He wiped his mouth, watching the Black Hawk scream in. Damn, Sarah was a hellion in the air! She flared the Black Hawk, nose up at the last moment, bleeding off forward air speed and then thunking that helo down hard on its tricycle landing gear. She would keep the speed at eighty miles per hour—takeoff speed—so she could get out of there if things turned sideways.
“Now!” Ethan ordered the Marines behind him. He got up, slinging his M4 across his back, and helped pick up the first Marine. Simultaneously, both medics from the Black Hawk leaped out and ran at top speed toward them to help, a litter between them.
Bullets started snapping around the Black Hawk. Sarah sat tensely, watching Ethan, the Marines and her medics haul the two unconscious Marines on board. Several bullets smashed into the Plexiglas on her side of the cockpit. A shower of sparkling fragments slammed through the cockpit area. She flinched but kept her hands steady on the cyclic and collective, her boots on the rudders. Hurry! Dammit, hurry!
Suddenly, Tait screamed. Whipping her head around, she saw he’d been hit in the arm from a fusillade of bullets shattering his side of the cockpit Plexiglas.
The medics got the Marines on board. She heard Pascal yell, “Lift off!”
Sarah didn’t need any more than that. Tait lifted his gloved hand, pushing the throttles overhead to the wall, punching the fuel into her bird. She cranked up the cyclic, getting the hell off the hill. As she guided the Black Hawk down the slope, avoiding the hail of gunfire, she could hear the pinging sounds of bullets ripping into the skin of her bird. Some blew through the cabin, opening holes between the inner and outer skin going between those two layers of insulation. She prayed none of them hit the Jesus nut, the rotor assembly, or they were screwed. Tait was moaning and crying in pain, holding his shoulder, blood leaking between his fingers.
“Pascal!” she snapped into the mic. “Tait’s been wounded in the left shoulder. Can you get up here?”
“On my way in a second….”
Pascal’s cool, calm voice was a godsend in the chaos for Sarah. She wanted to yell at Tait to suck it up. But the copilot was crying like a baby. Hell, the two Marines in the back were wounded and neither of them was screaming like he was. Sarah guided the Black Hawk up as fast as she could to five thousand feet altitude while pushing it forward in an effort to get back to Camp Bravo as quickly as possible.
Tait handled the throttles overhead in the cockpit between their seats. Sarah had to keep both her hands on the collective and cyclic. With Tait out of the fight, she was doing both. Not a good scenario.
Pascal examined Tait’s bloody arm. He said to her, “This turned into a casevac, Chief Benson. Both those Marines… Head directly for Bagram.”
Heart sinking, Sarah nodded. “Roger,” she said, heading west toward Bagram Air Base. It would be a fifty-minute flight. “How bad?” she demanded.
“Past critical,” Pascal said, leaning over Tait, trying to size up his wound. He pulled out a pair of scissors from his trouser pocket, telling the panicked copilot to turn and sit still so he could cut into the upper sleeve of his flight suit to examine the wound.
Sarah’s mind leaped ahead. Tait was too green to be of much help. She switched channels and made a call into E.R. at Bagram, alerting them to their location and the status of their two Marine patients. By the time she was done, Pascal had cut Tait’s sleeve to examine the injury.
“You’ll live, Mr. Tait,” Pascal drawled. “Just a flesh wound. You’ll be fine. I’ll put a bandage on it and when we land at Bravo, you can go over to the dispensary and they’ll patch you up. Congratulations on getting your first Purple Heart.”
Pascal eased out of the cockpit, then turned and shared a private smile with Sarah.
Sarah got it. “Tait, get on the horn and apprise Major Donaldson we’re heading for Bagram.” She wasn’t going to let him sit there crying and acting helpless. It was time he sucked it up and became a team member. She needed his focus on those damn overhead throttles.
“Hey, Chief Benson,” Tait said. “You got blood on your right arm.”
Snorting, Sarah said, “Make the call to the major, will you? I’m fine.”
Tait gawked at her.
She glared over at him, daring him to say one more word.
He quickly went back to making the call to Donaldson.
