Lyons leaned forward and placed his hands on the back of her seat. His fingertips pressed into her shoulders. An accidental touch? Or more? She would need to talk to him about being discreet. Warren had already raised an eyebrow.
“You excited?” Lyons asked. His breath whispered against her ear, sending an electric shiver skating down her spine.
“For?”
He shifted his hand forward, placing it fully on her shoulder where he kneaded her sore muscles. Her muscles were always sore. If she wasn’t humping a ruck, she was at the gym, lifting to sustain the musculature to carry and sometimes run with seventy pounds on her back.
But the answer to his question was a definite no. She wasn’t ready for any of it.
Chapter Nineteen
Baby
Ryker
Hot as shit, Ryker sweated in his desert fatigues. As a child, all the cool kids had sat at the back of the bus. Now, it was a place to shove his team, letting the band lounge up front. Angel Fire along with their security team settled in, joking over past exploits, reminding Ryker how very much an outsider he was with the tight-knit group.
An intimate familiarity developed within the members of a band. He missed it but not the drama that came with it. He’d been in high school when he made his play for the stars. His crew had had a good run, playing at school and church events and even a few parties but too young to play at local clubs. Alcohol and drugs hadn’t been an issue. As a minister’s son, he had run with a relatively benign crowd, not that they didn’t chase girls or drink. The cracks in their group had developed over who took the spotlight and girls. Girls were always problematic. Those issues had brought his bandmates to blows more than a time or two.
Like many diehard fans, he’d followed the epic rise of Angel Fire as they blasted the roof off the charts. He’d also sat with many fans, worried about Angel Fire’s future a few years back when Ash ran afoul of drugs and alcohol. Bash had been a driving force during that fiasco. Word had it, the band nearly hadn’t survived that period of their history. It was right after they’d hit it big, and Bash had been two seconds from walking out. Instead, he’d kidnapped Ash and dropped him into rehab. That story was years old and firmly in the past, and there appeared to be no animosity between the two now.
With a roar of the diesel engine, the bus rolled beyond the gates, following a convoy of military support vehicles and troop carriers. They exited the main gate and headed down the road leading away from Bagram and into the Parwan Province. The infrastructure of the country showed the ravages of decades of war. Soviet era military equipment of all kinds, including tanks and other armored vehicles, lined the desert floor, both beside the road and in rusting hulks off in the distance. Most of it was completely destroyed, not even worthy of salvage.
The convoy traveled slowly at first, crawling past the gates of the airbase, but then they picked up speed. Speed, in this case, meant a sedate thirty miles per hour. The lead vehicle kept an eye out for unexploded ordinance littering the road as well as roadside bombs placed since the last convoy had been through. Insurgents were everywhere, and constant vigilance was essential.
The drone of the engine rattled throughout the floorboards. If he had fillings, they’d vibrate right out. He turned his attention to Tia, noting how she’d pulled away when he massaged her shoulders. There had been no reason for her to do so. He’d done that before sleeping with her, and a simple shoulder massage wouldn’t and shouldn’t draw attention to them as a couple.
Were they a couple? Hard to say. Hell, from her stiff posture and refusal to look at him, he wasn’t sure what they were. Maybe he’d been her one-and-done fling after the whole Scott fiasco. No way was that going to fly. Not that there would be many opportunities over the next couple of weeks to slip away, but he had every intention of finding more downtime with Tia, time where they could shed all of their clothes and he could fully explore the secrets of her body.
He grabbed the corner of her seat and shifted forward to join her conversation with Skye.
Ash had already fallen asleep. His head rested against the window, and his jaw hung open, soft snores spilling from his mouth. His fingers grasped his wife’s much smaller and delicate hand. Thick calluses attested to his chosen profession.
Ryker glanced at his fingers. He played enough while at home to keep the pads of his fingers tough, but it had been months since he’d been home. His fingers were soft, and that boded ill for the upcoming weeks. He prayed he calloused quickly.
