Course of Action: Crossfire

by Lindsay McKenna;Merline Lovelace

  As she worked her way down each side of his well-sprung rib cage, loosening the ribs themselves and seeing the terrible yellow and purple of bruises that hadn’t fully healed, she swallowed convulsively. Cait wanted to feel Dan’s mouth beneath her lips. Just once. She felt like a coward, wanting to sneak a kiss from him. Cait was afraid to broach the subject. Right now, she felt too fragile, too broken up, but somehow, Dan just being himself, whether wounded or not, fortified her, gave her strength and made her acutely aware she was a woman with needs.

  Glancing at her watch, she saw that fifteen minutes had fled. She didn’t want to leave Dan. She wanted to keep running her hand over his body, appreciating him, his strength, the tenderness he always shared with her. She owed him so much. Would she ever get up the courage to tell him how she really felt about him?

  Sadness filled her because when Ben and Dan had come home this time, she’d planned to sit down with her big brother and have a long, serious talk with him. She was going to let Ben know that while she appreciated his protectiveness, she had fallen in love with a military man. Cait was sure Ben would be aghast until she told him it was Dan Taylor, his best friend. And that she’d loved him almost from the moment she’d met the tall, strapping Texan. She had been prepared to fight for Dan without knowing if it was mutual or not. Cait had had to clear the decks with her brother, first. But now it wasn’t necessary for the most tragic of reasons.

  There was nothing to dislike about Dan. Wiping her hands on a nearby towel lying on the tray, Cait looked around. The ward was empty. The men wouldn’t be back for another fifteen minutes. She moved quietly to the side of the bed, sliding her hand along Dan’s jaw, feeling the beginning of stubble beneath her fingertips. She leaned forward, unable to stop herself from kissing him. Her mouth settled lightly over his parted lips. Closing her eyes, she enjoyed the feel of his mouth against hers. She felt his moist, shallow breath against her cheek as she drew back ever so slightly. He tasted of man. Of strength. Of promise. Her heart cried out for much more of him as she framed his face with her hand, luxuriating again in the touch of his chiseled mouth.

  Ever so gently, Cait pulled away from his lips, caressing his jaw as she straightened. Her heart was pounding. He was a beautiful man in her eyes.

  Ever so carefully, Cait lifted each of his arms, brought his blue gown upward and eased it around each of his shoulders. It took some doing to tie one of those ties, and Cait didn’t want to startle him. She pushed the pillow down behind his head, tying that top tie so that when he awoke, he would find himself decently dressed once more. She smiled secretly, taking her fingers and gently moving them up and down his nape, knowing how much he’d enjoyed the massage in that area particularly. It was as if he had become putty in her hands, his thick muscles willing to be molded fully by her fingers. He trusted her.

  She couldn’t help herself. Cait placed her hand on Dan’s shoulder, her lips taking his softly. Then she whispered, “I love you, Dan Taylor. Just know I love you...”

  * * *

  One more week and he could get out of this prison of a bed. Dan looked darkly around the emptied ward, damn jealous of his five ward mates. His stomach grumbled with hunger. As he looked around, he tried to manage his frustration at feeling caged. He was anxious to see Cait once more. She tried to see him every day, taking her lunch with him. It was early January now, and today, she’d promised him, she had a surprise that would rock his world.

  Dan tried to resist his need to move. According to his ortho surgeon, Dr. Barker, his leg was healing spectacularly well. She was very pleased with his progress. He just wanted to get the hell out of his bed. He was dying for fresh air and sunlight. Anything to feel sun on his flesh again. Or to stand barefoot on the white sands of the beach and inhale the salty air into his lungs. With Cait at his side.

  Dan slid his fingers through his recently trimmed hair in an aggravated motion. It felt odd not to have shoulder-length hair anymore. He missed his beard, too, since he hated to shave every day. The only good thing was that Cait seemed to think he was even more handsome than before and that pleased Dan.

  The door opened.

  “Hi,” Cait said breathlessly as she pushed a wheelchair into the room. Grinning widely, she said, “Guess what, Dan Taylor?”

