Handle With Care by Patrice Wilton Page A

he’d allowed it. Big mistake. He’d allowed his little head to overrule the big one. Damn! The last thing he wanted—the very last—was to go to bed with a woman and see the disappointment in her eyes.
    It had happened once, about ten months ago. He’d met a nice lady, took her out a few times. They’d gone to bed, and he hadn’t been able to get it up. That had never happened to him before, but then he’d never had a prosthesis before. He’d been so damned concerned about his mechanical hand that it had taken away his sexual drive. To save them both from further embarrassment, he hadn’t called her again.
    He didn’t need romance. Or sex. One day, maybe. But right now, he still needed to prove a few things to himself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    S hane headed straight home, fighting the urge to stop at a bar. One year sober, and he still struggled with the demon drink. He had it well controlled, but every now and then he had the need for a sip. He knew the worst was behind him, but in truth, he could only be responsible for one day at a time.
    He’d partied some in his youth, but he’d never been a heavy drinker. The fourteen months he’d spent in Iraq, including six months of captivity, had created that need in him and taken its toll. Like so many vets coming home from the recent wars, he returned broken, unfixable. The stump where his hand should be ached all the time, and the constant pain made his memories all the more real. Haunted visions filled his head when he closed his eyes. Night terrors left him screaming, soaked in his own sweat.
    It wasn’t an excuse, but just the God-given truth. After his rescue and back in the good ole’ US of A, he’d been nurtured back to health. Surgeons had had to amputate a little of his arm and clean up the wound so he could be fitted with a prosthetic that he’d deemed unfit to wear. His mood blackened, and the medication didn’t make his pain go away. Pain, both physical and emotional, went soul deep—and seeing other victims of the war only increased his anger, his hostility to the world at large, and there was no help for him.
    Released from the hospital, he began to hit the bottle hard, trying to find some small measure of peace, a place in la-la land where he could dwell without hearing the screams inside his head. The more he drank, the deeper his despair.
    When he unexpectedly showed up at his family home in Jupiter, Florida, he was welcomed with open arms, but after a short time his own mother threw him out. It had been his own fault, of course. He had no direction, no motivation except to get drunk enough to ease the pain.
    His mood swings had been more than his dear mother could handle, and his stepfather asked him to leave. There were support groups and centers for people like him but he didn’t seek them out, preferring to be left alone. Instead, he wandered around aimlessly, eating at soup kitchens and finding cover in the woods at night, until he spotted an abandoned car in a Walmart shopping mall. He’d watched it for days, and when no one came along to claim the car, he’d taken it for his.
    That’s when Jake, Brent’s older brother, found him, and got him off the streets. If it weren’t for the love and support of that family, he’d probably be dead by now.
    Should be, too. After all, he’d never done a damn thing in his life to be proud of, with the exception of going to war, and even there he’d screwed up.
    Well, no more. He had to be responsible now. He was going to be a doctor, help the wounded vets like himself who came back filled with anger and self-loathing, wondering why some of their comrades had to die when they’d been allowed to live.
    Now he had another reason—Lauren and Josh were depending on him, too. He hadn’t wanted that to happen. Hell, he had enough trouble looking after himself, keeping sober, working himself to the bone so he didn’t feel the need to drink.
    He never kept alcohol in the apartment, and bars were not for