Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (32 page)

She k new him.

Understanding flooded at least a trickle of peace. His rage was directed at those responsible. Not her. This man's innate sense of justice, his unfailing defense of anyone attacked, would help him wade through it all.

But later. Not now.

He shifted against her, his hand falling away from her back.

"Blake?" Even as she'd winced at being touched, oh, God, she couldn't bear to be left. She gripped his arms, jolted, bumped her head on the underside of the desk. "Where are you going?"

And then she smelled—spearmint. She smiled. Blake's chewing gum, a habit he once told her he'd picked up after he stopped dipping at eighteen when he joined the Navy.

"Want some?"

"Yes, please."

He pressed a stick in her palm, papers rustling as he unwrapped one for himself. She folded the gum in her mouth. Spearmint saturated her taste buds.

She chewed out her tension. So this was why he enjoyed the stuff, always chomping double-time after returning from a deployment. She embraced the familiar flavor in the midst of a foreign world and slowly felt herself relax a bit more against him.

Like many times before. Normal. And, oh, how she wanted everything to be the way it was before. Except the past couldn't be erased. Would she ever be completely okay again? Would she and Blake ever return to those lazy afternoons of tender love-making and spearmint kisses?

His arm curved around her waist again, his hand settling on her belly. An accident in the dark? Or deliberate?

The baby fluttered inside her, not that Blake would be able to feel it yet. God, she wanted to cry, but if she lost it, all of this would be harder for him and damned, but wasn't life hard enough for both of them right now?

"Marry me."

The taste left her gum. She'd expected the proposal from him, just not so soon. "Because I'm pregnant?''

He flinched and she wanted to cry all over again.

"Not because you're pregnant."

She needed to believe him. Certainly they'd talked about marriage before—not that they'd made it through the discussions without fighting about her quitting her job or him quitting his. And things were even more complicated now. "I'm sorry. Sorry that you have to be here. Sorry that we even have to think about whether or not you're proposing because I'm pregnant."

"Good God, you don't have anything to apologize for. It's not your fault." Sincerity rang clear.

Months of holding it together shattered, the shaking deep inside threatened to rattle her teeth. "I was afraid you would think maybe it was because I came here in the first place."

"Hey, stop that kind of talk." His cheek pressed to hers, slick with grease paint and sweat, but emphatic.

Familiar. "I may not have agreed with your coming here, but I understand your reasons now for doing it.

And, hell, you gave me an out when we talked that last time and I didn't take it."

He couldn't possibly blame himself. Could he?

Of course he did. He was a man. They thought they were responsible for everything.

She shrugged off her own fears quaking deep inside and wrapped her arms around his waist, her elbow bumping a half-open desk drawer, the stab of pain nothing in comparison to the ache that swirled between them. He stilled for a second before a sigh shuddered through him. She felt his eyes squeeze shut tight against her skin. He needed her forgiveness every bit as much as she needed his.

"It's okay. It's going to be okay, Blake."

He nodded against her, and they sat, curled up under the desk and wrapped in each other's arms through three more window-rattling explosions splashing light through the room...then fading.

"So, Sydney, does this mean you'll marry me after all?"

"It's not that simple anymore. You need to know I'm going to have this baby."

"Okay."

"That's all you have to say?"

"If you want to have the baby, then I'll love it because it's yours."

"How can you be so certain?" She had to ask because, God forgive her, sometimes she wasn't sure how she would manage it herself.

"I just am. You know I've always wanted a big family since growing up alone with my uncle. We'll just start earlier."

"What if..." She pushed free words she'd never spoken aloud, barely allowed herself to think. "What if I gave it up for adoption? Would you think I'm an awful person for walking away from my child?"

His fingers wove through her hair, the gesture so gentle, so familiar, she could almost ignore the sound of the popping gunfire and shouts outside. "Is this about your mother?"

He knew her as well as she knew him. Too well. She didn't even bother answering.

