He could see it. Hear the roar and remember the raging panic.
“Avalanche or landslide, it doesn’t matter. It wiped out a Pakistani army camp, buried hundreds alive, including my team.” Every last one of them. Eight men gone in a flash, some buried alive and others ripped to pieces and strewn all over the side of the mountain.”
“What about you?”
He knew what she wanted to know, and didn’t make her work for it. “I volunteered for the riskiest part of the mission. Crawling closer to the glacier to stake out each country’s respective position while searching Pakistani ground for weapons. I assumed going in that it was a one-way mission. I’d get the location, use code to radio it back, but never make it out.”
“You went in expecting to die.”
The confusion was right there on her face. He got it. Normal people didn’t walk into danger thinking they wouldn’t come out. Most Marines did. He certainly did. “Yeah, but I didn’t. Being on the way to the glacier put me off track for the slide.”
She exhaled, long and loud. “You weren’t buried.”
“I was but I didn’t get plunged under like the others. If you’re a foot or less under the slide you have a chance of digging your way out.”
She put her hand on his chest in a light but reassuring gesture. “Which you, of course, did.”
“We’d had avalanche training before they left. Real basic stuff. Something that seemed like a waste of time because in a battle of man versus mountain, the mountain wins. But the training helped.”
She spread her hand on his chest. “I’m sure your survival instinct proved to be the difference.”
The military counselor he was forced to see said the same thing. West didn’t believe it back then. He put some stock in it now.
His hand covered hers because it just felt right to touch her then. “I knew to dig out a small air pocket so I could breathe, and kept one arm raised so I would know which was up. The small shovel I carried with me helped do the rest.”
Never mind that he wrenched his arm out of the socket and fractured it in two places. That was nothing compared to the collapsed lung and broken ribs, neither of which made his rescue attempts of the others all that easy or successful.
“That sounds so horrifying.”
“No, seeing blood sprayed over the white snow, knowing my men were either in pieces or buried deep without receivers or any way to locate them . . . that was horrifying.”
She pulled their joint hands and rested them against her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
Any other time being touched while remembering those days would set him off and have him yanking away. With her, warmth spread through him and he grabbed on. “No one comes to rescue you when you’re where you’re not allowed to be.”
“Your men?”
“Died.” It took him a full year to be able to say the word. Not one of them walked out with him, and he couldn’t take them home. “I stripped off anything that would identify them and buried the bodies I could find.”
Actually stood there, freezing and in blinding pain, half wrecked with grief and in shock, and dug with his hands. He’d known that if found, their bodies would be used as propaganda or as an excuse to start or escalate a fight with the U.S. He couldn’t allow either.
But he’d left men behind. Two. He remembered their names and their faces. Broke his vow after days of digging and dodging the Pakistani army, all while not eating and having no warmth or place to sleep other than the killing snow.
He refused to make that choice again. He should have stayed and dug until his hands were raw. He owed his men that.
That was the day he became a machine.
He inhaled, forcing out the words left inside him. “So, no. I don’t welcome death, but I don’t run from it either. I have a job.”
She lifted their joint hands to her mouth and kissed the back of his hand. “A horrible one.”
The warmth of her fingers provided a strange comfort. “One that’s twice stuck me in this hellhole.”
She shook her head, and her hair fell around her shoulders. “Why would you ever come back here, where all those memories linger?”
“Technically, for your dad and the information we thought he provided. In reality, for you.” Looking at her now, seeing the warmth in her eyes and touching her fingers, he knew one simple truth—he’d walk into Hell for her, and for him this place came close.
“We have to leave.” She jerked away from him and looked around the room. “Get you out of Pakistan.”
No one had ever told him to walk away before. He knew this was about her concern for his sanity. He should have been offended, but he wasn’t. “Hey, in a race of me against the Siachen Glacier, I’m ahead.”
She turned back with an expression filled with fury. “Don’t be flippant. Not now.”
“Okay.”
She moved fast as she grabbed the bag he’d already loaded and started pawing through it. She was this vibrating ball of energy and looked two seconds away from spinning out of control.
“I can’t believe your idiot boss and that so-called team of yours sent you here,” she said as she threw one item after another out of the bag.
Well, this was new. He waited for the anger to hit him but it didn’t. Having a woman want to protect him didn’t suck.
“Lexi, listen to me.” He caught her shoulders before she undid all of his work and put them off schedule. “I don’t run away from an assignment.”
She waved a hand at him. “Let the rest of your team do it. Didn’t Josiah say there were four others?”
That didn’t sit right with West at all. “Do you think that’s who I am? That I pass off the danger, so I can stay safe?”
“Is it wrong that I don’t want you to get hurt? That I want you to be that guy this one time?” She practically yelled the question.
“Yeah, that guy sucks.”
She shrugged out of his hold and grabbed a jacket. Almost dislocated a shoulder putting it on. “That’s the point. I want to figure out who you are, and I can’t do that if you’re dead.”
