Tactical Strike (23 page)

They found the others gathered at the LZ about a kilometer
away, the ODA team providing perimeter security for the wounded and her crew.
Candace nodded to her crew members, all gathered around Gillespie, who’d
regained consciousness. Of course, one member of their team was noticeably
absent. Her throat tightened as she blinked back tears.

Ryan’s arm tightened around her shoulders, gathering her in
close. “Hear that?”

Tipping her head slightly, she listened and finally caught the
faint pulse of rotors in the distance. She closed her eyes. “Sweetest sound in
the world.”

“I heard much sweeter coming from you that day in your bunk,”
he teased softly.

The comment took her off guard so much that she laughed despite
herself, in spite of all the blood and death and destruction, the constant fear
and cold. Here he was, covered in blood with the side of his face laid open, and
he was flirting with her. “Watch yourself, Sergeant.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He squeezed her.

Breaking through the clouds, the CSAR team appeared in the dull
gray sky, and they weren’t messing around. The Chinook had two DAP Black Hawks
and two Apache attack helicopters as escorts. Apparently headquarters wasn’t
taking any chances with the extraction.

The Apaches hovered above the LZ while the Chinook touched
down, the Black Hawks flanking it. Gunners stood in the helos’ open doorways,
manning their sixty cals.

Turning away slightly to avoid the snow and dust whipped up by
the Chinook’s huge rotor wash, Candace stayed back with Ryan as soldiers burst
out from its tail ramp. The CSAR team secured the area and gathered up the
survivors, herding them on board while other medics took charge of the
wounded.

Watching the scene in front of them unfold, Ryan straightened
suddenly. “Look, it’s Cam,” he said to her over the noise of the engines,
pointing.

She followed his gaze to the man crouched next to Gillespie.
Holy crap, it
was
Cam. Staying close to Ryan, she
hurried over with him.

Cam glanced up from the wounds he was treating on Gillespie’s
stomach and gave a relieved smile when he saw them. “You two are a sight for
sore eyes,” he called out. “You guys all right?”

“He needs some stitches,” Candace answered, “but otherwise
we’re okay.”

Cam nodded to someone behind them. “Jackson’ll take a look when
he’s done over there.”

Jackson was here too? Glancing over, she found him next to the
badly wounded ODA member, injecting something into his IV line.

“We’ll secure the area,” Cam continued. “You two go ahead and
climb aboard, get some blankets around you.”

Blankets. Oh, man, that sounded like heaven. With an arm banded
around Ryan’s waist, she walked with him to the tail ramp and inside the
Chinook’s belly. Most of the others were already aboard. Two of her crew members
came over with blankets for them. Candace tucked one around Ryan despite his
protests and took over holding the gauze against his face. He’d lost a lot of
blood; he had to be dead tired. She leaned her forehead against his temple on
the uninjured side. “We’re getting out of here.” It seemed unbelievable.

“Yeah,” he murmured, settling her deeper into the curve of his
body. Out of the elements and with the thick blanket around them, their combined
body heat slowly began to penetrate her jacket and flight suit. The tremors in
her muscles lessened.

A few minutes passed as the remaining soldiers climbed aboard,
and then Jackson hunkered down in front of them. “Heard you need some plastic
surgery,” he said to Ryan, his dark eyes dancing with amusement.

“Don’t make me too perfect, doc. I still want to look badass
when you’re done.”

“I’m just going to keep the edges together to slow the bleeding
until we get to base. You don’t want me stitching your face through turbulence
on our way back.”

“Good call.”

Candace reached out to put a hand on the PJ’s arm. “We had to
leave some KIA up the mountain. Are they—”

“Already taken care of. Some of our guys on one of the Black
Hawks are going back for them as soon as we lift off. They’ll bring them home, I
promise.”

That was all she could ask. Nodding, she eased back under the
blankets and curled up close to Ryan. Jackson finished his patch job a few
minutes later and moved on to his next patient.

