“I didn’t realize you’re married,” she said, determined not to let the conversation end on that depressing note. “Was she in the military, too?”
Gabe snorted. “Hell no. She’s an artist.”
“Really? Do you have a picture of her?”
“Always,” Gabe said and showed a quick a flash of a surprisingly handsome smile. He dug in the front pocket of his vest, the one closest to his heart, and held the photo up between two fingers. “That’s Audrey.”
Phoebe studied the woman with light-brown hair and caramel eyes. She sat on a white sand beach wearing a sheer swimsuit cover in a wild mishmash of animal prints that most women wouldn’t have been able to pull off. Worked for her, though, and okay, Phoebe might have felt the tiniest pinch of envy for that. With her red hair and pale skin, animal prints were so not her friends.
In the picture, Audrey Bristow held her hand up by her face as if the photographer had caught her in the middle of pushing a windswept strand of hair behind her ear. A multitude of bangles hung from her wrist. Her big smile appeared natural and easy, like it was something she did often.
Phoebe wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting Gabe’s wife to look like, but this colorful, vivacious woman hadn’t been it.
“She’s lovely,” she said and meant it. She passed the photo back to him, watched his eyes soften as he glanced at it before tucking it away again.
Aww. Under his gruff exterior, he was just a big old teddy bear and she kind of wanted to hug him for his unabashed adoration of his wife. She smiled over at Seth, expecting him to share in her amusement, but he hadn’t even been paying attention to her and Gabe’s conversation. He stared down at something in his hands, his shoulders hunched as if he didn’t want anyone else to see it.
What was it?
She scooted closer, peered over his shoulder, and instantly wished she had stayed on her side of the car. The item he cradled so tenderly was a photograph, worn around the edges and severely faded, and he tucked it away when he realized she was looking. Even so, she recognized the gorgeous blond woman.
Emma. His ex-fiancée.
He still had her picture.
Phoebe stared out her window at the endless beige landscape of the desert, a lump sitting in the middle of her throat. No matter how hard she tried to swallow it, there it sat, hot and unforgiving.
It shouldn’t matter that he still carried the woman’s picture. Why did she care? He hadn’t promised her anything and they’d shared nothing more than a few kisses. Besides, she’d wanted to keep her distance, right?
So why was she fighting back tears with every blink?
…
Seth knew he’d screwed up in the car. He shouldn’t have looked at Emma’s picture, shouldn’t have let Phoebe see it. But Gabe’s talk of “just in case” letters had sparked a fire of anxiety in his gut that he’d been unable to tamp down. Only one thing ever calmed him when he got like that and so, damn the consequences, he’d pulled out the photo.
Now Phoebe was avoiding him. It had been hours since they’d abandoned the cars in favor of horses and started their trek along the river into one of the most dangerous valleys in the country, but she still wouldn’t speak any more than necessary.
How could he explain what the photo meant to him? He didn’t keep it for the reasons she probably thought, but he’d never had any luck explaining his attachment to the damn thing. Would she understand if he tried? Or would she condemn him like Emma had for clinging to the ghost of a relationship long dead?
He studied the back of Phoebe’s head as her horse plodded ahead of him. Her sometimes unruly hair was tucked away, hidden under the blue fabric of her chadari, and he wished he could see her curls. Touch them. He liked having his hands in them more than he should, and the way they always sprang back into tight ringlets fascinated him. He imagined playing with the locks far more often than he cared to cop to, but it was quickly becoming his favorite daydream. It soothed him and he sure as hell could use something soothing right now. Since climbing into the saddle, he’d been a bundle of raw nerves, every little sound setting his teeth on edge.
Maybe it was because the past was too close, hovering just under the surface, but when their little caravan followed a bend in the river and came up against a pile of boulders, all the air left Seth’s lungs with a dizzying sense of déjà vu.
“Seth!” Cordero’s voice. “We’re under attack! Holy shit! There’s hundreds of them.”
“I got no comms, sir.” Link’s voice.
