by Lori Avocato
So her form of escape was the Air Force.
Once outside, the cool air conditioning of the bachelor officer’s quarters made the New Mexico heat seem all the hotter. And this was the Christmas holiday season? Bah humbug. She yearned to be back in her mother’s saltbox house, circa 1776, sitting by the fire stringing popcorn and cranberries for their tree and watching it snow. Ah.
Who was she kidding?
The last time she made decorations for the tree she’d been thirteen, her parents were still married, and her brother had been home from college for the first holiday season.
Despite the heat, she started to jog faster—trying to chase away the memories of running away from home, her past life, her parents. That’s what had gotten her into the military.
A few tumbleweeds crossed her path, giving her a chuckle until the usual dust devil spun around like a dirty demon causing her to cough and crave a glass of water. Damn the dust storms around here. When she got back to her quarters there’d be a pile of dirt on her windowsills even though the windows were shut tight. Damn it. More work cleaning to pass the next inspection. The fools cited her for having trash in her trashcan on inspection day! She had to bite her tongue in order not to say, “Where should I put it? The fridge?”
Could this place be any less Christmassy?
Despite the elements, the base was a safe place for a single twenty-three year old to be running when it was already dark. She decided to take the long way and run past the bowling alley, the chapel, and the movie theater to see the planes land and take off since that headed away from the dust devil.
With all the activity in the Gulf, the pilots and crews practiced nonstop, including night sorties, deployed like clockwork, and came home—changed airmen.
She’d seen way too many of them at the hospital.
The thought had her stop. She looked at the last jet take off and said a silent prayer that whomever the jockey was flying the F-18 would come home unscathed tonight and every other night. Having grown up with the nearest base hundreds of miles away, she remembered how shocked she was that in the military planes crashed during routine missions.
That’d been the hardest part of her job. Covering the ER after a crash. With a shudder despite the heat, she plowed forward and made it to the door of the commissary with record speed—and sweat. Whoever said sweat evaporated because of the dry heat probably never lived in New Mexico. Sure it did in some fashion, but whenever she went for her daily jog, after she stopped, her Yankee blood cooled itself with the grossness of soaked clothing.
Now, combined with the dust, she was certainly a sight for sore eyes as her mother used to say. But this time it was true. Cold, damp, and dirty. Hopefully she wouldn’t run into the Witch Colonel or one of her patients, which could cause her to lose a lot of credibility where her nursing skills were concerned with these looks.
And right now, the dampness was pretty damn uncomfortable when the automatic door opened and a wave of cold struck her. But what was worse—make that who was worse—stood behind her, his reflection clearly visible in the glass doors.
“Crap!”
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Chapter Two
“Hmm. I see someone’s working on their fantastic body despite the dust devil warnings tonight.”
Oh, Lord. Prue swung around to chest level with Slick, still wearing his camouflage uniform, including the much-earned cranberry beret of the PJs. She’d never heard about the dust devil warnings for tonight but they were pretty unpredictable at times anyway. Then again, weather reports weren’t as much a part of a nurse’s duties as they were a paratrooper’s. Patients came in rain, sleet, snow, or dust.
She took a step back. Then another. Not that she cared about her personal space all that much, but the guy was annoying and she needed her Lady Right Guard. No, she needed a hose-down like one of the cargo planes with about as much water as it took to clean those babies. With a quick look to prevent herself from staring—after all, Slick was a looker—she stepped back once again. Cocky as hell, but nevertheless, with dark black hair, Newman blue eyes and teeth she convinced herself were Da Vinci porcelain because no one was born with such a perfect smile, he was a damn looker.
And if nothing else, Prue had learned to look and not touch in the many fights she’d had over taking her brother’s toys as a kid. “Ha. Good one and goodnight.” She swung around, but his hand caught her arm. While she turned, or maybe he turned her, she found herself staring into those Newman’s.
Drat.
“Let go, Slick, or I’ll deck you.”
His laugh vibrated in the doorway of the commissary. It vibrated inside her too. Eek. She had to get out of here sans chocolate and beer. And what made her think, not to mention say, she could deck him?
She looked down at her watch. “Oops. Time to go. Duty calls.” Then realized she wasn’t wearing one. When she eased free and looked up, his freaking, hypnotic grin made her nearly crumble.
And Prudence Hamlin was not a crumbling kind of gal. She’d been first in her nursing school class—and why not since she worked her rear-end off—aced all the officer’s training classes, and was a heck of a nurse if she had to say so herself. After all, most of her patients always lived.
Yet, she was crumbling.
“Duty? At this time of night? I thought you worked the first shift?” He leaned closer as if he knew it would get to her.
It got to her.
She stumbled over her words—and that was in her head. Lord knows how they’d come out of her dust-encrusted lips. So, she took a long slow breath, watched his gaze travel down to her chest as it lifted in and out and the blasted gaze hung there a bit too long.
Yet, she didn’t budge.
Crap again.
“I have to go, Slick. Really. I’m on call for ambulance and helicopter runs.”
The helo word didn’t seem to faze him. Of course someone who jumped out of planes and helos for a living wouldn’t have a reaction to that other than maybe, “Hot damn!”
