One Kind Hero (Heart of a Wounded Hero)

By Christine DePetrillo

What do you do when your life plan goes up in flames?

 

Army sniper Reid Colborn has nothing left. His last mission was technically a success. Enemy hit. Boy rescued. Day saved. Getting trapped in a burning building, however, wasn't part of the plan. Now Reid doesn't have a steady shooting arm, and his military career is over. Heading back to his hometown of Maplehaven, Vermont is not the next target he'd hoped for, but he's out of choices.

Until architect Valerie Bellerose gives him another option.

When Valerie sees Reid, every detail of their one night together as teens nearly ten years ago comes flooding back. Not that the memory had ever died. Reid had given her something that had made it impossible to forget him. Now that he's back, can they have a second chance to hit their mark?

Is one kind hero high enough caliber to build the family they've always wanted?


One Kind Hero is a second-chance, small-town, steamy contemporary romance novella with a wounded military hero searching for what comes next after losing everything. For more romances set in Maplehaven, check out the One Kind Deed Series also by Christine DePetrillo.


The Heart of the Wounded Hero series was created to pay tribute to and raise awareness of our wounded heroes. Each of the over eighty authors involved have contributed time, money, and stories to the cause. These love stories are inspiring and uplifting, showing the sacrifice of our veterans but also giving them the happily ever after they deserve.

By increasing awareness through our books, we believe we can in a small part help the wounded heroes that have sacrificed so much. Thank you for reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christine DePetrillo
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201731489

Book preview

Chapter One

Reid

My pickup truck hums along on the highway. She has no idea about our destination. I crave her ignorance. The last time I was in Vermont was nearly ten years ago. I’d been eighteen and stupid.

Can’t say I’m much smarter now.

Except now I know how much life sucks. How much it enjoys taking everything that makes you you and twisting it up into something you can’t comprehend anymore. How much it revels in showing you just how fantastic it feels to hit the goals you’ve set for yourself only to yank that rug right out from under your boots. How much it basks in the victory of grinding you into a fine powder and letting the wind scatter you like the insignificant dust you are.

A bug hits the windshield and leaves a yellow splotch on the glass right in my line of vision. While the stain is annoying, I can’t help but to envy the bug. At least it doesn’t have to continue fluttering around, pretending the world is a fair and kind place. I’m sure wherever bugs go after their insides have become mush on a windshield is better than here. It’s probably a field of bright, fragrant flowers where the sun always shines and there aren’t douchebags in your path speeding down highways.

I pass a sign that says Maplehaven 10 miles. As much as I don’t want to go there, I have to take a piss and my back hurts from sitting too long. I only stopped once on the eight-hour drive to pound back a cheeseburger and a ginger ale. My body is not happy with me.

But it’s never going to be happy.

I slowly flex my right hand where it rests on my thigh. The scarred skin is tight and I don’t feel the last two fingers. It’s a weird thing to see the digits there, but not have them register when they touch things. Other spots on my right arm and on the right side of my chest and back are like that too where the burns were severe and the nerve damage is extensive. If I had a rewind button, would I stop myself from running into that flaming building to pull a screaming child from it?

Probably not. Anyone on my team would have done the same thing. We didn’t sign up to be United States Army snipers to stand around and watch people in danger. We signed up to risk our lives for theirs.

Check! Goal achieved.

I hate the consequences of meeting that goal. Everything had been going well on the mission. If you can call skulking through the dense woods in our ghillie suits, as we headed directly for the town under siege by a particularly nasty band of militants bent on taking over the area, going well. We’d made it to the perimeter of the town undetected because our suits were well made with native flora to blend in perfectly with the landscape. I’d barely been able to see the guys who were right next to me.

I’d set up my rifle. My spotter had been hard at work looking through his scope and recording observations of the conditions. We’d been assigned to take out any opponents we could to make it easier for our ground troops to reclaim the town. Two other sets of snipers and spotters had fanned out, one on each side of me. With my spotter’s help, I’d successfully hit three targets, working with my rifle as if it were a natural part of my eyes, arms, and hands. The incremental shifts to the left or right, up or down, had always been instinctual to me. My precision had been top of the line.

Until I’d seen that little boy run for cover in a building ablaze with enemy fire.

You caught that too, right? my spotter had asked, lowering his scope.

I did. I’d jumped to my feet, signaled to the other two teams that I was heading down the embankment in front of us, and had reached the building in record time.

The boy’s screams had eaten at my soul, making me hurry my steps toward his location. I’d found him easily, but he’d been afraid of me. Can’t say I blamed him.  Looking at over six feet of what probably looked like a swamp monster thanks to the ghillie suit must have been a nightmarish sight.

It’s okay! I’d yelled to him. I’m here to get you out. I’m here to help. English hadn’t been his language though, so I’d sounded like a growling creature and the boy had screamed louder.

I’d done what I’d had to do and launched forward, grabbing the boy and turning to get back to the exit. With a horrible crack the floor above us crashed down. Fortunately for the boy, my body had shielded him from the flaming debris that had rained upon us. Somehow, I’d managed to stay on my feet.

