“I’ll bet you do,” he murmured, watching her half-closed eyes, the MRE resting on her stomach as she lay back in the crater. Their nights together in the small munitions room hadn’t lasted much longer. Halima had taken it upon herself to invite Tara to her room to sleep, a far more comfortable situation, and more in keeping with Muslim tradition. Tara had had to accept, so Dave was left without her warmth and her sense of humor. Maybe it was just as well, he supposed, because he found himself itching to touch her, to kiss her whenever the opportunity presented—which wasn’t often. First and foremost, he had a team to run and a mission to complete. Whatever he and Tara shared came last, and he knew she was in accord with that. Still, he could see desire and sadness in her eyes sometimes, and that made him yearn for her even more.
Today they had an hour to themselves—a rarity. Dave was hungry to simply be with Tara. He felt far more than lust for her, he’d come to realize over the past three months. Something much deeper was taking root between them. Tara was touching a chord of need in him that had never been struck before she’d walked unexpectedly into his life.
“Ugh, I’m stuffed,” she whispered, and sat up, resealing the MRE pouch. She wasn’t about to litter the Afghanistan desert with her leftover food wrappings. Turning, she got up on her knees, opened her fifty-pound pack and put the empty container away.
“I could eat another one,” Dave said. He watched as she turned and plopped down again, her legs crossed and her elbows resting on her knees. His gaze moved to her mouth.
“You’re double my size,” she laughed softly, “so I’m not surprised.”
“Come here, you got some leftover cranberry sauce on the corner of your mouth.”
Easing toward him, Tara gave him a mischievous smile. Placing her hands on his broad shoulders, she leaned closer, her knees pressed against his leg. “Do I? Or is this just a ruse, Johnson?” Thrilled as he gave her that hooded, dark look filled with desire, Tara drowned in his forest-green gaze. Oh, how she looked forward to these rare, beautiful moments with him! Sliding her hands around his neck, she leaned forward as he raised his right hand.
“No, you really do…dress you up, can’t take you anywhere, McCain. What am I going to do with you?” He liked the easy banter and teasing that had developed between them. With one gentle swipe of his index finger, he removed the offending red sauce at the corner of her smiling mouth. Heat suffused his lower body. How many times had he ached to make love to her? So many…and yet he couldn’t. The time and place wasn’t right, and they both knew it. Dave lived in a special hell on earth because of it, and he saw the same need for him in Tara’s eyes.
Holding up his index finger as she eased back on her boot heels, he said, “See? It wasn’t a ruse.”
“You’re right. For once you’re being honest, Johnson.” And she chuckled. Releasing him, she cupped his hand and guided it to her mouth. Moving her lips over his index finger, she sucked off the sauce. Instantly, the look on his face changed. Feeling his raw desire for her, she licked his finger one more time and then released it. Even here they weren’t really alone. An Afghan soldier or group could appear soundlessly out of nowhere, and if they were caught being intimate, it wouldn’t go well. They didn’t want to jeopardize the connection that Dave had been able to forge with Chief Zaher.
“What a tease you are.”
“Me?” She touched her heart and grinned. “I’m a tease? Dude, you’re the pot calling the kettle black as far as I’m concerned.”
Putting his own MRE aside, Dave met her challenging smile. “I like the blue fire I see in your eyes. I like what you’re telling me without saying it.”
Looking around before she did it, Tara reached out and tenderly grazed his bearded cheek. The dark hair covering his lower face gave Dave an even more dangerous quality. “I miss our time together, too.”
“Yeah, war doesn’t exactly help lovers out, does it?” His skin prickled pleasantly where she’d touched him.
“No, it doesn’t….” Tara frowned as she rested her hands on the thighs of her dark brown cotton pants. How much she wanted to speak to Dave of what lay in her heart. She knew that what she felt was love, but she was afraid to admit it. They simply hadn’t the time for the kind of intimate conversations she craved. At times she saw a look in Dave’s eyes that she thought was more than just desire. Was it love? Too afraid to ask, she tried to be content with the present.
