The Heart Beneath

by McKenna, Lindsay

He watched as the sergeant finished splinting Laura’s ankle and stood up, a pleased look on his face. Morgan made sure his wife was bundled up in olive-green wool blankets, keeping her warm.

  Opening the rear of the Humvee, Wes eyed the makeshift bed his men had made out of blankets. The tents they’d been given thus far had to be utilized to keep the radios, batteries and supplies protected. With this Huey coming in unexpectedly with extra tents, that meant Wes could have them erected for themselves. Before this, his men had taken turns getting a few hours of shut-eye in the rear of the vehicle. It was better than nothing.

  He saw Callie stand and walk toward him. As she came around the corner of the vehicle, he said, “Climb in. This is your home away from home. You’re going to get some sleep before you drop.”

  Callie looked at the blankets spread out in the rear of the Humvee—plenty of room in there for her to curl up and sleep. “Can my dog sleep with me? He’s bushed, too.”

  Grinning, Wes nodded. “Yeah, no problem. Do you sleep with him at home, too?”

  Giving him a wry look, Callie patted the end of the Humvee, and Dusty leaped up into the vehicle. “No. Dusty stays at the unit’s kennel facility when I’m not working with him. I’d love to take him home with me, but that’s against regulations. I have an apartment in Oceanside, but there’s no way I’ll be able to get to it under the circumstances.”

  “Yeah, I know that one,” Wes muttered. “Most of us live in Oceanside. I heard over the radio earlier that they’re putting grid teams up at the bachelor officers’ quarters back at camp. It’s basically a hotel, with rooms, beds and bathroom facilities. A nice little perk to look forward to after spending days out here.”

  Callie climbed into the Humvee. “It could be a lot worse,” she agreed. “The B.O.Q. is a great place to get cleaned up and grab a good night’s sleep on a nice bed.” She began to slowly unlace her black, dusty G.I. boots. “A bed. A hot shower. Wow. What’d I’d give for a hot shower right now.” She wrinkled her nose and gave him a silly grin. She smelled of sweat, dirt and grime.

  Wes reached out and briefly squeezed her shoulder. “I’ve got good news for all of us. They’re organizing another team to come in here and spell us off, Callie. We’ll be relieved for twenty-four hours of R and R, rest and recoup, back at the base. You’ll get that hot shower, a soft bed and real food….” He wanted to say, “and a night in my arms,” but he didn’t.

  “That’s great news. Will they be sending out another rescue team?”

  “Yes, they will. A sergeant Lucy Perkins will be flying out on this flight and she’ll continue where you left off.”

  “Wonderful!” Callie said.

  Then Wes saw her brows fall and her soft mouth purse. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her fingers trembled badly as she tried to loosen the double knot on her boot. Leaning over, he said, “Let me….” He quickly loosened the laces.

  “Thanks, Wes…. I’m feeling like a slow motion klutz right now. I’m whipped….” Callie wanted him to stay near her. Her heart pounded briefly when he gave her that narrowed, burning look that she’d seen seconds before he’d kissed her and breathed his life into her. Did he know how much he’d given her with that unexpected, beautiful kiss? Probably not.

  “Okay, get some sleep.”

  Callie looked forlorn as he stepped back to close the doors on the Humvee, to give her privacy. If he accurately read the look on her drawn features, he knew that she wanted him beside her, holding her, loving her as he dreamed of doing. Hesitating, his hands on the doors, Wes said in a low, growling tone, “If you give me that look back at the B.O.Q., you’re going to end up in my bed, in my room and in my arms….”

  The doors closed.

  Callie sat there in a daze as Wes’s quietly spoken words spilled across her like a wonderful, warm embrace. He’d read her mind again! That amazed her. She saw him round the vehicle and move forward. In the distance, she could hear the Huey helicopter approaching from the west. Good. Laura and Morgan Trayhern would be taken back to the base. Laura would get the best medical attention from the specialists at Camp Reed’s medical center, which hadn’t been damaged in the quake.

  Lying down, Callie snuggled up against Dusty, who was already sleeping deeply. The night was cool. She pulled up the wool blanket and placed one arm beneath her head. In moments, Callie plummeted into a hard, healing sleep.

