The Heart Beneath

by McKenna, Lindsay

  Wes leaned down, his lips close to Callie’s ear. “Callie? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Her head was spinning. She barely opened her eyes. Automatically, Callie lifted her gloved hand to her helmet. “Uhh, what happened?”

  Wes sat back on his heels and watched her become more cognizant of her surroundings. “An aftershock hit and you were knocked off your feet. We think you hit that piece of concrete over there—” he pointed to it “—as you fell. Are you okay?” It took everything not to reach out and grip her hand or touch her.

  Blinking rapidly to stop the dizziness, Callie struggled to sit up. Feeling badly bruised, she allowed Wes to help her into a sitting position. He was so close. She lifted her lashes and met his dark, terrified gaze. In that instant, Callie’s reserves dissolved. This wasn’t the look of a man wanting to just bed her and walk away.

  Her senses were skewed. She felt nauseous. Gripping his forearm, she clung to his darkened, narrowed gaze.

  “I—I’m okay….” she murmured in a strained tone. “Just…give me a minute.” She looked anxiously toward the debris. “What about Al? Is he okay?”

  Wes glanced at Orlando. “Try calling to him, Corporal. See if he’s okay?”

  “Yes, sir!” The corporal scrambled over to the spot where Dusty was still sitting.

  Cove maneuvered around and kept his hand on her back to support her. “Ma’am? Are you feeling dizzy? Sick to your stomach at all?”

  Callie whispered, “Yes…” and she placed her gloved hands against her eyes for a moment and took in a deep, ragged breath. The dizziness would not go away no matter what she did.

  Cove shot a glance at Wes. “Concussion, sir.” Then he devoted his attention to Callie. “Ma’am, let me examine you to make sure you don’t have any broken bones, okay?”

  Slowly licking her lips, Callie said, “Sure…I think I’m fine, though….”

  “I’m sure you are, ma’am,” Cove murmured sympathetically, “but this won’t take long.”

  Wes moved aside to allow his sergeant to give her a more thorough examination, from head to toe. Inwardly, he was shaking. Fear was gutting him. His heart was screaming out in terror over the whole episode, which was bringing him flashbacks of his fiancée’s death.

  As he stood there, he realized he was feeling a lot more than just desire for Callie. But he couldn’t go there yet. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Wes took a deep breath, refusing to look at this thunderbolt realization any more closely right now.

  He heard Orlando calling out to Al Gordon. Private Bertram had worry written on his face as he stood nearby, ready to help. In the past week the team had bonded as a unit—a family—and Wes could see their concern for Callie was real.

  “I got a voice!” Orlando yelped happily. “He’s okay!”

  Wes looked up and saw Orlando throw him a thumbs-up. “Good. Private Bertram, help Corporal Orlando start pulling that debris away so we can get to Mr. Gordon.”

  “Yes, sir.” The marine hurried over to where Orlando was beginning to pull splintered wood away from where the man was buried.

  Wes didn’t leave Callie’s side. He watched in anxious silence as Sergeant Cove expertly examined her. Wes’s heart was twisting and knotting with such powerful feelings that he simply couldn’t ignore them. Similar feelings had been there with Allison, too. But what he felt now was raw and gutting in comparison. Callie could have died just now. What would his life be like if she had? Shutting his eyes for a moment, Wes clamped his lips together until they became a hard, thin line.

  “Take your helmet off, ma’am? I need to examine your head.”

  “…Oh…yeah….” Callie fumbled with the closure on her helmet. She felt shaky and weak, and her fingers wouldn’t work. Frustrated, she glanced over at Wes and silently asked for his help.

  He nodded and leaned forward, his fingertips brushing her chin as he loosened the strap. Callie tried to smile but didn’t succeed; the dizziness was nearly overwhelming.

  “T-thanks…” She eased the helmet off her head, and immediately felt warm blood trickling behind her ear and down her neck. “I guess I really hit my head,” Callie told them as she gave Wes her helmet. Lifting her hand, she touched the aching spot.

  Sergeant Cove examined that area very gently. “Yes, ma’am, you’ve got a two-inch laceration on your scalp from that knock on the head. And it’s pretty swollen.”