Just then, she heard the noise of several all-terrain vehicles approaching.
“The guys are back,” Dave said. Reaching over, he touched her chin and gave her a tender smile. “I like what I see in your eyes, babe. Just hold on to it for both of us, okay? We aren’t always going to be here in Afghanistan. At some point, they have to rotate us back stateside.”
Nodding, Tara absorbed his unexpected touch. “I will, Dave.”
He rose to his feet, his M–4 in his right hand as he looked over the lip of the crater. “Promise?” In the distance, he could see five vehicles speeding toward them, two men in each one, their mission complete. The yellow dust rose lazily into the noontime sky behind them.
“I promise….” And Tara stood up, brushed off the seat of her pants and picked up her rifle. Placing it over her left shoulder, she scrambled out of the bomb crater and onto the flat plain. Brown, desolate-looking hills rose before her, backed by higher and higher ridges and finally the razor-sharp, craggy mountains.
Dave had run ahead to meet his returning team members. Tara looked around. A solitary path wound along the plain at the base of the hills. Bombs had been dropped here last week because the area was a known minefield, and they needed this land for staging another strike against the Taliban hiding in caves in the mountains above them. After the bombing, Dave’s team had diligently gone over the entire area in search of any last mines that might not have gone off during the brutal pounding and explosions caused by the B–52’s.
The wind was chilling, and Tara pulled her tunic a little tighter as she walked. Dave had taught her to walk in his footprints, just in case there was a land mine they hadn’t found. His team had to go over the area one more time today, to make very sure there were no mines left before the troops and equipment began massing tomorrow.
A sudden gust of wind rose, slamming a thick, stinging cloud of dust into Tara’s face. Automatically, she raised her hand and closed her eyes. It was strong enough to force her to take a step to the left, off Dave’s path.
Click.
Tara froze. Oh no! Blinking, her eyes watering and her vision blurred, she jerked a look downward. There, barely visible, was the round metal edge of a land mine. And she had stepped on it.
Terror snaked through her. Heart slamming against her rib cage, she froze. Dave was fifty feet ahead, his attention on his team.
Sweat popped out on her brow. Grasping the nylon web strap of the rifle on her left shoulder, she cried, “Dave! I’ve stepped on a land mine!”
Whirling around at her cry, he stared at her, wide-eyed. Tara was standing there, her lips parted, terror written on her features.
“Don’t move!” he roared, and sprinted back toward her. His mind whirled with questions of how she’d found one. He thought they’d gotten them all. Damn it!
Gasping for breath, Tara continued to stare down at her right foot, which rested on top of the mine. Afraid to move, she barely glanced up when Dave came running toward her, yet the look of worry and anxiety on his face struck her deeply. If she moved her foot at all, the mine would explode. It would kill her instantly, or at the outside, blow off her leg and leave her limbless. Sobbing for breath, Tara tried to calm down.
Dave skidded to a halt ten feet away from her. “Just take it easy,” he rasped, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. “Don’t move, babe. God, don’t move at all. Let me see….” He followed his footprints back to where she had stepped off the path then got down on his hands and knees very carefully and gently. The least vibration might set off the mine.
“Why didn’t y
ou follow my prints?” he demanded, breathing hard as he leaned closer. Digging into the yellow dust with his outstretched fingers, he located the cold metal of the land mine squarely beneath Tara’s booted foot.
“I—I tried, Dave,” she whispered raggedly, her voice off pitch with terror. “A gust of wind came up. It was so strong it knocked me off the track. I’m sorry…sorry…”
“Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, babe. Just stay where you are. I see the mine. You’re okay for now. As long as you keep the same amount of weight on it, it won’t blow up. Whatever you do, don’t shift your body. Hear me?” He wiped his mouth as he nailed her with a look meant to make her understand that if she moved, she would die.
