Free Shattered by Joann Ross Page A

bending down to the unconscious soldier—by name.
    “Your work is done for the moment,” the chaplain told each of them soothingly. “You’re in Germany now. And you’re safe.”
    As eager as she was to get to Shane, Kirby paused to comment about the greeting.
    “We always call them by name,” the chaplain, who said she was an Episcopalian priest, explained. “And assure them that they don’t have to worry anymore. Knowing that they’re safe is an important part of the healing process. We welcome the unconscious ones, as well, and tell them the same thing, because you never know what they might be able to hear.”
    As a doctor, Kirby knew that was true. Although civilian visitors were not encouraged at Landstuhl, her former superior had called ahead. A nun, obviously one of the many civilian employees, told her in German-accented English how to find Captain Shane Garrett’s room.
    After walking what seemed a five-mile-long corridor (which, one of the medical team on the C-17 had informed her, was actually a mile and a half long), she reached his door.
    She took a deep breath to calm her jittery nerves. It didn’t work. As a physician, Kirby was familiar, even comfortable, in a hospital setting. But it was so much more difficult being here as a woman concerned about a man she’d begun to think she might be falling in love with.
    He was watching television. Feeling uncharacteristically shy, not wanting to just barge in on him, she knocked on the open doorjamb.
    He glanced up from the screen. A range of expressions moved across his face before he could garner control of them. First surprise, then something that looked like happiness, then discomfort, then . . . nothing.
    “Hi.” Since he hadn’t invited her in, she stayed in the doorway.
    “Hi, yourself.” His cautious tone was one she’d never heard from him before. “This is a surprise.”
    “I had a little time off from WMR.” She didn’t share how many strings she’d pulled to find a doctor willing to take her place at the Pakistani relief camp.
    “So you figured, hey, why go to Cancún or Paris or even back to the States when you can spend your R&R at a military hospital?”
    “I didn’t feel like going to the beach, my French is about as strong as my Farsi, which is to say barely functional, and there’s no one in the States I wanted to see.”
    She paused.
    Nothing. He just sat there in the bed—his eyes a little glazed from pain meds in a gray and haggard face, his newly amputated leg heavily bandaged—looking at her as if she were a stranger instead of the woman he’d spent so many hours having hot, crazy sex with.
    Maybe even making love with.
    “May I come in?” she asked finally.
    “Sure.”
    He shot another glance up at the TV, then muted the sound. But did not, Kirby noticed, turn it off.
    So far, this wasn’t the most encouraging welcome she’d ever received. It wasn’t even as heartfelt as that unconscious patient had received from the chaplain. But reminding herself that depression was to be expected with new amputees, Kirby forced the smile to stay on her face as she crossed the room to stand beside the bed.
    “You’re looking a lot better than last time I saw you.”
    “Yeah. I’ve been told I clean up well.”
    She wondered if he remembered that she’d been the one to tell him that. Their first night together.
    “I was talking about your color.”
    Her hand itched to brush some sun-streaked mink brown hair off his forehead. Since he didn’t look all that thrilled to see her, she linked her fingers together to keep her hands to herself. For now.
    “You were the color of chalk the last time I saw you. Obviously, you’re receiving excellent care.”
    “You know what they say.” He shrugged the broad shoulders that had filled out his flight suit so well. “If you make it to Landstuhl, you’re good to go.”
    “That’s certainly true.”
    She and Shane had always been amazingly comfortable with each other. Their