Free The Traiteur's Ring by Jeffrey Wilson Page B

tell he was concerned Ben had seen something wrong.
    “Yeah, yeah, it looks perfect, man – right as rain.” He positioned Auger against the wall again and raised the plate to the level of his hip and stuck it back to the Velcro-covered wall he had created to support it. “Let’s just get a quick picture of your hip. I want to make sure that ashtray sized fragment didn’t move somewhere dangerous.”
    He didn’t know if he would be able to tell if the giant, twisted piece of metal was somewhere dangerous. But that was a fragment he had seen before, and he just needed to see it was there.
    But it wasn’t.
    Ben stared in shock at the normal X-ray picture of Auger’s hip. The fragment the surgeons in Iraq had felt would be safer to leave in place in the SEAL’s body had completely vanished. Ben realized his throat felt dry because his mouth hung open.
    “Everything okay, Ben?” Auger’s voice had the hint of worry again.
    “Uh, yeah,” Ben said and forced a smile onto his face. “Yeah, it looks great.”
    Auger walked over to him, and Ben clicked the program closed as casually as he could.
    “What are you not telling me, bro? Do I have a problem? Am I gonna have to have an operation?”
    Auger was a giant, fit Navy SEAL and tough as nails. But his voice had the quality of a kid who wanted to know if he would need a shot at the doctor’s office.
    “Dude, nothing, I swear.” Ben said as he stood up and clapped Auger on the shoulders. “Your hip just looks way better than I expected, that’s all.”
    “Yeah?” Auger asked, still suspicious.
    “Yeah,” Ben said with a laugh. “I swear to God.” Auger seemed to relax. “You’re just an amazing healer, man. I’ve never seen nothing like it.”
    “Well,” Auger said, his face that of the kid just told he was the smartest in the class. “I’ve always been kind of a quick healer.”
    “You still are,” Ben replied, not sure what else to say.
    “We done?”
    “Yep, all done. You can stop the antibiotics. You’re all healed up.”
    “Well, I told you I’m a fast healer,” Auger stood smiling, full of himself at this amazing fact. “You wanna go lift?”
    “Nah, I wanna call Christy. I’ll catch up with you guys later for chow before the brief.”
    “’Kay.” Auger headed out of the barracks.
    Ben watched him walk away. No sign of the limp that had become so familiar since Al Anbar Province. Nothing.
    What the fuck?
    He turned and clicked on the icon for the X-ray program again and stared at the image, certain he had lost his mind.
    Then, he closed the lap top and pushed the mystery out of his head. He had seen things almost as strange, and sometimes much more frightening, in the moonlight back home.
    This is nothing.
    Ben forced away the worried curiosity and focused instead on his call to Christy as he followed Auger out of the barracks.
     
    *   *   *
     
    The connection was as clear as if he called her from the base in Virginia Beach only a few miles from their town house. That made it easier, somehow – how close she sounded.
    “Well, you definitely sound better than yesterday – or last night, or however the time difference works,” Christy said. Ben closed his eyes and could see her twisting her hair with her free hand, like she did when they talked at home on the couch. He could almost smell her.
    “I love you, Baby,” he breathed in the imaginary smell. Christy laughed on the other end.
    “Okay, now I am worried,” she said with a smile he could hear. “You have now officially told me you love me more times during this call than you did the entire month before you left.”
    “Guess I miss you,”
    “I miss you too, Ben. What’s different this time?”
    He thought a moment.
    “Me, I guess,” he said honestly. “I think maybe I’m ready to move on with us.”
    Again, he could hear the smile.
    “To where, Ben? I love you already. We have a great life.”
    Ben took a deep breath and jumped into the cold, wet sand