“Me?” Matt shrugged and played with the napkin in front of him. “After my divorce, I swore I’d never marry again. But now…I guess age and time have worn me down on that statement.” He grinned a little. “I don’t like the loneliness, to be honest. I don’t like coming off a mission, going to the condo in Philipsburg where the mercs stay between assignments. The condo is beautiful and has all the amenities…but it’s lonely.”
Finishing off the cake, Jenny placed the paper plate and wrapper back into the pack. “That’s the great thing about a good marriage. You have your best friend to do things with, to talk to, to share with.”
“Yes, and in a bad marriage, none of those things are in place.”
“You speak from experience,” Jenny offered gently, seeing his gray eyes darken with old pain from the past. Reaching out, she squeezed his hand, which rested on top of the crinkled linen napkin between them. “Looking at how marriages are so disposable nowadays, I think a key to a successful one is that you become best friends, that you share a love of things together.”
Turning his hand over, he lifted her fingers and pressed a tender kiss to the backs of them. Her eyes flared with surprise, and then turned languid with pleasure. Smiling up at her as he reluctantly released her hand, Matt asked, “Can we be friends?”
Jenny smiled in response. It was almost too much to hope for! Matt wanted her friendship. The thought filled her with happiness—and, she mused, a flutter of anticipation. What would it be like to really get to know Matt?
Jenny sat expectantly behind her desk at the Black Jaguar Base. Chief Warrant Officer Two, twenty-five-year-old Camilla Anderson, was due any minute for her interview. Matt sat in a relaxed position in the chair near the wall, coffee in hand. He gave Jenny a slight smile.
Matt thought Jenny looked even more beautiful this morning. Had the picnic down by the river done it? His kissing her hand? Or maybe he felt that way because they had finally taken the time to sit and explore one another on a deeper personal level? The answer was probably all of the above. Today she wore a pale pink, short-sleeved cotton blouse with a colorful scarf around her neck, khaki shorts and her hiking boots. Her hair was slightly mussed, as it always seemed to be, but on her it looked fetching. There was always a chaotic energy about Jenny, but he was growing to enjoy that aspect of her. Her hair, he realized now, seemed to symbolize her restless nature. She tried to tame it into place, but something—the helicopter blades, the mountain breeze—was always thwarting her efforts, and finally she’d give up let it be tousled and windblown—and lovely.
Maybe that was the key to Jenny, he mused, as he sipped the hot, fragrant coffee. Letting her be who she was. Two immature men had hurt her by trying to force her into a mold of what they thought she should be instead of prizing her as the unique flower she was.
Last night had been pure, unadulterated hell on Matt. She had slept soundly, like a baby, beside him. And he’d barely slept at all, inhaling the scent of the spicy ginger shampoo she’d used to wash her hair earlier. How badly he’d wanted to reach out, slide his arms around her and bring her against him.
Still, Matt acknowledged that simply sleeping together was helping Jenny. Each night she was less and less restless. She slept more deeply. Those dark circles beneath her eyes had disappeared and she was blooming like one of the breathtaking orchids that grew in such proliferation all around Agua Caliente.
CWO2 Camille Anderson came thunking down the hall toward the opened door, interrupting Matt’s thoughts. As he shifted his attention to the Apache helicopter pilot who raced in the door, breathless, the young woman gave them a quick smile of hello and took the seat in front of the desk. “Whew! Sorry I’m almost late.” She glanced at the watch on her left wrist. “I’ve got collateral duty in the maintenance section with Major York, and we ran into some problems with one of the Apaches…thing unexpected.” Blowing out a breath of air, she quickly moved her fingers through her thick, naturally curly auburn hair.
smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve learned that things around here are like a cork bobbing on the ocean, and we’ve got to be flexible.”
Cam grinned and nodded. She smoothed her black uniform across her long, strong-looking thighs. “Yes, ma’am, that’s the name of the game.”
“Call me Jenny. What do you like to be called?”
“Cam.” She grinned broadly. “Or you can call me ‘Tree Trimmer,’ which is my new handle around here.”
Smiling, Jenny said, “Tree Trimmer? What kind of a name is that?”
