Running Fire

by Lindsay McKenna

  “You’re coming around,” he told her. “A couple more slow breaths ought to do it.”

  Leah felt weakness steal through her even though she wanted to wake up. And then, she felt a cool, delicious cloth move across her wrinkled brow. The coolness felt refreshing against the heat of her skin. Her skin was tight and smarting, as if she’d been in strong sunlight far too long. The cloth caressed her right cheek, and then her left one. She felt the coolness encircle her neck and Leah swallowed, her mouth so dry it felt as if it were going to crack. She was suddenly so thirsty that it drove her to wakefulness.

  “Hey,” Kell called softly, giving her an easy smile, “welcome back to the land of the living. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He studied her eyes, and he could see she was starting to register his voice. As a combat medic, he knew a concussion, even a mild one, rattled a person’s brain. As she barely turned her head, his face so close to hers, he could see her eyes were a deep forest green, reminding him of the trees on the hills around his parents’ home in Sandy Hook, the dairy farm that was surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains. That midsummer green was found in the oak, elm and beech trees, identical to the shade of her breathtakingly beautiful eyes.

  Kell knew the advantage of talking slowly, soothingly, to someone who had just survived near death. He’d done it for members of his SEAL platoon over the years. Taking the cloth, he wiped away more of the dried blood along the slender column of her neck. Touch was important. It anchored a person who was disoriented and it helped them focus.

  He continued to cradle her arm because he didn’t want her trying to use it while it was open to infection. As soon as he could get her conscious, Kell would explain to her what he was going to do. Then he could get on with stabilizing the pilot.

  Leah slowly licked her lips and frowned, staring up at him. Kell would give anything to know what she was thinking. Strands of ginger hair fell across half her brow.

  He set the cloth on his ruck and with his long, spare fingers, eased the strands away from her face. Her cheeks had been wan, but now he was starting to see a bit of color flood back into them. That sinner’s mouth of hers was his undoing. The woman didn’t wear any makeup. There was no need for any, Kell observed. Her hair glinted in the light thrown out by his LED flashlight. He saw some auburn strands mixed with red and gold ones. There was a light covering of freckles across her cheeks, as well.

  His medic’s eyes noticed her nose had been badly broken. It didn’t lessen the impact of her face, which grabbed simultaneously at his heart and lower body. Still, Kell wondered how she’d broken it. And why hadn’t it been reset? Some doc hadn’t done his job, that was for damned sure.

  Picking up the washcloth, he continued to gently move it across her brow, cheeks and neck. Kell could tell she liked it because the tension flowed out of her. What had she cried out about earlier? Pain? He wanted to give her a small dose of morphine, but didn’t dare until he could fully assess her head injury.

  Leah closed her eyes, suddenly weary. The coolness of the cloth against her skin felt heavenly. It struck her spinning senses that it could be a lover gently and tenderly caressing her. She’d never known such a touch. Never would. But his ministrations helped her battle back the darkness that once again wanted to engulf her.

  She felt the cloth lift. Missing his touch, she forced her eyes open. This time, her brain registered how tall and lean he was. There was kindness in his gaze and it shook Leah. A man who was kind? In another lifetime maybe. Her stomach rolled and she felt the acid in the back of her throat. It came on suddenly, out of nowhere. And then, it subsided. Breathing irregularly, Leah put her hand against her stomach. At least she was feeling better than before.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  Leah nodded only once because her head hurt so damn much when she moved it. He was wrapping something around her lower left arm. And then, she felt him leave her side. Opening her eyes, she saw his darkly shadowed shape move from her left side, stop near her feet and retrieve something out of a bag and then straighten. He was lean and graceful, reminding her of a wild animal, a predator, bonelessly moving in her direction. She closed her eyes, her cartwheeling imagination out of control.

  Her mind halted as Leah felt his arm slide beneath her neck. He slowly raised her up into a semisitting position. She was too weak to open her eyes.

  “Don’t drink too much water. Your stomach’s probably raising hell on you about now.”

  Leah felt the press of the bottle lip against her mouth, tasted the first of the water. She was so thirsty. He didn’t allow her a lot of water and she made an unhappy noise in her throat, a protest, when he withdrew the water bottle from her lips.

