Taking Fire

by Lindsay McKenna

  Khat seriously doubted, though, that Mike would ever uncover her status.

  “Good,” Mike said, relieved. Khat was contemplative, her eyes half-closed, those green tourmaline eyes shadowed beneath her thick red lashes. She was torn between saying nothing and divulging more to him. He could feel it. And dammit, he was going to research her when he got back to Bravo, no question.

  He had some contacts in the black ops community. His good friend, Gabe Griffin, who had just left the SEALs to marry Bay Thorn, had been in this area. Maybe he knew something about Khat. Mike was sure as hell going to find out from his best friend. If he tried to go up the black ops food chain, they’d stonewall him. No, he’d have to search among the SEALs at Bagram and J-bad, nose around to find out if they’d seen her or knew anything about her. And he wasn’t the type that let something go until he got the answers he was seeking.

  “When we leave, I’m going to let you ride Zorah, my packhorse. I have only one saddle, and I want you to have it. I don’t think your balance is all that good yet, and I don’t need you to fall off.”

  “Good planning,” he said drily. “Last time I threw a leg over a horse was just before I left to join the SEALs.”

  “I’ll ride bareback.” Khat gestured to her legs. “I’ve got thighs of steel from being in the saddle so much.”

  The words, you have the most beautiful legs I’ve ever seen, almost tore out of Mike’s mouth. She’d take it the wrong way, of course, and he wanted to leave their relationship, as thin as it was, intact between them.

  “That’s fine,” he murmured. He sipped the tea, branding Khat’s clean profile, the shadows and light across her face, into his mind and heart. “What’s next for you after you get rid of me?” He said it half in jest, but he wanted to try and get something out of her that would give him a lead. Any lead.

  “Every day is different.” Khat smiled a little sadly, feeling his protectiveness embrace her. “I’m like the wind. You never know which way I’ll flow on a certain day.”

  “Were you always like this, Khat?”

  Her smile dissolved. She held the mug in both hands, sipping from it. “No.”

  “What were you like as a little girl?” Desperation clawed at his chest. The hunger to know her was eating him alive, and no woman had ever intrigued him like Khat did.

  Sighing, Khat placed the cup down beside her and clasped her hands around her one leg that was drawn up against her body. “Happy.”

  “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I was an only child, but a very welcomed child into my parents’ lives.”

  “I know you have Middle East blood in you,” he said, watching her expression closely. “I’ve wondered all day whether one of your parents came from another country and moved to the States like my parents did.”

  “Yes,” she said, holding his sharpened look. “We share a common background in some respects.”

  “The way you speak English,” he pressed, “it sounds like you’re Afghani.”

  Khat gave him a wry look. Mike was part Saudi. He would be able to hear the dialect differences, the pronunciation of certain words, and most likely be able to know if a person was from one Middle Eastern country or another. “I think you missed your calling. You should have been a linguist.”

  He snorted. “No chance in hell. Not my game. I like doing what I do as a SEAL shooter.”

  “Mmm,” Khat said.

  “Your profile reminds me of the women in this region of Afghanistan. Each province has different bloodlines, different gene pools. This region saw a Mongolian influence.” Which would account for the slight tilt of her eyes, but Mike didn’t add that important point.

  He was getting too close for comfort, and Khat avoided his direct, digging gaze. “I think you had too much time on your hands today, Mike.” She forced a smile she didn’t feel. He was like a bloodhound on a scent. Khat agreed with him that the genetics of each tribe were unique. And there were marked differences in hair color, eye color and skin color, as a result.

  “I’ve seen a lot of red-haired women in our area. Green and blue eyes. Fair skin,” he continued. “And you fit that model.”

  “I could be Irish,” she teased, now uncomfortable beneath his intense scrutiny.

  “No way. At least,” he amended lightly, “in this province we’re in.”

  “I’m not giving you any information, Mike.”

  “And,” he went on, ignoring her statement, “the women and men in this area are much taller than the other tribes in other provinces. You’re about an inch shorter than I am, and I’m five foot eleven inches tall.”