Opening her long, artistic-looking hands, Cam laughed deeply. “About two years ago, I put the skids of our old Cobra, when we still had it, into the tops of the jungle trees and whacked off a bunch of branches. There was a thunderstorm approaching, and a gust of wind, a strong one, pushed the helicopter downward. I compensated for it, but not soon enough, and we ended up eating some jungle real estate. Major Stevenson was with me at the time, and gave me the name.”
Jenny smiled. She liked the tall pilot. Cam Anderson had lively forest-green eyes, a square face and short auburn hair that barely stayed tucked behind her ears. The ruddiness of her cheeks and the hundreds of freckles sprinkled across her fine, thin nose made her look decidedly Irish. There was a quiet alertness about Cam. Five foot nine inches tall, she was solidly built and large-boned. Glancing at her file, Jenny saw that she weighed a hundred fifty-five pounds. She was all legs, Jenny realized, with wide hips. In the back of her mind, Jenny applauded women who carried some weight on them. This skinny-as-a-rail stuff was for the birds. Cam was physically strong-looking, and Jenny knew that, like all the pilots and most of the other women personnel of the base, she worked out at the gym that was set up on the mining side.
“What was your handle before you turned those trees into salad?” Jenny teased with a smile. She saw Cam brighten as she sat before her, both booted feet on the floor, her hands relaxed on her thighs.
“Coming out of Fort Rucker training, they called me Cougar.” She shrugged, a grin edging her wide mouth. “I come from Montana. I was born up in the Rocky Mountains. We have cougars and black bears all over that area. When I was very young, my mother had left me out in our backyard, which butted up against the national forest. When she came back a few minutes later, she saw a cougar sitting no more than ten feet away from me. Just watching me.”
“Goodness,” Jenny exclaimed. “I’ll bet your mother just about had a heart attack!”
“I was six at the time. I still remember the incident. I wasn’t scared, either. I kept saying, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!’ and that’s what freaked my mother out.”
“Amazing. What happened next?”
Cam grinned. “The cougar leaped up and left as soon as she saw my mother running toward me.”
“Was it going to eat you?”
Cam’s eyes lightened with laughter. “No, I don’t think so. I still remember the feeling of that meeting. It was like seeing an old friend again, odd as that sounds. I was happy to see the cougar.”
Jenny touched her cheek. “I feel for your poor mother. She must have thought the worst.”
“Oh, my mother was pretty cool about it. I remember her picking me up and saying that the cougar was too big to be a house cat and that I shouldn’t try calling it, because it wouldn’t come. That it belonged in the wild.”
Jenny smiled. “Is that how you see yourself, Cam? A woman who belongs in the wild?”
“Great question. Yes, I do. I’ve always been very confident about myself, and that’s probably due to my parents telling me from the earliest I can remember that I could do anything I wanted in life, and be successful at it.”
“Good for them,” Jenny murmured, writing down the information to be put into her laptop later. “So tell me why you want to volunteer for one of these three assignments.”
Cam became very serious. She crossed one leg and frowned. “I’m going to level with you, Jenny. It will probably cost me the possibility of getting one of these missions, but I ow
e you—and Major Stevenson—the truth on why I’d like to be considered.”
Jenny saw pain in Cam’s eyes and in the way her mouth thinned. “I’m listening.”
With a heavy sigh, Cam opened her hands and lowered her voice. “A year ago Major Stevenson and I were flying the Cobra on a mapping mission, looking for new trails that the druggies were cutting in order to get their cocaine to drop-off points. We were at tree height.” Her voice turned sad. “We got attacked by a Kamov out of the blue. Neither of us saw it coming. It shot us down.”
Jenny frowned. “Oh, dear…”
“Yeah,” Cam muttered, “bad news. Really bad news. I’m sure you’ve heard this already…it’s an old story around the base.”
“What story?”
