She nodded vaguely and Ty gestured for her move out in front of him. They were halfway down the hall, Ty saw the staircase but they couldn’t run because of all the rubble and dismantled parts of the building that sat in the way.
Ty felt the floor move and Léonie stopped walking.
“We have to keep going, we can’t be in here when the building goes down.”
Léonie’s whole body was trembling but she walked on regardless. Ty looked up and saw a crack running across the ceiling and at the centermost point the ceiling sagged. Léonie moved forward another step and Ty felt something shift within the building, a loud creak issued from the walls and ceiling.
Ty grabbed Léonie around the waist and pulled her back toward him, then, still lifting her, he ran three unbalanced steps into the nearest room as the ceiling crashed, creating a domino effect.
The walls went with the ceiling and the floor began to disappear. Ty tripped over a toppled chair but steadied himself and pushed back into the room as close to the outside wall as possible. He pulled Léonie into his body as he moved to the wall and covered her head with his hands. The crash around them blew dirt into Ty’s face and he found it difficult to breath. The entire wall that he was leaning against was moving and he knew that if it fell they would most likely go with it. They might survive the crash depending on what they fell on top of and what fell on top of them.
The crash seemed to go on forever. He listened to every sound and felt himself keenly aware of every small vibration that moved from the building into his body. He could hear the muffled sounds of Léonie who let out small snips of screams followed by muffled words.
They were still alive, still on the wall, still uncovered by hunks of ceiling when the crashing stopped. As the dust began to settle Ty heard Léonie’s quietly spoken words.
“…fruit de vos entrailles, est béni. Sainte Marie, Mčre de Dieu, priez pour nous pécheurs, maintenant, et ŕ l'heure de notre mort. Amen.” Hail Mary, Ty thought, though he wasn’t sure. He tried to control his breathing, wanting to ask Léonie if she was all right but not wanting to interrupt her prayers.
Ty looked around them. Most of the room was still intact. It had begun to cave only by the door that led to the hallway. He was certain everything beyond that point was gone. The other half of the room looked almost untouched and the part behind them had already been destroyed before they’d entered.
Ty waited until Léonie was silent in his arms before he began to release her.
“Are you ok?” He looked around the hair falling in her face and she turned her head to look back at him.
“You saved my life,” She was breathless and her eyes were watery.
“I just moved us, that’s all.”
“You saved my life,” She repeated.
Chapter Seven
Ty let her go and stepped carefully away from the wall. She watched him as he gently felt the security of the floor with his feet as he moved.
“It feels solid enough.” He turned to her. His face was strong, he carefully took off his fatigue jacket and set it aside. His arms were strong and thick and Léonie had to make herself look away.
Ty’s face was covered in dirt and his forearms still had some drying blood from the American doctor he’d pulled from the rod.
“I think we’ll be safe here for now.” Ty walked as far to the outer edges as he dared and looked over the fallen hunks of wall and building. “I don’t think we ought to try going any further then this,” He walked around the side where the collapsed roof had obscured their view.
“There’s no window,” Léonie observed. “No way to get out. What will happen?”
“We’ll just have to wait. There will be help.”
Léonie nodded. Of course there would be help. There had to be help. But what if the rest of the building collapsed before then? What if there was another explosion right where they were standing? Léonie sat against the wall and pressed her head back. Her body was still thudding as if the building were still falling. But it wasn’t falling any longer, she was safe, for now.
“There’s a box over there, or at least there should be, there’s water in it.” Léonie pointed to a corner almost taken out by the ceiling. Ty walked over and moved a few pieces of collapsed ceiling, moving as gently as he could manage. He uncovered a dented box and opened it to find bottles of warm water. Unable to move the box, which was wedged to the floor, Ty took out four bottles and brought them over to Léonie then sat down on the floor next to her.
Léonie removed the cap to one and used it to wash off her hands, splashed her face, the back of her neck, and took a sip that she spit out. There had been too much dirt in her mouth to swallow. Once the first bottle was gone she took a long sip from the second then sealed it up and sat the bottle next to her. She looked at Ty who had been staring at her. Léonie blushed.
When Ty realized that he’d been caught he began the same process she’d just been through and because he’d watched her she felt no qualms in watching him.
“Do you remember what happened?” Ty asked after he’d finished drinking half a bottle.
“Nothing useful, if that’s what you mean. There was an explosion, the building shook and one of the walls fell, then there was a second. It was much bigger and everything started crashing down. There were shouts and cries all over, in every room.”
Ty nodded.
“Do you think a bomb was planted inside our complex?” Léonie asked.
“I don’t know. There are no rules here you know. I don’t think targeting a hospital full of women and children is ever a good strategy but I just don’t see any other explanation.”
There was silence between the two for a long moment.
“Aren’t you ashamed to be here, to be a part of this?” Léonie’s emotions were running hot. She’d just seen a man die under her hands and she’d seen a lot worse since she’d come to Afghanistan.
“Ashamed?” Ty bristled.
“To be supporting war, to be part of a country willing to run in and invade another country just because you feel like it?”