Safe at last, Candace allowed herself to mentally check out.
Shutting her eyes, she tuned everything and everyone out but Ryan. In those long
minutes he was her whole world, the anchor for her to cling to. Focusing on the
warm, solid feel of him next to her, she was only vaguely aware of the change in
the pitch of the engines and tilt of the helo’s deck as the Chinook lifted off
and rose into the sky, carrying them back to Bagram.

Chapter Eighteen

The goddamn vultures were circling already.

Already fired up from finding out the CSAR group had just
returned but not knowing any details, Maya strode toward the hospital’s main
entrance, where the throng of media crews had gathered. She needed to know about
Ace or she’d go crazy.

She didn’t trust easily and had trouble warming up to people,
but Ace was her closest friend. One of her
only
friends on base. She liked her other roommates well enough, but she wasn’t tight
with them. The thought of finding out Ace had been wounded or worse made Maya’s
heart pound and her palms go all clammy.

The camera crews were milling about again, talking among
themselves, and the continual background buzz of their voices as she approached
ratcheted her inner tension that much higher. Wouldn’t they all just love to be
the first to report some juicy detail about what had happened to the senator’s
missing daughter? They’d probably love it even more if she were hideously
wounded or dead. The ratings back home would skyrocket.

Along with her fists, her lip curled in disgust. If any of them
got in her way, they’d be sorry. She was not in the mood to be messed with.

“Let me through,” she barked as she approached, none too gently
pushing her way through the throng in front of the entrance.

They all fell silent at her sudden exclamation, wisely stepping
out of her path when they saw the look on her face. She was almost to the door
when someone grabbed her upper arm.

Oh
,
hell
no
.

Throwing it off, she whirled around and found herself glaring a
hole into a tall, willowy redhead’s face. The clueless woman grabbed her forearm
this time, oblivious to how close Maya was to snapping that delicate wrist, and
shoved a microphone toward her. “Are you here to see about Captain
Bradford?”

It took everything Maya had not to grab the lapels of that
fancy green suit jacket and snarl in her face. “None of your business. Now get
your hand off me before I remove it for you.”

She glared up at the stunned reporter in silent challenge,
fully intending to back up her words with action. The woman must have sensed she
was for real, because she let go and took a hasty step back, a startled
expression on her perfectly made-up face.

A security officer briefly stopped her at the door to check her
credentials then let her through. Inside, she paused to pull in a calming
breath.
Dios
, she resented reporters. They were
always snooping around and causing trouble, hungry for the story and not giving
a crap about operational security or the lives they endangered by spilling
things they had no right to. Breaking the wrong kind of story about Ace could
ruin her friend’s career. And her father’s.

The hospital was a quiet flurry of activity. Staff rushed to
and from the exam and treatment rooms, some of them wearing blood-stained scrubs
that told her they’d already begun tending to the newly arrived wounded. Maya’s
stomach took a nosedive. She didn’t want it to be Ace’s blood.

At the admitting desk the triage nurses wouldn’t tell her
anything about who’d been brought in, and the first few treatment rooms were
curtained off so she couldn’t see inside. Her roommate, Erin, was nowhere to be
found. But Maya wasn’t leaving until she found out what had happened to Ace.

Rounding a corner, down another hallway she spotted another
medical crew hauling in two new patients on gurneys. And that PJ, Jackson, stood
there at the end, talking to a surgeon by a set of double doors leading to one
of the ORs. He wore latex gloves that were stained with blood as though he’d
just been working on a patient. From their solemn expressions and the length of
the conversation, things looked pretty serious.

Please
let
Ace
be
okay
.

Maya hung back until the doctor left, then went straight for
Jackson. “Hey,” she called.

He swung around in the middle of stripping off those stained
gloves, his clear, dark eyes filled with surprise at finding her there.
“Hey.”

He looked a bit tired but otherwise unhurt. Surprised at how
much that relieved her, she got down to business, needing to find out what was
going on. “Did you come in with Ace? Is she okay?”

“She’s okay.”

She stopped and closed her eyes in relief, one hand pressing to
her chest over her pounding heart. When she opened them, she found him wearing a
half smile as he pivoted and resumed walking. That smile had to mean good news,
right? Maya followed. “What exactly does
okay
mean?”

