Yes, those he’d hooked up with before tended to diet, but this one was so gaunt, he could feel her boney backside under his palm. She hadn’t dieted; she’d been starved. The pleasant layers of fat that normally cushioned a woman’s rear end were missing, and her breasts, now mashed against his back, were damned near non-existent. Her ass and breasts were still soft, but the rest of her was nothing but long bones, ragged groans, and smelly clothes. Kruze was having second thoughts about Banks being a troublemaker. She was quite a bit smaller than him, and she was hurt. He wasn’t that big of an ass that he couldn’t admit he might’ve been wrong. Not that his opinion mattered. His was just to follow orders, do or die and all that bullshit.
With every sure-footed step upward, he planned how to keep her from dying on his watch. Water. Food. Warmth. Those things were basic and all within his power to provide. Communication, can do. He carried one helluva good, ruggedized sat phone, and he’d call for immediate exfil as soon as they were safe. Body heat, check, he had that in spades, and he’d never had a problem keeping a woman warm before. The real problem was the rebels who’d captured her. They’d want her back.
They were definitely not part of the regular Kurdish army, the Peshmerga, though. Neither were they PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that ruled the Eastern Anatolia Region. Uh-uh, Princess Banks had gotten herself captured by one of many radicalized groups roaming these mountains. Those guys were outright opportunists and robbers. Their sole mission was chaos. Murder.
Senator Sullivan said Banks had been out of contact for more than sixty days. Kruze had no idea what else she’d endured inside that rebel camp. Hunger and dehydration, he could handle, but rape or torture? Of this tiny thing? No woman deserved that, not even the worst journalist in the world.
He’d dealt with that kind of degradation years ago on what should’ve been a quick in-and-out op into Panama. Regretfully, it had turned into one helluva nightmare before he’d crawled out of the jungle with his Navy SEAL brethren weeks later. By then, he’d been shot, beaten, and out of his mind with fever. After he’d collapsed inside the waterlogged, rigid-hulled, inflatable boat sent to take him home, he’d cried for all he’d lost. Because—she was still back there. He’d left her. His one true love. Juliana Mendez.
Kruze had still been active-duty, a young, over-zealous frogman then. Not that being a SEAL had mattered in the end. By the time he’d been rescued, the woman he’d fallen in love with had been brutalized and beaten beyond recognition. All because she’d found him injured in the jungle and had nursed him back to health.
His mouth went dry remembering. His team had found him bloodied and bound to a stake, ready to be roasted alive like a pig. Even if they had been able to rescue Juliana, it wouldn’t have been a rescue, only recovery. His buddies had dragged him kicking and screaming from the scene of her lifeless, tortured body. In his heart, Kruze had known Juliana was gone, that there was nothing left of her to save.
But sometimes… He still saw her beautiful spirit reflected back at him every time he looked at his baby brother’s new wife. Paloma hailed from Mexico, but she looked so much like Juliana that it hurt Kruze’s heart to see her. She had the same mysterious, mischievous, dark-brown eyes, and the same rich, long dark hair. It helped knowing Paloma was happy now. Pagan made sure of that. But with her presence came the devastating memories that Juliana wasn’t happy, of how she’d died, that Kruze had left her body behind, and…
Kee-rist, he was tired. The last time he’d stopped by the Sinclair family home in far northern Montana, he could’ve sworn he’d heard Juliana’s love for life in the lullabies his older brother’s sweet wife, Suede, had been crooning to their little one. He remembered Juliana singing to him. He’d been near death when she’d found him, and during recovery, she’d sung while she’d nursed, bathed, and fed him. He’d been delirious part of that time, but she’d been kind.
Those few, tiny glimpses of the woman he’d come to love were all that got Kruze through the days without her now. Other times? He simply drank himself into oblivion and cried himself to sleep. Chance and Pagan were the lucky Sin Boys. He was the damned loser.
Why couldn’t he have the same happiness they had? Suede had been in dire straits when Chance had found her, but that relationship had worked out. Paloma, Pagan’s new wife, hadn’t been any better off when he’d tracked her to Mexico, took her home, and married her. Why couldn’t Karma have blessed Juliana with that same good fortune?
