Homecoming Hero Read online

  A former soldier turned pastor. Talk about a walking, talking nightmare for a man who didn’t want to discuss the military or what had happened in Iraq or anything to do with the good Lord.

  Wolf had to give the guy points, though. J.T. didn’t flinch under his scrutiny.

  Hailey cleared her throat. “J.T., Wolf was a friend of Clay’s. They were together in Iraq.”

  J.T. nodded at Wolf, and a moment of camaraderie passed between them. Wolf didn’t know what to do with that. He’d decided to dislike the man, on principle if nothing else. But he realized that wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d first thought.

  “How long have you been home, soldier?”

  “Since this morning.”

  J.T. cocked his head. “Did they have a welcome-home parade at Cottrell Field?”

  Wolf rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “I chose not to attend.”

  He’d told himself it was because he’d been focused on getting to Hailey and fulfilling his duty. But his reasons were more complicated than that.

  Without Clay and the others marching by his side, Wolf didn’t deserve a welcome-home celebration.

  Had he seen that bump in the road, had he paid more attention to that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that day, all four of his fallen friends would be here today.

  He—

  Hailey touched his sleeve, her soft voice breaking through his thoughts. “You didn’t look for Clay’s tree?”

  “No.” He hoped she’d leave it at that.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to pay homage to his friend. But when he’d pulled alongside the long row of evergreens, one planted for each fallen soldier of the Third Infantry Division, Wolf had lost the stomach for it. Literally.

  Disgusted with himself, for his self-indulgence as much as his weakness, he’d climbed back on his motorcycle and had headed straight to Savannah.

  “You really are determined,” Hailey said, shaking her head in resignation.

  Wolf stared into her eyes, silently communicating his resolve. “I made a promise to a friend. I—”

  A loud whoop of feminine shouts cut off the rest of his words. “Hailey, Hailey. There you are.”

  A group of teenage girls swarmed her, giggling and laughing at such a shrill decibel Wolf wanted to cover his ears with his hands.

  “Come on, Hail. The program’s about to start.” One girl after the other tugged on her, buzzing around her like bees to a flower. “You promised to sit with us.”

  Hailey looked at Wolf with a question in her eyes.

  “Go on. I’ll find you later.”

  She hesitated, looking uneasy at the thought of leaving him behind. “Are you sure?”

  “No worries, Hail.” He winked at her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  She sighed. “If you’re sure.”

  “Positive.”

  After a final glance over her shoulder, she turned her full attention on the giggling girls. Three steps and her demeanor changed. She turned into one of them. She laughed and smiled and…was that a skip? Did the woman literally have a skip in her step?

  A surge of unexpected anger had him gasping for a decent gulp of air.

  Did she have any idea what her life would be like once she arrived in the Middle East? Did she not understand the dangers she was about to face, merely because she was an American and a woman?

  She couldn’t possibly be prepared for the culture shock. Most soldiers weren’t, and they had training.

  If nothing else, Wolf had to make her understand what she was getting herself into.

  Not until Hailey disappeared inside a larger crowd did Wolf remember the man standing beside him.

  He turned his head, only to discover that J.T. was watching Hailey, as well. The man’s eyes were filled with an emotion that had nothing to do with friendship.

  Were the two dating?

  Was it any of Wolf’s business?

  Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was.

  He’d promised Clay he’d keep Hailey safe. And safe meant safe. From all threats. That included the kind that came wrapped inside surfer-dude pastors.

  Wolf nearly growled.

  J.T. visibly pulled his gaze away from Hailey and refocused on him again. “So you were a friend of Clay’s.”

  The words were spoken as a statement, an attempt perhaps to open up friendly conversation.

  Wolf wasn’t in the mood. “I was with him when he died.”

  “That’s tough, man.” Understanding flared in J.T.’s gaze and something else, something tragic. “I…” He shook his head. “There aren’t words.”

