Tragically Wounded Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Tragically Wounded

  A Dream Song Romance

  Angelina Rose

  AngelinaRoseRomance.com

  Angelina on Facebook

  Angelina on Twitter

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TRAGICALLY WOUNDED: A Dream Song Romance

  Copyright © 2013

  Angelina Rose

  A Note from Angelina:

  The concept for this particular story has been brewing in my mind for some time. I was particularly interested in the hero’s story – how he might overcome the terrible effects of his leg amputation following injuries he received during his deployment to Afghanistan.

  Sergeant Sean McKenzie and three military companions were traveling in a Humvee and were hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. All three of Sean’s companions were killed. A piece of shrapnel was lodged in Sean’s calf and he was pinned for many hours under what was left of the Humvee. This is what saved his life.

  I believe we would all feel the same sadness, grief and anger as Sean. I was interested in exploring how this might impact his life… including his intimate relationships. He had been dumped by his ex-girlfriend once she knew he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. And then, when he returned home and contacted her and mentioned his injuries, she made it very clear she wanted no contact with him. Very few people are heartless, or all good or all bad, which is true for the characters in this story and this is what I found made them so fascinating to work with.

  Happy reading,

  Angelina

  CHAPTER 1

  Nicole Baker

  Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

  -Samuel Butler

  I didn't know why I was so nervous. I'd performed in front of much larger crowds than this. Maybe my nerves stemmed from the fact I was staring at a small room full of veterans, a room full of men and women who'd risked their lives so I could have the freedom to pursue what I loved most in the world: my music. It was sobering to be in the presence of such bravery.

  Ten or fifteen years ago, I would've expected to see the room filled with men my father and grandfather’s age; veterans of Vietnam or even World War II. But that's not what I saw. I saw men and women my age, mid-twenties or early thirties, and every one of them had been injured in the line of duty in Afghanistan. My nerves resurfaced with a vengeance. These people probably wanted to hear a rock band, or see a comedy act, or at least be back in their rooms playing the latest video game. Instead, the VA had lined up my classical quintet. I was grateful for the opportunity, but what had they been thinking?

  I took a deep breath and put on a brave smile even though bravery was the last emotion I felt. But, I was a professional, and would give my best as I always did. I licked my dry lips and began the Mozart sonata I'd been practicing. It felt good to sing. It helped calm my nerves and lifted my spirits. I allowed myself to scan the room, like I always did during a performance and as I'd suspected, most of the people had plastered on a smile of polite tolerance. Others didn't even bother. It was evident they were bored out of their minds. I felt bad they were bored but there was nothing I could do about it.

  As my voice rose and fell with the bouncing melody, I continued to scan the room, hoping that maybe there was at least one person out there enjoying the show. And that's when I saw him. I focused all of my attention on the pair of warm, brown eyes that were staring intently at me. I was sure that if I hadn't been singing, the sight of those eyes would've stolen my breath.

  They were the most gorgeous, honest pair of eyes I'd ever seen and they belonged to a very handsome solider sitting in a wheelchair. He had wavy brown hair that matched his eyes and a dimple in his left cheek. A strong, square jaw supported a pair of the most luscious lips she'd ever seen on a man. He had broad shoulders, a muscular chest, and wide thighs.

  I averted my gaze back to his and was spell bound by the intensity of his gaze. It was as if he were seeing clear through to my soul, seeing every one of my fears and desires. My voice wavered and I felt myself blush. I broke eye contact and concentrated on my music – on finishing the show without making another blunder. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't completely take my eyes off him. Keeping him in my peripheral vision, I noticed that the group of soldier's he sat with were teasing him. The handsome soldier – God, I wish I knew his name – appeared annoyed and hushed them just as my set came to an end.

  To my surprise, the audience broke into applause. I anticipated some polite clapping. I didn't expect the loud, raucous applause we received. Then I noticed the group in the corner – the group with the handsome brown-eyed soldier – was clapping far more enthusiastically than the rest of the room. I took that as an opportunity to smile at the soldier. He smiled back at me, unleashing the full potential of his bright white teeth and dimple. No man had ever affected me in such a deep way before. It was unsettling.

  The people in the room began to leave as I, and the rest of the quintet, packed up our instruments. We talked quietly among ourselves, commenting on how we thought the performance went and the crowd's reaction to it. I heard a few voices behind me but I didn't turn around to see who was left in the room. I didn't have to. I could feel his eyes on me and knew it was my brown-eyed soldier. Good grief! Did I really just refer to him as mine? What was wrong with me?

  "Oh, what a great performance, truly spectacular, thanks so much for coming," said Steve Boyd. He was the program director for the VA; a nice man, if not a little dramatic at times.

  "Thank you," I said with a smile. "And thanks for inviting us to play here."

