Gambling on a Dream Read Online Free Page B

her.”
    He left the kitchen and headed down the hall to stop before the door across from his. He’d packed up his dive of an apartment in Waco, sent his stuff to storage, and moved into his parents’ home temporarily to help with Rachel, but he wanted a place of his own.
    He took a deep breath as the day his parents brought Rachel home from the hospital drifted into his mind. He and Audrey were only three, but they had both been excited to have a real live baby in their midst. Audrey wanted to dress her up like her favorite doll. He’d wanted someone else to play with, but to be honest, he’d been a little disappointed she wasn’t a boy. He’d never dreamed he’d become her protector. Although he loved his twin sister, and technically, was her older brother too--if you can count a whole four and a half minutes as being older--Rachel held a special place in his heart.
    Sounds of his father chatting with his mother from the kitchen brought him out of his thoughts, and he knocked on his sister’s door. “Rach, Ma’s got dinner ready.”
    “I’m not hungry.” Her voice sounded muffled and distracted.
    He looked to the ceiling and sent a prayer to heaven to give him the strength and the knowledge to help his baby sister. “I’m coming in.”
    When she didn’t respond, he turned the knob and entered the room. A modern-looking pine queen bed and Rachel’s sophisticated styles had replaced the twin canopy beds and white girly furniture. Everything that had been Audrey’s was long gone. After all, the few times Rachel came home from her stints as an Army nurse, this was where she’d come.
    She sat huddled under an old crocheted blanket in a stuffed chair and stared out the window. What he could see of her face behind her short auburn hair was pale and splotched red, as if she’d been crying. Her hands were curled into fists and tucked in close to her body. Her prosthetic lower left leg sat in the corner with her crutches.
    He let out a long breath and sat on the edge of her unmade bed. When he glanced up, he noticed what had her riveted outside the window. In the yard on the other side of the rail fence, two young children played on a swing set while their father and mother worked in the yard. A picture of the perfect family. He closed his eyes and hung his head low.
    God, how much more can she take?
    “All I ever wanted was a family of my own.” Her voice rasped as if coming from her soul.
    Yeah, me too. He swallowed hard, but his voice still came out sounding like a frog’s croak. “Ladybug, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t know how to make this better.”
    She turned red-rimmed blue eyes on him. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
    He’d given her the nickname when she was only a baby because, with her bright red hair, she reminded him of a ladybug. For years, the whole family called her by the nickname. He sniffed and swallowed again. Damn, his sinuses burned.
    “Everyone thinks it’s because of Audrey and Lance that I’m such a mess.”
    “I know it has to be hard seeing them…”
    She shifted her shoulders as if she shrugged, or maybe she took a deep breath. “The lieutenant colonel who was killed in the attack wasn’t just my commander.”
    From the report, he knew Rachel had been attacked by an Afghani national who worked on the base where she’d been deployed.
    She and a doctor had been working together late when the Afghani found them. He’d shot the lieutenant colonel and Rachel while they were talking in his office. She’d taken a high-powered bullet in the pelvis area and her lower left leg, which shattered the bone beyond repair. The doctor had died from his wounds, and Rachel had been flown to Landstuhl, Germany, where her leg had been amputated, her pelvis repaired, and her uterus, where the bullet lodged, removed.
    The terrorist had committed suicide. His body had been found in his room along with the weapon he’d used to kill the doctor and to shoot Rachel.
    Wyatt