Six Minutes to Midnight

by Elle James

  Kinsley waited nearby, feeling more hopeful than she had since they got separated from the rest of the SEAL team.

  When T-Mac completed the call, he smiled in her direction, making her day brighter. “They’re sending a helicopter to collect us. They should be here in two hours.”

  “What about the motor-pool truck?” she asked.

  “I mentioned it to Commander Ward. He didn’t give a damn about the truck.” T-Mac grinned. “He was just glad to hear from us. They sent a couple of Black Hawks out to the site this morning. Everyone was gone.”

  “We expected that. They were packing up when you hit them with the explosions.”

  T-Mac nodded. “The commander figured we might have had something to do with the abandoned vehicles and scorched fuel barrels.”

  “You did a number on them.” Kinsley glanced around the little town. “I don’t suppose we could find some food here?” she suggested.

  “I’m hungry too, but I’d just as soon wait until we get back to Camp Lemonnier. At least I’ll know what I’m eating.”

  “Agreed.” Her belly rumbled loudly. “Where will they land the choppers?”

  “On the road headed northeast out of town,” T-Mac said. He paid the man for the fuel, thanked him for the use of the phone and held the passenger door while Kinsley climbed up into the cab.

  In silence, T-Mac closed the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. He sat for a moment with his hand on the key. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it without uttering a word.

  Kinsley wondered what he’d been about to say, but didn’t ask. Her emotions were still on overload from making love to the man the previous night, followed by the adrenaline rush of being attacked.

  If he said anything about forgetting what happened, or pretending it never did, she wasn’t sure how she’d react. The only thing she was certain of was that her heart was 100 percent involved.

  Dang. She didn’t need that kind of complication.

  Chapter Thirteen

  T-Mac drove a few miles out of the small town and parked the truck in a clear area with only one tree for hundreds of yards. The helicopter would be able to land easily, and T-Mac would be able to watch both directions. If Al-Shabaab decided to send more mercenaries their way, T-Mac needed to see them enough in advance to know whether they should stand fast and defend or run.

  For the time being, the road was clear and the sun shone down, burning into the roof of the vehicle, making it unbearably hot inside.

  “I’ll park in the shade.” He positioned the truck beneath the low-hanging branches. Then he climbed down, rounded the hood to the other side and opened the door for Kinsley.

  He held out his hand. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Kinsley laid her fingers across his palm, but didn’t get out of the truck immediately. “About last night...” Her voice was low, husky and sexy as hell.

  T-Mac’s groin tightened at the mere mention of the previous night. “What about it?”

  “We’re headed back to camp,” she blurted out.

  He gave her a tight little smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. My career is just as much on the line as yours.”

  She laughed, the sound more nervous than humorous. “No. I mean... I just...” Kinsley flung her hands in the air. “What I’m trying to say is—” She threw herself into his arms and kissed him long and hard.

  T-Mac gathered her into his arms and held her in the air, holding her tightly against him, his tongue thrusting between her teeth to sweep across hers.

  When he at last lowered her to the ground, he lifted his head and sighed. “We won’t get the chance to do that back at the base.”

  She laughed and leaned her forehead against his chest for a moment. “No, we won’t.”

  He tipped her chin upward. “What are we going to do about us?”

  Kinsley shook her head. “I don’t think there can be an us. Not when we’re both on active duty, and we’ll be going our separate ways as soon as we leave Djibouti.”

  “It’s hard to believe we’ve only known each other a few days. I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime.”

  “And I you.” She smiled. “And yet, I don’t know anything about you. Like what’s your favorite color? Do you have any siblings? Are your parents still alive? Where did you grow up?” She cupped his cheek. “None of that matters because I know you here.” Her hand moved from his face to his chest. “You’re loyal. You care about your team. You take your duty seriously and you love animals. Those are the big things. The rest is just data.”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Blue.” And kissed the tip of her nose. “You already know I have one sister.” He swept his lips across hers. “Yes, my folks are still alive, and before you lost your memory, I told you how I grew up on my father’s farm in Nebraska.” He held her face between his palms and kissed her lightly. “And I know very little about you, but I know you can fire a rifle, you aren’t afraid of going into enemy territory, you can hold your own as a soldier in the army, you care about Agar. You care about your country and you care enough about me to take out a truck driver and two men on motorcycles.”

  “To be fair, you lit their world on fire with a little C-4.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed gently. “I’ll be sad when you leave with your team to redeploy back to the States.”

  “And I’ll be sad when I go.” He shook his head. “Maybe we’ll see each other back home,” he said hopefully.

  “The most likely scenario is that you’ll be in Virginia, I’ll go back to San Antonio or somewhere else equally distant, and we’ll get on with our lives and never see each other again.”

  “Wow, a little negative much?” He brushed a strand of her hair from her face. “I prefer my version.”

  “I do, too. But reality is, we’re both committed to our careers. We’ve trained hard to get where we are today. Jetting back and forth across the country or around the world isn’t realistic.”

  “I’ll tell you what.” He rested his hand on her hips. “If we’re both still single—and since I’m a SEAL, I’m pretty sure that’ll be the case for me—can we at least meet on the anniversary of our night in Somalia?”

