Comrades In Arms (In Love and War Anthology)

by Lindsay McKenna

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking,” she said huskily.

  “Probably. Wrong time. Wrong place.”

  “I know….”

  He studied her ruthlessly, memorizing each nuance of her shadowed face. “But I’m not sorry it happened, babe. Not in a million years, if you want the truth.”

  Laughing breathlessly, Tara slid her fingers up the bristly stubble on his cheek. “Oh, I’m not sorry, either. Just surprised at myself. Normally, I’m not this spontaneous.”

  His lips curved in a feral smile. “Remind me to bring you another present tomorrow night.”

  Tara knew they must keep their voices down, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, squelching the sound of her laughter. Dave was grinning like an alpha wolf—at her. As if she was his mate. It made her feel extremely feminine and wanted. Desired.

  Brushing strands of drying hair from her brow, he sighed. “This is mutual, right?”

  “Yes…”

  “I never expected something like this to happen, Tara.”

  “Neither did I. I wasn’t looking for a man, to be honest.”

  “And I wasn’t looking for a woman. Not after I got burned so badly by that divorce….”

  Sighing, Tara snuggled into his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. “We can’t have a full-blown affair under Khalid’s roof. Islamic law is strict about that, and I don’t think it would go over well under the circumstances. We have to sleep together because there isn’t anywhere else for us, and he knows that. But to make love…”

  “Yeah,” Dave said grimly, “I agree with you. I don’t like it, but I know you’re right. We need his loyalty, and his trust. We can’t go around breaking religious laws that would force him to view us differently.”

  Looking up into his dark, rugged face, Tara whispered, “I like being kissed by you, Dave. It was wonderful. Better than anyone else—ever.”

  Preening a little, he said, “Yeah? Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not just saying it because of the hand lotion for your skin?”

  “Oh! Get out of here!” She playfully hit his shoulder. “I’m not that easy, Johnson. Never was. Never will be.”

  Sliding his hand over her warm, firm arm, he said, “So, this attraction to me has been brewin’ for a while?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever since I laid eyes on you at Ops, I’ve wanted you.” He saw her lips part momentarily. And then that luscious mouth moved into a teasing smile.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess my attraction to you didn’t hit me over the head at Ops,” Tara admitted. She rested her hand against his chest. Beneath her palm, she could feel the heavy thud of his heart. “Over the past week, I’ve gotten to see you differently. The way you treat your men, the people here in the village. You’re surprising.”

  “Not the Neanderthal you thought?” He chuckled, absorbing the feel of her fleeting touch as she ran her hand down his arm. He needed to touch Tara, to have this incredible contact with her. It fed his soul. It fed his heart.

  Giggling, one hand over her mouth, she nodded.

  Leaning down, Dave brushed her brow with a slow, warm kiss. He felt Tara sigh, felt her arm move around his neck to draw him close once more. Groaning softly, he whispered near her ear, “I’m starving for you, babe. You make me feel again in every way. I never thought another woman could do that. Never. But you have….” And he pressed several small kisses across her damp hair, her temple, cheek and, finally, her waiting mouth.

  Cherishing Tara was so easy. Dave didn’t want to stop kissing her, but he knew he had to. Sleep was a precious commodity, and neither of them ever got enough under the circumstances.

  Easing away, he saw the tenderness burning in Tara’s eye. There was no question that what he saw glistening there was love—for him. That startled him as nothing else could. They hadn’t known each other that long. Was it possible to fall in love so quickly? Dave didn’t know. And he was scared—for them. And for the uncertainty of life under combat conditions.

  “Whatever happens,” Tara whispered as she touched his bristly cheek one last time, “no one can know of us. Or how we feel. Not even your men.”

  Letting her slip out of his arms, Dave eased her onto her pallet, next to his. “Agreed.”

  “Whatever we have, it will take the test of time, and I’m okay with that,” Tara said, studying him in the silence. “Are you?”

  “Yes. We need the time, babe. Especially me. I’ve been burned by a relationship before. I just never expected you to crash into my life and make me look at things differently.”