Because Karma had blessed him, instead. The fickle bitch had sent Juliana to rescue Kruze after he’d been shot and left for dead. For Kee-rist’s sake, he should’ve been man enough, SEAL enough! to have recovered quickly and rescued her in return. Therein lay his unforgivable sin. Kruze was the reason Juliana had died so horribly. In saving him, she’d defied the sadist who ruled that part of Panama. Juliana gave her life for Kruze, and he’d never be the same. Because at the end of the day, after too much Macallan single malt and a butt load of sloppy tears, Juliana was still gone, and Kruze was still hollow and hurting. Could people actually die of broken hearts? Short answer, hell, yeah. He’d been dying for years.
Kruze rubbed his free hand over his forehead and once again, resolved to do better, to be better, and to let the gawddamned past go. If only it were that simple. He set his mind and body marching relentlessly onward and upward. Step by step, the higher terrain turned into more rocks than plants, less life and drama. Absolutely no dreams.
Some mountains in Turkey were liberally laced with carved-out, hidden caves and robbers’ hideouts. Take Cappadocia for instance. Located in the heart of the country, the region boasted houses, churches, hotels, and fantastical monasteries, all carved out of soft deposits left by ancient volcanoes. But this area, these mountains the Kurds loved, boasted no such magic. It took longer than Kruze expected, and he was exposed far longer than he’d intended, but at last, he located the thinnest excuse of a cave. Luckily, it sat high enough on the hillside that he could easily keep track of the rebel camp below. No lights bobbed up the hill after him. That much was good.
Once inside the narrow split in the rock, he angled his and Banks’ bodies to the right, then maneuvered a sharp left before he arrived at what would serve as either their secure location for the night or a death trap. He’d have to explore the darkness better to know which.
Digging his pencil-thin LED flashlight out of his front shirt pocket, he tucked it under his coat to conceal the bright beam before he turned it on. The muted light told him this hollowed-out crevice was nothing special, but it provided sufficient depth and enough room to stand. It would make a one-night stay semi-comfortable. It was weatherproof and the double, baffled entry concealed light from any sharp eyes below. Hell, that opening was so narrow, this cave was virtually hidden from view. Given the layers of dirt, dust, and leaves on the floor, it was possible nobody knew it was there.
Kruze put the end of his flashlight between his teeth to see what he was doing. Lowering to one knee, he laid his unconscious charge to the dirt floor. Setting the light beside her, he aimed its beam to the rear of what was no more than a hole in the rock the size of a narrow closet. Shrugging out of his jacket, he laid it over Brianna Banks, then pulled his dirty camouflage blanket out of the gear bag, and draped it over her legs and bare feet. He needed to get her warm.
Bank’s hands were dirty icicles, so he tucked them inside his jacket’s sleeves. The miracle of Gore-Tex came in damned handy in extreme moments like this. Thinking twice, he log-rolled her to one side, maneuvered her arms inside his jacket’s sleeves where they’d warm up faster, then zipped her up tight. On him, the jacket was a tight fit, but it looked like a sleeping bag on her. Nearly turned her into a little girl, the way it ended at her knees, covered her hands, and seemed to swallow the rest of her.
With calm deliberation, Kruze opened his gear bag, retrieved several prepackaged hand warmers, and snapped them to activate the iron, carbon, and water that made them work. Sliding on
e inside the top opening of the jacket, he settled it over her heart. The other two were for her poor, bare feet. Kee-rist, they were scuffed and bloody. He located a pair of his clean, black socks, slipped them onto her much smaller feet, and tucked the warmers inside the socks. For whatever reason, those poor ravaged feet stabbed at his heart. Banks had never complained, not that he’d given her much chance. She just might be tougher than he’d thought.
The more Kruze doctored and assessed, the more he realized he might possibly be a bigger ass than he usually was. But he’d have time to crucify himself later. Banks needed the best he had to give now, and he’d damned well man up and take care of her.
