by Karen Foley
They rumbled slowly through the village, following behind the lead truck and the two Humvees assigned to provide security to the convoy. Aside from the children, there was no other indication of life in the village, and the hairs on the back of Holly’s neck prickled uneasily.
They passed the children, who stopped to stare at them, and Holly told herself that the foreboding she felt was nothing more than her imagination. Reaching under her seat for her camera, she snapped several quick shots, capturing the awe in their big, dark eyes. Holding her camera and taking pictures gave her a sense of comfort, but as they drove through an orchard just beyond the village, she thought she saw something move deep in the shadowed recesses of the trees. Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash, followed by a deafening explosion. An instant later, the lead Humvee shot into the air and came down on its roof, completely engulfed in flames. The camera slipped from Holly’s fingers and landed on the floor at her feet, forgotten.
“Goddamn! We’re under attack!” Sgt. Martinez screamed.
“Pull over, pull over!”
He wrenched the wheel hard to the right, dragging the vehicle to a shuddering stop. Behind them, the convoy split into two lines, one on either side of the road, even as a second rocket-propelled grenade streaked out of the orchard and struck the supply truck directly in front of them, flipping the vehicle onto its side and sending molten fragments of metal high into the air.
Almost simultaneously, Holly heard the unmistakable spit of small arms fire, and realized they were being attacked from both sides of the road. Glancing through the passenger window, she saw that insurgents were firing at them from the orchard on one side, and a crudely dug trench on the other. Their forward position in the convoy made them a vulnerable target.
“We’ve got to get out of the truck,” she gasped, and reached for her door handle.
Martinez looked at her in horror. “Are you kidding? It’s not safe. We’ll be killed out there!”
“It’s not safe here,” Holly insisted hotly. “We’re directly in the kill zone! We stand a better chance if we move toward the rear vehicles.”
The other soldier blanched, his dark eyes expressing his fear. “I’m a supply clerk. I’m not trained for combat!”
“You’re a soldier,” Holly said grimly, pushing down her own rising fear. “You’ve been trained for this, and you can do it. Now move! That’s an order!”
Opening her door, Holly used it as a shield to survey her surroundings. The air was heavy and acrid with the stench of burning fuel and scorched metal. On the road behind her, the gun trucks were spraying both the trees and the trench with automatic gunfire. They’d formed two columns of vehicles on either side of the road, turning the road itself into a safe zone of sorts. Still, there were twenty yards of open space between Holly and that protected corridor, in which she and Sgt. Martinez would be completely vulnerable.
The noise of the battle was deafening, but Holly scarcely heard anything over the roar of her own frantic heartbeat. Shane was on top of one of those gun trucks. Her heart clenched hard at the thought of anything happening to him. In the next instant she reminded herself that he was a seasoned soldier—a hardened Marine. He’d been doing this for eight years and he could take care of himself. Her only concern now was to get herself and her supply clerk to safety.
She motioned for Martinez. “Stay low,” she commanded.
Without waiting to see if he obeyed her, Holly crouched down and began working her way to the rear of the truck, keeping her weapon raised as she scanned the trees to her right, looking for any signs of movement. She blinked hard, peering through the thick smoke, and forced herself to move forward one step at a time. Her hands were slick on the assault rifle she carried and for a moment the only thing she heard was her own breathing, rapid and shallow. She forced herself to take several deep breaths and concentrated firmly on her goal.
If she and the sergeant could reach the other trucks, she knew they would be safe. Behind her, another explosion rent the air and the force of the blast threw her forward onto the ground. Martinez plowed into her back, and for a moment the two of them lay sprawled in the dirt, stunned.
Sgt. Martinez recovered first, rolling to his knees and dragging Holly upward. “Move, damn it!” he shouted. “Move!”
