Jayhawk Down Read Free

last deployment to Iraq. A flick sent the burning cigarette butt into a rain-filled “ashtray” maintenance kept by the rear employee entrance. He turned. Squinted at the rain.
    Maybe his foul mood was simply a reflection of the shitty weather. For the “Sunshine State,” he’d seen more rain than sun, and right now it was coming down at a forty-five-degree angle.
    Resigned to the inevitable, he dug his cell phone out of his tired blue scrubs and hit six on autodial. It was a number he’d grown to dread calling on a good day. Today wasn’t turning out to be one of those.
    Officially, his ER shift ended three hours ago. But a five-car pileup on I-275 had kept him, and every other doctor they could commandeer, busy piecing together human carnage. Hell, maybe his bad mood had less to do with the weather than the bloody mess he’d been fighting for the last four hours. He rubbed the stubble on his face, listening to ringing on the cell.
    The all-night diner down the street would delay going home. Delay going to a stark apartment filled with moving boxes he hadn’t bothered unpacking. Delay going through the motions of living?
    His mother answered, irritation coloring her cultured voice. Since she had caller ID, it must be directed at him personally, but damn, that was nothing new either. “You left a message to call. No matter the time.” He sounded defensive to his own ears. Wasn’t that a hell of a note for a forty-two-year-old doctor?
    “No, I’ve left multiple messages. What if it had been an emergency?”
    “You’re a doctor’s wife. You would have dialed nine-one-one.” He hunched his shoulders. Great response. He’d launched an IED on a civilian. His mother, no less. Not that she could claim innocence. Their relationship had deteriorated into guerrilla warfare years ago.
    “You need to talk to your father. You owe him your respect.”
    Same old argument, and exactly why he hadn’t returned her call. No, make that
calls
. “Mother, I don’t owe him anything. Nor do I have anything to discuss with him. Grandfather accepted my decision to stay in emergency medicine. Father needs to do the same.” The ever-present drumbeat behind his eyes intensified.
    “Stillman, you’re being selfish. How do you think it looks to his partners, his clients, when his only son refuses to join his practice? He was so excited when you returned to medical school after that foolishness in the army.”
    The skin on the back of his neck tightened as if shrunk by the damp night air. His experiences during his first deployment to Iraq had convinced him to become a doctor. A real doctor. His grandfather, then his father, had built an empire nip-and-tucking only the wealthiest of the wealthy.
    “Catering to never-ending narcissism holds even less appeal after my second tour of duty. If Father wishes to apologize to
me
, he has my number.” He clamped his mouth shut before more wounding words could escape. There had been enough bleeding for one night.
    A bolt of lightning strafed the sky over the parking lot. Thunder followed in hot pursuit. “I’m sorry. I need to get back to work. I’ll call after I get a landline installed in the apartment.”
    Static garbled her parting words before the connection dropped. An odd feeling that he’d missed something important wormed through his gut. Why was his mother trying to mend a twenty-year-old rift? What had happened to make her even try?
    Another bolt of lightning blinded him. Damn, the storm was getting stronger. He powered down the phone and slipped it into his pocket. That diner was sounding better and better. He grabbed the door handle before a new sound registered. A helicopter? In this?
    He shifted his attention skyward. Couldn’t be a Life Flight chopper, not in these flying conditions. He stepped to the edge of the portico and shaded his eyes from the slashing rain. Only military would go up in this chaos. And then only because the poor schmuck of a pilot had been ordered