Protecting His Own

by Lindsay McKenna

  Giving her a burning, intimate look, Roc said in low, gravelly tone, “When we get back to HQ, we’ll have time, Sam….”

  February 7: 1830

  Sam sat on the edge of her bed in her tent. Her left arm had new stitches in it now, and a new bandage over it. The pain she felt was just deserts, she figured. And small enough payment for being rescued. Darkness ate away at the dusk outside her tent. Dressed in her fleecy robe, fresh from a hot bath, thanks to Kerry, Sam felt a cauldron of emotions that simply wouldn’t be tucked away or ignored. Roc had been busy since their return aboard the Sea Stallion helicopter. He and his Recon unit had captured five Diablo members, though not their leader—Steve had escaped. But Roc and his team had put a major dent in the survivalists’ camp, capturing four of their lieutenants.

  Sam tried to comb her wet hair, but every time she raised her throbbing arm, pain shot through it. As she picked up the towel with her right hand and tried to blot her hair dry, her mind swung to Nannette and Jolie. They, too, had been taken prisoner, but Roc had dealt gently with them. It was as if he knew the wife and child of the leader had nothing to do with the man himself. Right now, both were in a recovery tent nearby, warm, safe and being fed their first hot meal in Lord knew how long.

  “Sam? It’s Roc. May I come in?”

  Heart bounding once, Sam leaped to her feet. “Yes…come in….” She gripped the towel to her breast in anticipation.

  Her eyes widened as Roc slipped into her tent and then zipped it shut. He was out of his military gear except for a clean green T-shirt and trousers. His hair was freshly washed, and gleamed in the low light of the single lightbulb. He’d shaved, too. The fact that he’d made an effort to look good before he saw her touched Sam deeply.

  “How are you doing?” Roc asked as he turned around. Sam stood there looking like a disheveled, freckle-faced girl, the dark blue towel pressed between her breasts and hanging down to her knees. The light blue robe made her look young and vulnerable. Her red hair was wet, in dire need of being combed and tamed. Seeing her face grow pink, he smiled as he approached her.

  “Better,” Sam admitted in a husky tone, “now that you’re here. You cleaned up, too.”

  Looking down at himself, he grinned slightly. “Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea. After running four miles between houses and up and down streets, we all got a little funky smelling.”

  Grinning, Sam gestured to the bed. “Isn’t that the truth? Come, sit down.”

  He saw her comb on the bed. “Looks like you need some help with that red hair of yours.” He picked the comb up as she sat down.

  “My left arm is hurting too much to raise it,” Sam griped.

  “Mind if I try, sweetheart?” He stood over her, the comb in his hand.

  Shocked but grateful, Sam looked up into his eyes…and saw how they burned with desire. She remembered the words that had flown out of her mouth when they’d met earlier. Nodding slightly, she whispered, “Yes, I’d like that….”

  “I’ll probably be all thumbs,” Roc warned her good-naturedly. How badly Roc wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her. Simply hold her and feel grateful from his soul, that she was alive.

  “I trust you, Roc.” Her voice broke. “With my life…”

  “Now, don’t go getting mushy on me,” he chided warmly, and lifted the first strand in his hands.

  As he moved close, Sam closed her eyes. Roc was incredibly gentle as he awkwardly began to comb through the strands of her tangled hair. Clasping her hands together in her lap, she whispered, “I owe you a huge apology.”

  “You gave it to me back at the Diablos’ headquarters,” he growled. “I don’t need two.”

  Shrugging, Sam said, “Well, you’re going to get another one whether you want it or not, Captain. I was wrong. I should have listened to you. I guess I really didn’t take you seriously. I thought…well, hell, I thought that after that firefight out at the last medevac site, the Diablos would slink off with their tails between their legs and leave us alone, because you’d overpowered them.”

  The red-gold strands of hair gleamed in his hand as he ran the comb slowly through them. Just listening to Sam’s voice made his heart open like a flower to the heat of the sun. “Their leader is wily, Sam. He’s crazy like a fox. I knew he’d hit us again.”

  “Lesson learned,” she said, apology in her tone. Scalp tingling pleasantly as he finished combing out her hair, she watched when he put the comb on the dresser and then came and sat down next to her.