“Your orders?” Rey’s.
“I’ll draw their fire. Go, go, go!” Bowie.
Oh, fuck. He remembered this place.
And death.
So much death.
“Goddammit, we’re not dying up here, Marines!” His own voice echoed inside his head, shouting those false words over and over even as he watched Bowie take a bullet through the leg and tumble over a cliff…
A hand settled on his thigh and he jerked hard enough that his horse trotted sideways off the trail, neighing a protest at the grip he had on its reins.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Phoebe flipped up the front of her veil. “It’s just me.”
Christ. He released the reins and scrubbed at his face with both hands, surprised to find his cheeks wet. The rest of the team hadn’t yet realized he’d stopped and were already half a football field away.
Phoebe picked up his dropped reins and clicked her tongue, guiding both animals back to the relative safety of the trail. “Okay now?” she asked.
Not even. “Yeah.”
She handed him the reins. “Where did you go?”
“Someplace I don’t want to revisit.”
“You said you remembered something?”
Had he said that? He swallowed hard and nudged his horse into a trot with his knees. He wasn’t about to rehash his team’s last stand with her or anyone else. He’d never even told his shrinks the whole of it.
Phoebe’s mare easily kept pace beside him. “Have you been to this area before?”
“No.”
“Seth.” She positioned her horse across the path in front of him, forcing him to pull up or run into her. “Keeping that kind of trauma all bottled up will only make it worse. Talk to me.”
Anger surged inside him, devouring the pain in heat, and he grabbed on to it, held it with both hands. Anger was so much easier to feel than…everything else. “That’s all you journalist types ever want to do. It’s always talk, talk, talk about stuff you know fuck-all about.”
Her chin lifted in defense, but not before he noticed the flash of hurt across her features.
Aw, fuck him. She wasn’t like those other journalists, the ones who had dragged his and his team’s names through the mud. He knew that and, dammit, he was lashing out at her again out of fear. He had to stop doing it. She didn’t deserve his anger and it wasn’t going to change anything.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“I just…want to know you better,” she said and urged her horse back, clearing the path. “And find out why you were crying just now. I hated seeing you like that.”
An instant denial jumped to his lips, but wetness still clung to his lashes so it would kinda be like denying the sky was blue. Still, his ego took a major hit that she’d seen his tears.
“I remembered watching a good friend die,” he said, gravel coating his voice. “More than one good friend, in an area much like this one. It’s a memory I haven’t let myself think about in a long time, but I saw those rocks back there and…” He trailed off.
“Will you tell me about your team? Not about their deaths,” she added quickly. “Just…talk about them. Tell me about Aaron Bowman.”
He saw Bowie falling over the cliff’s edge again. And again. And again…
His chest tightened and he took a deep breath to ease it. “Aaron Bowman—we called him Bowie, like the knife. He was one of my best friends. Always smiling, laughing.” If he closed his eyes and shut out the world, he coul
d sometimes almost hear Bowman’s distinctive laughter. “Bowie would whip out these hilarious one-liners and you just had to shake your head at the things he came up with. He and Cordero were always telling yo mama jokes. Actually, it got kinda annoying.”
“What was Omar Cordero like?” Phoebe asked.
Talking about the guys like this should have opened up all of his wounds, should have made him hurt more. Instead something inside him eased as he answered her question. “Cordero was…solid. Reliable. Very proud of his Puerto Rican heritage. He had a huge family—brothers, sisters, aunts, cousins. His wife’s family was just as big and still, they wanted a baby. They had been trying and he found out she was pregnant only days before…”
“And what about Garrett Rey?” Phoebe prompted when his voice faded.
Seth drew another breath, let it out. Focused on the feel of the horse plodding along, its bulk a solid reassurance under his saddle. “He and McMahon were both the new guys, first time in Afghanistan. They mostly kept to themselves, but they were nice kids. Just kids…”
“And Brandon Link?”
