Obsession (Steel Brothers Saga 2)

“Tell you what. If I can get Jade to come back to the house, would you do something for me?”

I knew better than to make deals with my brother, but right now I was desperate to have Jade back in the house where I could see her.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I get Jade to move back to the ranch house, and you start seeing Dr. Carmichael. Regularly.”

Chapter Eight

Jade

I hastily picked up my cell phone from the carpeted floor where it had landed. I had been breezing through news articles online while I was talking to Marj, and a headline caught my eye. It was a full spread in the Snow Creek Daily. “Local Hero Comes Home.” Complete with Talon Steel in his full dress United States Marine Corps uniform.

Talk about making a splash. A man in uniform—the ultimate man in uniform.

He had been given the Award of Honor.

The fucking Award of Honor.

Why hadn’t anyone told me?

“Jade, are you there?” Marj’s voice came from my phone.

I held it up to my ear. “Yeah, Marj. I’m here. I… I’ll call you back, okay?”

I clicked the phone off in the middle of her good-bye and I started reading.

Local resident and Award of Honor recipient Talon Steel returned home to Snow Creek this past week. Talon entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and quickly gained the rank of first lieutenant and then captain due to his hard work and heroism. He was deployed first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq. He received the Award of Honor from the governor of Colorado for making six death-defying forays into a killing zone to save six American troops. Captain Steel was thirty-two years old at the time of his return. He was granted an honorable discharge.

“Captain Steel is a hero to us all and a great example of a model citizen of Colorado,” said the lieutenant governor. “We are proud to have him home to our great state.”

Steel is the son of the late Bradford and Daphne Steel of Steel Acres Ranch outside of Snow Creek and brother to Jonah, Ryan, and Marjorie Steel.

Captain Steel was honored at a ceremony in Snow Creek last Saturday officiated by Mayor Tom Simpson. In front of Steel’s brothers and sister and hundreds of Snow Creek citizens, Mayor Simpson said that the former Marine would serve not only as a lesson of courage but as a reminder to everyone that heroism comes from everywhere.

“Anyone, even someone from our small town of Snow Creek, Colorado, can do great deeds as part of this great country,” the mayor said. Addressing Steel specifically, he continued, “You did more than your duty as a member of the military and a citizen of the United States. Snow Creek is proud to have such a distinguished hero among our population.”

The mayor retold Captain Steel’s story the next Monday at Snow Creek K-12 School. Captain Steel, an infantry officer in command of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, and his troops were ambushed by a group of insurgents in a small peaceful village in northern Iraq after dark. Suddenly, the lights in the village went out, and gunfire erupted. About twenty-five insurgents who had been perched on mountainsides took cover in the village and ambushed Steel’s unit and one other under the command of Captain Derek Waters. Steel, a first lieutenant at the time, defied orders from Waters, his superior officer, to reenter the battle zone and save six of his fallen comrades: Pvt. Clancy Brown of Los Angeles, Pvt. Lance Fox of Gahanna, Ohio; Pvt. Myron Jones of Schroon Lake, NY; Pvt. Kevin Dale of Reno, Nevada; Sgt. Corey Jensen of Santa Fe, NM; and 2nd Lt. Megan Cline of Dallas.

Captain Steel made only one comment: “I didn’t do it to be a hero.”

My eyes glazed over as perspiration erupted on my palms. Damn. I closed my eyes. I didn’t do it to be a hero. I’d heard those words before, when I first met Talon. He’d been driving me from the airport to the ranch over a month ago.

“I think it’s really heroic what you did over there. I really respect our military.”

“I didn’t do it to be a hero.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“I’m no hero, blue eyes. In fact, I’m about as far from a hero as you’d get.”

“It really doesn’t matter what you think, does it? I think anyone who serves our country is a hero. That’s my personal definition, and I’m sticking with it.”

He’d resisted being called a hero. Wow. Just wow.

I’m no hero, blue eyes.

What a crock.