  January 3: 0600

  Wes jerked awake. He’d been sleeping in the driver’s seat of the Humvee for the last three hours. The dawn was a turgid gray-brown color. Ugly looking. Sitting up, he rubbed his face. He needed a shave, but there was no way to get one at the moment. Water was precious and conserved for drinking only. Last night, the Huey had delivered the new rescue team, along with tents, cots, a few more medical supplies, food and water. At the hotel, he had seen a woman and her German shepherd moving carefully throughout the rubble, and he had figured it was Sergeant Lucy Perkins. The last thing Wes had ordered his sergeant to do before he knocked off and got a few hours of badly needed sleep was to erect the tents.

  As he sat up, Wes saw that the camouflage green-and-brown tents, which held two cots, had been erected next to the Humvee, on the other side of what had been a sidewalk. Wes had given orders not to be woken up. He saw the booted feet of his men at the open flap doors. Everyone needed to sleep.

  Rousing himself, Wes quietly turned around in the seat. Directly behind him was Callie. She lay on her back, her hand gently curled near her head. She was an angel, he decided. Even as dirty as she was, he saw the soft beauty of her parted lips, the shallow rise and fall of her breasts beneath the blanket, and the way her thick, pale lashes fell against her cheeks. She was so small, tiny yet courageous. Who would have thought she’d risk her life as she had last night?

  Wes smiled slightly. Dusty, her dog, lay snoring loudly at her side. The dog was as much of a hero as she was. Without him, they’d never have found Laura Trayhern.

  Wes couldn’t help himself; he wanted to touch Callie again. He wanted to kiss her awake. He wanted to make love to her..to satisfy his desire for her and share everything with her.

  Reaching between the seats, he grazed her uncombed hair before forcing himself to stop. If he didn’t, well…he was the C.O., and military-wise, it wouldn’t look good. No, he’d have to suffer in eloquent silence while other, more important things were attended to.

  Easing out of the Humvee, Wes closed the door quietly in an effort not to waken Callie or Dusty. Stretching in the damp, cold air he looked around. The sky heralded another murky day, and that depressed him. Odors from a nearby burning oil refinery clogged the air. He saw small fires on some of the lawns of civilian homes down the block, the people huddled around the flames for warmth. Walking over to the first of the newly erected tents, Wes shook his sergeant’s boot to wake him. They had to saddle up. Time wasn’t on their side in terms of finding survivors. Every hour that ticked away, could mean another life lost. And he wanted to introduce himself to the new dog rescue marine as soon as possible.

  January 3: 0700

  “Hey, sleepyhead…”

  Callie groaned. She heard Wes’s voice nearby. When she felt his hand settle on her shoulder to give her a slight shake, she barely opened her eyes. Feeling Dusty get up, she groaned again.

  “Uhh…what time is it?” she muttered thickly, forcing herself to sit up. The blanket fell away and pooled around her lower body. She had a lot of aches and pains.

  Wes was leaning in the rear door of the Humvee. He looked dangerous with his face unshaved, his cheekbones accentuated. The expression in his eyes, however, was one of humor laced with desire. Callie ran her fingers through her mussed hair and wished she had a comb.

  “Time to get up. It’s 0700. I let you sleep for as long as I could. Sergeant Cove has MREs with eggs in them from that supply that was dropped off to us last night. Come on, join us for breakfast?”

  How badly Wes wanted to take Callie in his arms. She looked so innocent and
desirable upon wakening. Her eyes were slightly puffy, her lips parted, and she seemed excruciatingly vulnerable in those moments. What would it be like to have her wake up in his arms? Never had he wanted anything more in his life. Forcing himself to move away, he allowed Dusty to leap down to the roadway. Callie followed and picked up the leash. She drew Wes’s jacket around her, the chill pervasive.

  “I’ll join you in a few minutes,” she said in a sleep-ridden voice.

  Nodding, Wes moved aside. Yesterday, he’d had two latrines set up. His men used them, as did the people who lived in the area, and that was fine by him. One of the big problems after a disaster was disease. Anything that could be done to contain it was a wise precaution. No one liked digging latrines, but it was one of the first things he’d had done with the big machine the day they’d arrived. Good sanitation measures meant less likelihood of disease breaking out.

