Noah cleared his throat. Bennett opened his eyes, no longer in North Carolina but North Africa. A pang of something resembling homesickness washed through Bennett, leaving him feeling hollowed out. It was a strange sensation considering he’d never really had a home until Sarge adopted him. And even then, he’d left Mississippi with no urge to look back. Not enough good memories to outweigh the years of bad.
Noah skimmed the rest of the letter with a tender smile on his face. As much as Bennett wanted to know what else Harper had written, it wasn’t for his eyes.
A rustle of men shifting and gathering gear rolled through the room. It was time. Harper’s funny, mundane vignette from home would be followed by violence.
A few jokes could be heard bandied between men, usually the younger ones with something to prove or nothing back home to lose. Mostly it was silent except for the noise of the choppers. The minutes before a mission were fraught with a nervous excitement.
This was what they’d trained for. The hours and days and weeks spent learning to sight an enemy through a gun scope. The grueling physical challenges they’d faced during BUD/S. But no amount of training could prepare them for unknown variables that entered the field. The unpredictable nature of man could send things straight to hell.
The village they targeted looked like a hundred other places scattered throughout North Africa. Bennett closed his eyes and strolled through the memorized map in his mind, noting places where a sniper could hide or an ambush might originate from. Even with their night-vision capability, night raids could turn chaotic in a heartbeat.
Bricks and stone of varying shades of the surrounding sand blended the houses into the hills that formed a backdrop. They came in at low altitude over the flat stretch of desert leading up to the village. A narrow road cut a dark gash through the land.
Darren signaled their approach. Bennett took several deep breaths. He was in charge of clearing the leader’s house, hopefully with him in it. His heart played ping-pong, but from experience he knew as soon as he was on the ground instinct would trump any nerves.
They unloaded and formed two lines, moving fast and keeping down. The helicopters took off to await extraction. A woman screamed. Muffled words snaked through the night. The first gunshots came from on top of one of the houses—erratic and not well aimed.
Bennett ignored the fire and concentrated on locating the leader’s stronghold. His insides crackled. It wasn’t nerves. The Navy had trained the nerves out of him and taught him to harness the adrenaline pumping through his body. His senses heightened and reacted to every stimulus—sight, sound, smell. The smallest clue could be the difference between success and failure, life and death.
The pops of gunfire overlay the yells of men. Hide. Death. Gun.
On the ground at night, with chaos around him, everything looked slightly different from the map. More ominous and not as easily discernible. He stopped at the corner. The shuffle and vibration of five other men hitting the wall behind him barely registered.
If the intelligence was correct, the leader’s house was around the corner, and Bennett expected it to be protected. Or did the leader think a village full of human shields enough protection? Bennett kicked rocks out into the middle of the street. Bullets thudded into the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks. The angle of impact suggested one or two men were on top of the buildings.
Bennett motioned behind him, and like a choreographed dance, they moved in synchronicity, each with a role. Bennett stayed focused on the door while the others laid down heavy fire into the rooftops.
Motion at the far end of the street drew his attention. His night-vision glasses tinted everything in an eerie green. Bennett raised his gun and sighted a figure. It was a kid in jeans. Or what Bennett would have considered a kid. Eighteen or nineteen.
The kid had a gun and it was trained on him. Bennett fired. The kid hit the ground and didn’t move. It had taken only seconds, but those seconds would haunt Bennett like so many others.
Bennett shot the door latch and shouldered it open, dropping to a squat to surveil the area. Noah was doing the same over his head. A man rushed them from an open doorway at the end of a short hall. Noah took him down.
“Clear the hall and the downstairs,” Bennett barked to the men behind him.
A set of stairs led to a second floor. Bennett climbed them, took them two at a time with his gun trained at the top. Noah was on his heels. A spate of gunfire sounded from the back of the house, but Bennett stayed focused. He trusted the rest of the men to do their jobs.
