by Gemma Hart
They needed the bandages more than I did.
Doc Jones made a noise in his throat as if he could read my thoughts, didn’t approve, but decided to make no argument against it.
We sat in silence, letting our aching bodies take a moment of rest before Doc Jones spoke up again.
“Where’s that Cap of yours?” he asked.
“He’s not my Cap and he’s out on the edges of town, searching for survivors,” I said, my cheeks immediately blushing whenever Cooper was mentioned.
Doc Jones snorted. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t insult my intelligence. I happen to be a well-educated, dignified healthcare provider in one of the country’s leading hospitals.” He looked down at his grubby shirt that was caked in dirt and sweat and his torn pants that revealed a scraped knee and scratched calves. “Not to look it, of course,” he muttered in resignation.
I chuckled.
“I don’t insult anything,” I said. “I’m just telling the truth.”
Doc looked down at me, turning towards me with an open gaze of serious sincerity. “Are you?” he asked softly. “I could tell that kid was sweet on you from the moment we landed in this dusty pit.”
“You did not,” I protested, although my heart skipped a beat at hearing his words.
Doc Jones snorted again. “If I couldn’t see the symptoms of love that obvious, then I don’t know how in the hell I could’ve ever become a doctor,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and playfully slapped his thigh.
“But you do like him?” he said after awhile. He looked at me with a face that asked for honesty.
And I gave it to him.
“Yes,” I said quietly, smiling. “I do like him. I like him a lot.”
Doc Jones sighed as he leaned back again against the rubble. “I’m glad,” he said, his eyes closed. “At least with this one, I won’t have to pretend to like him.”
“You did not pretend with Edward!” I said, whirling around on him. Doc Jones was still resting as comfortably as someone could on a pile of rubble. “Did you?”
“Pretend might not be the best word,” he said. “Approval by omission is maybe a more apt description. I could tell you clearly were in love with the man so I just held my tongue and didn’t say anything good or bad about him.”
“You didn’t approve of him,” I said slowly, a little surprised to hear the news.
“No,” Doc said firmly. “But I could tell that saying otherwise to you would be useless. It was just something you would have to experience.”
“But,” I said, confused, “what if he had proposed to me? What if I had planned to marry him?”
Doc Jones opened his eyes and fixed me with a slightly pitying look. “I knew you guys would never make it that far,” he said in brutal honesty. “But if by chance you did, I would’ve kidnapped you on your wedding day and locked you in the hospital supply closet till you came to your senses.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. But sadness still weighed heavily on me. “So you knew. Everyone knew we were a bad match but me,” I said. “I must’ve looked so stupid.”
“No,” Doc countered firmly. “I knew and everyone knew that you were too good for Edward. You were a better doctor and a better human being than him and marrying that man would’ve been a waste of your potential.” Doc paused and then broke out into a smile, winking at me. “But I can tell that won’t be the case with this new young man.”
I whirled around in my seat to hide my blushing face.
“Cooper is a good man,” I said simply.
“That he is,” Doc replied in agreement. “He clearly has a dangerous and difficult job but you can tell that kid’s got honor written all over him.”
I almost beamed with pride in hearing someone talk so well of Cooper.
“But will you be able to handle what comes with being with a man like Captain Hawking?” Doc Jones asked quietly.
I turned my head slightly, looking over my shoulder.
“What do you mean?” I said, feigning dumbness.
“Oh come now,” Doc Jones chided. “You are much too practical and methodical a woman to not have thought about the responsibilities that would come from being with a man like that. He holds lives in the balance. A mercenary. You and I can only imagine the kind of dangerous and compromising positions that kind of job can put a man. Lying, fighting—those are just the tip of the iceberg. Killing, I imagine, would be the base.”
It was as if someone was pulling out all my mental arguments out of my brain and laying them out on the open.
I watched as Margie and one of the nurses knelt over each patient, giving them a drink of water or changing their bandages.
“I want to be with him,” I said softly. “And for me, that is enough. That is reason and strength enough for everything else.”
Doc Jones sighed and then closed his eyes again. “Love,” he said wistfully. “A many splendored thing, it is.”
I was about to reply when in the distance I saw a trail of dust heading straight towards us. I jumped to my feet, putting a hand over my eyes to shield myself from the sun.
“Who’s that?” I asked, squinting.
Doc Jones got up as well. “That doesn’t look like one of our truck,” he said, also shielding his eyes to get a better look at the incoming vehicle.
No, it definitely did not look like one of our trucks. It was a large, white vehicle that was racing straight into town. There were markings on the side of the truck but I couldn’t make them out.
A horrid thought hit me.
Car bomb.
With the earthquake, any terrorist would know that the surrounding areas would be devastated. It would be the perfect time to commit some kind of horrible bombing. No one could defend themselves.
Including us.
“Come on, we should try and get a hold of the Cap,” Doc said grimly, clearly thinking along the same lines as me.
“He’s not here. I told you, he’s out in—”
I was about to follow him towards the city center when the truck turned sharply as it came into town, cutting me off short.