  Weak, her head lolled against his shoulder. Leah inhaled the odor of male sweat and the damp fabric he wore. Automatically, her nostrils flared. He carefully laid her down.

  Leah felt her stomach lurch and she rolled herself onto her left side, heaving. Her stomach emptied and the dry heaves took over. Leah hated vomiting more than anything, the bitter taste of acid coating her mouth. Her eyes watered. Her nose ran like a faucet. Feeling a mess, the man brought her back into his arms. Breathing hard, Leah weakly tried to wipe her mouth to get rid of the horrible taste.

  “Easy,” he soothed near her ear, holding her in his arms. “I’m going to give you a little more water. Hold it in your mouth, swish it around and then spit it out.”

  His instructions were easy enough for Leah to follow. Opening her eyes, she spat the stuff out onto the cave floor. Her mind felt more clear, less gauzy and incoherent. He gave her more water and she did the same thing.

  “A concussion will do that to you,” he told her quietly. Kell knew he shouldn’t enjoy holding this woman officer in his arms, but he did. She looked so helpless.

  But he knew that wasn’t the case if she was a Shadow pilot. She had a set of invisible titanium balls as far as he was concerned, and he smiled a little. His respect for her was solid. SEALs held all Shadow pilots in high esteem. They risked their lives every time they went out on a mission to pick them up or drop them off in enemy territory. This woman was no weakling. And damn, he liked a strong woman, someone who had backbone coupled with grit woven with a stubborn spirit. Just looking at Chief L. Mackenzie, Kell knew she encompassed all those qualities. And like it or not, he was drawn to her because of it.

  Leah lay in his arms, her cheek resting against his broad chest. She could hear the slow, steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, feel the slight rise and fall of his chest.

  Under ordinary circumstances, she’d have pushed away and not allowed a man to touch her, much less hold her intimately like this. Her senses were warped, and she swore she could feel his incredible concern radiating from him to her, enveloping her, holding her safe. Never had she felt anything like this from any man. It just wasn’t possible. It was her imagination.

  Yet, when he caressed her gritty, dirty cheek, his fingers rough against her skin, tears burned against her closed eyelids. The gesture wasn’t sexual. It was caring. More tears welled into her eyes and Leah wished somewhere deep within her that, when she’d been eight years old, her father had held her like this. Held her, protected her, let her know that he loved her even though… Leah shut the ugly door on that time in her life, serrating pain squeezing her heart.

  As he laid her down, Leah felt abandoned. She wanted those arms around her. She already missed the momentary sense of safety he’d afforded her as she’d lain against his chest. Battling back the tears, Leah gulped several times, her emotions running rampant. She could barely control them. Lifting her lashes she saw the man walk around and kneel at her left side once again. There was concern in his eyes, care burning deep within them. She could feel it, sense it.

  “Wh-who…?” she managed, her voice cracking. She saw him tip his head, study her in the silence. For once, she didn’t feel like she always did when a man looked at her. All they saw were her breasts, her ass and her long legs. They didn’t see her as a per
son, only as a sexual object, just as Hayden had.

  “Welcome back,” he said, that easy smile shaping his mouth. “I’m Navy Chief Kelly Ballard. I rescued you after you egressed out of that burning helo.”

  Swallowing hard, Leah stared into his shadowed, hard face. It it weren’t for his Southern accent, that hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his well-shaped mouth, she’d have been scared. Because most men scared her. “K-Kelly?” Her mind was trying to wrap around all the information. It was too much for her to process.

  “Most folks just call me Kell,” he offered.

  That was better. It was simple. Her mind could handle four letters. Leah looked up. It was dark. She tried to see where she was. Only a small light cast shadows between them. She could see nothing else. Her brows drew down and she tried to think, but damn, thoughts were elusive. “Where?”

  “In a cave,” he told her quietly. Kell could see her fighting to put it all together. He saw her confusion. Her eyes were more alert looking. He added, “You’re safe. I want you to just relax.”

  Safe. Leah closed her eyes. She couldn’t understand why she trusted this man. This stranger with the soft, deep Southern voice.