  Frowning, Wes asked, “Do we need to get her back to Camp Reed, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir, I think so. She’s got a concussion. And this laceration needs stitches. She can’t be out here with that injury open like that.”

  “No!” Callie whispered. “No, Wes. I want to stay…. We’ve got to get Al out….”

  Grimly, Wes looked at her. The distraught expression in Callie’s eyes tore at him. She sat there in the rubble, the dark stream of blood curving around her neck and soaking into the collar of her cammos. “Sergeant, you and I are going to take her back to H.Q. Once we get her there, I want you to dress the lieutenant’s wound.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t want to leave!” Callie whispered, seeking out Wes’s dark gaze. “Just patch me up, Sergeant. I’ll be okay. I feel better already.” That was a lie, but under no circumstances did Callie want to be sent away. She and Dusty were needed more than ever now. Knowing that most people died after their fifth day buried alive, Callie would hate to be ordered back to the base at this critical time.

  “We’ll talk later,” Wes promised her in a grim tone. “Sergeant? Help me get her off this pile of rubble.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  January 6: 2230

  Callie lay on her cot, her head spinning. Dusty was stretched out on the floor, snoring heavily. Outside, the floodlights powered by the chuttering generator sent a grayish glow through her tent. Sergeant Cove had cleaned her head wound, placed a sterile dressing over it and then wrapped gauze around her head to hold it snugly in place. Now she needed Wes. He’d disappeared once they’d brought her back to her tent. Her heart needed him; she wanted his arms around her. But his heart was off-limits to her. The thought made her want to cry.

  “You still awake?”

  It was Wes, standing tentatively outside her tent. Raising up on her elbows, she said, “Yeah, come on in.” Forcing herself to sit up, Callie closed her eyes and gripped the sides of her cot with her hands, afraid that she was going to fall off it. The dizziness was unrelenting. She heard Wes quietly enter. Looking up, she saw him drop the flap back into place. He looked at her grimly.

  “I’m going to be okay,” Callie muttered defiantly.

  Wes stood there, torn. Hands on his hips, he perused Callie’s upturned, pale face. “Sergeant Cove says you need stitches and a tetanus shot. Not to mention antibiotics. I’ve got to send you back on that helo tomorrow when it makes its morning run, Callie.”

  “No!”

  Wes cursed softly beneath his breath and knelt down on one knee in front of her. As he placed his hands on her small shoulders, he saw the agony in her narrowed eyes. “Listen to me, Callie. You’re hurt. I care for you too damn much to let you stay out here in this condition. What if you get tetanus? That stuff will kill you. You need to go back and get medical help.”

  Gripping his arm, she whispered, “No! I’ll be okay. Gosh, Wes, I’ve banged my head a lot worse than this before out at quake sites and I didn’t receive any medical help. I’ve just got to keep working. There’re people in those buildings. We’ve got to use every minute we can! Every hour counts!” Her voice broke as she gripped his jacket in frustration. “You need me here, Wes. Please…let me stay….” Her voice broke tearfully.

  “Dammit, Callie,” he rasped harshly as he framed her face with his hands. “I care too much for you to let this go…to let you go….” And he leaned down and brushed her parted, trembling lips with his. He tasted the salt of her tears as he did so. He heard her moan. Her hands moved greedily across his shoulders and her arms slid arou
nd his neck. She wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her. Just knowing that, Wes moved his mouth in a cherishing movement across hers, to let her know how much he needed her…. At that moment, he remembered the look on Morgan Trayhern’s face, the love burning in the man’s eyes for his wife. Wes felt the same way about Callie right now, but was afraid to admit it.

  The thought came as a shock to him in one way, but in another, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He felt Callie’s arms tighten around his neck and he drew her into his arms, bringing her completely against him.

  Callie’s world was spinning again, but not because of her head injury. No, this was due to Wes’s mouth pressed hotly to hers, worshiping her as if she were some fragile, priceless treasure. More tears squeezed from beneath her eyelids and streamed down her cheeks. Wes was powerful, and yet Callie could feel him holding back, carefully monitoring the amount of pressure he exerted. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to nurture her, take care of her. She felt his big hands stroke her shoulders, her back, before pinning her tightly against him once more.