  Callie felt drugged with tiredness as she trundled into the first tent and joined her team. There were two cots there, one on either side of the tent, which was large enough to stand up in. Two marines were sitting on the plyboard floor of the tent, another two on one of the cots, with Wes sitting opposite them on the other cot.

  “Ma’am,” Sergeant Cove said in greeting as she entered, handing out an MRE, “you and your dog have the last tent down there.” He smiled. “You got a cot, blankets and pillows. How about that?”

  Callie sat down on the deck near the entrance. She wanted to sit next to Wes, but that would have been too obvious. Seeing the same wish in his eyes, she tucked his warm look away in her heart. He would agree with her prudent decision to not join him on the cot. “Sounds like heaven to me, Sergeant. Thanks for getting it set up for us.” She eagerly spooned into her rations. The eggs weren’t real; they were a dehydrated form and she really didn’t care for them, but they were better than nothing. The sergeant had thoughtfully made Dusty an MRE beef dinner, and put it into a tin bowl for him.

  Wes was eating slowly from his MRE with a plastic spoon, hardly tasting the cardboardlike eggs. But it wasn’t lost on him how Callie’s feminine presence made a difference here. Men and women worked together in the military these days, but the effect women had on the men was obvious. And it was positive.

  Callie looked over at Wes, who stood nearby. “What’s on the drawing board today?”

  “More of the same. You go ahead and continue your grid work on the Hoyt and fill Sergeant Perkins in. She’s already hard at work up there. I’m having my men take the equipment and work with homeowners in this area who need our help and muscle. If you find anyone, dead or alive, radio me, and I’ll send someone over with the appropriate equipment to get them out.”

  “And if Dusty finds someone alive, you’ll bring back the equipment we need to extricate them?”

  “Count on it,” Wes said. Raising his head, he looked at the sky. “It looks like rain.”

  Glumly, Callie stared at the darkening clouds drifting in off the Pacific Ocean. “Rain only makes our work more dangerous. Concrete and broken glass get much more slippery when you’re trying to walk across it, hunting for survivors.”

  Wes stopped himself from telling Callie to be careful. Again, from a military standpoint, he couldn’t be seen favoring Callie like that. It was important his men didn’t realize anything was going on between them. So he gave her a short, hard look that spoke volumes. Wes hoped Callie would understand his nonverbal message.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s saddle up,” he told them in an authoritative tone. “Every minute counts. Meet me back here at noon and we’ll chow down and make plans for the afternoon. Private Bertram, you stay with the Humvee and work the radios between us and the base. I’m going to be down on Marshal Street with the rest of the team and the equipment.” He patted the cell phone on his web belt. “Call if you need me.”

  Bertram nodded. “Yes, sir, I will.”

  Wes knew that their cell phones were prized possessions right now. The only problem was he didn’t have the means to recharge them. The gasoline generator made them some electricity—just enough to keep the radios and the computer in the tent working and the lights burning at night.

  Callie finished her meal. The next order of business was placing the protective leather boots back on Dusty’s feet. She dressed him in his bright-red vest, then got up and went to the Humvee to retrieve her safety helmet. As she picked up the leash and got ready to leave, it began to rain. That was a bad omen for her day. She’d found her jacket lying on a cot in her newly erected tent, and put it on. Although water resistant, it wasn’t waterproof. With the cool January temperature hovering in the fifties, she knew they’d get soaked, and then slowly become more and more chilled as the day wore on.

  Giving everyone a smile, Callie lifted her gloved hand to the team as she walked by. “You guys be careful. I’ll see you at 1200.”

  The look Wes gave her was swift and intimate, making her heart pound with joy. She treasured that warm glance, his care and concern, deep within her. It made Callie feel as if she were walking on air.

  January 3: 1200

  Everyone had crowded into two of the five tents to eat their noontime MREs. Callie huddled next to Wes on one of the cots. Opposite them was Sergeant Cove and Corporal Orlando. The rain was steady outside the tent. The rest of the group, including Lucy and her dog, were in the other tent. She shivered involuntarily as she spooned the hot, tasty chicken and noodles into her mouth. Dusty lay at her feet lapping up the MRE that Corporal Orlando had provided for him earlier.