  Wolf recognized the haunted look in the other man’s eyes. It was the same Molotov cocktail of nasty memories mixed with guilt he’d seen in his own mirror. “No. There aren’t.”

  J.T. rocked back on his heels and then stuffed his hands into his pockets. He blinked once, twice. By the third try his expression cleared and the carefree pastor was back. “Welcome to FCC, soldier.” He slapped Wolf on the back. “Now come with me. You can tell me about yourself while we head inside.”

  Yeah, as if that was going to happen.

  Feeling trapped, he matched J.T. step for step. Something in the pastor’s manner warned Wolf to brace for impact.

  What had started out as a long day was about to get longer.

  Chapter Three

  All Wolf wanted to do was climb back on his bike and ride. It didn’t matter where. As long as it was anywhere but here. He still had most of his forty-eight hours of leave left. He could go a lot of places in that amount of time, even within the hundred-and-fifty-mile limit they’d given all returning soldiers.

  At least J.T. had quit with the probing questions and Hailey had stopped looking at him with all that distrust in her eyes. Like she feared he was going to bolt at any second.

  Okay, yeah. He wanted to take off. But he’d made a promise to Clay’s sister.

  He wouldn’t break his word.

  Pulling in a tight breath, he settled back against the metal chair Hailey had saved for him. He managed to sit through the Mulligans’ introduction before the fidgeting set in. He contained his twitching to a light drumming of his fingers on his thigh. But as the missionaries continued talking, nothing could stop the hard ball of dread clogging in Wolf’s throat.

  Open mind, Wolf. You promised Hailey an open mind.

  He took another breath. Slow and easy.

  “It’s not numbers we’re after,” Harold Mulligan said. “It’s hearts.” The man paused, and then slid his gaze over the crowd with deliberate slowness.

  Wolf took the opportunity to study the missionary. The man was just what he’d expected. Tall, scarecrow thin, middle-aged with sandy-blond hair and fervent eyes.

  “No obstacles are too big for God,” Harold continued, pulling his wife closer to his side with an affectionate little tug. “Patty and I go where the Lord leads us.”

  Patty smiled up at her husband. The woman could be anybody’s mother, thanks to her plump figure, curly helmet hair and polyester pants.

  Harold cleared his throat. “Patty and I are on a faith journey that will impact eternity.”

  Wolf blinked at that last sentence, only now realizing what was making him so antsy. Mr. Mulligan wasn’t saying anything of substance. He was speaking in fancy rhetoric—one lofty, Christian cliché after another.

  Yet, throughout the room, heads bobbed in agreement to each hollow statement.

  Had Wolf missed something here?

  “We’re doing important Kingdom work,” Patty added with just enough gravity to earn her…wait for it…an other round of head bobbing from the crowd.

  Wolf shifted, gritted his teeth. Swallowed hard.

  Open mind, dude. Get your mind open.

  “Our goal is simple,” she said. “We want to expand God’s Kingdom to unreached places.”

  Yet. Another. Platitude.

  Wolf couldn’t take much more.

  Thankfully, Mrs. Mulligan turned her attent
ion to the open laptop on the table in front of her. “It’s best if you see the people we’ve met for yourself.”

  One keystroke later and a PowerPoint presentation popped up on the screen behind her. In the perfect splash of added drama, a contemporary praise song blared through the computer’s speakers.

  For five solid minutes, photographs of men with haunted eyes and missing teeth, women holding impossibly small babies and children with lost appendages slid by on the big screen.

  Unable to look away, unable to bear the sight of those sorrowful kids, Wolf’s stomach clenched. It was one thing for the men and women of the U.S. military to put themselves in harm’s way. That was their job, what they’d signed up to do in the recruitment office.

  But the Iraqi children couldn’t choose for themselves. They had no control. And IEDs didn’t discriminate.

  Wolf shifted in his seat.

  Why did the missionaries have to show all those blown-up kids, he wondered?

  Oh, yeah, right. He knew why.

