by Olivia Gates
“You make me proud to be human.”
He pressed her head hard to his chest, over his booming heart. Steady, powerful. It was all there. His spirit, his virility, his humanity. She knew them all, down to the last detail. It had been three hours and forever since she’d first laid eyes on him. She’d known what he was with that first look, against all damning evidence. It felt so good, made her so smug, knowing she’d been right about him.
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Recent titles by the same author:
AIRBORNE EMERGENCY
THE DOCTOR’S LATIN LOVER
THE HEROIC SURGEON
BY
OLIVIA GATES
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
THE man looked good enough to eat.
Gulnar forced her lids to open wider and her focus to lock and steady. The man didn’t disappear. He was really here.
His every unhurried step was eloquent with calm authority, every line of his formidably proportioned body with controlled, fluid power. He was a graceful, gorgeous being, even if his clothes hung a bit from the expanse of his impressive shoulders and his uncompromising face was too raw-boned. In fact, the asceticism only added to his impact.
She huffed an incredulous exhalation. Had her mind finally disintegrated with starvation and heat exhaustion?
That man was a murderer. A terrorist!
And he was preceding six more terrorists across the municipal building’s main hall, towering a whole head over the tallest among them. But he was on a far higher level from his henchmen in every other respect. An Olympian among orang-utans.
She clamped her bone-dry lips, exerted all she had left on steadying her quivering muscles as his head turned this way and that, his hewn face exhibiting no reaction, his eyes sweeping the crowd, sparing no one a lingering look.
Look at me! she heard a voice yelling, and for a moment shriveled in horror that it was hers. It was. But only inside her head. Get a grip, Gulnar. She should be praying he wouldn’t notice her. God only knew what he’d do if he did!
In the next second she lost whatever control she had on her long-frayed nerves. He was heading towards her!
The heart that had long decelerated into the sluggish rhythm of resignation zoomed behind her ribs, the transition so sudden she felt her grip on consciousness softening…
But the man stopped a few feet away, by the group of people she’d just left, where Mikhael, her last remaining gravely injured casualty, was. His terrorists fanned out, protecting his back, his height keeping him visible above their tight grid.
Fury burst in her chest, cascaded throughout her body. How could she have thought him anything else but a bully, coming in here surrounded by his henchmen, terrorizing the already bludgeoned and broken people? He probably looked good enough to eat because she was hungry enough to eat a rat!
Which she’d probably resort to before long. She wouldn’t have to worry about finding one. Rats were becoming braver as the huddled masses grew still and squalor soared. She’d woken up from her shallow slumber at dawn when one had scampered across her chest. Good thing rats didn’t faze her. Not much could. Not any more. She was destined to live—and live. And lose. Being held hostage was just one more thing to survive.
And she’d been held hostage with over four hundred people since the militants had erupted into the building three days ago, in a storm of gunfire and thundering threats on the public address system. The place was rigged with explosives. They would shoot anyone who moved.
What had followed had been total pandemonium. When the gunfire had stopped there had been thirty-two people down.
The only hostage with medical experience, overwhelmed and unequipped, she’d raced among the casualties, trying to set up some form of triage, some measure of emergency intervention.
Some had been killed outright, some had had injuries beyond the help of her improvised measures. But the ones who’d ruptured her heart with loss and futility had been those whose injuries would have been controllable had she had access to even the most basic emergency supplies. But there were none, and she’d lost eleven of the injured she was tending. Mikhael was the only one she hadn’t lost. Yet. It was a matter of time, and the ones with lesser injuries would follow.
She’d tried to talk reason to the only woman militant, pleaded for the injured to be turned over to the security forces who now besieged the building. It was one thing to kill people in the heat of the moment, another to let them die such slow, agonizing deaths. They’d still have hundreds under their power to bargain with.
Nothing had worked. No concessions would be offered before the militants’ demands were met. Gulnar had almost laughed in the woman’s face, could have told her how this would end.
Hostage situations often ended with everyone losing and everything far worse than before, the ever-expanding shockwaves of retaliation and counter-retaliation only creating new generations raised on oppression, hatred and intolerance, perpetuating the vicious circle of violence, strife and death.
Her mind was wrenched back to the moment as one of the man’s henchmen handed him a suitcase. No, that looked like…a huge emergency bag? He kneeled on the floor, opened it and—it was!
What did that mean? Were there reporters around? And were the militants putting on a show of mercy for their benefit?
So what? The man had an emergency bag and that was all that mattered. All she needed.
Brutal hope tore aside her remaining tatters of self-preservation, propelled her to her feet. A burning torrent of pins and needles almost sent her to the floor again. They hadn’t been letting them up to even go to the bathroom.
Ignoring the debilitating electricity, she limped over to the man, her hands raised in the universal gesture of surrender. “Please, let me use the emergency supplies!”
One of the militants’ gazes swept over her, rabid, defiling. “Sit down now!”
