Rage boiled in him. Hayden Grant had lain dead outside the tent when they ran up to it. He looked down to see that Leah’s holster was empty. She must have shot him. Corliss wore no weapon that he could see.
The nurse ran back over. “The medevac is ready!”
“I’ll carry Leah,” Kell said. He hooked the IV bag to his shoulder so it would be high enough to continue to feed Leah the fluids she desperately needed.
The nurse ran next door.
Kell saw Clutch carrying the unconscious pilot in his arms, a nurse running at his side, holding up her IV bag. He turned and walked swiftly, not wanting to jostle or possibly aggravate Leah’s broken arm. Breach continued to stabilize Leah’s arm with his hands.
The man on watch at Ops opened both doors leading out to the tarmac. The Black Hawk was ready, the blades beginning to turn, the pilots up front and a medic and an air crew chief waiting for them. Kell stood aside, allowing Clutch to hand Harper off to the two men on board. They strapped her into a litter attached to the inner fuselage wall and instantly went to work on her.
Clutch climbed in, moving toward the other litter above Harper’s. Kell pushed into the medevac with Breach, the place tight, not much room to maneuver. They put Leah up on the litter above Corliss. Breach wished them luck and hopped out of the Black Hawk. The air crew chief slid the door closed and tapped the pilot on the shoulder, a signal to let him know it was all right to take off.
Turning, Kell worked to strap Leah in. She was still unconscious. As he pulled down his NVGs, the cabin went dark. There were never lights on in the cabin at night. The medevac would become a target for the enemy.
Once Leah was strapped in, he turned and searched around for helmets. Finding a couple in the rear, Kell handed one to Clutch and then pulled one on himself. They plugged their connections into the ICS system so they could hear all the radio talk between the pilots, the medics and themselves.
Kell hung the IV on a hook above Leah’s litter. He leaned over and borrowed a stethoscope from one of the medics. As he listened to her heart, his alarm grew. Her pulse was growing weaker. Son of a bitch!
“Hey,” Kell called out, “I need an IV! Get me one?” Leah had already gone through the first IV bag and needed a replacement. It was vital to get fluids into her body, even if it wasn’t blood, but saline instead.
One of the medics reached into his canvas bag and tossed it up to him.
“How bad is Lieutenant Corliss?” Clutch demanded, watching the the medic work on her as he stood aside.
“She’s critical,” he muttered.
Kell got another line into Leah’s lower left arm. She’d lost too much blood and if she didn’t get enough fluids back into her quickly, she could go into cardiac arrest. Kell turned, looking down at the medic.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he asked. “I’ve got this patient stabilized.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, “pray.”
Kell lifted his head, looking into the helo’s darkened rear. Clutch got out of the way of the working medic by sitting down in one of the two jump seats bolted to the deck in the rear of the cabin. His face was set and grim.
The Black Hawk was at top speed, the bird shaking and shuddering as it thunked through the night air, heading as swiftly as possible for Bagram.
Kell asked, “Are you 18 Delta?”
“Yeah,” the medic said, “I am.”
Kell felt some of his fear dissolve. He looked deep into the dark cabin and told Clutch, “Then the lieutenant has got a chance.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KELL WIPED HIS smarting eyes as he stood near Leah’s bed. He watched the monitors on the other side of where she lay unconscious. They’d just brought her out of surgery an hour ago. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was 0300. Exhaustion pulled at him. They’d given her a private room after she briefly became conscious in Recovery. Her face was serene, her lips parted. Kell gently pushed some strands of her ginger hair away from her smooth brow. Her left arm had been repaired and was now in a sling across her body.
Worried about Lieutenant Corliss, he took a risk that it would be a while before Leah would awaken again, and left the room. He took the elevator down to the surgery floor where Clutch was still waiting to hear anything about the pilot’s surgery.
He walked into the lounge and saw his SEAL brother sitting, staring into nothingness, his face tense.
“Anything?” Kell asked, going over and sitting down opposite him.
“No,” he growled. And then he looked up. “How’s Leah doing?”