  “Come here,” Roc coaxed as he placed his arm around her. Being careful of her left arm, he laid Sam on her right side. Rearranging her robe so she kept warm, he stretched out against her length, propping himself up on his left elbow to look at her. To absorb her beautiful face into his heart. “There,” he murmured. “Better?”

  With Roc’s hand resting gently on the curve of her hip, she nodded. Drowning in his stormy looking blue eyes, she said, “Much.” She took a deep breath, and the words she’d been dying to say for so long tumbled out. “I’ve changed my mind, Roc.”

  “Oh? About what?” He grazed her damp hair with his hand. Every time he touched Sam, he saw flecks of gold come to her large, vulnerable-looking green eyes. How badly he wanted to kiss her. To love her and share with her how much she meant to him.

  “About us,” she managed to answer, looking down. Then she forced herself to gaze back up at him. “I said something out there that I should have told you before, but I was afraid.” Compressing her lips, she saw him nod slightly. “The last time we were in here together, I wasn’t completely honest with you.”

  “I know you weren’t, sweetheart.” Roc gave her a tender smile as her eyes flared with surprise. “You were scared. I knew you liked me—I hoped you loved me or were falling in love with me. But you couldn’t admit that because of Brad. You lost one marine. You weren’t prepared to maybe lose another. I understood, Sam. Believe me, I did.”

  Gulping back the tears that created a lump in her throat, Sam reached up regardless of the pain it caused her, and touched his face with her fingertips. “You knew?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re awful confident of yourself.”

  Grinning, he said, “I love you, Samantha Andrews. Don’t ask me when or how it happened. When I first met you six months ago, you were the biggest pain in the rear I’d ever come across. But now—” his smile turned gentle as he brushed several strands of hair away from her cheek “—now you own my heart, my soul, and I’m the happiest marine on the face of this earth.”

  His words, warm and emotional, blanketed her with happiness. Sam realized in those tender moments that the love she held for Roc was different from what she’d shared with Brad. Deeper and more passionate. Her heart pounded with joy as she cupped his face with her hand.

  “You have the courage of ten men, Roc.”

  “I never gave up, you know? When Diablo kidnapped you, the people of the area helped us locate you.” His brows drew down. “If it weren’t for them, for the kids and adults who had seen you being dragged along by them, we’d never have found you….”

  Closing her eyes, Sam sighed, her hand resting on his chest. “I never expected you to find me. I figured I was a dead person walking.”

  “Well,” Roc teased, lifting her chin and watching her eyes open to touch his soul with joy, “the woman I love had been taken from me. I’d have moved heaven and hell to find you. We got lucky. So lucky…”

  Then his fingers caressed her cheek and he lifted her chin toward his mouth, and Sam realized this was all she wanted and needed right now. “I owe a lot of people for saving my life…and what I owe you, Roc Gunnison, is my heart, my soul. I love you. I love you so much it overwhelms me. It scares me….”

  Leaning down, brushing her lips in a featherlight caress, Roc whispered against her mouth, “We need to live each moment as if it were the last, sweetheart. Every heartbeat needs to be enjoyed. Every touch—” he bent down and worshipped her lips,
then drew away “—needs to be taken into our hearts and held and remembered.”

  Lifting her hand, she curved it along his thick neck. “I want to love you, Roc. Love you with everything I have in me to give to you…. I’m afraid, but I’m not going to let it stop me this time. I’ve learned my lesson….”

  “Let’s be scared together,” Roc said, and slowly disrobed her. Because it was so cool, he stood up and pulled back the covers, allowing Sam to snuggle down between the sheets to get warm. She was incredibly beautiful to him, naked yet vulnerable. He pulled off his T-shirt, got rid of his boots and trousers and slid in beside her. There was such love in Sam’s emerald eyes as she came boldly into his arms, pressing the naked length of her body to his. Always being mindful of her injured arm, Roc maneuvered her onto her back.

  As he leaned down to worship her parted lips, he caressed her small, firm breast with his hand. Hearing her moan, he closed his eyes and took her mouth more surely. Allowing his touch to range from her taut breasts down her long torso to the flare of her womanly hips, he then trailed his fingers along her sleek, firm thigh. There was such softness and strength in Sam, he realized as he began to slowly map out her body, learn it, absorb it and luxuriate in it.

