Wind River Protector

by Lindsay McKenna

  He opened the door, pushing it open for her. “Come see me when you’re done?”

  “Promise,” Andy said, moving past him and into the long, narrow room that had an oval oak table in the center of it.

  * * *

  Andy knocked on Dev’s open office door. He was busy with paperwork. She liked the thaw she saw in his green eyes as he met her gaze. His brownish-red hair was clipped military short, and it made her feel like she was back in the place she’d called home for so many years. Holding up the papers, she said, “You weren’t joking when you said there was a lot to fill out.”

  “It’s eleven thirty,” he agreed, rising and taking the sheaf from her hand. “It’s almost lunchtime. Want to join me at Kassie’s Café? And after that, I can give you the full tour, plus take a look at our Black Hawk out in the hangar.”

  A thrill moved through her, and Andy had to hide her pleasant surprise. She’d wanted quiet time with Dev, not business but personal. “Sure, sounds good.” Understanding he was her boss, that five days in Afghanistan had given them an entrance to each other that would not normally be available. She decided to ask him instead of assuming anything about their old connection as he shut down his computer and came around the desk.

  “Are you okay with us doing something like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Going to lunch together? Off the clock?”

  He gave her a thoughtful look. “I’m fine with it. But are you, Andy?”

  She pulled the strap of her purse over her left shoulder. “I was thinking earlier about that, Dev. We ran for our lives for five days, and there were many times when neither of us thought we’d live to see home or our loved ones again.” She gave a small shrug, holding his intense green gaze, feeling care radiating from around him. “We have an odd relationship here because of it,” she went on, lifting her hand and gesturing around the office. “We knew each other under some extreme circumstances.”

  “And we got to know each other in some ways that most people never will,” he agreed quietly, searching her face. “I’m fine with our leading two different lives. It’s just one of those things. You good with it?”

  “Roger that,” she murmured. “I can remember the hundreds of questions, personal ones, I wanted to ask you, but we couldn’t talk much for fear of being heard by any nearby Taliban.” One corner of his mouth hooked upward and she saw warmth enter his eyes. It made her feel good, but then, Dev had always been like the blankie she had as a child. As long as she carried her blankie around with her, she felt safe. He was like that to her. And it wasn’t that she was the weak one on the team. She’d contributed just as much to their joint escape from the Taliban. He’d not been any more a white knight on his horse than she. How much she wanted to delve into the man she’d discovered back then. He was a stand-up guy. The kind she’d never run into before or since.

  Dev had ducked into Jackie’s office to let her know they’d be going to Kassie’s. Her eyes had lit up, and he’d asked if he could bring her back a late lunch. She’d jumped at the offer, giving him money to buy her a hamburger and fries.

  Andy smiled, liking his kindness and thoughtfulness toward others. She’d noticed it in him before. Not many men she’d met, except for her father and Grandfather Sam, had that same sensitivity. But Dev had that characteristic. She followed him out of the building.

  “Hop in,” he said, opening the door to his blue Ford pickup.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I can’t help myself,” he admitted, giving her a gleeful look, “it’s the officer and gentleman coming out in me. You okay with me opening doors for you from time to time, Ms. Whitcomb?”

  Laughing, she said, “Only if you don’t faint from shock if I do the same for you, Cowboy.” She saw his cheeks grow ruddy. That was his handle from his Army days. He’d shared that with her the first night after the crash.

  He managed a sheepish look. “Yeah, I’m okay with that. What was your handle in the Air Force? I never got to ask you that.”

  “Amazon.” She saw his eyes light up and that boyish pale-green glint reappear. He was just too easy on the eyes. Maybe she’d find out if he was involved in a relationship. That would make him available or not.

  “Good handle.” He closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side, sliding in and starting the truck.

  Strapping in, she said, “I know you’re from the East Coast, Dev, so how come your handle was Cowboy? There aren’t any cowboys there, are there?”

  He backed out the truck and headed it toward the nearby highway, which would lead them into Wind River. “My best friend, Chuck Gooding, was from Montana. His family owns a huge, sprawling ranch up near Billings. I used to go home with him when we’d come off deployment. He taught me just about everything about ranching: horses, riding, roping, branding and moving cattle. We’d gone through helicopter flight training, which is where we met, and it was like meeting my long-lost brother.”

  “That’s nice. Are you still in touch?”

  Sobering, he turned the truck onto the nearly empty highway. “He was the pilot on the flight you gave cover to.”

  Frowning, Andy said, “I’m so sorry. God, that’s awful.”

  “I know I wasn’t much of a partner when we met after that crash. Now you know why I wasn’t very talkative.”

  “You were grieving. I can understand that.”

  “Yeah, well, I was pretty abrupt and impatient with you. Looking back on it, Andy, I felt really bad about that. But you took it in stride, like nothing was wrong.”

  “I know Black Hawks have at least three or four crew and you were the only survivor, so I chalked up your abruptness and curtness to just losing people you knew.”

