Page 60 of Her Guarded Hero

“It’s a nickname. Never play poker with him,” Gray smiled. It was the first time Dalton had seen him smile since getting here. “I’m going to leave you ladies and see if I can do some final persuading along with Dex and Aiden.”

Griff and Hunter were looking too damn positive for Dalton’s taste as Gray walked off.

“Come on Dalton. You need to think happy thoughts,” Griff admonished.

Dalton gave his friend a world-weary stare.

“No, I’m serious. You’ve been in a shit place for months. Right now, Wyatt needs all of us pulling for him. Believing in him. And the fact that Liam MacLure is on the USS Roosevelt, and so is this pilot friend of Gray’s, I’d say things are shaping up pretty good.”

“He’s right you know,” Hunter said as he adjusted his hood and moved out of a mud puddle. “Even the rain has let up in the last two hours.”

What, were they expecting a rainbow and a unicorn to come prancing out of the jungle? He looked at the two men staring at him. Then he realized they were right, he needed to pull his head out of the dark depths of wherever and see some semblance of light. It was almost like he was in mourning again.

“Gray did it!” Dex shouted from the lean-to.

Hell, even Gray was grinning. Mr. Cool had done it.

“There you go, did it kill you?” Hunter bumped his shoulder.

“Huh?” Dalton didn’t understand what Hunter was saying.

“You’re smiling. I knew you had it in you.”

* * *

Well the smiles hadn’t lasted for long. Nor had the decent coffee. He’d been in dry clothes for a day in a half, but even that didn’t make him feel better. He and his team were here in San Juan, Costa Rica. They’d missed their flight home…again. As they waited for Wyatt’s surgery to be done. Gray was going to catch hell for allowing his team to stay in Costa Rica so long just to hang around a waiting room, but he didn’t give two shits.

The doctor on the aircraft carrier had done what he could, but he knew that it was above his pay grade, so they had flown in a surgeon to the closest decent surgery center that a Black Hawk could make from the USS Roosevelt. Every single hour counted to save his leg. Again, it was Liam MacLure who pulled every string imaginable to get things done.

So, an orthopedic surgeon from Walter Reed was flown down to Costa Rica. Liam and Gray were down in the cafeteria. That left the rest of the team in the waiting room. Dalton was standing away from the rest. He’d tried, he’d really fucking tried, to have more of a positive outlook. He wanted it for his friend. But Hunter was right, it was almost like he expected shit to go wrong these days. Which in a sense made him an Uber SEAL, he was seeing shadows behind the shadows, and the only thing he took for granted was that his teammates had his back. But Wyatt coming out of this whole? God, he so fucking wanted to believe. But instead he was building contingency plans in his head as to how he could help him build a life without a leg.

“Goddammit, stop it.” Dex glared at him as he plopped down in the chair next to him.

Where had he come from? Dalton hadn’t even noticed him move away from the group and cross the room.

“Stop what?” Dalton asked.

“You need to hire an exterminator and get them to kill that bug that crawled up your ass. It’s been months now, we might have to tent you.”

“I don’t need to listen to this. Don’t you need to go make love to your laptop, or have phone sex with Kenna?” Dalton pushed out of the chipped plastic chair and started to walk away.

“Quit deflecting. You’re in need of a personality transplant, and it’s due to Aurora Chance.”

Dalton winced with pain when he whipped his neck around to stare at his ex-friend. “Aurora is a closed subject. Finished. Done. Are we clear?”

From over Dex’s head, Dalton saw Hunter coming toward them.

“Did you hear something?” Dalton asked.

“Still nothing. Remember, they said this kind of surgery can last up to eight hours, it’s only been four,” Hunter answered.

Great, then he just came over to bust his balls.

Hunter’s eyes darted to Dex who shrugged his shoulders.

“Guys, it’s not that bad,” Dalton defended himself.

Hunter looked him dead in the eye. “Actually, it is. You don’t want to hear this, but it’s like you’ve lost Reagan all over again.”