"Oh, God, I love you so much, Blake." The words fell free with a new ease and lightness.
"You know I love you, too."
Four months ago she'd been wrong to doubt the power of love. When faced with the worst the world could offer, love was everything. The most important thing. "It is enough."
"It has to be, because I can't live without you."
Her hand on the back of his neck, she gave a gentle nudge forward. Her consent. Slowly he leaned closer, brushed his mouth against hers. Careful. Cognizant and considerate of all she'd been through.
The kiss wasn't passionate or deep, but the familiar connection with Blake and spearmint warmed her cold soul. A flicker of something more tingled wonderfully through her. Just a flicker, and not anything she was ready to explore yet.
But so damned reassuring.
She would be okay. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, either, but someday. Because this man who had the patience and strength to crawl through tunnels and cobwebs to face hell could crawl into the dark place where she'd been taken and hold her hand all the way back.
"Alpha, this is Budweiser two-one." Jack updated via the radio from the cockpit while his C-17 circled the seized terrorist compound. "The aero-medical evacuation team is two miles out."
Two minutes out.
Monica's plane approached, dimly visible through the night and approaching sandstorm.
"Runway secure," Colonel Cullen responded. "All clear for them to continue."
The Rangers had taken the airfield and the compound with no fatalities on their side and minimal injuries. Now Monica's plane descended below him, neared the dirt runway, ready to treat the wounded and to assess the freed hostages.
Meanwhile he flew the mobile command post over the airfield. His comm equipment in back on pallets provided radio relay for the short-range information transmitted from the ground. He'd just tool around up here in the sky until the AWACs arrived to take over communications.
All was hunky-dory, right? He'd flown through hotter zones than this. Still he couldn't shake the fear that some Gomer a few miles out with a launcher on his shoulder would pop Monica's plane with a missile. Something even the Rangers couldn't control.
Hell. At least now he acknowledged his fears were a screwed-up backlash from losing Tina. Acknowledging didn't do much for making those demons go away.
Probably for the best that he had at least another twenty-four hours to get his head level before talking to her again. Monica would land and he would leave. No chance for chitchat until the sandstorms passed and she headed back to base. Not that he was a hundred percent certain how he would make up for his obvious omission just before takeoff.
Three important words left unsaid, dumb ass. Damn, but he wanted to thump himself upside his head.
Whoomp.
The plane shuddered. The thump too close on the heels of his thought stunned him silly with confusion before he realized...
Something was seriously wrong.
"What the hell was that?" Rodeo's voice snapped through the headset.
Wind whipped over him. From the side. Tiny holes peppered the plane.
Jack twisted, looked out the windscreen. Found. Flames streaming from his left wing.
The inevitable conclusion nailed him. The Gomer with a missile launcher on his shoulder had hit him instead. And Monica's plane was already descending toward the runway. A pop to her craft would be fatal without the altitude to recover.
Dread pinging over him, he keyed up the private interphone. "Rodeo, we've been hit."
And so have I. Words he held back.
Stunned numbing eased. Reality seared through his skin. Hot. But he couldn't think about that. Later, he'd worry about the shitload of shrapnel lodged in his thigh. Right now, he didn't have the time to waste on extra words.
Anticipation tingled through her. From her jump seat behind Crusty piloting the medivac, Monica watched the dirt runway come closer. Closer. Back wheels touched down, then the nose, buildings sprawling in front of her.
One holding her sister.
Only a few more minutes and she would see Sydney. The hostages were all safe and accounted for, the airfield and compound in American hands. And she had Jack to thank.
They had problems, but they weren't quitters. Some things in life were worth fighting for and she was beginning to trust in herself enough to let down her defenses.
She was finally learning to trust Jack. If only she didn't have to wait so long to start her campaign to get him to expose his feelings to her.
The open-frequency channel crackled. "This is Budweiser two-one, we took a missile in the number two engine."
Jack? His voice echoed over her headset. A buzzing started in her brain. Loud. Like someone let loose a hive of bees. This wasn't supposed to happen. Jack, of the jokes and killer smile, was invincible, damn it, and they all knew it. His cocky arrogance was obnoxious as hell sometimes, but everyone believed in him.