  Khat said nothing. He was on a mission of discovery, and she could see it in the tenacious look in his gold eyes. “I need to get something to eat before we leave.” She unwound from her position on the floor, feeling his unrelenting inspection.

  Following her with his gaze, Mike felt tension rising in Khat due to his interrogation of her. He sensed he’d gotten close to the truth about her but he wasn’t going to gloat about it. The more he questioned her, the more he saw fear deep in the recesses of Khat’s eyes. And that delicious, full mouth of hers had thinned, as if a defensive reaction. Why? His gut told him it had to do with the scars across her long, beautiful back and shoulders.

  She brought back some dried beef jerky and handed him some. “I’m sure the first thing you will do once you land at Camp Bravo is call your wife. And then your parents. They will breathe a sigh of relief and be glad to hear from you.”

  “I don’t have a wife,” he said, watching her sit down near his feet, long legs crossed. He saw surprise in her widening eyes.

  “Surely, a special woman, then?” Khat couldn’t conceive of this ruggedly good-looking man, who obviously was intelligent, not being in a relationship. That simply wasn’t possible.

  “I don’t have anyone.” So what did he see in Khat’s eyes? Surprise? Shock? Desire? Happiness? Mike decided to turn the tables on her as he chewed the salty beef. “What about you, Khat? Do you have a husband?”

  Heat swept up from her neck and into her face. “No.”

  “Someone here in Afghanistan that you love?” He could think of a hundred men who would stand in line to get her. She suddenly became nervous, licking her lower lip. Shy with him, unable to hold his gaze.

  “No one,” she answered softly. “My line of work is too dangerous.” That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth. No man would consider her whole. Her back and shoulders were nothing but scars, ridges and were ugly. Men did not want a scarred woman with a shameful past. Her father, who had been born in this province, once he had seen her scars for the first time, had cried. He had told her mother that no man would ever consider her for marriage. He cried for the grandchildren he would never hold in his arms. He was shamed by her scars.

  Khat had felt even more wounded by her father’s patriarchal Afghan attitude, but she was at a place in her life that his words had cut even deeper than the lashes she had received during interrogation by the Taliban. And when she had survived and healed physically, she’d come back here four years ago. Her father said she was a dead woman walking. He was right.

  Mike felt Khat leave, her thoughts elsewhere, her eyes growing clouded. Sensing pain or suffering around her, he said, “You’re right, in our business, we can have a short life. It’s hell on anyone who loves us. That’s why I’m not in a serious relationship. I wouldn’t want someone worried about me all the time over here.”

  Pensive, Khat forced herself to eat because she knew her body needed the nutrition and energy. “My parents are very unhappy about what I do. They don’t understand it. Or me.”

  “That’s too bad. You’re doing important but dangerous undercover work.” The hurt in her face moved Mike. He wanted to open his arm and ask her to come and lean against him. Khat needed to be held. It was so clear in her darkening eyes. Her mouth was pursed, as if holding back unknown pain and memories.

  If one o
f her parents was Afghan, it was probably her father. He would have made the decision to move the family to the States, not the woman. And Afghan males were patriarchal as hell, superprotective of their daughters, wanting only two things from them: being a virgin upon their wedding day and giving them grandchildren to carry on their family lineage. He imagined if his thinking was accurate, Khat was seen as a misfit as a woman to her father. And it would have put a lot of pressure on her to live up to her father’s expectations of her, versus what she wanted to do with her life as an individual. Which was to become a Marine Corps sniper.

  Khat wanted to move away from her painful past. “Your name? Michael? That is one of the archangels of heaven. Did your parents name you that because they knew you’d be a warrior someday?”

  “My father named me after my grandfather. He fought in tribal wars that helped bring the House of Saud to power a long time ago. He was a warrior.” Mike gave her a wry look. “I think my father was hoping I’d become like him. Instead of picking up a scalpel, I picked up the sword.”