  The courage of her heart, Roc realized humbly, as he felt her hands began to outline his face, neck and shoulders, was awe inspiring. As she kissed him hungrily, teething his lower lip and arching insistently against his hardening body, he reveled in her bravery. Only hours before, Sam hadn’t been sure she would live or die. Now they were here, in one another’s arms, their bodies, their mouths, clinging together, reveling in life.

  And yet, as Roc trailed his fingers upward, opening her long, curved thighs and feeling the honeyed fluid that her body was gifting him with, he knew that life and death were entwined irrevocably. Because of it, he vowed to cherish this time with her—and to love her as fiercely and tenderly as he could. Sharing his love with her was more than just physical, he knew. For right now, this minute, as he carefully maneuvered his weight on top of her, her glorious green eyes shining and her arms moving coaxingly around his shoulders as he gently entered her, life had won over death.

  A moan tore from Sam as she felt Roc slide hotly into her wet, awaiting depths. As she twisted her hips upward in joyous welcome, an explosion of sunlight and rainbow of color seemed to cascade through her body. When his arms bracketed her head, his chest against her taut breasts, his hips moving in unison with hers, all her fears dissolved. Lashes closed, Sam clung to him, to his strength, to his tenderness as he slowly moved within her, the exquisite sensations leaving her gasping for more.

  The world became a heated mix of smell, taste and touch as she met Roc’s mouth, kissed his shoulder and absorbed every pleasure aroused by his damp, tight body moving sinuously against her own. The volcanic eruption of heat, like a jarring earthquake, shattered her inner core, and flung open the doors of her wildly beating heart as never before. When she climaxed, Sam felt Roc’s arms tighten around her protectively. Once again, as she nuzzled his jaw, her face pressed against his tense, muscled shoulder, Sam felt his fierce protection blanket her. When he tensed and groaned, she smiled softly and welcomed his life into her body.

  As they lay there afterward, caught in the swirling heat and light of their love for one another, Sam felt her incomplete and shattered world become healed and whole once again. Roc’s love for her had mended her wounds, her fear. And she loved him fiercely in return, with all her heart.

  Epilogue

  March 3: 0900

  “Roc!” Sam called when she saw him up ahead of her, walking down the passageway of the naval hospital at Camp Reed. It was the first time she’d seen him that day and she could tell by the warmth in his eyes as he turned to her, his M-16 slung over his left shoulder and his helmet beneath his left arm, that he was just as glad as she was. Once she reached him and looked up at him, her heart swam with incredible joy. How had two weeks passed so quickly? So wonderfully?

  Morgan Trayhern had had them flown in from area 5 for a huge Logistics meeting yesterday, and last night Roc and she had shared a room at the BOQ—Bachelor Officers Quarters—which was an incredible luxury. Her body still throbbed with warmth from the memory of their lovemaking last night. As his gaze focused on her, she saw his blue eyes turn tender.

  “Laura Trayhern is leaving in a few minutes,” Sam said, looking at her watch. “I’d like to drop in and say goodbye. I was her surgeon when they brought her in here, and we’ve formed a wonderful friendship. Would you like to join me?”

  “Sure,” he murmured. Orderlies, nurses, civilians and military personnel coming into the hospital flowed around them nonstop as he and Sam halted at the bank of elevators. Giving her a slight, one-cornered smile, Roc remembered tangling his fingers in that red hair of hers quite recently. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were a bright reminder of her love for him.

  “You don’t mind? I know you wanted to check that shipment going out to area 6 HQ before we took off with it.”

  “It can wait,” he said. “This is more important.” Roc understood now, more than ever, how Sam formed relationships with her patients. She never had been a distant, disconnected doctor. Just the opposite. In the past two weeks, they worked all three new medevac stations with Sam assisting the new navy medical teams flown in to run them. Roc had discovered so much more about Sam. About her unflagging spirit and fierce determination to help those who were suffering.

