Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  He did his best to make himself appear friendly and agreeable, smiling fit to bust his cheeks, bobbing his head in greeting several times. But it was when he fished some local currency out of his ditch bag and offered it to Usman and Afia—for food, he had Farrin translate—that the rifles were forgiven, if not forgotten.

  Afia hurried out to shop while Usman hovered over Farrin as she worked on the boy.

  Jason watched her, too, her graceful, efficient hands doing their thing and making him feel sort of restful.

  She gave the boy two shots, one a whopping load of antibiotics, the other to numb the skin around his injury so she could debride—Farrin’s word—the wound. She trimmed off the dead flesh, picked a bloody piece of something out with forceps, then smeared on plenty of antibiotic ointment, and finally wrapped the boy’s shin up neatly in white bandage.

  When Afia returned with food and saw her son resting peacefully at last, joy blazed across her face. So this was why people became doctors. It had to be a heady thing, inspiring expressions like that.

  In high spirits, Afia set to cooking lunch, and finally—God, yes, thank you, finally—she carried three full tin bowls out from her small kitchen to the front room, where Jason sat in a threadbare chair that smelled a bit like agave tequila—although, honestly, that was probably just wishful thinking. Shane slumped in another chair of the same type, and Farrin sat cross-legged on a straw mat next to the boy. The kid didn’t stink as much now. Some of his necrotic odor hovered like smoke trapped at the ceiling, but it was a vast improvement.

  Shane was served plain rice, which he gummed like a geezer, obviously loopy from the rump-full of meds Farrin had given him when she treated him this morning, before Jason woke up.

  He and Farrin were treated to the whole caboodle: lamb, veggies, and rice.

  After the first forkful, it was only muscle memory—achieved from being rapped on the knuckles with a butter knife by his etiquette teacher at cotillion—that stopped him from shoveling the food into his mouth with pig-like gusto. He’d never been this hungry, not even in SERE school, and frankly, he’d never tasted anything better than this lamb, veggies, and rice. He was personally awarding Afia five Michelin stars for the best comfort food on the planet.

  Finishing off her own meal, Farrin collected Jason and Shane’s empty bowls and brought the dishes into the kitchen, where she helped clean up, all the while chatting amicably with Afia.

  He watched Farrin puttering, and even though he didn’t go so far as to tuck a hand down the front of his pants as he sprawled loosely in his tattered tequila chair, he did feel pretty Al-Bundy-style relaxed. A rare, precious moment these days. Amazing how much a satisfied belly and a hearty dose of glucose to the brain could settle a man.

  And give him such wholesale clarity.

  It was in his face now.

  No more padded brain-rooms and hiding.

  No more running away and pushing aside.

  Farrin had tipped him completely on his head.

  You’re going to get angry with me.

  She’d been fully aware of the shit-storm repercussions she was going to bring down on herself by confessing her recon into Islamabad. But she told him the whole truth anyway.

  No woman had ever copped to something she knew for sure would piss him off.

  Last girlfriend he had—three years ago—was Penny, who, incidentally, looked like Penny from the TV sitcom about power nerds, The Big Bang Theory. Although unlike nice Big Bang Penny, his Penny used her beautiful, blonde hotness to get her way, always, from everyone. He’d caved in to her a lot, too—swayed more by a desire not to deal than the need to please an attractive woman.

  The day he broke up with Penny, he just so happened to be glancing out the front window of his house when she pulled up. On the way into his driveway, she clipped his car with hers. He saw it all: she backed up, repositioned, parked, came inside.

  Never said a word about it all night.

  He waited and waited—drank wine with her, ate dinner, watched a show on TV—but nothing.

  When Penny got frisky, wanting to shift things into the bedroom, he told her he wasn’t in the mood. In fact, he’d said, he wasn’t particularly in the mood to be her boyfriend anymore.

  “Why?” All round-eyed and innocent.

  He hadn’t explained why. If you don’t know why, then I’m certainly not going to tell you. Some embarrassing teenybopper, girl-speak bullshit to go on inside his head, true—it’d only lacked a resounding Gawd at the end as an exclamation point. But, seriously, if Penny was that much of an immoral slimeball, then why waste any more time on her?

