by Cindy Dees
“Hold the flashlight,” Alex ordered.
She didn’t have three hands, for crying out loud. But he was probably doing the work of three surgeons right now, so she didn’t complain. Kneeling awkwardly, she kept the baby’s mouth covered as it slid farther down in her coat and held the flashlight in her free hand where Alex pointed it.
He worked frantically on the mother, his hands flying.
“How’s she doing?”
“Bleeding all over the place. I’m losing her,” he gritted out.
Another round of gunfire from nearby made Katie jump and the baby cry even louder. She made hushing noises into her coat even though she doubted they would have any effect on the squalling infant.
Alex started to swear in a steady stream under his breath, and in the light of the next mortar, his face looked gray. She risked a glance down. There was blood everywhere. A huge pool of it lay under the girl. The formerly white towel was now black with it. And where Alex’s hands worked inside the girl, his fingers disappeared in a flowing puddle of it. Streams of blood trickled down the girl’s belly unchecked. Katie had never seen so much blood in all her life.
“Listen for a heartbeat,” he ordered.
She laid her head on the girl’s chest. The rib cage did not rise, and she heard only the swish of her own blood in her ear. God, she hated silence. But then a barrage of gunfire made it too loud for her to hear a thing, and that was worse. She hunted again, frantically, for a pulse under the girl’s jaw. Nothing.
Tears welling in her eyes, she shook her head at Alex.
He continued to work in grim silence for several more minutes. But finally he went still. He stared down at the girl’s body bleakly. And then all he said in a terrible, agonized whisper was, “Turn off the flashlight.”
Her second hand freed, she turned to the business of quieting the crying infant. She maneuvered the hot little bundle inside her coat until it lay across her, the baby’s head on her left breast. She remembered hearing somewhere that the sound of heartbeats calmed babies. It took a few moments, but it worked.
Alex shook himself out of wherever he’d gone mentally and crawled to the edge of the crevasse. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“What about her?” Katie glanced down at the corpse of the girl who’d been so brave and angry and determined to live.
“We have to leave her.”
Every cell in Katie’s being protested the notion of just abandoning the girl here like a discarded hunk of meat. Thankfully, Alex crawled back to the girl’s side. Gently, he closed her eyelids before pulling the end of her burka across her face. He covered the bloody mess that had been the girl’s belly with a towel and arranged the girl’s robes over it all.
He placed his hand over the girl’s heart and murmured barely loud enough for Katie to hear, “Rest in peace, and be with whatever God you worshipped in life.”
The tears overflowed from Katie’s eyes then, and she sucked back a sob. She was shocked when strong arms wrapped around her, dragging her up against a hard body. Between them was the hot bump of an infant torn from its mother’s dying body. Katie didn’t even know what sex it was. A hand pushed her face down onto his shoulder; his own face was buried in her hair. He shuddered against her while she cried into his neck.
But as the ominous thwocking of a helicopter became audible in the distance, he stilled and muttered into her hair, “If you want that baby to live, grieve later. Follow me now. Fast and silent.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT HOUR was a nightmare. The mountain was no less steep at the top than at the bottom, and the baby fussed occasionally, sending her into a cold panic as she tried frantically to shush the newborn. It didn’t help matters that the battle raging below grew more intense as the night wore on. And who knew what lay over the mountain peak?
Alex was grim and silent, focused intently on finding a route up the mountain. He was quick to lend her a helping hand, though, or to haul her up over a particularly rough patch. As she’d correctly guessed, he was deceptively strong. And when her strength lagged and her will to go on faltered, he was indomitable.
And there was always that intense hug to think about. It had been more than simple comfort. He had let her inside his guard for just a minute. Made a human connection with her. Maybe even needed her for a second there.
Alex murmured from ahead, “Stay low. We’re cresting the mountain. We don’t want our silhouettes visible below.”
She crawled across the open peak and huddled in the lee of a boulder just over the crest beside Alex.