“The UN!” I cried in surprise and relief.
“What?” Doc Jones said, looking at me in confusion.
I laughed and pointed at the truck, unable to hide my relief and joy.
“It’s a UN relief truck!” I said, almost crying from relief. “It’s an actual UN relief truck!”
“Holy shit,” Doc Jones said, slumping a little in utter relief. “Finally!”
We had spent over 72 hours trying to keep an entire city alive on barely anything. It felt so good to see the UN truck pulling into view. This meant we had help. This meant we had supplies. This meant, we were not alone.
With a whoop of joy, I ran towards the truck, all exhaustion and fatigue forgotten. Doc Jones was not far behind me, calling out towards Margie and the rest to join us.
By the time I reached the truck, we were a small dusty, dirty, grinning army, grinning like relieved fools. I knocked on the driver door.
A man opened the door and jumped out, looking over us with some surprise at our sudden gathering but not at our condition. He looked just as tired as we were but was at least clean.
He looked past us at the survivors we had laid out in the city center.
“Looks like you guys have been pretty busy,” he said, a faint smile on his lips.
“You have no idea,” Doc Jones grumbled.
“You can’t know how glad we are to see the likes of you,” Margie said in a sigh of relief.
The man smiled and put out a hand which I automatically shook. “Brian Crawley, UN medical relief team leader,” he said.
“Emilia Lyon, head of this medical team,” I said, unable to stop grinning. “You guys are lifesavers.”
Brian nodded. “You can imagine the damage the quake has done around here. It took awhile to get down this far. But I think you guys have earned a bit of a rest. After briefing our team, why don’t you guys head back to your
base camp and grab a shower.”
He headed towards the rear of the truck and opened the doors. There were three other relief workers there plus one more in the front passenger seat. The truck was filled with medical supplies and equipment and it made my heart swell to know that the survivors here would be in good hands.
The team stepped out of the truck and immediately began talking with Doc Jones and the rest, coming up to speed on what needed to be taken care of. I watched as my team and Brian’s team paired off and walked towards the city center.
Brian remained, quickly unpacking the truck, and I jumped up to help him. With quick efficiency, we unloaded the large crates of supplies and the smaller boxes of gauze and bandages.
“Where did you guys come from?” I asked while unloading another box.
“Well, from the capital originally,” Brian said with a heave as he lifted a crate. “We were supposed to go to Ragahar but another truck had already been dispensed there. We were then assigned to come here but there were a lot of rock slides that had covered the roads on our way here.”
“The capital?” I asked in surprise. My heart thumped a little as I remembered a pair of sad and somber gray eyes. “Um, would you happen to know what might’ve happened to the recent trafficking rescue mission?”
Brian paused in front of another crate, turning to me with a confused expression. “Rescue mission?” he asked, perplexed.
I nodded. “Yes, the rescue mission of the trafficked girls in the tent camp. I wanted to know how they were coping in the orphanage,” I said. But as I watched his confusion grow my confidence began to sink with each word.
“Trafficked girls?” Brian asked, his voice going up on the last word. He stood up now, his hands on his hips. “Where in the heck did you find trafficked girls?”
“East of here,” I said, my voice growing less steady. “About thirty miles.”
Brian furrowed his brows, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sure if there was any mission on rescuing trafficked girls, I would’ve definitely heard about it.”
I bit my lip, unsure what else to say.
“Besides,” Brian said, turning back to his crate, “if there had been any trafficked girls, going to an orphanage wouldn’t have helped the matter anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“Any government resources left in this country are all being diverted towards relief efforts for towns that had been abandoned because of the refugee crisis. There’s no money for orphanages or anything like that. Putting kids in an orphanage these days is the same as putting kids outside on the street to be picked up by thugs and pimps.” He shook his head in disappointment and regret. “These days, it’s safer for kids to rely on their own wits than to depend on the government.”
“I see,” I said softly.
After the unloading was finished, Brian turned to me. “Now, could you show me where you’ve set up camp for the doctors here?”
“Of course,” I said and gestured ahead of me. Brian nodded and walked on forward.
I followed a few steps before turning towards the outskirts of town where I knew Cooper and his team were.
I remembered sitting at base camp with Cooper just days ago.
“They went to the camp this morning. They were able to round up the girls and will be transporting them to capital today. There’s an orphanage there far from the border where they can be safe.”
Cooper had spoken with such sincerity that I had believed him without question. And I remembered the cool relief I had felt in knowing that even if Sora hadn’t been saved, the rest of the girls had.
But now I realized it had all been a lie.
Immediately, I thought back to Doc Jones.
“He holds lives in the balance. A mercenary. You and I can only imagine the kind of dangerous and compromising positions that kind of job can put a man. Lying, fighting—those are just the tip of the iceberg. Killing, I imagine, would be the base.”
And just like that, he had lied to me.
I knew his reasoning. He had wanted to ease my conscious. He had wanted to give me strength to carry on. He had wanted to help my guilt. He knew that if I had found out that none of those girls had been saved, it would’ve absolutely destroyed me.
