A Soldier’s Family by Cheryl Wyatt Read Free Book Online Page B

needed to know about this place.
    Why send potential SEALs to train at Coronado when they could come right here to Refuge Rehab? Only his military training had pushed him to these edge-of-human-endurance limits. Going on three weeks with ten total hours of sleep wore on him. His skin zinged with discontent and his eyes burned with fatigue. He’d caved one night and had taken a sleeping pill.
    Which had caused the nightmares.
    His only reprieve from this place was Javier’s daily visits. The kid stopped in on his break from his driver’s ed class across the street. He made Manny laugh with stories of his teacher who showed up with boxes of doughnuts, which he offered student drivers. Every time they took a doughnut, the teacher would knock points off. Apparently, Javier had taken driver’s ed twice and not passed. He was on his third try.
    Manny realized early on Javier was the same age his son would have been, had he lived. That had both renewed his grief and awed him with wonder about what Seth would have been like. Would he be the kind of kid who shunned hugging, like Javier, who preferred some fancy teen handshake?
    Somehow, having Javier around wrought healing. Manny didn’t understand it, didn’t try to. He just took it as a gift from God for this hard season in his life when he was grounded from the sky and all he held dear.
    Manny maneuvered his table to try and hook the crutch and drag it back. Then how would he pick it up?
    Thankfully, Joel returned that moment with coffee.
    “Hey, grab the twins, will ya?” Manny eyed the crutches.
    Joel set the two steaming cups down then picked up the metal devices. He propped them between the wall and the head of Manny’s bed. “Did you think about my offer?”
    He had. It had been kind and generous. “Joel, you’re still technically a newlywed, man. I can’t stay with you and your wife.” Manny shook his head. “No.”
    Joel pocketed his hands. “Don’t be obstinate. We have a huge house. Plenty of space for our privacy and yours.”
    “Okay, to be fair, though I could do without the squeaky pillows, I’m extremely impressed with this rehab center and its staff. But I can’t intrude on your new family.”
    “It was Amber’s idea. Bradley’d love it, and so would I.”
    “I understand but, dude, I’d feel uncomfortable. I’m a total jerk when I hurt and no one should have to be around me. Sure, I’d like to stay in Refuge to recoup, but I don’t know if staying with you is such a good idea. I’d be all depressed and stuff when you’d get to skydive and I didn’t.”
    Joel nodded in an understanding manner.
    “I’m really trying to keep things in proper perspective, and just be thankful I’m alive. It’s a real struggle losing my mobility and the ability to do what I want when I want.” Manny sighed. “I want back in that sky—with you guys.”
    Keys jangled in Joel’s pocket. “All the more reason to stay in Refuge for rehab. Your surgeons have said this is the place to be with your kind of injury. I checked it out. The facility has held the number-two spot in the nation for five years.”
    Manny flexed and extended his feet to circulate blood in his calf muscles. “I know. Okay, listen. Maybe I could rent a room at that B and B place you used to stay when dating Amber.”
    “They’re closed this season. Amber sort of crashed into it last year. The owner decided to add some rooms since they had to remodel the damaged area anyway. So the B and B’s out. Seriously, Manny, we have a guest room that has its own bathroom. It’s big enough we can stick a portable table in there and set up a little kitchenette.”
    “That seems like so much trouble.” Manny chewed his lip thinking about it, though.
    “No trouble for a brother. ’Sides, if the situation were reversed, you’d do the same for me. Right?”
    Manny certainly couldn’t refute that. “Maybe I could look into an apartment.”
    “Waste of money when you could have free room and