Shattered (15 page)

Although Kirby wasn’t thrilled about being thrown together with Shane, she had to admit that Zach Tremayne’s plan sounded feasible.

While the two of them were in Monteleón, hopefully calming Vasquez’s fears that American Special Operations troops might invade to free Rachel, the rest of the team—who’d take a Zodiac rubber boat in from a private yacht anchored offshore—would land in Costa Rica, where the coast was less guarded, then cross the border.

Meanwhile, she and Shane would meet up with the CIA station chief and the agents who’d leave the country in their place, then, after dyeing her hair—to more easily blend in with the general population—and pretending to be tourists, they’d drive to the Mayan ruin of Tzultacaj, where they’d rendezvous with the others. After which they’d head off through the jungle to the clinic.

And then, she was assured, the bad guys would be eliminated, and they’d all helo out, under the cover of darkness and below radar, across the border back into Costa Rica.

When Kirby asked where, exactly, they were going to acquire this helicopter, she was simply told not to worry, that they were experts at “getting stuff.”

“We’re going to need to get you something to wear,” Shane said.

“I have clothes.” Her suit and the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn on the plane.

“Wow, I never realized you were psychic,” he said. “Or maybe you just believe in planning for any contingency, because bringing along a hat, gloves, boots, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts for trekking through the jungle with you to Washington, D.C., was really thinking ahead.”

Damn. He had her there.

“All right,” Kirby admitted. “You’re right. All my jungle stuff is back at the clinic.” Which, if she could get to, this entire mission would be unnecessary.

“We’ll stop on the way to Swannsea,” Shane decided.

Although she’d just as soon not spend all that time alone with him, Kirby couldn’t argue that it made more sense buying the clothes she’d need here, rather than waiting until she got down to Monteleón. Especially since Vasquez, who’d undoubtedly have his goons trailing them, would have to wonder why she was out buying jungle attire if she was planning to immediately return to the States.

“Good idea.” Zach dug into the pocket of his suit trousers and pulled out the keys to the red Viper convertible he’d retrieved from the short-term parking at the Somersett airport. During the drive to these offices, Kirby had gotten a very good feeling what it must feel like to ride in a rocket. “Kirby’s luggage is in my trunk.”

“Would you mind getting it for me?” she asked Shane. “I’d like a minute to speak to Doctor Gannon.” She glanced over at the doctor, who, apparently believing in ceding control to the former Special Ops experts, had stayed silent during most of the planning.

“I can wait,” Shane said.

“Privately,” she said.

He glanced back and forth between her and Michael Gannon, then shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got to bring the keys back to Zach, anyway.”

Zach and Quinn obliged Kirby by suddenly finding other things to do, leaving the two of them alone “How is she?” Michael asked. “At least when you last saw her yesterday morning?”

“Well. Better than well. Ever since the senator told me about what happened, I’ve been reminding myself that she’s the most unflappable person—male or female—I’ve ever met.”

Well, Shane had certainly remained equally unflappable both times she’d seen him injured. But there’d been nothing cool about the rest of their time together.

“She always was.” A slight smile lifted the corners of those beautifully sculptured lips. “Most of the time, anyway.”

Even if she hadn’t already heard about their affair from Rachel herself, Kirby would have known exactly what he was thinking from the way his eyes warmed with what appeared to be sensual memories.

“She isn’t married,” she volunteered, trying to rid her mind of the sudden image of Rachel and the former priest making love on an army cot while bombs burst overhead. “Hasn’t been for a long time.”

This time the smile broke free. And it was stunning. “Thanks for not making me ask.”

“She talked about you.” Kirby paused, wondering how much to tell. Then decided, What the hell. “She regrets how things turned out between you.”

He immediately sobered. “Well, she’s not alone there.” He exhaled a long breath. “They’re good.” He nodded toward the door. “Those men. At what they do.”

“I don’t know what they’ve told you about their time in Afghanistan,” she said carefully, not wanting to tell tales or share secrets, “but I’ve certainly never met anyone, before or since, who could have accomplished what they did that day.”

Kirby knew that as worried as she was, it had to be worse for Michael. Because from what she could tell, he was still emotionally connected to the woman with whom he’d shared a wartime affair.

And couldn’t she identify with that?

“That’s good to know.” He nodded. “I worked, in an advisory capacity, with Quinn and Cait—that’s the woman McKade’s going to marry—on a serial sniper case a while back. He was relentless. And highly intelligent.”

“That’s how I see him.”

“I don’t know the man who couldn’t take his eyes off you as well as I know Zach, who I used to play football against back in ancient times when he went to school on Swann Island and I attended St. Brendan’s, or even as well as I’ve come to know Quinn. But from what I’ve witnessed, Garrett didn’t merely recite that code of honor when he became a Night Stalker. He lives it on a daily basis.”

Except when he was dumping a lover.

Which, Kirby allowed, wasn’t entirely fair.

Bracing herself as the former priest’s gaze shifted to the open door, Kirby slowly turned.

And felt her pulse skip a beat at the sight of Shane standing there.

“Ready?” he asked.

Yes, yes, yes! every mutinous body cell in her body screamed out.

“Ready,” she said on what she thought was a remarkably mild tone, given that she had an almost overwhelming urge to jump his bones.

“So,” Shane asked, as they walked out of the building side by side, “I guess you and Mike were talking about Dr. Moore.”

“She still loves him,” Kirby said. “I thought he’d like to know that.”

“Well, since it’s obvious he’s still wild about her, there’s all the more reason to get them back together.”

He stopped beside a black pickup. Which was a bit of a surprise, since she would’ve expected him to have some hot sports car, like other pilots she’d met over the years.

