by Zoe Dawson
She chuckled at her late husband’s mentor and longtime good friend of the family, Stephen Montgomery, the powerful and wealthy CEO of the Montgomery Group, a technical company with numerous products utilized throughout the government and military. Like Bradley, Stephen was born and raised in California, but now made his home in Washington. Piper and Brad had spent time in both DC and their gorgeous beach house in San Diego. “Monty” was a staunch supporter of every bill Brad had written and gotten passed, which had happened mostly because of Stephen’s help and backing. Her aide, Brock, opened the door as soon as Senator Mullins reached for the handle. The look on her aide’s face made Piper’s stomach knot. He came inside, brushing past the senator, and her anxiety climbed. Senator Mullins was tall and imposing, with very good but generic looks, like a news anchor. He looked innocuous, but Piper had seen the flashes of menace.
She shook her head as her aide opened his mouth, but he spoke anyway. “Senator Jones—”
She held up her hand. “Monty, I have to go. My aide is here and quite agitated.”
“Ah, he’s a good man. Stop giving him a hard time. We’ll talk later.”
“We will,” she said affectionately and hung up. “Brock, what…?”
“Your brother, Edward, is on the other line. It’s urgent.”
Piper reached for the phone. “Edward…what?”
“Piper. Tyler…”
“Oh, God. What happened?”
“He’s at Bagram Airfield, the hospital.” His voice broke, then he recovered. “They’re stabilizing him now. It’s bad. Really bad, Piper.”
She struggled for breath as Brock came around the desk, standing at the ready. “No. Please, Edward.”
“They don’t know—”
“Don’t say it!” she hissed into the phone, and Brock covered her hand. “I’m going. Clear it for me.”
An incredulous huff burst out of her brother. “Piper, no! You can’t go to Afghanistan. It’s too dangerous.”
Her spine stiffened. No one told her what she could and couldn’t do when it came to her baby brother. “It’s a fortified base. I’ll be fine!”
“That country isn’t stabilized! I don’t want to lose my sister, too.”
“We’re not going to lose him!”
His voice got hard. “Piper, the only reason I know this information is because of Uncle Bill.”
Her voice just got harder. Her uncle Bill worked for the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, the office responsible for protecting the Secretary of State, certain foreign dignitaries during their visits to the US and other government officials. “All the more reason to get me to Bagram. We have the pull.”
“You can’t go,” he shouted.
“Watch me!”
He lowered his voice, his teeth clenched. “Dammit, Bulldozer, you can’t—”
“Call Uncle Bill. You’re a Diplomatic Security special agent, Edward. Nepotism has to be good for something! Tyler needs someone there!”
“All right. Be ready to go when I call.” She heard Edward’s frustration and the pain and terror in his voice.
She looked up at Brock, and he nodded to indicate he would move heaven and earth to make sure she was ready. “I will.”
Bagram Airfield, Parwan Province, Afghanistan
Fourteen and a half hours later, hot, hungry and achy, Piper walked off the military transport onto Bagram Airfield, the largest US military base in Afghanistan, named for an ancient city nearby. She was still dressed in her blue power suit and her kick-butt heels.
Her brother was at the Heather N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital, a fifty-bed hospital. Flanked by her DS detail, she headed toward the main entrance. The two men in dark blue suits followed. After a call from the DS office to alert her the detail was there to pick her up and take her to the airport, they had boarded the military transport with her. She was assured both Agents Hatch and Markam had combat experience. Two agents she hadn’t met before, but worked for Diplomatic Security, as evidenced by their badges. As soon as she got inside, a nurse was waiting to take her to her brother, who was in intensive care.
“How is he?” she asked as the dark-haired nurse indicated she should follow her.
“He’s holding his own. There was significant internal bleeding, a fractured leg and arm, abrasions, contusions, concussion. You’ll need to brace yourself for his condition, ma’am. He’s scheduled to be shipped out to Germany in two hours. The doctor can give you more details.”