  Never had she felt more desired. As he eased his mouth from hers, their noses almost touching, she opened her eyes. Burning beneath his slitted gaze, she felt a heat uncoil within her lower body. This was how it felt to want to love someone, Callie realized for the first time in her life. And Wes wanted her; there was no mistaking that. She saw it in his narrowed eyes, the way his hands caressed her shoulders and back.

  “Don’t send me away,” she pleaded brokenly.

  “I’m going to, Callie. For your own good.” Wes winced as he saw the pain in her features. He wanted to simply hold her and keep her safe. Right now, he was scared as never before. She could have fallen on a piece of rebar out there and been impaled. She could be dying or dead right now, not sitting here kissing him hungrily.

  “No!” she sobbed. “You’ve got to let me stay, Wes. You’ve got to!” She pounded her fist against his chest in frustration. “You’re reacting because of your past—your loss of Allison. I know it!” There, the truth was out. “I’m not Allison! I’m me! I’m Callie!”

  His mouth tightened. Inwardly, he winced at her accusation. But he couldn’t remain immune to her weeping or her tears. “Okay…okay, listen to me, dammit.” He gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him, though her tears still tore at his heart. “I’m sending you back tomorrow at 0600. You get to the hospital for treatment. If they say you can come back here, Callie, you come back. That’s the best I can do. I won’t let you stay here like this. I want you alive and well. I—I care for you too much to let you stay here. Do you understand that?” His voice was low and strained. “Do you?”

  Shaken and hurting, Callie released his jacket. She reached up and wiped her cheek. “Y-yes…okay. I’ll go back…but I’ll be back on that flight coming in at 1600.” Twice a day, the Huey helicopter arrived, bringing supplies and taking out anyone needing medical help.

  “Angel, you own me.” Wes gripped her small hand and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. “I know you want to be here with us…and I know you’re needed…but not at the risk of your life.” He shook his head, and saw the tender look of response in Callie’s eyes.

  Bowing her head, her hand pressed against his jacket, she whispered, “Okay…it’s better than nothing….” And she swallowed her hurt at his orders.

  “I’ve got to go,” he muttered. “I don’t want to, Callie, but I have to….”

  “Go…go help the guys get Al Gordon out of there, Wes. I know you can do it.” She gave him a broken smile. The words I love you almost slipped from her lips. How badly Callie wanted to say them! Wes had talked about desire, not love. Yet the anguish burning in his eyes looked exactly like the expression on Morgan Trayhern’s face when she’d found Laura in the rubble. If that wasn’t love, what was it?

  Torn with emotions, dizzy and confused, she felt like a thunderstorm was brewing inside her. “Keep Dusty here?” she asked.

  Wes looked down at the sleeping dog. “Yeah…I’ll do that….”

  “Good,” Callie whispered, relieved. If Wes allowed Dusty to stay, that meant he was expecting her back here. Reaching up, she touched his sandpapery cheek. “Stay safe out there. I’m scared for you, too, you know.”

  Nodding, Wes caught her hand and pressed a long, fervent kiss to the back of it. “Just get medical help, Callie. That’s all I ask….”

  Chapter Ten

  January 7: 1300

  “Callie?”

  Callie had been dozing, her head tipped back against the wall in the passageway of the first floor emergency room at Camp Reed, when she heard her name called. She was sitting on a wooden bench, squeezed in with three other people, yet she’d been so exhausted she’d fallen asleep despite her physical discomfort. She had arrived at 0630 to Camp Reed and had hitched a ride from the airport in an ambulance. Since that time, she’d been logged in at the busy hospital and assessed as the lowest medical priority in the triage system.

  Because her injuries weren’t considered life-threatening, Callie had already waited long hours without being seen by any medical staff. However, she could see that the emergency room was overwhelmed with civilians flown in from outside the base. Many of them were near death or had far more serious injuries than she, so she used the time to try and catch up on badly needed sleep.

  Hearing her name called a second time jolted her out of her light sleep. Blinking, she lifted her head, confused. She had to be hearing things. That sounded like Wes’s voice. She straightened, looking around the passageway, which was crowded with gurneys bearing people waiting their turn to be seen by an ER physician. The cries and groans of the injured mingled with the tense voice of nurses and doctors drifting around her.