“Sleeping. It will probably take another hour before she’s awake again.” Kell saw the worry in his friend’s eyes. “You did tell the charge nurse that you’re Harper’s fiancé, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” It was an old black ops trick. If someone was wounded and in ICU, the other operators always told the nurse on the ICU floor they were a brother or cousin of the wounded man. That way, they could get in to see their teammate, stand vigil and be there for them when they became conscious.
“Why do you think it’s taking so damned long?” Clutch demanded.
Kell shrugged. “She got hit in the stomach. Could be other organs involved.” He didn’t want to go on, seeing the bleak look in Clutch’s eyes. “It’s all fixable,” he reassured him quickly. Kell didn’t even want to think about her chances of ever flying again if she survived. He felt rage bubbling up within him toward Hayden Grant.
“I’m staying here. No one should be left alone at a time like this,” Clutch told him quietly, clasping his hands between his thighs, staring down at the waxed green tile floor.
“I understand,” Kell said. It was a SEAL thing, never leaving a man abandoned by his team. In this case, because Leah was his woman, Lieutenant Corliss, her copilot, she would automatically fall under that protective umbrella SEALs accorded to women and children.
Running his fingers through his hair, Clutch muttered, “I asked the nurse if they’d been able to contact her family.”
Kell snorted softly. “They’ll probably wait to see if she makes it through surgery first.”
Clutch gave a bare nod. “I know.”
Kell watched his friend prowl the lounge, walk out into the hall, stare at the operating doors, as if to mentally force them to open. The SEAL turned on his boot heel and stalked back into the lounge. “It’s a good sign she’s still in there.”
“How so?”
“If she’d coded or died, someone would have been out here a lot sooner, so this isn’t a bad sign, Clutch.”
Clutch’s lips pulled away from his teeth. “She’s not going to die. She’s got a steel spine. She’s a fighter.” He continued to pace and look at his watch. “Corliss is engaged. Did you know that?”
“No. Leah mentioned she had a guy, but nothing beyond that.”
“He’s an Apache pilot stationed stateside, an instructor.”
Kell looked at his own watch. “Bad luck,” he muttered. “I need to get back up there to Leah,” he told Clutch. “I’ll check back here in an hour with you.”
Clutch nodded and halted. “Thanks, Kell. It means a lot. Go take care of your woman. She needs you.”
Kell slapped him on the back. “Harper’s going to make it. I have a good feeling about it.”
Leah was conscious when Kell moved quietly into her room. He walked over and saw her eyes were barely open.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he told her, leaning over, skimming her mouth with a hello kiss. He ached to tell her that he loved her, that he wanted forever with her. “How are you doing, Sugar?”
Leah raised her right hand and it weakly dropped back to the bed. Her voice was raspy. “Harper?”
Kell picked up her hand. Her fingers were cool and damp. “Still in surgery. Critically wounded in the stomach but I think she’s going to make it.” Leah’s expression changed, relaxed a little. Squeezing her fingers gently, he asked, “Are you in pain?”
Barely cons
cious, Leah licked her lower lip. “No…just…exhausted…” She blinked and tried to become more alert. “What happened to my arm?”
“Hayden shot you in the left arm,” Kell told her.
Leah frowned, as if digesting the information. And then she pulled her hand from his. Her fingers moved to explore the sling her left arm was in.
“Oh… I remember now…” she whispered, closing her eyes. “H-he must have been waiting for us.” Her brow wrinkled and she placed her hand against her eyes, her lower lip trembling.
“Hey,” Kell soothed, picking up Leah’s coolish hand, holding her tear-filled gaze, “it’s all right.” He wanted to hold her, crush her against him and make things all right, but he knew he couldn’t. Leah was emotional right now and anesthesia made a person horribly vulnerable, their feelings like raw, exposed nerves.
“Harper can’t die,” Leah whispered, tears trailing down her cheeks. “Sh-she didn’t deserve this…”
“I know,” Kell whispered, his voice unsteady. He released her hand and framed her face, removing her warm tears with his thumbs. “You didn’t deserve it, either.”
