Risk Taker

by Lindsay McKenna

  Ethan laughed softly. “What do you mean?” He could feel her thinking, not by mental telepathy, but something else, a vibrant connection between their souls.

  She frowned. “How did you get to be the way you are?”

  Ethan’s mouth quirked. “I don’t know, Sarah. I’m just me.”

  “But you see me.”

  He sighed. “My heart saw you first.”

  “Your heart has eyes then,” she said, absorbing his embrace. Sarah had never felt so profoundly safe in her life. It was him. Ethan. Who he was.

  “I believe the heart should always lead us, be our eyes in our life,” he murmured. Ethan watched the strands of her hair fall like gleaming black ribbons against the others. “I guess my parents taught me that. Especially my mother.” His voice grew amused. “I can remember her always telling us kids that our heart was our compass. Our head was secondary, but to always listen to our feelings, our instincts. She was a mother bear about that.” He chuckled quietly. Their time with one another was never going to be guaranteed. Right now, Ethan was like a greedy beggar, absorbing every precious second with Sarah. He would not know when they’d ever have this kind of time again. Ethan felt as if he were in some radiant dream, transported to another realm with her.

  “You are different,” Sarah said in a hushed tone. “When you came into that canteen, I felt you before I saw you. I looked up, and there you were. For the first time in my life, Ethan, I didn’t feel so threatened by a man. I felt you look at me, but I can’t explain it.” Sarah moistened her lips, searching to articulate her feelings. “You sat down opposite of me. You never looked at me directly. But I felt you watching me, and I didn’t feel as defensive about it, as if you weren’t stripping me with your eyes, wanting to take something from me that wasn’t yours to take.”

  Ethan struggled to contain the pain he felt for her. “I wanted you, Sarah. Every man in that canteen wanted you.” He caressed her shoulder. “Maybe the difference was I was attracted to you for a lot of reasons, not just the physical.” Ethan’s voice became derisive. “I’d be a liar if I told you I didn’t want you, too, Sarah. I did, but what threw me was that I saw the sadness in your eyes, felt it go right through me like someone had shot an arrow straight into my heart. The sadness I felt in you was soul-deep, nothing light, nothing unimportant.”

  Ethan eased her away from him to drown in Sarah’s moist blue eyes. “Maybe I was feeling your beginnings in your life? Being thrown away, thinking you weren’t good enough to be loved or not be taken care of? I don’t know—I honestly can’t give it words.” And then his mouth drew into a wry smile. “And I’m pretty good with words. Or I like to think I am.” Ethan gave her a sheepish look. He knew she loved the words in the poems he gave her.

  Sarah stared up at him. His expression glinted with an intelligence she’d never found in another man. His mouth was so strong, one corner pulled inward, as if he was experiencing her pain, perhaps. “Your words always lift me, Ethan.”

  His cheeks glowed a dull red even in the shadowy light of the room, and a sudden shyness fleeted across his gaze. It was his mouth, however, that touched her. His lips twisted into a wry position, as if he was unsure in that moment. Of what? For a split second, the confident man wasn’t there. She saw a shy young boy, his heart on his sleeve.

  “From the first day when I saw you at the canteen, Sarah, I thought of you as an angel with wings. Only your wings were the blades on your helicopter. I wanted my poem—how I saw you—to make you feel good about yourself,” Ethan admitted, seeing the realization make her eyes shimmer with an incredible rainbow of emotions.

  Sarah lifted her hand, sliding it against his clean jaw. “I love them. You can’t know how your words touched me….” She held his gaze, seeing hope flare. “You can’t know how, after a while, I didn’t believe they were a trick, but coming from someone who really saw me. Not my body. But me. And every day, your words just melted into my heart a little more, and for the first time in a long time, I felt hope. I felt—” Sarah’s voice broke “—I felt you saw something in me that was so beautiful. And I wanted to believe in what you saw.” Tears ran down her face.

