“That won’t be necessary.” Farrin stepped into the sentry shack and snagged the key to the front gate off a peg on the wall. “Please excuse me, but I received a report about terrorist activity being high in the area. I’m feeling extra-cautious right now.”
“Understandable,” the commander remarked.
She strode to the front gate, grabbed the padlock, and jammed the key in. “Yesterday, the compound took fire from an Indian-Pakistani conflict.”
“Yes, I was here.”
She flashed a glance at him. He would have been, wouldn’t he?
The commander shifted his friend’s weight. “It was my copilot who caught some glass to his eye. How’s he doing?”
“He’s doing fine.” She twisted open the lock and rasped the wire cable off. “I was able to remove all the glass from his left eye without incident. He’s still in some pain, but there won’t be any lasting damage. He just needs to rest it.” She pushed open the gate.
Commander Vanderby came inside, walking-carrying his SEAL friend with him. He scanned the interior, a pinch beginning to form between his brows.
“I’ve evacuated the premises,” she explained, relocking the gate. “My Pakistani guards are still on station and are supposed to be here. However, they’ve been known to take breaks as a group in the past, even though I’ve pointed out the security issue that creates. I’ll track them down later.” She stepped back into the sentry shack, replaced the key, then came back out. “For now, let’s see to your friend. I would offer him a stretcher, but I don’t have any orderlies left.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got him.”
“This way, Commander.”
“Jason,” he corrected.
Giving him a brisk nod, she started for the main medical tent, a huge, rectangular building built of beige canvas, extending a good one hundred fifty feet lengthwise. “Where’s your friend injured?”
Dust kicked up around the commander’s feet. “He took bullets to the back of his left arm, upper right shoulder, and right, um, buttocks.”
“Has he lost a lot of blood?” She peered more closely at the SEAL’s face. He wasn’t overly pale, mainly weary- and worn-looking.
“Not too much,” Jason answered. “Early on, his wounds got packed with dirt, and that stopped them up.”
She screwed her mouth into a grimace. “That’s going to be a bear to clean out, not to mention the increased risk of infection.”
“Would it help if he showered first?”
A man with three GSWs? “I can’t imagine he’s capable of—”
“I’m good,” Shane said with a conviction his half-strangled voice didn’t support.
He was obviously beyond exhausted, but attacking those wounds first with a washcloth, soap, and warm water would make her job in surgery a lot easier.
“All right, I’ll take you at your word.” The three of them arrived at the front entrance of the medical tent. “Wait here,” she said, then darted inside and went to the tall supply cupboard located within the Authorized Personnel Only area. She grabbed a couple of towels, washcloths, soap bars, mini shampoo bottles, and travel-size deodorants. She spared a moment to peek at her patients in the post-op ward. Everyone was resting comfortably. When she came back out, Jason was scanning the compound, his eyes narrow.
“This place seems eerily vacant to me,” he said. “It’s giving me the heebs.”
“Yes, it is odd. Follow me.” She led them across flag circle, then down the main camp path to the shower tent. She pushed inside and set down the toiletries. “I brought enough for you, too,” she told Jason. “I just figured…” She swept her hand up and down his dirty body instead of finishing the sentence.
A corner of Jason’s mouth lifted. “Thanks.” He propped Shane against the plywood wall of the first shower stall, then set their gear—two rifles and two packs—next to a bench outside the second. He returned to the first stall and bent down to untie Shane’s boots. “Do you need me to get in the shower with you to help, Mad Dog? I will if I have to, though I’m not feeling love for the idea.”
Eyes closed, Shane rested his head back against the wall. “Suck the chrome off my dick, Vanderby.”
“And now the feeling’s even stronger.” Straightening, Jason unzipped his coveralls down to the belt line. Shrugging out of the top half, he let it flop down to his waist. Dust puffed up.
Farrin frowned. What was the point of taking a shower, only to get dressed in filthy clothes afterward? And why hadn’t she realized this when she was fetching things from the linen cabinet? Probably too many distractions. This place seems eerily vacant to me… “Um, when you two undress,” she told Jason, “toss your clothes to the middle of the room, then give a shout. I’ll come back in and take them to the laundry.”