As they walked into the room, Piper rushed over to the tan bed. Her brother was hooked up to both an IV and other health-monitoring machinery. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was even. She gasped as she took in the cuts and abrasions on his face and the heavy bandages on his arm and leg. She’d been scared out of her mind that he would… A wall of emotion slammed into her and she was caught up in keeping her composure. After losing Brad and her unborn child, she’d never wanted to feel that kind of pain again…but to lose her brother―it would be unbearable, especially on the heels of her father’s fatal heart attack a year ago. And her mother had died several years ago from pneumonia.
The nurse squeezed her arm. “He’s doing very well, considering what trauma his body has been through. He’s tough.”
Piper swallowed her tears and pain and turned toward the nurse. “Thank you.”
“I’m Christina Davis, if you need me.” She nodded to a man with salt-and-pepper hair, who stood next to the bed reading a chart. He looked up as Piper reached out and touched Tyler’s bare arm. He was warm and alive, and something cold and tight loosened up inside her.
“Senator Jones? Dr. Abraham.”
“Yes, how is my brother?”
“He’s made it through surgery. He’s a fighter. Lost a lot of blood, but those medivac boys know their job. If it wasn’t for his team member Lieutenant Dexter Kaczewski’s quick actions, he might not have made it.”
“They’re very close,” she whispered, pulling up a chair and sitting down.
“Lieutenant Kaczewski is here, too. Injured, but not as severely.”
“Thank God for that.”
“It’s been a tough day. Team Three lost three SEALs in that battle.”
Tyler groaned and Piper’s attention went to her brother’s face. His eyes opened slowly, his pupils unfocused and dazed.
“He’s heavily medicated,” the doctor said.
“Tyler,” she said, bending down.
He looked at her as if he were trying to assimilate the image of her with being in a combat zone, as if he might be dreaming.
“Yes, I’m here. You’re going to be fine,” she said, smoothing back his beautiful, caramel-brown hair.
He closed his whiskey-colored eyes and groaned. “LT. Find out about LT.” His deep voice was filled with pain, his speech slurred. He started to get agitated and she soothed him.
“He’s fine.”
“Did you see him?” Tyler demanded, trying to push up, but collapsed down with a groan.
“No, but the doctor told me.”
“Please, see him. Find out. Please, Piper.” His expression was full of panic, as if he were sure Dexter was dead.
“I will,” she said, rubbing at his arm. “Calm down. I’ll find out.” She’d never met Dex, but he was one of Tyler’s favorite topics.
Piper leaned down and kissed him on his bristly cheek.
She left the room and tracked down the nurse who had brought her to her brother. “Nurse Davis, I’m looking for Lieutenant Kaczewski.”
“He’s in bed twelve, just one wing over. Why…?”
Piper touched the nurse’s arm, her voice intense. “He’s my brother’s best friend and he wants me to check on him. I promise. I’ll only stay for a few minutes.”
Her face softened. “All right, but just a few minutes.”
Piper nodded her agreement and headed down the hall. Her detail followed, but she had them wait outside the room. It was dim inside and she didn’t want to disturb Dexter,
but she wanted to quiet down her brother. He was so distressed.
The half-drawn curtain was a flimsy barrier and as she stepped closer, she heard it. A choking sound, then another one on its heels. Then she was sure. He was crying…no―her heart contracted―sobbing. The kind of gut-deep sorrow she knew intimately. That car accident had taken everything from her, and it had felt as if her whole world had ended.
He was brave, making noise, showing people his grief.
Piper’s response had been different. The worst type of crying—the silent kind. The one when everyone was asleep. The one where she felt it in her throat, and her eyes were blurry from tears. The one where she just wanted to scream. The one where she had to hold her breath and grab her stomach to keep quiet. The one when she realized the person that meant the most to her was gone.
She knew how it felt. She knew exactly how it felt to cry in the shower so no one could hear her, and waiting for everyone to fall asleep so she could fall apart, for everything to hurt so bad she just wanted it all to end.