  Drawing in an uneven breath, Ethan lifted his hand and, with his thumb, removed the warm tears from her flushed cheeks. “Sarah, I wanted to touch your heart and your beautiful soul. To share with you what I saw within you. I lived in hell wondering if you didn’t understand my words. I was afraid you’d think I was like every other poor bastard at that camp, wanting you and tricking you into being trapped in my snare I’d laid out for you.”

  His touch was so incredibly light against her cheek. Sarah sensed he fought his own emotions. “Your words were so insightful, and somehow I knew you were sincere. I—I just haven’t ever met anyone like you, Ethan.” And it scared her even now because she was on new ground and had no experience. Sarah didn’t ever consider herself beautiful. She’d always felt ugly.

  “Words are powerful,” Ethan agreed, leaning down, barely brushing his mouth against hers. He felt Sarah tremble, felt her body awakening once more beneath his hands. The soft lushness of her lips glided against his own, enjoying him in so many ways. Her courage to open up to him, to trust him, was a special gift that he always wanted to cherish and build on with her.

  “Your words are healing to me, Ethan,” Sarah whispered unsteadily, feeling his mouth becoming more possessive, reigniting her body, making her womb ache with renewed hunger, wanting to love him once again.

  As he eased Sarah down upon the bed, her hips flexed against his and her eyes changed to undisguised raw hunger for him. He gave her an intense look; his erection was trapped against her soft belly. She lay beneath him, her blue eyes glistening with some unnamed emotion. Helpless to fight the possibility of love, Ethan allowed his heart to interpret her expression, her soft, parted lips, her hands calling him to him, wanting him to take her once more.

  As he leaned over, whispering his breath across her taut breasts, watching the peaks harden beneath the rasping of his beard, his heart burst open with such an avalanche of possessiveness toward Sarah. The powerful sense of wanting to claim her as his woman, wanting to always protect her, overwhelmed Ethan. Sarah had given him her heart and soul tonight. But Ethan also recognized, just as starkly, how the specter of Sarah’s past ran her life to this day. Could he compete with that? Could he win her trust? Everything was so tentative. So damn fragile between them.

  Chapter 12

  Sarah arrived back at her tent after flying all day. To her delight, she found Ethan’s white envelope on the floor of her tent waiting for her. A soft smile came to her mouth as she scooped it up and went inside the hot, stuffy interior. It was 1800, and she was starving. Sarah had been flying medevac missions from 0900 onward. Her hand shook slightly as she sat down on her cot after placing her helmet bag on the floor. Last night had changed her life.

  Her body still glowed from Ethan’s lovemaking. She had hated saying goodbye at Ops at 0700. Wanting to kiss him but unable to; she was back in the military harness with too many eyes watching them.

  She opened the blue parchment, hungrily reading his beautiful words.

  These are the shining mansions and palaces

  Dwelling within the house of your consciousness,

  Where colors run riot, and the rigidity of rules

  And restrictions have no sway. I am forever touched by gladness

  That you allowed my antenna to slip in for a short stay

  To this hidden oasis, this rainbow retreat

  Where jewels of yourself are unrestrained

  And your spirit engages in endless delight and play,

  Say what you will that you are an ordinary person:

  We will tell none of your poker face desire

  To blend into normalcy and proper station

  Say what you will

  Yet we hear the whisper of enchanted bluste
ry breezes

  To careen and dance between your atoms’ space

  And for the blazing, coursing tides of ardent expression

  To kiss as dew into your untrodden, spiraling paths and passageways

  Hidden beneath the winking sphinx of your countenance…

  (Ethan)

  Closing her eyes, Sarah pressed the paper to her heart, feeling Ethan’s invisible arms around her, hearing his low voice whispering those words in her ear and heart. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes and carefully slipped the poem back into the envelope. She stood and placed the letter with the others in a small bundle that she’d wrapped in some twine to keep them together. Her heart ached for Ethan’s nearness. He fed her on so many levels, so unlike other men. Perhaps it had been his mother who had made her boys sensitized toward women, taught them to treat them as equals.

