his cousin run the Double M. So why hadn’t he unpacked?
Because he’d spent too many years taking orders from marines much younger than himself, and didn’t want to test the strength of his and Nate’s “just like brothers” relationship.
Zach had been a fair to middlin’ skier back in the day. Maybe he’d take a job at one of the nearby resorts, teaching kids how to stand upright on the bunny slopes. At least then his baby sister would have family right there in town when she was released from the hospital.
Hospital. Would the Valley Medical Center have the equipment and staff to do more than set skiers’ broken bones? The officer hadn’t exactly sugarcoated things, so Zach knew it would take more than a clinic with an X-ray machine to handle Libby’s injuries.
Half an hour later, when he and his folks walked into her ICU cubicle, his mom hid a tiny gasp behind one hand. The sight made his dad backpedal a few steps, too. “This must be the wrong room,” he said, reading the numbers beside the door.
Libby was barely recognizable, thanks to bruised eye sockets, a bandage cap hiding her blond curls, casts on her left arm and right leg and a spaghetti-like tangle of tubes and wires connecting her to the monitors.
“Yeah, Dad,” Zach whispered. “It’s the right room.” As evidence, he pointed to the big-as-a-suitcase black purse, monogrammed with the telltale sparkly L. Summoning all his self-control, he walked to the foot of her bed. “Man,” he said, grinning, “the lengths some people will go to get some attention.”
She opened one puffy eye and winced slightly as the left corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. “’Bout time you guys got here.”
Zach moved to the side of her bed, effectively blocking the monitor screens from his parents’ view. Libby’s fingers began to shake, and he gently wrapped his around them, as much to comfort her as to hide the tremors from his folks.
And for the next ten minutes, the three of them stood statue-still, listening to her sketchy version of what had happened to her, nearly twelve hours earlier. Zach didn’t know whether to blame shock or painkillers for her halting speech, but he knew Libby. The rest of the story must have been truly horrible if his never-pulls-her-punches sister felt it necessary to protect the folks from the details. Not being able to talk about it was probably driving her crazy.
“I don’t know about you two,” he told his parents, “but I’m starving.”
As if on cue, his mom’s stomach growled, and his dad patted his back pocket. “Shoot. I left the house so fast, I forgot my wallet.”
“It’s three in the morning, son,” his mother said. “I doubt anything is open.”
Libby’s nurse leaned into the room. “Sorry. Couldn’t help but overhear,” she said, smiling. “Remedies Café opens in a few hours. Until then, you’ll find a bank of vending machines in the hall just outside the cafeteria.”
“Thanks,” Zach said. Following her back into the hall, he whispered, “What do you think? Is Libs gonna be all right?”
Bright blue reading glasses dangled from a matching ribbon around the nurse’s neck. She put them on and glanced at a printout that he guessed was a summary of what the monitors registered. “Things look normal to me.”
“What tests did the docs do?”
“The usual. X-rays, CT scan, MRI, some bloodwork—”
“And what were the results?”
“It’s too soon for that,” she said in a singsong voice that Zach translated to mean, “Don’t you worry, silly man. We’ll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it.”
Few things irked him more than being patronized. “I did three tours in Afghanistan. I know a serious condition when I see it, so there’s no need to put a condescending spin on things.”
Her jaw dropped slightly, but Zach didn’t feel guilty for his brusque attitude. Hard experience had taught him that setting the right tone from the get-go would save everyone a lot of time.
The nurse’s smile softened. “First of all, thank you for your service, Mr. Marshall. And my apologies if I came off as a pompous medical professional.” She removed her glasses and stared him straight in the eye. “Your sister took quite a beating, but from everything I’ve seen, there’s no permanent damage, and no signs of internal injury.”
“In other words, despite