A Texas Soldier’s Love (The Men of Service Texas #1)

Chapter One

When a horse knocked a man on his ass, he had two choices. He could stay down eating dirt or could come up fighting. Having grown up in Texas and being no stranger to being thrown on his ass, Owen Crawford chose to fight. No way in hell would a suicide bomber get the best of him.

But that didn’t mean the battle would be easy.

One more day in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the Army hospital in Germany, and he returned to the States. Without Landon Connell, his best friend. And that was just the first hurdle he faced.

The reality rippled through Owen, spreading a numbing cold outward.

No matter what event in his life—heading to kindergarten, going on his first date, high school graduation, attending college, or entering the Army—Landon had been there.

The emptiness in Owen expanded, knowing he hadn’t been able to save his friend.

Don’t go there. Focus on the immediate goal. That’s how you honor him.

Pushing himself upright in the hospital bed, Owen stared across the room as Dr. Chapman walked in.

The doctor’s rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the industrial tile floor as he strode to Owen’s bed.

From the way the physician avoided his gaze, whatever the man controlling his future had to say, Owen wouldn’t like the news.

“I’m referring your case to the Medical Evaluation Board,” the doctor said, his voice as flat as if he’d announced weather.

There it was out in the open, the truth he’d feared.

A boulder settled between Owen’s shoulder blades, knowing where this referral could lead—with him being forced from the Army, the only career he’d ever known. No way in hell. Not if he could do anything about it. “How can I keep the board from discharging me?”

“You can’t. The board’s job is to make an unemotional determination about—”

“Yeah, I know. Their job is to decide whether I meet retention standards.” In other words, they’d decide if he could do his job, or any other one, in the military.

As to the unemotional part, Owen wanted to laugh. How could anyone stay detached while he debated a man’s future? “But what you say goes a long way with the board, right?”

The doctor shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, almost dislodging the stethoscope looped around his neck. “All I do is submit the medical facts concerning your case.”

Cut the crap and admit the truth. When you decided to refer my case to the Medical Evaluation Board, you decided I was no longer fit to serve.

Owen swallowed the accusation because alienating Dr. Chapman wouldn’t help. “How about holding off submitting the paperwork to give me time in physical therapy?”

“If I believe your condition could permanently interfere with your ability to serve on active duty, I have no choice. I know the possibility of discharge coupled with the difficulties you’re experiencing must be hard to accept.”

The doctor didn’t have a clue. The fact he’d uttered the words showed that. How could this doctor understand what he was going through? No one was making him give up the career he’d literally sweat and bled for. And acceptance? Owen wouldn’t get there any time soon. Not if he could fight.

Owen could cope with the balance problems but forgetting simple words and the fact that sometimes his brain just plain didn’t work right ate at his gut.

Dr. Chapman claimed Owen’s symptoms—failing to recall simple words, losing his train of thought, being slow to process information—were typical with traumatic brain injuries, but that didn’t make them less frustrating or potentially costly.

“Be honest with me, Doc. What’re my chances of avoiding a—” Owen paused, struggling for the word locked inside his short-circuiting brain. He resisted the urge to massage his throbbing temple. Trying to disguise his difficulty, he said, “I want to keep on serving my country.”

“Considering the demands of any position in the intelligence field, the problems associated with your brain injury would make doing your job impossible. If I were a betting man, I’d say a discharge is the odds-on favorite.”

Owen clamped his teeth together, holding in his thoughts until he’d calmed enough to speak. “Just because I’m not fit for active duty now, doesn’t mean I won’t be with time and physical therapy, right?”

The doctor nodded. “But there’s no guarantee.

The best you could hope for is the board decides your case isn’t stable enough to make a determination now.

Then, you’d be placed on the Temporary Disability Retirement List, and though you couldn’t serve, you’d have up to five years until a permanent decision has to be made. ”

That was what he needed. Up to five years for him to work his ass off to get back to where he’d been before the damn suicide bomber dropped half a building on him. And he would get there. He owed it to Landon to continue fighting the good fight.

Despite his injury, he still pictured his buddies, Landon, Tanner, Luke, and Grayson, that night huddled around a table discussing final plans for the intelligence sweep they’d execute after the SEAL team cleared out the hostages.

