"He's fine. Right across the path with my radio operator."
Drew swiped down his face cloth until it fell like a bandana around his neck. He picked up the radio from the floor. When had he dropped it? Perhaps when he'd reached to free her. Her eyes skittered to the hook. Shuddering, she wrapped her tingling arms around her waist and turned her back on the image.
Striding across the room, Drew barked orders into his radio. He opened the door. A blast of wind yanked it from his grip, slammed it to the wall. Sand exploded inside in sheets. So quickly these storms came, something she knew and even still it took her by surprise.
"Damn it!" Drew grabbed for the door, braced his shoulder on the back and forced it closed again.
Click. The door closed. Sand settled.
They were alone.
Drew continued to keep his eyes off her, his attention glued to his radio. "Pass the order down the chain. Take cover. Do your damnedest to enter only sites that have already been through SSE. Bottom line, get the men out of this shit, but maintain perimeter security."
His flashlight cast strobe effects as he walked and talked and surveyed the dark, cement room. Finally he placed the radio on a ledge, voices and different frequencies squawking through.
He turned toward her, sweaty, streaked with soot, mud. Blood. His poster-worthy face seemed more like something that graced a dark and sad war flick.
The Colonel. The battle-hardened soldier. She should have been scared.
Instead she wanted to hug him, give him somewhere soft to sleep. But their last parting had been full of hurt. Final. She waited, watched.
He closed the last five feet between them. She held her breath. Wanted. What? Everything.
Drew hitched the flashlight high, shone the beam down on her face. His knuckles skimmed her bruised cheek. "You're sure you're all right?"
She stared up into blue eyes still full of distrust. Anger. Hurt. "Ammar slapped me around a bit to see if I knew anything about your plans. He was suspicious since I had not reported in."
"You could have told him and saved yourself a lot of pain." His fingers fell away along with the blinding beam.
She blinked to adjust. "I knew I would not have to wait long."
"I appreciate your confidence."
"Thank you. Even if you would have done the same for a ninety-year-old woman with three days left to live. Thank you."
"You're welcome," he clipped, pacing around the near-empty cell like a caged tiger with his flashlight checking every corner for...what?
She stood in the center of the room and pivoted in a circle, watching him while rubbing her chapped wrists. "I am sorry."
He righted the chair he'd kicked aside when charging to unhook her. "Uh-huh."
"Do we have to be miserable in here together?"
Drew stopped, faced her, scowled. "Sorry, but I'm not much in the mood to drop my pants and keep you occupied with more scarf play."
He retrieved his radio off the ledge and dropped to sit on the floor. Back against the wall. Facing the door with his rifle resting against the wall beside him.
Hurt slapped across her harder than Ammar's hand ever could have. Hurt over Drew's careless dismissal of what they'd shared. Over the notion she might never feel the excitement of his hands on her bare skin again. "There is no need to mock me."
"Why not? You've been making a fool out of me since day one."
She shuffled across the dusty floor to him. "Is that what you think I was doing?''
"Think?" Flashlight propped beside him, he studied the radio clasped in his hands between his bent knees. "No. It's exactly what you did."
"That was not my intention." She stemmed a torrent of emotional, defensive words that would only shut him down. She needed to be logical. This could be her last chance to talk to him.
Be reasonable. So difficult when she wanted to curl up against him and forget the fear of being questioned.
Instead she lowered herself to sit beside him. He'd used the word "fool."
Ego.
Ah, how could she have forgotten the power of the male ego? This man's ego just needed to be stroked with reason rather than her hands right now. Hopefully hands later, too. "As you said, I had security in place back at your air base. Why would I have slept with you then unless I wanted to?"
"Insurance."
"You know me better than that."
"No. I don't."
That stung. She knew this man in her soul and he called her a stranger.
Or was that ego again? Defensiveness? How ironic that the biggest, bravest of men could have the most tender hearts. Not that she would dare risk mentioning that to him.