  He couldn’t help but smile at her radiant enthusiasm, her red hair down and glinting copper and burgundy highlights across her shoulders. “I give. What?”

  She gave him a prim look. “How would you like to have lunch with me? Outside?”

  His mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure am, Texas guy.” She pointed to the wheelchair. “I have orders right here—” she patted her upper blue scrub pocket “—to take you outside for at least an hour so you can feel the world around you. How’s that for a healing prescription?”

  Dan shook his head. “You’re serious?”

  “Oh, am I ever.” Cait laughed. She turned just as three orderlies entered the room. “These guys are going to officially untruss you.”

  A nurse came in with a huge, odd-looking leg brace for his thigh in her hands.

  “And Abby is carrying your leg stabilizer. Once she and I get it into place, the guys are going to slowly move you and your legs off to the side of the bed. Sound good?”

  Dan could hardly believe it. Cait’s cheeks were flushed, her green eyes dancing with giddy happiness. “But,” he stumbled, “I’ve only been on bed rest for five weeks.”

  “Dr. Barker said you’re a week ahead of your bone-knitting schedule. She’s the one who cut these new orders for you, Dan.” Cait handed them to him to read.

  God, it was true! His heart bounded wildly in his chest. “Lunch with you outdoors? Somewhere in the sun?”

  “I’ve got the perfect spot for us,” she promised, her eyes glistening with happiness.

  “Then, let’s get on with it,” Dan told all of them. “I want out of this prison.”

  Cait stood back and grinned. Abby was waiting at her side, smiling. The three orderlies dismantled the tent of covers over the lower half of Dan’s body. He had finally gotten rid of the catheter last week, which pleased him no end. His right leg was red and purple and there were stitches up and down it from his knee halfway up to his hip.

  Cait’s trained eyes saw that his once-thick leg muscles had atrophied and were now half the size of his other thigh. He’d lost a lot of muscle mass, but that was to be expected. She would help him rebuild it over time with a lot of hard work on Dan’s part.

  The orderlies were quick and efficient. She and Abby went around to his right thigh and placed, as gently as possible, what resembled an external cast over the leg to not only protect it, but to give it stability and strength. Dan gritted his teeth when they had to gently lift his leg with the help of the orderlies.

  She hoped they could get him out of his bed and into the wheelchair without morphine. As the weeks had gone on, Dan had begun to use less and less of it. Instead, he took more ibuprofen and had started sleeping better. Cait tried to ignore how handsome Dan looked. An orderly brought over a blue-and-white striped robe and helped him into it.

  Dan’s leg was levered and kept in a horizontal position as the three men settled him into the large wheelchair, which had a leg platform attached to it. The platform was covered with padding for his leg to rest upon and to help absorb any jolts so he wouldn’t nosedive into brutal nerve pain.

  Cait smiled warmly as she gathered up the folds of the robe and pulled them across his chest, tying the sash.

  “There,” she said, pleased. “How’s that leg feel?”

  “Free at last,” Dan growled, his hands resting on the wheels of his chair. He looked up at the orderlies and thanked them. Abby left with them, the door open to freedom.

  “I’ll do the driving for now,” she told him, standing behind him, gripping the handles and slowly guiding him out the door. “Just sit back and enjoy the scenery.”

  Dan inhaled deeply, smelling that spicy flower per
fume she wore. “How long have you known about this?”

  “Since this morning,” Cait said, pushing him past the nursing desk and halting at the freight elevator. Pressing the button she said, “The doctor called me in for a consult. She’s releasing you to me. You’re going to start therapy this afternoon.”

  He gawked. “Really?”

  “Yes.” The elevator doors open and she pushed him in, taking great care that his injured leg didn’t accidentally brush one of the walls. “We have to be back inside in an hour, Dan. We’re going to start working with you to get that knee to bend and not take off like a banshee on you every time.” She flashed him a happy look. “Baby steps, I know, but that leg has been immobilized for five weeks. Ligaments stiffen up. I won’t lie to you. There’s going to be a lot discomfort.”