*
Ethan wearily climbed out of the Night Stalker helicopter that had just landed at Camp Bravo. The sun was low on the western horizon. His men followed him, all of them walking a little slower, exhausted by the long firefight. The good news was the A-10 Warthog had made the defining difference. The Marines finally owned the firefight after the Hog spewed its load of bullets and bombs all over the lower slopes of that hill.
The concrete revetment area radiated heat, increasing the temperature. As they walked toward Ops, Ethan watched as a Black Hawk with a red cross on its nose landed. The cockpit area was shot up, some of the Plexiglas destroyed. Halting, he knew it had to be Sarah’s helo. Why was she landing just now? She’d left the hill hours ago. He wanted to wait and talk to her.
Turning, he told his men to get cleaned up, get some chow and ramp down. He’d be over at SEAL HQ later to write up a report on the mission. As beaten up as he felt right now, Ethan had to see her.
Sarah was the last crew member off the bird. She felt tiredness creeping through her limbs. Pascal checked out the radio before he left for Ops. Major Donaldson wasn’t going to like what he saw. Her Black Hawk was pretty well shot up and a new Plexiglas would have to be installed. Not good for his bottom line. She shrugged, climbing out, pushing up her visor. As she did, she noticed Ethan coming her way. Instantly, her heartbeat sped up. He was dirty and sweaty, his cammies soaked. His M4 was in a sling harness across his chest. He looked damned good to her, and she felt suddenly lighter.
Ethan met her with a smile, seeing the exhaustion in her eyes. There was blood on the right side of her face. The shards of Plexiglas had exploded in on her. His eyes missed nothing as he rapidly examined her standing there, one boot resting, her hip at an angle while pulling off her Nomex flight gloves.
Damn, but she was a warrior. Ballsy as hell. It was the first time he’d seen her in action, and she took no prisoners. The smile that came to her face drove heat straight down through him.
“You must have flown straight to Bagram. How are the two Marines?” he asked, drawing to a halt about six feet away from her. She removed her helmet; her black hair was in a loose ponytail.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, meeting his glittering eyes, feeling Ethan’s touch without ever being touched. “They were alive when we transferred them over to Bagram E.R. Pascal, my medic, is an 18 Delta guy. He works miracles.” She put her helmet into the canvas bag, pushed her kneeboard into it and picked it up.
“I hope they make it,” he said, slowly walking with her toward Ops. Around them, other helicopters were taking off. The air filled with the smell of kerosene aviation fuel. He was worried, looking at her upper right arm. “You take a hit?” Ethan asked, gesturing to her arm, concerned.
“Yeah,” Sarah muttered. “Nothing to write home about. Pascal looked at it earlier and said it was a piece of Plexiglas in my arm. I’m going over to E.R. and have them pull it out, stitch me up and I’ll be good as new.”
“Probably not the first time this has happened?”
“Not the first time,” she said, gazing up at him. “How are you and your guys doing? Helluva firefight you walked into.” Sarah drowned in his dark look, her eyes dropping to his mouth. God, what a mouth Ethan had! It was driving her crazy. She wanted to feel his mouth beneath hers, tasting him, feeling his power, his maleness. Whatever was happening between them, it hadn’t gone away. On the contrary, it had grown stronger. Sarah felt that familiar tug-of-war between wanting to trust him and wanting to pull away.
“I’m good and so are my men,” he murmured, checking his stride for hers. “Bitch of a firefight.”
“No kidding,” she sai
d drily.
“You’re hell on wheels. You know that?” Ethan caught and held Sarah’s startled glance. “You brought that bird in so damned fast, I thought you were going to overshoot the landing site.” He grinned.
She shrugged. Sarah liked his smile. His eyes burned with intense interest—she hoped for her—and it felt good. It felt scary. She didn’t know what to do with Ethan’s attention. “Two Marines were critical,” she told him. “I don’t stand on much protocol when I know that. It has to be a fast infil and exfil.”
“Even though lead was flying?”
“Nothing fazes me when I’m saving lives. I’ve got my priorities straight.”
Shaking his head, Ethan smiled. “You’re amazing.”
Sarah took the compliment and allowed it to sink in. “Thanks. Funny, I was thinking the same about you. You were orchestrating and commanding the entire firefight.” She met his hooded stare. “You’re a hero in my eyes.”
