Nope. Not going to go there in his mind.
He stepped into the open hatchway, assumed the position. Pitch-black void waited.
Clear-cut. Absolutes. His dependable life. He could already feel the exact timing of what would happen next, a precise replica of times before—
"Go!" The jumpmaster signaled with the traditional slap on the ass.
Jump out the door and count to four...three... two... one.
Whoomp.
The chute deployed. Streaked. Filled. Jerked.
Drew pumped his feet in the air to spin himself and untangle the cords. Even though visibility was next to nil, he watched for others in the air, checked the chute for a line streamed over, creating a Dolly Parton or a Mae West as they used to call it. Hell, the new recruits were probably calling it a Pamela Anderson.
He'd been around a helluva long time.
And in the middle of all the familiarity he was always stunned anew by the silence, the peace after the roar of the airplane. With a sneak attack, it wasn't like being dropped into a hot zone rife with gunfire below.
Just opaque, silent sky. The calm before the storm to come. He could lose himself in that sensation.
Just like he'd lost himself in Yasmine the night before.
Hell. He wanted the sky back. He owned it. And now she was even here. He could almost see her damned daisy scarf calling to him on the horizon.
Thank God, his body worked on instinct. She hadn't stolen everything.
Fifty feet to go. He pulled release straps on his rucksack and grabbed his risers, pulled toward his chest, changed the drift of his parachute. Listened for the reassuring thump of his rucksack hitting the ground, his eyes on the horizon. Pulled in harder. Harder. Arms straining. Drawing risers in until by landing his fists met.
Feet and knees together. Fall to the right, M-16 strapped to his left leg.
He hit the release straps on his chest, cutting the top half free to deflate the chute. Lightning-fast, he outrigged from the harness. He whipped out his 9 mm, ran a function check. Unstrapped the M-16 from his leg. Repeated function check.
Troops ditched chutes and converged in preplanned groupings, spreading. And even as he hooked up with his RTO for radio transmissions, threw himself into full battle mode, Yasmine trickled into his thoughts. As much as he told himself she was nothing more than a mistake in his past, he couldn't stop the soul-deep relief over knowing she was safe at the airbase.
Plaster raining from the ceiling, Sydney slid farther under the desk, hugging her knees to her chest and praying the roof wouldn't collapse in on her. Gunfire stuttered outside. An explosion. Light splashed through the window. Brighter.
Closer this time.
Blake's arm slid over her shoulders to tuck her against him, a tight wedge for them both under the desk, but the safest place in the room until the battle passed. Carlos guarded outside the door as the first line of defense, Blake keeping her secured inside while the fight for the compound unfolded.
She tried not to tense in his arms. This was Blake touching her. Breathe. In. Out. Relax.
Plaster and dust from the dank interrogation room clogged her throat. Great. Ugh. She coughed. At least she didn't have to look at the dead man. Ammar's henchman.
She shuddered.
Blake's embrace tightened. "Hang in there. This will be over fast. I swear."
She wanted to believe him but couldn't imagine how a compound that held at least a couple hundred trained terrorists could fall so soon.
Although the U.S. military had certainly started the operation quickly and silently enough. With Ammar and his men already preparing to move the camp, she'd been terrified Blake would be too late.
And then there he'd stood. Taking down her interrogator—Ammar's right-hand man who'd continued the questioning after Ammar had been called away to prepare the camp for moving. If Blake had been just an hour earlier...
But there would have been two men with her then, both Ammar and his second in command. Somehow she knew that wouldn't have stopped Blake. "How long do you think it will take?"
"Twenty minutes at the most, and they'll have the compound under our control. There may be some stragglers to gather up, some outbuildings or escape routes to secure, but we'll be on the watch for them. It'll be over."
God, she wanted to believe this horror would soon be past, but knew an end to the nightmare would probably take a little longer for her. "I still can't believe you're here."
"I should have come sooner," he said, words punctuated with gunfire, another explosion.
"You shouldn't have had to come at all. I'm sorry." For so many things.
"You don't have anything to apologize for." His chin rested on the top of her head to fit under the desk, his hands firm on her back but unmoving. "Your sister's here, too. Well, not right here, but close by. She'll be landing in a medivac C-17 once the initial hostilities have passed."
