“So what do you think so far?”
She giggled. “I love it!”
“Good. How would you like to see something really cool?”
“What?”
“Just watch.” I sat down next to her. The bench was small and I’m huge so our thighs were touching and even that slight contact sent a shiver through me. I tried to ignore it and concentrate on what I was doing, but it was hard. I pulled open the bag of marshmallows and handed her one. She giggled again.
“I really can’t eat anything else right now.”
“Throw it,” I told her.
“Throw it where?”
“Out there by those posts holding up the bridge.” Looking at me like I might be a little bit crazy she tossed one in. As soon as she did, three young alligators appeared on the surface of the water and wrestled each other out of the way until one of them had the marshmallow in his mouth.
“Oh my God!” She clapped her hands together. “Did you see that?”
I laughed. “Yep, throw them some more.” For a few minutes, I just watched her toss the marshmallows in one at a time. Each time the baby alligators got one she’d squeal and giggle. It was adorable and tortuous at the same time.
“How did you know they like marshmallows?”
“Everybody in Louisiana knows it, but nobody knows why. My best guess is that they’d eat anything you gave them. I’d never feed one of the big ones like Ol’ Sly, but I think it’s okay with these little guys.”
“How do you know there’s not a big one lurking around?”
“Gators are loners when they get older. They only hang out together until they’re six or so, and then they break off and find their own territory.”
“How do you know so much about them?”
I laughed. “I grew up with them, and Granny. Granny knows everything.”
She smiled. “You and she are cute with each other. Can I ask where your parents are?”
“My dad was killed in an accident when I was five and my mom…well, your guess where she is would be about as good as mine.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sincerely. “But remember that sometimes when they stay and don’t want to be there, it’s not so good either.”
I nodded. “Can I ask you a question now?”
She grimaced. “As long as it’s not about the men looking for me.”
I nodded. Hopefully we’ll get to that someday soon. “One of your brothers lives in Mississippi. Why don’t you go to him for help?”
“I guess you know that from my background check?”
“Yes.”
“Aleks has his own life. He has a good job and a wife and baby. The last thing he needs are my problems. He left Moscow to avoid the problems there. I don’t want to bring them to him here.”
“One more question?”
“I suppose, greedy.”
I smiled. “Can I kiss you again?”
I thought she’d say no, but I had to ask. To my delight, she nodded. I didn’t give her time to change her mind. I put my arm around her and pulled her in closer as I crushed my mouth down on hers. For those few moments while we kissed it was like the earth tipped on its axis. Alicia was safe and here in my arms. Blake was sleeping at night and living his life instead of hiding. Granny didn’t fight with alligators. It was like Alicia made everything right in my world, and I wished once again that it could last forever.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RYDER
I was on patrol only a few blocks from the ramshackle hospital set up by Doctors Without Borders and had been for the past two weeks. When we first received the assignment, I’d been pissed. I was young and still an adrenaline junkie. I loved the missions where we parachuted down into the line of fire. I liked the ones where we narrowly escaped the explosions that littered the roadways. I didn’t like foot patrol. It was hot and boring…most of the time. For those first two weeks, as I patrolled with my partner Wheezy, I complained to him almost non-stop about how bored I was. He was even younger than I was and surprisingly patient. I might have used that M27 on me if I were him, just to shut me up. What I didn’t realize then was that he may have been younger, but he was a lot wiser.
“You know, sir, a slow day means that no one goes home in a box.”
“A mission executed right means the same thing,” I told him arrogantly. I was on my third tour, and so far I hadn’t seen anyone close to me die. Up to that point we’d been the heroes, swooping in for the save at the last minute. I didn’t know it yet, but I had been living on the perimeter of hell and soon I would be staring it in the face.
That day as we passed by the concrete building that housed the hospital I looked inside the triage tent set up outside. I looked at the faces of the sick children and the worried mothers as they waited to be seen, and the nurses and doctors who volunteered to be thousands of miles from their homes and their families, and for some reason, it tugged at my heart that day. There was a lot of chaos going on inside of the tent, but the cries of one little boy seemed to transcend it all and reach out to me. My eyes scanned the faces in the tent until they landed on a tiny little brown-skinned boy with almost no hair on his head. He couldn’t have been over six years old, and the sight of his miserable little face penetrated the walls of my self-absorption like nothing else had in a while.
“Hey, Wheezy, you still have one of them lollipops?”
Wheezy stopped walking and looked into the tent as well. While we patrolled, he told me stories of how bad his asthma used to be as a kid. He said he practically lived in the emergency room and pediatrician’s office. He finally outgrew it, but he told me all of that missing school and not being able to play with other kids had changed him. It had made him shy and introverted, and he had bouts of severe anxiety. Somehow, from all of the years of doctor’s offices and lollipops, a lollipop was the only thing that could calm him down. His mother sent hundreds of them to him every month, and he never left base without a handful in his pocket. He took a blue one out then and handed it to me.
