Chapter Three
Chapter
Three
“You gonna fill me in on
what’s going on with you?”
Sam turned toward the door to see his
LT standing against the doorjamb looking for all the world like a
man with nothing better to do than to get all up in Sam’s
business.
Sam put down the medical journal he
had been pretending to read with a sigh. “I’m guessing me simply
sitting here and asking what the hell you are talking about isn’t
gonna cut it?”
Dev raised a sardonic brow at him as
he stepped into the living are of Sam’s rooms and sat on the only
other piece of furniture in that space, an ugly as sin,
uncomfortable as hell suede couch.
“Fuck, this is as
uncomfortable as it is repugnant.” Dev groaned as he shifted in an
attempt to get more comfortable.
“Moving only makes it
worse,” Sam advised with a grin. “Finn picked it out for
me.”
Dev looked at the sofa incredulously.
“What the fuck was he thinking? This isn’t a damn couch. It’s a
freakin’ torture device.”
“He mumbled something
about it needing a good home and having good bones, and me being
the mug that I am said yes.” Sam shrugged and leaned back in the
chair he chose.
Dev flicked him a look that clearly
said he was a mug, then sat forward, his elbows on his knees and
leveled Sam with The Look. Capital T, Capital L. It was a look he
and the other members of Bravo knew well. It said that Dev had a
mission, something of critical importance and nothing was going to
stop him from completing it, and apparently the mission de jour was
Sam.
“You ever wondered what
your life would have been like if you’d stayed with medicine rather
than joining the Marines?” Dev asked and knocked Sam off keel a
little. He hadn’t expected the conversation to go there, but Dev
always had a way of making a point without actually coming out and
saying it. None of them had ever understood just how their LT
managed to do it, but he did.
“Are you asking me if I
regret making the decision I did?” Sam asked in an attempt to guess
where Dev was heading with this whole discussion.
Dev shook his head. “Nope, because I
already know the answer to that one.” When Dev continued to simply
sit there and stare at him, Sam thought about his original
question. Had he ever wondered what his life would have been like
as a doctor?
“No,” Sam said a few
moments later. “There were reasons I wanted to get into the medical
profession, but I knew I could do more in the Marines than I ever
could in a hospital here.”
“You’ve kept those reasons
to yourself all these years, so I’m not going to attempt to get you
to share them with me now,” Dev said quietly. “And I would have to
agree with you. I lost count of the number of men you saved with
your training, both with a med kit and with your rifle. But what I
find interesting as fuck about that is that you knew almost
immediately what the best way forward for you was. I got your
records. I know you could have made it as a surgeon, and had
scholarships galore lined up at prestigious schools. Yet you chose
to muck in with us on the front lines and risk your life on a daily
basis.”
Sam shrugged, a little embarrassed by
the direction the conversation had gone. “Yeah, well as I said. I
knew that the Marines was the life for me, and as soon as I was
assigned to your crew, it was like a confirmation that the decision
had been the right one to make.”
Again Dev nodded, and from the way his
eyes narrowed, Sam knew he had walked into whatever the fuck trap
the smart bastard had set up for him. “That’s awesome to hear,
Sam,” Dev said but from his tone, Sam knew he was about to lay out
in the open whatever it was the big bastard had come into his room
to say. “You make decisions in a split second. You can assess a
situation in the blink of an eye and then make the right move,
which is a characteristic a good doctor needs, and hell, it’s also
something that makes a good sniper. So, why are you being so
fucking stubborn when it comes to recognizing how right the Sheriff
and Aiden might be for you on a personal level?”
Sam froze for a moment as images of
the two men flickered through his mind. Not as they were the last
time he had seen them, working a crime scene here at CTF, but as
they had been the first time he’d met them. All three of them
covered in the dust, sweat, and blood of an unexpected attack on a
US armed forces base in the Kunar Province. Sam remembered the
sound of the RPGs whistling through the air, the yells of the men
on base calling out commands, trying to gain control of the
situation and launch an offensive, and the air tinged with the
smell of the gunpowder and the coppery tang of blood. But in the
madness, he found authority in the blue-eyed Captain calling out
commands to his men, and calm in the eyes of the Explosive Ordnance
Disposal technician.
“Damn, I wish I had a
camera,” Dev murmured, pulling Sam from his thoughts.
Sam frowned. “What the hell
for?”
“Because I reckon if I
could take a photo of your face in this moment, and the look on it,
which I can only describe as need, then perhaps you would get off
your ass and do something about it.” Dev moved off the couch.
“Look, Sam, I’ve known you for six damn years, and you have never
backed down from a confrontation. Yet, in this case, it looks to me
and the rest of the team that you are running scared, and that is
not like you.” Dev moved toward the door but stopped before he
walked through it and turned back to look at him. “Finn told me
what you said to him that night he decided to forgive me. Do you
remember what you said?”
Sam shrugged. “Knowing me it was
probably something pretty fucking profound.”
Dev barked a laugh and pulled a piece
of notepaper from the front pocket of his jeans. “Yeah, I would
have to agree with you there. You suggested that Finn ask himself
what he wanted for his future. You made him think about a future
with me, and one without me, and for the rest of my life I will be
so damn grateful to you for that. But now, it’s your turn, Sam.
What is it that you want for your future?” He threw the paper down
on the coffee table. “Seems to me that the there are two men in
this town who want to be a part of your future. The question is, do
you see yourself as part of theirs?”
With that the big bastard walked out,
leaving Sam in a swirl of conflicting emotions, staring at the
piece of paper Dev had thrown down with a heart filled with mixed
emotions. Cursing he reached forward and plucked the paper from the
table and unfolded it. There was phone number written below one
handwritten sentence. It was not in Dev’s handwriting either, but
he had a feeling who knew exactly who wrote it.
We aren’t looking for you
to be a passing character in a chapter of our lives, but the lead
who helps complete our happy ending.
Sam exhaled sharply at the words,
knowing exactly what they meant, and where they came from, and he
was unable to stop himself from tumbling directly into the memories
from a year and a half ago that came with it.