Tears prickled, joy a welcome emotion after months without it. "Monica? Oh, my God, is it totally selfish of me to be glad she's in the middle of all this?"
"Once she found out the mission was in the works, nothing could stop her."
Memories of neatly sealed lunches came back to slug her hard. "Sounds like my take-charge big sister."
"She thought it was important to be here for you, that maybe all of this would be easier if she was the one to check you over rather than a doctor you've never met."
"She's right. I can't imagine telling someone else..." She swallowed down acid. Monica would be devastated when the medical exam revealed the full impact of what had happened in this place.
Rat, tat, tat. Gunfire. Shouts. Running feet and a scream. Mayhem reverberated outside while inside she heard the anger in Blake's heartbeat, his labored breaths. Would he blame her after all? Be disgusted by her? She waited, wondered what he would say.
"Do you want to talk about it, being taken and...after? he asked with a calm contradicted by his tensed muscles.
"Not yet, if that's okay."
His arms relaxed a notch, if not totally. "Probably better we hold off on that until we're both leveled out."
"I think so, too." Details would trigger his tightly leashed rage. She knew this as well as she knew him.
She knew him.
Understanding flooded at least a trickle of peace. His rage was directed at those responsible. Not her. This man's innate sense of justice, his unfailing defense of anyone attacked, would help him wade through it all. But later. Not now.
He shifted against her, his hand falling away from her back.
"Blake?" Even as she'd winced at being touched, oh, God, she couldn't bear to be left. She gripped his arms, jolted, bumped her head on the underside of the desk. "Where are you going?"
And then she smelled—spearmint. She smiled. Blake's chewing gum, a habit he once told her he'd picked up after he stopped dipping at eighteen when he joined the Navy.
"Want some?"
"Yes, please."
He pressed a stick in her palm, papers rustling as he unwrapped one for himself. She folded the gum in her mouth. Spearmint saturated her taste buds.
She chewed out her tension. So this was why he enjoyed the stuff, always chomping double-time after returning from a deployment. She embraced the familiar flavor in the midst of a foreign world and slowly felt herself relax a bit more against him.
Like many times before. Normal. And, oh, how she wanted everything to be the way it was before. Except the past couldn't be erased. Would she ever be completely okay again? Would she and Blake ever return to those lazy afternoons of tender love-making and spearmint kisses?
His arm curved around her waist again, his hand settling on her belly. An accident in the dark? Or deliberate?
The baby fluttered inside her, not that Blake would be able to feel it yet. God, she wanted to cry, but if she lost it, all of this would be harder for him and damned, but wasn't life hard enough for both of them right now?
"Marry me."
The taste left her gum. She'd expected the proposal from him, just not so soon. "Because I'm pregnant?''
He flinched and she wanted to cry all over again.
"Not because you're pregnant."
She needed to believe him. Certainly they'd talked about marriage before—not that they'd made it through the discussions without fighting about her quitting her job or him quitting his. And things were even more complicated now. "I'm sorry. Sorry that you have to be here. Sorry that we even have to think about whether or not you're proposing because I'm pregnant."
"Good God, you don't have anything to apologize for. It's not your fault." Sincerity rang clear.
Months of holding it together shattered, the shaking deep inside threatened to rattle her teeth. "I was afraid you would think maybe it was because I came here in the first place."
"Hey, stop that kind of talk." His cheek pressed to hers, slick with grease paint and sweat, but emphatic. Familiar. "I may not have agreed with your coming here, but I understand your reasons now for doing it. And, hell, you gave me an out when we talked that last time and I didn't take it."
He couldn't possibly blame himself. Could he?
Of course he did. He was a man. They thought they were responsible for everything.
She shrugged off her own fears quaking deep inside and wrapped her arms around his waist, her elbow bumping a half-open desk drawer, the stab of pain nothing in comparison to the ache that swirled between them. He stilled for a second before a sigh shuddered through him. She felt his eyes squeeze shut tight against her skin. He needed her forgiveness every bit as much as she needed his.