  She put all her gear on the cot and pulled on her dark green baseball cap. Settling the cap on her head, she decided food first.

  Would Ethan be there? He had given her the number to call him over at SEAL HQ if she needed anything. Sarah had decided not to call him. On something important, definitely. A huge part of her wanted to keep what they had secret. Sacred.

  A new vulnerability opened deep within her and Sarah wanted to protect it, give it a chance to take root. To flourish for the first time in her life. And just when she would experience that high, heady feeling, her past would crash into her, destroying all those fragile, new feelings.

  *

  Sarah awoke the next morning. Automatically, her gaze went to the tent floor. Her heart bounded. There was another envelope from Ethan. She felt an incredible wave of desire. How she wished he could steal silently into her tent, but someone would see him. And then gossip would start. It wasn’t something Sarah wanted. Not here. Not with the other medevac pilots who just waited for an opportunity to mercilessly tease her. If they ever got wind that Ethan was the man in her life, hell would rain down on her. Better that he stole like a silent shadow in the night, long after everyone slept, to deliver his beautiful poetry to her. It was enough.

  Sarah sat up, rubbing her eyes and walking to the door to retrieve it.

  I might seek to tell others

  About the lush vibrant peaks of your blossoming soul

  But until they see your gardens,

  They are likely to take you at face value

  That you are ordinary…

  Do not believe it.

  You are extraordinary

  You are a testament and reminder

  that in the seed of all of us

  Are the blooms to come

  Reaching as effortlessly as sunflowers for the sun

  And here on out you need not ask me

  If I can come out and play. The Answer is YES.

  And it has always been YES—You are luminous.

  (to be continued by the poet who is currently on Rollerblades…)

  Sarah’s heart burst with such raw emotion for Ethan that she felt breathless for a moment. She closed her eyes, fingers against the envelope and paper, her heart wide open to him. To all possibilities.

  *

  Ten days later Ethan scowled as he was handed a summons for a court-martial. He was ordered to Bagram for an interview. He saw it involved the man who had assaulted Sarah. His mouth automatically tightened. He wondered if she’d just been given the summons because Tolleson and about thirty other individuals were named. Probably the whole damned canteen of men on that day had been given this summons. The Army sergeant who had assaulted her had been in the canteen prior to her leaving it.

  It was near noon, and he missed Sarah acutely. After spending the night with her in his arms nearly two weeks ago, Ethan could barely think about anything else. Luckily, the platoon had just come into a rest cycle and he could clean his equipment, replace items in his ruck to prepare for the next mission coming up shortly. And finally get a chance to meet Sarah at the chow hall.

  His mind always lingered on her. He worried about her flying, even though he knew her bravery was unmatched. She would rush into situations other medevac pilots might deem too hot and dangerous. Ethan scowled, beginning to realize a romance in war had its highs, but the lows sure as hell sucked. Big-time. It gave him satisfaction to write the poem stanzas and then move like a shadow to her tent in the early morning hours. Now he knew his words touched her heart, and that made him feel good in so many ways.

  Looking at the summons again, Ethan realized all of them had to be in Bagram on the same date. He wondered how all the witnesses were going to testify in one day. It was just too many people to interview at one time.

  Someone approached and turned. It was Tolleson, scowling as he read his summons.

  “Damn, this is going to screw our patrol that’s scheduled on that day,” he muttered. “There’s no way all these witnesses are going to give their testimony in one day.”

  “We might be there two days,” Ethan agreed.

  Snorting, Tolleson growled, “Three or four friggin’ days. I know how these little investigations work. They’ll only have three investigators and your name will be called and you’ll be led to a little room to be interviewed. It’s such a waste of our valuable time.”

  “That Army sergeant has whatever they hand out to him coming,” Ethan said. “I know we have a mission coming up, but I think we owe Chief Benson our testimony. Don’t you?”

  Tolleson grimaced. As LPO, his duty was to get the shooters prepared and ready to go. He didn’t like to be blindsided. And Tolleson had no idea Ethan and Sarah had a relationship. Ethan was remaining mute on that one. He had Sarah’s back.