  This was propaganda. At its finest.

  Even still, it was impossible to remain unmoved. Wolf swallowed a lump in his throat the size of a cannonball and proceeded to drum his fingers on his thigh. Faster. Harder. His foot joined the erratic routine.

  Those kids. There’s too many to protect. It’s an impossible task.

  The music hit a crescendo and Wolf glanced over at Hailey.

  She was wiping at her eyes and sniffling. Her conviction was palpable, her passion for the wounded kids evident in the slump of her shoulders when one of their pictures hit the screen.

  His job just got harder.

  As though sensing his eyes on her, she glanced over at him. Helpless despair was etched on her face.

  Wolf knew the feeling.

  She gave him a wobbly smile. He smiled back, but he was pretty sure the gesture made him look less than enthusiastic.

  Sighing, she reached out and covered his hand with hers, squeezed gently then let go. The light contact, though short, had a soothing effect on him—enough to make him relax against the back of his chair and focus once more on the missionaries’ testimony.

  All right, he admitted it. The Mulligans might speak in Christian clichés, but their hearts seemed to be in the right place. Wolf still wasn’t comfortable with their presentation. It wasn’t what they were saying that bothered him so much. It was what they weren’t saying.

  Not once did they mention the dangers that came with their posting in an “undisclosed location” of the Middle East. And didn’t that say it all?

  They didn’t speak of insurgents or the bounties on Christian ministers’ heads. They didn’t allude to IEDs, except in the subtext—obviously the blown-up children got that way somehow. Bottom line, the Mulligans were giving only one side of the story.

  Confused, Wolf searched out J.T. He spotted the pastor lounging against the door frame in the back of the room. His gaze was glued to the screen, his attention completely engaged.

  What was wrong with the guy? Surely he saw the flaws in the Mulligans’ presentation.

  The missionaries made it sound as if living in the Middle East was some sort of fun-filled adventure, with the added benefit of helping people along the way. Oh, sure, the wife spoke of her loneliness and missing her church friends, but she said nothing—not one word—about burkas or the deep-rooted hatred for Americans.

  And nobody in the room but Wolf seemed to notice the glaring omissions.

  Lambs to the slaughter.

  He couldn’t take it any longer. “I have to get out of here.”

  Hailey’s eyes widened. “But you promised,” she murmured. “You said you would stay and listen to the whole presentation.”

  “I’ll be back. I just need a moment. I need…” Air.

  “I—” She cut herself off and then gave him a short nod. “Okay.”

  The woman was certainly playing nice. Wolf appreciated that, until she gave him “the look.” The one people sent him in airports and other public places. That insulting mix of hero worship, horror and sympathy.

  Wolf hadn’t expected that from Hailey.

  Oddly disappointed, he rose and stalked toward the back of the room. He had a bead on that bright red exit sign and nothing was going to stop him from leaving.

  He stepped out of the room without incident. Unfortunately, he was able to enjoy only three minutes of freedom before J.T. had the bad manners to join him.

  Well, all right. Good. Wolf had a few things he wanted to say to the pastor.

  “What’s up, Wolf?”

  Straight to the point. This was Wolf’s kind of conversation. “Those people in there. They aren’t telling the whole story.”

  “What are they missing?” J.T. sounded clearly confused.

  “Don’t tell me you really send people onto the mission field that unprepared.” Talk about blind faith. Even Joshua had dispatched spies into the Holy Land before engaging in battle.

  “What do you mean by unprepared, exactly?”

  All right. Maybe Wolf was wrong. Maybe he’d jumped to conclusions. Maybe the real presentation happened later. “What sort of training do you give your missionaries before they leave the country?”

  “Training? Oh, you mean preparation.” J.T. nodded in understanding. “Not to worry, Wolf. We don’t send anyone into a foreign country without putting them through an extensive application process.”

  Application process? Sounded sketchy to him. “What does that involve, exactly?”