“Thanks. I’ll be right back.” At that moment, I honestly intended only to do a good deed. I just wanted to see that miserable little boy smile. But when I was about two feet away from him, I was finally able to see whom he was looking up at, and she stopped me in my tracks. She was dressed in dark blue scrubs that weren’t sexy in the least, but on this woman they were as hot as a ball gown. Her long, wavy, dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her dark blue eyes took up about half of her face. The other half was a cute little nose with light brown freckles across it and lips that most supermodels would die for. I wondered in my own selfish way why a woman like that would choose to dedicate her life to a place and a profession like this. She must have seen me watching them out of the corner of her eye because she looked at me and said, “Can I help you?” I hadn’t so much as kissed a woman in months. I had a whole list of ways she could help me. I kept them to myself, and instead I held out the lollipop in the little boy’s direction. It was almost miraculous, the way it stopped his wailing almost instantly. He held a pudgy little hand out, and I placed the lollipop into his hand. He rewarded me with a smile that transformed his miserable little face into that of an angel. Strangely enough, for a few seconds, I forgot about the hot woman, but when I looked back up at her I had to admit that I was glad I’d done this “good deed.” She was smiling at me, too. She had a radiant smile, and it went straight through me.
“That was very kind of you. Mikel was having trouble letting me take his blood. I need it to adjust his medication. Are you ready to do that now, Mikel?”
The little boy nodded. Blue slobber ran down his chin as he devoured the lollipop. “I’m glad I could be of service, ma’am. I’m Ryder Grant, and I’ll be around for another few weeks. If you need anything, just whistle and I’ll come running.”
I could tell by the look on her face that she knew a player when she saw one. Still, she was smiling. “Well thank you, Ryder Grant. I’ll keep that
in mind.”
“Ma’am, would it be forward of me to ask your name?”
She didn’t seem like the type that smooth charms would work on, so I was going for the sweet country boy angle.
“It’s Sarah. Doctor Sarah Middleton.”
“Dr. Middleton”—I gave her a slight, terribly corny bow—“until we meet again.”
For the next two weeks I stopped by the hospital every day. What started as an attraction to an incredibly beautiful woman quickly sprouted friendship, mutual respect, and something I convinced myself could turn into love once we were out of that horrible place. I was already thinking about not going back for a fourth tour and moving to Baltimore where she was from. I knew it was way too soon for all of that, but like I said, I was bored. So I built up these incredible fantasies in my head of our life together once we got back to the United States, and I convinced myself that it would all come true someday.
It was the beginning of our fifth week on the assignment I had come to love. Wheezy and I were about three blocks from the hospital when the first explosion sounded. The ground underneath our boots rolled, and Wheezy was knocked to the ground. I reached a hand out and helped him to his feet, and we took off at a run up the street. The rest of our unit was on our heels, and one of the men yelled out, “What the hell was that?”
“A car bomb maybe. I don’t know,” I told him. I was praying in my head that it hadn’t come from where it sounded like it had. If my ears didn’t fail me, the explosion had been perilously close to the hospital.
“It sounded like it came from the hospital, sir,” one of the other guys said. I ignored him and kept running. When we rounded the first corner where the hospital normally came into view, all I could see was thick, black smoke and piles of rubble. My heart pounded in my chest at an alarming rate—and I ran faster. I ran right toward where the tent had been. It was gone— and in its place was a mound of crumbling cement and raging blue and yellow flames. I could hear muffled screams and—without thinking about how hot those bricks were—I started lifting and moving them. The rest of my unit surrounded me and did the same. They dug until the flames threatened to consume them. I kept digging. Sarah’s pretty face kept coming into my head, and I kept imagining her trapped underneath that pile. Wheezy tried to get me to stop, but I pushed him away. My gloves were melted to my hands, and my uniform had begun to smolder by the time four of my brothers dragged me out of there.
They sat me down on the curb, and as the fire unit fought to put out the fire, the medic cut off what was left of my gloves. I didn’t feel any pain. I was numb. I’d convinced myself that both Sarah and I would get out of here someday and we would be together.
“Sir?” The medic was talking to me.
“What?”
“Do you see her, sir?”
“What? See who?”
“The doctor, sir. See over there…?”
That was when I started screaming…
“Ryder?” I heard the soft voice through my screams. I thought it was Sarah. All I could see was her body consumed in flames… “Ryder wake up!” The light was suddenly in my face, blinding me through my closed lids. I brought my arm up to cover my eyes, and it collided with something. I heard a little “Oomph!” “Ryder! Please wake up. It’s just a dream. You’re okay. Open your eyes.” The voice wasn’t Sarah’s, it was Alicia’s. I wrenched my eyes open. Alicia’s beautiful face hovered above me. I was drenched in sweat and shaking all over. “Are you okay?”