“You know, maybe this will turn out to be a good thing,” he suggested.

The truck beeped as he unlocked the passenger door. She found it telling that although it was parked in probably the most secure spot in the city, he’d still locked it. Then wondered, once you’d worked in Special Operations, if you could ever totally trust anyone.

“I fail to see how there could be anything positive about my friend being a hostage held by armed rebels in the jungle.”

“Once we exfil her, since returning to the country will obviously be out of the question after this, you can come back and work here in the States.”

“Although there’s admittedly a great need for affordable, even free health care, WMR doesn’t work in the U.S.” She climbed into the truck, which was cleaner than many of the places she’d performed surgery. She wondered if it was his pilot’s attention to detail that made him neater than most men. “So I guess I’ll end up wherever they send me next.”

She watched him walk around the front of the truck. Except for the faintest limp, she would never have guessed he was wearing a prosthesis. The doctor in her was dying to see it, to ask medical questions, but she decided to wait until he brought it up. After all, it seemed they were going to be spending a lot of time together.

“That’s really admirable, what you do,” he said as he settled into a charcoal gray bucket seat. Again, with seemingly little effort. She really wanted to see that leg. “Don’t your parents ever worry about the way you put yourself at risk?”

“No more than they worried when I joined the Army,” she said with a shrug. They’d been appalled at that decision. “Of course, I don’t tell them everything.”

She had learned, before rushing off to Pakistan, that her parents had stopped watching the TV newscast because the pictures from the Sudan were keeping her mother awake all night.

“That’s probably best,” he agreed, as he twisted the key in the ignition. “My dad was in ’Nam, so I don’t really have to tell him how war is, because he already knows. And being a grunt in the jungle had to be a lot tougher than JAG or SOAR.”

“JAG?”

“I told you I was in the Navy before I jumped ship to the Army,” he reminded her.

“Because you wanted to fly,” she remembered. “Which the Navy wouldn’t let you do. But the Army would. You never mentioned being in the JAG corps.”

Apparently, people leaving the Phoenix Team compound didn’t need the same security pupil check as those entering, because after scanning a card he’d retrieved from the pocket of his jeans, the tall gate immediately opened.

“I guess it never came up.”

Kirby was floored. JAG was more than just a sexy TV show. The Judge Advocate General’s corps was one of the most respected units in the military. And, she’d heard, one of the most difficult to get into. Since it dealt with military legal issues, it was undoubtedly also one of the safest.

Yet he’d left behind the snazzy dress whites to end up flying night combat missions in Afghanistan?

“Why?”

“I suppose because we were otherwise occupied having sex like bunnies to talk all that much.”

“No, I don’t mean why didn’t it come up, though it does seem that it was a fairly important bit of biography,” she said. “I meant, why did you join JAG in the first place?”

“It’s a long story.” He glanced over at her. “And one for another time, since I believe we were talking about you.”

She considered keeping her thoughts, which she was still trying to sort out, to herself. Then admitted that if she wanted to know more about him—and she definitely did—then it was only fair she share something personal about herself.

“The longer I spent in Iraq, the more I started to feel as if I was just a cog in a machine. It was like working at McDonald’s: Get the customers in, get them out.”

“You were good at that,” he remembered. “Working fast.”

“I had a great team,” she said. “But it was pretty basic medicine: stop the bleeding, put in an air tube, send the patients back to camp, or on to a better-equipped trauma center. There were times when things got really hectic—which they did on an almost-daily basis, since we were also treating Iraqi civilians, and even, in some cases, the insurgents themselves—that I never had the opportunity to learn my patients’ names.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Don’t forget, I saw you stop and pray with that one Spec Ops guy over a patient you couldn’t save.”

“That was a rough day.” She remembered it all too well. Partly because it was the day they’d first made love. “But we always tried to stop and acknowledge the ones we lost,” she said, remembering the chaplain who welcomed every soldier to Landstuhl, unconscious or not. “And I doubt I’ll ever forget any of their faces.” Or what had been left of some faces. “But unless they returned with another injury, I never knew what happened to them after they left the Cash.”

Shane had returned. Not because he’d been injured, but because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her any more than she’d been able to stop thinking about him.

Kirby didn’t believe in love at first sight. But she’d certainly discovered the power of instant lust.

“What I found at WMR was a way to reconnect with my humanity,” she said. “I once worked with a male nurse who’d earned money for college fighting fires in the West. He claimed that being a relief worker was a lot like being a smoke jumper, which I suppose may be partly true, given that we’re always the first in.”

“Gotta be a rush in that.”

She wasn’t surprised he understood. Which, she considered, might be, along with the sex, why they hadn’t talked all that much. They hadn’t needed to, since, unlike if she’d tried dating a civilian, they “got” each others’ worlds.

“There is. But in the beginning, being able to identify myself as a WMR doctor also gave me a sort of peace.”

He glanced over at her again. Because he’d put on a pair of aviator sunglasses, she couldn’t see his eyes. But she could tell that instead of just passing time with casual conversation, he was actually listening. Taking what she said—and didn’t say—in.

“Hard to imagine finding peace in the kind of places relief doctors go.”

“Not a quiet kind of peace, like sitting in a bubble bath, drinking tea while reading a romance novel.” For some reason she found herself about to share something she’d never told to anyone. She didn’t even like to dwell on it herself. “Or meditating.” Like there’d been any time for that. “More an inner peace. Because whether I was inoculating a child against smallpox, or teaching a mother how to spoon-feed her child, or even supervising the digging of a latrine, I could see firsthand the value of what I was doing. Which was a gift.”

“You say was.”