They must have told him about the three SEALs he’d lost from his team. He was hurting so badly, and part of that hurt had something to do with guilt…with Tyler. She was well aware of that, too, and how it could twist you up until it was hard to sleep at night.
She knew what it was like to lead, to be in charge of something so important it consumed her, but…this―leading men and being responsible for their lives, making life-and-death decisions, the weight of that… A rush of profound, heartfelt compassion made her whole chest ache.
Her throat tightened and all the fear for her brother and all the pain she had tried to dodge by working and numbing herself welled up in her. She should leave, and she even took a step back. She didn’t want to let it loose either. But the lost and broken sound of him reached out to her, touched her with the honesty of his emotion, the bravery of him to allow himself the grief, to feel the loss. She’d felt so alone, had shed the same kind of broken tears.
She changed her mind and stepped around the curtain. He was on his back, his eyes closed, his chest heaving, tears running down his cheeks over dark stubble.
She must have made a sound because his eyes popped open. Caught off guard, his handsome face vulnerable and open, the agony of loss scored his cobalt blue eyes; pain contorted his striking features.
“Dexter,” she said softly, as if she knew him. “I’m Tyler’s sister.”
She’d never met him, but her brother had talked about him all the time whenever he was home on leave.
Tyler had said that his LT—Dexter—was the essence of a Navy SEAL, a guy who got into the mess with his men, led them with strength and courage, never let them down, hung with them through everything—whether they were up to their necks in a fight or wrecked over a breakup letter from their girl. He was sarcastic, with a whip-like wit, made them work hard, learn about what made Navy SEALs unbreakable so they’d be safe. Through Tyler, she felt like she knew Lieutenant Dexter Kaczewski.
The introduction set him off again, and he covered his face and wept. It seemed the most natural thing to lean in and gather him against her. He buried his face in her neck and held on to her fiercely. And she held him, rocked him through that terrible storm. Her heart breaking for the heaviness of his burden, of leading men, coming to know them and love them, then losing them. Command had to be so very difficult.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over as he totally lost it, his tears wet against her neck. He made a soft sound of pain when he wrapped his arms around her waist as she pressed his head against her chest. His hair was soft, his scalp warm against her palm as she cradled him.
But what slammed into her and made her move forward and comfort him in this dark hour was that Dexter had saved Tyler, braved death to carry her baby brother to safety.
Dex held on to this beautiful blonde angel, whom he wasn’t sure was real. She felt solid and her voice was sweet and calm, filled with the tears he’d seen clouding her eyes. He wasn’t ashamed of breaking down. It was inevitable and his macho face would be back in place in only a few short hours, but now was the time to feel the loss of Spaceman, Slim Jim and DJ. Men he had nurtured, fought with and protected as best he could.
By way of Coronado, California, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, on to Germany, and they had dropped into the most dangerous place on earth. Hours after their team had been assembled for the mission, he was a world away from home. He knew he might not see his brother, Russell “Rock” Kaczewski, a former Marine, or his dad, two-star Navy SEAL Rear Admiral Matthew Kaczewski, stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, or his sassy and beautiful mother, Thelma, again. He’d made peace with knowing each mission could be the last a long time ago.
A SEAL’s troubles were different from many kinds of civilian stress. He’d risked his life so many times in so many battles, but he’d never let it control his performance. He had only one regret, and that was how his deployments had really messed up his relationships. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about those now. But there were two, to be exact. Melissa, who was a beautiful, soft, gorgeous soul. They had been heading for marriage. He had no doubt about it. But he’d wanted to be a SEAL, just after he finished the Marine corps basic training. He had put in for a transfer to the Navy and entered the Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School, then it was two and a half years of training before he became a SEAL. But when he made the decision to go into Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, they had started to fight. He wasn’t home enough. He was changing. He wasn’t the same man. And her complaints only grew until there hadn’t been anything left of what they once had.