  “Yeah, she’s the victim in this,” Tolleson finally muttered apologetically, scratching his head. “It’s just coming at a friggin’ bad time is all.”

  *

  Sarah awoke early. She’d slept restlessly because she’d received the summons to go to Bagram and testify against the man who had assaulted her. She wished Ethan were around. Being in the limelight scared the hell out of her, even if she was within her legal rights. As a child, if Sarah drew attention to herself, Bill noticed her. And when he noticed her… She whispered a curse and stood up. She saw Ethan’s white envelope on the deck. A rush of emotions, all good, pushed her ugly memories aside.

  Her heart pounded briefly as she unfolded the creamy parchment.

  As you gain momentum for your magnified daring

  I encourage you to invite others to your hidden gardens

  To receive a taste of the leafy wonders unraveling there

  You need no longer hide your head

  Under sheets of practicality—

  It is a given for you to dazzle

  And expand beyond all that you had once dared

  To have seen. Infinity is yours for the asking.

  Just as you cannot help but grow

  Into the break dance of light as it embraces day,

  Shining into infinite prisms of magic and of light.

  And to answer your question, there is no end to growth

  As your petals continue to open and magnify

  Beyond everything you have ever seen, or hope to be

  To encompass and caress.

  As long as I breathe, I will seek the diamond of your heart.

  Chow hall 1900 tonight?

  (Ethan)

  *

  Sarah tried to keep her game face on as she searched the busy chow hall, which contained at least two hundred people at dinnertime.

  Where was Ethan? She felt dread and didn’t know why. They hadn’t seen each other in over two week
s. Sarah felt that ugliness creeping back into her emotions and mind. She’d always felt dirty and discarded. Ethan had made her feel clean and beautiful. Now their relationship seemed as if it had been a dream, now shattered by reality as she came back down to earth. She had come home to Bravo and that toxic, hungry animal that lived within her was awakening again. Ethan’s love had tamed it. And that pain-filled animal within her always reminded her she was ugly. Sarah couldn’t put into words the feelings that came with it. That dark, flowing river of emotions experienced as a child was always there.

  Would Ethan one day see her ugliness? Sarah lived in dread of that. Her desire to see him turned into anxiety. She didn’t want to look obvious as she went through the line with her tray. Too many men stared at her. And now their stares had the same power over her as they had before.

  As Sarah left the line, she still hadn’t spotted Ethan. He may have gotten orders for a QRF. She tried to find a quiet, safe place away from all the men.

  “Sarah?”

  Ethan’s low voice was close, and she turned, surprised. He was standing nearby, his expression solemn, his gaze trained on her. His look moved down through her like a bolt of lightning. He was in his SEAL cammies, the SIG pistol riding low on his right thigh, a small knife in a sheath strapped to his lower left leg. Everything about him shouted danger. But he wasn’t dangerous to her.

  He had been her tender, sensitive lover. He knew how to please her, release her from her dark past and give her hope. Sarah’s smile was halfhearted as she looked up at him.

  “This way,” Ethan urged, turning and leading her out of the main room.

  There were several smaller rooms out of view of the patrons in the chow hall. To her relief, he led her down a brightly polished hall and into a room on the right. Inside, Sarah saw one table and his tray on it.

  “Is this called a SEAL ambush?” she asked, walking over and sitting down opposite him.

  Ethan closed the door. There was a window in it and no way to stop people from looking in on them. He wanted to kiss Sarah. “You could say that,” he murmured, giving her a warm look of hello. His body burned and ached. God, he wanted her right here, right now. Ethan had to erase the visualization of Sarah naked, lying on top of the table. He took a deep breath, willing his control back into place. It didn’t matter what she wore, he knew the voluptuous, soft, velvet body hidden beneath that green flight uniform. A wariness returned to Sarah’s eyes. His gut knotted. What had happened? She didn’t look happy to see him. Almost…shy in his presence once again. Something was wrong.