She wasn’t going to sit down! She was getting her hands on those supplies. He could do what he liked.
And what he liked, and so much, was to show her who was boss. He rammed the butt of his semi-automatic rifle into her shoulder, hard. Too hard. She heard a sickening crack. In the flash before pain exploded from her shoulder to flood her body she wondered—had he dislocated it? Broken it? Could she manage with one arm?
Then the impact was transmitted to the rest of her. Just before she launched backwards in the air, feeling weightless, powerless, the man with the emergency bag turned around and his gaze lodged on her across the distance and everything stopped. For a second. An hour. Then she slammed to the ground. Head first. Her body followed, the impact driving her bones into her flesh. All air left her lungs and blackness swelled, overflowed from all sides.
Great, just great. The bitter thought burst on and off in her flickering mind. She’d pass out, leaving that man to muck about playing doctor, probably finishing Mikhael off!
So it was simple. She wouldn’t pass out. It didn’t matter that she was starving and dying of thirst, that
she’d banged her head on the marble floor. Passing out wasn’t an option.
She growled at the pain and resignation telling her to let go. For an eternity, the harder she struggled the faster she sank. Then a sound permeated the inky molasses filling her head. A comforting sound. “Shh, shh.”
Her mind finally registered what her eyes were staring at. The man. It was him who was soothing her.
She jackknifed to a sitting position and his hands, firm but gentle on her arms, slackened. She gaped at him.
Close up, he really was flawless. And those eyes slammed into her with more force for being so near. Beautiful. Hypnotic. Intense white on endless black. Cool with secret power, remote as if he existed in this plane only in image. Yet intense with—what? Anger? Annoyance? No—it felt like worry. Mercy…
She must have had a concussion if she was picking up such potent, pure signals where they didn’t exist.
But, no. Concussion or not, she read people. Fathomed them. Had yet to be wrong. These eyes, this face, this aura—these were the products of a lifetime well spent, the reflection of an untarnished soul. This was no extremist who fought his fanatic battles by murdering innocent civilians.
Or she could be letting his staggering looks or her own blinding pain get to her. Whatever the truth was, she had to obtain a promise of his mercy. For her casualties. For Mikhael.
She struggled to her knees, knocking his hands away, her own clawing at his arms. These tensed to cabled steel beneath her grip. “Sir, please! You have to let me use the medical supplies! I am a nurse and I could save those people.”
A frown answered her outburst then his lips clamped on an exasperated sigh. He shook his head and reached for hers.
It took all her will not to shout what the hell he thought he was doing. Don’t antagonize him. She stifled her objections, sat motionless as long, careful fingers probed her skull, sculptor-like. Palpating for bumps? It seemed he’d found them for his frown grew even blacker.
He rose, his hands on her shoulder keeping her firmly down. He silently pointed his forefinger at her, shook it once, his message clear. Stay there.
“I can’t stay here! I have to help. Please!”
His headshake was accompanied by eye-rolling this time. He rubbed his eyes, leveled them on her, his expression tinged with…bewilderment? He couldn’t believe one of his victims wasn’t afraid of him. And to think she’d felt compassion coming off him in waves!
He dismissed her again and turned to open the bag. She lunged for a saline bag, but he snatched it away and held it out of her reach. In the next second he dropped it in utmost surprise when she struck his hand with all her strength. His men advanced but he waved them away. He shook his head, looked her square in the eyes, his expression unmistakable this time. Total disgusted resignation.
He sighed. “I get your rage lady, just not why you’re aiming it at me. You’re making those guys so twitchy they may open fire just to shut you up. How can I explain that to you, and that this saline bag isn’t drinking water, when you don’t speak a word of English and I don’t speak your language?
Dante couldn’t believe the woman had finally stopped fighting him. Her mouth had dropped open and remained that way. Score one for the magical powers of his soothing tones.
Nah. She’d probably just depleted herself. Or maybe concussion was setting in. Maybe it had all been the concussion talking.
A shudder spiraled through him again. That bang her head had made on the floor still pounded in his ears, still vibrated up his bones. It was a miracle she hadn’t passed out. Her head must be tougher that it looked.
And it looked good. Too good. Even smothered in that garish headscarf. His own scarf looked worse, dirty and tattered, but he’d made do with anything he’d found when he’d lost his own.
It was amazing. Not that she still looked stunning after days of terror and starvation and abuse, but that he’d noticed it now. That it affected him this way.
Oh, all right. He’d be dead if he didn’t. If it didn’t. And against common belief, including his own, it seemed he wasn’t after all. What a time to discover he was still alive.
It was probably just an illusion. And, anyway, staying alive wasn’t high on his priority list. That had brought him to these parts of the world, had gotten him past those madmen. His one and only priority now was keeping that man alive.
He turned to his emergency bag, extracted what he’d need for first-line measures of resuscitation. Ringer’s lactate bags, IV lines, cannulae, syringes, plastic bags for blood collection…
“What did you say?”
