Heath Read online

  Heath

  Hathaway House, Book 8

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Aaron, Book 1

  Brock, Book 2

  Cole, Book 3

  Denton, Book 4

  Elliot, Book 5

  Finn, Book 6

  Gregory, Book 7

  Heath, Book 8

  Iain, Book 9

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  About Iain

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Welcome to Hathaway House, a heartwarming and sweet military romance series from USA TODAY best-selling author Dale Mayer. Here you’ll meet a whole new group of friends, along with a few favorite characters from Heroes for Hire. Instead of action, you’ll find emotion. Instead of suspense, you’ll find healing. Instead of romance, … oh, wait. … There is romance—of course!

  Welcome to Hathaway House. Rehab Center. Safe Haven. Second chance at life and love.

  Overjoyed at his transfer to Hathaway House, Heath Jorgenson is anxious to maximize his potential and to get better from the multiple injuries that sidelined him. But rest is necessary for recovery, and Heath’s body won’t give him any. Even when he buckles under and accepts the need for drugs, his body rejects them. And all the determination in the world won’t matter when your own body is working against you.

  Just when he’s about to give up, respite comes from the unlikeliest of sources. The sound of the cleaning lady slowly and methodically washing the hall floor outside his room lulls him to sleep and allows him to see some of the progress he’s desperate for.

  Hailee Cisco is grateful for the part-time job of washing floors at Hathaway House. Sure, it isn’t glamorous, but it’s honest work, and, along with her other job, it’s enough to pay the bills—of which Hailee has many. When Dani, the heart of and the partial owner of Hathaway House, offers Hailee a full-time job, Hailee is delighted at the chance to cut back to just one job.

  Until she realizes that her change in hours has an unintended impact on Heath’s sleep patterns …

  Chapter 1

  Heath Hankerson had fought his surgeon hard to sign off on his transfer to Hathaway House. As he was healing at a tremendous rate, the surgeon had finally been persuaded to let Heath sign on with somebody else, and that had let him take the open bed at Hathaway House.

  “I’ve heard a lot of good things about Hathaway House,” Dr. Macklin said. “I’m surprised you got in. But then, the fact that you did means maybe this is where you need to go.”

  “I think it means exactly that,” Heath said in a quiet voice. “I want this opportunity. I’ve heard some pretty decent things myself.”

  “A lot of other good rehab centers are around the country though,” Dr. Macklin said, as he studied Heath’s face with care. “You could probably pick and choose.”

  “That’s exactly it. And I have done exactly that. And I’m choosing Hathaway House.”

  “In that case, there’s nothing more to talk about,” the doctor said. “You’re progressing well, and I would like to get regular updates. We’ve done a lot of surgeries, so it’ll take quite a bit of time to recover. At this point I have no idea how well you’ll do, but I’m hoping for a full recovery.”

  “I know it’s up to me now.”

  “I’ll write up detailed notes for the physio team there to continue the work you’ve been doing.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Heath said.

  “Wouldn’t hurt you to send me an email every once in a while too,” Dr. Macklin said. And then he laughed. “I still get emails from patients I treated twenty years ago.”

  “That’s because you care,” Heath said with a grin.

  “I do. It’s not easy. We see people in pretty rough shape when they initially come in. We do the best we can, and sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. At a certain point, the medical technology can only do so much for you. In this case, you’ve done pretty well though. Now it’s up to the physio and to your own will to be better.”

  Heath nodded, and, just as he slowly moved out of the office, Dr. Macklin called out behind him.

  “Do you have a specific reason for going to Hathaway House?”

  Heath turned, looked at the doctor, and smiled. “Well, Houston was always home. I don’t have any family left, but something is drawing me back there. As for why Hathaway outside of the location …” He pondered for a moment and then said, “I guess the only answer I really have is just this gut feeling about it.”

  The doctor looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment, then nodded, and said, “Sometimes, as you know, the gut feeling is all we have to go on. In this case, I think it’s an excellent call.”

  As Heath made his way to the elevator, he hoped the doctor was right. Heath had gone over the Hathaway House website with a fine-tooth comb and had talked to several people that he’d known to get help there. Some had tried to get in and had been refused because no bed had been available in time. On the other hand, a couple guys had come out of their treatment there and had glowing praises. At the end of the day, all Heath personally had to go on was that gut feeling of his. He could only hope it would work out in his favor this time. He didn’t have a whole lot of options left.

  Hailee Cisco worked her way down the hallway, moving the mop slowly across the white-tiled floor. As she did, she pulled the bucket behind her. It was two in the morning, and she was just about done with her cleaning shift, a job she had just started about a month ago. Hathaway House was one of those places that needed to be maintained and kept absolutely crisp and clean. A lot of sick men and women were here, and nobody could afford infections.

