Running Fire

“Good going,” he praised, setting the syringe aside. “Now we’ll give it a couple of minutes and then I can clean it out and stitch it up.”

Frowning, she studied him. “Doctor?”

“No, ma’am. Combat medic.” He gave her a lazy grin. “But you’re in good hands, so no worries.”

She did trust him. What was it about Kell? The earnestness in his expression, a face that had been so harshly weathered? That kind, understanding look in those dark gray eyes of his? The way his mouth moved when he spoke to her in that rich, country-boy dialect that just naturally set her at ease? Leah felt as if her world had not only been pulled inside out, but upside down. A man could never be trusted on a personal level.

Oh, she trusted the pilots she flew with, but that was different. There were no emotional ties with them. It was professional, detached, and they all had a job to do.

And then, the crash slammed back into her memory. Leah gasped, her eyes widening. She tried to get up, but he gently placed his hand on her shoulder and kept her down.

“Sugar, you’re not ready to get up just yet. What’s wrong?”

Her emotions ran wild. Grief tunneled through her. “M-my crew...”

Kell saw tears jam into her eyes, heard the rasping terror in her voice. He kept his hand on her shoulder more to comfort her than anything else. “I’m sorry. They didn’t make it. Only you managed to escape.” His heart wrenched as huge tears rolled down her pale, tense cheeks. Oh, hell, he hated when a woman cried. “Your helo got hit with two RPGs,” he told her. “You were lucky you survived.”

Leah lifted her right hand, covering her eyes, a sob rocking through her. Brian, Liam and Ted gone? Dead? She couldn’t help herself. She began crying, softly because every time her body jerked she felt bruising pain in her head and left arm. She felt Kell’s large hand on her shoulder, patting it gently like he would pat a child who was upset. She let her hand fall away from her eyes and she gave him a pleading look. “Are you sure they’re dead?”

It hurt Kell, but he said, “They’re gone. I’m sorry,” and he gently pressed his fingertips here and there around the gash. She showed no reaction to his touch. “Can you lie still now for me? I need to stitch this closed and I can’t do it if you’re moving around. Okay?”

Leah collapsed against the makeshift bed he’d placed beneath her. She dragged her good arm across her eyes, grief-stricken over the loss of Brian and their crew. “Yes, go ahead,” she choked out brokenly, her voice gutted with grief.

It didn’t take Kell long to clean and stitch up the nasty gash. He could feel grief rolling off her. Kell understood loss because he’d lost some of his best SEAL friends over the past nine years. There was nothing he could say or do. Grief had its own way with a person and sometimes nothing could stop it, lift it or dissolve it.

As he finished placing a waterproof dressing over most of her lower arm, he gently laid it across her belly. Getting up, he put everything back into his ruck where it belonged. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly 0300. It was time to check out things around their hide. Kell never took anything for granted. The Taliban were sniffing around for them and he knew it. They were premier trackers, never to be underestimated.

He knelt down on one knee and touched her shoulder. She pulled her arm away from her reddened eyes. “I need to do a little recon,” he told her. “I’ll be back in about thirty to forty minutes.” He pulled his SIG pistol out and placed it near her right hand. “You know how to use a pistol? It’s got nine rounds in the magazine and there’s a bullet in the chamber. There’s no safety on this model. If I don’t come back, then know there’s a tunnel—” and he pointed toward it “—over there. If you hear Taliban coming, get my ruck, put it on your back and take that tunnel out to the side of the mountain. It’s got a compass and map, plus a sat phone in it. You can call for help. Okay?” His gaze dug into hers. Kell could see she understood his instructions.

“I can do that,” Leah said, her voice husky with tears.

Kell reached out and gently touched the crown of her head because he saw the look of terror and abandonment in her eyes. She was still fragile from the head injury. “I’ll be back, Sugar,” he promised.

Leah watched as he took long, lanky strides and disappeared into the darkness with his Win-Mag across his shoulder. She turned, realizing the penlight was the only light source for her to be able to see the area where she lay. Slowly, Leah weakly pushed herself into a sitting position. She was on a sleeping bag with two rolled-up blankets, one for a pillow, the other beneath her knees.

Emotionally, she felt demolished, the tears still falling over the loss of Brian, Liam and Ted. She scrubbed her eyes, finding her left arm painful to raise. Staring at the dressing, Leah began to appreciate Kell’s medical skills.

Gazing around, she heard running and dripping water to her right. She picked up the penlight and flashed it in that direction. There was a small pool of water. Leah realized water was leaking from above the cave roof, finding its way down into the pool. They had water. That was a good thing.

Her head ached like hell. Every time she turned it, dizziness struck her. Leah knew if Kell didn’t return, she wouldn’t have much of a chance of survival by herself. Not in her present injured condition.

She was exhausted and lay down on her right side. Less pain in her head that way. The cave was chilly, so she reached down and took the rolled blanket, smoothing it out across her damp flight suit. Finally, she was warm, and she shut her eyes and spiraled quickly into a deep, healing sleep.

* * *

KELL RETURNED AN hour later. He moved without a sound as he entered the cave. Turning on his other penlight, he saw the woman pilot asleep. Good.

Wearily, he propped up his Win-Mag against the cave wall. Picking up his pistol, which was very near her right hand, he brought it to the other side of where she slept. There was nothing to do now but rest. He stretched out on the cave floor and pulled his ruck up as a pillow for his head.

Two feet away from him Chief Mackenzie slept. He felt compelled to curve himself around her body, but knew that he couldn’t. She was an Army warrant officer. He was an enlisted Navy SEAL. The two would never meet rank-wise. And besides, he liked a woman to come to him on her own rather than imposing himself on her. Closing his eyes, Kell dropped off in minutes.