Well it wasn’t hot anything for her.
He still held her. Funny, she thought she’d pulled free. Hmm.
“I’m sure you came here for something. Let me help you since you’ve been ‘dusted’ tonight.”
It sounded sexy. Dusted. The way it rolled off his tongue. Tongue? Wow again. She’d been covered in something akin to dirt yet grittier, and he’d made it sound sexy as if she were one of those nude models whose clothes were painted on. Oh, boy. “I … chocolate and beer. Coors. Not the light stuff,” came rolling off her tongue as if she had a mental shopping list.
He looked at her. “Yum.”
“Only the chocolate is for me.”
One of his oh so very dark eyebrows raised. He probably thinks the beer is for a guy. Despite his running into her so often around the base, he never asked if she was dating anyone. And why would he? He wouldn’t. Didn’t care. He was just the typical PJ busting her—teasing her.
She’d let him think that.
“Milk or dark?” he asked, with a gentle hold on her arm.
Had he taken her down the candy aisle while still making contact and was her arm so numb from shock she couldn’t feel it?
Pull yourself together, she ordered in her head, yet being the most ‘non-military’ captain in the Air Force, one who never gave a direct order to the airmen, but merely asked them to do things and they did, she had to mentally laugh at that one.
But, she did pull herself together, and peeled his fingers from her arm. Or at least that was how it felt because she wasn’t going to allow herself the thought that it actually felt like little shocks when she came in contact with his skin. His fingers. Parts of his body.
“Good Lord.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm?” Crap. She’d said that out loud. “Look, I really have to go to bed … er … get some bed … some sleep. Get some sleep since I’m on call. Bye.”
When she spun around to make a hasty exit, s
omething metal hit her arm and she turned to see a shelf taking a dive—a shelf she’d bumped.
All over their feet were green leaves with white berries.
Mistletoe.
He stood there grinning.
She started to pick them up, dropped each one like a rattler from the desert, and decided to melt into a Wicked Witch puddle at Slick’s feet. So there, Colonel Queen of the Witches. Well, it seemed as if she were in a puddle since his six feet plus towered above her five three—okay, that was pushing it a bit.
With the cockiest of grins, he looked down and merely said, “According to the druids, mistletoe was traditionally considered to be the essence of the gods.”
Gulp.
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Chapter Three
Essence of the gods. Essence. Oh, Lord. Prue shut her eyes so tightly, they hurt, but how else could she get any sleep? It wasn’t bad enough that she had one ear to the phone to wait to be called out on a run, but now each time she closed her eyelids, Slick appeared as if in a movie, mouthing the words, “Essence of the gods. Essence of the …”
Drat!
She grabbed her pillow, stuck it over her head and after a few minutes attempting to fall asleep with her eyes open, she gave up. Turning to look at the bedside clock, which she’d forbidden herself to look at fifteen times earlier, she looked.
0245 hours. Two forty-five am.
Three hours left to get some sleep before the alarm from hell sounded, and she had to get up to work the day shift. Okay, this was going to end. How foolish to be thinking of Slick, essence, white berries, or the phone ringing.
When she tossed to the other side of the bed for the gazillionth time, she saw the candy bar on the dresser. Shamed into buying it so as not to embarrass herself any further in front of Slick at the store, she’d decided not to eat it lest it keep her awake.
She should have chowed down on it hours ago.
With the control of an Air Force officer, Prue shut her eyelids and let her mind become a blank screen and allowed sleep to take her.
Ring. Ring. Ring!
She reached over to shove the alarm into snooze mode for her usual nine more minutes in bed. The last minute she always sat on the edge to let her blood pressure stabilize, if for no other reason than she didn’t want to get up yet, since she didn’t have any blood pressure problems.
Ring. Ring! Ring!
“What the heck?” She decided she needed a new alarm if this one was going to act up. One eyelid opened to see if the thing looked possessed. What it looked was quiet. Non-possessed and next to a ringing phone.
0300 hours.
She’d dozed off for fifteen freaking minutes. Now she needed to answer the call that might have her airborne within the hour.
In the time she grabbed the receiver, she said a quick prayer that the dust was still kickin’ outside and all choppers were grounded, and the only means of transport was via ambulance. Nice safe ambulances through the dark desert sans traffic.
“Captain Hamlin here.”
The disembodied voice of Airman Walker, unmistakable with his Alabama hominy grits southern accent, said, “Ma’am, we have a run to Fort McNally for you. Premature labor.”
Prue remained silent for a second. Airman Walker? Walker? Who the heck? Airman … She yawned and looked down. The pillows enticed her to rest her head on them for just a second. A tiny little second of more rest. They almost glowed at her. “No!”
“Ma’am? I have you down on call for tonight. Did I make a mistake?”
“Oh. No. I’m on my way. ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Roger, ma’am.”
The phone line buzzed in her ear.
Prue hurried into the ER, making it there with an ETA of thirteen minutes. That, because she mentally smacked herself to keep awake, alert, and dress in record speed before this little one popped out way before it’s time. But, in true female fashion, she had the foresight to grab the chocolate bar from her bedside stand on her way to the base, but hadn’t had time to eat it yet.