Darkness enveloped the top of the stairs. He paused, his breathing loud in his ears. The whine of a child punched through the silence. The noise was quickly muffled, but it came from his left. Bennett gestured to the door with his gun barrel. Noah nodded and joined him on the other side of the door.
Bennett shoved his shoulder against the thin wood and a cracking sound accompanied the swing open. Two women scooched back against the wall, hands covering their faces. Mattresses on the floor lined the wall. At least two children huddled against the women. No sign of weapons.
To be sure, he strode forward and used his foot to search around the women and in the covers. The women scurried out of his way like animals trying to escape the clutches of a predator. A sick feeling turned his stomach. He ignored it.
“Stay down. Stay down.” Bennett barked the orders to the women unsure if they understood. He made one last scan over the room, identifying nothing threatening.
He backed out and followed Noah to the only other door on the hall. This time Noah led the way into the room. A man huddled over a computer. He was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and no shirt.
“Move away from the computer. Now.” Bennett clipped the words out loud and slow, even though the information they’d been given indicated the man was fluent in several languages including English.
The man didn’t move except to throw a glance in their direction, still frantically typing.
“Move.” The force in Bennett’s voice did nothing. He couldn’t let the man delete or corrupt the information on the computer.
“On the floor, hands over your head.” Bennett grabbed the back of the man’s neck and forced his compliance.
The man went to his knees but no farther. Noah put a boot in the middle of his back and pushed him down, letting his gun drop to pat the man down. He pulled a knife from a holster strapped to his leg but no gun.
Bennett scanned the small room again. Nothing. The man had left himself unprotected. Inner alarms rang.
Time ceased to abide by the laws of physics. Noah reacted to something over Bennett’s shoulder, a curse rolling out of his mouth like molasses to Bennett’s ears. Noah launched himself at Bennett, their shoulders making jarring contact. The move shoved Bennett off his feet. He landed hard on his opposite shoulder and elbow. The report of gunfire echoed against the walls and reverberated in his head.
Adrenaline pumped his heart and masked any pain. He couldn’t tell whether he’d been hit or not. He flipped to his back and brought his gun up. A woman stood in the doorway with a gun she was fitting another magazine into.
Bennett didn’t hesitate. The force of the bullets sent the woman backward into the hall. A wail came from the leader as he scrambled toward the woman. The gun was at her side. Bennett fired again, putting two bullets in the man’s legs. He crumpled over and grabbed his legs with a high-pitched scream, blood welling through his fingers.
Noah was sitting up, his hand around his throat, his torso wavering. The clomp of boots up the stairs put Bennett on alert, and he trained his gun on the doorway. Darren appeared, the shadows of other team members behind him.
“We need a medic!” Bennett yelled.
Darren called the same to a team member down the hall.
“Secure the women in the other room. Here’s our guy. I only hope he didn’t have the chance to delete everything.” Bennett gestured to the man on the floor. “What’s the situation outside?”
&nbs
p; “All secure. Get him out of here.” Darren gestured two men into the room, stepped back, and radioed as Bennett turned back to Noah.
Two team members grabbed the leader under his arms and dragged him out of the room, red streaking the floor like a gruesome finger painting.
Blood slicked Noah’s fingers and pooled on the floor. A neck shot. Bennett eased off Noah’s headgear and helped him stay upright. Keeping the wound above his heart to minimize blood loss was crucial. Noah’s hand trembled.
“Let me. I can put more pressure on it.” Bennett’s voice was rough.
The brief moment the wound was revealed sent ice through Bennett’s veins. Blood pulsed from Noah’s neck with every beat of his heart. An artery had been hit. Bennett slapped his fingers over the gash and pressed hard, but blood leaked through.
“Fuck. Where’s Doc at?” he yelled.
Now that the situation was secure, the moment scrolled through his head on repeat. Noah had sacrificed his own life to save Bennett. Noah was the one with a wife and a baby on the way. Bennett had nothing and no one to miss him. He was the one who was supposed to take a bullet to save Noah, not the other way around.