"This plane's pissing gas out all over the place," he continued with more of that calm confidence. "We're gonna have to put her down here. Alpha, is the runway clear?"
"Hold, Budweiser two-one," Colonel Cullen replied over the radio waves. "We have a plane on the active runway—Budweiser two-seven."
Crusty reached for the throttles. "This is Budweiser two-seven. I'll be clear of the active runway in thirty seconds at the south end."
The engine whine increased, almost as deafening as the buzzing in her brain. The plane surged forward to taxi out of the way. A tight turn in the parking area cranked the C-17 around to face the incoming craft.
She'd wanted to see Jack today, but God, not this way, peering powerlessly through her windscreen as he came in for a crash landing.
Fire streamed from the left wing, trailing out into the night sky. The hulking gray plane screamed toward them.
Helplessness screamed over her just as thunderous. "Tell me what's happening," she asked Crusty as if that gave her control, some kind of active role. "What's he doing? What's he thinking?"
"He's fine, Tiara. Trained. In control."
"Tell me, damn it."
Crusty angled toward her while facing forward. "He's losing fuel fast out the hole in the left. Losing weight. Which screws with the center of gravity because of all the gas still on the right. He'll be shifting fuel to the left even though it drains, too."
"He's feeding the fire to stay upright?"
"Basically. He needs to land quick. As long as he's going fast, the flames are behind him."
But when he stopped to land...
She listened to Crusty beside her and Jack's voice over the headset, absorbing the words of both men.
Crusty depressed the mike button. "Cobra? Dude, you'd better plant this one. There's threat on the right. And you can't turn left into that dead engine without crashing. You're not gonna make it around for a second approach. You need to throw it into an inflight thrust reverse."
The C-17 was the only plane in the world that could perform that maneuver. She'd once heard Jack brag about it. But was now the time?
God, it sounded insane, on fire and slowing while still in the air. Once he lost speed, the flames wouldn't be streaming behind. If the plane ignited, he would have nowhere to run. But Crusty was infamous for jerking the plane around, knowing its limits after years as a test pilot.
Please, please be right now.
And suddenly the speed slowed. The plane seemed to hiccup midair. Hard, steep and fast, the
C-17 descended, landed.
Lights sparked in front of her eyes as if all those bees in her brain had become lightning bugs. She swayed, grabbed the back of Crusty's headrest to steady herself.
He patted her arm. "Breathe, Major. Breathe."
"Oh. Yeah." She exhaled, gulped in two more breaths until her world steadied and she remembered to listen.
To Jack. On the ground. Alive.
"Alpha, which way do you want us running?" Jack asked.
Oh, God, to think he could sprint out of the plane into enemy territory. She tried to envision where the Rangers might be now.
"Haul ass toward the medivac plane," Colonel Cullen instructed. "I'll have some of my guys cover your six."
Monica gripped the headrest harder, her world flipping all over again, with relief this time. She would see him in minutes. She needed to hold him, warm, solid and alive. Time to quit running from the fact that she loved Jack Korba. Fully. Completely. Not someday, but right this minute and forever.
"Will-co, Alpha," Jack answered. "Heading for the medivac plane pronto. In fact, that works good for me. 'Cause I believe I've been shot in the ass."
Sweat making tracks through the grit on his men's faces, Drew issued orders in person and over the radio. Sand rode the night wind, thicker by the minute. He inched the Ranger wrap cloth higher over his mouth and nose.
The battle had been won but their work wasn't over. The airfield was secure. The compound taken. Korba's crew was safe in the medivac.
Gunfire only echoed in his memory now instead of his still-ringing ears. Fast, furious and efficient, they'd implemented their attack plan. Reports of wounded trickled in, but so far no KIA—killed in action—on their side. All their preplanning paying off.
Drew issued orders to begin SSE—sensitive site exploitation—for booby-trapped buildings and un-captured stragglers. Still no sign of Ammar al-Khayr yet. But they would find the bastard.
Something they needed to do fast with the sandstorm rolling in. Once the storm hit, they would have to lock down tight until it passed, which gave those stragglers who were too damned accustomed to sandstorms a chance to maneuver.
He checked his watch, looked up at the opaque sky.
"Colonel!" called a lieutenant from a cement outbuilding twenty yards ahead at the perimeter. "You're going to want to come check this out."