“It means she’ll be fine.”

Uh-oh. “Wait. Fine as in she’s hurt but going to be okay? Or
fine as in she’s
not
hurt?” Because there was a big
damn difference there that she needed clarified.

“She’s not hurt.” He kept walking toward one of the treatment
rooms as if he assumed she’d follow. Or that he didn’t give a shit whether she
did or not. It annoyed her that she followed, trailing after him like some eager
puppy.

“What happened to her out there? Was she captured?” On the run?
Were her crew members among the casualties? Because that would eat Ace
alive.

“Can’t tell you that,” he said evenly.

“Well what
can
you tell me?” His
evasiveness was driving her bat-shit crazy. He had to see how worried she
was.

“Only what I already have.” Giving her a quelling look, he
stripped off the other glove and tossed them both into a biohazard bag. “What’s
with the media circus?” he finally asked, nodding toward the front entrance,
where the news crews waited to pounce on the first juicy morsel about the rescue
operation and casualties involved.

“As you can imagine, Ace’s story has been getting a lot of
media attention since the story first broke. When someone found out about you
guys returning with casualties, they swarmed like sharks at a feeding
frenzy.”

“I’ll bet.” He made a revolted face that mirrored her
sentiments exactly and turned to leave.

Dismissing her without another word.

Stung, Maya’s hackles went up. “That’s it? You’re not gonna
tell me anything else?” she called after him.

He didn’t look back. “I can’t tell you anything else.”

“Bullshit.” This barely-able-to-string-a-sentence-together
thing of his was too much right now. Catching up to him, she grabbed his arm,
much like the reporter had done to her. Only she was aware of just how strong
and solid the biceps and triceps in this arm were beneath her hand.

Swinging around, he stopped and threw her an annoyed look.

She set her jaw. “Where is she? Can I see her?”

“Don’t know. You’ll have to ask one of the nurses. I’ve got
things to do.” He pulled his arm free and walked away.

Was he kidding? “Hey!”

He didn’t stop. What the
hell
? Why
wouldn’t he help her?

Outraged, she hurried after him, muttering under her breath in
Spanish about what a self-righteous prick he was, and called him a
less-than-flattering name. “
Maldito
.”

He whirled so fast she almost ran into him. Before she could
blink, he’d backed her into an exam room and had her spine pressed against the
wall with his hands on either side of her head, caging her in. Too stunned to
resist, she tipped her head back and met his eyes. The absolute fury burning in
that dark gaze was so unexpected that she couldn’t move, much less respond. Her
mouth went dry.

“My name is
Jackson
,” he snarled in
a near whisper, eyes boring into hers.

She knew what his damn name was. Recovering from her shock,
Maya glared right back, though she was secretly shaken enough that she couldn’t
think up a decent comeback.

Jackson didn’t release her. No, he leaned a few inches closer,
close enough that she could catch the scent of wintergreen on his breath and
feel his body heat coming through his ACUs. Confronted by the raw masculine
power of him, a sudden, delicious wave of desire swept through her. Her skin
tingled, the erotic heat making her nipples harden and her sex swell.

Holy
shit
.

For the life of her, she couldn’t look away from that searing
gaze. He was seriously pissed off.

“Say it,” he rasped softly, apparently unwilling to let this
go. His eyes demanded she give in, that powerful body surrounding her, trapping
her.

Still unable to find her voice, Maya licked her lips, too
stunned by this abrupt transformation in him to answer. She never would have
guessed he had this much fire in him. Her brain had shut down the moment he’d
trapped her with his body. The confrontation made her want to push him a little
further, just to see what he’d do.

“
Say
it,” he demanded tightly, the
muscles in his jaw pulled tight, brows lowered.

She swallowed past the dryness in her throat, still reeling
from her body’s reaction to him. Her pulse was racing, her skin alive with
tingles. Licking her lips, belly jumping at the way his gaze narrowed on her
mouth, she found her voice. “Jackson,” she finally whispered. It came out all
soft and breathless, but she couldn’t control that any more than she could
control her body’s instinctive response to his sudden show of forcefulness.