And he was right. It would have.
He had done what he could to spare me. To help me.
But regardless of all of that…he had lied.
He had lied to me about the fate of those little girls in order to protect me. Being with a mercenary, what else would he lie about to protect me?
I had grown stronger in the weeks we had been in Qunar. I was not the same woman I had been upon arrival. I couldn’t handle always being lied to and kept in the dark.
But the nature of Cooper’s work would sometimes require that.
A mercenary had many secrets.
Many lies.
And he would be the one determining what I could and could not handle. I would have no say—no idea that I was being told anything less than the truth.
“But will you be able to handle what comes with being with a man like Captain Hawking?”
Doc Jones’ words rang through my head.
“Dr. Lyon?”
I looked around and saw Brian waiting for me.
“I’m coming!” I called out.
Well, would I be able to handle it?
Chapter Eighteen
Cooper
“I have never been in more desperate need for a shower,” Emilia said as she made a face as she picked up the end of her ponytail. “I don’t even remember what color my hair was.”
Everyone was basically a dark shade of dirt after three days of digging and treating.
I put an arm around her and was gratified to feel her rest her head against my shoulder. Would I ever get enough of that—the feel of her within my arms?
I kissed her forehead. “I think you’re beautiful,” I murmured.
She lightly slapped my chest. “Sweet talker,” she said drowsily.
We were packed into one of the two trucks that had made their way to the city to pick us up. We sat with Doc Jones and Bear as we headed back to base camp to finally clean up and get some much needed rest.
A UN truck had reached the refugee camp a day earlier so the team there had already gotten a chance to come back to base camp to clean up and rest a little.
Now it was our turn.
I heard Emilia sigh as we came into sight of the camp.
“Who would’ve ever thought I would think of this as home?” she thought aloud.
I chuckled. “Trust me, it comes fast on the field.”
She looked up at me, her eyes bright and luminous. “I guess that means I’m on the field then, eh?”
I grinned down at her. “You’re definitely on the field. You’re as tough as any other Easy Team member.”
A small furrow creased her brow. “Then…” she started hesitantly, “that would mean I’d be strong enough to handle any situation like an Easy Team member, right?”
“What do you mean?” I asked confused.
Emilia shrugged and looked down, playing with some dried dirt on my shirtfront. “I just meant, I could handle situations better now than I could when I first arrived. I’m stronger. I could handle the truth.”
She looked up at me. “Don’t you think?”
I looked down at her, unsure what point she was trying to lead me to but willing to follow regardless.
“I think that you are incredibly strong,” I said quietly so that our conversation remained as private as possible in a truck. “But I also hope you know I’d want to keep you as safe as possible. I wouldn’t want to put you in a harmful situation you weren’t equipped to handle. Just like you wouldn’t put me in a medical emergency where I wasn’t equipped to respond.”
She pressed her lips together as if debating whether to say more but before she could decide, the truck pulled to a quick and abrupt stop. We had arrived at camp.
“
I think I could shower for three days straight and still not be clean,” Doc Jones grumbled as he hopped out of the truck.
“How many people you trying to impress with your cleanliness here?” Bear teased as he stepped down.
“Just you, General. Just you,” Doc Jones replied without missing a beat or a wink.
Bear laughed and walked off towards the Easy Team barracks.
I jumped down and picked Emilia up by her waist and helped her down.
I put an arm around her and squeezed, pressing her breasts tantalizingly close against my chest.
“Grab a quick shower then get that ass to bed,” I said, smiling down at her. “You look like a raccoon with those dark circles.”
She punched my arm. “Sweet talker,” she said in annoyance this time. But I saw the smile playing at her lips.
I stole another kiss from her, not ever ready to give up her company, before I nudged her towards her own barracks. I watched her go reluctantly but knew she needed some rest. Her whole body had been stiff as board during the ride back to camp.
I watched her leave before turning towards my own barracks. But before I headed towards a shower and a clean bed, I headed towards the large meeting tent. Inside, I found the satellite phone and dialed the commander.
“Commander Wolffe,” I said, as soon as I heard him pick up.
“Good to hear you reporting in, Captain,” the older man said with sincerity. “I was worried about my men after hearing about the earthquake. Is everyone accounted for?”
“Yes,” I said. “We were very lucky.”
“Good, good,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Sir, I’m actually calling for a specific reason besides the earthquake,” I said.
Commander Wolffe sighed, as if in resignation. “Randall, I’m gathering,” he said.
“Yes,” I said in surprise. “We’ve had chatter about him in these parts.”
“Here as well,” Commander Wolffe said. “That fool has been playing in waters much too deep for him. The Middle East is an entirely different beast from South America and now he’s gotten himself into some real trouble.”
“We heard he’s been in arms dealing,” I reported.
“Arms dealing, sex trafficking, slave labor, and his favorite, drugs,” Commander Wolffe said. “You name it, that slimey bastard is probably doing it. But the boys he’s playing with there are of a different caliber than the boys from good old South America. And now he’s in some danger.”