  The doors opened and they were on the ground floor, the green tiles waxed and shining. The place was busy with uniformed doctors and nurses as well as civilians. His spirits rose to new heights as she pushed him outside the door, took a left and moved into an empty alcove. There were two palm trees overhead, their fronds waving gracefully in the breeze. Dan saw a dark green picnic table with several chairs and benches around it. The sun felt divine and he lifted his face to it, closing his eyes, enjoying the hot rays on his pallid flesh.

  “God,” Dan whispered, “this is heaven...”

  Chapter 5

  Parked next to the picnic table, Dan worshipped the hot sunlight as if he were a man who had been kept in a dungeon all his life until just this moment. Cait sat near his wheelchair, opening the paper sack containing their lunch.

  “I know you love tuna fish, Dan, so I made some.” She handed it to him.

  Her thoughtfulness made a fierce love for Cait sweep through Dan. “Thanks,” he said as their fingers touched.

  She laid out a small plastic container of sweet pickles and then placed an opened bag of potato chips in his lap, being careful to place it on his good thigh. He watched the sunlight dance through her loose hair, the gold shining against the crimson strands. Inhaling deeply, Dan could smell plumeria on the air.

  “Cait,” he muttered, shaking his head, “it just feels so damn good to be outside again.”

  He held her gaze, saw her eyes grow moist and saw her swallow several times. Why hadn’t he realized Cait was so easily touched? Dan ate the sandwich slowly, savoring every bite. “No one outdoes you when it comes to making a tuna sandwich.”

  She smiled a little. “Gotta keep my reputation intact.”

  Dan waffled. When should he talk to her about them? He knew the Moore family would grieve for a long time over Ben’s death. There was no such thing as a “good” time to broach his personal needs with Cait. Right now, she looked happy. “I must have dozed off when you were giving me that massage last night.”

  “You did. It was the morphine.”

  He bit back a curse. “I’ll be glad to get rid of that friggin’ medication.”

  “It’s just something you have to do, Dan. Your leg is doing wonderfully and I think someday you’ll look back on this period of incarceration and be glad that you toughed it out.”

  He glanced at her. “I know you’re right. I look at the other five guys in my ward and none them have a leg. I feel lucky. There are just some days when this struggle eats me raw.”

  She reached over and touched his arm, which was resting on the wheelchair. “I know... I’ll keep trying to find ways to get you out of the hospital. I know how much you love being outdoors and back into nature.”

  He caught her hand, holding her luminous gaze. “I dream of us running down the beach, surfboards under our arms, heading for the ocean.”

  She sighed. “It’s been so long since I went to the beach, Dan.” Cait stared at their hands. Dan’s was roughened and yet, he held hers gently. Her skin was pale from being indoors too much. “This past year while you and Ben were deployed, my workload increased substantially and I haven’t had the time off I’ve wanted anymore.”

  “That’s because there are so many men getting their legs blown off by those friggin’ IEDs.”

  She heard the barely veiled anger in his growl. “For you, Dan, the war is over.”

  His gut clenched. “Since I turned eighteen, all I ever wanted was to be in Army Special Forces, Cait. Me and five other Texas boys who lived in Rush City, a small town in the panhandle. The six of us were football champs for the state. They called us the Sidewinders.” He pointed to his upper biceps, hidden by the blue gown. “We all had a sidewinder tattooed there to remind us that for four years we dominated Texas high school football. We were a no-name town, but we played our hearts out and we became champs.”

  “I saw the tat the first time I massaged you.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Do you miss Texas? Do you want to go back there?”

  Shrugging, he chewed on his sandwich, watching the palm fronds move gracefully in the sporadic breeze above them. The sky was a light blue, the humidity high because Tripler sat on the ocean. But, damn, the sun...it felt so life-giving to him, as if it was feeding his depressed soul and bringing him back to life.

  He saw concern in Cait’s green eyes. “I was born there, Cait. Both sides of my family are still back there. It was my father who up and tore our roots out of Texas to come here. He was following some crazy dream of living in the islands.”

  “I remember you said he was an alcoholic. That Joyce and you didn’t want to leave.”

  “Yeah,” he said with some bitterness. “My old man was one stubborn bastard. Good thing he’s gone. At least my mother thinks that about him. I still miss him in some ways. In other ways, I don’t. He was hard on everyone.”