“How’s the baby?” he asked.
“Alive. It moves around now and then.”
“Let me see it,” Alex muttered.
She unzipped her coat and lifted the infant out. In a flash of mortar fire, she saw it was a baby girl. Said baby girl took immediate and loud umbrage at being exposed to the sharp chill, however, and started to squall.
Alex pulled a clean towel out of his pack and swaddled the infant in it after a fast examination. Thoughtfully, he passed the baby back to her, and Katie slipped the child back in her coat. It took a minute or so, but the baby quieted in the warm and dark next to Katie’s heart.
“We have to get food for her,” Katie whispered.
“She can go a day or two without eating, actually,” Alex replied. “Most babies don’t take in much nourishment in their first twenty-four hours.”
Huh. Live and learn. “What about us?”
He shrugged. “We’re another matter. We’ll need water before long.”
“Any bright ideas about what to do next?” she asked.
“Go downhill for a while.”
She liked that idea a whole lot better than continuing to scale mountain peaks in the dark. With no climbing gear. And a baby stuffed down her coat.
Trying to stay oriented as to where they were, she pictured the map of this region they’d been showed in the D.U. offices. Another village lay at the head of this valley. Its name was something like Ghan or Ghun. She couldn’t remember exactly. No telling if it was another Karshani clan village or belonged to some other clan entirely. As likely as not, the neighbors hated each other’s guts.
This side of the mountain was more a slope than a cliff, mostly made treacherous by loose, rolling gravel. She made much of the descent sliding on her butt; before long, they stood at the bottom of a narrow valley in deep darkness.
Alex shocked her by brushing off the seat of her jeans and finishing off by giving her ass the briefest of squeezes. So brief she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not. But not so brief that her breathing didn’t accelerate sharply.
“Altitude getting to you?” he murmured.
Yeah, right. Altitude. “Gee, I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Maybe I should feel your butt and see if a sudden case of altitude sickness overcomes you.”
“I dare you.”
Oh, it was so on. She stepped right up behind him and slipped her hands down the waistband of his jeans. He lurched in shock as she slid her palms between his briefs and the denim and cupped strong, well-defined male cheeks that abruptly went rock hard.
“Not bad, Doctor. Not bad at all.”
He whipped around, effectively yanking her hands out of his pants, and stared down at her. Enveloped in darkness and lust that rolled off him like sin, it crossed her mind that, perchance, she was playing with fire by messing with this man.
“Think before you go there with me,” he rasped. “I’m not one of your milk-toast college boys.”
The warning in his voice was clear. Although what, exactly, he was warning her about, she wasn’t sure. That he wouldn’t stand for mind games from her? Or that his tastes were darker than the average college co-ed’s? Or maybe that getting involved with him would be an all-or-nothing proposition.
Was she prepared to go there with him? How far beyond her experience would he take her? Just how intense would sex with him be? Turned on and scared in equal measure, she let out a carefu
l breath as he turned and stalked off into the night.
She’d wanted to be taken seriously. To be treated like an adult. For everyone to quit seeing a sweet, naive kid when they looked at her. But how much innocence was she willing to lose? If she didn’t miss her guess, being with Alex Peters could cost her damn near all of hers.
They’d been hiking for maybe an hour when the baby commenced crying and nothing she could do would quiet the poor little thing.
Alex muttered, “She’s hungry. Nursing after birth is an instinctive imperative. We probably won’t shut her up shy of feeding her something.”
“Any suggestions as to what to feed her?”
“Actually, yes.” He slid his pack off his shoulders and rummaged in it, emerging with an IV bag. He poked a pinhole in one corner of it while she opened her coat and maneuvered the infant close to the opening while keeping the baby mostly inside the garment’s warmth.
They tried unsuccessfully to squeeze some of the IV fluid into the child’s mouth, but the baby wouldn’t swallow it and only squalled louder.