They discussed potential scenarios and how to handle each one.

Then Tanner, as part of their ritual and to ease the tension, pulled out his phone and played “Everything is Awesome” from the first Lego Movie.

Prepared and focused, they’d headed out.

Four of the finest men on God’s earth. While none of them had come out unscathed, Landon had paid the highest price.

Memories crashed over Owen, battering him with their intensity. His throat tight and burning, he fought to breathe. Realizing his fists clenched a wad of bedsheets, he concentrated on his breathing, keeping the rhythm slow and even until his heart rate returned to normal.

Focus on the goal—increasing your odds of ending up on the Temporary Disabled Retirement List. Forget everything else.

“How about you put in your report the fact that my condition could improve with physical therapy?” Owen cringed, hating the pleading, an almost desperate tone threaded through his voice.

The doctor tugged on his ear lobe and shoved his hands into the large pockets of his white coat. “There’s no disgrace in receiving a medical discharge.”

Owen swallowed the lump in his throat. “Please, Doc.”

The physician shifted his stance, his shoes squeaking again with his nervous movement.

When he gazed at Owen, empathy filled his eyes.

“I can’t. My role is to submit your medical records.

However, if you don’t agree with the board’s decision you can appeal.

Other than that, the best I can do is wish you good luck and safe travels. ”

Then before Owen could ask him to reconsider, the doctor scurried off.

Couldn’t make an assessment? Somehow Owen doubted that. More likely he didn’t want to get involved.

New plan. Hope for the best but work his ass off to show improvement ASAP in case he had to appeal his discharge.

Screw the doctor’s luck. What he needed was a damn good therapy program to keep him motivated no matter how tough it got. One where the staff would work as hard for his recovery as he did, but who would care that much, and how was he supposed to find them?

“I hear you’re leaving us tomorrow, so this caught you just in time,” Mrs. Wharton, a tall, dark-haired nurse who managed any crisis with a cool head and keen intelligence, said as she approached.

He accepted the white priority-mail box, noting the return address.

Mrs. Baumgartner, 234 Fuller Road, Service, Texas.

He smiled envisioning the woman. Slight frame, dark hair and round face, he saw her as clearly as when he’d been in her classroom at Service High School.

Funny he could recall those details, but not the word for what she did.

Inside the package, he discovered a square tin and a packet of letters bound together with a blue ribbon with white stars.

When the heady, rich smell of chocolate wafted over him, a picture of him and Landon pooling their allowance in elementary school to buy three plates of Mrs. Baumgartner’s brownies at a library fundraiser one year flashed in his mind.

They’d hid behind his parents’ barn and eaten every delicious bit of rich chocolate goodness, damn near making themselves sick.

He shoved the tin into the nurse’s hands. “Take these and share ’em with everybody.”

“Don’t you want some?”

“I don’t like chocolate.”

How would he face Landon’s parents? Worse yet, how would he face Addie knowing he’d failed to bring her husband home?

Forcing the memories into his mind’s recess, he flipped through the letters until he saw a familiar angry scrawl.

What had Ryder Maddux done now to end up in detention?

When Owen received the teenager’s first letter a couple months ago written under duress from detention, he’d been surprised.

He couldn’t see Carly—responsible, hardworking, determined to follow every rule Carly—having a brother who got in trouble.

From the frequency of Ryder’s correspondence, Owen suspected the teenager spent more time in detention than in class.

Carly Maddux. His first love and his first heartbreak.

In addition to her Texas sun-kissed skin and long brown hair with midnight-blue eyes that drew a man in and held on tight, Carly’s smile could brighten anyone’s day. An outdoorsy, rather-ride-a-horse-than-go-to-a-party girl, he’d loved her more than he thought possible.

After high school, he’d come close to begging Carly to go to Texas A&M University with him, but she’d refused.

He couldn’t remember where she’d gone to college, but knew she’d received a master’s degree in speech-language pathology, and then returned to Service to work at Horses for Heroes.

Since then, she’d carried on her mother and grandmother’s legacy of helping disabled veterans.

Hello, that’s you now, you know.

He opened her brother’s letter and started reading.

Dear Owen,