His forehead fell to hers, bringing them nose-to-nose even though they couldn't see each other. "You don't always have to do the opposite of your mama just to be different from her. Giving up this baby for adoption to a good home is not the same as leaving your kids behind to run off with some rich guy. You are a good, strong woman. Whichever way you decide, you're going to make the right choice for the baby."

He wasn't going to tell her what to do. He just assumed she would make the right choice for her. For them.

She wasn't Sydney, the absentminded dreamer. In Blake's eyes, she was a strong woman.

His words snuffled around inside her mind with reason and sense and healing. So often he'd told her she was his haven, his saving grace. She'd believed him, in fact embraced the role of herself as saving him just like one of her causes, determined not to be the dependent little girl who let her sister fight her battles.

Yet in doing so, she'd denied Blake his equal role, his contribution to the relationship. Finally, all the components of Sydney Hyatt came together within herself. It was okay to be saved, and she would be saving him right back. "I know it's not the same as her walking out. I know."

Now, thanks to Blake, she really believed it, too.

"That's my Sydney." He smiled against her skin, the smile even held for a minute before he turned serious again. "Just so we're clear here, if you change your mind either way, I still want to marry you. And I believe you want to marry me, too."

God, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. "I do. So much."

Relief rocked through him, rebounding into her with reassurance. His tight hold around her eased. "Well, hang on to that thought until we land and can find a preacher. Because I'm not holding off and letting you get some idea about waiting until after the baby's born. I want to be there with you through this. I
need
to be there with you. For you."

It was okay to save and be saved right back.

"You're not going to get any argument from me on that one." A giggle snuck up and free, her first in four months since she'd walked away from Blake. She laughed some. Cried some. Laughed again. Relaxed a little more against the hard wall of his chest.

His chin fell to rest on her head again. "I guess I need to know you're okay with who I am, too. With what I do."

Her laughter faded, but not the sense of security, an odd-as-hell sensation in the middle of a war zone. But true. As real as his arms around her.

"After what I've seen here, the lack of basic compassion for another human being...God, Blake, it would be so easy to lose our humanity. To rage and throw off civilization in the name of revenge. The fact that all of this sent you to dark places in your mind just means you're human. I should have been more worried if it didn't affect you. Now more than ever I realize how important it is to have people like you making decisions on how these operations unfold. People who won't lose their humanity or compassion when faced with inhumane acts."

"It isn't always this clear-cut-and-dried, Sydney, the rights and wrongs and how things play out for me."

And still he was trying to be fair with her. How could she have ever doubted this man's compassion? "Life often isn't fair, something I didn't understand before, either. So we meet somewhere in the middle?"

"I'm thinking that's the way it's supposed to work, the whole checks-and-balances idea." His broad palms bracketed her face. "I've learned my haven isn't a place with a white picket fence. It's you. Just as you are.

I was trying to change the things about you that made you perfect for me all along."

Another explosion rocked outside, flashed light into the room. Illuminated Blake's face streaked with cammo paint. His golden blond hair darkened with sweat and dirt, his stubborn cowlick in place and undaunted by all the grime. She saw the warrior. She saw the man. And loved them both.

"Oh, God, I love you so much, Blake." The words fell free with a new ease and lightness.

"You know I love you, too."

Four months ago she'd been wrong to doubt the power of love. When faced with the worst the world could offer, love was everything. The most important thing. "It
is
enough."

"It has to be, because I can't live without you."

Her hand on the back of his neck, she gave a gentle nudge forward. Her consent. Slowly he leaned closer, brushed his mouth against hers. Careful. Cognizant and considerate of all she'd been through.

The kiss wasn't passionate or deep, but the familiar connection with Blake and spearmint warmed her cold soul. A flicker of something more tingled wonderfully through her. Just a flicker, and not anything she was ready to explore yet.

But so damned reassuring.

She would be okay. Not today, and probably not tomorrow, either, but someday. Because this man who had the patience and strength to crawl through tunnels and cobwebs to face hell could crawl into the dark place where she'd been taken and hold her hand all the way back.

