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Lost Warriors - Conard County - by Rachel Lee

Published: November 1, 1993

Lost Warriors
by Rachel Lee



Excerpt pp 136-137

Nate swore again. "I'm going to tell you something, Yuma. Six years ago, I would have killed you if you laid a finger on her."

Yuma couldn't help it. A soft laugh escaped him. "I kind of figured that, Tater. Only a fool would have missed it."

Nate turned and looked straight at him. "She became a trauma nurse because of you, man. She told her mother that she wanted to understand some of what had torn you up. That she didn't see how else she could understand where you'd been. And, of course, I inadvertently encouraged her by talking you up, how you saved so many lives....how not very many people have that kind of guts."

A sensation of shock ran through Yuma, at once hot and cold. She'd gone into trauma work because of him?

"I thought it would wear off," Nate continued. "I really thought she'd meet some doctor or something and get married and settle down to having kids, I figured it wouldn't take much to change her mind about emergency medicine. I figured she couldn't handle it and would get into something a little easier. I underestimated her."

For long moments, there was only silence in the cab. Nate frowned out the window and Yuma tried to absorb what he'd just been told.

"I wasn't ever going to tell you this," Nate said finally. "I wasn't ever going to do anything to encourage you. You're still too old for her, still too screwed up...but hell, man, I'm pretty damn sure you'd kill yourself before you'd ever really hurt her."
* * * *

"So...I'll stay out of it. She's done some growing up, and I figure...well, she's a lot older than Marge and I were when we got hitched. She's old enough to decide this one for herself. Whatever happens between you two, I'm out of it."
* * * *

"Look, Nate -"

Nate interrupted him, shaking his head. "Forget it, son. If she hasn't changed her mind in six years, she's not likely to. Sometimes a parent just has to know when to step back and let it happen...even if it's going to hurt. If you're in her system, nothing I can do or say is going to change that...."

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Billy Joe Yuma: A Vietnam veteran who came home fighting for his sanity--and barely won.

Wendy Tate: A beautiful woman and a damned good nurse--who had been just learning to flirt when Yuma was lacing up combat boots.

Medevac helicopter pilot Billy Joe Yuma knew what the sound of his chopper did to the vets who hid in the Rocky Mountains.

He knew, because he'd once lived in those hills, a soldier for whom the war wouldn't end. And though emergency flight nurse Wendy Tate deserved a chest full of medals for trying, he was sure she could never breathe hope into a heart that hadn't made it home. But Yuma was about to learn just how wrong he could be.

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A special place in my heart
LOST WARRIORS holds a special place in my heart because of letters I have received over the years from psychologists and veterans groups who tell me they use the book to help family members understand PTSD.

I wrote it because the suffering of PTSD has always been a major source of concern for me, as are all the issues I write about, but I never expected this kind of heartwarming response.

This book has been reissued more than any other.
Rachel Lee , August 11, 2008

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