His eyelids felt gummy, his throat scratchy. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Link was smart. Loved gadgets, a lot like Harvard. He tried so hard to get us support that day…”
I got no comms, sir.
No. Couldn’t do it, after all. Couldn’t talk about this.
He snapped the reins and spurred his horse into a gallop, suddenly needing as far away from those rocks as he could get.
Again, Phoebe caught up to him easily but waited until he slowed to a walk before speaking. “It doesn’t make you less of a man, you know. Crying for lost friends? Just means you have a heart. You’re human.”
Yeah, right. She really didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. Just like every other journalist he’d ever met.
He leaned over and pulled on her horse’s bridle until the animal stopped. “Let’s get something straight. My humanity was stripped away a long time ago.”
Instead of getting pissed like he expected, her eyes went soft. “That’s not true.” She reached across the space between them and cupped his jaw. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.”
He opened his mouth with the intent to tell her how ridiculous she sounded, but all the little hairs along the back of his neck stood at sudden attention. The horses’ ears twitched and Phoebe’s sidestepped in agitation.
Not flashback-induced paranoia then. Couldn’t be if the horses felt it, too. Someone was following them. He spun in his saddle in time to see two goat herders duck out of sight behind the rocks.
Goat herders with a disturbing lack of goats.
His heartbeat ramped up as adrenaline spiked his blood with the classic fight-or-flight response. And he was not fucking running from these people anymore. He whistled to get the rest of the team’s attention. “Gabe!”
Phoebe’s eyes widened and she turned too, but of course the herders had already disappeared. “What’s wrong?”
Hooves thundered toward them and Gabe pulled his huge stallion to an easy stop feet away. “What is it?”
“A tail.”
Gabe scanned the ridges above the valley and swore softly. “Where are their goats?”
“That’s the problem.”
“Let’s go.” He spun his horse and kicked it into a full-tilt gallop with Phoebe and Seth right behind him.
“Take cover!” Gabe ordered as they neared the team, but the command came a second too late.
Seth heard a whoosh overhead—a sound that replayed in his dreams every fucking night. By all rights, he should have been pissing his pants terrified, and reliving the moment when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded in front of his team’s Humvee, instantly killing McMahon. That whoosh of sound and the following explosion had haunted him for years—but now, instead of shutting down, something like a missing puzzle piece snapped into place inside his brain and icy calm descended.
“Incoming!” He grabbed Phoebe right out of her saddle and kicked his horse into a run before the RPG round exploded against the cliff meters away from where she had been. Her horse freaked and took off like a shot toward the river at the valley’s center. Rocks and dust exploded into the air and the whole mountain shuddered as the cliff began to crumble. Bullets followed the grenade in quick succession, sending up little clouds of dirt as they hit. Ian’s mount bucked in panic, dumping him hard onto the ground.
Seth set Phoebe down behind a boulder, yanked his 9-mm pistol from its holster on his leg, and held it out to her. “Know how to use it?”
The veil of her chadari had ripped away from her face. She bled from a scrape along her temple, too much white showed in her eyes, and she trembled like a palm tree in a hurricane. She shook her head.
“Fuck.” He did a quick demonstration. “Point—at the bad guys, not the good—and squeeze the trigger. Only if you have to protect yourself, got it?”
She nodded again and clutched the weapon in a white-knuckled grip. Kicking his horse into a gallop, he charged back into the battle and took stock of the situation as he rode.
Marcus had lost his horse, too, but he’d thrown off the chadari he’d been wearing, climbed to a good firing position high up one side of the valley, and rained bullets down on their attackers. Gabe and Jesse still had their mounts and used the animals’ speed to draw enemy fire away from Jean-Luc, who was circling around behind the group of distracted fighters with a knife in hand. Ian still hadn’t moved from the spot he landed. Injured? Dead? Seth couldn’t tell from this distance and hesitated.
Help Jean-Luc get the drop on the enemy?
Or help Ian?
He debated for all of a nanosecond before jumping down from his horse. He grabbed his pack and his rifle drag bag, then sent the frightened animal running home with a smack on its rear.
