“Oh, outside. Definitely outside.” She leaned back into the chair, gazing ahead, as ordered, and controlled the urge to cheer as he wheeled her out of the room, down the hall, and past the nurses’ station. Reade glanced up from his paperwork. Her left fist clenched. He’d better not stop them. The Corpsman waved them on with an easy grin, but she didn’t let go of her breath until they reached the end of the hallway and the automatic doors hummed open. A breeze of hot air licked her face as Logan pushed her outside.
The sun dazzled her and she squinted against the brightness.
“Want sunglasses?” His baritone stroked her ears. She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun.
“Nope. Just walk.” She couldn’t begin to describe how great the blistering heat felt on her skin. A sluggish breeze moved the humid air around, carrying the scent of green grass, fresh mulch, and the distant sound of laughter. Peeling her eyelids open, she squinted at the trees they strolled toward. They promised shade, but she almost didn’t want to go back into the dark.
Too much of her recent past had been swallowed by darkness, and she could barely piece together the slivers of memory from the explosion, much less her time in the different hospitals. She didn’t remember Bagram at all. Ramstein returned to her in the vaguest little fragments. Most of her memories came from Mike’s Place—well, inside the hospital wing of Mike’s Place. She hadn’t actually seen outside beyond a glimpse here or there through windows as she’d been wheeled from one place to another.
“Doing okay?” They plunged into the shade beneath the first line of trees. The warning headache pressing against the back of her eyes receded.
“Oh, yeah.”
The wheelchair stopped and Logan circled around to squat in front of her. He was dressed in his customary T-shirt and jeans. The white was a stark contrast to his tanned skin while the circular collar didn’t hide the march of puckered skin down the left side of his neck. His entire left side was a mottle of burn damage, souvenirs earned following an IED flipping his vehicle in Iraq. She knew some of the details, but not all of them.
“Don’t pull the Marine card. If there’s a problem, you let me know. We’re on shaky ground with the docs, but they agreed that getting you outside for a little R&R outweighed the risks.”
She reached out to trace a trembling touch down his cheek to the damaged corner of his mouth. The rough ridges couldn’t disguise the beautiful man underneath his battle scars. He leaned into her touch, rubbing against her fingers.
“Not pulling a Marine card. I like being out here. It doesn’t smell like antiseptic.” It smelled like sunshine, heat, green growth, and the barest hint of water as though the sprinklers had run. Or maybe it had rained? What did she know of the actual weather forecast?
“Good. James wants to come and see you.”
She brushed her thumb against his lower lip. “Who’s James?”
“Doc.” The name didn’t ring any bells nor did the designation.
“You don’t think I have enough doctors?”
He caught her wandering thumb with his teeth and gave it a nip. “He’s the doc I told you about, the one I work with.”
The psychologist. She dropped her hand and leaned back. “I’m fine. I don’t need a shrink.”
“You’re not fine. You’re beautiful, stubborn, and glorious. But you’re not fine. You’ve been through hell, and there’s a lot more hell to go. James gets it. He can help you.” He caught her hand when she would have folded it back into her lap. He stroked her palm, massaging relief with the heel of his hand. “You just started your PT. You’re not even cleared for full scale PT until they finish your scans, and Neuro signs off.”
Her grip on a ball was weak and that was just the beginning. Mutiny tightened her jaw. “I’ll handle it.”
“Yep. You will. But going through it without the right support is like going into a combat zone without intelligence.”
“And that never happens.” She snorted. In theatre, intelligence came in drips and drabs. It didn’t—and often couldn’t—take into account impulse decisions or snap judgments. Marines acted on the situation, in the moment, and often under fire. They planned when they could afford to and relied on their training, ingenuity, and fellow Marines for the rest.
“Jazz.” Logan tightened his grip on her hand. “You need to talk to someone. You want to choose someone else, that’s fine. But I trust James.”
She wanted to dismiss the offer, brush it aside with the assurance that she would recover without all that. But four long weeks after the IED and she was doing well to remember who the doctors and nurses were. The seizures seemed to lessen but not the headaches. Her hand wouldn’t cooperate.