  He slanted her a glance as he drove. “And I couldn’t believe how flexible and easygoing you were under those circumstances. You’d just ejected and survived the landing. Not to mention losing your aircraft.”

  “I try to look through the lens of my beginning, when my biological mother dropped me off at the fire department when I was an infant. I can’t think of too many other things worse than that, and I used that event as my measuring stick for everything else that has happened to me after that. And nothing, not even ejecting over enemy territory, was worse than that. I learned how to handle my emotions because my adopted parents were such wonderful people and teachers, and taught us with love. That’s why I was probably less emotional or hysterical. The crash was bad and I lost my plane, but I was alive, and then you appeared out of the darkness, scaring the hell out of me. I hadn’t expected that, but it was sure nice to have you show up. I’d been scared before, but you gave me a sense of calm in the midst of that craziness.”

  He nodded, his mouth compressing for a moment. The Wind River outskirts came up and there was more traffic in town. “I wasn’t expecting a woman pilot. Wearing NVGs, I knew you were an American.”

  “You startled me, for sure, but I knew you were a friendly because you had those NVGs hanging around your neck, too. I just wasn’t expecting you to walk out of the grove of trees, up that slope to meet me there. I thought the pilot who bailed might be outside the ravine.”

  “It was meant to be,” he murmured. He parked in front of Kassie’s Café. It wasn’t filled up yet but would be in another half hour. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  Andy nodded and climbed out of the cab, slinging her purse across her shoulder. There were a number of tourists visiting the area on the wooden sidewalk. She knew her parents had worked hard to make Wind River a place to stop rather than just drive through on the way to Grand Teton and Yellowstone Parks. “I’m a starving cow brute,” she warned him, joining him on the sidewalk.

  “That must be Old West slang,” he teased, opening the door for her.

  “It is.” She saw Kassie at the counter and waved to her. Kassie broke out in a huge smile, waving back to her.

  “Sit anywhere you want,” she called. “You’re early, so you’ve got a choice.”

  �
��In the back,” Andy said, pointing toward the kitchen area.

  Dev lifted his hand and told Kassie hello, too. Everyone knew Kassie and vice versa. The café was only about a quarter full. He followed Andy, who headed for one of three black leather booths that were set against the wall near the kitchen. It was an alcove of sorts and more private, quieter and lent itself to good conversation. He was looking forward to this lunch far more than he should, but the fact that Andy had already asked him about their odd relationship buoyed his heart. And his hope.

  Chapter Five

  “I just can’t believe I’m seeing you again,” Andy admitted after they ordered their lunch. She wrapped her hands around the thick, white ceramic mug of coffee, giving Dev a happy look. “The man I met on that Afghan mountain, I realize now, was in a really serious mode. You never smiled or looked relaxed, like you do now.”

  “Gotta admit,” Dev murmured wryly, sipping his coffee, “it wasn’t exactly a party spot out there where we crashed.”

  Giving him a sour grin, she said, “Touché.”

  “Which guy do you like better now that you’ve seen my two sides?”

  “This one, for sure.”

  “I was a grouch,” he admitted, his brows dipping.

  “Because you lost good friends in that crash,” she whispered sympathetically. “You told me they were dead right after we met and I wanted to cry, but I was too scared to.”

  “Same here. I know we both went through escape and evasion training, but it sure wasn’t like what happened to us in real time. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

  “Same here,” she said, her mouth twisting. “I got the advanced training in E and E because I was a combat pilot.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “No, it was pretty awful. I got waterboarded. I hated it. And believe me, it is torture.”

  “Well,” Dev soothed, “we’re past all that, thank God.”

  She lifted her cup in toast. “Amen.”

  “I was thinking, we never had time to discuss much of anything about our personal lives, but I was wondering if your wife was horribly worried? I knew my parents would be once they were informed I was missing in action.”

  “I didn’t have to worry about a spouse,” he said. “My parents, Riana and Roanan, told me later they felt paralyzed with fear. Their world stopped. They couldn’t do much of anything except sit in high anxiety, hoping against hope that I was alive and not dead.”

  “Same with my parents, Steve and Maud. When I got home, Mom confided that they were the worst days of their lives. My two brothers and sister put their lives on hold. Sky, my sister, had been in the military, and so had my brother, Gabe. She was in the Army and an Apache helicopter combat pilot. Luke was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. My other brother, Gabe, was in DEA and undercover, so he couldn’t be reached. They told me later, after I got home, that because they knew what MIA meant, it was worse for them. They knew what could happen, whereas my parents didn’t. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

  “My parents were in the same category as yours, and maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I was an only child.”

  “Well,” she grumped, “it hadn’t been lost on either of us what could happen if the Taliban found us. It would have been a nightmare. I was so damned scared.”

  “That’s what kept me so serious. I wanted to ask if you were married or had someone special in your life at home, but it never came up.”

  Shrugging, Andy said, “I was single then.”

  He studied her for a moment. “No special person in your life even now?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I’m not very good at relationships, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” he teased. “You were a strong, reliable partner out there in the mountains. You knew things I didn’t and vice versa. We worked off our strengths against each other, Andy. That’s a relationship of a sort. I thought you were incredible throughout the entire experience.”