Léonie watched Ty’s jaw tighten and she closed her eyes as she pressed her head back again into the wall.
“It wasn’t my personal decision to come here. My decision was to join the Army and support my country whatever it decides to do.”
“So you just blindly run in doing whatever you’re told whether you think it’s right or wrong?”
“I do what I do to save lives,” Ty’s voice was calmer and Léonie could feel the heat from his words. “If other people didn’t perform acts of terror on the innocent then I wouldn’t have to save any lives and I would be at home right now.”
“Un branleur,” Léonie said under her breath.
“What does that mean?” Ty’s forearm clenched with his fist then unclenched.
“It means that you are a wanker,” She spat the words at him. “People are dead here today. You Americans have this mentality, this thing about you, you think you are all powerful, that you are here to police the world. You are not.”
Ty didn’t say anything but let out a loud frustrated breath.
They sat in silence until Ty’s voice thrust forward, “Two minutes ago I saved your life.”
“You saved my life because you people have put my life in danger.” She hated to be told that she ought to thank him. That she ought to fall over herself in appreciation when people were just killed, her building was destroyed, more lives would be lost, many more in the next few weeks when there was no room for more people, a shortage of medicine, of supplies.
“I didn’t attack this building, you can’t put that on me. I came in here because this building was attacked by someone else.”
A small cry issued from Léonie
Léonie exhaled in a volume comparable to Ty’s.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you down.”
“Really? Cause, it felt like that is exactly what you were trying to do,” Ty looked her.
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“I’m trying to apologize and if you knew how hard that was for me then you would just shut up and accept my apology.” Léonie’s voice was very tense and her speech very rapid.
Ty laughed, something Léonie was completely not prepared for. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. She picked up her water and took a small sip before putting the cap back on and placing it on the floor next to her.
“I accept your apology, especially if it means we can stop talking about all this.”
Léonie nodded, “Ok.”
“Okay,” Ty breathed with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Where are you from, in America?”
“New York City, born and raised, but I moved to DC in my twenties.”
Léonie hummed, “That must have been interesting, living in your country’s capitol?”
“Sure, it’s a good city. I miss New York, but I miss everything when I’m out here.” Ty gave a vague gesture with his hand and Léonie nodded.
“I know what you mean. I was born in Saint-Maurice-en-Gourgois, it’s this small town with only sixteen hundred people living there. I moved when I was thirteen and I’ve missed it ever since.” Even as she said the name of her hometown she could smell the damp earth after a rainstorm. The smell of the nutrient dense soil and the grass that grew perfectly green. Her house had been made of brick and the kitchen was her favorite place in all the world. Her mother made fresh bread every single day and the smell was a permanent fixture in her house. Even now as an adult on the streets of Paris Léonie would stand outside of a bakery for minutes at a time until she forced herself to walk on.
“Have you gone back since you left?” Ty turned his head and his eyes brushed across her skin in an almost physical way.
“Only once, but it was no good. Things had changed. Too much had changed.”
“Do your parents live in Paris then?”
Léonie sucked in a breath and bit her lip, “No. They don’t.” Her gaze fell to the floor as she saw her mother’s gaze on her, her father’s cigarette burning down to the very end.
Ty didn’t say anything, understanding that there was something harder, deeper in her gaze then he could understand.
“My parents died in a car accident, that’s why I moved. They were on the—freeway?” She asked if she had the right word and Ty nodded in understanding. “Another car, young person, was speeding, she tried to pass them but clipped the front of their car. The doctors said that they both died right away but I don’t know… I can see them, imagine the terror they must have felt, how scared they must have been as the car flipped over then smashed to the ground.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ty’s voice was genuine and Léonie brushed a tear off of her cheek.
“I don’t tell people that, I haven’t told people that.” Léonie tried to push the tears back down. “I have never really been close enough to anyone to tell them.”
“Never a boyfriend, or girlfriend?”
“No one, I have been working very hard for a very long time—I don’t have time for other people. Not close people anyway.”
“And if you did, then you would have to let them in?”
Léonie shot Ty a look and Ty raised a hand in defense. “Sorry, I don’t usually sound anything like a shrink. Forgive me.”
This time it was Léonie who laughed though not with quite the same abandon.
Ty smiled and she suddenly felt a pull of something for the man next to her.
“Where did you go, after the accident?”
Léonie raised her eyebrows, “To Paris. My Aunt is a doctor, she wasn’t used to having a young person in the house so she just took me to the hospital with her when I wasn’t in school. It was a great education.”
“I bet.”
“Why did you become a soldier?” Léonie looked at Ty openly curious.
“I don’t know. When I was young I had this idea of what a soldier was—you know, brave, strong, I looked up to them and so it made sense. So that was the plan, always was. My perception has changed of course, I have changed, but now it’s just more personal. I know guys, young guys, who have died because they volunteered to defend people back home. I’ve seen so many things that I don’t understand and that I’m not sure I want to understand—but I can never go back. I can never be normal, not now, knowing what I know. Now, I just want to keep those guys safe. I want to make sure they come home alive.”