  “I wasn’t in need of a man,” she told him wryly. Tara took the bottle of hand lotion and opened it up. She knelt there facing him as she smoothed some onto her peeling face.

  Dave watched her smile as the lotion began to lubricate her sunburned features. “Here, give me the bottle. I want to put it on your arms….”

  Hesitating fractionally, Tara smiled. Giving him the bottle, she sat with her legs crossed beneath the shift. Lifting her right arm, she closed her eyes as his rough fingers slid provocatively from her shoulder downward. The lotion smelled of roses, and she reveled in the simple act he was performing. She absorbed the gentle, sliding touch of his strong fingers across first her right arm, and then her left. When he was finished, she opened her eyes.

  “That was wonderful….”

  “Maybe we can do small things like this for one another….” He handed the lotion back to her. Seeing Tara’s eyes narrow with desire, he smiled slightly. “That is, if we can control our basic, primal needs.”

  Grinning, Tara set the lotion aside and lay down. Drawing the thin cotton blanket up to her waist, she faced Dave. “I’m the guilty party. I attacked you first.”

  Sliding down on his pallet, a mirthless smile on his mouth, he said, “I kind of like being hunted…it’s a new experience for me. And I really like your feistiness, you know that?”

  “Comes with being a female.”

  Dave reached over and touched the strands of her drying hair against her cheek. “A fighter by nature.”

  “Better believe it.” She thrilled to his grazing touch and saw his eyes burn with desire—for her.

  “And I was dead wrong about my belief that you might not be able to handle combat situations with us.”

  “My heart be still—an apology. Wow…”

  “You really know how to pour salt in this poor guy’s wounds.”

  “Yeah, my heart bleeds for you, Johnson. I remember the nasty guy who stormed up to me at Ops growling that I wasn’t fit for combat duty.”

  Raising his brows, he sighed. “I guess I do have this coming…”

  “In spades, so take your medicine like a good little boy, be gracious in defeat and I promise to stop pouring salt in your wounds, okay?”

  Oh, the urge to raise up on his elbow and kiss that smart, feisty, smiling mouth of hers was nearly his undoing. “I’m really beginning to like women warriors.”

  Pleased by his lack of arrogance in admitting he was wrong, Tara whispered, “Go to sleep, Dave. It’s taking everything I have not to scoot into your arms and do some really wild woman things to you….”

  With a groan, Dave flopped on his back and put his arm across his eyes. “Lady, you sure as hell know how to tease and tempt me….”

  With a soft snort, Tara muttered, “And you don’t think I don’t feel the same way? I’ll see you in my dreams, okay?”

  Lifting his arm, he peeked at her grinning features. “Yeah, it’s the only safe place for us to work out our torrid fantasies with one another, isn’t it?”

  Squelching laughter, Tara couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “Good night, Captain.”

  “Yeah…right…good night, Captain…”

  Chapter 4

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Tara murmured to Dave as they sat in a deep crater from a bomb dropped by a B-52 bomber a week ago. Dressed in her Afghan sol
dier outfit, a turban on her head and her M–4 rifle nearby, she crouched with him on the chewed-up dirt at the bottom of the depression where it was safe. Right now, the rest of their team was out on a mission to the hills surrounding Deh Rawod, a hotbed of Taliban soldiers.

  Dave grinned and spooned up a bite of food from his packaged MRE—meals ready to eat. “Not exactly the turkey day I would like to have had.”

  Tara nodded. “Hey, this is better than nothing, under the circumstances. At least that supply sergeant was thoughtful enough to give us turkey MREs.”

  Dave smiled and continued to eat. The day was cool, and the walls of the crater around them provided a modicum of protection from both the wind and possible snipers. “If you were home right now, what would you have done for Thanksgiving?” he asked, studying Tara’s sunburned features and peeling nose. He hadn’t been able to get her another bottle of lotion and that bothered him. It was a small thing, but important to him. Her face had turned several shades darker from being exposed to the merciless Afghan sun in this mountainous desert. He himself looked more like an Afghan every day, with his dark beard and skin turning tobacco-brown from the constant outdoor activities.

