A Time to Die

She loosened the camera from his hand and rose to her feet. She had to find a way out of this nightmare. There was nothing she could do for Marty. Not now. It was too late for anything except remorse.

Doing her best to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, Lexie tried to make her way out of the courtyard, but too many dead bodies blocked her path, men and women cut down by Tum’s retaliating guardsmen. Keeping low, pressing the camera to her breasts, she visually scanned in a circular motion, seeking an escape route. She spied an open gateway directly to the left of the podium, where several guards remained. In her survey, she had noted that only a handful of Tum’s soldiers were still standing. Whoever the hell this elite squad of assassins were, they were good. Very good. Good enough to eliminate seventy-five percent of their foes in record time.

The gunfire overrode the screams, which seemed like a rumble beneath the roar. The scent of sweat mixed with the metallic odor of blood as the sweltering African sun blasted down on the dead and wounded.

The taste of fear coated Lexie’s dry mouth.

What should she do? Stay here and risk being killed? Or run for her life? Neither option appealed to her, but what other choice did she have?

Going strictly on gut instinct, she made a mad dash for the one escape hatch open to her. She crawled halfway there, then stood and ran as if the devil were chasing her.

Almost there. Almost there. Just a few more feet.

Wham! The bullet hit her in the back with thundering force, knocking her flat as pain shot through her like a wildfire raging along every muscle and nerve.

She had come so close, had almost escaped.

Her body floated downward, as if in slow motion. She tried to make sense of what had happened and why. She lifted her gaze as she fell and saw three of Tum’s guards go down in rapid succession, blood spurting from their splintered heads. When she hit the stone floor of the courtyard, her tight grip on the camera holding the footage of the day’s events loosened. Try as she might, she could not stop the camera from skidding out of her reach. She had risked her life and Marty’s for nothing. He was dead, and she was probably dying.

Slipping in and out of consciousness, Lexie had no idea how long she lay on the hot, bloody stone floor. Five minutes? Fifty minutes? Five hours?

“You can’t take her with us,” a man’s voice said, his accent decidedly British.

“If I don’t, she’ll die,” a deeper, harsher voice replied. American, Lexie thought somewhere in the deepest recesses of her addled brain.

Seconds later, she felt a pair of large, strong arms lift her as if she weighed no more than a child. He crushed her wounded, agonized body against his hard chest. She managed to focus on his face for half a second, not long enough to really see him, catching only a glimpse of smoky-gray eyes before passing out.

GEOFF MONDAY, the SAS officer who had been second in command on their secret assignment, which had sent a select group of American and British soldiers into Gadi, came up to Deke. He nodded toward the closed door across the hall from where Deke was waiting to speak to Lexie Murrough’s doctor.

“Any change in her condition?” Monday asked.

Deke shook his head.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Monday told him. “She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, I know.” It wasn’t as if this UBC reporter had been the first innocent civilian he’d wounded or killed, but she was the only American. Civilians died in wars every day, casualties of hatred, revenge or sheer madness. So why was Lexie Murrough any different? Because she was a woman? Because she was a fellow American?

“You risked your career, not to mention your neck and mine, to save her,” Monday told him. “She’s going to live, thanks to you.”

“She’s paralyzed because of me, because my bullet hit her spine.”

The closed door opened, and two military doctors emerged. One walked away down the hall, while the other approached Deke.

“Captain Bronson?”

Deke nodded.

“Ms. Murrough is awake and asking questions,” the doctor said. “She wants to know the name of the soldier who rescued her.”

Every nerve in Deke’s body tensed.

“You can go in to see her, if you’d like.”

Deke shook his head. “Tell her you don’t know who the soldier was.”

The doctor gave Deke a quizzical look, then said, “If that’s what you want, but I’m sure she’d like to thank you.”

“I don’t want her thanks.” Deke turned and walked away. How could he face the woman—a girl really, only twenty-four—and accept her thanks, when he knew it had been his bullet that hit her and probably paralyzed her for the rest of her life?

CHAPTER ONE

Ten years later…

LEXIE MURROUGH gazed out of her office window overlooking the Market Street Bridge, which was now a pedestrian-only crossing. When arranging the furniture in her office, she had made certain the beautiful view was available to her throughout the workday. For the past two years, she had called Chattanooga home, ever since she’d joined forces with billionaire heiress Cara Bedell to found a charitable organization to help the underprivileged worldwide. Although Lexie was listed as the group’s president and was the person who oversaw the day-to-day running of the charity, Cara not only provided the bulk of the funds for Helping Hands, she often took an active role in the decision-making. Since joining forces for such a worthwhile cause, Lexie and Cara had become good friends.

There had been a time when Lexie had taken friendship for granted, when she’d taken many things for granted. But that had been another Lexie, the young and very foolish rookie reporter who had thought the world revolved around her. In the span of five minutes, her entire life had changed forever. The cute, feisty college cheerleader who’d been voted Most Likely to Succeed and had reigned as homecoming queen her senior year at the University of Georgia had died in a godforsaken African country on a sweltering June day ten years ago. But unlike her cameraman, Marty Bearn, Lexie had been reborn, given a second chance at life.

“Daydreaming again?” a female voice inquired, breaking into Lexie’s thoughts.

Lexie sighed, then turned and smiled at her assistant, Toni Wells. “I was just enjoying the view.” Lexie didn’t discuss her past with her friends and associates. Her therapist had helped her understand that in order to move forward, she had to let go of the past. Not only of the lost hopes and dreams, but of the guilt and the anger.

“I come bearing gifts.” Toni placed a lidded foam cup on Lexie’s desk. “Fat-free mocha, no whipped cream.”

“Thanks. You’re a sweetie.” Lexie picked up the cup, snapped back the plastic lip of the lid and took a sip of the hot coffee. “This is just what I needed.”

Toni sat in a chair across from Lexie’s antique desk—a gift from Cara—crossed her long, jeans-clad legs and relaxed as she sipped her own drink, no doubt something sinfully rich and loaded with calories. Toni was one of those fortunate women who never gained an ounce and ate like a lumberjack.

Years ago, when she’d been in her early twenties, Lexie had never worried about her weight. But inactivity and overeating had added a good thirty pounds to her five-five, medium-boned frame. It had taken her years to shed twenty of those pounds, and she now had to watch every bite she ate in order to maintain her weight.

Lexie studied her young assistant. Antoinette Wells was twenty-five, tall, slender and exotically lovely, with curly black hair, a café-au-lait complexion and striking hazel eyes. Her mother, an African-American poet, and her father, a white third-generation Georgia politician and now a state representative, had divorced when Toni was twelve.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Toni said. “I didn’t bring any doughnuts or Danish today. And I can’t help it if I inherited skinny genes from both parents, can I?”

Lexie laughed. “Heredity can be a bitch sometimes, but in your case, it was a blessing.”

“Only in the looks department,” Toni said. “At least you don’t have the complications I do, dealing with a mixed heritage.”

“You’re right. Life isn’t perfect for any of us, is it?”

“Ooh, you’re in one of those moods, huh?”

Lexie scooted back her chair and turned it so that she faced the window instead of the room. With her back to Toni, she said, “I went for my six-month checkup yesterday, and the news was pretty much what I expected.”

“No change?” Toni’s voice held just a hint of pity.

Lexie shook her head. “No change. And after all this time, there isn’t likely to be any further improvement.” Emotion welled up inside her, tightening her throat. But she didn’t cry. Wouldn’t cry. At this point in her life, tears would be a waste.

Toni came across the room and stood behind Lexie. “Do you want the pep talk now, or should I save it for later?”