  The fact that a large animal center was also downstairs just added to the need to be extra careful about cleanliness. She was all for the animals, but she knew that they added another level of possible contamination for the humans here. These patients couldn’t afford that. Their bodies were weak and already struggling.

  So she worked hard. She took care and pride in her job, even though it was a job that she hadn’t ever considered doing. Right now, it was a balm to her soul and a soothing hug to her very stressed-out body. She felt like she’d walked through a war herself to get where she was. Of course it certainly didn’t have the same kind of impact that a lot of these men—and women—had gone through. But every night that she came through here, she took a moment or so to reflect and used the cleaning as a way for her own soul to get back on track.

  She focused hard and kept her head down while she worked and cleaned the hallway. As she did, she eviscerated the stain from her body, her soul, and her emotions. She was a long way from being whole, but she owed Dani a lot for giving her this chance. Dani had tried hard to provide Hailee with a different job, one that dealt with more people to take her out of her shell, but Hailee couldn’t handle it yet. She couldn’t interact with people. She couldn’t bear to feel the hurt that came with making friends or the pain that came with trusting the wrong person or the betrayal that sometimes happened between family members and friends.

  Automatically she pushed the mop into the big bucket of water and pulled it out slightly, then used the ringer to take mo
st of the moisture off the heavy twisted cotton ropes. She had never used a mop like this before. But it worked well, and that’s all she cared about. She dropped it to the floor and sent it slowly across the floor.

  Swish. Swish. Swish.

  Back into the water, rinse, wash, and repeat. She worked slowly but steadily. She knew she was avoiding the far corner, as she did every night. She was hoping that maybe this time she wouldn’t hear what she’d listened to every other night. Something that tore her apart, something that made her own heart bleed. The patients’ stories that came out of this place were enough to make anybody cry.

  When she had first heard a man behind the doors sobbing quietly to himself, thinking that he was alone, it tore her insides apart. Not only for his pain that she could do nothing about, but also for invading his privacy. She had no name for him, and maybe it was better that way because it hurt enough even without a personal connection. Then again all of it hurt. Which defeated her ultimate purpose.

  She didn’t come here to be torn apart further. She came here to heal. It had been Dani’s suggestion, and they had been friends for a long time. So she’d trusted her friend, who seemed to understand healing at a whole other level, and here Hailee was.

  Hailee had worked at one of the large warehouse stores in the city. She’d often arranged for supplies to be delivered to Hathaway House. Yet again that also wasn’t what she wanted to do. She was an accountant by profession, and somehow she had ended up working on the warehouse floor and then finally walked away from that too. Sometimes one had to start fresh. You could only hang on to the pain for so long before it was absolutely mandatory to make a change. Dani had offered Hailee this lifeline, and she’d taken it.

  It was as if cleaning here would help her clean her soul. Dani had reassured Hailee that she had nothing to be ashamed of since her soul held nothing but goodness, and life was just sometimes contrary like that. But Hailee hadn’t managed to let her past go. She hadn’t managed to find peace the same way Dani had. Her friend was so happy. It was such a joy to watch Dani every time Aaron came home. She just bounced full of life.

  Hailee wanted to feel that same joy again.

  Hailee knew Dani’s wedding was in the planning stages, but it would be a long way away. And, for Hailee, she could only hope that maybe she’d be lucky and be invited. Hopefully she’d still be working here. She took several more steps, rinsed her mop, and whooshed again. Then she slowly worked down the long main hallway.

  She loved working at the rehab center. It was an incredible place. It hadn’t taken even a few weeks of being here to see that. She was astonished at how warm and caring everyone in the center was. She had previously known about it and had realized that anything Dani was involved in had a lot of heart. But it was one thing when you’re on the outside hearing about what happened here at the center. It was an entirely different thing to actually see the emotions, the people, and the heart beating in this place.

  Or the pain …

  As soon as that thought popped into her mind, she shook her head and started scrubbing the floor that didn’t need to be cleaned yet again. She wouldn’t dwell on the pain. There was always pain. And, if she couldn’t help herself, she sure couldn’t help anybody else. And she was a long way away from helping herself.

  She carried on mopping the floor, moving her Beware of Wet Floor sign as she went. Even though it was calm and quiet in these early morning hours, it didn’t mean that people weren’t walking through the hallways. Nurses were moving from room to room, taking care of patients as needed. Hailee gripped her mop tighter. As long as she wasn’t personally involved with anyone here, she could handle being here. Staying detached was the only way she could deal with doctors after what she’d been through.

  It was a miracle she could do even that.

  Chapter 2

  Hailee hadn’t thought it possible that she would end up at a place like this, but Dani had been adamant that her center was different. That not just the patients healed here.

  Hailee sighed, knowing that the last door was coming up. This was a short hallway off the main one, and, as she came to the end, she knew she would reach the door where every night she cringed—or softly cried with him—at the pain eking from that room.