  “I need to tend to your arm,” he told her, placing it across his thighs. “You cut it badly. I need to clean it out and stitch it up. Think you can lie still while I do that?”

  Arm. Yes, it hurt like hell. Slowly moving her head to the left, because movement made her dizzy and then nauseous, Leah saw her lower arm wrapped in white gauze. She saw dark coloring across the dressing, slowly realizing it was blood. Her blood.

  He was pulling medical items out of his ruck and laying them neatly next to where he knelt on a small blanket. He donned a pair of gloves, and then took a syringe and poked the needle into a bottle he held.

  “Y-yes, I won’t move,” she managed, her voice raw, her throat feeling dry and hot.

  “You’re a real trooper,” he murmured. “I’m going to take off the dressing and then I’m going to give you several shots of Lidocaine that will numb the area I have to clean out and then stitch up. You ready for that?”

  “Y-yes.” It took such effort to speak. Leah wondered if he was a doctor, because he seemed completely confident in what he was doing. The bloody gauze came off. He cradled her arm across his hard thighs. The pricks of the needle were uncomfortable, but nothing like the pain she felt in her arm.

  “Good going,” he praised, setting the syringe aside. “Now we’ll give it a couple of minutes and then I can clean it out and stitch it up.”

  Frowning, she studied him. “Doctor?”

  “No, ma’am. Combat medic.” He gave her a lazy grin. “But you’re in good hands, so no worries.”

  She did trust him. What was it about Kell? The earnestness in his expression, a face that had been so harshly weathered? That kind, understanding look in those dark gray eyes of his? The way his mouth moved when he spoke to her in that rich, country-boy dialect that just naturally set her at ease? Leah felt as if her world had not only been pulled inside out, but upside down. A man could never be trusted on a personal level.

  Oh, she trusted the pilots she flew with, but that was different. There were no emotional ties with them. It was professional, detached, and they all had a job to do.

  And then, the crash slammed back into her memory. Leah gasped, her eyes widening. She tried to get up, but he gently placed his hand on her shoulder and kept her down.

  “Sugar, you’re not ready to get up just yet. What’s wrong?”

  Her emotions ran wild. Grief tunneled through her. “M-my crew…”

  Kell saw tears jam into her eyes, heard the rasping terror in her voice. He kept his hand on her shoulder more to comfort her than anything else. “I’m sorry. They didn’t make it. Only you managed to escape.” His heart wrenched as huge tears rolled down her pale, tense cheeks. Oh, hell, he hated when a woman cried. “Your helo got hit with two RPGs,” he told her. “You were lucky you survived.”

  Leah lifted her right hand, covering her eyes, a sob rocking through her. Brian, Liam and Ted gone? Dead? She couldn’t help herself. She began crying, softly because every time her body jerked she felt bruising pain in her head and left arm. She felt Kell’s large hand on her shoulder, patting it gently like he would pat a child who was upset. She let her hand fall away from her eyes and she gave him a pleading look. “Are you sure they’re dead?”

  It hurt Kell, but he said, “They’re gone. I’m sorry,” and he gently pressed his fingertips here and there around the gash. She showed no reaction to his touch. “Can you lie still now for me? I need to stitch this closed and I can’t do it if you’re moving around. Okay?”

  Leah collapsed against the makeshift bed he’d placed beneath her. She dragged her good arm across her eyes, grief-stricken over the loss of Brian and their crew. “Yes, go ahead,” she choked out brokenly, her voice gutted with grief.

  It didn’t take Kell long to clean and stitch up the nasty gash. He could feel grief rolling off her. Kell understood loss because he’d lost some of his best SEAL friends over the past nine years. There was nothing he could say or do. Grief had its own way with a person and sometimes nothing could stop it, lift it or dissolve it.

  As he finished placing a waterproof dressing over most of her lower arm, he gently laid it across her belly. Getting up, he put everything back into his ruck where it belonged. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly 0300. It was time to check out things around their hide. Kell never took anything for granted. The Taliban were sniffing around for them and he knew it. They were premier trackers, never to be underestimated.