Reaching into one of his bag’s many inside pockets, he retrieved a knit cap and slipped it over her head to facilitate a quicker return to normal body temperature. That was when he got a good look at the reddened, chafed ring around her neck. What the fuck had those bastards done to her, keep her on a leash? He’d ask once she came back around. For now, he pulled the drinking tube from the CamelBak on his back. Easing one hand under her shoulders, Kruze cradled Banks’ head in the crook of his arm. It took a moment before she swallowed the few drips he squeezed between her dry lips. Once she got the hang of it, she gulped eagerly. He allowed no more than a couple good swallows before he pinched off the flow and recapped the tube. Too much water would make her sick.
Banks had yet to open her eyes, but her breathing was more even.
Next, a quick wash-up, then soup and crackers when she came to. Kruze set her carefully down and made sure she was covered, before he set to work. Digging his collapsible aluminum pans out of his bag, he poured water from the CamelBak into them, activated two more hand warmers, and placed the pans on them. One for wash water, the other for dinner. While they warmed, which still wouldn’t mean they’d be hot, he cracked open three wonderfully bland, dehydrated chicken and noodle MREs. The hydration pack stayed on his back where body heat kept it from freezing. The soup-fixings went into the larger of the two pans. Then, as thoroughly and gently as he could, he dipped one of the few cloth washcloths he carried with him into the barely warmed wash water and wiped the grime, blood, sweat, and tears off what he could reach of Ms. Brianna Banks. Her face, forehead, and her poor neck. Could it be they’d tried to hang her? He wouldn’t put it past this gang of rogue rebels, but Kee-rist. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. Why the fuck be cruel to a woman so delicate and frail?
All along he’d tagged her as just another money-grabbing troll out to make a name in the big, brash spotlight of New York City. But she wasn’t anything like that now, if she’d ever been. Minus the layers of dirt, she’d turned into a woman with delicate features and dirty, long dish-water blonde hair. Her brows were dainty, not severely plucked like most models. Her nose was pert, turned up just enough to make her cute instead of Cosmopolitan sophisticated. But that same nose was chapped and sore tonight, and her skin wasn’t so much tan as it was dirty and bruised.
While her eyelashes were as lovely as velvety butterfly wings, the hollowed, dark smudges within those eye-sockets betrayed a sickly, frail condition. Thin wrinkles bracketed her mouth, and it was obvious some shithead had hit her within the last twenty-four hours. The mottled blue and black bruise ringing her neck declared she’d been choked, possibly hung. Her, a tiny thing who couldn’t have fight back hard enough to hurt anyone. Who should’ve had one helluva hefty bodyguard at her side. Who shouldn’t have had to fend for herself in a land ruled by the medieval mindsets of misogynist, tribal warlords.
Fuck! Anger at those dirtbags below poured acid into his gut. For two cents, he’d march back down this mountain and wreak vengeance on every last one of them! In their sleep, gawddamnit! Yet the more of her frail, bruised body that Kruze washed and cared for, the more he knew he hadn’t treated Brianna Banks much better. He resolved to be that nicer, gentler SEAL she’d expected, not the opinionated fool who’d shown up.
When she groaned and writhed against the hard, stone floor, Kruze swallowed his guilt and promised to make amends the first chance he could. Kneeling over her like he was, he caught the wince that crept over her face when she shifted her weight. She wasn’t comfortable. She was hurting. Again, he worried he wouldn’t be able to help her as much as she might need. How did a dumbass like him ever begin to comfort a rape victim?
Banks whimpered. Her eyes snapped open. Her nostrils flared and her chest heaved. She blinked up at him, then blinked again, as if she recognized him. How strange was that?
He’d probably scared her by hulking over her like he was. “It’s okay. Don’t panic or scream. You’re safe, ma’am,” he blurted. “It’s just me, the guy who rescued you. We’re both safe. We’re in a cave high up on the mountainside. As soon as you’re able, we’ll get the hell, err, heck, out of here. That sound like a good plan?”
The first words out of her mouth hurt his pride. “I… I don’t believe I’m talking to you. Go away. L-leave me alone.”
The poor thing would rather suffer than talk to him? That served Kruze right. He shook his head, willing to plow through any argument she might come up with. “No can do, ma’am. You’re in need of assistance, and, believe it or not, I’m here to assist. Dinner’s nearly warm. Just MREs. It won’t be hot, but it’ll suffice. Want another drink?”