“We’ve got to quiet her down,” Alex bit out. “Once the artillery fire stops, people for miles around will hear her screaming.”
“Any ideas?” Katie asked, frantically rocking the furious baby.
“She needs to suck to trigger her swallowing reflex.”
“I already tried getting her to suck my finger as a makeshift pacifier and she wouldn’t do it.”
“She needs to suckle. As in a female breast.” He threw her an expectant look.
Katie stared. “News flash, Doctor. My equipment is not currently in service for milk production.”
“She doesn’t need to get any milk. She just needs a breast to suck. Once she’s sucking strongly, then we can squirt some IV fluid into her mouth and she’ll swallow it.”
An embarrassed impulse to refuse speared through her gut at the same time intellectual certainty that she would do it rolled through her brain. She tried unsuccessfully to juggle the baby and her coat and her shirt, until Alex’s big, warm hands slipped inside her coat and took the baby. Awkwardly, she raised her shirt, baring her bra, which happened to be lacy and white and practically glowed in the dark.
“Not very practical lingerie for Zaghastan,” he murmured in amusement.
The bastard sounded like he was enjoying the view a little too much. She glanced up, irritated, and muttered, “I wasn’t expecting to show it to anyone while I was here.”
“So you wear sexy lingerie entirely to please yourself? That’s encouraging.”
“How so?” she blurted. She wished the words back as soon as they left her mouth.
“You struck me as too...virginal...for that naughty bra. I’m glad to see I underestimated you.”
Her gaze narrowed at the faint challenge simmering in his voice. She reached for the edge of her bra cup and slowly, deliberately, pulled it down. Alex’s gaze riveted on her flesh as the swell of her breast and its rosy nipple were revealed. His gaze flared like an arc welder, and her pulse spiked hard in response.
Without comment, he eased the infant to her breast. The baby was too mad or too inexperienced or both to know what to do, however.
“I apologize,” he muttered.
“For what?”
“For this.” He reached in front of the infant’s mouth with his fingers and pinched her nipple. Hard. She jumped and would have squawked were they not in the middle of a war zone. Involuntarily, her back arched into his hand, trying unsuccessfully to ease the sharp pressure.
“Oww,” she breathed.
He let go and made a small sound of satisfaction. “Better.”
She ventured a look down and realized her nipple now jutted out, swollen and full.
“Rub it on the baby’s face. Across her mouth,” he instructed.
She did so, stunned at how erotic it was to be doing this in front of him. Without warning, the baby latched on and gave a tug that shot sensations all the way to her groin. “Oh!” she gasped.
One corner of Alex’s mouth curved up knowingly. He reached between her breast and the baby with the IV bag and slipped the pinholed corner into the infant’s mouth. She felt the baby swallow against her flesh.
“It’s working,” she breathed. “Do it again.”
Working together, the two of them got a few ounces of IV fluid down the baby, who fell asleep quickly after that. Alex hooked his finger under the lace and lifted it into place, running the back of his knuckle lightly across her nipple in the process. Damned if it didn’t stand up proud and eager again, pushing impudently through the lace. And damned if he didn’t stare down at it, his eyes ablaze, until her breath came short and fast.
“Zip up,” he ordered sharply. “I don’t need either of you catching a chill.”
She scowled at his back until it occurred to her that it might have been sexual frustration putting that edge in his voice. Abruptly, she felt much better as she tucked the sleeping baby into her coat and zipped it up.
“We need to name her,” she announced. “We can’t just keep calling her ‘the baby.’”
Alex threw her a startled look over his shoulder. “You do it. But, for God’s sake, don’t name her something native. Pick something American-sounding.”
“Why?”
“We’ll need to take her back to the States with us. Which means we’ll need to pass her off as our baby. What would you name our daughter?”
Their baby? The notion was both thrilling and scary to contemplate. “How about Charlene?” It had been her grandmother’s name.
“Slut I went to school with was named that. Try again.”
