Run.
She couldn’t do this. Dammit, she couldn’t.
She was dimly aware of their gear hitting the ground behind her, but she was perfectly, blessedly, aware of Rick. His hands settled on her shoulders. He nudged her forward. “Take a deep breath and get it over with.”
She did.
She reached out her hand and let his strength propel her forward. Before she knew it she was there, her fingers splayed wide, touching, smoothing, caressing the singed skin of her bird. The sobs ripped free, consuming her with a ferocity that terrified her. She couldn’t stop shaking. The agony she’d been fighting for so long slammed through her once again. She fell against the chopper to keep from collapsing, clinging to the door she’d managed to smash open before the chopper exploded all those weeks before as she sobbed against the injustice of it all. She cried for everything that had happened and everything that would never have a chance to happen.
And then she cried some more.
She cried for Carrie and she cried for Sergeant Lange. She cried for Sergeant Turner and she cried for the baby. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there sobbing, but eventually she realized she’d run out of tears. She was bone-dry.
Parched. Drained.
And she was in Rick’s arms.
He held her close and stroked her hair as the cloud of grief continued to dissipate. As the last of it burned off, she forced herself to scrape the dregs of her strength together and pull away. His arms fell to her waist as she stared up at him. She had no idea what to say, how to explain what had happened. When she opened her mouth to try, he shook his head.
“I know.”
He did.
He’d lost a man here, too. In the throes of her misery, she hadn’t even noticed his.
She did now.
She reached up and smoothed the silent tears from his cheeks, frowning as the salt smeared the day-old grease paint deeper into his flesh. She had nothing to dry him with; his T-shirt was soaked and they’d already stowed their fatigue blouses in their rucksacks hours before. She reached down and pulled the hem of her own T-shirt from the waist of her trousers. She tore off a strip from the bottom and used that, drying one cheek and then the other. It wasn’t until she finished that she realized how stupid she must look.
He didn’t seem to mind.
He retrieved the scrap of cotton and closed his hand over hers. “Thank you.”
She managed a nod.
“You ready to leave?”
She managed another. “Just…let me get a good look. I didn’t before. I was too busy.”
“Take as long as you need.”
His arms slipped away, leaving her oddly bereft.
She chalked it up to the lingering sorrow and turned to face the chopper. It was easier this time. She even managed to look at the shattered remains as a pilot, automatically cataloguing the damage and calculating more fully what must have actually happened during the crash. The pilot’s door was still dangling open, she swung it wider and leaned up into the cockpit to get a better look at the gauges.
She didn’t expect much.
Nor did she get it. Most were cracked, melted or covered in soot. But as she reached out to move the stick, something fluttered against the copilot’s seat.
Eve froze.
“What is it?”
“Probably nothing. Looks like a piece of paper or fabric.” Still, whatever it was, it was strangely intact given the way the seat beneath had been seared down to its skeletal frame. Had the monkeys left it there? She stretched out her hands, but couldn’t quite reach it.
“Could you give me a boost?”
Rick wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her up. She reached over the control panel between the seats and snagged it. “Got it.” She half expected the curl of sooty paper to disintegrate in her hand as he set her on her feet, but it didn’t. She held on to the singed corner and unfurled the roughly three-by-three-inch sheet of paper—and immediately wished she hadn’t.
Sweet mercy.
It was a photo of Carrie Evans and Bill Turner.
Arm-in-arm.
The Polaroid appeared to have been taken in a corner of some candlelit restaurant. She couldn’t be sure. There was no mistaking the intimacy of their relationship, however. The camera had captured it perfectly. Bill and Carrie’s passion for one another shone through more than just their eyes. It was in the way their arms were hooked possessively and yet reverently around each other. They were clearly in love. She raised her head, hoping against hope Rick hadn’t seen it—
He had.
He tore his tortured stare from the photo.
She had no idea what to do, much less what to say. All this time spent concealing the truth and here she was, shoving the most damning piece of evidence right under his nose.
Dammit, just ask.
She’d never know otherwise.
She held on blindly to her hope and did. “Rick, we came here to figure out why my chopper crashed. No one has to know we found this, do they? I mean, they’re dead. What purpose would it serve to ruin their records now? It’s not as if—”
Oh, God, she was babbling.
She stopped. Breathed. Waited.
Prayed.
Her heart nearly ripped in two as his hands came up. But instead of taking the photo away, he closed her fingers over the picture and covered her hands with his. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t see anything.” His gaze met hers, dark and steady. Determined. “Do you?”
Gratitude seared through her. And something else.
Something she was afraid to label.
She shook her head quickly. “No, I don’t.”
He nodded. “Then I think it’s time we found a spot to bivouac for the night, don’t you?”
“I do.”
The silence was back—and this time, it had locked in like a dead bolt. Rick picked up the packet of instant coffee Eve had passed over twenty minutes before and tapped it into his canteen cup. He could barely make out the murky liquid from the jungle shadows as he swished it around in the dark.