  “Fine!” All high dudgeon and pouty.

  Penny whirled around, slapping him in the face with her ponytail, and stormed out.

  Okay, buh-bye.

  Not a single tear was shed over that one, I tell you what, hell, no.

  He never spared a thought of regret on any breakup. Saying good-bye had always equaled good riddance because by the time the breakup finally came, all he could muster was a dull resignation for the ending that was inevitable from the outset. Never anger.

  Never the rage he’d felt when he learned Farrin went into Islamabad by herself. Cool, rational—all right, unfeeling—Lieutenant Commander Jason Vanderby never experienced the kind of intense emotions over a woman that would make him grab her too roughly by the arms, his hair nearly levitating off his head in panic and worry. Worry? Utter terror, was more like it, over the thought of anything bad happening to Farrin.

  So he couldn’t avoid it anymore.

  It was in his face.

  Something incontrovertible. Forever inescapable.

  Farrin had tipped him completely on his head, and it damn well meant he had feelings for her.

  With his chest growing snugger and snugger—in a good way, like a hug—he sat in his chair and watched her. Drying dishes, grinning at Afia, nursing the kid. Watched her until he reached his stall speed and dropped into a tailspin.

  Sat there. Watched her. And—

  I think I’m falling in love with her.

  Of course, that meant everything had to go to hell.

  In a roar of angry shouts and brutal orders, they came…

  The Taliban.

  * * *

  Shane fucking loved sci-fi movies. Holograms, memory erasure, instant healing by alien doctors, creatures of every planetary nationality—totally sick, out-of-this world shit. It was way cooler than reality. Who wanted pain, violence, loss, disappointment, unfairness, mistakes a guy made and couldn’t undo, when two hours in a dark theatre was so much better?

  Time travel was his favorite. He could think of a hundred different ways he would use ‘n’ abuse time travel, if he could, changing how the cards had originally fallen. To name a few, he’d hang out more with his brother, Keith, save his mother from Hank’s knuckle busting, and not spend the past ten years without Jace.

  When he was bored, especially while waiting around long hours to deploy on an op, one of the ways he entertained himself was fantasizing about being in his own sci-fi flick. What a blast it’d be, to kick ass in his very own movie.

  Except now that it was actually happening, it wasn’t.

  Everything looked funny, for starters, the picture half-slanted and mostly blurry, and the acoustics were hosed up. All the people were talking in slo-mo, the vowels in their words stretched out extra-long. He would’ve fixed it if he’d been in control, but he wasn’t, and that was the worst part. What the fuck fun was it to be a stupid side character, no lines, no part in the action? And who picked a Pakistani fleapit for the location? He wouldn’t have. He also wouldn’t have put Jace and Doc Barr in his movie, but they were…in full action:

  Loud voices send Jace running to the fleapit’s front door…cracking it open and peering outside…turning back around to hiss, “Shiiiiit, the tangoes are taaaaking our hoooorses from neeext door!” Doc Barr immediately whirling to speak in Klingon to a couple of Pakistani Hobbits…whipping back to
Jace. “Uuusman and Afia are going to hiiiiide us.” Jason collecting rifles and packs… “Jaaay-sus, where?”

  The Hobbits already throwing back some floor mats…prying out a knothole…opening a trap door. Jason grabbing Shane…jostling him to the trap door…shoving him into the earth. Sweat filming Shane’s eyes…he can’t see what’s in the gunny sack in the corner, but he smells food…so this is a hiding place for supplies…to keep stuff from being stolen by a galactic warlord. The trap door slamming shut…oppressive darkness descending, only thin zebra stripes of shadowy light spearing through the odd board above.