  Clearly unhappy with Wolf’s sarcasm, J.T.’s lips flattened. “The usual stuff.”

  Right. “Let’s pretend I don’t know what that is.”

  J.T. spoke slowly, patiently, as if he were talking to an imbecile. Which they both knew Wolf was not. “We make sure they have a heart for God and a love of His Word. That they understand their job is to plant seeds through relationships. You know, that sort of stuff.”

  Now Wolf was insulted. “What about general knowledge of the region, the terrain, the culture? What about basic survival skills?”

  J.T. looked at him oddly. “We have classes. They learn how to speak to the unchurched and how to build relationships through common ground.” He was so cool, so in control.

  So full of it.

  “What about when things go wrong? Are they prepared for that?” Wolf frowned. “I know all about the random kidnappings and ransoms and…worse.”

  “There are always safety issues,” J.T. admitted. “But we aren’t naive or stupid. We don’t send our people into the field alone. There’s always a seasoned missionary from that region who guides them along the way, a person who knows the terrain and the culture and, yes.” He held up a hand to stave off Wolf’s argument. “That includes teaching them which areas are safe and which ones to avoid.”

  “What do you mean by ‘seasoned’? As in a former soldier, or a cop or even someone who knows how to defend himself properly, someone who hasn’t spent his entire life in country clubs?”

  “Ah, I get it now.” J.T. nodded sagely. “You’re worried about Hailey going to the Middle East.”

  “Ya think?” Wolf wiped a hand across his mouth, determined to keep his temper in check. “The question is, why aren’t you more concerned? I know you’re former military, so don’t bother denying it.”

  “Hadn’t planned on it.”

  “Were you ever in Iraq?”

  “I was there.” J.T.’s voice came out flat, unemotional. Hard. “Three times. Afghanistan, six.”

  Nine deployments to the Middle East? Not possible. For regular Army, anyway. Which meant only one thing. J.T. had been Special Forces.

  Now the guy’s behavior really confused Wolf. “If you’ve been over there that many times, you gotta know how dangerous it is to send someone like Hailey into the region unprepared.”

  J.T. remained silent. Wolf could almost see the thoughts running through his head. The sorting, sifting, measuring.

  Wolf waited, mainly because he could tell that
whatever conclusion J.T. was coming to, the guy wasn’t happy about it.

  About time.

  “Okay, Wolf, maybe you’re right. What Hailey and the others on her team are gearing up to do is beyond our usual scope here at Faith Community Church.” The admission came hard, if his tight lips and stiff tone were anything to go by.

  Wolf let out a relieved breath of air. “So you’ll help me discourage Hailey from going to the Middle East.”

  “No.”

  And they were right back where they’d started.

  “But you just said I was right.”

  “I said maybe you’re right.”

  Semantics? The guy was arguing over word choice?

  “There are some things we have to leave up to God,” J.T. added, his tone full of conviction. “We have to trust that His plans are bigger than ours and that His timing is always perfect.”

  “Now you’re talking in platitudes?” Wolf expected better from a former Green Beret. At least a little more realism.

  “Not platitudes. Truth. We haven’t lost a missionary yet. Not on my watch.”

  Before Wolf could challenge him on that shortsighted rationalization, J.T. went back to thinking. He scratched his chin, but this time not a single emotion crossed his face.

  At last he dropped his hand to his side. “I admit you make a good point. Sending missionaries into long-term assignments might require more than the usual preparation.”

  “Might?”

  J.T.’s eyes narrowed in thoughtful consideration. “We could start with a series of classes on basic survival techniques and see where that leads us.”

  Okay. They were getting closer to the same page.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Wolf admitted reluctantly. Very reluctantly. After all, what J.T. suggested didn’t solve Wolf’s immediate problem—keeping Hailey out of the Middle East.

  “And I think you’d be the perfect person to teach the class.”

  “Me?” Wolf’s heart stopped a beat, and in that single instant he experienced all the pain, guilt and regret of the past six months.