It wasn’t what she’d been expecting him to say and she had no response to such an open honest rendering.
“You are not married?” Léonie asked.
Ty shifted, “No, but I have a daughter.”
“A daughter?” Léonie repeated. She couldn’t imagine this man having a child.
“She’s ten, gorgeous already, I don’t get to see her as much as I’d like to.” Ty tapped his fingers on his leg. “I was young when I had her, very young, her mother is married now. A good guy, good stepdad.”
“Are you jealous?” Léonie asked. “That he gets to be there when you are not?”
“Incredibly, insanely jealous. She spends some holidays with me and now that she’s old enough she can take the train to me whenever she wants…when I’m at home anyway.”
“Do you miss her mom?” Léonie watched his face as she asked.
“No,” He smiled. “We were kids back then, I was in another relationship for four years, much more recent, that hurt more.”
“What happened?”
Ty took a slow breath, “She found someone else. It was bound to happen, I was away from home. It’s hard to love someone who’s not there.”
“No,” Léonie said. “I don’t think so. Not if they’re the right person. My parents have been away for fifteen years and I have never stopped loving them. Not for one minute.”
Ty nodded slowly. “It was for the best. We weren’t suited for each other, not really.”
“Do you think that—” Léonie didn’t get to finish her sentence. Out of the stillness that had settled over them another explosion cracked close by. The building shook in a very different way, as if they were hundreds of feet in the air being swayed easily by the wind.
Léonie screamed and Ty grabbed her, pulling her to him again, his hand went to her head, and Léonie could tell that he was bracing for them to fall.
There was the sound of falling rock, like pebbles sliding down a cliff.
The explosion had come from their right and Léonie could feel the heat of it. The hot air hitting them through the walls of their miniature prison.
The building rocked and Léonie held her breath.
When everything began to slow down she realized that she hadn’t been breathing and she let the air out of her lungs. Suddenly she felt Ty’s chest move under her and she realized that he’d been holding his breath too.
After such a loud noise there was again the following silence. Léonie held onto Ty.
“Are we going to die in here?” Her voice was caught in her throat. She’d rarely if ever thought of her own death and the idea seemed surreal as it rumbled through her brain now.
“No, not today, right now there are hundreds of American soldiers on their way here. They will get us out alive.”
Léonie nodded, oddly letting herself be convinced by the image of a powerful American force moving solidly toward them.
“Are you scared?” She asked moving her head back enough so she could see his face.
His eyes met hers, “Yes.”
“Me too,” She whispered. She was afraid to let him go and his arms around her made her feel more secure so she held onto him tighter. A few minutes crept by as they held onto one another. Their ears perked for sounds of people, sounds of vehicles.
“I don’t know if these walls are very thick or if the sound of the explosion is making it hard for me to hear, but I don’t hear anything on the other side of this wall.” Léonie spoke as her cheek pressed into Ty’s chest.
“I’m not sure,” Ty responded, at once reminding Léonie that she could hear
Ty so her hearing couldn’t be all that impaired.
After another minute Léonie released her grip on Ty. She moved an inch to the side so her arm and hip were still touching his. He did the same and they sat next to one another in the silence.
“What will you do when you leave Afghanistan?” Ty asked Léonie and she suspected that it might be some sort of tactic for keeping her positive. Perhaps it was something taught by the Army—think to the future…don’t despair.
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“At all?” Ty looked at her.
“No, I guess I should, most people probably know what they’re doing for the next ten years, I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year. Is that strange?” She asked Ty.
“Nah, I don’t really think there is such a thing as strange, or as normal, everyone and everything is unique, so why think that way?”
Her eyes looked over his hands, they were large and strong looking. They looked like capable hands, the sort that belonged to a person who could do anything if they set themselves to the task. The hair on his arms was lighter then the hair on his head. She reached a finger out and touched it before she realized how odd that must seem. Quickly, she withdrew her finger.
“Sorry, I might be a bit loopy or something.”
Ty trailed his finger over the hair on her arm before putting his hand back on top of his knee, “Nothing to apologize for.”
Léonie looked at him. Her eyes searched his, looking for the answer to a question she didn’t know to ask.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” Ty said seriously. “Since I saw you outside the other day. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
She held his gaze, determined to discover the sincerity of his words, but there was nothing false in his face.
“You have?” She felt something move inside of her, an effervescence that bubbled up through her stomach and made her shiver even though the air around her was hot.
Ty leaned closer and moved his furthest hand toward her. His hand moved to her throat, his fingers tracing down the side of neck then over her collarbone. His fingers brushed across her skin and she shook lightly with the feeling. Léonie closed her eyes and let herself feel. Just feel. She didn’t need to think, she didn’t need to do anything, she just felt the weight of his fingertips, the texture of his skin. She opened her eyes and the look in his eyes staring back at her made her thrust her head forward, her lips colliding with his.
Romancing the SEAL: The Complete Box Set (SEAL Military Romance Series Book 4) Page 4
