"Lee, Rachel - Lost Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee Rachel)

to the window again, steaming mug in hand. " The chopper's okay? "

"Yeah. I was just doing some routine checking. What do you mean, you're not
sure about Marge?"

Nate shrugged one shoulder, keeping his back to the room. "Just a mood, I
guess. It'll pass off. Listen, I figure I owe you a little advance warning
on something."

Yuma put his feet down on the floor and sat up straighter in his chair.
"What?"

"The hiring committee settled on a new flight nurse to head up the Emergency
Response Team."

"Well, it's about time. We've been dragging like a bird with one wing ever
since Steve quit two months ago " Why should he need warning about this?

Nate faced him. "Yuma, old son, they chose Wendy."

Wendy? Fully ten seconds passed before Yuma made the connection. When he
did, his stomach sank like lead. "Wendy? Your daughter Wendy?"

Nate nodded. "Look, she's six years older. She swears she got over her
crush on you. It'll be a purely professional relationship You fly, she
nurses. No big deal."

No big deal? No big deal? Six years ago Wendy Tate, freshly out of high
school, had stalked him from one end of the county to the other and had
nearly seduced the socks off him. No big deal? "Damn it, Nate! "

Suddenly Nate laughed. It was a good, hearty belly laugh.

"What the hell is so funny?" Yuma demanded.

"Life," came the answer. Nate chuckled again. "Son, I'm the father of six
young, beautiful girls. They could have any man in the county-probably any
man in the country-if they crooked their little fingers. It beats the hell
out of me why Wendy ever wanted you, but I'll never in all my days understand
why you ran so hard: '

Was he losing his grip on reality? "She was just a kid, Nate. She's still
just a kid. And I'm-well, you know."

"What I know is that you're one hell of a chopper pilot, and there're
hundreds of guys out there who never would have come home from Nam if not for
you. What I know is you flew into heavy fire all the time in that Medevac
chopper and you couldn't even shoot back. What I know is you spent two years
as a POW What I know is you volunteered for all that when you were a
conscientious objector and never even had to go at all. Now, to my way of