“Okay.” Jason grabbed a few bath supplies and set them inside Shane’s shower. “You got any food around here?”
“My cooks are gone, but I’ll see what I can wipe up…uh, whip up.”
“Thanks, and maybe some Motrin or Tylenol, too? I have a bit of a backache.”
A bit? The man had recently been in a helicopter crash. A bit of a backache was probably very much understating matters. “No problem.” She gave him a quick full-body inspection. He was broad, but lean, and sturdily built. “Any other injuries I should know about?”
“I’m good.”
She nodded, then went outside to wait.
When she heard Okay! she slipped back inside, eyes down, even though the two men were tucked behind the curtains of their shower stalls, water running. She scooped up the clothes, catching a whiff of some pretty ripe body odor, then headed off, taking a detour to the guards’ barracks on the way to the laundry.
Standing inside the large empty tent, arms full of filthy clothes, she just blinked. Not a single man was in the barracks, and, weirder, the place felt abandoned—a deck of cards lay strewn across a cot as if in mid-play, the last threads of steam were dribbling from the spout of a teapot, a paper cup forlornly rocked back and forth on its side in the middle of the floor. Where were her guardsmen?
A tremor crept up her spine—it’s giving me the heebs—but she shook off the strange feeling. There was a logical explanation for this. The guards had to be somewhere.
Hurrying along, she proceeded to the laundry, and—thank goodness! Her laundryman was there. She wasn’t taking to this stranded-alone-on-a-deserted-island experience with much favor.
“Ah, Dr. Barr, salaam,” her laundryman greeted her.
Kaleem was a short, sinewy, affable Pakistani dressed in the typical loose-fitting, pajama-like garments of the local men. His complexion was dark, and a short black beard hugged his jaw.
“Hi, Kaleem.” She dumped the pile of clothes on top of the one battered washer teetering on knock-kneed legs. “Can you make sure these clothes get cleaned?”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” Kaleem offered her a respectful head bow, then frowned at the pile. “What are those?”
“Two American soldiers just arrived. Those are their uniforms.” US military troops generally weren’t allowed in Pakistan, but there wasn’t much sense trying to hide Jason and Shane’s presence from her laundryman. Kaleem would see the American uniforms for himself soon enough.
“By the way,” she went on, pushing a loose strand of hair off her brow with the back of her wrist. “Do you have any idea where the guards are? I can’t find them.”
“Ah. I saw them putting the south wall of the fence back in repair.”
“All of them?”
Kaleem shrugged. “It appeared to be so, yes.”
She planted her hands on her hips. It looked like she was due to give another lecture on the importance of complete security coverage. Although, truth be told, she was more relieved than annoyed. Her guardsmen were no longer missing.
She thanked Kaleem, then jogged off, heading back to the medical tent and the linen cupboard. She grabbed a pair of scrubs, a hospital gown, and a two-pill packet of ibuprofen, then off
she went again, first to the kitchen to slap together a sandwich, and finally to the showers.
She listened outside the door. Water was no longer running. “Hello,” she called. “It’s me.”
“Come in,” Jason called back.
She entered. “I brought you—” Wonk!
Her jaw dropped ten feet.
Jason was not behind the shower curtain, as she had assumed, but standing in the middle of the room, a towel around his waist he was fisting shut at his hip with one hand. The rest of him was totally and completely bare. Okay, yes, she’d left him without clothes, but still…she hadn’t expected to be presented with such a gawping display of masculine body.
He was long in the torso—due to his height, no doubt—with golden brown hair adorning his upper chest muscles. Nestled in the cleft between his pectorals was a set of black dog tags. Underneath his pectorals there wasn’t any hair, then more appeared below his navel, where a slim trail of it forged to the edge of his towel and beyond. His shoulders seemed remarkably broad for someone with such a spare frame, although he wasn’t without muscles. His musculature was just one of subtle power, the kind that came from the enterprise of natural movement rather than from time spent in a gym, lifting heavier and heavier objects. The end result was a V-shaped physique, so quintessentially male it was wreaking havoc with her ability to form speech.