“So,” Skye said, continuing her conversation with Tia, “do I really need a CRNA and an RT?”
“I don’t really think you can do it without both.” For the first time in the past half hour, Tia acknowledged his presence, turning to look at him. “Don’t you agree?”
He grimaced when she looked away, unable or unwilling to make eye contact. “Definitely,” he said. “We’re codependent in our roles.”
Tia hitched her breath, and he hoped she was thinking exactly what he’d meant by that comment.
“You might think a CRNA can manage all aspects of the airway,” he said, “but in our unique environment, you’d be wrong.”
Chiming back in, Tia shifted in her seat, turning sideways to better include him.
He took that as a positive sign.
“We deal with heavy trauma,” she said. “My focus is on managing sedation, pushing fluids, and tracking vitals. I don’t have time to hook patients to the ventilator or monitor them while they’re on it.”
“And that kind of teamwork takes a lot of training. You can’t slap together a team and expect them to work it all out.”
Skye’s head bobbed. “I’m definitely interested in how you train. Forest wants a team, and he’s going to get it. My job is to figure out how to make it work.”
“Why don’t you hire a consultant?” he asked.
Skye gave a soft laugh. “Well, you’re kind of my consultants. When Ash signed up for this tour, I knew Tia was over here somewhere. Ash is still pissed I tagged along, but what better than getting the story from the horse’s mouth?”
“And a very cheap mouth that is,” he said, teasing Skye. “Whatever you need, you just holler. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. You’ll be a special ops surgical team expert in no time.”
“I can tell,” Skye said with a laugh. “How could I not be with such good friends?” She glanced between them, her cheeks reddening with the heat. “So, tell me about the composition of the docs. I know my way around an ER, but I wonder…is emergency medicine a good fit? Why not have two trauma surgeons?”
“Surgeons train to cut and sew,” he explained.
“True,” Tia added. “You know how it is; sometimes, they forget about basic physiology. Our force is composed of relatively young, healthy men, but even they can have other medical issues. The surgeons might not key in on those. For your team, you’ll need a trauma surgeon and an ER doc.”
“But”—Skye’s face screwed up as she thought about what they’d said—“I thought everyone here was screened medically before being allowed to deploy.”
“True,” Tia said, “but we still have hypertensive patients and other small issues. Sometimes, the emergencies we’re called in for don’t require the skill set of a trauma surgeon.”
“And orthopedics?”
Skye impressed Ryker with her tenacity. The woman was soft spoken, but a brilliance lay behind her eyes. She didn’t waste time on irrelevant questions and seemed to have already figured out most of her answers. She was confirming her assumptions and digging for holes in her plan. He appreciated a forward thinker and then realized how much Skye reminded him of Tia. No wonder the women were such good friends.
“Unfortunately,” Tia said with a heavy sigh, “we deal with a lot of limb injuries. We used to perform field amputations left and right years ago, but we’ve developed amazing limb salvage techniques over the years. I’m not really the one to talk to about that, but I wonder how that might figure in
to your injury profile.”
“We have preliminary data,” Skye said, “but I’m interested in investigating all the angles.”
Bent gestured for Ryker to move up and sit beside him.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said and then squeezed his large frame between the seats.
Bent scooted over, giving Ryker space to sit, but he still had half an ass hanging in the aisle.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to go over our set list with you,” Bent said, “and see what you’re good with and what you might need help with. How many of our songs do you know?”
“All of them,” he admitted. “How many are you thinking I’m going to play?” Despite the concert last night, he was a sideshow event.
Bent’s brows rose on his forehead. “You know them all?”
He tapped his temple. “It’s all up here.”
“Memorized?”
“Not exactly memorized, but you know how it is. The music just kind of flows. I play what comes next and let my fingers figure it out.”
Bash, who sat in the seat in front of them, turned around. “You play by ear?”
