Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (33 page)

She'd wanted to see Jack today, but God, not this way, peering powerlessly through her windscreen as he came in for a crash landing.

Fire streamed from the left wing, trailing out into the night sky. The hulking gray plane screamed toward them.

Helplessness screamed over her just as thunderous. "Tell me what's happening," she asked Crusty as if that gave her control, some kind of active role. "What's he doing? What's he thinking?"

"He's fine, Tiara. Trained. In control."

"Tell me, damn it."

Crusty angled toward her while facing forward. "He's losing fuel fast out the hole in the left. Losing weight.

Which screws with the center of gravity because of all the gas still on the right. He'll be shifting fuel to the left even though it drains, too."

"He's feeding the fire to stay upright?"

"Basically. He needs to land quick. As long as he's going fast, the flames are behind him."

But when he stopped to land...

She listened to Crusty beside her and Jack's voice over the headset, absorbing the words of both men.

Crusty depressed the mike button. "Cobra? Dude, you'd better plant this one. There's threat on the right.

And you can't turn left into that dead engine without crashing. You're not gonna make it around for a second approach. You need to throw it into an inflight thrust reverse."

The C-17 was the only plane in the world that could perform that maneuver. She'd once heard Jack brag about it. But was now the time?

God, it sounded insane, on fire and slowing while still in the air. Once he lost speed, the flames wouldn't be streaming behind. If the plane ignited, he would have nowhere to run. But Crusty was infamous for jerking the plane around, knowing its limits after years as a test pilot.

Please, please be right now.

And suddenly the speed slowed. The plane seemed to hiccup midair. Hard, steep and fast, the C-17 descended, landed.

Lights sparked in front of her eyes as if all those bees in her brain had become lightning bugs. She swayed, grabbed the back of Crusty's headrest to steady herself.

He patted her arm. "Breathe, Major. Breathe."

"Oh. Yeah." She exhaled, gulped in two more breaths until her world steadied and she remembered to listen.

To Jack. On the ground. Alive.

"Alpha, which way do you want us running?" Jack asked.

Oh, God, to think he could sprint out of the plane into enemy territory. She tried to envision where the Rangers might be now.

"Haul ass toward the medivac plane," Colonel Cullen instructed. "I'll have some of my guys cover your six."

Monica gripped the headrest harder, her world flipping all over again, with relief this time. She would see him in minutes. She needed to hold him, warm, solid and alive. Time to quit running from the fact that she loved Jack Korba. Fully. Completely. Not someday, but right this minute and forever.

"Will-co, Alpha," Jack answered. "Heading for the medivac plane pronto. In fact, that works good for me.

'Cause I believe I've been shot in the ass."

Sweat making tracks through the grit on his men's faces, Drew issued orders in person and over the radio.

Sand rode the night wind, thicker by the minute. He inched the Ranger wrap cloth higher over his mouth and nose.

The battle had been won but their work wasn't over. The airfield was secure. The compound taken.

Korba's crew was safe in the medivac.

Gunfire only echoed in his memory now instead of his still-ringing ears. Fast, furious and efficient, they'd implemented their attack plan. Reports of wounded trickled in, but so far no KIA—killed in action—on their side. All their preplanning paying off.

Drew issued orders to begin SSE—sensitive site exploitation—for booby-trapped buildings and un-captured stragglers. Still no sign of Ammar al-Khayr yet. But they would find the bastard.

Something they needed to do fast with the sandstorm rolling in. Once the storm hit, they would have to lock down tight until it passed, which gave those stragglers who were too damned accustomed to sandstorms a chance to maneuver.

He checked his watch, looked up at the opaque sky.

"Colonel!" called a lieutenant from a cement outbuilding twenty yards ahead at the perimeter. "You're going to want to come check this out."

Al-Khayr? God, he hoped he was seconds away from seeing that sadistic son of a bitch.

From the open door, a sergeant escorted someone down the cinderblock steps...another Army sergeant? A man he thought they'd left at the air base.

"What the hell are you doing here, Sergeant?"