An hour later, Kell was snapped out of his sleep by a voice. Instantly, he pulled the other rifle he carried, the M-4, into his hands, trying to peer into the utter darkness. And then he realized it was the woman pilot talking in her sleep. She was restless, moving onto her back.

Worried, Kell set the rifle nearby and turned on the penlight, propping it against the cave wall, close enough so he could assess her condition. Slowly getting to his knees, Kell saw her throw her right arm across her face, as if someone were hitting her. Her cries were soft, almost like a rabbit crying after being caught by a predator. What in tarnation was going on here?

“No...”

Hesitating, Kell sat paralyzed for a moment, unsure whether to wake her up or not. A lot of people in his business had nightmares. It was just part of the PTSD they all got sooner or later.

“No! Hayden! Don’t hit me!”

His heart plummeted. Someone was hitting her? No way. Yet he saw her trying to use her right arm to defend herself from unseen head blows. What the hell? And then, Kell saw her jerk her left arm up. She cried out in pain, waking herself up.

Kell moved to Mackenzie’s side, gently catching her left arm, bringing it down against her belly. “Hey, Sugar, you’re having some bad dreams. I need you to wake up.” She was breathing unevenly. He placed his fingers inside her wrist. Her pulse was pounding like a freight train.

When her eyes opened, he saw them glazed with terror. Her soft, full mouth was contorted, the corners pulled inward. Automatically, Kell smoothed her hair across the top of her head, crooning to her. She was still caught in whatever the nightmare was. Kell didn’t want to believe that a man was hitting her. Maybe just a bad dream about the crash?

Leah moaned and covered her eyes with her right hand. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” she muttered, her voice low and hoarse.

“It’s all right,” Kell murmured. He liked the soft strands of her hair. It was strong, thick hair. The strands were silky and sifted through his fingers. He saw his touch was having a positive effect on her. He kept his other hand over hers, keeping that injured arm on her belly, unmoving because it was such a long, deep gash. Sudden movement could rip the stitches he’d so carefully put in.

Kell’s hand on hers felt warm and dry. Leah felt sweaty. She was trembling from the nightmare that came too often and usually left her up the rest of the night, adrenaline screaming through her body to run and escape.

She needed Kell’s firm, warm touch. His hand was so much larger than hers, spreading out across her abdomen. The more he moved strands of her hair through his fingers, the more she calmed down. Leah wondered if he was like a horse whisperer, having magical qualities in his hands and voice to tame even the most violent of human beings. Whatever it was, maybe because he was a combat medic, he had a healing touch. And she trusted him.

Kell saw her start to pull out of it and removed his hands. He rested them on his thighs, absorbing her beauty. Probably married. Yep, someone as pretty as she was would definitely be married. He felt sad about that, but he was a realist. Even if she hadn’t been, it would never work. It was against the UCMJ for an officer to fraternize with an enlisted person. Both could receive a bad conduct discharge, which would leave their careers effectively destroyed.

Yet, as he absorbed her, his heart reached out to her. That was silly and he snorted softly. He had a family called the SEALs. Getting involved again was not in the cards. It was a high-stakes poker game and the last time Kell had played it, he’d lost.

His lawyer wife, Addison, had hated his long periods of being gone, his having to spend six months in combat. She told him she felt as though she was marrying the SEALs and not him. Sadly, there was a lot of truth to her incisive statement. Kell had learned the hard way women weren’t meant to be married to a SEAL for long. There was a 90 percent divorce rate among them. And if a marriage lasted ten years, that was considered a long time. That should have warned him off, but it hadn’t. Now, he was a part of that sad statistic.

Leah opened her eyes, released from the nightmare. She felt Kell’s presence to her left and slowly turned her head. He sat back on his heels watching her. There was such calm in his face. His shoulders were so broad, as if they could carry more weight than a normal person’s. Even dressed in SEAL cammies, she could see his chest was broad, hips narrow. He was probably around six foot, maybe a little more. Her gaze drifted down to his hands resting on his long, hard thighs.

Healing hands. Hands that did not hurt her, but took her pain away. She closed her eyes. The agony of her abusive marriage had taken a chunk out of her fractured soul. Hayden had taught her about the dark side of a man’s nature. He’d been a sexual predator, physically, emotionally and mentally abusive to her. He’d needed to control her, remind her who was boss.

How had she survived it? There were times when Leah thought for sure Hayden was going to kill her. He’d come close three different times. And all three times, she’d ended up in the hospital. Desperate to forget it, Leah opened her eyes and met Kell’s curious gaze.

“I’m sorry for waking you...”

“It happens,” he said with a slight shrug. “Want to sit up?”

Nodding, she whispered, “Yes, but I feel like a damned puppet.”

Ballard gave her a lazy grin and came over and helped her, placing the blanket behind her back so the rough cave wall wouldn’t tear at her or her flight suit. “You will for a couple of days.” He brought over her helmet. “Take a look at this.” He turned it so that it showed where part of it had been split open.

Drawing in a deep breath, Leah’s eyes widened. “That was the blade,” she rasped. “It came flying into the cockpit.” And it had struck Brian, and part of it had cut into her helmet. She whispered tearfully, “Jesus...”

“Yes, I suspect Jesus did have something to do with saving you tonight,” Kell murmured, placing the helmet aside. He saw the stark reality in her eyes, the understanding that she could have been decapitated if she’d been at a different angle in that cockpit. Just inches...