  "Actually, about that, do you have a few minutes to spare?"

  I looked at the rest of the quintet. They were shaking their heads in agreement. "Sure," I said. "What can we do for you?"

  "Well," Steve rubbed the back of his neck, "we have a soldier here, a Sergeant who was seriously wounded. He has no family around here, but we've learned he's a classically trained musician. Part of his therapy is to get him interested in music again and we were hoping to find some other musicians who'd be willing to play with him here at the center."

  "And you want us to be those musicians?" I asked with a hint of disbelief. Sure, I knew music. I knew how healing it could be but I didn't know anything about the complexities of war injuries or the mental stability of these soldiers. Would I really be of any help?

  "Yeah, I was hoping so. It would only be a few hours a week. You'd really be helping us out. The staff and the Sergeant would be extremely grateful," Steve said.

  I was ready to politely decline when my best friend, Antonia, stepped up and agreed for the both of us.
I refrained from giving her a dirty look right then and there, but she would definitely get a piece of my mind after.

  "Really?" Steve raised his eyebrows with a clear look of shock on his face. "Thank you, thank you so much," he said, shaking Antonia's hand then mine.

  "No problem," I said with a smile. If Antonia was going to do this with me, it might not be so bad. She always had a way with people and I truly enjoyed her company.

  "So, when would you like us to come back?" Antonia asked.

  "Hey, we're heading out," said Sarah, another member of my quintet.

  I nodded and waved as she and the other two members left. Then I turned my attention back to Steve and Antonia.

  "We'd like to have sessions twice a week for an hour each day, preferably Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Does that work for you?" Steve looked back and forth between Antonia and myself.

  We both nodded, and then I said, "What time?" Actually, now that I had thought about it, Mondays and Wednesdays were perfect. They were the two days during the week I wasn't busy with other things. Typically, by noon, I'd be so bored I would look for things to clean. My apartment was the cleanest it had ever been. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. And of course, I wasn't oblivious to the fact that coming back here meant I got to see that sexy soldier again.

  "The Sergeant's therapy sessions usually start at one," Steve said.

  "Great! We'll be here," Antonia said with a beaming smile.

  I couldn't stop from smiling, too. Antonia's excitement was contagious; then again, everything about Antonia was contagious. I pulled a book of sheet music from my bag and handed it to Steve. "Here is some music for the Sergeant. We'll work on that when we come back on Monday," I said.

  "I'll be sure to give it to him. Again, thank you so much," Steve said, shaking my hand first this time, and then Antonia's. Once Steve left, I turned to Antonia.

  "Okay, before you say anything, I knew you were going to say no and I knew that would've been a mistake," she said.

  I shook my head and tried to hide my smile. Antonia was always doing stuff like that, agreeing on my behalf to do things I wouldn't normally do. But, I couldn't stay angry with her because usually, the stuff she made me do turned out to be pretty fun. I'm sure this experience would be no different. "Are you ready?" I asked her.

  "Yup, let's go." Antonia looped her arm through mine and we headed toward the door. On my way out, I caught sight of the soldier who'd been staring at me during the performance. Seeing him again made my heart race and my palms sweat. I gave him a small smile and he responded with a wink. My face flushed with warmth, and I quickly looked away. As I did, the metallic gleam of something caught my eye. I turned to look at it and that's when I realized it was a prosthetic limb. I also realized for the first time the handsome soldier's left leg had been amputated just below the knee.

  My gaze traveled from his prosthetic limb, up his torso, and to his eyes. His smile had faded. He looked angry that I'd noticed his injury. I smiled again, hoping to convey that his missing leg didn't bother me. His expression remained stoic and cold. My whole demeanor changed in that moment. Had I messed things up before I even had a chance to learn his name? Surely he wouldn't want to talk to a woman who so rudely gawked at an injury that was beyond his control. I could be such an idiot sometimes.

  "Hey," Antonia nudged me, "Did you hear anything I just said?"

  "Huh? What?" I shook the thoughts and the image of the soldier from my mind. "I'm sorry."

  Antonia grinned in her typical fashion when she'd caught me doing something she'd be proud of – and staring at a hot guy was at the top of her good-things-to-do list. I was busted.

  She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the guy I'd been looking at. She whistled low enough so that only I could hear her. "Oh, he's cute, Nikki."

  I rolled my eyes. "Forget it, Toni." I could already see her mind spinning with ideas on how to set me up with the soldier. Yes, he was cute. And yes, I enjoyed looking at him. But I was not looking for a boyfriend. Antonia knew that I would not let her push me into a relationship with that guy. I was holding my ground on this.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sean McKenzie

  Her angelic, melodic voice came to me over the never-ending expanse of the stifling desert. The blasts of bombs, the cracks of gunfire, the screams of injured soldiers, and the stench of death were somehow lessoned by the sound of her voice. Despite the extreme heat that threatened to burn me alive, I was at peace. My eyes closed as I allowed my mind and soul to leave the wretched Afghanistan desert. I floated on the waves of her voice, her face a beacon of light in a world of death and darkness.