"I was ambushed, sir," he answered while shrugging off the last of the knot binding the rope around his wrists. Apparently he hadn't gone down easy if his split lip and torn sleeve were anything to judge by.

Shit. "On patrol?"

"No, sir. A request came in from one of the NGOs for medical assistance for a woman having a tough labor. The officer in charge back at air base assigned me to escort the nurse."

Nurse? A bad, bad feeling spidered up his instincts. "The nurse? One of our military nurses?" he asked, already knowing damned well they would have all been loaded up to go or already out in the field with his group.

"No, sir. We had a volunteer—"

"Colonel," shouted one of his Rangers from across the path. "I think we've got someone over here, too."

Drew charged across, heart thumping in his head as loud as the wind pounding against his ears.
It wasn't
her.
The bad feeling increased with every step closer to the cement outbuilding.
It wasn 't her.
Closer to muffled sounds growing louder.

He would not let it be her.

Hiking his gun up and ready, Drew booted in the door to dark and dust. And a muffled moan. Weapons from his men clicked up and in place.

"Light!" Drew ordered. "I need some light here, damn it."

On command, flashlights arced beams into the room. Streaking across. Landing on a woman clothed in a black dress. She twisted, jerked against the wall without moving forward. Illumination flicked up to...Yasmine's face, a gag in her mouth, her wrists manacled above her head.

Yasmine's arms burned in the sockets. She resisted the urge the arch closer to Drew. Wonderful, big and right-there-alive Drew with his beautiful blue eyes watching her above a camouflage cloth tied over his mouth and nose. During the thundering explosions she'd prayed he would be all right. Prayed he would come to her.

Prayed his men would not level the building first.

"Shit!" Drew charged across the dank cell, kicked over a chair on his way toward her. He reached up, unlooped her tied hands from the hook over her head.

Her arms fell like lead over his helmeted head to land across his shoulders, her hands still bound.

Forget being strong. She sobbed against his chest, from the fear of the past hours of being ambushed and interrogated, from the burning pain in her numb arms with nerve endings shrieking back to life.

From the excruciating thought that she might never see him again and have the chance to find forgiveness in his eyes. That he might be wounded. She'd heard so many cries of pain intermingled with the gunfire. Did not know who...

Drew's gloriously healthy hands worked behind her head to untie the gag.

She gulped in gasps of clean air filled with the scent of him. Sweaty, musky and yes, yes, yes, alive. "You are really all right, Drew? Nothing happened to you tonight?"

"I'm fine." His gruff answer from beneath his camouflaged face wrap didn't reassure her. "Not a scratch on me, ma'am."

Ma'am? How cruel he could be.

But he was rattled, too. She knew it. Believed it. Embraced it as firmly as she wanted to embrace him.

He ducked from under her arms, careful not to jostle her, then looked back over his shoulder at the soldiers standing wide-eyed. "Check the perimeter around this building, make sure it's secure before sight lines go to shit in the sandstorm. You've probably got about five minutes tops."

Once they cleared the doorway, he tried to untie her wrists. Puffy flesh swelled over hemp. Blood soaked the rope, pulling it tighter.

Drew's curse cut the air a second before he whipped out a knife. Large hands so gentle, he sawed through the binding, massaged feeling back into her fingers while she stared at the top of his helmet as he bent over his task. She bit back an instinctive cry of pain just to keep his hands on her again.

"How is my sister?" she finally dared ask. "How is Sydney?"

"She's fine, secured and under guard. Both of your sisters are safe."

Relief left her dizzy.

"Are you okay? They didn't—" his hands continued the tender touch in spite of his icy tones "—assault you, attack you in any way, lay one goddamned finger on you."

"No. No. They did not assault me."

The big man in front of her swayed. Then his eyes snapped open, snapped with anger, as well. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Tender time over.

"They set a trap for me, lured me out with a concocted story about a pregnant woman in labor. Please, please say the sergeant who accompanied me is all right."

"He's fine. Right across the path with my radio operator."