  “Thanks . . . that’s nice to know. I really felt bad after you left for the helo airport at Bagram and you had to leave immediately. I thought for sure you’d come back so I’d at least be able to thank you for your help in getting us behind the wire again.”

  “My squadron needed me at the firebase. I wasn’t injured, so I was taken out on the next helo from Bagram. We were down a pilot, so I was covering for the situation. By the time I got break to check on you, it was three weeks later. I flew into Bagram to try to find you and that’s when I found out you’d walked away and become a civilian shortly after arriving behind the wire.”

  “I had a lot of bad days after you left,” she admitted. “I tried to find you, but I didn’t even know your military ID number. Just your name. I kept hitting dead ends trying to find you.”

  “Well,” he said, brightening, “it looks like karma wanted us back together again.”

  His smile drenched her and it felt good. Was Dev married? She couldn’t conceive of someone who was as nice as he was being single. She was too cowardly to ask. Maybe he’d bring it up in conversation at some point. “Dharma. Karma is bad and dharma is good.” Dev had been a real hero in her eyes, and she wanted to tell him that.

  “What we had was definitely good,” he said.

  The waitress returned with their lunches.

  “Kassie makes the best chili,” she told him, opening a pack of crackers and breaking them up over the steaming bowl.

  “I’m still new here,” and he pointed to his hamburger and French fries. “This is comfort food for me.”

  “She makes a lot of stews and soups during the winter, which is eight months out of the year. Her chili is Wyoming famous.”

  “I’ll give it a try the next time I drop in here. That’s the only thing I don’t like about Wyoming: how long the winter lasts. I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with myself other than getting cabin fever.”

  Grinning, Andy said, “You’ll learn to love winter sports. Lots of people who live here ski and snowboard. We have a knitting circle, a quilting club and other hobbies to keep our minds off all the snow.”

  “What did you do, growing up here?”

  “My brothers and sister and I loved snowboarding. My parents liked cross-country skiing.”

  “I was thinking about flying the helo in that kind of weather.”

  “Oh, there will be times when the wind is too powerful, or we won’t be able to take off because of a blizzard coming through the area or the visibility is too low.”

  “Well, it was part of what we signed up for. Weather is always a factor.”

  “All of us kids, growing up, belonged to different clubs at school. We had our circle of friends, and that passed the time for us.”

  “Winter in North Carolina was pretty mild because we lived close to the Atlantic Ocean. I loved flying, and Kitty Hawk wasn’t that far away. I used to spend a lot of time as a kid daydreaming in the dunes near the shore, watching the gulls sailing on the wind currents, wondering how they felt while gliding along.”

  “You always wanted to fly?”

  “Always,” Dev said, giving a brusque nod and then biting into the huge hamburger stuffed with bacon. “How about you?” he asked between bites.

  “I told you that I’m adopted and was dropped off by my mother at the Wind River Fire Department.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I feel good that I was adopted by such great parents. If a woman abandons her baby to be raised by strangers, it doesn’t say much about her except that she’s in a very bad place. I recognize single mothers constantly struggling to raise a child or children by themselves. It’s hell. They’re working two jobs, farming their kids out to day care or to their parents or grandparents. I admire them for sticking it out, keeping their child or kids and not giving them to strangers. But it’s so damned hard on them. I don’t want a life like that. Not ever.”

  He gave her a thoughtful look, picking up a French fry. “Has it, in some way, made you wary of ge
tting married or having children?”

  “It’s no secret I want to stay single. I don’t want children. I never did. Maybe because of what happened to me. Maybe I’m scared that if my life isn’t in my control, I could end up like my biological mother did.” She shook her head, her voice low, grim. “That’s why I’m not good at relationships. I don’t want to get serious. I don’t want to give up who I am for a man. There’s still too many demands on a woman. And that’s not right. Or fair.”

  “I understand,” he said. “My best friend, Kelly, was adopted. He was greatly loved, like you were. And we were close. He’d often tell me when we were alone together, that he was afraid to make close ties with others.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured, irony heavy in her voice. “I know that one. I had very few girlfriends growing up because I was afraid they’d drop me or leave me because they were moving away.”

  “I feel that every baby or child who is abandoned is going to have those kinds of issues. It’s only logical.”

  “Terrible outcomes.”

  “No question.”

  “Are you still in touch with your childhood friend?”

  He smiled a little. “Yes. To this day. We were like brothers, even though he wasn’t of my blood.”

  “That’s nice to hear. Is he still in North Carolina where you grew up?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No. Kelly went into the Navy after we went through college. He eventually became a SEAL, and he’s still in. I think, in a way, because the SEALs are like a family of sorts, he found what he was looking for. He loves his life in black ops and he’s in the Gold Team, the best of the best. We text a lot when he’s not on a mission. And I try to see him, or vice versa, once a year for at least a week. That’s when we can talk and really catch up with each other.”