The path to the exit, however, had been blocked with a wall of fire. With the boy squirming in my hold because he hadn’t trusted I was one of the good guys, I’d covered him as best as I could, and ran directly for the flames.

I’d love to say the entire event had played out like some fantastic magic trick. One in which I’d emerged through the fire completely unscathed, awing the audience with my mastery of danger and illusion.

Regrettably, that’s not how it went down.

Instead, our ground troops had taken the boy and scurried him away to safety where he was treated for smoke inhalation and mild burns.

Win!

I, on the other hand, had still been on fire.

Lose!

The branches and leaves covering my ghillie suit had been particularly flammable. I’d attempted to peel off my jacket, but my right glove had basically melted onto me. I’d fumbled around, dropped to the ground, rolled . . . done all the things I’d been taught back in elementary school during Fire Prevention Week. I swear that fire defied nature’s laws. It just kept burning.

Burning me.

I don’t remember much about what happened after exiting that building with the boy. I’d awakened in a hospital, the right side of my body extra crispy, with Uncle Karl staring down at me from the bedside.

You look like shit, kid, he’d said in his gravelly voice. The groove between his eyebrows had told the tale of how worried he’d been even if his words hadn’t.  

I feel like shit.

I’d had no idea at the time that I’d still feel like shit eight months later. After surgeries, therapy, and rehab, the burns look a little better, but my right side from my shoulder to my hip isn’t going to win any beauty pageants. I feel all wrong inside this puckered skin. As if I’m not me anymore.

And my Army sniper career is clearly over. Can’t pick off an enemy target from any distance when your shooting arm is all fucked up. Can’t live your dream when your dream has been burned alive. I could do other things probably, but as soon as I’d heard about Sniper School, I’d known that was where I belonged.

Where the hell do I belong now?

Flexing my damaged hand again, I take the exit ramp into Maplehaven where I grew up. The first thing to hit my eyes is the gas station so I pull in to refuel. A huge tractor-trailer and a flatbed with an excavator on it are parked in the diesel section. This gas station is a popular stop for truckers and dudes with big equipment. As a kid, my buddies and I would often ride our bikes here to discuss trucks, diesel, and the open highway.

You know . . . man stuff.

One day an Army Humvee had pulled in and that was it for me. When two soldiers hopped out of it, I knew what my future held.

That’s what I’m going to do, I’d told my buddies.

They’d all agreed that being a soldier was cool, but I was the only one of us who’d actually enlisted. Too bad no one could have told me then that my career would be over before I hit thirty.

I gas up my truck and hit the restroom because the dirt road to Uncle Karl’s property is no doubt still riddled with ruts. He’d bust my stones relentlessly if I pissed my pants on the ride.

I buy a cranberry juice and a bag of popcorn and climb back into my truck. My phone vibrates in the console beside me and I pick it up. It’s my buddy—and fellow sniper—Max Reese.

Max: Are you there yet?

Me: Just hit town now.

Max: Have time to think about that job?

Before I’d left to come to Vermont, Max had presented me with an option to teach a sniper course. Sure, it’s an important course. I wouldn’t have become a sniper without it, but the idea of teaching instead of doing left a bad feeling in my gut. It actually sounded like torture. To watch and even help new guys learn the skills I no longer could put to use?

No thanks.

Me: The answer is still no, man. I can’t.

Max: Okay. For now. You know I’ll keep asking.

Me: Yeah, you’re a pain in the ass like that.

Max: #truth Talk later.

I hit him with a thumbs up—though a middle finger is more my all-the-time mood nowadays—and prepare to pull away from the pump. Before I roll forward, I catch sight of the dude behind me as he fiddles with his wallet. He’s wearing a camouflage print T-shirt and I’m instantly back in those woods surrounding that town, watching that boy run into the burning building.

Fuck me.

The sawdust on the guy’s jeans tells me this guy isn’t a soldier though. Probably a lumberjack or woodworker. Maplehaven was founded back in 1798 by a family who opened a sawmill after all. People use wood to make shit around these parts. According to Uncle Karl’s last text message, I’d be doing shit with wood too. He’d gotten me a job at Brenton Sawmill. Making lumber deliveries or something. To say I’m unenthused about this new life direction is a gigantic understatement, but what choice do I have? I’ll work at the sawmill until I figure things out.

That’s what I tell myself anyway.

Munching on popcorn, I pass through the center of town, taking in shops and businesses that haven’t changed all that much since I’d last been in Maplehaven. Cups Café has a full parking lot. Is it still the best place to get a spinach pie? There’s no doubt in my mind that Mountain View Pizza still has amazing pizza. I worked there the summer before I left for the Army. Kyle, the owner, had been a cool boss. He always asked me first if there were extra hours to be had. He even hired me on three weekends to help him build a patio for his wife in their backyard. From the looks of the full parking lot, he was still feeding hungry citizens.

A bookstore, an antique shop, Addy’s General Store, and a host of other familiar businesses take me back to being a kid here. Maplehaven definitely hasn’t