Glancing over her shoulder, Holly saw it was the engine compartment of their own truck that had been hit. The cab where they had been sitting just moments before was fully engulfed in flames. She scrambled to her feet and made her way to the next truck, and then the next, until a movement from the trees to her right made her stop and swing her weapon around, ready to open fire if she needed to. Glancing back, she saw that Martinez was still two trucks behind her, crouched in a combat-ready position with his weapon raised and directed at the trees.
Refocusing her attention on where she had seen movement, she cautiously crept forward, sweeping her rifle along the tree line as she went. Whatever movement she thought she had seen was gone, and she prepared to run the short span of open space between two trucks. Then she stopped short.
“Ohmigod,” she breathed.
She couldn’t believe what she saw; Shane Rafferty, swinging down from the top of his gun truck, his gaze fixed grimly on her as he made a beeline directly through the line of fire toward her position. He gestured wildly back toward her truck, but Holly couldn’t tell if he wanted her to be aware of the fire and move away from it, or run back toward it. She shook her head, not understanding.
Through the haze, Holly could see his eyes blazing at her. He yelled something to her and gestured again, but his words were lost beneath the sound of explosives. Holly stayed glued to where she stood, unable to tell where the precise threat came from amidst so much chaos. Shane held his own weapon low and strafed the orchard with gunfire as he ran. And just when Holly thought he might actually make it across the open space to her side, it happened.
The bullet hit him in the left leg, just below his knee. Shane staggered, his face expressing surprise. He managed to take three more steps before his leg buckled and he went down. Even then, he didn’t stop but began doggedly working his way across the ground toward her.
Holly found herself running toward him before she was aware that her feet were moving. Shane was no longer watching her, but was staring at something behind her, his expression one of dismay. He shouted something unintelligible, and Holly felt a hard slap against her shoulder, spinning her sideways and causing her to stumble. She scarcely had time to register what had happened, when an explosion rocked the ground, lifting her off her feet and sending her sprawling onto her back. For an instant, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t comprehend that the unthinkable had happened.
Had it been a grenade, or a IED? Slowly, she lifted her head and made a mental inventory of her injuries. Her back ached, and the exposed skin of her face and neck had been sandblasted by the dirt that had been flung up from the explosion. Her ears were ringing and the ground seemed to tilt beneath her. From the convoy, she saw another soldier had taken control of Shane’s gun and was spraying the orchard with a constant barrage of fire. Through the swirling dust and settling debris, she could just make out Shane’s prone body lying on the ground.
Holly became aware of a fierce burning sensation in her arm and glanced down, noting the darkening stain on the camouflage of her sleeve. Her left arm hung at an awkward angle and when she probed the area, raw pain sliced through her. Her hand came away covered with blood. She’d been hit, and from the total weakness in her arm, she knew the bone was broken. Cradling the injured arm against her side, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered over to Shane. He lay face down in the dirt and even when she saw the trickle of dark blood seeping into the ground beneath him, she refused to believe he might be dead.
“Please, God,” she breathed. Just let him live and I promise I won’t ask for anything more. Just let him live. Let him live.
Holly had heard about the effects of adrenaline g
iving people unnatural and amazing strength during high-stress situations, but she’d never experienced it until that moment. Reaching down, she hauled on the straps of Shane’s vest with her good hand and dragged him toward the trucks, digging her heels in and managing to move him across thirty feet of open ground with seemingly little effort.
Only when she had reached the safety of the trucks did two soldiers and a medic come forward to help her, lifting Shane’s body and carrying him to the rear of the convoy. With Shane out of harm’s way, Holly realized she was panting and light-headed and soaked with sweat. A fourth soldier caught her as she staggered, and supported her weight as he hustled her to a secure spot behind a truck and lowered her to a sitting position against one of its enormous tires.
She strained for a glimpse of Shane, stretched out on the dirt road as the medics worked on him. Around her, the sounds of battle continued. The world spun dizzyingly and Holly dropped her head to her knees, dragging in great gulps of air. Fear consumed her, so intense that she was certain her heart would stop beating. Her stomach twisted in a sickening knot. She didn’t know what she would do if Shane died. The very thought made her go weak. Blackness fluttered at the edge of her vision, and she was only vaguely aware of sliding sideways onto the ground…and then she knew nothing more.