  He knelt down on one knee and touched her shoulder. She pulled her arm away from her reddened eyes. “I need to do a little recon,” he told her. “I’ll be back in about thirty to forty minutes.” He pulled his SIG pistol out and placed it near her right hand. “You know how to use a pistol? It’s got nine rounds in the magazine and there’s a bullet in the chamber. There’s no safety on this model. If I don’t come back, then know there’s a tunnel—” and he pointed toward it “—over there. If you hear Taliban coming, get my ruck, put it on your back and take that tunnel out to the side of the mountain. It’s got a compass and map, plus a sat phone in it. You can call for help. Okay?” His gaze dug into hers. Kell could see she understood his instructions.

  “I can do that,” Leah said, her voice husky with tears.

  Kell reached out and gently touched the crown of her head because he saw the look of terror and abandonment in her eyes. She was still fragile from the head injury. “I’ll be back, Sugar,” he promised.

  Leah watched as he took long, lanky strides and disappeared into the darkness with his Win-Mag across his shoulder. She turned, realizing the penlight was the only light source for her to be able to see the area where she lay. Slowly, Leah weakly pushed herself into a sitting position. She was on a sleeping bag with two rolled-up blankets, one for a pillow, the other beneath her knees.

  Emotionally, she felt demolished, the tears still falling over the loss of Brian, Liam and Ted. She scrubbed her eyes, finding her left arm painful to raise. Staring at the dressing, Leah began to appreciate Kell’s medical skills.

  Gazing around, she heard running and dripping water to her right. She picked up the penlight and flashed it in that direction. There was a small pool of water. Leah realized water was leaking from above the cave roof, finding its way down into the pool. They had water. That was a good thing.

  Her head ached like hell. Every time she turned it, dizziness struck her. Leah knew if Kell didn’t return, she wouldn’t have much of a chance of survival by herself. Not in her present injured condition.

  She was exhausted and lay down on her right side. Less pain in her head that way. The cave was chilly, so she reached down and took the rolled blanket, smoothing it out across her damp flight suit. Finally, she was warm, and she shut her eyes and spiraled quickly into a deep, healing sleep.

  *

  KELL RETUR
NED AN hour later. He moved without a sound as he entered the cave. Turning on his other penlight, he saw the woman pilot asleep. Good.

  Wearily, he propped up his Win-Mag against the cave wall. Picking up his pistol, which was very near her right hand, he brought it to the other side of where she slept. There was nothing to do now but rest. He stretched out on the cave floor and pulled his ruck up as a pillow for his head.

  Two feet away from him Chief Mackenzie slept. He felt compelled to curve himself around her body, but knew that he couldn’t. She was an Army warrant officer. He was an enlisted Navy SEAL. The two would never meet rank-wise. And besides, he liked a woman to come to him on her own rather than imposing himself on her. Closing his eyes, Kell dropped off in minutes.

  An hour later, Kell was snapped out of his sleep by a voice. Instantly, he pulled the other rifle he carried, the M-4, into his hands, trying to peer into the utter darkness. And then he realized it was the woman pilot talking in her sleep. She was restless, moving onto her back.

  Worried, Kell set the rifle nearby and turned on the penlight, propping it against the cave wall, close enough so he could assess her condition. Slowly getting to his knees, Kell saw her throw her right arm across her face, as if someone were hitting her. Her cries were soft, almost like a rabbit crying after being caught by a predator. What in tarnation was going on here?

  “No…”

  Hesitating, Kell sat paralyzed for a moment, unsure whether to wake her up or not. A lot of people in his business had nightmares. It was just part of the PTSD they all got sooner or later.

  “No! Hayden! Don’t hit me!”

  His heart plummeted. Someone was hitting her? No way. Yet he saw her trying to use her right arm to defend herself from unseen head blows. What the hell? And then, Kell saw her jerk her left arm up. She cried out in pain, waking herself up.

  Kell moved to Mackenzie’s side, gently catching her left arm, bringing it down against her belly. “Hey, Sugar, you’re having some bad dreams. I need you to wake up.” She was breathing unevenly. He placed his fingers inside her wrist. Her pulse was pounding like a freight train.