“I—I feel terrible, Kell. She is young, engaged to be married. She had her career, her whole life in front of her—”
“Shh,” he whispered thickly, holding her dark, grief-stricken gaze. “Corliss is strong. Clutch is holding a vigil for her down on the surgery floor. She’s not alone. What I want you to do is focus on you. Okay?”
Kell’s roughened hands framed her face. Leah felt like a top spinning out of emotional control. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see Hayden silently sneaking into her tent, that .45 aimed at them.
Hot tears ran down her face and she couldn’t stop them. She was alive when she thought she’d die.
“Hayden?”
“You killed him,” Kell told her, seeing her eyes flare with surprise.
“H-he shot at Harper first,” Leah whispered, missing his touch as he removed his hands. “It gave me a chance to jerk my .45 out of the holster. Thank God I had a round chambered in it and left the safety off.” She swallowed hard, closed her eyes and whispered, “We both shot at the same time at one another.”
Kell smoothed her hair, the strands strong and shining beneath the low light. “You took him out,” he said, trying to keep the anger out of his tone.
Leah opened her eyes and choked out, “I was so afraid I’d never see you again, Kell.” Her heart expanded and she felt a rush of love for him as he gave her a tender look. Leah no longer cared if they’d had the proper amount of time with one another. Love was love. And she knew now, with a clarity that overwhelmed her, she wanted this man in her life forever—if he would have her.
“I thought that when we ran over to your tent area. Clutch came and got me out of the poker game. Said something didn’t feel right and told me you and Harper were walking over to your tent a few minutes earlier. We took off from HQ at a dead run, heard the first shot. We’d just turned down your street, our pistols drawn, when you fired the shot that killed him. We saw Grant fly out of the tent and land out in front of it.” Kell took a deep breath and held her hand. “Neither of us knew if you two were dead or alive.”
“I wanted you to take care of Harper. I knew she’d been badly hit.”
“We had enough help, Leah. She had an 18 Delta medic on the flight here to Bagram. That’s as good as it gets.”
“I remember passing out. That’s all. Until now.”
He saw the grief in Leah’s eyes, the worry for the other female pilot, not for herself. “It’s over,” he told her. “Grant is dead.”
So many emotions collided within her, relief being the most powerful. “Thank you for being here,” she managed brokenly. She saw the terror banked in Kell’s gray eyes, the realization he had almost lost her.
“I didn’t want to be anywhere else, Sugar.” Kell grazed her cheek with his finger, her skin firm and warming beneath it. “Are you thirsty?”
She nodded. “My mouth is so dry, Kell…”
He released her hand. “I’ll get you some water. Feel like sitting up a bit more in that bed?”
“Yes.”
He raised the bed so that she was in more of a comfortable sitting position. He poured her some water from a nearby tray and brought the glass over with a straw in it. Kell held it for her as she sipped from it. The water tasted heavenly. Leah drank all of it and then lay back, feeling more clarity and less wooziness.
“What about my arm?” she asked, touching it lightly with her right hand. Her upper arm was in a removable but waterproof cast.
Kell brought the chair over but didn’t sit down. “It was an open fracture,” he told her. “The surgeons fixed it and you’ve got some screws and a plate in the bones to hold them together while they mend back together again.”
Leah slowly moved her fingers. They all worked, thank God. “My whole arm went numb when he shot me,” she murmured, moving her hand lightly across her bandaged upper arm.
Kell saw how tired she looked. “It would.” He squeezed her other hand gently. “I’ve been putting off something I’ve wanted to tell you for some time now, Leah.” He held her gaze. “Ever since I picked you up at that crash site, I’ve been falling in love with you.” Kell’s voice grew thick. “Now this. Leah, I’m not holding off any longer telling you that I love you. Looking back on it, I think I started to love you from the moment I saw you in that cave after I got you to safety.” Swallowing hard, Kell rasped, “And I know this might be too soon for you. You’re reeling from this latest trauma. I just want you to know I’m here for you, that I hope you love me.”
