Taking Fire

“There are many ways to fit in and not be seen.”

“Do you like doing this?” Mike gestured to the horse.

Shrugging, Khat murmured, “It is my destiny.”

Mike felt that damned sadness around her again. A sort of surrendering over to the inevitable within her. She avoided looking at him, as well, paying attention to eating a cookie with her delicate fingers instead. Okay, he’d try another approach. “What touches your heart, Khat?”

His voice was deep with sincerity, and it riffled pleasantly through her. Lifting her chin, she met his thoughtful-looking gaze. Lion-gold eyes. A fierce warrior. But her instincts told her this man also possessed strong morals and values as all SEALs did.

She licked her lower lip and bent her head. “To walk out into the desert as a storm hits. To smell the perfume of the dry earth rise up and embrace me. To—” she lifted her chin, meeting his gaze “—have a baby born and slip into my hands and hear her first lusty cry.” Khat sipped her tea and added, “To see my people free and unafraid, to be able to walk out of their homes and not get their leg blown off, or to lose their children to those who would abuse and kidnap them.”

His heart squeezed with pain over the last whispered words. Her brows had drawn down, her gaze moving away, looking into the darkness, eyes filled with anguish. Mike heard it in her voice, too. “Those are heart-worthy passions,” he agreed, powerfully moved by her words.

“Why are you a SEAL?”

His mouth twisted. “That’s a long story. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps, which most first sons do when their father is from the Middle East. I was a wild child, loved riding the Arabian horses, loved anything athletic, track, hurdles, gymnastics. You know, boy sorts of things?”

“Mmm,” Khat said, sipping her tea, enjoying sharing something important with him that had nothing to do with black ops. “Did you not want to become a surgeon?”

He laughed a little, holding up his right hand. “With these hands? Look at them. They’re good for fixing cars, fixing weapons, but I sure as hell wouldn’t trust these hams with a scalpel, would you?”

Khat laughed softly, feeling her heart blossom at his engaging smile. She liked his humbleness. His eyes... She sighed inwardly. His eyes gleamed with gold in their depths beneath the low light within the cave. “You have a point,” she agreed. “But you have hands of a man of the land who would work the soil, shape things and coax plants to grow.”

He didn’t want to be affected by how she saw him, but Mike was. “Farmer hands?”

“Maybe. I love looking at people’s hands. They tell me so much about them.”

He looked at his. “What do my hands tell you?” He saw redness come to her cheeks. “No, really. I’m not teasing you. I’m interested in how you see the world, Khat.” And God help him, he was. Her face was so damned readable, it shook him. There was no coyness. Just shyness. And gentleness that she tried to hide from him, but she couldn’t. Mike was having a hell of a time seeing her out there as a sniper and then drinking tea with her now. Two very different people.

“Your hands—” she shrugged “—are hands meant for molding and shaping things. Such as a loving father who would mold his children by supporting them, showing them the way, but not pushing them. You have hands that are sensitive to texture, to how something feels beneath your fingertips. I could see you being very gentle with a baby or supporting an elder who had trouble walking. You have helping hands.” Khat was so taken by his hands that she wondered what his fingers would feel like across her body. It was a vivid curiosity. And at the same time, Khat knew that would never be. No man would ever want her.

Mesmerized by her low voice, the almost lyrical quality of it, Mike was shaken by her insight into him. He set the cup down and stared at his right hand. “Then I’m in the wrong business,” he said, grinning. SEALs took the fight to the enemy.

“Not necessarily,” Khat said, picking up the second cookie from the tray. “I know many SEALs who do charity work with the villages they are near. Some bring in clothes, others shoes, food or medical support. They care about the people of the village. To those SEALs, they are not just a number. They are human beings with a heart. With a soul.”

Mike considered her quiet, passionate response. This woman lived in her heart. Something terrible had happened to her, though; that was why she was here. “Many of our guys do help out villagers,” he agreed somberly. “It isn’t always about killing the bad guys. It’s really about nation building, giving those who have practically nothing, something.”

“I like the way you see your world,” she said softly. “Your eyes tell me you see much more than you reveal to others.” And he was a passionate person just like herself, Khat realized. But he hid that element of himself, too, but not from her.

“Now you’re making me nervous,” Mike joked. Looking into her green eyes was, he swore, like looking into a well so deep that he couldn’t see the bottom. Khat had complexity and levels to herself. Maybe layers like an onion. Peel one layer off by asking the right question, and you saw another side or facet to her. She was an enigma and a mystery.

“My mother called me a seer,” Khat admitted fondly, remembering her happy childhood. “She said I had the power to see through people with my eyes.”

“I think your mother was right,” Mike said. He saw a faraway look in Khat’s eyes, her lips softly parted, not really there for the moment. “What would you say about your hands?” he asked, gesturing toward them.

She looked at one. “Oh.” And then she shrugged and made a sound. “My mother said I had beautiful hands. I played the piano when I was a child.” She looked at her left hand, moving her fingers. “She wanted me to play piano, but I wanted to dance.”