His mood bounced from concerned to humbled. Watching her amounted to pure entertainment. He didn’t dare laugh. He didn’t find it funny. More like sexy and flattering as hell.
The only way he knew to calm her down was to stay even-keeled and try to talk her down off whatever emotional high buzzed through her. He went for an uncomplicated list. “We’re going to get the intel, get out and be fine.”
“You can’t promise that.” She continued to stew and bounce and shift her weight around.
But she looked so damn cute in the oversized jacket. Javed found her a smaller size but it still dwarfed her.
This time West did smile. “I have an incentive.”
She frowned at him. “What?”
“Once we get somewhere safe I’m going to be all over you.”
She blinked several times. “West, I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He touched her then. Put his arms around her waist and pulled her in close. “Inside you.”
“Oh.”
His mouth found her neck. “Should I describe what’s going to happen. Use every dirty word I know?”
“Like?”
“I can talk about how I intend to fuck you.” But it would be more than that. She wasn’t an easy and forgettable lay. He knew that already.
She turned her head and kissed him. Her mouth lingered over his as her fingertips danced over his skin.
It took another minute before she lifted her head, and even then she balanced her cheek against his. “If you break this promise, I’m going to take that knife and stab you.”
And she would. He loved that about her. “Fair enough.”
10
LEXI HAD done some risky things in her life but this blew them all away.
After her breakdown, she’d received a leave of absence from school. The facility her father found for her to “recuperate” only increased her anxiety. She left the hospita
l—and that’s what it was, no matter how many pretty words her father used to call it something else—early, after two weeks, and against the doctor’s advice. She’d walked in voluntarily, and they couldn’t hold her no matter how much influence her father tried to bring down on everyone, including her.
But she couldn’t go back to medical school. She’d failed. Flamed out, and everyone knew. So she walked away from it and a career focused on helping people. Afterward, she never expected the call to hit her so hard, but it did.
She opted for specialized training everyone told her was a waste of time. The kind that would make her useful to her father. Relocated to Pakistan at a time when being an American woman in that country could be problematic.
It all worked out until the one night she snuck around, following mysterious trucks, then made the call that brought West and his team running. Everything snowballed from there. The danger. How she rolled around naked with West, a man she barely knew but instinctively trusted. Now this. Riding in the back of an army vehicle to some covert area that was so dangerous there wasn’t even a word strong enough to describe it.
Javed all but promised they’d be caught and killed as he got into the driver’s seat back at his house. That now seemed like it happened hours ago.
At least the modified Jeep looked the part, with the camouflage paint. A large metal bar separated the front from the back, but nothing covered them as they rumbled over uneven terrain, sending her bouncing around on the hard bench seat. Watching West didn’t help. He sat across from her, switching his gaze back and forth from the dust kicking up behind them to the open road ahead.
They stayed off-road, however, and moved slowly. A large hill blocked their sight lines to the right, and West had complained to Javed about this route choice because of it. In addition, Pakistani army roadblocks set up to look for her and the general’s killer limited their options, so they spanned the miles in darkness and with only the parking lights on to guide their way.
“The temperature has dropped dramatically.” Lexi had to force her teeth from chattering just to get that sentence out.
“Which is why I’m wondering where the cold weather gear is,” West said without looking at her. “I’m guessing Javed forgot it.”
She wore an oversized army jacket that Javed scrounged from somewhere, but the cold wind blew right through it. West insisted she wear his gloves. They helped but she still had to tuck her hands in her armpits to keep the circulation going. She had no idea how he sat there in that thin black jacket with bare hands and a bare head.
“Too obvious to wear that,” Javed shouted over his shoulder while the Jeep’s wheel shimmied back and forth in his hands. “If you were caught it would trace back to me.”
West blew on his hands. “So?”
“Alexis would not be able to act the victim.” Javed looked over his shoulder for a second, then his gaze went back to the route he created as he drove.
Lexi didn’t see how those two things related to each other but she wanted the conversation over. She was already sorry she’d said anything at all. That would teach her to think the weather was a safe topic.
“At least it’s not winter,” she said. They would literally be blocks of ice riding in an open Jeep if it were a few months later.
West traded hand-blowing for rubbing his palms up and down on his legs. “That will be a huge comfort when you freeze to death.”
“Hey.” She stretched her leg and tapped her foot against his boot. “It’s fine, so ease up.”
His gaze shot to her and his mouth opened. Whatever he saw on her face or picked up in the air had his jaw closing and him nodding instead.
Between the strain around Javed’s mouth and the anger vibrating in West’s voice, Lexi knew that both men had hit the end of their patience. They were snapping at each other. Maybe that’s how men handled these things. She wasn’t conversant enough on the typical alpha man to know.
Without warning, West shifted in his seat. He had his gun out as he went up on one knee on the bench. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” But Javed slowed the Jeep down.
Now both men looked around, scanning the area. She didn’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary. Just the knock of her heart crashing against her rib cage. Fear pinged around inside her as tension whipped around the vehicle.