SHE WAS HAVING the dream again, but this time it seemed so real…she could actually feel Shane’s hands on her, unbuttoning her shirt and exposing her skin to the cool air. His fingers brushed over her flesh, causing a thrill of awareness to shoot through her. She moaned softly and arched upward, seeking more of the delicious contact. She’d wanted this for so many years and now here he was, touching her, and even if it was only a dream, Holly didn’t want to miss a second of it.
The faint odor of gasoline hung on the air, and overhead she could hear the soft whir of a ceiling fan; they were in the boathouse, where Shane preferred to sleep whenever he came to stay at her family’s summer place. How many times had she been tempted to follow him here? To undress and spread herself across the bed in the small bunk room and show him how good it could be between them? She wasn’t a kid anymore, and it was time he stopped thinking of her as his best friend’s little sister. She’d caught him watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and the expression in his hazel eyes told her that he wanted her, too. Only his damnable honor and pride kept him from accepting everything she had to offer.But not now.
For this moment, at least, he was hers, and even if this was just a dream, she’d take it. As dreams went, it was a pretty good one. Her entire body was on fire with need.
“Shane,” she breathed, “kiss me.”
“Holly.” His voice sounded strained, with an underlying urgency that she had never heard before. He didn’t sound at all like the Shane she knew. “Holly, stay with me.”
She frowned. Stay with him? Of course she intended to stay with him. She’d opted for an assignment in Iraq because that’s where he was stationed. Practically every decision she’d made over the past seven years had been for one reason: Shane Rafferty. Oh yeah, she intended to stay with him.
His touch was incredibly gentle as he eased the fabric of her blouse back, and Holly shifted to grant him better access. As she did so, agonizing pain flared in her shoulder and made her cry out, jerking her out of the sensual dream and into a harsh reality that was equally as surreal.
Through a haze of pain, Holly opened her eyes and saw two soldiers crouched over her. One of them cut away the sleeve of her camo jacket with a knife while the second one prepared an I.V. drip. She concentrated on the face of the first man and struggled to bring him into focus. Not Shane.
Slowly, she became aware that they were in a military helicopter, and Holly could smell fumes from the aviation fuel. What she’d dreamed was the soft whir of a ceiling fan was, in reality, the rhythmic thwap-thwap of the rotor blades. All around her, male voices barked orders while others were raised in urgent discussion. None of those voices belonged to Shane.
“Stay with me, Lieutenant,” the first soldier commanded, his eyes flicking to hers. “You’re going to be fine.”
Her entire body ached, but her left arm burned with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. Holly shifted her gaze to where the soldier probed at her shoulder. There was so much blood soaking her clothing and covering his hands that at first, she couldn’t tell where it came from. Then, as he pulled away a bloodied gauze pad, she saw the gaping wound high on her upper arm. She had a hole the size of a half-dollar and bone fragments protruded through ragged flesh around it. Blood pumped in a slow, steady flow from the injury even as the medic tried to staunch it. Immediately, her head felt woozy and a wave of nausea washed over her. She turned her face away and struggled to draw in air.
“What happened?” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.
“Your supply convoy drove into an ambush,” the first soldier said curtly. “You were shot, but you’re going to be fine.”
She’d been shot?
She struggled to remember, and images drifted through her mind, as hazy and insubstantial as smoke. Sifting through them, she winced as she recalled the attack.
As she turned her face away from where the medic was working on her arm, she realized there was an injured soldier on a gurney next to her, and two medics were frantically working over his prone body. The medics blocked her view of his face, but she recognized the black tribal tattoo that encircled his bicep. Shane.
Holly tried to raise herself on her good elbow to get a better look at him. They had stripped him of his protective body armor and camo jacket and…oh, God, there was so much blood covering his muscled torso. The medics bent over him, while another barked into a radio. All she heard was “men down, one urgent.” She knew what urgent meant—loss of life was imminent without immediate medical intervention, and not the kind that they could provide on the battlefield.