“Why’d you do that, man? Why?” Bennett whispered, not expecting an answer. Someone turned on lights and Bennett ripped off his headgear.
Noah’s bloodied hand circled Bennett’s wrist with a surprising strength. His mouth opened and closed before words emerged on the wisp of a breath. “Tell … tell Harper … love.”
“You’re going to fucking tell her yourself. I’m not going to let you die.”
They locked eyes. Noah blinked and looked straight through Bennett.
Bennett gave him a little shake. “Hang on. Doc’s coming.” He yelled over his shoulder, “Where’s the fucking medic?”
“On his way.” Darren knelt on Noah’s other side.
“Baby,” Noah whispered.
“You’ll see your baby. Just hang on.”
Noah gave a small shake of his head and a slow blink.
Emotion stripped away the platitudes and reassurances and lies. Bennett’s boots slipped in blood. The reality was stark and devastating.
“R-remember your promise.”
“I’ll make sure Harper and the baby are taken care of.” He swallowed but couldn’t stop the tears from stinging his eyes.
Promise? Noah mouthed the word as if the strength to even speak was too much.
“I promise.”
The fight went out of Noah, his body growing slack in Bennett’s arms. He drew Noah into his chest but kept his hand clamped over his neck. The flow of blood slowed and eventually stopped as Noah’s heart ceased pumping.
Bennett rocked him back and forth and held him tight. The medic arrived with a clatter and fell to his knees next to Darren. He was young, with acne scars along his cheeks and a gaunt face that made Bennett wonder how long out of training he was. They tried to ease Noah out of Bennett’s arms, but he growled at them like a wild animal protecting its young.
The medic checked for a pulse and shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. He’s gone.”
Bennett didn’t need professional confirmation. He’d felt the final beats of Noah’s heart against his fingers. The man who’d been by his side from the first day of BUD/S training, for every deployment, his best friend. His only friend.
The mission continued around his personal tragedy. Two SEALs entered the room and began packing up the computer along with every single document or item of that might hold clues to the far-reaching tendrils of the man’s influence. The leader would be taken to the base and handed over to the big dogs for questioning.
Darren touched Bennett’s shoulder. “We need to load up.”
He was right. SEAL missions were quick and surgical. Bennett stood and heaved Noah into his arms, his right leg wobbling and giving out on him, sending him to one knee. He forced himself to rise again.
“Fuck, dude, your leg’s a mess.” Darren grabbed his arm. “I’ll take him.”
Bennett clutched Noah’s body closer. “No. Just lead me out of here. I’ll be fine.”
He felt no pain, which meant either the wound was superficial or the adrenaline was masking the severity. It didn’t fucking matter. He was alive, and Noah was dead. The universe was all mixed up.
He stepped into the hallway. The woman who’d killed Noah lay in a heap on the floor. No regret for killing the woman surfaced. Would it all prove to be worth it? Would the information they’d recovered prove valuable? Would it save lives?
It didn’t matter. Burgeoning grief rolled through him like the leading edge of a storm. He made it down the stairs and into the dusty street. Chopper blades sliced through the air and made his heart thump. Each beat mocked him. He should have died, not Noah.
He rounded the corners of the buildings, giving him a straight shot to the choppers. The black machines blurred and the noises around him grew muffled. He blinked to clear the dust and debris flying around them. Black crept from his peripheral vision until he felt like he was looking out the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. His vision snuffed like a candle.
* * *
He came to on a bed. The smell was antiseptic and bleach. Bright lights made it difficult to focus. IV lines were taped down to both arms. His nose hurt and he swiped at it, pulling away an oxygen tube.
A man-sized lump was under white sheets in the bed to his right. Blond hair peeked out at the pillow. Noah. His memories were fuzzy. Had Noah made it after all?
He forced himself to sitting. Pain shot through his leg and left hip. He groaned and pushed through the pain like he’d been trained to do. He reached over and grabbed the edge of the sheet.
