For a moment, the woman left her gun and came to crouch beside Kee and look out at the truck as Archie overflew it one last time before turning for home.
The woman held up two fingers. It looked like a question.
Kee nodded.
The woman twisted her helmeted head to one side as if there were a crick in her neck. So she felt it, too.
Something was really not right here.
Dilyana was awakened by the roar of a descending helicopter. It was past dawn, the sun already high enough to shine over the wall and down onto the field. Her dreams had been dark and it took her a moment to shake free of them.
She knew the helicopter the moment her eyes found it. Dilya raced down the bleachers and beat them to their landing place.
The cargo door launched open, and The Kee squatted in the space only Dilya was able to stand up in. Against the rules The Kee had given her, Dilya launched herself aboard and wrapped her arms around The Kee.
She’d been so afraid that she’d never see The Kee again.
30
Kee was avoiding him. Completely avoiding him.
After a sleepless night, Archie lay on the bench in the back of the supply tent and slammed the weights upward with a grunt, his arms sizzling with muscle burn.
Twenty reps.
She was starting to piss him off. Not that it didn’t make sense. There was no way in God’s green army for a captain and a sergeant to get together.
But that didn’t stop him feeling like a piece of his life was missing when she wasn’t around.
Twenty-five.
Damn her anyway. How had she latched such a hold on him? It wasn’t her damn fine body or the amazing things she could do with it. It wasn’t her charming personality, at least not when she was in one of her foul or vicious moods—as if he could tell when those were incoming. They showed up out of nowhere and hammered in without warning, leaving wide damage paths that always seemed to include him.
Thirty.
For five more reps all he could think about was the fury that built in him like a tidal wave as the muscle burn expanded into his chest.
Thirty-five. Forty.
Crap! He slammed the weights back onto the hooks, not caring in the least that he’d beaten his personal best into submission by ten reps at this weight. And without a spotter. Thinking about the goddamn woman made him stupid.
He sat up on the bench and knocked back half a bottle of water, dumped the other half over his head, then mopped at his face with his wadded-up T-shirt. To hell with her. He didn’t need this.
Kicking to his feet, he headed out of the tent into the glare of the morning light. Too wound up to go get breakfast, too pissed that neither Kee nor Dilya would be there. Pumping iron had only wound him tighter, not wearing him out as he’d hoped.
A run. Maybe that would help. He dragged on his T-shirt and set off around the track. On his second lap he spotted Kee. It was as if she’d crawled permanently onto his personal radar screen. He looked away. Focused on the dirt loop beaten into the outer edge of the soccer field by bored fliers with nothing better to do between missions.
But as he ran, he could still see Kee going up and down the bleachers, stair sprints. In this heat. Brutal.
On lap three, he finally noticed that she wasn’t alone. She was in D-boy country on the east side of the stadium. No one kept up with Delta operators, but there was Kee, right in the middle of the pack. Down to the dirt, hard spin, sprint up twenty tiers of concrete, tap the top rail, sprint over to the next set of stairs, and back down. A stream of eight of the best-trained warriors on the planet—and his Kee.
“His” Kee. Another goddamn joke. He ignored her and focused on his laps.
Kee spotted Archie the moment he trotted out of the supplies tent. Saw the way he flexed and worked his arms and neck during his warm-up lap, he’d been pumping iron and doing it hard.
She spun on the dirt and headed up the bleachers behind Jimmy and Stephen. They’d only been at it for ten minutes. She knew the D-boys would be doing it for another hour. No chance she’d match them, but they’d let her in and she’d last as long as she could to say thanks.
Archie swung close as he settled into a run. She’d give anything to run with him once more over the fields. To chase and be chased, to find that harmony that had echoed through her. She had felt then as if she could run on and on and on. As if she could simply take wing and fly forever.
Tap the top rail. Bati town spread out before them, already slowing down as the morning heat rose. The fast pace of morning giving way to the Third World mosey that would pervade until the cooler evening and the opening of the night market. She missed that, too. Holding hands with Archie as they looked at colors, food, and camels.
Sprint along the top tier, and then back down the stairs. At the dirt, turn to sprint back to the base of the first set of stairs.
Archie trotted along the far side of track.
Kee would complete another two laps before he made it around the long curve behind the Chinooks and back to the D-Boys’ workout.
Up, tap, along, down.
He was out of sight behind the massive twin-rotor helicopters, but she could still feel him, feel his timing.
So, he didn’t want anything to do with her since Italy? Was that her fault? Her past was her past. So what if it freaked him out? She didn’t give a goddamn. Not with how he made her feel. The gentle tug on the blonde streak etched in her hair. Those brilliant eyes that had always seen her so clearly, until they didn’t.
Across, up, tap, along…
And there he was, coming off the long curve and opening out those long legs on the straightaway.
If she just—
She dove down the tiers, passing Jimmy, Stephen, and Dave.
She hit her turn in the dirt at exactly the same moment Archie passed by.
Instead of turning right, she dug left and fell in right beside him.
He startled for a moment, missed a stride.
Then she saw the look on his face she’d never seen before. Rage. Black fury.