  Tara sighed and leaned back on the soft dirt, the flak jacket chafing her skin as it always did beneath the vertical striped white-and-brown shirt she wore. “I’d probably go home for the holiday. I have a lot of leave saved up. I’d help my mom make the turkey. I make a killer stuffing, Johnson. You’d pig out on it.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” he murmured, watching her half-closed eyes, the MRE resting on her stomach as she lay back in the crater. Their nights together in the small munitions room hadn’t lasted much longer. Halima had taken it upon herself to invite Tara to her room to sleep, a far more comfortable situation, and more in keeping with Muslim tradition. Tara had had to accept, so Dave was left without her warmth and her sense of humor. Maybe it was just as well, he supposed, because he found himself itching to touch her, to kiss her whenever the opportunity presented—which wasn’t often. First and foremost, he had a team to run and a mission to complete. Whatever he and Tara shared came last, and he knew she was in accord with that. Still, he could see desire and sadness in her eyes sometimes, and that made him yearn for her even more.

  Today they had an hour to themselves—a rarity. Dave was hungry to simply be with Tara. He felt far more than lust for her, he’d come to realize over the past three months. Something much deeper was taking root between them. Tara was touching a chord of need in him that had never been struck before she’d walked unexpectedly into his life.

  “Ugh, I’m stuffed,” she whispered, and sat up, resealing the MRE pouch. She wasn’t about to litter the Afghanistan desert with her leftover food wrappings. Turning, she got up on her knees, opened her fifty-pound pack and put the empty container away.

  “I could eat another one,” Dave said. He watched as she turned and plopped down again, her legs crossed and her elbows resting on her knees. His gaze moved to her mouth.

  “You’re double my size,” she laughed softly, “so I’m not surprised.”

  “Come here, you got some leftover cranberry sauce on the corner of your mouth.”

  Easing toward him, Tara gave him a mischievous smile. Placing her hands on his broad shoulders, she leaned closer, her knees pressed against his leg. “Do I? Or is this just a ruse, Johnson?” Thrilled as he gave her that hooded, dark look filled with desire, Tara drowned in his forest-green gaze. Oh, how she looked forward to these rare, beautiful moments with him! Sliding her hands around his neck, she leaned forward as he raised his right hand.

  “No, you really do…dress you up, can’t take you anywhere, McCain. What am I going to do with you?” He liked the easy banter and teasing that had developed between them. With one gentle swipe of his index finger, he removed the offending red sauce at the corner of her smiling mouth. Heat suffused his lower body. How many times had he ached to make love to her? So many…and yet he couldn’t. The time and place wasn’t right, and they both knew it. Dave lived in a special hell on earth because of it, and he saw the same need for him in Tara’s eyes.

  Holding up his index finger as she eased back on her boot heels, he said, “See? It wasn’t a ruse.”

  “You’re right. For once you’re being honest, Johnson.” And she chuckled. Releasing him, she cupped his hand and guided it to her mouth. Moving her lips over his index finger, she sucked off the sauce. Instantly, the look on his face changed. Feeling his raw desire for her, she licked his finger one more time and then released it. Even here they weren’t really alone. An Afghan soldier or group could appear soundlessly out of nowhere, and if they were caught being intimate, it wouldn’t go well. They didn’t want to jeopardize the connection that Dave had been able to forge with Chief Zaher.

  “What a tease you are.”

  “Me?” She touched her heart and grinned. “I’m a tease? Dude, you’re the pot calling the kettle black as far as I’m concerned.”

  Putting his own MRE aside, Dave met her challenging smile. “I like the blue fire I see in your eyes. I like what you’re telling me without saying it.”

  Looking around before she did it, Tara reached out and tenderly grazed his bearded cheek. The dark hair covering his lower face gave Dave an even more dangerous quality. “I miss our time together, too.”

  “Yeah, war doesn’t exactly help lovers out, does it?” His skin prickled pleasantly where she’d touched him.