“As in ballet?” Mike guessed.

“Yes, I dearly loved ballet. But my parents could not afford it, only piano lessons. I love music, but I loved dancing and movement even more.”

“So, do you have dancer’s hands?” he wondered, seeing the animation in her eyes, hearing it in her husky voice. He saw her eyes grow dim, her expression grow closed. Nothing like stepping on a land mine with her. Mike felt bad because they were beginning to build a trusting connection with one another. He didn’t want to lose it.

“I have hands that—” her mouth quirked, brows drawing down “—that heal and kill.”

The silence fell heavy in the cave. Mike felt a sharp, jagged energy around her, as if some unknown thing was a constant abrasion to her heart, perhaps. He was very attuned to the subtleties of energy. Maybe it was reading a person’s body or their voice. Mike really didn’t know. “I think your hands are beautiful, Khat. When I first saw you, I thought you might be a ballerina.” He gave her a gentle look, hoping she wouldn’t take his compliment the wrong way.

Sitting up, she shrugged. “I dance every day. I dance on the edge of a sword. On one side is life, the other, death.” She finished her tea and abruptly stood. “One day, I will fall on death’s side. It is inevitable.”

Near midnight, she gave Mike pain pills to take so he could rest comfortably.

“I will be gone when you awake tomorrow,” she told him. “And I won’t return until dark. I’ll leave you everything you need.”

“My gear?” he demanded. If he was going to be alone in this cave, he wanted his own weapons in hand. He watched her expression become serious as she cleaned up the area and walked to the cave with the gate across it. She brought out his rifle and pistol, placing them near him. If Mike had any doubts about whose side she was on, it was gone now. Next came his heavy rucksack.

Khat moved to her medical ruck and opened it. “I’m leaving you enough pain pills for while I’m gone tomorrow. Take them every four hours. And if you can, get over to the waterfall and get cleaned up.”

“Can you leave me your sat phone? I have one but it’s got a bullet hole through it,” he said, watching her walk back and forth, collecting items.

“No. I’ll need it.” Khat saw him frown. “When I’m done with my day, on the way back here, I’ll check in and see if your people are willing to come in and pick you up. Much depends on you getting to your feet and being able to walk without falling sideways.” She gestured to his head wound. “You took a hard hit when you landed. And I can’t move you until you can walk and stay on your feet.”

“You’ve got a point,” Mike admitted. He saw her pull a sleeping bag from the cave that had bales of alfalfa stored in it. She gave her horse another bucket of water and then picked up her M-4 rifle and headed into the other cave. Khat silently melted into the darkness, but he could pick up faint sounds of where she was moving.

When she walked back, minutes later, she said, “I’m leaving you the kerosene lamp. I’ll be sleeping in another cave, keeping guard. I have motion-sensor detectors at the opening. If you hear shots, take cover and hide. I don’t think the Taliban will find us because we’re so far back in this mountain, but you don’t count on anything.”

“Got it,” Mike said. He pulled the kerosene lamp toward him. “Do you have a flashlight?”

She held a small one up in her hand. “Sleep well,” she whispered, and turned and disappeared into the black gloom.

Mike waited a few minutes. He placed his rifle nearby, his pistol within easy reach. Dousing the flame in the old lantern, he set it aside and lay down on his back. He worried about Khat. He wanted to protect her, not have her protecting him. Frustration overwhelmed him as he closed his eyes. Tomorrow he was going to be on his feet and become ambulatory—or else.

* * *

MIKE HEARD A horse approaching his area in the darkness. He stood near the cave opening to the waterfall area, M-4 in hand. The glow from the kerosene lamp revealed Khat leading her mare out of the gloom.

To his surprise, there was another horse behind her, but it was packed with supplies beneath a tarp. Khat looked tired.

When she spotted him, she lifted her hand in greeting. Khat was dressed differently than yesterday. She was in Afghan male clothes, dark brown trousers, boots, a black shirt with a brown vest over it. There was a white-and-blue-checked shemagh around her neck, the ends of it hanging down between the front of her breasts. He saw no weapons on her. What had she been doing? And why the change of costume?

“We’re clear,” she told Mike. For a SEAL, clear meant no enemy was present. And he needed to know that.

Khat felt her heart surge as she caught sight of him. He stood alert, the M-4 in his right hand. She saw he’d taken the sling off his broken arm. His eyes were narrowed, and his mouth was in a hard line, as if expecting trouble. Fortunately, there was none tonight. The Taliban had moved off the mountain and were north of her location.

She brought the two horses to a stop and dropped Mina’s reins. Lifting the stirrup, she put it over the horn of the saddle and quickly loosened the cinch and hauled the gear off her tired mare. “How was your day?” she asked as she passed him and walked down to the cave that held the hay.

“Better,” Mike said. “Can I help you at all?”

She disappeared inside the cave and came out a moment later, pulling off the shemagh. “No, thank you. How is your arm doing?”