Well, she could match that. He wanted to throw away everything they’d had simply because she had a past, let him. She’d show him what it meant to be a soldier.
She kicked out. Drove ahead, hard.
Archie clearly had the same thought. In moments they were both at a dead run, leaning into the wide turns, feet slipping in the loose soil as they dug for traction.
The first two laps they both drove hard. There were moments when Archie pulled ahead, but Kee always found a reserve to pull even, then to edge ahead. But she could never sustain any lead.
By lap five they had both settled into a fast run, hoping to wear the other out.
Eight, ten, twelve, fifteen laps rolled along beneath their pounding feet. And as they did, it shifted. Kee could feel the endorphins lightening her mood. The sheer joy of running beside the man, that rhythm of jousting for position never let up, but on this field of endeavor they were well matched.
Twenty. She couldn’t help herself. She laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it. Archie kicked into a hard sprint.
She glanced over, a snapshot of him that she would never forget.
His long body drenched with sweat. His leg muscles etched in the sunlight. His head tipped back ever so slightly, his long hair a banner in the breeze behind him. And on his face a smile of sheer joy. The joy of running, or the joy of running with her?
For two long laps they sprinted. No mere run, but a flat-out, gut-clenching sprint that tore at reserves faster than they could be replaced. Unable to breathe fast enough, not enough air in the world, she pushed ahead anyway. As they roared into the back curve behind the Chinooks, she had three full strides on him, she veered into the back tunnel beneath the bleachers.
Before the end of the tunnel had been blocked by the US Army, it had led under the cool concrete of the tiers of bleachers and opened out into the fields beyond.
Kee reached the back wall two steps ahe
ad of Archie and turned with her back against it as he skidded into her.
No time to breathe. No time to speak. No time to kiss. He ripped down her gym shorts as fast as she shoved his off his waist.
Pulling one leg free, she wrapped herself around his hips.
He drove into her so hard it slammed her back against the wall. She pounded her fists against his shoulders as he took her.
She grabbed a hank of his hair and pulled back enough to see his face. No gentle lover, no sweet Archie.
She looked into his eyes and saw only the need, the raging beast of need.
That was fine with her. It was how she liked her men. Needed her men. Knew exactly how to handle that.
Use each other; that’s what she’d always done. Lord knows, it’s what men always did.
When he pounded home, when his ragged breathing was shattered by a low moan, her own body released with waves so hard that they rode that sweet edge between heaven and agony.
He’d barely finished, his pounding need no longer pinned her to the wall, and she slid free. She had her shorts back up around her waist before he recovered.
Archie still stood, leaning in, his palms flat against the wall, his shorts forgotten around his thighs.
He’d think everything was fine between them. He’d give her one of those Archie smiles, but Kee knew. She knew that deep down, the truth had finally come out. He couldn’t stand to be around someone with her past. He only wanted her body and assumed he could take it whenever he wanted.
And that hurt worse than anything a long line of men had ever done to her. Being gutshot and dying in a god-forsaken Nigerian forgotten cesspit had hurt less.
“Hope the sex was good for you, Captain.” As she said it, she felt the cruelty of her words. But she couldn’t stop the next sentence.
“Next time you need service, you ain’t gonna find it here.”
She turned and walked out of the tunnel as Archie collapsed to the dirt.
She wouldn’t cry. She never cried.
But having now knifed Archie in the back, she had to hammer the pain back down with the iron fist that had always ruled her life.
31
Archie had stewed over it for a day and a night.
How could she get it so wrong? He’d thought they were together. Felt the joy of their run the same way he had in Italy. Had heard her laugh of pure joy, like no other sound on the planet. The release of his worries and fears had driven him mad for her. And he’d taken her, and buried his fears and his hopes deep inside her.
After worrying at it until he was half mad, he knew he had to talk to her. He went hunting for her right after sunrise. To explain that he hadn’t been using her, that he missed her. He needed her.
That stopped him so completely in his tracks that he puffed up twin clouds of dust with his feet.
Archibald Jeffrey Stevenson III needed a woman. Here he was, actually out looking for a woman. One particular woman. One feisty, assertive, pain-in-the-ass woman. Well, if he had to be feisty and assertive and a pain in the ass himself to find out what in creation’s name was going on, then, by all that’s holy, Archibald Jeffrey Stevenson III would be feisty and assertive and a pain in the ass.
“What the hell are you smiling at?”
There she stood, not three steps away. Dripping sweat from yet another workout. Her light clothes clinging to her in such a splendid fashion that he caught himself staring at her body. Those curves he’d only started to explore. The one where neck met collarbone. That perfect one, right above her hip, that fit his palm so well, he’d felt connected and at peace when his hand rested there.
He reached out to brush his knuckles over the curve of her cheek, and she smashed his hand aside, hard enough to sting badly. He tried to shake off the pain, but it didn’t go away so easily. She’d caught him hard. There’d be a bruise on the inside of that wrist.
Archie opened his mouth to apologize, but he’d done too much of that already, and none of it had worked. Perhaps because he didn’t know what he’d been apologizing for most of the time.