  As the elevator doors swung open, they stepped in and the doors closed, cutting them off from the hustle and bustle of the hall. Immediately, Roc grinned down at her. “We’re finally alone….”

  “Yes, and I’m taking advantage of it!” Sam stretched up and planted a swift, hot kiss on his smiling mouth. As she eased away, her hands still resting on his powerful chest, she whispered, “I love you, Roc Gunnison. Every day is better with you. You make me feel like a giddy teenager!”

  Her laughter was sweet. Before he could respond, however, the door started opening. Giving her a wink, he said, “More later, when appropriate, Dr. Andrews.”

  Chuckling, Sam tossed him a merry look over her shoulder and gestured for him to follow her. That was a pleasure, because Roc enjoyed seeing that loose, wild hair of hers flow like fire across her proud shoulders. Enjoyed watching the gentle sway of her hips, despite the long lab coat she wore. He was getting to know her body well.

  How loving Sam was! Now that she’d fully entrusted herself to him, no matter what their dangerous future portended, she held nothing back. The nights spent together in the privacy of her tent at area 5 HQ were a heated, emotional outpouring, soothing their past wounds like a balm and healing them both.

  “Laura!” Sam hailed as she opened the door to the private room. “Hi! Roc and I wanted to say goodbye to you before you left.” She smiled at her friend.

  Roc stepped into the room and nodded toward the blond-haired woman standing by a crib. “Morning, Mrs. Trayhern.”

  Laura smiled at them. “Hi, Sam. Captain, call me Laura. I’m not much for professional courtesy.” Lifting her hand, she gripped Sam’s. “I’m so glad you came!”

  Just then, Roc heard the door open once more. Twisting his head, he saw Morgan come in. The man’s expression had been dark and scowling, but as soon as he entered the room and spotted his wife standing over the crib, Roc saw his face relax and warmth come to his blue eyes. Wasn’t that how Sam affected him? he wondered. Just having her nearby made all his worries and consternation dissolve.

  As Morgan nodded hello to him and moved to his wife’s side, Roc realized that the man loved his wife with a fierceness that he hadn’t recognized before. He saw it now, because it matched his love for Sam.

  “Well, well,” Sam murmured, “look at you, Laura. All decked out and ready to go home to Montana! And you’re wearing a movable brace on that ankle. No more crutches. No more wheelchair. I’ll bet you’re happy about that?”

  Laughing, Laura reached up and gave Morg
an a kiss on the cheek as he came around to her and settled his hand on the crib, where Baby Jane Fielding—so named when the orphaned child was rescued from the rubble—lay bundled in a pink, fluffy blanket.

  “You should know better than anyone,” Laura said with a chuckled. “I’ve been a good girl while here at the hospital, and my physical therapist pronounced me fit and ready for this on-and-off brace.” She pointed proudly to her ankle, which was encased in an inflated plastic device that gave her newly healed bone the support it needed.

  Chuckling, Sam stood with Roc on the other side of the wooden crib. Gazing down at the baby, Sam said, “Hey, I’ve heard scuttlebutt down in Maternity. Is it true? You’re going to adopt this baby girl? That she has no relatives? No one?”

  Sighing and smiling, Laura reached over and touched the infant’s plump pink cheek. “Yes, it’s true.”

  “We’re going to be the proud parents of this little tyke,” Morgan murmured, pleased. “She went through the hell of the earthquake with us, was found at the side of her dead mother by a woman marine and her search dog. From that time forward, Laura has been taking care of her, feeding her—”

  “Changing her diapers…”

  Grinning, Morgan nodded sagely. “That too…often.”

  “Of course,” Laura told them proudly, “Morgan has lots of experience in that department. He was a big help with our four other children.”

  “Raising a baby is a full-time job, even with two people doing the work.” Morgan agreed, placing his hand on his wife’s shoulder and giving her a loving look.

  “I think it’s wonderful!” Sam breathed. “All the state and federal obstacles have been worked through so she can fly home with you, Laura?”

  Groaning, Morgan said, “All the i’s have been dotted and the t’s crossed.”

  Reaching down, Sam stroked the baby’s soft fat cheek. “Well, she’s in the best of hands. You have such love to give her. I hope, someday, she knows just how lucky she is.”