He could, however, hear Eve sigh.
He glanced up as she shifted against the trunk she’d claimed as hers in the four-foot alcove they’d commandeered for the night. Though he couldn’t make out her eyes any better than he could his coffee, he could tell by the angle of her head that her attention was still carefully fused to her own tin cup. He thought about saying something. Anything.
But what?
And why?
He already knew what was on her mind. The same thing that was on his. The crash. The sorrow, the guilt.
The regret.
Though they were drawing on opposite sides of the same coin, there was no doubt in his mind that hers had paid out in anguish far more deeply than his. No matter what they discovered in that wreckage tomorrow, he would always have one more death on his conscious. Eve would have three. No amount of time spent rehashing events with an army chaplain or some shrink would ease that debt. It was the price of leadership.
Of surviving.
But payday had hit Eve especially hard.
Frankly he wasn’t sure which had been worse, weathering his own grief as they’d come face-to-face with the remains of that chopper or the agony of watching Eve succumb to hers. Her tears had damned near ripped him apart. She might be sitting three feet away now, calmly staring into her cup, but he could still feel her sobbing uncontrollably in his arms and he could still see the utter desolation in her eyes.
He’d have given anything to ease her pain.
He still would.
He’d also do anything to make sure she got her wings back—because he’d seen more than desolation today.
He’d also seen the truth.
One desperate, pleading stare from those emerald eyes was all it had taken. Just like that, six weeks of suspicion and misconception had been shattered. He knew exactly what Eve was hiding—and she was right. The secret she’d been je
alously guarding since that fateful day had nothing to do with the crash. But it had everything to do with her friend and his sergeant. From the shock that had exploded on Eve’s face when she’d spied that singed photograph, she’d had no idea proof existed.
But he had.
He’d been sitting twenty feet away the night it had been taken. But for a camera’s inopportune flash, he might have succeeded in maintaining his own personal don’t ask, don’t tell policy. That flash had changed it. Once Turner’s gaze met his across that restaurant, he’d been forced to officially acknowledge his sergeant’s relationship with Captain Evans.
He’d been forced to counsel them both.
For his sergeant’s sake, he’d done it off the record.
Or so he’d thought.
Maybe Turner was right. His sergeant had accused him of being more interested in saving the man from his woman than saving a soldier for the Army. Of not wanting anyone else to have a real relationship with a woman because he didn’t want one. Of course Rick had denied it at the time.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Rick swished his coffee once more before lifting the cup to down a mouthful of the cold sludge. Truth be known, his impromptu confession to Eve about his folks had him reexamining several other motivations as well. Like why he’d really gone Special Forces.
And why he’d stayed.
“I was five.”
Eve winced as the contents of Rick’s canteen cup sloshed over his hand, landing on his boots with a soft plop.
He didn’t curse.
He simply transferred his cup to his left hand and carefully wiped his right on his jungle fatigues. She forced herself to relax as he took his time wiping the coffee from his boots as well. After all, she’d spent the last two hours collecting her thoughts and screwing up her courage, trying to figure out the best way to broach that dream.
She could allow him a few moments to collect his.
He finished wiping his boots and set his tin cup on the gnarled root beside him. She blessed the dark when he finally raised his head, because she couldn’t actually see his eyes.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I know. But I want to.” Amazingly, she did.
That alone should have terrified her.
But it didn’t.
Nor did her growing need to explain her dreams to this man have anything to do with gratitude. Yes, she was grateful Rick had agreed to conceal Carrie’s relationship with his sergeant. Deeply grateful. But it was more than that. How much more, she couldn’t be sure. All she knew for certain was she’d barely begun and already her heart was hammering against her ribs. Evidently wanting to share her past and actually doing it were two completely different things.
Dammit, quit stalling.
Ask.
“So…what exactly did I…say?”
“Enough.”
Despite two hours of preparation, she flinched.
Still, she was forced to appreciate his honesty. He could have denied everything or tried to smooth it over. Carrie had at first. They’d spent the next two weeks on eggshells.
Until she’d had the dream again.
She wrapped her fingers around her tin cup and stared into the cocoa within, fighting off the humiliation as she faked a smile. “Guess it’s a good thing I fell in love with choppers, ’cause I’d have made a lousy spook. First sign of stress and I jabber in my sleep. As it is, I’ve just had to learn how to avoid sleepovers without offending—uh—” She flushed. “People.”
Sleep, hell. She was jabbering on while she was awake.
Again.
As if Rick really needed to know she’d yet to spend an entire night with a man. So much for keeping the humiliation at bay. She set the canteen cup on the gnarled root beside her and closed her eyes—and stiffened.
His motion startled her.
His touch startled her. His fingers seared her skin, cooking off several layers as he slipped them beneath her chin. “Don’t.”
She opened her eyes only to find herself staring straight into his. He was so close she could make out the dark brown of his irises despite the darker shroud of night. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t be ashamed, Eve. It’s not your fault.”
Wasn’t it?