Tears came to her eyes and it tore at him. Kell sat down on her bed, his hip against hers, and framed her face with his hands. “Leah, I dream of a lifetime with you.” He leaned forward, his mouth softly brushing her parting lips. Her breath caught and he felt the warm return of her mouth weakly against his, a silent celebration of life over death. Never had Kell wanted Leah more, as a permanent part of his life. They’d both danced around the issue and he knew it. He’d respected it up until now. Kell had nearly lost her a second time, and he was no longer willing to remain silent.
As he drew away from her wet lips, drowning in the gold and green of her eyes, she gave him a trembling smile. His heart opened wide and intense love for her burst through his chest. “What do you say? Are we a team?”
Taking a serrated breath, Leah felt his hard, calloused hands gently framing her face, his gray eyes stormy with longing for her. “We’ve always been a team, Kell. Always.” She lifted her hand, skimming his bearded jaw. “I love you, Kell. And like you, I was afraid to say it. Afraid it was too soon.” She gave him a tender look, watching his face relax, his anxiety dissolving beneath her whispered words. “We’ve always been a good team. I just had to get over Hayden…the past. I wanted to see you, not him.”
Kell released her and tucked her hand into his. “I knew that. I was battling a ghost. I could see you struggling to get beyond Grant. But Leah, you always saw me. I don’t believe you ever overlaid Grant on me at any time.”
She barely squeezed his hand, her heart pounding with joy. “You’re right. You’re so psychic it’s scary sometimes, Kell.”
His mouth moved into a faint smile. “It’s the part that kept me knowing that you were worth any kind of wait, Leah. I was trying to time my admission to you, but damn, life kept throwing RPGs at us faster than we could duck ’em.”
Leah loved his simple, honest Kentucky way of looking at life. “Yeah, RPGs for sure. This last one was the size of a Hellfire missile,” she added grimly. Looking up, her voice dropped with emotion. “But you were always there. You always supported me, Kell.”
He scowled. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t stop Grant from shooting you and the lieutenant…”
“That was my fault,” Leah admitted sadly. “I should have told you, but you guys were having so much fun, laughing so much during that poker game, I just couldn’t do it.” She shook her
head. “How many times do we really get to laugh in a combat zone? Not many.”
“Listen,” he rasped, touching her cheek, “you saw Clutch. The only reason Clutch didn’t walk over with you is that Ax called him into his office for just a moment. You didn’t do anything wrong here, Leah. You did everything right. Clutch was going to hurry and catch up with you. He just didn’t know it was going to take that long to get back with you gals. This is no one’s fault, so don’t go there.”
Shrugging, she whispered, “Everyone had good intentions, Kell. I’m not blaming anyone for what happened. God knows, we’re human…”
“So?” he said, searching her sad gaze. “I want to make this official, Leah. Will you marry me? Be my wife?”
Leah squeezed his hand, feeling his warm fingers surround hers, drowning in the burning love that she saw in his eyes as he stood there, waiting for her answer. “Yes,” she whispered unsteadily. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Kell.”
Such staggering relief came to his face that it made more tears flow from her eyes. Her heart ached with such love for this man. Kell had shown her what real love was, that he cherished his woman, supported her through the good and bad. And always, Kell had been at her side, never abandoning her. Always doing his best to aid her with her tortured past and helping her to finally leave it behind.
“Wise decision,” he managed, leaning over, pressing a kiss to her lips. “We’ll talk more about this later, when you feel up to it. Why don’t you just close your eyes and rest? I’m going back down to the surgery floor and see if we can get a status report on Lieutenant Corliss. Then, I’ll come back up here.”
Leah nodded.
Kell leaned down and kissed her brow. “Rest. I’ll be back in a little bit. I love you…”
*
KELL SHOWED UP midafternoon at Leah’s private room. She had just awakened, her eyes half-open, drowsy looking. And beautiful to him. He closed the door and walked over to her. “Have a good nap?”
Running Fire Page 27