Her pert nose turned up at him, as if she had a choice. But when she reached her fingers to her face and found those fingers swamped in rugged, albeit dirty, camouflaged sleeves… When that same hand slipped over her head and found his one and only knit cover there… Her expression changed from haughty to tearful. “You gave me your jacket and hat? But it’s so cold. Aren’t you freezing?”
Kruze shook his head, damned sorry for jumping to conclusions. Didn’t making unfounded assumptions make an ass out of him every time? He wished he’d learn. “I’m not cold. ’Sides, you need it more, and my shirt’s quilted with extra-soft lamb’s wool, and I’m wearing two undershirts beneath it.” And I’m babbling. Kruze shut his trap before he put both feet back into it.
“We… we have dinner? Real honest to goodness f-food?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m warming up three packs of the best dehydrated chicken and noodles on the market, but I can make more if that’s not enough.” He’d planned on two of those packets for himself, but now that he saw starvation glinting in her pale eyes, he’d settle for cheese and crackers and let her have all of the warm food.
“Who are you?”
The way she asked made him wonder if that were a rhetorical question, one that didn’t need an answer. He answered anyway. “Kruze Sinclair, at your service, Ms. Banks. Sorry if you were expecting SEALs, but I’m former SEAL, and I’m here, and—”
“You? You’re all there is?”
Okay, he deserved that dig, too. Kruze nodded.
“Who sent you, my boss?”
“Not sure of all the details, but my boss works directly for President Adams. I’m guessing he gave the final go-ahead for me to come take you home.”
The tiniest “Oh” breathed out of Banks. “Umm…” Her top teeth worried her poor, chapped bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to slow you down before, but I… I…” There went those even, white teeth again, chattering with cold or fear, he could only guess which. Her right hand slipped up and out of the jacket sleeve. “I need a little help. Something happened to me in that camp, and I… I can’t help myself or reach it. Err, them. Err, I’m sure sorry, but—”
Kruze reached out and grabbed her hand to calm the tears before they started. Crying women were not his forte. But the moment their hands touched, he had the feeling he’d done this before. Somewhere… Damned if he could recall where or when or if the feeling was even real. “Whatever you need, ma’am, I’ll help you. Promise.” Even if it’s a feminine-type problem that’ll scare me to death. He swallowed hard, but asked, “How can I make amends for being an ass to you before?” God, please don’t let her tell me she’s been raped.
Banks
used his firm grip to pull herself into an awkward position, sitting more on her hip than her backside. “You were quite harsh,” she murmured without a hint of disdain. If anything, she looked like she was in pain. “But I am thankful you got me out of there. You saved my life.” A big, fat tear welled in the corner of her eye.
Something niggled in the back of Kruze’s mind at the way she sat there and the inflection in her voice. Banks reminded him of someone, somewhere else. Kinda. Sort of. Maybe…
“Just doing my job, ma’am. What do you need?” Please, don’t cry.
Her lashes fell. “Well, you see, those people, m-my captors held a wedding celebration, and there was this enormous bonfire, and that’s when they let me, umm, out of the… the h-h-hole.”
“They kept you in a hole?” The bastards! “Did they hang you?” he spat.
Her hand went to the chafed ring around her neck. “Not exactly,” she murmured, but yes, they kept me in the bottom of a hole, like a post hole, only deeper and colder. Straight d-d-down.” Her voice quavered, and she licked her poor bottom lip. “But not much wider. There wasn’t enough room to move or sit. All I could do was s-s-stand, and it was frightfully cold, and…”
Her throat clenched and Kruze couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and pulled the woman he’d thought was his archenemy onto his lap and into his arms.
Her breath hitched when her backside landed on his thighs. “Ouch. Darn. Anyway…” Her tongue ran one slow lap over that poor, chapped bottom lip. “That’s not important anymore.”
Kruze had to top her there. “It’s important to me, ma’am.”
She accepted the earnest sincerity of his declaration with a nod of quiet grace, then went on to tell him, “That’s nice. But I guess they let me out because of the upcoming w-wedding. All the men were drinking, and some of them got drunk and threw their empty bottles into the fire, and they exploded, and…” She shrugged like he knew what that meant.
Damned (SOBs Book 4) Page 3