  Wes saw Callie slowly straighten up. She still wore the gauze dressing Sergeant Cove had applied. Her hair was uncombed, part of it flattened—with dried blood from her head injury? Anger sizzled through him as he moved down in the crowded passageway. She looked washed out. Her eyes didn’t look quite right to him as he made his way to her side. Kneeling down at the end of the bench, Wes whispered, “Thought I’d come and check on you.”

  Callie gave him a soft smile of welcome and she sat up.

  “Wes. What are you doing here?” She realized that all eyes were on them. They were both officers, of the same rank, but they couldn’t show any affection toward one another.

  He rested one hand on the wooden bench where she sat and the other on her shoulder. Not giving a damn about official military protocol, he held on to his anger as he searched her dirty, smudged face.

  “I just brought in Mr. Gordon. We got him free a little while ago,” he said. “He’s in the ER right now. He had a broken leg and arm. The old guy is eighty, and he’s not doing well. I thought I’d take the opportunity to fly in with him on the Huey and see how you were doing.” He saw her eyes grow warm.

  “So you went to the B.O.Q., thinking I was there resting?” Her voice contained amusement. She saw the anger flicker in his dark-green eyes. Wes was dirty and dusty. It was obvious to her that he’d had a big hand in freeing Al Gordon, from the looks of it.

  “Yeah, and you weren’t there. So I got worried, thinking that they were keeping you here at the hospital, or worse, had flown you out because your head injury was a lot more serious than we thought.”

  “Well, put your worry away,” she soothed. Pointing to her injury, she said, “An admissions Corps Wave put me as a number three in their triage system. I’m the least wounded, so I wait my turn.”

  Giving her a look of exasperation, Wes muttered, “But you left at 0600 this morning! You’re telling me you’ve sat here for seven hours now and no one has seen you yet?” His voice grew tight with barely concealed anger. Callie deserved better than that. Yet, as Wes looked around, he saw many others who had been similarly tagged and were also waiting for help.

  “Yes. It’s okay, Wes. This place is overwhelmed. I don’t see how the medical pe
ople are handling this influx. It’s pretty bad, and I’m really okay. I’ve got a headache…but my dizziness is pretty much gone.”

  Standing, he looked around. The navy provided all medical personnel to the Marine Corps. The orderlies, enlisted people, were in blue or green scrubs. Doctors were in white coats. The nurses, all officers, were in white slacks or dresses, depending upon their gender. Gripping Callie’s shoulder for a moment, Wes growled, “Stay here. I’m going to get you some help.”

  Opening her mouth, Callie raised her hand to call him back, but Wes had already melted into the crowd, quickly swallowed up in the ceaseless activity that filled the passageway leading to the emergency facility.

  Wes barely held on to his rage as he swung through the doors of the ER. He wanted a doctor—now. Spotting a woman bending over an older woman, a stethoscope in her ears as she listened to the patient’s heart, he headed toward her. The doctor, who he saw was a lieutenant, had short red hair and a face liberally sprinkled with freckles. Wes intercepted her as she moved from the wheelchair bearing the older woman and turned to the next patient in the overcrowded room.

  “Lieutenant?” He saw the black bar with white lettering across the left breast pocket of her blood-splattered white coat. “Lieutenant Andrews?”

  She halted momentarily. “Yes?”

  Wes saw how exhausted the tall navy doctor was. “I know you’re busy, but I’ve got my dog rescue officer out here in the passageway. She’s got a concussion…and she’s been out there for seven hours now. Can you take a moment and help her? Please?”

  Samantha Andrews gave him a grim look. Her full mouth flattened. “Lieutenant—” she glanced at his name tag, pinned above the left breast pocket of his cammies “—James…I’m sorry, but if she’s a number three in our triage system, she waits.”

  “Hold on,” Wes growled, and he stepped in front of her. “Five minutes, Doctor. That’s all I’m asking. This woman, Lieutenant Callie Evans, has saved more lives in the last five days, going through that rubble out there with her dog…. She deserves better than this.”