Al-Khayr? God, he hoped he was seconds away from seeing that sadistic son of a bitch.
From the open door, a sergeant escorted someone down the cinderblock steps...another Army sergeant? A man he thought they'd left at the air base.
"What the hell are you doing here, Sergeant?"
"I was ambushed, sir," he answered while shrugging off the last of the knot binding the rope around his wrists. Apparently he hadn't gone down easy if his split lip and torn sleeve were anything to judge by.
Shit. "On patrol?"
"No, sir. A request came in from one of the NGOs for medical assistance for a woman having a tough labor. The officer in charge back at air base assigned me to escort the nurse."
Nurse? A bad, bad feeling spidered up his instincts. "The nurse? One of our military nurses?" he asked, already knowing damned well they would have all been loaded up to go or already out in the field with his group.
"No, sir. We had a volunteer—"
"Colonel," shouted one of his Rangers from across the path. "I think we've got someone over here, too."
Drew charged across, heart thumping in his head as loud as the wind pounding against his ears. It wasn't her. The bad feeling increased with every step closer to the cement outbuilding. It wasn 't her. Closer to muffled sounds growing louder.
He would not let it be her.
Hiking his gun up and ready, Drew booted in the door to dark and dust. And a muffled moan. Weapons from his men clicked up and in place.
"Light!" Drew ordered. "I need some light here, damn it."
On command, flashlights arced beams into the room. Streaking across. Landing on a woman clothed in a black dress. She twisted, jerked against the wall without moving forward. Illumination flicked up to...Yasmine's face, a gag in her mouth, her wrists manacled above her head.
Chapter 19
Yasmine's arms burned in the sockets. She resisted the urge the arch closer to Drew. Wonderful, big and right-there-alive Drew with his beautiful blue eyes watching her above a camouflage cloth tied over his mouth and nose. During the thundering explosions she'd prayed he would be all right. Prayed he would come to her.
Prayed his men would not level the building first.
"Shit!" Drew charged across the dank cell, kicked over a chair on his way toward her. He reached up, unlooped her tied hands from the hook over her head.
Her arms fell like lead over his helmeted head to land across his shoulders, her hands still bound.
Forget being strong. She sobbed against his chest, from the fear of the past hours of being ambushed and interrogated, from the burning pain in her numb arms with nerve endings shrieking back to life.
From the excruciating thought that she might never see him again and have the chance to find forgiveness in his eyes. That he might be wounded. She'd heard so many cries of pain intermingled with the gunfire. Did not know who...
Drew's gloriously healthy hands worked behind her head to untie the gag.
She gulped in gasps of clean air filled with the scent of him. Sweaty, musky and yes, yes, yes, alive. "You are really all right, Drew? Nothing happened to you tonight?"
"I'm fine." His gruff answer from beneath his camouflaged face wrap didn't reassure her. "Not a scratch on me, ma'am."
Ma'am? How cruel he could be.
But he was rattled, too. She knew it. Believed it. Embraced it as firmly as she wanted to embrace him.
He ducked from under her arms, careful not to jostle her, then looked back over his shoulder at the soldiers standing wide-eyed. "Check the perimeter around this building, make sure it's secure before sight lines go to shit in the sandstorm. You've probably got about five minutes tops."
Once they cleared the doorway, he tried to untie her wrists. Puffy flesh swelled over hemp. Blood soaked the rope, pulling it tighter.
Drew's curse cut the air a second before he whipped out a knife. Large hands so gentle, he sawed through the binding, massaged feeling back into her fingers while she stared at the top of his helmet as he bent over his task. She bit back an instinctive cry of pain just to keep his hands on her again.
"How is my sister?" she finally dared ask. "How is Sydney?"
"She's fine, secured and under guard. Both of your sisters are safe."
Relief left her dizzy.
"Are you okay? They didn't—" his hands continued the tender touch in spite of his icy tones "—assault you, attack you in any way, lay one goddamned finger on you."
"No. No. They did not assault me."
The big man in front of her swayed. Then his eyes snapped open, snapped with anger, as well. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Tender time over.
"They set a trap for me, lured me out with a concocted story about a pregnant woman in labor. Please, please say the sergeant who accompanied me is all right."