She blushed. Then she blushed on top of her blush for blushing. Because she was a doctor! And the sight of a man’s half-naked body should not turn her into a speechless puddle. Moreover, and mainly, she wasn’t attracted to men. Well…that wasn’t to say she didn’t find some attractive. She just never felt the inclination to draw close enough to one to deal with all the muss and fuss that inevitably went with relationships.
The muss and fuss reminder helped to settle her, and she was able to find her voice. “I brought you something to wear.” She held out the scrubs, setting the napkin-wrapped sandwich on top, along with the pills. “Your clothes won’t be done for a little while.”
“Thanks.” Jason accepted everything into the crook of one arm, gentlemanly enough not to comment on her gawping inspection.
Or…
Maybe he wasn’t commenting because he hadn’t noticed: her overt inspection of him and, more to the point, her. Which was very odd. Most men found her exotic brand of looks appealing. Yet Jason was showing about as much interest in her as he would have shown a bowl of cold oatmeal. Hmmm. More than odd, it was refreshing.
And perhaps here was why she’d let down her guard enough to react to him; his detachment sort of equaled safety. Either that, or living her life as a nun was finally getting the better of her. Why such a desire would show itself now, of all the strange times, didn’t make sense, but such things probably rarely did.
Jason glanced from his sandwich to Shane. “There were only enough fixings for one?”
“I’m sorry, but your friend can’t eat before surgery.”
Shane was slumped on the bench set outside the second shower stall, a towel around his waist, too. His elbows were braced on his knees and his head was resting in his palms.
“The scrubbing opened up his wounds,” Jason told her. “He’s bleeding.”
“That’s beneficial, actually. It’ll help clear out infection.” She set the hospital gown beside Shane. “This is for you. It ties shut in back.”
Shane straightened and picked up the gown.
Grime removal hadn’t done much for Shane’s face. The heavy shading of beard and his overall bronze skin coloring kept him looking a bit dirty and disreputable—this second characteristic enhanced markedly by one of the nastiest facial scars Farrin had ever seen. It marred the entire left side of his face, streaking down from his temple to his chin, barely missing his eye and mouth. His hair was also very dark brown. Short, yes, but not in the typical military fashion. If he’d been wearing a polo shirt, his hair would have touched the collar. His eyes were equally dark, a brutal shade of brown that would make his girlfriend wonder if she should sleep with one eye open, and maybe a kitchen knife under her pillow. Poor Kitty.
Shane shoved his arms into the hospital gown. “Pain meds would be wicked nice right about now.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Let’s get you fixed up.” She glanced at Jason. “Can you help your friend back to the main medical tent?”
Chapter Ten
With Jason’s help, Farrin got Shane situated belly down on a table in the operating room. She hung an IV for him with a concoction of normal saline, Versed—to relax him—and an antibiotic prophylaxis regime. Then she put on scrubs, cap, and mask, leaving this last to dangle down her chest like a bib. She was currently in the process of thoroughly cleansing her hands.
“Need any help?” Jason asked.
He’d changed into the blue scrubs and now looked a bit like an insubordinate intern, lounging back against a wall in the washroom with his ankles crossed, eating a sandwich.
She studied him while she toweled off her hands. His hair was drying into its natural shade of light brown. Although light brown might be too simple a term. His hair was actually much more, like, oh, the color of autumn leaves: brown touched with highlights of gold. His eyes were also brown, but again, something more: perhaps amber-hued, like whiskey. With his face now free of dirt, he was, she realized with a belated start, arrestingly handsome, in possession of the kind of strong, perfectly angled features that would put the most upper-class aristocrat to shame, and make his drop-dead gorgeous model of a girlfriend always wonder if she was good enough for him. He was also very definitely Caucasian.