Shane was going to die.
Another wave of dizziness swept over her.
“Shane.” Her voice was no more than a gasp.
“Lieutenant, I’m going to sedate you,” said the medic who crouched over her. He pushed her back down and the second soldier deftly inserted an intravenous drip into her uninjured arm. Almost instantly, the agonizing pain in her shoulder subsided and Holly had the oddest sensation that she was floating.
She could see Shane’s face now, it was covered in dust and blood, but there was no mistaking the strong line of his jaw, the proud nose and thrusting cheekbones, the dark shadow of his lashes against his cheeks. A thin trickle of blood ran from his ear and nose. The sight made Holly feel light-headed, or maybe that was the effect of the morphine they had given her. She could no longer tell.
Closing her eyes, she drifted in a strange euphoria. The sounds of the helicopter and the men’s voices faded to a distant hum. She was back in the boathouse, and Shane was there with her. He smiled down at her and she raised her arms to welcome him into her embrace, stroking her hands over the hot silk of his skin and knowing this would be the last time they would ever be together. In the morning, he would be gone. She determinedly pushed aside the sadness that filled her. They were together now, and that was all that mattered.
With a soft sigh, she melted into his arms.
2
THE LAST PERSON SHANE Rafferty expected to see walk through the door of his hospital room was his father. A pang of guilt swept through him. He’d been back in the States for nearly a month while the staff at the U.S. Naval Hospital patched him up, yet he hadn’t talked to his old man. The nurses had told him that his father had kept a near constant vigil at his bedside for the first two weeks that he’d been in the hospital, when Shane had lain in a drug-induced coma. But once he’d turned the corner to recovery, his father had returned to his home in Chatham. He’d left messages on Shane’s cell phone, but Shane hadn’t returned any of his calls. He told himself it was because his father was a busy man and he hadn’t wanted to worry him, but he knew that was a lie.
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br /> He hadn’t wanted to see him.James Rafferty looked older than Shane remembered. His dark hair was liberally streaked with gray and his strong face was lined with deep seams. His expression was wary as he approached Shane’s bed, as if he wasn’t sure he’d be welcome.
“Hello, son.”
His father’s dark eyes swept once over Shane’s body, his gaze touching briefly on the fading cuts and bruises that marred Shane’s face, neck, and arms, before lingering on the cast that enveloped his left leg from the knee down to his toes. His father’s throat worked convulsively, but when he met Shane’s eyes, he schooled his expression.
“How you feeling, boy?”
Like shit, he wanted to respond. It had been nearly four weeks since the incident, and yet Shane’s entire body still ached, and his skin felt as if it had been sandblasted. His newly healed wounds felt pinched and tight. He had a bitch of a headache, and if he didn’t know better, he’d have thought he’d taken a direct hit from a rocket launched missile. But according to reports, it had been a hand grenade, and he’d been lucky—he’d been on the outer edge of the impact radius and might have sustained more serious injuries, but the bullet that had taken him out at the knees had also saved his life. If he hadn’t already been on the ground, he likely would have been killed.
So how was he doing? He shrugged. “I’m okay.”
The doctors had stitched him up and repaired his fractured leg and told him not to worry, he’d make a full recovery. But what they hadn’t warned him about were the nightmares that dragged him out of sleep each night, his heart racing and his body coated in sweat. They were always the same; he was sprinting through the battle to wards Holly. He could see her standing there, staring at him in horror through the smoke and debris, and he was driven by a desperate need to reach her. But he never made it. Each time, he’d watch her die before he could save her. Each time, her death was an agony that tore him apart. Then he’d wake up and realize he’d only been dreaming, but it would be long minutes before his heart rate slowed and his breathing returned to normal. He’d lie in bed and remind himself that Holly was alive, until the words became his mantra. She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.