Drew swiped down his face cloth until it fell like a bandana around his neck. He picked up the radio from the floor. When had he dropped it? Perhaps when he'd reached to free her. Her eyes skittered to the hook.

Shuddering, she wrapped her tingling arms around her waist and turned her back on the image.

Striding across the room, Drew barked orders into his radio. He opened the door. A blast of wind yanked it from his grip, slammed it to the wall. Sand exploded inside in sheets. So quickly these storms came, something she knew and even still it took her by surprise.

"Damn it!" Drew grabbed for the door, braced his shoulder on the back and forced it closed again.

Click. The door closed. Sand settled.

They were alone.

Drew continued to keep his eyes off her, his attention glued to his radio. "Pass the order down the chain.

Take cover. Do your damnedest to enter only sites that have already been through SSE. Bottom line, get the men out of this shit, but maintain perimeter security."

His flashlight cast strobe effects as he walked and talked and surveyed the dark, cement room. Finally he placed the radio on a ledge, voices and different frequencies squawking through.

He turned toward her, sweaty, streaked with soot, mud. Blood. His poster-worthy face seemed more like something that graced a dark and sad war flick.

The Colonel. The battle-hardened soldier. She should have been scared.

Instead she wanted to hug him, give him somewhere soft to sleep. But their last parting had been full of hurt. Final. She waited, watched.

He closed the last five feet between them. She held her breath. Wanted. What? Everything.

Drew hitched the flashlight high, shone the beam down on her face. His knuckles skimmed her bruised cheek. "You're sure you're all right?"

She stared up into blue eyes still full of distrust. Anger. Hurt. "Ammar slapped me around a bit to see if I knew anything about your plans. He was suspicious since I had not reported in."

"You could have told him and saved yourself a lot of pain." His fingers fell away along with the blinding beam.

She blinked to adjust. "I knew I would not have to wait long."

"I appreciate your confidence."

"Thank you. Even if you would have done the same for a ninety-year-old woman with three days left to live. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he clipped, pacing around the near-empty cell like a caged tiger with his flashlight checking every corner for...what?

She stood in the center of the room and pivoted in a circle, watching him while rubbing her chapped wrists.

"I am sorry."

He righted the chair he'd kicked aside when charging to unhook her. "Uh-huh."

"Do we have to be miserable in here together?"

Drew stopped, faced her, scowled. "Sorry, but I'm not much in the mood to drop my pants and keep you occupied with more scarf play."

He retrieved his radio off the ledge and dropped to sit on the floor. Back against the wall. Facing the door with his rifle resting against the wall beside him.

Hurt slapped across her harder than Ammar's hand ever could have. Hurt over Drew's careless dismissal of what they'd shared. Over the notion she might never feel the excitement of his hands on her bare skin again. "There is no need to mock me."

"Why not? You've been making a fool out of me since day one."

She shuffled across the dusty floor to him. "Is that what you think I was doing?''

"Think?" Flashlight propped beside him, he studied the radio clasped in his hands between his bent knees.

"No. It's exactly what you did."

"That was not my intention." She stemmed a torrent of emotional, defensive words that would only shut him down. She needed to be logical. This could be her last chance to talk to him.

Be reasonable. So difficult when she wanted to curl up against him and forget the fear of being questioned.

Instead she lowered herself to sit beside him. He'd used the word "fool."

Ego.

Ah, how could she have forgotten the power of the male ego? This man's ego just needed to be stroked with reason rather than her hands right now. Hopefully hands later, too. "As you said, I had security in place back at your air base. Why would I have slept with you then unless I wanted to?"

"Insurance."

"You know me better than that."

"No. I don't."

That stung. She knew this man in her soul and he called her a stranger.

Or was that ego again? Defensiveness? How ironic that the biggest, bravest of men could have the most tender hearts. Not that she would dare risk mentioning that to him.

She
had
hurt him, which meant he cared after all. But instead of rejoicing, she could not get past an ache in her heart and the need to cry all over again. "My name is Yasmine Halibiz. I am a twenty-three-year-old nurse who—''

"This isn't necessary—"