  Boots pounding on top of their heads…stardust sprinkling down… Don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze… The Hobbits talking to several Sith lords up in sick bay…tension like gooey ectoplasm all over everyone in the cramped stealth-pod with him…Jace…Doc Barr…

  And then—pisser!—the interstellar gravitron oxygen capacitor busts. There goes their fucking air… Each passing second there’s less and less. Shane clamps a hand to his chest. I can’t breathe. Blackness crowds over the top of his vision…soon he’s lifting off in it…going away…

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Farrin floundered outside to Usman and Afia’s small backyard, groping blindly for support as her knees buckled. Her palm found something solid—the back of a wooden folding chair—and she leaned heavily on it, shoulders slumped, drawing air into her lungs with huge, panicky gulps. She pressed her other hand to her belly. Nausea was threatening to empty her of Afia’s wonderful lamb stew. Please, don’t.

  Some tiny creature scurried in the loose sand off to her right—a mouse, maybe—but she couldn’t see it. The sun was setting, nighttime encroaching. A small cry escaped her lips. How long had they been buried in that dirt cellar!? It must have been over five hours! Five hours of three full-grown adults using up in seconds what little oxygen managed to creep through the floorboards above, of three people who hadn’t washed in nearly a week filling the infinitesimal space with an abominable odor, of three heat-producing human bodies raising the temperature in the confined area to even more suffocating proportions. Dear, sweet Allah, how had she survived it?

  When the hatch finally opened, letting in heaven-sent light and air, Usman’s face was the first thing she saw, his mouth moving, stuttering out why he’d trapped them for so long: the Taliban had been conducting a house-to-house search for Doctor Farrin and her two American soldier friends, and he and Afia didn’t dare let the three of them out until the terrorists left the town of Talhaar completely.

  “Okay, thank you,” was all Farrin managed to choke out while she rushed to get outside, leaving Jason behind to deal with Shane—who, lucky man, had spent the entire ordeal either delirious or unconscious. She staggered into precious open space and fresh air, so sweaty her clothes were plastered to her body.

  Clawing at the buttons on her blouse, she undid them and dragged the garment off her body with a clingy slurp. She tore off her hijab, too, and flapped both garments to the ground. Clasping her forehead in her palms, she stood swaying on her feet. She was standing outside in her bra. In her bra! Well, it was either that or pass out. Plus, it was dark out. No one could see her—although after the trauma of near-asphyxiation, who really cared?

  Her gulping gradually lessened to gasping. Removing her heavily drenched blouse had helped her breathe, the feel of direct air on her flesh lightening the pressure on her chest and lungs. It wasn’t exactly cool out tonight, but—

  Jason plowed onto the sagging back porch—smaller by half than the front porch—and pitched to a halt. Massive amounts of sweat had sucked his clothes to his body, and perspiration was still running in a thin stream off the tip of his chin. Other accumulated sweat had gathered the dirt in his beard into pebble-sized clumps and banded through the dust on his forehead and cheeks like fingertips had been pulled down his face. His eyes were red-rimmed and feverish.

  He focused on her for a moment, then, “Holy fuck.”

  “Yes,” she rasped in a dehydrated voice.

  He held a canteen in one hand and a lantern in the other. He set the lantern on the porch, then swayed down the two steps leading to the yard. He stood looking around.

  In addition to two wooden folding chairs—now illuminated by the lantern—there were a few pots of greens and cacti pushed flush against an eight-foot-tall fence built of sun-bleached wood, the little plants changing the space from the ten-by-ten square plot of dirt it otherwise was into a garden of sorts. He observed it all, dazed and confused, as if he’d been “beamed” to one of those strange planets Shane had been babbling about earlier.

  He suddenly seemed to realize he was still holding the canteen. Lurching forward, he handed it to her.

  Tipping the spout greedily to her mouth, she chugged the water, coming up for air with a grimace. “Another simple luxury I absolutely ache for is good-tasting water.” She gave him back the empty canteen. “I want to go home.”

  “I know.” He set the canteen on the ground. “I’m going to get you home, Farrin.” Her name came out sounding like Farn; he was probably too depleted to deal with both syllables.

  She shook her head. “They took our horses.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it. Soon. All right?”

  “All right.” Even though he was being impossibly heroic, she owed him her trust after asking him to have faith in her.

  “Do you mind if I follow your example and take off my shirt?”