  “Just as in the Koran, Michael the archangel is the one who battles, protects and defends.”

  “I do my share of battling,” Mike agreed. “And I am protective of those I love.” His voice became gritty. “And I’m a sucker for women and children who need protection.”

  Her skin riffled with the darkness of his voice. “Don’t look at me. I can protect myself.” Khat would never let on that she’d never felt as safe or shielded as the past two days with Mike’s presence in her life.

  “It’s my nature,” he said seriously, seeing the haunted look come to her eyes. Something told him Khat rarely received any protection from anyone. She’d learned a long time ago to take care of herself and never expected help from another quarter. What the hell had happened to her to make her think like that? He shouldn’t feel so damned elated to discover she wasn’t married or wasn’t in a relationship presently.

  “Your last name, is spelled T-A-R-I-K?”

  Now why would she want to know that? “In the old country it was spelled T-A-R-I-Q, but when my father came to the States, he changed it to make it easier for his patients to pronounce and spell.”

  “It’s my understanding the name means one who uses a hammer?” She lifted her chin and stared at him.

  “Guilty on all counts,” Mike said, giving her a slow smile. “There’s various meanings to it. One is it means a bright, shining star that leads the way.”

  “You are a leader. There is no question.”

  “I try to be,” Mike said. “Another, the name of the Morning Star, Venus.”

  “I think you’ve taken two of the three definitions to heart,” Khat said lightly.

  “What? I’m not a star?” He chuckled. “I did love astronomy when I was a kid. My dad even bought me a small telescope so I could look at the stars.”

  “But that lost out to becoming a warrior? Your first name, Michael, combined with your last name pushes you toward being a man of action. Someone who can use the sword.”

  “You’re right.” He lost his smile. “If I had one wish before I left you, it is to know your full first name. I know Khat is your nickname.”

  Feeling her heart move beneath his humble request, Khat saw the sincerity in his narrowing eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Besides, my name does not have the glory and power that yours does.” She managed a small smile, appreciating him for who he was: a very brave SEAL. The joke was, her Pashtun name, Khatereh, simply meant, “memory.” And so it had been. There were branding memories in her mind about her scarred flesh and fractured soul she could never forget. And she was never the same after her capture. So much for memory.

  She rose. “It’s time to go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MIKE STOOD NEXT to Khat as they waited beneath the edge of a wadi that spilled out onto a plain where the Medevac would land shortly. It was a quarter moon night. He could hear the wind gusting off the mountains, sliding into the desert plain before them. The stars were bright. The horses had been hidden and tied farther up into the wadi. Nothing moved. He breathed a sigh of relief that a drone was overhead with thermal imaging capability, not picking up anything but animal body heat. There were no humans in the immediate area except them. Still, he was alert and took nothing for granted.

  Damn, he didn’t want to leave Khat out here alone. It ground against every protective mechanism Mike possessed. Hell, yes, she was competent. She said she’d been doing this for five years, and she was still alive. So who did he think he was? She was the one who saved their sorry asses a few days ago, not vice versa. Mike smiled a little, his eyes glittering as he swept the rocky scree slope to his right, the same slope his team had damned near been killed on. If not for Khat.

  His hearing was slowly returning to normal, not as sharp as it had been, but he could hear Khat talking in a very low voice on the radio transmission to the Medevac coming their way, giving the pilot the GPS position to land the bird five hundred feet from where they were hidden. She’d already gone out earlier, like a shadow, and removed rocks or limbs that could be kicked up by the whirling blades of the Black Hawk, potentially causing them injury. She knew her job.

  Mike kept hearing the call signs Archangel and Boulder. Which sign was hers? If he could pick up her black ops code name, that was a piece of vital intel he could use.

  Khat signed off the sat phone, everything in place. She shoved it into a pocket on her H-gear she wore around her torso. Her M-4 was in a harness across her chest. Her mouth was dry with tension. Even though the drone’s eyes were above the exfil point, she was wary. The wind rustled the tree leaves. Her hearing was cocked toward any other sound out of place. Leaning down, she placed Mike’s rucksack to her right, where she could easily pick it up and sling it over her shoulder in a run to the Black Hawk. He couldn’t do it; his left arm was in a sling.