Now he inspected her critically. She was flexing her feet, shaking out her legs. Her thigh and calf muscles were more clearly defined than usual. That’s when he registered where they were. She was working out in D-boy country again. They’d cobbled together an agility course of tires, old boards, low wires. If it was possible to admire her more than he already did, it had happened. “What?” Her tone had shifted from irritated to acerbic.
“I miss you.” Not what he’d meant to say.
“Your own damn choice.” She went to step around him. He stayed her with a hand on her arm. She looked down at it, as if she were contemplating whether or not to break his bones. He decided to live dangerously and keep it there.
“I hate to keep doing this, but could you explain that, please?” He asked that an awful lot around her and he was getting sick of it. Hell, it was pissing him off.
She jerked her arm free and tried to again pass him by. He grabbed her wrist and, with a quick flick, pinned it up behind her back. He’d had bloody damn-it-to-hell enough of her attitude. She bent forward, immobilized.
“Answer a goddamn civil question.”
Except she didn’t stay that trapped. She placed her free hand in the dust and did a forward somersault so fast he could barely see it. With her hand once again right-side up, she broke his grasp and snatched for his wrist.
Archie dodged back and then hopped upward like a kangaroo as a sweep kick threatened to take him out at the knees.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, gunner.”
“I’m the best you’ve ever had, flat foot.”
He blocked her double-hand strike as hard as she had his caress.
“And that’s a mission plan you won’t get to repeat.” He dove, but his long reach wasn’t enough to snag her. Was that what she thought this was about? Sex?
“Don’t you ever look ahead, Smith?”
She hooked his foot and before he could recover, she lifted it and twisted hard. To keep his knee intact, he rolled down into the dirt, losing her momentarily as he clamped his eyes and mouth shut against the fine particulate. He caught her foot inches before her heel drove into his solar plexus. With a twist, she was down beside him. They both rolled clear.
“I don’t laze around the cockpit while a real woman does the flying and another the gunning.”
They circled again. When her back was to the bleachers, Archie saw the D-boy squad ranged behind. They stood in a silent line, water bottles in hand, and watched. He didn’t need an audience right at the moment.
His instant of inattention was ill advised. Kee swept a kick at one knee and grabbed for the other as he dodged. Only a quick twist that wrenched at his back kept him clear.
“You have no damn idea what I do, gunner.”
“It’s how little you offer that matters.”
That actually got a soft chuckle from a few of the Delta boys.
This time she dove. He managed to dodge and grabbed her from behind. His crosshold had her by the throat and across the chest. Except instead of grabbing the tendon in her armpit and gaining leverage to slam her to the ground, he snagged his thumb in her tank top and almost ripped it free. The move had worked well for him in innumerable training sessions, against other men. All Kee’s parts weren’t in the right places.
They froze for a long moment, his hand trapped against her breast.
Then her elbow shot into his solar plexus so hard that he knew he was down for the count.
Well, he wasn’t going down alone. He shifted his grip from breast to upper arm and rolled into her as he fell. She ended up beneath, his shoulder hard in her gut to drive out her air. Neither of them could speak, but she snaked an arm around his neck, caught his chin, and forced him to roll clear if he wanted to keep his head attached to his body.
They staggered upward in unison, kneeling, squat with hands supporting on knees, both crouched in a fighting stance. As they fo
und enough air to move, they began to circle slowly.
“Is that all you see, Kee?” Archie shifted off the ball of his left foot.
“I see what’s right in front of me.” She filled her voice with disgust as she faded right against his possible next move.
“No, gunner,” he spit the word out along with a mouthful of dust, “you only look behind.”
She feinted left then right, and made a strike he blocked easily.
“And you have perfect forward vision, pilot?” She spat back.
Actually, Kee knew he probably did. Archie was the strategist. His seat had the wide forward view, as did his mind.
“And that view has made you so goddamn smart?” Kee shot the words to avoid shooting her fists. So goddamn smug. Mr. Upper-Class Officer had all the easy breaks in life. Left her feeling cheap in a way her past never had. She’d earned every inch of what she had and earned it the hard way.
“You’re living your life stuck in the past—”
That’s when she got position on him. She dodged in, got him in an armlock that would hurt like hell. She wanted to cause him pain. Wanted to hurt him like she’d never wanted to hurt anyone. Worse than she’d wanted to take out Anna’s shooters. Worse than she wanted to hurt the Street for taking her father, her mother, and her life.
Archie managed to shift against the pain and dig his long fingers into the nerve cluster on her upper forearm. A wave of agony rocketed up her arm as they tested each other’s limits. A street-chick gunner could sure as hell take it if an uptown jerk could.
A helicopter came pounding down out of the sky. A wave of dust and dirt obliterated her vision, her hearing, and her sense of smell for anything but the gritty ocher dust of the high desert. A downpour of grit pounded against her until all she could feel was the racking pain in her arm and his shaking against the pain where she drove his arm nearly out of its socket.
Then, impossibly, at the worst moment of the brownout, he shifted. In the formless, featureless world, Kee knew she was falling, but no longer had any sense of up or down. Unable to compensate, she smashed to the ground with a body-bruising blow. One arm pinned beneath her, the other momentarily numb from the abuse Archie had given it.
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