“Noah.” His voice rasped, his throat desert dry.
The man in the bed flipped to his back and looked over at Bennett. Half his face was covered in gauze, but the raw skin of a burn edged the white, his lips a macabre scarred slash.
Bennett fell back onto his pillow. “Sorry, man, thought you were someone else.”
“I wish I were.” The words came out as if his lungs, too, had been charred from the inside. The man turned back over and huddled into himself.
How long had Bennett been laid up? Where was Noah? He sat back up, this time prepared for the pain, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His left leg was stiff and bandaged from upper thigh to below his knee. More bandages were taped to his hip. Would his body support him? It would have to.
He had to … What? He hesitated, his mind as muddy as a Mississippi marsh. What was he doing? Noah was beyond saving.
An alarm beeped on one of the machines at his head. A nurse bustled in, her mouth set in a disapproving line.
“Back in bed, Caldwell.” Her voice was brisk, but her hands were gentle as she eased him back in the bed and reattached the O2 sensor on his finger. When she tried to put the tube back into his nose, he grabbed her wrist. A staring contest commenced. She huffed and set the tube aside.
“You SEALs are extraordinarily stubborn.” She took up a clipboard and made notes, pressing buttons on the monitor. “Are you thirsty?”
He was parched. “How long have I been out? Where have they taken Noah?”
He half-expected her to plead ignorance. And maybe a regular nurse would have, but this was a Navy nurse. As she held out a bottle of water with a bendy straw for him, she said, “You’ve been out nearly twenty-four hours. Your fellow SEAL’s body left on a transport to Germany.”
Noah was gone. A gaping black hole in his chest sucked away any hope. The future stretched as bleak and barren as the land around them.
“He was my friend.”
The lines around her mouth smoothed. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
Loss and regret and guilt battered him. His mind flitted to a woman he’d never met. Had Harper been told? What would she say if she knew Noah shouldn’t have died? It should have been him.
“When I can get back to my team?”
“You took two bullets to your leg, Caldwell.”
>
Bennett closed his eyes, but light danced stars behind his eyelids.
“And another bullet creased your hip.”
His heartbeat was a little fast but strong.
The nurse checked the bandage on his hip. The tug of the gauze on the wound was an irritant he wanted to swat away.
“You lost a lot of blood and will need physical therapy. They’re sending you stateside.”
His lungs worked, heaving in one deep breath after another.
The nurse poked his arm. “Did you hear me, Caldwell?”
“Leave me alone.” His tone was harsh. Later, he would apologize. Maybe. It was hard to accept the fact that Noah was packed away in a casket on his way home with no light, no heartbeat, no life.
The promises he’d made Noah circled like carrion. Bennett would take care of Harper and their unborn child. But she could never know it was him. The man who should have died.
Chapter 23
Present Day
Harper shifted on Bennett’s lap as the story of Noah’s death rewrote itself. Or, more accurately, filled in the blanks. Noah had sacrificed his life to save Bennett. Fate had twisted and knotted their lives together like a kindergartener trying to macramé.
She shoved the useless what-ifs away. She loved Bennett, but that didn’t supersede her love for Noah. While they were both exceptional men, they were very different. If Noah had lived, she hoped their relationship would have deepened and grown as they matured. As it was, she’d matured without Noah, and as a different woman she’d found Bennett.
Life was all about timing and could change with the speed of a bullet.
“Do you hate me? Do you wish he’d lived and I’d died?” Bennett’s voice was rough and his eyes shined with unshed tears. Three months ago, she’d have sworn he wasn’t capable of such emotion.
“Of course not.” She rubbed his cheek, the hair scratchy in a good way. “Life has a way of giving us what we need at the right time.”
He slumped over her, his grip biting. “I thought for sure you’d leave me.”
With a jolt, she understood. Everyone in his life had left him through choice or death. She tightened her hold on him with a matching fierceness. “Never.”
The Military Wife Page 27