“I guess you could say that. I’ve always had a knack for it. Play me a song once or twice, and I can play it back to you.”
Noodles had the seat kitty-corner to him. He turned, placing his long legs in the aisle. “That’s really cool.”
“I dunno. I don’t think it’s that unusual,” he said, feeling self-conscious under the scrutiny of the band.
Spike sat in front of Noodles and twisted around. “Let’s test it out,” he said, pointing to Ash’s guitar case. “Hand me Baby,” he said.
“Baby?” Ryker asked.
“Ash’s acoustic,” Spike said. “Do you only play bass, or can you handle a six-string?”
He shrugged. “It’s been a few years, but everyone learns there first.”
He loved acoustic guitars and wondered if Ash’s Baby was a steel-string or classical. He expected a steel-string because it produced a distinct metallic sound. That quality made steel-strings versatile components of many genres. Surprise filled his face when Spike removed a classical guitar with its nylon strings.
“It’s classical,” he said.
“What were you expecting?” Spike asked.
“Steel-string,” he said, explaining his thoughts.
Spike curled his lip, fiddling at the rings of his upper lip with his lower teeth. “Well, Bent wanted to find out how familiar you were with our music. Don’t want to ask too much or assume too little, but since you’ve issued a challenge…”
Ryker didn’t remember issuing a challenge but wasn’t willing to mince words. He was smack dab in the middle of the most epic fan experience ever. His first guitar had been an acoustic, like Ash’s Baby. Its portability made it easy to use, and it was the ideal songwriter’s tool. His guitar had traveled in the back of the car more often than not and had been brought out for spontaneous jam sessions at the beach, lake, or even the mountains, depending on what he and his friends had going on.
Spike strummed the strings, and the rhythmic sound filled the stuffy bus. After making a few quick adjustments, tuning the instrument, Spike ran through gentle harp-like arpeggios. This wasn’t an instrument for concert venues, and Ryker understood why Ash had brought it with them. The acoustic was suited to small halls, churches, and private spaces, exactly the type of venue Ash had expressed interest in with the troops.
Ryker would’ve kept with a six-string, except the deep reverberation of the bass line called too strongly. With only four strings, bass guitar might seem simpler to play, but it presented challenges to the determined player. Pitched an octave lower than the lead guitar, the four strings of a bass guitar growled out sound with a throaty rumble. The power was indescribable and could only truly be felt.
With Ash’s guitar in tune, Spike fingered the strings.
“Ten bucks,” Noodles suddenly said, piping up from the e-reader he’d had his nose stuck inside.
“For what?” Bent asked.
Noodles grinned. “That Ash sleeps through this whole thing.”
Bash grunted, woofing out a low laugh. “He could sleep through a descent to hell. I’m in.”
Skye turned an eye on them but then dismissed them with a shake of her head.
“She knows I’m right,” Noodles said. “Don’t ya, honey?”
“Noodles”—Skye’s tone turned ominous—“don’t honey me.”
“Oh,” he said, “wouldn’t think of it, doll.”
“Put me in for twenty,” she said after poking Ash in the chest.
He shifted and curled against the window, letting out a soft snore.
“I’ll match Skye,” Bent added.
Forest unfolded from his seat up front and dug a bill out of his pocket. “A bet’s no good if everyone is betting on one side.” He slapped a hundred into Noodles’s hand. “One hundred, he not only wakes up but kicks all your asses for playing with Baby.”
“You in?” Noodles turned toward Ryker. “Bet’s on the table.”
Ryker raised his hands. “No way in hell I’m betting on either side of this.”
“Wuss,” Bent said. “We’ll get you there.”
Forest turned back and headed to his seat. “Get used to it, lover boy. These guys bet on everything—and I do mean everything.”
He’d heard rumors, but he kept his mouth shut out of respect for Skye. While he’d hoped the banter about the bet would take the attention off him, he was wrong because Spike slapped the strings on the neck of the guitar.