Dante started. English. Clear, American-accented English. The last thing he’d ever thought to hear here. And from her.
He snapped his eyes up, found her lips hanging open. OK. He had needed communication with a fellow human being for too long, finding local languages too hard to grasp, that he was starting to hear things.
He resumed his task, got out sealed, pre-sterilized scissors, clamps, scalpels…
“What am I saying? I know what you said!” There she went again! Speaking in almost accent-free English, in those same hot-caress tones. “But you’re speaking English. Why? How?”
It had only been thirty-six hours since he’d last eaten. He couldn’t be hallucinating with hypoglycemia already, could he? He looked at her again, into those incredible green irises. “Why and how yourself? And so well? Even the highest officials here speak such broken English I haven’t been able to explain my business with the militants or anything else. Beyond flashing my Global Aid Organization credentials…”
“You’re with GAO?” She couldn’t have been more incredulous if he’d said he was with the fairy godmother.
“Yeah. Any problems with that?”
Full, dimpled lips thinned into a wrathful line. “Yeah, just one. You’re lying. I’ve been with GAO in this region for seven years, and I’ve never seen you!”
“So you’ve seen every GAO operative in the Caucasus?”
“What’s your name?”
He blinked at her imperative tone. His lips twitched. “Dante Guerriero, at your service.”
Auburn eyebrows rose. “Never heard of you either. And I’ve at least heard of everyone of theirs here. There aren’t that many international operatives in the area—as anyone knows who’s really with GAO.”
His patience was running out fast. She was keeping him from his job, dammit. “If you were really with GAO, you’d know nothing matters but the victims.”
“Exactly. So if you’ll just let me tend to them…?”
He ignored her, spread out his instruments on a layer of sterile gauze. He stopped her again from reaching for gloves, put them on himself, and she blurted out, “Why don’t you flash me your GAO credentials?”
“Why should I? Neither GAO nor the Azernian officials told me they have an operative on the inside I had to report to. Tell you what, why don’t you go sit in your corner again, nurse your concussion and I’ll take care of that man here?”
“His name is Mikhael! I’ve already lost too many people and I’m damned if I’m going to lose him now, too—when I don’t have to.”
“You won’t lose him. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Besides having GAO’s emergency supplies, what are your qualifications? If you’ve just joined GAO, you must be new to the field, but I’m a surgical and emergency nurse trained extensively in field injuries and mass casualty situations—”
“And I’m a trauma and reconstructive surgeon.” That silenced her, thank God. “And since I’ve probably been putting people back together since you were in middle school, that makes me the triage officer in charge here.”
Those unbelievable eyes flashed every shade of green, with—what? Hope? More suspicion? From her next words, both, it seemed. “You’re a surgeon?”
He gave his mismatched, miserable garments a cursory grimace. “I admit I don’t look the part.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn the trappings
of his profession. He turned his focus to appraising her appearance. Not a good idea. There was no way he could give her neutral scrutiny. He cleared his throat. “But, then, I’ve got nothing on you. Let’s just agree we’re not catching each other at our best, hmm?”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
His gaze moved heavenwards. He exhaled. “You have a name?”
She blinked at his sudden twist in subject. “Gulnar.”
A name as laden with sensuality as its bearer. Which was a ridiculous thing to note in their circumstances. “Gulnar, cross my heart, I’m a surgeon. So if you are really a nurse…”
“If? Look closely, Dr. Gur—Gue—Dr. Dante!” She pointed at Mikhael. “You think this is the handiwork of his fellow clerks?”
A closer look validated her point. Mikhael had abdominal and upper-thigh gunshot wounds. And he was still alive after three days. The pressure bandages on his upper thigh were highly professional, ingenious even, made from clothes donated by others. Not soaked through, indicating they’d been applied with pressure adequate enough to stop his hemorrhage, yet not too much to block venous blood return and cause gangrene. An even more creative splint kept his leg immobile, guarding against compounding the injury, and extended, guarding against muscle contracture. The blood flow from his abdominal wound had been as meticulously stemmed. She’d definitely saved the man’s life and limb so far.
He nodded his concession, yet couldn’t resist making a point of his own. “See how annoying it is to have your credentials and intentions disputed? When you’re risking a bullet in the head every moment to get your job done?”
Peach invaded her wraithlike pallor, cascaded from high cheekbones down her neck. Then lower. To that narrow strip of taut, glistening flesh between the two undone buttons of her long-sleeved khaki shirt…
Why was she still smothered in it anyway? She must have left Mikhael’s clothes on to guard against the hypothermia associated with shock and blood loss. But almost everyone else was down to their underwear to minimize sweating in the stifling heat, warding off inevitable dehydration. Not that it was working. Most people had already collapsed. But not Gulnar. He wondered what kept her going. What kept her shirt on. Not that keeping it on reduced her effect on him.