  She straightened, pulling the NVGs around her neck, pushing her fingers through her captured hair in a single braid down her back. Nerves always got her at moments like this. Murphy’s law of “if anything could go wrong, it would,” was alive and well in a combat zone. Her mind was racing over the rally point in case they were jumped by unseen and undetected Taliban. It would be their only escape route. Khat felt the heat of Mike’s body close to hers and could sense his alertness. Amazed he didn’t feel tense, she realized it was a different kind of training. Join the SEALs and you knew you would be facing combat continuously. It took a special kind of person to be comfortable in such a situation. She wasn’t one of them.

  She felt Mike turn, his shadow looming over her. The thin wash of moonlight only made the gloom even scarier for Khat. Her gaze caught the faintest movement of a leaf, a change in it, indicating someone could be sneaking up on them. It wasn’t; it was just the wind playing havoc on her senses, but her nerves were taut.

  In the distance, she could hear the Black Hawk and the two Apache combat gunships, escorting it, the thumping of the rotors cutting through the darkness toward their position. They would land with no lights on. Everyone was wearing NVGs. The night hid them from attack up to a point.

  Mike eased the NVGs on his helmet. Khat’s face was tense, her eyes narrowed, in complete guard mode. She’d pulled off her goggles, the black baseball cap pushed up on her head. A powerful surge of protection nearly overwhelmed him. He was so damn invested in her emotionally, and he didn’t want to extricate himself. Watching her scan the area, her profile clean, those soft lips accentuated, he thought the unthinkable. He wanted to kiss the hell out of her, feel her mouth beneath his. Feel her respond. A flood of heated emotions coursed through him as he stood beside her. To hell with it. He set the M-4 against a tree trunk, easily within reach if he needed it in a hurry. Lifting his hand, he placed it gently upon her shoulder, so as not to startle her.

  Khat felt the warmth of Mike’s strong hand come to rest on her shoulder. She was wearing her cammies and even through them, she could feel the male heat of his fingers. Surprised, she turn
ed quickly, thinking he saw something and was silently warning her. Instead, as she looked up into his darkly shadowed face, her lips parted. The look in his glittering eyes was focused on her. Her breath hitched as he pulled her toward him. He was going to kiss her! Panic mingled with shock. And then, Khat felt an even more powerful emotion sweep through her, erasing the other two feelings. Her mind shorted out. Mike was going to kiss her. Nothing was further from her reality. For five years of loneliness, Khat had accepted her twisted fate.

  Until now.

  Her eyes widened as he bent his head, his mouth curving softly against hers. His hand was firm, guiding her as close as they could get to one another. The gear they wore prevented any real intimacy. She closed her eyes, inhaling his scent, feeling his mouth tentatively explore hers. The prickle of his beard against her cheek sent tingles racing through her. His hand slid from her shoulder, fingers curling gently around her nape, tipping her head upward, angling her just enough to deepen their kiss.

  Her world exploded, and Khat moaned, her hand moving to his chest, her fingers curving against his Kevlar vest. She tasted his maleness, his power, his coaxing, asking her to participate. It had been so long since she’d kissed a man! And she wanted this. She wanted to taste Mike Tarik, feel his roughened lips rasp against her softer yielding ones.

  Breath ragged, Khat sank against him, and he took her full weight, welcoming her into his partial embrace. He was giving her so much that it brought tears to her eyes. It was as if Mike somehow sensed she was fractured and terribly vulnerable to a man. He parted her lips more, inviting, asking her for greater entrance. A hunger roared up through her, and Khat responded to his scalding invitation. She felt him groan. There was no sound, just vibration. It sent elation through her as her fingers curved shyly around his thick neck, pulling him closer, wanting deeper connection with him.