“Alexandra?”
That earned her rolled eyes and a firm, “No.”
“Catherine?”
“You want to name a baby after a violent, dead queen?”
“Fine. You come up with a name you like!”
“Katrina.”
“Sounds a little grown-up for a tiny baby.”
“She won’t be a tiny baby for long. And you can call her a nickname like Kat or Trina in the meantime.”
“Teeny Treeny?”
He groaned under his breath. “Call her Dawn. The sun will be coming up soon.”
She actually liked the symbolism of a new day after the darkness of night. Goodness knew, this child had been born under the blackest of circumstances. And she couldn’t think of any horrible nicknames other kids might come up with for it. “Dawn, it is.”
“Speaking of dawn, we need to take cover soon,” he commented.
“Why?”
“Given the size of last night’s battle, I expect more drones will patrol the area today.”
“Isn’t the U.S. the only country with attack drones? Why would the good guys come after us?”
He whirled and demanded, low and angry, “Since when is the United States presumed to be the good guy?”
Her jaw dropped. She’d been raised among soldiers and cops dedicated to country and service...to the death. It was anathema in her home to suggest anything other than the United States was right and good and decent.
Alex huffed. “Don’t get me wrong. Democracy is a hell of a lot better than the available alternatives. But spare me the religious fervor for mom, apple pie and the Stars and Stripes.”
“What the hell did Uncle Sam do? Pee in your Wheaties?” she demanded.
Pain. Grief. Rage. Desolation. The emotions flitted through his eyes so quickly she could barely register them, let alone catalogue them. What the—
“Not on the list of approved topics for conversation between us,” he bit out. He turned around and stomped off without waiting to see if she followed.
“If there’s a list of approved topics, how come I didn’t get a copy?” she called after him.
A mumbled retort floated back over his shoulder, “Above your pay grade.”
Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t about to let him get away with blowing her off. But first she had to catch him, and he was practically jogging
toward the head of the narrow valley now. She’d always hated it when her brothers used their superior size and strength to ditch her. In retrospect, she’d probably been an annoying pest more often than not, but she’d just wanted to be included. To this day, she hated being left behind.
Her brother’s cryptic request to watch for signs of something weird with Alex resonated in her head. What was up with this guy?
“Slow down!” she finally had to call to Alex.
Nada.
“Please!”
That did it. He stopped without turning around and waited until she panted up behind him. The altitude was a killer when added to a strenuous hike. As soon as she drew within arm’s length of him, he took off again, but thankfully at a more reasonable pace. In a few minutes, he murmured, “Keep an eye out for movement on that slope ahead. We’re getting close to Ghun.”
Mostly, she was occupied staring at the ground so she didn’t twist an ankle or break her neck. She glanced where he indicated and saw a steep rock face looming. She groaned under her breath.
“I see caves up there,” Alex commented. “It’s too early in the year for shepherds to have brought their flocks up here, though, so they ought to be empty. No grass yet.”
She snorted. Nothing grew up here. She was surprised to spot what looked like an organized network of caves all over the steep slope ahead. How could so many people support themselves off the dirt and dust of this valley? No stream of any kind flowed through the area. In the past two weeks, she’d learned just how critical water supplies were to native peoples.
As the first gray of predawn peeked over the mountains, Alex scrambled up the steep hill while she rested a bit. He came back soon and led her to a cave blessedly not far up the slope. Overlapping slabs of stone mostly obscured the entrance. They slipped past the rocks into the dark, and Alex audibly sighed in relief. Had he been that worried, then?
In the green light of a Cyalume stick, she looked around the high-ceilinged cave. The floor was flat, dry and reasonably clean. A few animal droppings and scattered bones proclaimed the presence of some small predator. Off to one side was a stone ledge about hip high covered with a framework of woven boughs and dried grass that looked like a crude bed. Near the entrance, the stone walls were blackened as if fires had been lit there.