Unmoving, Jackson stared down at her for a long, charged
moment, his eyes flashing with something close to triumph. For one crazy moment
she was sure he was going to kiss her. Then he eased back, slowly, allowing her
to take her first deep breath since he’d trapped her against the wall. “Don’t
forget it,” he said in a low voice.

Maya didn’t dare reply.

Pushing back from the wall with a final warning look, he headed
for the double doors at the end of the hall without a backward glance.

Heart pounding, legs strangely weak, Maya stared after him, her
gaze sweeping over the line of his broad shoulders, down to his lean hips as he
disappeared through the double doors. No, she wouldn’t forget this encounter.
And neither would he, she vowed. She’d make sure of that.

Because if he’d wanted to get her attention, he certainly had
it now.

* * *

The doctor had just finished checking her vitals and
giving Candace a thorough once over when Erin peeked in the door of the exam
room. The nurse’s pretty green eyes were full of alarm as she swept them over
her, taking in all the blood staining her clothes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” she replied with a half smile, waving her
in.

“She’s better than good,” the doctor said, washing his hands in
the sink on the far wall. “Aside from a few cuts and bruises, it’s nothing some
R and R and a few good nights’ sleep won’t fix.”

Candace didn’t think it was going to be that easy. In fact, she
knew it wasn’t.

Erin was still staring at her blood-spattered uniform. “Whose
blood is that, then?”

“Ry—Sergeant Wentworth’s.”

Erin’s eyes widened in alarm. “The combat controller? How bad
was he hit?”

“I think he’ll be okay, other than needing some stitches in his
face. I guess you haven’t seen him then, huh?” she asked, gripping the edge of
the exam table. So far nobody had been able to tell her where he’d gone.

“Sorry, no. I ran straight over when someone told me the CSAR
team might have found you.” Erin stayed near the door, moving aside to let the
doctor pass on his way out.

“C’mere.” Beckoning her over with an outstretched arm, Candace
blinked back tears. It felt so good to be back someplace safe where she had
friends who cared about her so much.

Erin stepped right into the embrace, arms squeezing hard around
her back. “God, we’ve all been worried sick about you. Honor and I have been
glued to the news stations, and Maya’s been all over the base trying to dig
information out of anyone she can. She’s on a rampage.”

“This is why I love you guys,” Candace said huskily. Her throat
was getting tighter by the moment, the precarious thread of control she clung to
slipping. Easing away from Erin, she blew out a breath and ran an unsteady hand
through her hair. “Any chance I can steal a shower here?” She needed the
privacy.

Erin’s eyes softened with sympathy. “Of course you can. Come
on—I’ll get you some towels then find something clean for you to wear
afterward.”

“Thanks.”

Erin tucked an arm through hers and leaned her head against
Candace’s shoulder as they started for the door. “Just glad you’re back safe and
sound, woman.”

Once she got Candace settled in the shower room, Erin handed
her a toothbrush and left. The silence felt strange. Jarring. But it also meant
no one was around to hear her, so there was no need to hold everything in
anymore. It was safe to let go.

She let it come. The tears rose swift and hot. Stripping out of
the ruined flight suit, she peeled it off and set it in the corner before
starting the hot water. It was more warm than hot, but if felt indescribably
good on her body and the moment she stepped beneath the spray, she stopped
fighting the inevitable. Bracing her hands on the tiled wall, she bowed her head
and let the dam burst inside her.

Great, shuddering sobs tore through her. Her throat ached from
the effort of muffling them, on the off-chance someone passing by in the hall
might overhear her. The tears poured fast and free down her face, mixing with
the shower sluicing over her. Her muscles trembled in a wild mix of grief, fear,
relief and exhaustion. She must have cried for almost ten minutes before the
water began to cool. Pulling herself together, she sucked in choppy breaths and
quickly washed her hair and skin, scrubbing away the grime of sweat, blood and
death until her skin glowed pink. Brushing her teeth helped too, the bracing
tingle of mint on her tongue taking away the awful coating in her mouth.