Her words melted through him like sweet, warm honey. “Oh,” Ethan teased, “I think this is a situation of the pot calling the teakettle black. Don’t you?” He watched as her lips lifted into a wry smile.
“Maybe,” Sarah admitted.
“I’m going to get a shower and change of clothes. Want to meet me at the chow hall in an hour?”
Her heart lurched. She hesitated. The chow hall was in public. No one could accuse her of fraternizing there. “I’m not sure, Ethan.”
He briefly touched her uninjured shoulder. “Okay, see you in a few….”
Sarah watched him peel off and quicken his stride toward Ops. Ethan wasn’t taking no for an answer. He was that confident. He had led the QRF force and would have a ton of paperwork to plough through tonight.
Grimacing, Sarah took a look back at her helo. Donaldson was going to raise holy hell with her. But not right now. She was going to E.R., get a shower, clean off the sweat and smell of battle and climb into a clean flight suit. And then she’d meet Ethan at the chow hall. She was still on duty until tomorrow at 0800. Anxiety thrummed through Sarah, dissolving the weariness that always came after flying into a hot landing zone. As she pushed through the doors of Ops, Sarah knew Major Donaldson would have her on the carpet, wanting to chew her ass for disobeying his direct order. Tonight, she thought, she wanted to simply be in Ethan’s company because he was the safest male other than her now-deceased pilot friend Chief Warrant Officer Ted Bateman, in her life. Her curiosity was eating her alive because she wanted to know a lot more about the SEAL.
Chapter 7
Ethan spotted Sarah as she walked into the chow hall an hour later. She was in a fresh uniform that hid her lush body. Her hair was clean, shining and in a ponytail. He rose and walked over to her as she stood in the chow line. All the blood on the lower right side of her face was gone, but he could see tiny red spots where fractured Plexiglas had cut into her soft, beautiful skin. He smiled when she spotted him. Her cheeks flushed, making her blue eyes even more intense in color. His entire body flooded with want. Forcing control over himself, he came and stood next to her in line.
“The doc give you a clean bill of health on your arm?”
Sarah nodded, slowing her steps, still unsure of eating with Ethan. “I’m good to go.” She wrinkled her nose and added, “I told them not to send the medical report over to my CO. I didn’t want him grounding me for a scratch, so they’re delaying sending it over until later tomorrow morning after I’m done with my shift.”
She looked up into those warm gray eyes of his. She could feel Ethan’s male interest and, for whatever reason, didn’t react negatively to it. There was a softening at the corners of his well-shaped mouth, and Sarah sensed kindness in him. It wasn’t that obvious. Hell, he was a SEAL, and no one could ignore that. She noticed a number of men watching them. “You know the system,” Ethan said, smiling a little.
“I’ve been at this for a long time,” Sarah agreed, picking up an orange and placing it on her tray. The Navy cook behind the line put a dollop of potatoes and gravy along with several thick slices of rare beef. She asked for some corn and then was ready to leave the line.
“This way,” Ethan urged, gesturing toward the rear of the chow hall.
Sarah felt her back prickle with so many damned eyes of men following her progress. She hated it. And, as if Ethan sensed her discomfort, he moved behind her, providing a barrier between her and them. She wished mightily she could get over being stared at in this military fishbowl. Right now, she felt safe and protected with Ethan shadowing her movement. And just that alone made her decide to eat with him. He was safer than the rest of the men. That’s what it boiled down to.
Ethan sat down at the table, his back to the wall. Sarah settled opposite him, her back to the doors. She noticed he was casually looking around. Cutting into her beef, she asked, “What is it about you SEALs? I haven’t had that much interface with them.”
Ethan folded his hands, elbows resting on the table. He had a cup of coffee to the right of him, having already eaten. “What have you heard?” He watched her eat. Sarah was delicate in all her movements. Who could have ever guessed she was the kamikaze medevac pilot roaring into that firefight earlier today? Even the bulky green flight suit couldn’t hide her curves from him. Heat shimmered through him, and Ethan felt himself going hard. Not exactly a good thing in a chow hall, and he was glad he was in bulky cammies where it wouldn’t be seen.