He wasn’t losing any more goddamn teammates. Even if this particular teammate was a massive pain in his ass.
He raced to Ian’s side, dodging one bullet that came alarmingly close to his foot. Hooked his hand into the neck of the vest Ian wore under his loose-fitting Afghan tunic and unceremoniously yanked the man to cover behind a natural rise in the land. The slope didn’t provide much in the way of cover, but it was better than nothing.
“You hit?”
“Wind. Knocked. Out,” Ian gasped. “Bullet. In. Vest.”
Seth pulled up the front of his tunic and sure enough, a bullet had burrowed into the one of the vest’s Kevlar plates. He shook his head, dropped the tunic. “Lucky bastard.” He unzipped his drag bag and shoved a high-powered scope into Ian’s hand. “Gotta help Jean-Luc. Point me in the right direction.”
As he assembled the pieces of his rifle in fast, well-rehearsed motions, Ian groaned and rolled to his stomach. Hissed in a breath. “Fuck, that hurts.”
“Not as bad as it could’ve. Bad guys, Reinhardt. Where are they?” Seth flattened out at the top of the rise and jacked a shell into the rifle’s chamber. “And don’t point me toward Jean-Luc. I like the guy.”
“You haven’t heard him sing yet,” Ian muttered and raised the scope to his eye. Seth looked through his own scope, which wasn’t as powerful. Even so, he saw Jean-Luc take out one insurgent with a knife in the throat. Quick. Quiet. Deadly.
Who knew the laid-back Ragin’ Cajun was capable of that?
“Tango, two o’clock. White turban,” Ian said.
“What’s the range?”
“Six hundred meters.”
Seth judged the wind, mentally did the math, made the adjustments, and relaxed into position behind his rifle. Damn, but it felt good, a little like coming home. He breathed in. Breathed out and squeezed the trigger.
“Got him,” Ian said with no small amount of surprise. He lowered the scope. “You blew his head off.”
“One shot, one kill. Anything more is a waste.” He ejected the fired cartridge, chambered a fresh round. “Find the others.”
The corner of Ian’s mouth kicked up in a sardonic hal
f smile and he lifted the scope again. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends. I still think you’re window-licking insane, Hero.”
“And I still think you’re an evil motherfucker, so we’re even. Now find me another target.”
Chapter Nineteen
Akhgar Village
Oh God, was Phoebe ever grateful to see civilization again—even if it was this tiny village along the river. But having used this place as a stopover in the past, she knew the people here, knew they would lay their lives down for their visitors if the Taliban came looking.
Normally, the Pashtun idea of nanawatai or “asylum” made her uncomfortable because it meant her presence put everyone in the village—men, women, and children—at risk. But not after today. No, now she was just so damn grateful to have that extra layer of protection. Since the Taliban didn’t want to make enemies out of the locals, they usually respected when the villagers enacted nanawatai. That meant she and the guys had peace tonight before they pushed deeper into enemy territory tomorrow.
She planned to savor the peace.
The village’s policeman—one of the men who had escorted her and Zina the first time—wasn’t happy they were going back. He claimed to hear rumors coming out of the mountains about people dying up there by the dozens. For the sake of Tehani’s family, she hoped that wasn’t true.
Even so, the policeman gave up his home for their use. There wasn’t much to the mud building—a main room with several smaller bedrooms in back. No running water and the bathroom consisted of a ditch out behind the house. Not five-star accommodations, but each of the rooms had an actual bed with sheets and blankets and Phoebe was so ready to collapse into one.
Jean-Luc and Marcus had already zonked out on bedrolls in the living room area. More power to them, but she wanted a mattress.
Jesse had set up a makeshift treatment center and was in the process of wrapping a bandage around a snarling Ian’s heavily tattooed chest. Apparently the bullet had cracked a rib when it impacted his vest and he’d been in tremendous pain ever since, which had done nothing to improve his already sterling personality.
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