  She smiled. “Sure. Why not? But only if we’re both single.”

  “Good. Then I’ll have a date.” He captured her face in his hands. “But for now I’d like to take advantage of the little bit of time we have alone together to hold you and kiss you.”

  “I’m in.” She snuggled close to him, despite the heat of the desert sun cooking the landscape around them.

  Kinsley gave Agar some water from her CamelBak thermos. Then the three of them settled on the ground in the shade of the tree and waited for the helicopter to arrive.

  Agar slept while T-Mac kissed Kinsley, held her hand and talked.

  While they waited for their transport, T-Mac learned Kinsley’s favorite color was red, she had no siblings and her father had passed. She liked watching NFL football but sadly wasn’t a Dallas Cowboys fan, preferring the Denver Broncos. She grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and joined the army to earn money for college. She stayed because she enjoyed working with the dogs.

  “I like camping and fishing but prefer to shoot animals with a camera, not a gun.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I don’t like to dance, because I’m not very good at it, but I do enjoy slow dancing...with the right person.”

  “And have you met the right person?”

  “I won’t lie. I fell in love once. I told you about him. He was a dog handler, too. We thought we might one day have a future together.” She sighed. “He and his dog had just identified an IED when the ISIS rebel set it off remotely.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “That’s part of the reason why I try not to get involved with military guys. What’s
the use? They might die or be transferred. I don’t know if I can go through that heartache again.”

  “Will you go through that heartache over me?” T-Mac asked, his arm tightening around her shoulder.

  “I’m trying really hard not to fall for you.” She tipped her head upward to stare into his eyes. “You’re making it really hard on me. Can we stick to the facts that don’t mean much?”

  “Sorry.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Continue.”

  “Where was I?”

  “You like slow dancing.”

  “Right.” She took a breath. “There’s not much more. I favor daisies over roses, and I enjoy a cold beer on a hot day, like today, and I really like walking in the rain.”

  “As hot as it is today, I’d enjoy a cold beer and a little rain as well.”

  “What about you? Ever been in love?” Kinsley asked.

  “No,” he said. Until now, he didn’t add. He feared he was falling hopelessly in love with the army dog handler. But telling her would only make it harder for him and for her when they parted. He’d avoided relationships, knowing how hard they were to maintain for a guy in his career field. He’d never been in love. Kinsey tempted him to break all his self-imposed rules. Was what he was feeling for Kinsey love? His heart skipped several beats and then jerked like a jackhammer.

  “Do you want a family?”

  “Someday, maybe,” he replied. “When I’m not shooting bad guys for a living.” He could imagine Kinsley’s round belly. She’d be beautiful pregnant with their child. The baby girl would have bright strawberry blond hair like her mother and a smile that would melt every male heart.

  Kinsley stiffened. “There’s a vehicle coming.”

  T-Mac leaped to his feet and jerked Kinsley up beside him. They both grabbed their rifles and took up defensive positions, using the truck for cover.

  A dilapidated truck loaded with bags of grain, people and livestock trundled by. The folks on the back of the truck waved as they passed.

  Kinsley and T-Mac lowered their weapons out of sight and waved back, not letting their guard down completely.

  When the truck disappeared and the dust settled, T-Mac and Kinsley sat beneath the tree again.

  The afternoon passed entirely too quickly. By the time the helicopter arrived, they were both hungry and ready to be back at Camp Lemonnier, yet T-Mac was sad to leave their little patch of shade where they’d had the time to get to know each other better.

  When the chopper came close enough and T-Mac identified it as one belonging to the US, he stepped out of the shade and waved.

  The chopper landed and five men jumped out.

  “You old son of a gun.” Harm was first to greet him, dragging him into a giant bear hug. “We got a little worried about you when we couldn’t find you at the Al-Shabaab camp.”

  “That’s right.” Diesel gripped his forearm and pulled him into a hug. “Wasn’t as much fun going back to camp without our T-Mac.”

  “How’s the guy who stepped on the mine?”

  “It was Stucky. They flew him to Ramstein, Germany,” Buck said. “He had multiple lacerations and embedded shrapnel, one piece lodged close to one of his eyes. They’re trying to get him to a specialist to save the eye.”

  “Damn. I hope he’ll be okay.”

  “We all hope for the best.” Big Jake limped up to T-Mac. “We saw the damage to the camp. Glad you were able to escape. We were confused when your GPS tracker headed deeper into Somalia.”

  “I didn’t want to lose them, so I sacrificed my tracker. Once I planted it on one of their trucks, I stole one of the vehicles they had in their camp and got the heck out.”

  “This the truck?” Pitbull called out from where he stood by the vehicle.

  “It is.”

  Pitbull shot a glance toward T-Mac. “Who put the bullet holes in it?”

  “Three of the Al-Shabaab fighters caught up to us early this morning.”

  Pitbull shook his head. “I hope they look worse than this truck.”

  “They’re dead.” T-Mac grinned. “Our little dog handler is a crack shot.”

  Kinsley’s cheeks flushed.