  Beautiful, big, innocent green eyes stared at me with awe and appreciation, as if she could see into my heart – see my fears and my demons. But then she smiled. It was tentative at first, but warm and welcoming. I reached for her, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and hold on to her, to be grounded in her warmth and lifted from this wretched place. Her voice faded and her smile disappeared. No! I reached for her again, but, like her voice, she drifted further and further away from me. The calm I'd felt was replaced with chaos, screams, searing heat, blinding flashes of bright light, and intense pain.

  I bolted upright, clutching at my left leg, sweating and screaming for the pain to stop. My heart thundered in my chest and my ears. I cried out in agony.

  "Sergeant, are you all right?" asked Becky, the nurse on duty. She stood beside my bed and lightly placed her hand on my shoulder in a comforting manner.

  I shook my head. "It hurts." The doctor had called it phantom pain. My body was still feeling the pain of a limb that was no longer there. It was the worst kind of pain, too. Nerve pain. I rubbed at my knee and thigh, the only two parts of my left leg I had left. My mind flashed to earlier in the day when the singing woman had noticed my injury. I didn't know why I was thinking about that now of all times, but I was. The way she'd stared at my prosthesis before meeting my gaze. The look in her eyes was a look I'd seen one too many times: pity and disgust. That single look had hurt more than all the stares I'd gotten since I'd arrived home from Afghanistan.

  While she'd been singing, I couldn't help but wonder what it might be like to be with a woman like her. She was beautiful with blondish-red hair that hung in loose curls around her shoulders and stunning green eyes. When she'd smiled at me – it had stolen my breath. In that short amount of time when our gazes had been locked, it had felt like she'd been singing just for me. It was like we were the only two people in the room. And I'd forgotten all about my injury and the nightmares that plagued me every hour of the day.

  But then she noticed my missing leg and I knew a woman like her would never be interested in a man like me. I'd looked for a ring and there wasn't one, so I knew she wasn't married. She probably had a boyfriend though. Oh well. I'd learned the hard way that life wasn't fair.

  "Let me check your chart and I'll see if I can give you something for the pain, okay?" Becky said, interrupting me from my thoughts.

  "Thanks," I mumbled as she turned on her heels and left the room. I flopped back down on my bed and draped my arm over my eyes. The image of that woman's face was stuck in my mind. The sound of her voice was on repeat in my brain. What was it about her that I couldn't shake? I didn't know, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to shake it - whatever it was.

  Becky returned a few moments later with two pills in a tiny paper cup, and a glass of water. I swallowed the pills without water, knowing that within half an hour, I'd be fast asleep and the pain would be gone. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same about the nightmares. "Drink up, Sergeant," Becky said, nudging the glass of water toward me. "You know this medication makes your throat dry."

  I obliged her just so she'd go away. I wanted to close my eyes and dream of that woman again, to be caught up in the spell she had me in. Maybe that would keep the nightmares at bay.

  *****

  "Good afternoon, Sergeant. How are you feeling today?" D
r. Monroe said, taking a seat across from me.

  "Tired." It was the same response I gave him every time he asked me that question.

  "You're still not sleeping?" He jotted something down on his notepad.

  "No."

  "Did you have the same nightmare again last night?"

  I shook my head. "It was different. I dreamt of the woman who sang here yesterday. I was in a trench in Afghanistan like I always am, but I could hear her voice and see her face. And then she just vanished, and I was reliving the bombing again."

  "How did you feel when you were dreaming about the woman?"

  "Happy. Peaceful…" I stopped short of saying aroused, which was a strong feeling I'd felt last night.

  "What do you like about this woman?"

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. What kind of question was that? I shrugged. "She's pretty and she's got a nice voice. I liked listening to her sing."

  Dr. Monroe nodded and flipped through his notebook. "You mentioned that you're a classically trained musician…" he paused then added, "violin, right?"

  I simply nodded, bored and annoyed with his questions. It wasn't his fault. He was the second doctor I'd had since I'd been here. Today was only the third time I'd seen him. My other doctor moved into the private sector and no longer participated with the VA, which was too bad because I'd liked him. Dr. Monroe wasn't so bad, but it was a pain to have to go through all the preliminary questions again.

  "Do you still play?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Music can be very therapeutic. I think you should start playing more." Dr. Monroe turned around and tossed his notebook on the desk. He steepled his fingers under his chin and smiled. "In fact, I've spoken to Steve Boyd, the program director for the VA, and we've arranged for you to play with a couple of local musicians who will come here to the center twice a week."