He claimed to have heard enough. Maybe he just thought he had. “You know my mother left me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you know he struck me.”
The fingers beneath her chin tensed. “Yes.”
For some reason she couldn’t explain, she was driven to rub the ugliness in. To let him know how truly far apart their childhoods had been. “There were a lot of he’s, Rick.”
She heard him swallow.
“How many?”
“Too many.” She shrugged. “And not nearly enough.”
This time his entire body tensed.
She shifted her stare past his shoulder, well aware she was avoiding his gaze. “Have you ever been hungry, really hungry? So cold you thought your fingers would fall off?” She’d seen the white stitching on his Ranger patch the day they’d met. She knew he’d survived Ranger school in the winter. Still, he had to have known deep down the Army wouldn’t kill him.
Dallas might be in Texas, but it dipped into the lower thirties in the winter. With some other kid’s discarded blanket for a coat, the nights had felt a whole lot colder.
She swallowed the knot of memories clogging her throat.
Even so, her voice came out hoarse. “It’s one thing to wonder when you’ll eat or be warm again, quite another to wonder if.” She scraped up the nerve to seek out his gaze. “It’s amazing what a person will do when she’s reduced to that type of hunger, that level of cold. And if she has a child?”
His eyes closed.
He opened them again, but now he was avoiding her.
Regret seared through her. She felt dirtier than she had in years. What had possessed her to be so damned honest?
Had she really wanted to repel him?
If so, she’d succeeded.
Why else had he said less than fifteen words since she’d started? She slid her gaze down to the silent working of his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to get maudlin. Most of the time I’m even okay about it now.”
It was the truth.
It had taken a while. Years. A decade of listening to Father Francis and the nuns who ran St. Cecilia’s orphanage. But eventually, the old priest’s words had sunk in and she was able to put the demons to rest. “For a long time I thought my mother had abandoned me. She didn’t. She gave me life. Not once, but twice. They found her body in a cardboard box on some street years later. I could have been beside her, but I wasn’t. In her own way, she loved me enough to let me go. Anna helped me remember that last night, among other things. It’s just…sometimes when I’m upset the dreams come back, you know?”
“I know.”
He did.
She stared into his eyes and saw his nightmares too. He dreamed of his mother and of his father. She shook her head, shook herself. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You must think I’m such a selfish—” She broke off as he reached out and trailed his fingers down her cheek, tipped her chin.
“I think you are an amazing woman, Eve Paris.”
He might not be able to see her latest blush, but he must have felt it. Lord knew she could. “I doubt that. But thanks…for everything.” His presence. The picture.
His silence.
His hand fell away as he nodded solemnly.
She stared at his scar. A scar she’d caused.
The visible one anyway.
Despite his grease paint she could tell exactly where it was because the skin around it puckered slightly. She reached up and traced its length. “I am so sorry.”
His fingers closed over hers as they had outside the chopper earlier that evening. But this time, there was no sooty picture. Her hand was empty.
And t
hen it wasn’t.
He lowered his head and brushed his lips across her fingertips, then gently pressed his mouth into the center of her palm. She sucked in her breath as desire ripped through her, desire so intense it left her breathless.
He left her breathless.
Wanting. Needing.
She closed her eyes and every other one of her senses came alive, focused with crystal clarity. She could feel the silk of his lips, the rasp of the stubble covering his jaw. The seductive heat in his breath. She could smell his subtle woodsy scent. Her palm began to ache.
She began to ache.
How could one simple caress from this man be more erotic than full-body contact with any other man she’d ever known?
She opened her eyes and knew.
That kiss had aroused Rick, too.
For a moment she was terrified he was going to kiss her again, this time on the lips. And then she was terrified he wasn’t. Her fear fled beneath searing anticipation as he released her hand and slipped his callused fingers behind her neck and pulled her close. But he didn’t kiss her.
He guided her head to his chest instead.
It took her a moment to realize he’d leaned back against his tree, drawing her along with him. He’d even managed to adjust her torso in his arms, cradling her thighs within his, before she could think about stopping him.
But he wasn’t coming on to her.
He didn’t even seem to be aroused anymore.
Rather, he seemed intent on simply holding her. An inexplicable warmth spread through her as he combed his fingers through her hair and pressed her cheek to his T-shirt. She lay there for a good minute, her head resting atop the solid muscles of his chest, gradually lulled under by the deep, steady thudding of his heart.
“Get some sleep.”
Against her will, her eyes drifted shut. Or maybe it was with her will. She couldn’t be sure anymore. All she knew was that for the first time, she was falling asleep in a man’s arms.
And she wasn’t afraid to dream.
Chapter 10
S he could have slept another eight hours.
Eve slid her rifle and rucksack off her back and leaned them against Rick’s before rolling the lingering stiffness from her shoulders. Two hours into the day and her T-shirt, fatigues and boots were already drenched in sweat. Still, despite the driving pace Rick had set that morning, she felt more rested than she had in weeks, even years.
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