One of Cam’s thick brows moved upward. “How I abandoned Maya after the crash? The druggies were coming. I could see them in their trucks, hightailing it toward us. The Cobra was burning a hundred feet away from us. I managed to drag Maya out of the burning helo because she was unconscious. She’d taken a hit on the helmet from a branch as the helo twisted and fell down through the trees.” Rubbing her face, she muttered, “Damn, this is harder than I thought it would be. Anyway…” she sighed with resignation “…I abandoned Maya. I ran away. I ran into the jungle to escape the druggies who were coming.”
Jenny’s heart contracted. She saw the anguish in Cam’s face and heard it in her husky, low voice. Slanting Matt a quick glance, she saw him grimly studying the pilot. Although his face was unreadable, Jenny could feel he was suffering for Cam, as well.
“Wait…” Jenny murmured, holding up her hand. “No, I haven’t heard this story from anyone, Cam. And I don’t have the kind of military background to judge your decision.”
“I do,” Matt stated quietly. He set the coffee mug on the desk and folded his hands between his thighs as he studied Cam. “You might give Jenny your reasons for what you did, Cam. I think I know, but you need to share it with her so she understands the context of your decision—why you decided to do what you did under those circumstances.”
Nodding, Cam blew out a painful breath of air. “Right…of course.” She turned her attention back to Jenny. “I had a military decision to make. Maya was my commander. You’ve seen how thick the jungle is, right?”
“Yes, it’s very dense, nearly impossible to walk through,” Jenny replied. “I’ve heard the only way you can get through it is to hack a path with a machete.”
“Correct,” Cam whispered. “Well, Maya was out cold. The druggies were less than a quarter mile away and coming at high speed down that dirt road toward us. I knew they would capture both of us. I also knew that no one here at the base knew we’d been knocked out of the sky. I—I had a decision to make—leave Maya or try and take her with me.”
“But,” Jenny said quickly, “if she was unconscious, how in the world could you carry her through that wall of jungle? That would be impossible.”
Nodding, Cam whispered, “That was the dilemma I faced. I wasn’t hurt except for my arm being injured. I could get away. I felt I could escape deep enough into the jungle and eventually, over a day or two, make it back to the base to tell them what had happened. From there, we could mount a rescue effort for Maya.”
“Under the circumstances,” Jenny said gently, “I don’t see that you had any choice in the matter. Did you escape?”
“Yes…reluctantly, let me tell you.” After rubbing her face, Cam dropped her hands and stared down at the floor between her black flight boots. “I’ve never felt so horrible…leaving Maya. I didn’t know how badly hurt she really was. I knew, from a military perspective, the right thing to do was get out, but damn…I didn’t want to leave my fallen comrade in harm’s way. I didn’t want to leave Maya in the hands of druggies who I knew could hurt or kill her.”
Jenny’s heart contracted with anguish for Cam, whose face was tense with torment. “I don’t see that you had a choice.”
“Well,” Cam said quietly, “that’s why I’m here. Eventually, I did get found by Major York and Wild Woman, and I got lifted out of the jungle and taken back to the base, where I told them what had happened. Lucky for us, things worked out okay in the end, and Maya freed herself eventually…but it still hurts here.” She pressed her hand to her heart region. “I still feel like I abandoned her. My head tells me that what I did was right. But I was taught never to leave someone who was sick or hurt. And I feel that I should have stayed with her….” She compressed her lips and gave Jenny a quick look.
“And that’s why you want to volunteer for one of these missions? In some way, to make up for that incident?”
“Bingo. You got it.” Cam straightened up and threw back her proud shoulders, as if to try and shrug off the invisible weight she carried to this day. “I want a shot at one of those missions. I want to somehow make up for the past. I know Maya would be proud of me, maybe forgive me, if I could be successful at one of them. And that’s what I’d like—a shot at the night border work. I have a lot of reasons to do it, to show her that she can have renewed faith and trust in me.”
“I see…” Jenny murmured. “I’ll take your desire to make things right once again into consideration, Cam.”
She brightened. “Thanks…it would mean a lot to me. I owe the major. I’d really like to repay her this way.”
Chapter Ten
Jenny gave Matt a searching look after Cam left. She got up and quietly shut the door to their office. Turning, she leaned against it, her arms across her breasts.