  “Oh…” A blush blazed into her cheeks. She was standing outside in her bra in front of Jason. And not a nice bra, either—a dirty white, prison-issue-looking bra. “Uh, sure. Go ahead.” She bent and hastily picked up her blouse.

  “Don’t put that thing on again on my account. To me, you’re just in a bathing suit top.” He pulled his kameez off with a single tug.

  And then there he was—his upper body bare, a sight she hadn’t seen since he’d emerged from the shower in a towel at her aid station. He’d clearly lost weight since then, his abdominal muscles now visible in individual, segmented divisions. His chest hadn’t lost any of its musculature, though. That part of him was still magnificent, lantern light picking out golden tints in his glistening chest hair and caressing loving, flickering fingers over the arcs of his pectorals, his black dog tags snuggled in the valley between.

  A spray of goose pimples cascaded over her skin, the tingling awareness that she was standing here half-naked with a partially undressed man…a man whom she found very attractive…a man who’d saved her many times this past week—from Kaleem in the post-op ward, from her own stupidity in the cave, from terrorists when her mare ran off—a man whose looks and concern for her and noble heart raised untold possibilities in her imagination. Like maybe with him the muss and fuss part of a relationship might actually be good.

  Her thoughts suspended for a surprised blip. Goodness, did this last thought mean she was finally ready to try sex again? It was difficult to imagine it! She had no frame of reference for what good sex was, although she knew logically that good sexual intercourse was the ultimate expression of intimacy. And hadn’t she been yearning for more closeness with Jason, hoarding every intimate experience she had with him…? Wow—she did sound ready, didn’t she?

  She heard a faint clatter come from inside the house, then caught a whiff of spicy cinnamon bark and nutmeg. She cast a quick glance at the back door. “What would Usman and Afia think if they came out here and saw us both half-clothed?” She shook out her icky blouse and worked herself back into it, modesty winning over comfort.

  “They won’t come out,” Jason said. “They’re inside drinking tea, recovering from their run-in with the Taliban. Dealing with those terrorists shook them up pretty badly, although it’s hard to tell with those two.”

  “Yes, their composure saved us.”

  “No,” he corrected softly. “You saved us, Farrin. If you hadn’t made friends with Usman and Afia, and treated their son, we would’ve been next door when those tangoes arrived today
.”

  “Oh…well…I-I don’t know…” Her tongue was going clumsy on her. Jason’s expression held such warmth and admiration.

  “I would hug you in thanks, if I didn’t know you’d rather not get this grossness”—he gestured up and down his sweaty torso—“all over you.”

  She h-h-hah’d, the smooth laugh she’d intended coming out a stuttering mess. Why was she nervous? Maybe because thoughts of sex were now being followed by talk of hugging…? “The experience wouldn’t be pleasant for you, either. I stink.”

  One side of his mouth lifted into a Hollywood’s Sexiest Man Alive crooked smile. “I actually like the way you smell.”

  Like? The pulse at her throat beat twice, quick and hard. “Well…then you’re weird.” She took his kameez from him and busied herself with flipping it over a clothesline strung from one side of the backyard fence to the other. When she turned back around, she gasped. He was right in front of her.

  He stared at her lips, a long and lingering look, heated with a lazy sort of hunger—the clean, healthy desire of a man who wants a woman for all the right reasons.

  A need so intense it was almost painful pounded through her body, the ferocity of it shocking. Dear Heavens, she did want to be with him, no further questions.

  I would hug you…

  An achy urge to arch toward him played along her spine.

  He gently pushed back the wet hair stuck to her forehead.

  That broke the spell. It didn’t matter if she wanted Jason. She was sweaty and dirty and grimy, and in no condition to be with him. She didn’t care what he said about liking her stink. Dragging a hand over her mouth, she took a step back. “I’m suddenly appallingly aware that I haven’t brushed my teeth in nearly a week.”

  “Hey, you’re no worse off than I am.”

  She slashed a look at him. “That’s no comfort, Jason.”

  He chuckled. “No, I suppose not.”

  Edging by him, she moved to one of the wooden chairs and plopped down in it.