She had hurt him, which meant he cared after all. But instead of rejoicing, she could not get past an ache in her heart and the need to cry all over again. "My name is Yasmine Halibiz. I am a twenty-three-year-old nurse who—''
"This isn't necessary—"
"—who was spoiled by her mother growing up because her mother somehow seemed to think that she could make it up to her other two children for leaving if she paid all the more attention to this daughter. And this daughter spent all her life being as bratty as possible to test her mother's love because she was certain that if her mother could leave her children once, she might do it again."
"Yasmine—"
"I am spoiled." She let her pride slide a bit and a lifetime of defenses along with it. "And insecure." An even tougher thing to admit. "I do not...trust...easily. But I am also very determined and decisive. And while I may lie to protect myself, I would never, never, knowingly harm another person for my own benefit."
"Enough, okay?" The flashlight cast dark shadows up the tight set of his square jaw. "I told you already that I believe you really want out of the country."
Yasmine hitched up onto her knees to face him. "I also want you. And I wanted you enough to risk my freedom. That a selfish person would do so should tell you something." She fisted her hands on her thighs to keep from touching him. "I have fallen in love with you."
"Stop." He cut the air with his hand. "You're twenty-three years old. It may have been a helluva long time since I saw twenty-three, but I remember it well. People think they're in love all the time and it's fickle bullshit."
"Your first wife taught you this?"
"I taught myself."
"During your first marriage."
The storm wailed the only answer.
Drew stretched his long legs out in front of him, hooked one booted foot over his other ankle. "I'm a grandfather."
Where had that conversational leap come from? And what did he hope to gain? "How wonderful. Congratulations. A little boy or little girl?"
His head turned along the cement wall toward her. "You don't get it, do you? I'm a goddamned grandfather and you're twenty-three years old. There's just too much time between us."
This worn-out argument again that did not mean a damned thing to her? She stifled the urge to stomp her foot over him being an idiot. Instead she bit back what she really wanted to say to this man who'd just thrown her love in her face. "A baby boy or girl?"
"Shit, Yasmine, are you listening to me?"
"Yes, I am listening." And trying to figure out what was really going on in his thick head before she lost the chance forever. "A grandson or granddaughter? There. Does that let you know I heard? You are a grandparent. Now answer my question, please."
"A granddaughter," he barked right back.
"Named?"
"Damnation—"
"Not a pretty name."
He sighed heavy, belabored, before conceding, "Isabella."
"Oh, that is lovely." And he was talking. Even more lovely. "Isabella's mother? What is her name?''
"My daughter's name is Emily."
She pushed further to what she really wanted to know and did not want to know all at once. "And her mother's name?"
His eyes narrowed. She blinked back innocently to wait him out, an art well worth cultivating around this stubborn man.
"My ex-wife's name is Glenna."
Progress. Yasmine stretched her legs out beside his. "I will likely think of her as 'the bitch.'"
He choked on a cough. "Pardon me?"
"If she has made you this bitter about love, then she must be a bitch."
"Maybe I was a bastard."
"Were you?"
He was so close the heat from his solid body warmed her aching arms, tempted her aching heart.
"I was married to the Army. She said she felt like a second-rate mistress." He pinned her with gray-blue eyes that carried desire and no trust. "I'm still married to the Army."
"Of course you are. That is one of the things I most admire about you, your honor."
The gray of desire in his eyes edged out some of the blue. "For what it's worth, if I was in my twenties again this might be different."
"What if I was forty-two?"
That threw him for a second. "What the hell has that got to do with anything?"
"You seem to think you are ancient. Would you find me less attractive at forty-two?"
"You'll be hot as hell at forty-two and we both know it. Moot point. When you're forty-two, I'll be...sixty-one. Ah, shit, Yasmine. You're not helping your case here."
"Will you find me less attractive when I am sixty-one?"
"This is ridiculous."
"Well, then, can we have an affair?"
"Hell, no!" He shot five inches to the left. Away. The flashlight toppled.
"Why not?" She resisted the urge to crawl toward him. "I, of course, think you will be an oh-so-sexy, sixty-one-year-old in my forty-two-year-old eyes. But since you disagree, I will take what I can today. How is the age difference a problem for a short-term affair if you are not considering us being together when you are sixty-one?"