She touched her pocket. Yes. A treat for later.
Airman Walker came running around the corner. “Room three, ma’am. Helo on its way. Fire department called.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.” She waved him on as she heard the fire truck’s siren heading in their direction.
Despite the shudder for her own welfare, she hitched into nurse mode, hurried into room three, and introduced herself to the patient while she assessed the woman’s condition.
“So, Airman Jenkins, you’re going for a little jaunt to Fort McNally. The Army will kick this little one’s butt so it’ll stay inside until it ripens more.” She winked at the mom as she lay with worry lines across her forehead and fear in her eyes. “Hey, everyone knows the Air Force is the cream of the military crop, and, with that said, probably the softest. Ha! So, the Army will get your little one to follow an order. Don’t even get me started on the Marines!”
Airman Jenkins, gave a soft laugh, then scrunched her face up.
Prue placed her hand on the airman’s abdomen and felt her uterus harden as she watched the monitor. Great. Strong contractions and a baby whose lungs aren’t ready to work on their own. With the skill she’d been trained in, Prue went to work, hurrying about, getting a report from the ER doctor that the baby was only twenty-nine weeks along, Airman Jenkins had had two previous premature deliveries that resulted in fetal demise, and she was a smoker.
Lotta odds against the kid.
Prue shut her eyes long enough to say a quick prayer, then shot into action. All the while trying to comfort the mom and get her into the chopper so they could make a hasty takeoff, she kept her hand on the woman’s abdomen and timed the cursed contractions.
While the airmen strapped the mom in, the pilot pulled Prue aside. “If we have to land, give me about five minutes.”
“Are you nuts?”
“I can’t even hear myself think in that thing let alone be able to tell if that baby’s birthday is December twenty-fourth.”
Suddenly she froze.
Tomorrow was Christmas.
The pilot lifted the chopper off the ground in seconds as Prue watched the fire truck below become smaller and smaller. In her conversation with him, she’d gotten reassurance that the recent dust storms had died down enough for their little jaunt. Then again, he’d said, nothing prevented them from starting up in this dustbin.
Prue made her best assessment of Airman Jenkins’s condition and instructed her to let Prue know immediately if she felt like pushing. Please, God, no. With that she kept her hand on the woman’s abdomen and grimaced as each contraction felt stronger and stronger.
“Oh!” Airman Jenkins shouted, but not because of contraction.
Prue felt like screaming too when the helicopter shifted in the winds, and a sudden gust caused them to violently shake and toss about. Then they started to head downward—or so it felt. The pilot managed to pull up, but that didn’t stop the entire crew’s fears. Prue convinced herself they all felt the same as she did so she wouldn’t feel like the only wimp.
A gust knocked them sideways for a few seconds.
The pilot’s voice came across the headphones built into the helmets they all wore. “Looks like the wind’s acting up here. We’re going to low-level position. Everything okay back there? Make sure you’re all strapped in good.”
Prue looked at the patient whose eyes had darkened in fear. Had to be from the shaky flight. She could see the airman’s mouth moving, but couldn’t hear any words in this noisy tin trap. She leaned near and felt her abdomen. Rock hard. The mom’s face was now scrunched up as if she needed to … Oh, Lord.
She was pushing.
“No!” Prue leaned near the woman’s ear. “Don’t push. Don’t push! Pant. Hee, hee, hee,” she said in her ear as if that would help—or as if Airman Jenkins could even hear her.
“Hey! Land this thing!” she shouted.
“Roger, ma’am,” was the last t
hing she heard.
A gust of wind encircled the helicopter and Prue ended up near the door, grabbing onto something metal. Not sure what it was, she held tightly until the helicopter righted itself.
Yet it never did.
The airman in the back with her was shouting something, but no sound came through her helmet. He started to undo his seatbelt, but before she could continue to watch him, something made her turn her head and wished she hadn’t. The metal thing was the door latch—and now it was open. Obviously the airman had grabbed her foot, but she didn’t look at him since her thoughts were occupied by seeing a cactus heading toward her. Toward her! Surely the pilot would pull up, causing the airman to keep his hold on her and yank her …
Without even a scream, since she felt sure she was mute now, the arms of the gigantic Saguaro poked into the sleeve of her uniform, into her shoulder, and harpooned her like a little hummingbird, plucking her from the safety of the airman’s hold and the chopper’s doorway.
And then the darkness of the desert engulfed her.
Numb to anything, she watched the helicopter hover above her for what seemed like hours, but had to be minutes as the gusts of winds picked up—and subsequently knocked the chopper about like a toy. The airman had thrown a rope out, but the winds whisked it away.
In seconds, the craft would be smashed into the heavy desert growth—and the baby would be fighting against more than an early delivery.
“Go!” she shouted to the pilot waving her good hand to the helicopter to go higher before the low-level flight collided with the high-towering cactus. “Get the hell out of here!” Pain radiated in her body as everything she touched was a prickly spike along with the ones hurting her shoulder now.
She remembered thinking that she had never seen such tall cacti around the base. She also thought that she’d never been out in the desert this far and, by her calculations, the Army post wasn’t much farther—by air miles.