Shrugging, Sarah said between bites, “Well, you guys are the blackest of the black ops groups around here from what everyone says.”
“We’re shadows. We don’t want to be seen unless we want you to see us.” He smiled, drowning in her blue eyes; her pupils were large and black, framed by long dark lashes. Did Sarah realize how incredibly beautiful she was? Ethan didn’t think so. He’d never seen her with makeup on. Of course, the Black Jaguar Squadron—which was composed of only women flying the Apache combat helicopter—didn’t exactly dress up, either. Still, Sarah seemed disconnected to her natural beauty. It wasn’t anything that pointed to it, but Ethan could sense it. And his finely honed intuition was never wrong.
“Are you top secret and can’t say anything about yourself?” she asked, partly teasing.
“Ask me anything. I’ll try to answer it.”
She saw the challenge in his eyes and grinned. She was fine talking about him. “Okay, how old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Same age as me.”
“See? We have something in common.”
Sarah felt elated with that info. Good to know, but she cautioned herself. “How many tours have you had over here?”
“Fourth one. My team is on a two-year rotation schedule. We remain stateside refreshing all our skills for eighteen months, picking up new training techniques along the way, and then we redeploy to the Middle East for six to twelve months of combat duty.”
“God, I know more in five minutes about the SEALs than I have in all the years I’ve been over here. You’re an open book, Ethan.”
He liked the way his name fell from Sarah’s lips. “With you, I’ll always try to be,” he responded. “My turn?”
Sarah suddenly felt wary, but her heart pushed her to open up to him. She finished off her food, then pushed the tray to one side. “I’m not an open book.”
Ethan hesitated because he was going to get very personal. It was his nature to dig into a person’s background. It wasn’t a SEAL attribute necessarily; it was just him. He liked to understand what made a person tick. He’d come to understand over the years, a person’s childhood held the key to who they were today. And he was fascinated with Sarah’s courage under fire. What made her that way? Most women wouldn’t do what she did, but maybe that was a prejudice on his part. “Your call on this, but I remember you saying the first twelve years of your life weren’t happy?”
Sarah’s heart snapped shut over his softly asked question. She hesitated and stared into his half-closed eyes. Her woman’s instincts were wide-open and she could
feel Ethan probing her, wanting to know more than what any man had ever asked of her before.
“Why do you want to know?” Sarah muttered, swallowing hard.
Ethan sensed Sarah’s immediate withdrawal; fear lodged in her narrowing eyes. That caught him off guard. “I want to know more about you. The person, not the medevac pilot.” He added a slight, coaxing look, holding her guarded gaze. Ethan could sense her sizing him up as a potential enemy, just because he was curious about her.
Sarah picked up the orange and began to slowly peel it. Ethan was throwing her off balance. His face was as sincere as his question. God, did she really want to open up this can of worms to him? To a man? His gray eyes held hers, and she felt a deep emotional connection building between them. It wasn’t visible, but, damn, it touched every part of her being. She kept peeling the orange, thinking, and dropped the rind into the tray. The scent of the orange enveloped her nostrils, something clean and sweet juxtaposed with her world of combat. Sarah glanced up at him and scowled. Ethan was relaxed, as if he were the most patient person in the world, waiting for her to make a decision. Her stomach tightened.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The words came out roughened, charged with a lot of barely held-in emotion. Ethan opened his hands.
“Why do I threaten you, Sarah?”
She stared bluntly at him. “Because most men want to take a piece of my soul from me. It happened when I was young. I’ll be damned if I’m giving any other part of myself away to one.” She saw him sit back, digesting her growling words. And she had growled, almost a wolf warning to back off or it would bite.
“All I want,” Ethan began after the silence strung for a long minute between them, “is to get to know you better. You’re an incredible pilot and woman, and, maybe it’s my SEAL curiosity at work here, but I do care about you, Sarah.”
Wincing inwardly, Sarah stared down at the orange in her hands, weighing and evaluating. She was so tired of hiding. So tired of trying not to be noticed because she was a woman in a male world of combat. Lifting her chin, she met his eyes again.
Risk Taker Page 7