Her mood tended to switch to match West’s, and right now he was up and stiff, with his gun aimed. Him being on high alert sent wave after wave of anxiety crashing through her. She tried to slow her breathing and focus.
“West, what is it?” Those coping tools she learned so long ago came rushing back to her. She needed facts or she’d panic.
She could face this. Could survive.
He held out a hand toward her. “Duck down. Sit on the floor. Head between your knees and arms over your head.”
They were going to crash. He didn’t say it but she knew.
She’d just started to drop when she heard it. The roar of an engine off to her right in the still darkness. Javed continued to drive. He and West talked back and forth but she couldn’t hear them.
Then headlights flashed in front of them from the right. It was as if a vehicle appeared out of the middle of the rock wall. She assumed that meant the rock wall had ended but her brain lagged behind what she was seeing. So unexpected. So terrifying.
“Stop the Jeep.” West gave Javed the order before glancing over at her. “Get down,” he said again.
She wanted to. She should. But the danger paralyzed her. She watched it like she would a movie, from a distance and unattached.
For a second she thought they got lucky. The lights moved away from them in the quiet night, highlighting the miles of open and unused land. She held her breath, but then the truck or car or whatever it was swung around. Tires screeched and the lights swung in a wide arc and headed right for them.
West looked down at Javed. “Hit the gas.”
“No, no.” Javed yelled something else in his language as their Jeep sped up. Plumes of dirt billowed around them and pebbles kicked up and pinged the side of the vehicle. One nailed her in the arm and she bit back a scream.
“Do not blink, Javed.” West balanced on his arms. “Keep going. Faster.”
She watched in horror as a truck with floodlights barreled toward them. West didn’t flinch, but Javed shifted in his seat and shouted. He’d rattle off a few words in rapid succession then shake his head.
They were playing a deadly game of chicken and Javed didn’t appear to have the stomach for it. West must have known because he jumped into the front seat and pointed, giving orders as he reached back to push her head down.
She balanced on her knees, ignoring how the hard floor bruised her skin. With her shoulder braced against the back of Javed’s seat, she waited. Part of her wanted to shut her eyes and block out the nightmare. But she needed to see and be ready.
West would throw his body in front of hers. She knew that without asking. He’d made it clear his job was to gather evidence and get her to safety.
She heard the revving of an engine. A banging noise came next, and both West and Javed crouched down. Gunfire. Had to be. As soon as she thought it, the Jeep slowed down.
“Javed, no.” West grabbed the wheel and slid over, almost on top of him.
The headlights of the other vehicle were still there. The Jeep swung from side to side over the bumpy land and the truck kept coming. Shots rang out and West fired back. The headlights cast most of the area in shadow.
The noise and chaos raged around her. She held her hands over her ears but watched every second. The need to pull West to the back with her nearly overwhelmed her. She wanted him protected, not this huge target only thirty feet away from the oncoming truck.
A figure hung out of the side of the truck ahead. They were within twenty feet apart now. West shouted something as he pushed on the back of Javed’s head.
“Lexi, down!” West screamed out his orders as he pulled the steering
wheel hard to one side.
The Jeep went into a slide. Brakes squealed and gunshots rang out. She closed her eyes for a second then opened them again. The world spun around her and the Jeep wobbled. She saw lights and then darkness in front of her before the Jeep tipped.
Bangs and thuds sounded as her body went into freefall. She felt a hard slam and a jolt then she turned weightless. She flew through the air and crashed back down again.
Lexi’s head slammed into something metal and her legs twisted underneath her. She smelled smoke and gasoline. Voices ran together and she tried to pick out West’s. When she opened her eyes again, two men stood over her. Neither looked familiar but she recognized the Pakistani army uniforms.
A groan came from the front seat, and one of the uniformed men shifted to look. Javed sat up, rubbing his shoulder. Blood spilled from a cut in his head, and even in the dim light she could see the haziness in his eyes. A concussion maybe.
But all of her attention went to the deathly quiet from West’s side. He was slumped over and hanging down. The steering wheel stopped him from rolling on top of Javed, but she could see the blood. On his head. Matted in his hair.
The second guard, or whatever he was, poked West with his gun. He didn’t move.
Every bone and muscle inside her shook. Waves of nausea crashed through her. She had to bite back the bile rushing up her throat to keep from throwing up.
Meanwhile, the other uniformed man pulled Javed out of the Jeep. Yanked on his arm and dragged him. Javed fell in a heap on the ground and the man yelled something at him. Javed yelled back and the two of them carried on a shouting match, back and forth. She caught a word or two.
The man with the gun kept asking Javed why they were there and why he hadn’t turned her in. The other man paced around the back of the Jeep toward her. She knew her turn would come next and hoped her legs would carry her.
“Get up.” He said the words in clipped English, then nodded as if he wanted her to crawl out of the Jeep.
Shaking and swallowing and trying to concentrate to pick up any sign of life coming from West, she put her palms under her and pushed up. Her shoulders trembled and she couldn’t hold her weight. When her chest fell he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.
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