"Alpha, this is Budweiser two-one." Jack updated via the radio from the cockpit while his C-17 circled the seized terrorist compound. "The aero-medical evacuation team is two miles out."

Two minutes out.

Monica's plane approached, dimly visible through the night and approaching sandstorm.

"Runway secure," Colonel Cullen responded. "All clear for them to continue."

The Rangers had taken the airfield and the compound with no fatalities on their side and minimal injuries.

Now Monica's plane descended below him, neared the dirt runway, ready to treat the wounded and to assess the freed hostages.

Meanwhile he flew the mobile command post over the airfield. His comm equipment in back on pallets provided radio relay for the short-range information transmitted from the ground. He'd just tool around up here in the sky until the AWACs arrived to take over communications.

All was hunky-dory, right? He'd flown through hotter zones than this. Still he couldn't shake the fear that some Gomer a few miles out with a launcher on his shoulder would pop Monica's plane with a missile.

Something even the Rangers couldn't control.

Hell. At least now he acknowledged his fears were a screwed-up backlash from losing Tina.

Acknowledging didn't do much for making those demons go away.

Probably for the best that he had at least another twenty-four hours to get his head level before talking to her again. Monica would land and he would leave. No chance for chitchat until the sandstorms passed and she headed back to base. Not that he was a hundred percent certain how he would make up for his obvious omission just before takeoff.

Three important words left unsaid, dumb ass. Damn, but he wanted to thump himself upside his head.

Whoomp.

The plane shuddered. The thump too close on the heels of his thought stunned him silly with confusion before he realized...

Something was seriously wrong.

"What the hell was that?" Rodeo's voice snapped through the headset.

Wind whipped over him. From the side. Tiny holes peppered the plane.

Jack twisted, looked out the windscreen. Found. Flames streaming from his left wing.

The inevitable conclusion nailed him. The Gomer with a missile launcher on his shoulder had hit him instead.

And Monica's plane was already descending toward the runway. A pop to her craft would be fatal without the altitude to recover.

Dread pinging over him, he keyed up the private interphone. "Rodeo, we've been hit."

And so have I.
Words he held back.

Stunned numbing eased. Reality seared through his skin. Hot. But he couldn't think about that. Later, he'd worry about the shitload of shrapnel lodged in his thigh. Right now, he didn't have the time to waste on extra words.

Anticipation tingled through her. From her jump seat behind Crusty piloting the medivac, Monica watched the dirt runway come closer. Closer. Back wheels touched down, then the nose, buildings sprawling in front of her.

One holding her sister.

Only a few more minutes and she would see Sydney. The hostages were all safe and accounted for, the airfield and compound in American hands. And she had Jack to thank.

They had problems, but they weren't quitters. Some things in life were worth fighting for and she was beginning to trust in herself enough to let down her defenses.

She was finally learning to trust Jack. If only she didn't have to wait so long to start her campaign to get him to expose his feelings to her.

The open-frequency channel crackled. "This is Budweiser two-one, we took a missile in the number two engine."

Jack? His voice echoed over her headset. A buzzing started in her brain. Loud. Like someone let loose a hive of bees. This wasn't supposed to happen. Jack, of the jokes and killer smile, was invincible, damn it, and they all knew it. His cocky arrogance was obnoxious as hell sometimes, but everyone believed in him.

"This plane's pissing gas out all over the place," he continued with more of that calm confidence. "We're gonna have to put her down here. Alpha, is the runway clear?"

"Hold, Budweiser two-one," Colonel Cullen replied over the radio waves. "We have a plane on the active runway—Budweiser two-seven."

Crusty reached for the throttles. "This is Budweiser two-seven. I'll be clear of the active runway in thirty seconds at the south end."

The engine whine increased, almost as deafening as the buzzing in her brain. The plane surged forward to taxi out of the way. A tight turn in the parking area cranked the C-17 around to face the incoming craft.