  “But you joined the Army in Rush City?”

  “Yes. And little did I know I’d end up here on Oahu.” He smiled a little. “Kismet for me, but hell for my mother who still misses her family to this day.”

  “Do you think she’ll move back?”

  “I don’t know. She’s got a good paying job here. There’s no work in Rush City. It’s a poor, struggling farm and cattle community.” He stared down at his right thigh, which ached like a banshee. Just gently handling his wounded leg had set it off again. He frowned. “Can I level with you, Cait?”

  “You always have before,” she answered, smiling a little. “What’s bothering you?”

  “What if my leg doesn’t shape up, and I can’t go back into Special Forces?”

  Her mouth quirked. “I’ll do everything in my power to help you get to the point where you’ll have a chance to make it back into the teams.” Cait saw the anxiety in his eyes even though he said nothing. “Dan? You have to try to take it one day at a time right now. It does no good to fly into what-if mode. The guys in the hospital—” she gestured toward the coral-pink medical complex “—who do the best focus intensely on each day as it arrives. They don’t think about the future. They know the time they spend here at Tripler in physical therapy is a make or break for them. The ones who are successful? It’s those guys. The ones who try to ferret out the future often fall into depression.” Her voice fell. “They usually do less well here in rehab. It’s just a state of mind and focus. You’re black ops. You, more than most of these men, know about mental attitude and focus, Dan. I feel once we can get you mobile, get you into a steady, reliable program to bring your leg back, you’re going to do well.” She knew it wasn’t the surefire positive answer what he wanted to hear, but it was the truth.

  “I’m not going to get kicked out of the Army because of this.” Dan jabbed his finger down at his trussed-up leg.

  “I wish I could promise you that, but I wouldn’t be doing you a favor if I did,” Cait offered him quietly.

  “I like you just the way you are, Cait. I rely on your honesty. I can always count on it.”

  “Not very romantic.” She sighed, shrugging.

  Dan’s eyes narrowed on her. “What about you, Cait? What’s going on in your life?” He might as well ask. He needed to know.

 
“Since you and Ben left on that last deployment, I got that second bedroom finished. I painted it a light green color. It’s really beautiful.” She smiled a little. “Now I can have company come and visit. I planted an avocado tree and replaced a failing grapefruit tree with a new one.”

  Dan knew she loved getting her hands into the soil. “Do you still have your garden?”

  “Oh, always. Vegetables and fruit are 30 percent more expensive to buy over here in the islands than on the mainland. I even made myself three more raised beds. You’d be proud of me.” She held up both her hands. “You showed me how to make them the last time you were home. Remember?”

  He’d never forget. “I do,” he said drily, watching her eyes flare with surprise for a moment. And then Dan saw yearning in her expression. Clearly. No mistake this time. He was off the morphine and his mind was working just fine. “Can I come over someday and see what you’ve done to your place?”

  His heart started to race over the possibility that she might say no. Cait had always treated him like an older brother. Never a lover. This time he saw a light come to her eyes and he saw it was hope. Hope for what?

  “I’d love that.”

  “When do you think I can do it?” He pointed at his wounded leg.

  “Your body is responding fast, but right now we need to get you to be able to bend that knee so I can fold your big, tall body into my itty-bitty Toyota Prius.”

  He groaned. “I’m a big guy, Cait. You think you’re going to squeeze me into that little hybrid?”

  Laughing a little, she nodded. “We’ll make it happen,” she promised him warmly, finishing off her sandwich. All the pickles had been eaten and she placed the lid on the plastic box, sliding it back into the paper sack.

  “That’s one of the many things I love about you, Cait. You hold out hope for the hopeless. You work with men who have lost so much. I know they look to you, and you’re always there for them.” Dan didn’t realize until after he’d spoken that he’d used the word love. And he’d seen the instant change in Cait’s expression when he’d said it. First, she’d gone pale, and then her cheeks had flooded with pink. As if she couldn’t believe her ears, maybe? Couldn’t believe that big, tough, old Texan Dan Taylor would use that off-limits word with her—love.