“Could you hold out a pair of latex gloves for me to put on?” And to answer his question, yes, she would love help—from experienced medical professionals. She would kill for Kitty to be in the OR with her, handing her instruments, and she’d offer up a complimentary surgery to a lucky winner off Craigslist to get her anesthesiologist back. But a person who didn’t know what he was doing would only get in the way.
After she got her gloves on, she held both of her sterile hands above waist level. “That’s all, thank you.” She nodded to him. “I’ll handle the rest myself. Are you going to wait out here?”
“I think I’ll recon the compound.” He picked up the rifle he’d left leaning against the wall beside him. “If it’s okay with you.”
“Please do.” Seeing as her guardsmen had once again let total security go lax, having an extra set of eyes on her aid station could only be beneficial.
Jason strode back to the compound’s front gate, his nape prickling the whole way, like he was in someone’s crosshairs. Maybe he was. Dressed in these bright blue scrubs—about as far away from camouflage as John Travolta’s white disco suit—he might as well have a bull’s-eye painted on his back. Not the greatest of all sensations. ’Course he might also be making shit up because he had the heebs.
A certain degree of paranoia was forgivable, he supposed, considering he’d spent the last sixteen hours running from terrorists. He was also exhausted, so maybe not thinking at his clearest. He’d spent the whole night half-carrying Shane—and doing it with an injured spine—from the ditch they’d escaped. A ditch they’d miraculously escaped, and only because bolt cutters were a part of Shane’s SEAL equipment. They’d been able to jam the pointy end of the tool deep enough into the side of the ditch to create a makeshift step. Shane then propped himself on it; Jason climbed up Shane’s body to the top of the ditch, turned around, lay flat on his belly, and hauled Shane out. If not for that, they’d still be there. And dead.
Once free, they immediately set out for the aid station, and Jason had hoped against hope to make the entire thirty miles under cover of darkness. But about two hours before dawn, Shane hadn’t been able to go on. He didn’t admit it, but Jason could tell. So while Shane slept for a few hours, Jason kept watch, not getting any sleep himself. Now just about every muscle in his body was aching, feeling his sleepless night.
He arched his back in a mini-stretch and heard a si
newy crack in his vertebra. Lack of rest wasn’t doing his messed-up spine any favors, either. He arrived at the aid station’s main gate and tested the cable and lock—secure—then stepped inside the guard shed. The gate key was hanging on the wall peg where Dr. Barr had left it. He snagged it and slipped it into the breast pocket of his scrubs shirt. Exiting the shed, he aimed south along the perimeter, holding his rifle in a ready position, constantly scanning the terrain. He was very much not thrilled by how open the fence line was in this place. Gave him more of a bull’s-eye feel.
The aid station was a decent outfit, as well-constructed as any FOB15 he’d ever called a temporary home. The camp’s main road—the one Dr. Barr had led him and Shane down on their way to the showers—was lined by ten to fifteen tents spaced at precise intervals and constructed out of wood and sand-colored canvas. He kept an eye out for the mess tent. The sandwich was sitting well, helping to wake him up, and the ibuprofen was taking effect, but he was a coffee-swilling Navy man. Right about now he’d be willing to snort a fat line of coffee grounds to get his caffeine “bump.”
Halfway along his route, he spotted the supply tent. A smaller structure was attached to it: the laundry. He deviated from his perimeter inspection to check on his clothes. Not only did he want out of these damned scrubs, but wearing flight boots without socks was going to trash his feet in no time. He glanced in the washer. Nothing. Good. Already in the dryer. With any luck, they were done. He opened the dryer door and—
Nothing again.
Frowning, he took stock of the room: industrial-strength laundry soap, washer, dryer, water basin. He was in the right place. He saw a clothesline stretched across the tent, but it was as empty as everything else. Where the hell was his gear?
His heeb meter rose another notch.
Stepping back outside, he continued his recon, ducking inside every tent—there was no coffee to be found in the chow hall—and by the time he was back at the main medical building, his heeb meter was in the red zone.
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