Love Refined (Seeking Providence #3)

Chapter 1

It's not supposed to be like this.

You can do this.

He sucked in a deep breath, knocked softly on the door, then pushed it open. He stopped just inside the room, taking in the sleeping form on the bed. Charles Webb wasn't nearly as imposing lying in a hospital bed as he was decked out in full combat gear.

Damon didn't want to look, but after studying Chuck's gaunt figure, he let his gaze shift to his right arm. A bulky dressing covered the end of his arm a few inches above where his elbow used to be.

Losing a limb. Every soldier's nightmare.

Chuck eyes opened, and grin spread across his still boyish features. "Sir Lancelot."

"Hey, Charlotte."

Chuck let out a curse. "I'm not in the Army anymore, you can drop the stupid nickname."

"Never. You're the one who insisted we needed them; you don't get to be annoyed because you don't like yours."

"The nicknames were supposed to make us sound strong and...and mysterious. Lancelot, for example, was the perfect nickname for someone tall, dark and...relatively attractive whose last name is Knight."

"Relatively attractive?" Damon feigned offense.

Chuck ignored his protest and scowled. "The nicknames weren't supposed to be taken from a spider in a children's book."

"Don't blame us, Charlotte. Blame your parents for naming you Charles Webb."

Chuck cocked his head and arched a brow. "Man, you look like something that dropped from the back end of a camel."

"Gee, thanks. I've been up since 0400." Damon ran a hand through his hair that needed a cut.

"The six-hour flight from North Carolina to Washington never gets any shorter.

" Damon stretched his stiff neck. The catnap he'd taken on the plane had been anything but restful thanks to the cranky baby behind him, but he'd slept in worse places, so he couldn't complain.

Except he still had an hour's drive before he reached home.

“You don’t look so hot yourself. You’ve lost weight.” Damon cringed after the words left his mouth. Charlotte had been through the wringer; he had every right to look like garbage.

“That happens when you lose a limb.”

Damon gave him a stiff smile. "So...you had to have another surgery?" Damon glanced at Chuck's arm as he dropped into a chair. It had been almost a year since Charlotte became a casualty of war when and RPG took his arm.

"Yeah, the blasted nerves kept acting up. Made it almost impossible to sleep at night. They had to cut the nerve at the end of my stump." Chuck lowered his gaze. "Even the Oxy didn't cut the pain."

Damon had seen drugs sideline more than one of his Army buddies. Not all of them had the kind of physical injury Chuck did. Some of them were psychological.

Hearing Chuck refer to what was left of his arm as a stump tightened Damon's gut all over again.

He hated to see Charlotte's military career end like this.

From the day they met at Boot Camp and realized they were practically neighbors, they knew it could come to this, but they'd wanted to believe themselves invincible.

And they had been. For more than a decade. Until their unit ran into an ambush and fell under attack from insurgents last year. Serving the country they loved often came at a hefty cost, but they were happy to do it.

"I'm sorry, man. Did the surgery help?"

"So far." Chuck shrugged his good shoulder.

"I know I'm still pumped up on pain meds, but I haven't had a single electric zing up my neck since the surgery yesterday.

They'll wean me off the pain meds as this heals.

Before long, I'll be good as new." He grinned as though it was that simple, but Damon knew the man had an uphill battle ahead of him.

"Good." Damon averted his gaze away from Chuck's missing arm. "So, are you still going to school?"

"Nah, I had to take a break from that...what with all of this going on." Chuck motioned to the dressing on his arm. "But I'm plannin’ on taking full advantage of that hard-earned GI bill. I'm gonna get a computer programming degree if it kills me."

The door opened, and a slender redhead walked into the room, preventing Damon from making a stupid comment about how difficult working on a computer would be with only one hand.

"That's right, but first, we're getting married.

Finally!" Stacy, Chuck's girlfriend, placed two large sodas on the table and leaned in to kiss Chuck.

Then she turned and grinned at Damon. "Lancelot, the noble knight, you're still as handsome as ever.

Chuck was excited to hear you were visiting Washington. "

"It's good to see you again, Stacy." Damon stood and gave the woman whose picture Chuck had carried around for the past five years a brief hug. He'd met her several times when she'd visited Chuck on his R a lifelong partner, a loving family, and a white picket fence. But he'd never met a woman he could picture spending the rest of his life with. A woman who made him want to settle down. Someone he loved more than he loved serving his country.

He could have a family and still serve his country, but he hated the idea of uprooting them every few years and having to leave his wife for long periods of time to raise their children on her own.

And what happened when he didn't come back in one piece?

She shouldn't have to care for an invalid.

Or worse yet, what if he didn't come back at all?

Stacy again changed the subject to football, which sparked a heated discussion between Chuck, who was a die-hard Cowboys fan, and Damon, who loved the Raiders. Stacy joined in advocating for the Chiefs.

The nurse came and gave Chuck more pain meds, and before long, the man's eyelids grew heavy. Damon decided it was time to leave.

"Get well, man." He clasped Chuck's hand and leaned over the bed to give him a hug which ended up being an awkward pat on his good shoulder. "Make sure I get an invitation to the wedding."

"You will." Chuck and Stacy said in unison.

He looked back at his friend as he made his way to the door. With the unfailing love and support of a woman like Stacy, Charlotte would be okay.

Next stop: Providence. Damon longed to hug his mom and sink his teeth into one of the big ol' cinnamon rolls she made every time he came home.

Grace couldn't believe this chapter of her life was ending. She didn't look forward to the next one. Not with what she'd have to go through with her mother.

Grace logged out of her computer for the last time and sighed. Walking by faith wouldn't be so hard if her future was clearer. There were simply too many shadows and uncertainties.

She pulled her bag from the bottom drawer of her desk and dropped her water bottle into it. Then she turned to find five faces staring at her, their expressions a combination of encouraging and sad smiles.

"We're going to miss you, Grace." Teary-eyed Barb stood in the middle of the group holding a large basket overflowing with goodies.

Tears sprang to Grace's eyes. She'd been dreading this moment for the last two weeks. "You guys shouldn't have."

"I can't believe you're leaving us," Jeanette said. "I know you told us not to make a big deal of your leaving, but Shirley insisted we needed to do something."

Grace felt her eyes widen as she looked at her stoic supervisor. Shirley was a stickler for punctuality and perfection. In the five years Grace had worked at Eden Medical center, the only emotion she'd seen the older woman express was disapproval.