“I’d value your feedback on her, on the reasons she states, Matt. Right now, I don’t feel Cam’s the right person for that border mission.”
He stood up and rubbed his jaw while he gazed out the small window that overlooked the rear of the cave. “You’re not wrong to feel that way,” he murmured. Turning, he moved to the front of the desk and sat down on the edge, his hands resting on the cool metal. Jenny looked concerned, and he could see the frustration in her eyes.
“Cam is fueled by guilt,” he told her. “Guilt that would plague any military person, and that’s what you need to put into perspective here. We’re trained never to leave a fallen comrade in the field. It just isn’t acceptable in the SEALs. The Marine Corps has a similar tradition. I really felt for her when she was sharing that experience with us. I’d be torn, too. But under the circumstances—” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder “—with that dense jungle out there, Cam wouldn’t have gotten ten feet, carrying Maya over her shoulder. It’s one thing to be able to move, it’s a whole ’nother thing to be carrying an unconscious person. And at six foot tall, Maya isn’t any lightweight.”
“So, you think Cam did the right thing?”
Giving her a pained look, Matt said, “You know what? The only person who can really answer that is Cam. Her training told her not to leave Maya wounded, alone and in the hands of the enemy. Another part of her, the survivor, saw that if she didn’t escape, then no one back at the base would even begin to have a clue as to what happened or where they were. At least if she escaped and made it back to base, there’d be hope that Maya could be rescued.”
“I see both sides of the issue,” Jenny murmured. “What would I do in her place, I wonder?”
Matt nodded. “Right. You have to put yourself in her shoes, with her training and mind-set. The other factor, which is the wild card in all this, is the personality involved. Frankly, knowing what I know about this incident from her, I’d say she made the correct call. Escape and live to fight another day. Escape to get word back to your team as to what happened, and then mount a rescue effort for the fallen comrade. I think she did the right thing. And as for her thinking Maya holds the decision against her, I know that’s not correct. Cam is holding it against herself. Maya understood her decision—I know, because I talked to her about it earlier this week, when I saw Cam’s name on the list. In fact, Maya has told Cam to her face that she’d have done exactly the same thing if she’d been in her shoes.”
&nb
sp; Jenny moved toward Matt, until she stood less than a foot away from him. The sleeves of his light blue chambray shirt were rolled up to just below his elbows, and the dark hair on his massive, well-muscled arms made her ache to reach out and slide her fingers across them. Fighting the urge, she studied his frowning features and darkened gray eyes as she pondered Cam’s dilemma. “It’s good to know you talked with Maya about this.” She slanted him an amused glance. “If I was in trouble, you’d come after me, wouldn’t you?”
Matt met her warm gaze. “Of course I would. And so would you, if the tables were turned.”
Jenny nodded. “Yes, I would.”
“Even if the deck was stacked against me? Even knowing in advance that you might be killed in the process of trying to rescue me?”
“Without a doubt.”
Matt gave her a long look. “People like you are the ones who, when a grenade from the enemy is rolled into a squad bay filled with people, throw themselves on it to save everyone else. But then, you die because of your actions.”
“That is an act of ultimate courage—to put your life on the line for another, not knowing the outcome,” Jenny agreed quietly as she chewed on her lower lip. She saw him roll his eyes. “What? What would you have done differently?”
“I’d probably kick the grenade out of the area with the toe of my boot, or pick it up and throw it. I’m not an idealist.” Matt reached out and grazed her cheek, which instantly turned a flaming red. He saw the pleasure come to her eyes at his unexpected touch. How badly he wanted to kiss Jenny, to feel those soft lips beneath his hungry, greedy mouth. “You are.”
Even though she was afraid, Jenny overcame her fear and boldly reached out and ruffled his hair in a playful motion. “You be the realist. I’m happy to be the idealist on our team.”
Catching her hand, he smiled wolfishly. She grew still and relaxed within his warm, strong grasp. Matt saw the enjoyment, the gold flecks in her blue eyes as they glinted in merriment. With his other hand, he opened her smaller one and grazed her palm with his callused thumb. Instantly, he saw her lips part in surprise…and obvious pleasure.
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