No answer. The flashlight rolled on its side and as much as she wanted to see Drew's face—his eyes—to gauge his reaction, she did not dare pause.
"Because you are considering what it would be like for us to be together then. And I am so very glad since it would be a sad thing if all of these feelings I am having were one-sided."
She allowed herself to move closer, to touch him, her hands on the solid deck of his shoulders. He flinched but did not pull away or tell her to go. She explored the roughened texture of his skin along his neck, the rasp of late-day beard against her fingertips. Skimming up, she traced his tight jaw, the scowling line of his brows. "Just so there is no misunderstanding. I fell in love with your eyes. With the man I see inside those eyes. That will never change. Never age."
She leaned, pressed her lips to his. Prayed. Please, please, that he would kiss her back, or touch her. Just a simple fall of his wonderful hands to her waist.
Nothing happened. And she could not even take comfort in the fact that he did not pull away since he had a wall at his back.
She sagged onto her heels. "You can relax. I do have on underwear and I am not going to drop my dress. In fact, that is the last time I will throw myself at you. If you ever want to kiss me or hear me speak your given name again, Drew Cullen, you will have to come to me."
Dignity intact, her heart in shreds, she backed to the corner, curled her throbbing arms around her knees and began her vigil to feign sleep through the sandstorm. The wind howled. Drew manned his radio. And she fought sleep for fear she would miss him coming to her. Or dream of his strong arms around her and mistake it for reality.
The wind howled on. The radio continued to crackle.
He never came.
"All right, flyboy, you can pull up your pants now," Monica instructed.
Sitting on a litter in his boxers with his flight suit around his ankles, Jack struggled not to wince at the sting. More to his pride than his thigh, since the numbing shots were still in effect.
He stood. Shit. Not totally numb. His leg hurt like a son of a bitch. He hitched his flight suit back up, zipped.
Gusting winds from the sandstorm battered and rocked the C-17. Engines had been shut down, covers sealed over to keep the sand out. Which left them without major power for lights. Only small, battery-powered lights and chemsticks offered a hazy dim glow that hinted at a privacy negated by the other medical personnel and crew members milling around them.
But at least they knew Sydney was all right, secured safe with Gardner. Although hearing Yasmine had somehow landed in the camp, too, still boggled his mind. He'd been so focused on keeping one of Monica's sister's safe, he hadn't considered the possibility something could happen to the other one. A tactical error on his part.
Damn. What a night.
"You know, Jack—" Monica pitched away bloody gauzes "—it would have been helpful if you'd given me your correct medical status regarding your thigh instead of going for the laugh line about being shot in the ass."
Jack yanked his gaze off the bloody bits of shrapnel glistening in a silver pan. "Just trying to lighten the mood, bring everything down a notch."
"Not funny."
"What are you going to do to me? Feed me crappy goat stew and shoot me in the ass?"
"Hmm, did I remember to give you your tetanus shot?"
"Yes!"
"I'm not so sure. Maybe you need another."
She cleaned up with steady hands. He would have thought her calm except for her tight lips. Pale face.
Contrition tweaked. "Sorry. Guy thing, you know, joke instead of whimpering like a baby."
Worry pulled her chalky skin taut across her high cheekbones. "You need to lay down."
"I'm fine." Definitely a male thing. No way was he going to be a wuss in front of everyone.
"Of course you're fine. But I also know that very shortly you'll be working your not-shot ass off. You should take advantage of this time when there's nothing to do and give your body a break."
Irritation nicked harder than the shrapnel. His body was revved for battle, not napping.
"You'll be more efficient later if you do."
Score one for the doc. "You're good at maneuvering flyer egos."
"Practice." Crossing her arms over her chest, she smiled her victory.
A flight suit never looked so good as it did drawn taut over Monica's full breasts. God, she was hot, leggy with curves and a sensuous mouth. Oh, yeah.
His revved body found another target for all that adrenaline. "How about this? I'll head up to the crew rest compartment and stretch out...if you'll come talk to me."
