The Way Home

HE’D HAD THIS RIDICULOUS NOTION that once he was rescued, his life would make sense again. He’d get health care. He’d be relieved of the stress of the constant threat of death, and he’d remember. He’d be safe. He’d be home.

But he didn’t remember. He didn’t remember that the last post he’d been stationed was Fort Bragg—which was why he’d ended up at Brooke, the closest large Army medical center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

He didn’t remember that he had a brother named Brad, who had apparently flown in from Minnesota to see him and was due to arrive within the hour.

Along with his wife.

The thought sent a rush of terror and shame straight to his gut. He had a wife. Apparently, they’d been childhood sweethearts. Her name was Jess. And he didn’t remember what she looked like.

What he remembered, what he couldn’t get out of his head, was Rabia’s face when she’d said not only the last words he’d expected but also the last words he’d ever hear her say.

You have a wife waiting for you to come home.

If the rescue and his triage and initial medical assessment at Kandahar had been a blur, the next twenty- four hours and the subsequent flight home felt as though someone else had lived them.

But he sat up in his hospital bed and went through the motions, shaking hands with the members of the team who had accompanied him to Texas and had crowded into the room to wish him well and tell him good- bye.

Their names he would always remember. Those men had risked their lives for him, and he had no idea on earth how he could repay them. He’d said his good-byes and given his thanks to Jones, Reed, Green, Mendoza, and Coulter in Kandahar, grateful to know that they would personally escort Rabia and her father quietly to Kabul, then head home from there.

Cooper, Taggart, Carlyle, Santos, Waldrop, and the Brown brothers, Mike and Ty, stood back as Nate Black extended his hand.

“Good luck, Albert. Proud to know you.”

“Thank you, sir.” He clasped Black’s hand firmly in both of his before letting go. “That goes both ways.”

“I’m sure you’ll be briefed after the doctors clear it,” Black went on, “but I want to assure you again that the lid’s on tight. No one’s going to get word that you’re back. Not from the military. Not from our end. Two people know. Your brother and your wife. How you handle it on your end is up to you. Mr. Kakar and his daughter are safe with their family in Kabul. No one will know of their connection in any aspect of the operation or of the aid they provided you—which, in a way, is unfortunate, as this country owes them a great debt.”

“The best way to repay them,” he said somberly, “is, as we discussed, never to acknowledge their existence.”

How strange that it was so easy to say those words, when everything in him wanted to reach out to Rabia. To talk to her. To know that she was safe.

To touch her. To see her face.

“Good luck, son.” Black’s voice brought him back to his new reality. To a world and a life that, ultimately, was as foreign as the life he’d just left.

NATE HAD A buddy he wanted to catch up with in San Antonio, and when the rest of the team decided to find a local watering hole and have a quick beer, Ty begged off.

“You guys go ahead,” he said. “I’ve got to make a few calls. I’ll meet up with you at the airfield.”

Mike hung behind, his eyes full of concern. “You’re waiting for Jess.”

“Yeah,” Ty admitted. It would be pointless to lie to his brother. “I’m waiting for Jess.”

“And then what?” Mike asked as the guys stood at the end of the hall, holding the elevator and waiting for him. “Why torture yourself?”

“Go,” Ty said, understanding that Mike was worried about him. “I’ll be fine.”

Only he wasn’t fine. He was never going to be fine again.

Mike gave him a hard stare, then lifted a hand in surrender. “Call if you need me.”

Ty nodded and watched Mike walk away.

He thought about going in to talk to Albert. And say what? Hey, man. Glad you’re home safe. And by the way, I’m in love with your wife.

Yeah, that would be a real stand-up thing to do. Hit the man while he was down. Albert didn’t even remember Jess. He didn’t remember anything about his life before he was captured. How could a man forget a woman like Jess?

By going through hell. By suffering untold horrors.

That could have been him… or a thousand other men or women who’d gone off to war. Any one of them risked being killed or captured every time they signed up for service. How would he feel if he’d lived through that kind of mental and physical terror, if everything in his life had been taken away from him for more than three years, and then come home to hear the news that, oh, yeah, by the way, your wife is in love with another man and had planned to marry him until you showed up and screwed it all up.

He had to let it go. He had to let her go.

Mike was right. He shouldn’t be here.

He headed down the hall toward the elevator and had almost reached the nurse’s station when he heard her voice.

Jess. Asking for J.R. Albert’s room.

Oh, God. He wanted to see her.

He couldn’t see her.

He ducked quickly into the men’s restroom and held the door open a crack so he could see the hallway.

Brad walked by first. Looking big and happy and anxious.

Jess followed. Slower, hesitant, brave.

Seeing her face, the uncertainty, the guarded hope, and the pain in her eyes, was all it took to make him realize he couldn’t go to her. Not without hurting her more. Not and still be the man he’d been raised to be.

He had no place in her life now.

So he left without saying hello.

Without saying good-bye one last time.

IT FELT ODD walking into Brooke Army Medical Center for more reasons than one. Womack, the Army medical center at Fort Bragg, was the last hospital where Jess had worked as a nurse. Brooke very much reminded her of Womack—except on a larger scale. And it was at Bragg that she’d last seen J.R. It was at Womack, while on shift, where she’d been told he was dead.

“Mrs. Albert?”

Jess swung around to see a doctor walking toward her, his white coat flapping around his legs as he rushed down the hospital hall just as she and Brad were about to walk into J.R.’s room.

“Mrs. Albert?” he asked again with a lift of his brows when he’d caught up with her.

“Yes. I’m Jess Albert.”

“I’m Dr. Jasper. I’m overseeing Jeff’s care.”

He extended his hand, and Jess shook it. “This is J.R.’s—” She stopped, corrected herself. Only family and friends at home knew him as J.R. “Jeff’s brother, Brad.”

The two men shook hands.

“I wanted to catch you before you went in to see your husband. Do you mind? Can we talk a bit first? We can use the waiting room down the hall.”

She looked at Brad, who nodded, and they followed the doctor toward the waiting room. Jasper looked to be in his mid- to late fifties. He was trim and fit and reminded her a little bit of Tommy Lee Jones.

“Has anyone briefed you about Jeff’s condition?” Jasper asked after they’d found a quiet corner in the waiting room.

Jess shook her head. “Not yet, no. I know only that he has multiple medical issues that need to be addressed. And that I need to be prepared because he’s lost a lot of weight.”