Lindsay McKenna - Taking Fire

* * *

TARIK BLINKED. HER RED HAIR was drying like a cloak around her proud shoulders. Cat? Her name was Cat? Or was it a lie? She looked somewhat bemused by his confusion, that wide, beautiful mouth of hers turned up on one corner. His gaze moved to the water bottle in her slender hand. Immediately recognizing it as SEAL issue, he growled, “Who the hell are you, really? And where am I?”

The tension rose in him. She stood casually, her green eyes holding his. There was no fear in them. No sense that he was a prisoner, either. His hands were not bound. And then, Mike focused on the leather thong hanging around her neck. His gaze fell to the pendant at the end of it, and he rasped, “That’s a hog’s tooth.” And then he lifted his chin, glaring at her. “Are you a Marine Corps sniper?” It made sense to him. She wore marine cammies. He remembered someone had fired a .300 Win Mag from the ridgeline, alerting them to the Taliban ambush. But a woman marine sniper? He’d never heard of such a thing. Mike tried to figure out just who she was. A hog’s tooth was given to every marine who successfully completed one of the toughest and most vaunted sniper school courses in the world.

Khat shrugged. “I’m many things, Michael Tarik. What you need to know is that I’m on your side, and that I saved your sorry ass earlier this afternoon.” She leaned down, offering him the bottle of water. “You need to stay hydrated. You were in a really bad firefight earlier.”

He took the bottle, their fingertips meeting. She had a placid expression, her voice husky and smoky. Damn, he was dying of thirst. He set the bottle down and tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Grunting, he struggled, angry he was so damned weak.

* * *

KHAT SAW THE FRUSTRATION on his face with his helplessness. SEALs hated feeling that way. Beads of sweat popped out on his bleached-out flesh. “Stop. I’ll help you sit as long as you don’t try CQD on me.”

Freezing, Tarik looked up at her, breathing hard. He was a damn rag doll, and he hated feeling weak. She was watching him, her hands relaxed at her sides. How did she know about CQD, close quarters defense? SEALs were taught how to hold or kill a person very quickly with a sharp, quick movement.

Wiping his face with his right hand, he muttered defiantly, “How do you know my name?” The bottled water looked so damned good to him, but he couldn’t even twist the lid off it to drink from it.

Khat came within six feet of him, crouching down on her haunches, her elbows resting on her thighs, hands hanging relaxed loose between them. “I called someone to find out who you were. I wanted to let them know I’d rescued you, gave them your medical condition and serial number on your dog tags.” Her thin brows moved downward. “I didn’t want your wife or parents to be called and be told you were missing in action.”

Her husky voice riffled across him, tamping down his anger. The look in her eyes was sad. For him? Mike’s nostrils flared, the pain in his head increasing. “You must have contacted someone in the SEAL HQ, then,” he growled. He saw neither confirmation nor rejection of his statement. She just crouched there, that incredibly beautiful red hair around her shoulders, framing her Middle Eastern face.

“What’s important,” Khat told him seriously, “is that the right people know I have you, and the Taliban doesn’t. Your team is safe. They were picked up about three hours ago by a Night Stalker. They were flown back to Camp Bravo. None were wounded, except for you.”

His eyes rounded. “And you know this how?”

“That’s something I can’t tell you.”

* * *

“YOU’RE AN OPERATOR.”

The frustration in the SEAL’s voice was real. Khat understood why. He was in a crazy situation, something completely out of his league of reality. She remained patient, wanting to get him up and over his bristling defenses and earn his trust so she could give him the water.

“I told you. I’m many things.” She gestured toward the bottle. “You need to drink a lot of water. I’ll come over and help get you into a sitting position, but I don’t want you locking my head and neck and snapping it.” She allowed a hint of a smile. “I’m going to die, but I don’t want to die that way.”

All his anger dissolved as Mike heard the gutting sadness in her voice. Worse, he saw it in her gleaming green eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he muttered.

“Your word?”

His mouth quirked. “Yeah, my word. I need the water.”

Khat nodded and said softly, “I know you do.” She stood and knelt at his right side, sliding her arm beneath his sweaty neck. He grunted as she brought him up into a sitting position. His mouth went flat from pain.

“I’ll give you some morphine as soon as I can get you settled against the wall. Can you scoot back for me?”

It took him more minutes than he cared to think about, but Mike finally had the wall at his back. She was so close. He could smell her, the lye soap she’d used, the clean scent of a woman. When she leaned down to pick up the bottle, the veil of red hair covered her profile. She screwed off the lid of the bottle and looked up at him.

His eyes were feral looking, not quite trusting her, but there was something else that Khat couldn’t decipher. Tarik was ruggedly handsome, and she felt herself being pulled into his lion-gold eyes. She placed the bottle in his right hand. “Here.”

Mike watched her as he drank down the quart of water. Nothing had ever tasted as good as water out in this mountainous desert region.

He watched as she stood, moving like a graceful gazelle. She walked over to the other tunnel where there was a huge stack of water bottles in cardboard cases. They were American. Was she an operator? CIA? He was sure she was Middle Eastern. Her green eyes held a slight tilt to them, giving her face an exotic look.

Khat brought two more bottles, opened them and placed them beside him. She retrieved her medical ruck and knelt at his left side. She watched as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How much pain are you in?” she asked, opening her case.

“Enough that I can’t get up,” he growled unhappily. Mike watched her pull on a pair of latex gloves, pick up a syringe and place the needle on the end of it. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you some pain relief,” she murmured, picking up the bottle of morphine. “You’ll heal faster if you’re not in pain.”

Mike watched Khat pull a very small dose into the syringe. “Are you sure that isn’t a truth drug of some sort?”

She smiled. Taking an alcohol swab, she pulled the flap of his sleeve aside on his upper arm. “Positive.”

Fascinated, he watched her give him the shot of morphine. Or at least, he hoped it was. Every move she made was graceful, and he found himself absolutely mesmerized with Khat. As she put the needle into a sharps container, he asked, “You’re black ops?”

“Don’t try to figure me out, Michael Tarik.” She pulled off the gloves and threw them where the other pair was. Closing the ruck, she looked deep into his eyes. He was wary, and she couldn’t blame him. “I need to examine you.” She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, slid her hand beneath his chin. His flesh tingled. “I’m going to shine the light in your eyes. I need to see if your pupils are equal and responsive or not. Just look straight ahead at me?”

She was so damned close to him. Her touch was firm but gentle. Her breasts beneath that muscle shirt were inches away from his chest as she slowly moved the light from one eye to the other, and then back again. She smelled of fresh air, sunshine and her own unique woman’s scent. He dragged it into his lungs, feeling his entire body respond.