"It's okay. It's going to be okay, Blake."
He nodded against her, and they sat, curled up under the desk and wrapped in each other's arms through three more window-rattling explosions splashing light through the room...then fading.
"So, Sydney, does this mean you'll marry me after all?"
"It's not that simple anymore. You need to know I'm going to have this baby."
"Okay."
"That's all you have to say?"
"If you want to have the baby, then I'll love it because it's yours."
"How can you be so certain?" She had to ask because, God forgive her, sometimes she wasn't sure how she would manage it herself.
"I just am. You know I've always wanted a big family since growing up alone with my uncle. We'll just start earlier."
"What if..." She pushed free words she'd never spoken aloud, barely allowed herself to think. "What if I gave it up for adoption? Would you think I'm an awful person for walking away from my child?"
His fingers wove through her hair, the gesture so gentle, so familiar, she could almost ignore the sound of the popping gunfire and shouts outside. "Is this about your mother?"
He knew her as well as she knew him. Too well. She didn't even bother answering.
His forehead fell to hers, bringing them nose-to-nose even though they couldn't see each other. "You don't always have to do the opposite of your mama just to be different from her. Giving up this baby for adoption to a good home is not the same as leaving your kids behind to run off with some rich guy. You are a good, strong woman. Whichever way you decide, you're going to make the right choice for the baby."
He wasn't going to tell her what to do. He just assumed she would make the right choice for her. For them. She wasn't Sydney, the absentminded dreamer. In Blake's eyes, she was a strong woman.
His words snuffled around inside her mind with reason and sense and healing. So often he'd told her she was his haven, his saving grace. She'd believed him, in fact embraced the role of herself as saving him just like one of her causes, determined not to be the dependent little girl who let her sister fight her battles.
Yet in doing so, she'd denied Blake his equal role, his contribution to the relationship. Finally, all the components of Sydney Hyatt came together within herself. It was okay to be saved, and she would be saving him right back. "I know it's not the same as her walking out. I know."
Now, thanks to Blake, she really believed it, too.
"That's my Sydney." He smiled against her skin, the smile even held for a minute before he turned serious again. "Just so we're clear here, if you change your mind either way, I still want to marry you. And I believe you want to marry me, too."
God, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. "I do. So much."
Relief rocked through him, rebounding into her with reassurance. His tight hold around her eased. "Well, hang on to that thought until we land and can find a preacher. Because I'm not holding off and letting you get some idea about waiting until after the baby's born. I want to be there with you through this. I need to be there with you. For you."
It was okay to save and be saved right back.
"You're not going to get any argument from me on that one." A giggle snuck up and free, her first in four months since she'd walked away from Blake. She laughed some. Cried some. Laughed again. Relaxed a little more against the hard wall of his chest.
His chin fell to rest on her head again. "I guess I need to know you're okay with who I am, too. With what I do."
Her laughter faded, but not the sense of security, an odd-as-hell sensation in the middle of a war zone. But true. As real as his arms around her.
"After what I've seen here, the lack of basic compassion for another human being...God, Blake, it would be so easy to lose our humanity. To rage and throw off civilization in the name of revenge. The fact that all of this sent you to dark places in your mind just means you're human. I should have been more worried if it didn't affect you. Now more than ever I realize how important it is to have people like you making decisions on how these operations unfold. People who won't lose their humanity or compassion when faced with inhumane acts."
"It isn't always this clear-cut-and-dried, Sydney, the rights and wrongs and how things play out for me."
And still he was trying to be fair with her. How could she have ever doubted this man's compassion? "Life often isn't fair, something I didn't understand before, either. So we meet somewhere in the middle?"
"I'm thinking that's the way it's supposed to work, the whole checks-and-balances idea." His broad palms bracketed her face. "I've learned my haven isn't a place with a white picket fence. It's you. Just as you are. I was trying to change the things about you that made you perfect for me all along."
Another explosion rocked outside, flashed light into the room. Illuminated Blake's face streaked with cammo paint. His golden blond hair darkened with sweat and dirt, his stubborn cowlick in place and undaunted by all the grime. She saw the warrior. She saw the man. And loved them both.