  “No, it doesn’t….” Tara frowned as she rested her hands on the thighs of her dark brown cotton pants. How much she wanted to speak to Dave of what lay in her heart. She knew that what she felt was love, but she was afraid to admit it. They simply hadn’t the time for the kind of intimate conversations she craved. At times she saw a look in Dave’s eyes that she thought was more than just desire. Was it love? Too afraid to ask, she tried to be content with the present.

  Just then, she heard the noise of several all-terrain vehicles approaching.

  “The guys are back,” Dave said. Reaching over, he touched her chin and gave her a tender smile. “I like what I see in your eyes, babe. Just hold on to it for both of us, okay? We aren’t always going to be here in Afghanistan. At some point, they have to rotate us back stateside.”

  Nodding, Tara absorbed his unexpected touch. “I will, Dave.”

  He rose to his feet, his M–4 in his right hand as he looked over the lip of the crater. “Promise?” In the distance, he could see five vehicles speeding toward them, two men in each one, their mission complete. The yellow dust rose lazily into the noontime sky behind them.

  “I promise….” And Tara stood up, brushed off the seat of her pants and picked up her rifle. Placing it over her left shoulder, she scrambled out of the bomb crater and onto the flat plain. Brown, desolate-looking hills rose before her, backed by higher and higher ridges and finally the razor-sharp, craggy mountains.

  Dave had run ahead to meet his returning team members. Tara looked around. A solitary path wound along the plain at the base of the hills. Bombs had been dropped here last week because the area was a known minefield, and they needed this land for staging another strike against the Taliban hiding in caves in the mountains above them. After the bombing, Dave’s team had diligently gone over the entire area in search of any last mines that might not have gone off during the brutal pounding and explosions caused by the B–52’s.

  The wind was chilling, and Tara pulled her tunic a little tighter as she walked. Dave had taught her to walk in his footprints, just in case there was a land mine they hadn’t found. His team had to go over the area one more time today, to make very sure there were no mines left before the troops and equipment began massing tomorrow.

  A sudden gust of wind rose, slamming a thick, stinging cloud of dust into Tara’s face. Automatically, she raised her hand and closed her eyes. It was strong enough to force her to take a step to the left, off Dave’s path.

  Click.

  Tara froze. Oh no! Blinking, her ey
es watering and her vision blurred, she jerked a look downward. There, barely visible, was the round metal edge of a land mine. And she had stepped on it.

  Terror snaked through her. Heart slamming against her rib cage, she froze. Dave was fifty feet ahead, his attention on his team.

  Sweat popped out on her brow. Grasping the nylon web strap of the rifle on her left shoulder, she cried, “Dave! I’ve stepped on a land mine!”

  Whirling around at her cry, he stared at her, wide-eyed. Tara was standing there, her lips parted, terror written on her features.

  “Don’t move!” he roared, and sprinted back toward her. His mind whirled with questions of how she’d found one. He thought they’d gotten them all. Damn it!

  Gasping for breath, Tara continued to stare down at her right foot, which rested on top of the mine. Afraid to move, she barely glanced up when Dave came running toward her, yet the look of worry and anxiety on his face struck her deeply. If she moved her foot at all, the mine would explode. It would kill her instantly, or at the outside, blow off her leg and leave her limbless. Sobbing for breath, Tara tried to calm down.

  Dave skidded to a halt ten feet away from her. “Just take it easy,” he rasped, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. “Don’t move, babe. God, don’t move at all. Let me see….” He followed his footprints back to where she had stepped off the path then got down on his hands and knees very carefully and gently. The least vibration might set off the mine.

  “Why didn’t you follow my prints?” he demanded, breathing hard as he leaned closer. Digging into the yellow dust with his outstretched fingers, he located the cold metal of the land mine squarely beneath Tara’s booted foot.

  “I—I tried, Dave,” she whispered raggedly, her voice off pitch with terror. “A gust of wind came up. It was so strong it knocked me off the track. I’m sorry…sorry…”