  Diesel held out his hand to Kinsley. “I’m impressed. You can have my back anytime.”

  She gripped it and shook. “Thanks.”

  T-Mac busted through Diesel’s grip on Kinsley’s hand. “Hey, she’s my sidekick.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” Diesel shook his hand. “I’ve got my own sidekick waiting for me back home.”

  Harm snapped pictures of the truck and the bumper with the writing.

  T-Mac walked to the back of the truck and climbed in. He opened one of the crates and held up an M4A1 rifle. “We can’t leave these weapons in the back of that truck. They might fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Load them into the helicopter,” Big Jake said. “We’ll take them back to camp for disposal. We need to get back. The commander wants a debrief.”

  The men loaded the crate of weapons onto the chopper. T-Mac helped Kinsley and Agar up into the fuselage and climbed in to sit beside her. He adjusted her safety harness around her shoulders and lap before buckling his.

  “Here.” Big Jake handed Kinsley a plastic-wrapped package. “Figured you might be hungry.”

  “Thank you.” Kinsley smiled and opened the package to reveal a sandwich loaded with salami, ham and turkey slices. She moaned.

  The sound reminded T-Mac of how she’d moaned when he’d made love to her the night before. His groin tightened and he looked away from her biting into the sandwich.

  “We didn’t forget you.” Big Jake slapped another sandwich into T-Mac’s hands. “Eat up. It’s a long flight back and the commander won’t let you hit the chow hall or the sack until you debrief him on what happened after we left you.”

  Pitbull faced T-Mac in the seat across from him. He leaned forward and yelled as the rotor blades spun up to speed. “The boss wasn’t too happy with us when we came back without the dog handler.”

  “You didn’t have a choice. You had to get Stucky back before he bled out,” T-Mac said.

  The men settled back against their seats, the roar of the engine and blades making it too difficult to carry on a conversation.

  The chopper lifted off the ground and circled back the way it had come.

  T-Mac made short work of the sandwich, feeding bits of bread and meat to Agar.

  Kinsley ate a third of her sandwich and fed the rest to Agar. Once she finished the food, she stuffed the plastic wrap into her pocket and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. She let her hand fall between them on the seat where T-Mac’s rested.

  T-Mac captured her hand in his and held on. If someone noticed, too damned bad. That little bit of contact with Kinsley might be the last he would get before they made it back to all the rules and consequences. He’d be damned if he wasted the opportunity to touch her this one last time.

  * * *

  KINSLEY CURLED HER fingers around T-Mac’s. Though the past thirty-six hours had been difficult, she hadn’t exactly felt scared. Unless she counted the minutes she’d lain in wait for T-Mac to emerge from the rebel camp. Then, she hadn’t been afraid for herself, but for T-Mac. He’d walked right into that camp as bold as day and set off those explosions. Anyone could have caught him. Anyone could have shot him on sight.

  Kinsley had been more scared than she’d been in her entire life. She felt as if her heart hadn’t started beating again until she’d seen T-Mac behind the wheel of that truck.

  Her fingers tightened around his. Now she wanted to hold on to his hand and never let go. She was afraid she’d lose him. Which was silly. Their time together was coming to an end. His team was scheduled to ship out in a day or two. They’d leave and she’d be left behind to continue her mission of supporting operations out of Djibouti. Her deployment was for a fu
ll year. She’d been there only a few weeks.

  When she’d arrived, she’d been excited to actually put her and Agar’s skills to use.

  Now that she and Agar had been under fire, she wasn’t nearly as excited. More cautious, yes. A little frightened? She’d be a liar if she said she wasn’t. Her next engagement with the enemy might be without the SEAL team as backup. She might not be as lucky without them.

  She had to face it. T-Mac wouldn’t be there every time she went outside the wire, and that made her sad.

  Her chest tightened and her eyes burned. A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, down her cheek.

  She raised her free hand to brush away the moisture. Her drill sergeant in Basic Combat Training had assured her vehemently that soldiers didn’t cry. Now wasn’t a good time to start. Surrounded by SEALs who’d been through a whole lot more, she couldn’t show any weakness.

  Yet another damned tear slipped down the other cheek, closest to T-Mac.

  He raised his hand as if to brush it away, but caught himself before he touched her. Instead, he pushed his hand through his hair and let it drop to his lap.

  Kinsley had wanted him to touch her cheek. But she knew any public displays of affection were frowned upon and, in front of his buddies, would be purely awkward. So she sat still, hiding her disappointment, wishing she and T-Mac were alone again where they could hold each other, kiss and touch to their hearts’ content.

  Kinsley must have fallen asleep on the ride back. The change in the speed of the aircraft and the gentle squeeze on her hand brought her back to consciousness.

  The chopper came down on the tarmac and the SEALs piled out.

  Still a little groggy from her short nap, Kinsley took her time climbing down.

  T-Mac stood on the ground, holding out his hand.

  She stumbled and fell into his arms.

  He caught her and held her briefly, perhaps hugging her harder than he would a stranger. Then he set her up straight and gathered Agar’s lead from the ground where she’d dropped it. “Steady there,” he whispered.