  “How’re things going?” Wes asked her. All morning, he’d been on Marshal Street with his men and equipment. He’d worried about Callie and Lucy being cold and wet up there on the rubble. To make matters worse, they’d experienced fifteen major aftershocks. And after each one, Wes had wanted to run back to the hotel, which was out of his line of sight, to see if they were all right. He’d tried to curb his worry and remain focused on his task of dismantling the broken houses to find survivors.

  “No luck,” she murmured unhappily. “Lucy and I are going to concentrate on the front side of the hotel now. All the grids in the back have been completed.”

  “I think we’re lucky to have found one person alive in that hotel,” Wes told her as he hungrily ate his MRE. He liked the fact that Callie had come and sat next to him. He wanted to put his arm around her, hold her and kiss her, but not here. Not now.

  “I know.” Callie sighed. “But I hold out hope for the hopeless.” She found it impossible to be immune to Wes and the intense, dark looks he gave her. Each glance was like the soft rose petal touch of his fingers upon her flesh. Yearning, hot and sweet, filled Callie.

  “In something like this,” Corporal Cove asked her, “do you often find survivors?”

  “Maybe one to five,” Callie said. Worriedly, she looked out the flap of the tent. The rain pelting down on the waterproof fabric made a soft drumming sound. “This weather isn’t going to help. Rain and cold temperatures produce hypothermia in people trapped in rubble. It just hurries their death.”

  “Yeah.” Orlando spoke up in an unhappy tone. “We just saw that happen.”

  Callie looked over at Wes. “You found someone?”

  Nodding, he finished off the MRE and tossed the plastic bag into an awaiting trash can. “We’re three to one so far. Three people have been dug out and are alive. The last one…well, he was elderly and didn’t make it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Callie whispered. She gave them all a slight smile. “Still, you’ve rescued three survivors. That’s great.”

  “The other problem is getting them medical help,” Wes said darkly.

  “We barely have any medical supplies,” Orlando said sadly, “aspirin and that’s it. No antibiotics, no painkillers…no nothing.” He gave Cove a look. “Not that you aren’t helping, Sergeant. We’re lucky to have your EMT skills available.”

  Cove nodded. “I know what you mean. All those people are out there in the rain with no shelter. Sir, is
there anything else we can do to help them?”

  Wes felt the brunt of their frustration. “Unfortunately, no. The local people have gotten together and are now searching around for pieces of wood and fallen walls that they can use to make shelters.” Logistics was just beginning to formulate a disaster relief effort. What little drugs the naval hospital could spare had been distributed to the affected areas. Wes found out that they were scrambling to get more in, but that it would take days. The whole west coast was being geared up to help the beleaguered L.A. Basin. When the precious antibiotics and pain-killing drugs arrived on daily helicopter shipments, Wes knew they’d be used in a hurry. Until then, everyone suffered.

  “Mrs. Daltry over on Marshal Street has started a soup kitchen,” Orlando noted with pride. “What a saint she is. The people of this area are banding together, bringing all their canned food and other stuff they can find, over to her house. They’re beginning to work together to survive.”

  “They’re going to have to,” Wes muttered. He glared out at the gray day. “According to the Huey pilot I talked to this morning, there are no roads leading into the basin yet. No vehicles can get supplies in to them. These people are really on their own. Teams from Camp Reed have got road work going on right now, but it’s going to be weeks before they reach this grid area. Once they can get dirt roads bulldozed and graded, we can get trucks carrying in a lot more supplies than a Huey can. Until that time, it’s going to be rough on people.”

  Callie nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of this over in Turkey and in Mexico. The people either band together or they fight among themselves and steal from one another…and sometimes even kill for food. It can swing either way.”

  “I wish to hell someone had written a procedural manual on this,” Wes growled. “Right now they’re all looking to us for resupply, medical help, food and water. And we can’t supply nearly enough of it. The medical center at Camp Reed is taking only the worst cases. We’re on a triage footing. And I heard the pilot say that they’re becoming swamped with medical emergencies at the base. They’ve got C-141 and C-130 Hercules cargo planes from the Air Force flying in and out of the airport now. The worst cases—the ones that need surgery—are being flown out to San Diego or ten other cities along the West Coast.”