“You ready?” Spike asked.
“Ready for what?” He hated to ask, although a challenge was clearly being laid in his lap.
“This is a new song Ash and I have been working on. I’ll play it once, and let’s see how much of it you can play back.”
Oh shit. “After one go?” he said. “I said after hearing it a time or two.”
“Well, you get one pass,” Spike said. “Let’s see what you can do.”
Holy hellfire, this was happening.
Bent leaned back, shifting his back to the window where he clasped his arms over his head. “The song’s almost finished. It’s a hero song made for this tour.”
“Why didn’t you play it at the concert?”
“Ash says it’s not polished enough,” Bent said.
A low, resonating note peeled out of the guitar, an introduction of what would soon follow. While Spike’s fingers moved, a warm, cascading sound rolled through the bus, making the hairs on Ryker’s arm stand up and pay attention.
Baby had an organic richness to her sound, woody and earthy. Spike drove the harmonies, distorting them and compressing them into tight, heavy, and focused rushes of sensation. Ryker sat back, awed, with the privilege of hearing what would surely be one of their next hits.
The song began with loose chords, full of vigor and strength, and then mellowed out for a time until returning bright with eagerness and bold, resounding melodies. Beside him, Bent lent his vocals to the song, his deep voice melding with the building darkness. Then, it happened—a crescendo of power, metallic and harsh, brash and soulful.
Dirty, hot, and unapologetic, the song raced down his nerves, ripped through his gut, and sliced at his heart. Pure and powerful emotions tunneled through him—joy, sadness, camaraderie, and that aching loneliness of lost brothers at arms. The sound tweaked down, becoming smoky and hollow, leaving Ryker with a profound feeling of loss and grief. He felt like he had fought a battle, entered hell, and been spit back out, forever damaged and scarred.
“Holy fuck,” he said. “That was…it was intense.”
Spike let the last notes hover in the air. All conversation had stopped. He glanced up. “You like it?”
Ryker looked over his shoulder and caught Tia swiping at her cheeks. “I love it,” he said.
Chapter Twenty
Knocked Out
Ryker
Spike rested Baby on his knee and balanced h
is wrist on the long neck. “You need a second go, or you think you’ve got it?” His pierced brow lifted in challenge.
With the challenge laid at Ryker’s feet, there was no turning back. He would probably fuck this up, but no way in hell would he refuse.
“I can try, but no judging.”
Bent coughed beside him. “You’re with the wrong crowd if you don’t want judgment.”
He extended his arm and opened his grip. With a give-me gesture, he sealed his fate. Spike leaned across the aisle and handed Baby over into his waiting hand.
“First of all,” he said with a smirk, “Baby needs some tuning.”
Smiley, who faced forward and snapped pictures outside, turned to Forest. “Told ya,” he said.
“Baby sounded just fine to me,” Spike said, leaning back and crossing his arms.
Taking a quick moment, Ryker stroked the guitar, plucked at the strings, and tilted his head down, placing his ear close to feel the vibrations. A few small tweaks of the tuners, and he sat back, satisfied. “There, all better now.”
Spike glared at Smiley, reached into his front pocket, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it the few rows to the front of the bus.
Smiley caught it in his fist. “Haven’t lost one yet,” he said with a snicker. “Twenty on the boy,” he said.
“Met and matched,” Spike said and then twisted back around. “You going to stroke her all day or play her?”
“Just letting that song play in my head,” Ryker said, and he was doing exactly that. Closing his eyes, he listened for the song, traveling the landscape of the composition in his mind. There it was—that first soulful note. He grabbed it and let the song play forward. His fingers hit the strings, leading the way.
Everything around him dissolved in that moment. For the first quarter of the song, he played true to every note, every chord, every heart pounding rise and fall, but then he had to improvise, fitting in chords to fill the gaps in his memory. With his right ear cocked forward, the faintest curl of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth.
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