I was disoriented. I remembered the dream because I’d had it so many times before. It always left me confused. Everything happened just as it had that day…right up until the end. My mind wanted to force me to see something I’d never saw that day. I didn’t see Sarah’s body, ever. As far as I knew, they never recovered it.
“Ryder, you’re scaring me.”
I forced myself to focus on Alicia then. She looked terrified. “Damn! I’m sorry, Alicia,” I croaked out in a hoarse voice. I could still actually feel the smoke burning my throat and lungs.
“Don’t be sorry. It was a bad dream. Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just a bad dream. I’m fine…thank you.” She stood up then, and I realized she was leaving me to go back to her own room. A sense of panic seized me—and all of a sudden I felt like if she left, I’d never see her again. “Alicia! Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.” She stood at the edge of the bed dressed in a fuzzy robe that came to her knees and a pair of fuzzy slipper socks that matched. She looked adorable, and I could see by the look on her face that she was having an internal struggle over my request. “I just want you to stay with me until I go back to sleep,” I told her. “Please. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.” I wanted so much more from her…someday, but not tonight.
She smiled and lay down next to me. I couldn’t help thinking that it was a good sign she was beginning to trust me. I slid my arm underneath the back of her head and pulled her into my side. Her warm body molded into my shirtless, sticky body, and I heard her let out a contented little sigh. I kissed the side of her face and inhaled the sweet coconut scent of her hair. When I closed my eyes, it was to a dreamless sleep, possibly the best sleep I’ve ever had.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALICIA
I woke up in Ryder’s arms. It had been so long since I slept with a man that I was confused and frightened at first. When I opened my eyes and realized it was Ryder, a sense of peace came over me like nothing I had felt in a really long time. Maybe ever. I lay there for a long time, looking at his handsome face in the light coming in through the blinds. I loved the color of his deep brown eyes but closed they were even sexy. His lashes were long and dark, and as he slept, they fanned out handsomely. His nose was long and regal looking, and his lips…God, I loved those lips. He kept his hair cut short, probably a habit from the military. I wondered if that’s what he was dreaming about last night. He’d been shaking so hard when I first came in the room that I feared he was having a seizure. When he asked me to stay, I worried that he was looking for sex. I can’t say that I wasn’t thinking along those lines…almost every time I looked at him. Right now the covers were back to his waist, and I’m so tempted to trace the hard lines of his chest that my fingers almost itch with desire. He’s wearing flannel pajama bottoms, but they’re thin and I can feel his desire pressing into me even in his sleep. I do want him, but the timing is all wrong.
Reluctantly, I slid quietly underneath the big arm he had wrapped across me. I loved the colorful band he had tattooed around the bicep and the one he had on the right side of his chest. That one was some kind of symbol with foreign words I didn’t understand, but it was beautiful. He’s beautiful. I was curious about the scars on his hands and forearms, but I hadn’t worked up my nerve to ask. Oddly, I loved the way they felt when he touched me. I had an idea in my head that he’d gotten them protecting someone, and it was one more reason that I felt safe when he was around.
I let my eyes linger on the bandage across his left shoulder then and my resolve to leave returned. I tore myself away and tiptoed toward the door. I had to get out of there now. If I tried to leave while he was awake, he’d only follow me. I hated the idea that I’d already gotten him hurt. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was responsible for him getting killed. I went to the room his Granny was kind enough to let me stay in. As I got dressed, I thought about how different my life may have been if I had someone who cared about me that much when I was a child. I pushed that thought away, too.
My life was how it was, and I couldn’t change the past. I could, however, change the future, and that was exactly what I intended to do. I was sick and tired of my life being controlled by men who only wanted to use me. I was sick and tired of thinking happiness was only for other people and that I didn’t deserve any of it. If it was the last thing I did, I would at least make sure that the people I loved were free to choose their own lives and make their own happiness.
I snuck back across the hall to make sure Ryder
was still asleep. He had hardly slept at all while at the mansion watching Celia and me. I smiled when I thought about him with the baby. He was like a giant next to her, but when he touched her, he’d been so gentle and Celia had sensed what a good and kind heart he had. My chest tightened up at the thought of never seeing that baby again. I hated the thought of people who didn’t want her raising her. But I had too many problems of my own right now to do anything about that. I had to put that away for now and get out of here while I still had time.
I made my way to the kitchen quietly and sat my bags down. I found a pen and a napkin and I left a note for Ryder and his Granny:“I wish I knew the words to thank you both. You opened not only your home but your hearts to me. In the short time that I’ve known you, I’ve learned a lot about family and how things should be when you care about someone. I hope you understand that I have to go. If I stay here, you might be in danger. Ryder, you’re my hero. Without you I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I’m going to do something horrible today. I’m taking your car. I will call and let you know where I left it for you. Please forgive me. Please be safe and happy. Alicia.”
RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) Page 10