Then there was Susan. Ah, Suzy. She had married him, and he’d thought he had found a woman as strong as his mom—that unbreakable one he needed to match his spirit. To love him for what he loved to do. But she left him after a rather terrifying deployment when he’d gone MIA and out of touch for three weeks. That experience had been one of the toughest he’d ever endured. She’d told him tearfully that she thought she could handle it, but she couldn’t.
He needed a woman like his mother, who had stuck by his father through every single one of his deployments. She had been strong, fearless and had instilled in her sons the very meaning of the word brave.
His dad—damn, he was so proud of that man—had been decorated and conducted his life both passionately and with a balance that had rubbed off on his two boys. The four of them were a unit as strong as his team was to him. He loved them all deeply, and he tried to absorb the knowledge that he’d lost three of his closest brothers.
He’d had a solid childhood, even with his dad’s deployments. With the use of modern technology, his dad had always been there, even when he’d been working overseas.
Dex loved his job. Being a SEAL was it for him—a career. Battle always brought with it danger and the very real threat of death.
Death was unavoidable in war. It was a stone-cold fact. But the thought of losing Tyler, who was as close to him and as deeply entrenched in his heart as his brother, Rock, was unbearable. Hell, maybe deeper. Dex had fought with Tyler, watched Ty’s back as much as he’d watched Dex’s. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Tyler. And to lose him because Dex had somehow either miscalculated or screwed up would be even worse.
It tore him up that his sister was here. A family member he’d only heard great things about. Sad things, too.
He would take the comfort she offered because he needed it. He had to let all this go. Only an idiot would bottle up emotions and never give them free rein.
The ache in his throat intensified, and he swallowed, an agony of emotion clogging his chest.
After he was spent and the purge was over, he let the woman go. The loss of Spaceman―damn, his ridge boss, his friend, his tactical genius―it was too much. Slim Jim, who had just become a father, and―dammit, his eyes teared up again, his chest hurt―DJ. Man, he was going to miss him so damn much; him and his humor were often all that kept the
team going when times got tough. Leaning back, Dex’s side protesting with each move, he wiped at his swollen eyes and met her gaze.
“This is a hell of a way to meet Ty’s sister,” he said, his voice raw and raspy.
“Well, I would have preferred a family dinner or a barbecue, not a hospital in a war-torn country where people are trying to kill us, but I’m still glad to meet you.”
Ah, thank God, the beauty had a sense of the ridiculous, which only helped to make this just a tad less awkward. He cracked a faint smile, nodding. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Piper.”
He reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. That’s when he got a really good look at her. She resembled Tyler a lot. But his hair was darker, where she had a mane of tawny gold hair and heartbreaking whiskey-hued eyes with dark, thick lashes. But where Ty’s features were masculine, hers were pretty in a quirky way, not elegant, but cute, her eyebrows darker than her hair. Her chin was delicately angled, but definitely set with determination. At odds with her all-American looks, her mouth was lush, exotically full and covered with a smooth layer of plum-colored lipstick. Funny that the lipstick made him homesick.
Okay, one thing was for certain. That RPG hadn’t rattled his brain too much. He was still thinking like a man.
About Tyler’s sister!
Suddenly he had an insight into exactly why Rock resisted getting involved with Tristan Michaels’s sister Neve. Maybe he would lighten up on his brother in that respect. Maybe.
“Once we’re all home and I’m in DC, I think I will take you up on that.”
She smiled and wiped at her own cheeks, reminding him that they had all been through two hours of hell.
“Tyler’s pretty upset and heavily medicated. I’m not sure if he’s thinking straight, but he was worried they weren’t telling him the truth about you.”
He got that damn lump in his throat again. “Then let’s go prove it to him.”
Alarmed and not yet sure about whether he was joking, she stared at him. “What? You’re wounded. I promised the nurse I would only be here for a few minutes, not get you up and walking.”