  It wasn’t because she wanted to avoid it but because she knew she couldn’t. It was almost a penance, as if somebody needed to witness his pain so he could release it and let it go. Or maybe it was her own penance. Regardless she knew it sounded foolish, and she didn’t understand it herself because he would probably be horrified if he thought someone could hear him. And it was definitely a man’s voice; she avoided reading his name on the medical file in the box affixed to his door to confirm that. She’d yet to have anything to do with any of the patients. But then, part of that was due to working a night shift. A position she’d asked for.

  She kept her head down and worked away at scrubbing the floor. This was her last pass, and, after this little bit, she was done. She went to the far end and worked her way backward.

  When she got to the door, she smiled in joy. The room was silent. No signs of someone struggling on the other side. She walked, moved, cleaned, scrubbed, and did her penance for her own soul’s sake tonight. As she was just about done, she heard it start again. Her breath caught in the back of her throat. He was crying about his pain. But in many ways it was about her pain too. He was crying the sobs that she couldn’t let out, the sobs that were deep within herself. She stayed where she was, her head bowed, as she wished him well, wishing him a more peaceful night. Even though he cried, surely tonight it seemed his pain was less.

  Satisfied with that little bit of hope, she gathered her bucket and headed back to the utility closet in the laundry room, where she could clean the mops and put away her cleaning supplies. Another night done. And hopefully another little brick of goodness to build a wall to survive the new world she lived in. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t easy, but it’s the one that she had. Once people got their minds wrapped around their current reality and could see their way forward, they could do so much more than when avoiding that reality.

  But, of course, the problem often was people got hung up on where they were and couldn’t get to where they were going. In those moments, it seemed like the distance was so damn far that they couldn’t find a way to get there. Yet, in fact, it didn’t need to be that way at all. People could cross any amount of distance without any issues. They just had to believe in it and put in the effort. That’s the most laborious and time-consuming part. But it was all about taking that first step.

  Hailee had attended yoga and meditation sessions because they were both so darn crucial for stress relief. And one of the things she loved was when they were told to visualize themselves in a cloud, where the only thing they could see was a little bit of a space where they stood. And then they were told to take a little step forward into the unknown, into the unseen. It was amazing to listen to people calling out that they were falling and were too scared to take action because they couldn’t see what was in front of them.

  And, of course, that was the lesson. To trust that a step would be there, that you would be okay, and that, as soon as you put your foot out there, another step would form under it, so that you wouldn’t fall. But so many people struggled with that concept. Hailee had used it many times for herself, trying to get through what she needed to get through in life. The last few years hadn’t been easy. Yet she had not only survived but she’d also become a much better person for it. She smiled at that as she returned her cleaning supplies at the end of her shift.

  Hathaway House might be perfect for the patients here, but it was the right place for Hailee too.

  Heath lay once again on his bed and stared up at the dark sky just outside his window. It seemed like darkness was his friend these days. Or maybe an enemy. It gave him the privacy of being alone, but with it came the most incredible nightmares and the most horrific images that he never wanted to see again. There should be a way
to stop it. He knew that all kinds of meditations and drugs and things could deal with it, but, in his heart of hearts, he knew that part of the problem was he didn’t want them to stop. Because, as long as he relived these memories, he never forgot his friends who blew up beside him.

  He lived. They died. But, as long as he remembered them, they weren’t forgotten.

  Two of his friends were scheduled to head back to the US with him two days later for their leave. Both of them were excited. They had girlfriends they were heading home to. Heath, on the other hand, didn’t. He was the only unattached one. They’d been joking and laughing when he drove too close to the shoulder, and the truck hit an IED. He’d taken part of the blast, but his friends had lost their lives.

  And, every night, he drove that same damn road, wrenching the wheel to prevent the accident because now he knew what would happen when he hit that shoulder. But there was no forgiveness. There was no change. There was no going back. There was no fixing this, and every time he thought about his best friends and their girlfriends and their bright futures, it always came back to the same questions: Why me? Why was I the one to survive? Why was I the one to stay here and to suffer through all this pain and the guilt? Why couldn’t they have lived, even if they’d lost their legs? Their women would have loved them regardless. Their families wouldn’t have cared as long as their sons, brothers were still there to love and had something to look forward to.

  But it was just him, staring up at the ceiling and the lovely apparatus that came with these beds. He hoped he was past his need to use the hoists, but he certainly had initially.

  Heath had heard the doctors talking about mental blocks and resistance and all kinds of other psychobabble. Heath wanted to ignore the docs. He wanted to say they were full of crap, but he knew, deep in his soul, what they were talking about. His own guilt was eating at him and was keeping him from functioning as he should. He wasn’t even sure he cared. What he wanted to do was find a way to be a better person, so he didn’t ever have to live with this horrible guilt again. Yet the sin was there, the terrible mistake, and he knew it would never go away. And that’s the way of it. It was his penance.