“Yeah…yeah, I know. You drilled me on this,” Tara rasped.
“Hold on…I’ve got to alert my men. We have to get you out of this….” And he turned, moved away and then slowly unwound and stood up. His team had stopped their vehicles a hundred feet away and were dismounting. Dave hurried back toward them.
Tara could hear his voice in the distance; could hear the terror barely concealed in it as he gathered his team around him. She saw them all turn toward her. The stricken looks on their features only made her more fearful. Oh God, how was she going to get out of this alive? And what if one of them tried to help her and the mine went off, anyway? It would kill him, too.
Raising her hand slowly, Tara wiped her mouth, which felt cottony and dry. Suddenly, she was dying of thirst, but her water bottle was back in the crater with her pack. With her heart pounding in her breast like a runaway freight train, all she could do was stand helplessly and wait. Dave quickly gave orders and his men dispersed and went back to their packs, which were still in the vehicles.
Tara knew another strong gust of wind whipping down from foothills could make her lose her balance. The least movement would cause the mine to detonate. She’d be dead.
Suddenly, as she stood there, she realized she didn’t want to die. Watching Dave trot back toward her, his long knife drawn and in his right hand, Tara wanted to scream out in fear. But she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed hard, several times.
“Take some deep, calming breaths,” Dave told her as he approached. Seeing the fear in Tara’s huge blue eyes, he tried to keep his own voice low and soothing. It was nearly impossible. She was hunched over, her fingers tangled in the webbing of the M–4 rifle on her left shoulder. Her loose Afghan clothing whipped about in the inconstant breezes.
“Yeah…okay. What are you going to do, Dave?”
“First, I’m going to check the land around you to make sure there are no other mines. Then,” he said slowly, as he got down on his hands and knees, “I’ll carefully remove the sand from around the mine you’re on.”
“Oh God…”
“I know, I know, babe…just take it easy. Don’t panic on me. Just stay exactly where you are and we’ll get you out of this….”
She watched with wide eyes as Dave began to slide the tip of his knife into the sand, an ever widening circle around where she stood. Lifting her head, she saw Sergeant Burt Lovell approaching, carrying his own knife in his hand. His face was dark with worry, too. The rest of the team was staying back out of harm’s way.
“Burt?” she called.
“It’s okay, ma’am. Me and the captain have done this before. We’ll make it go twice as fast. We need to make sure there’re no more mines near you. Just take it easy, okay?”
Jerkily nodding, Tara watched him get down and go to work as Dave was going. Breathe, she ordered herself. Slow, deep breaths. You’re still alive, Tara. You’re still breathing….
“Gusts are coming!” Private Doug Seabert called out to them.
Oh, no! Tara tensed. The first gust struck. It slapped at her. Don’t move. Don’t move. Shutting her eyes tightly against the thick, yellow dust, she bit back a cry. No movement. None!
“You’re doing fine,” Dave called to her. He was now twenty feet behind where Tara was standing. Lovell was going the opposite direction, probing the earth with his knife. Trying to get a handle on his escaping emotions, Dave wanted to scream. Tara could die. Oh, God, he couldn’t let that happen! Why hadn’t he told her he loved her? Right now he couldn’t. His men couldn’t know of their relationship.
Tara felt her muscles beginning to shake. She was so tense and rigid that the muscle groups were beginning to complain.
“Dave…I’m starting to tremble. I can’t stop shaking….”
He looked up for a moment. Tara’s eyes were narrow with fear. “Try to relax. You can relax but keep the same weight on that leg. It’s okay, try it. You won’t blow us up. You’ve got to relax your muscles or you’ll get so tense that your trembling could set it off. Understand?”
“Yeah…yeah, I understand….” Fresh fear shot through Tara. How was she going to relax and yet stay steady enough that the mine didn’t detonate? She had to try.
Dave finally met Burt on Tara’s right side. “No more mines?”
“No, sir, none. We’re good to go.”
“Okay, go fetch that wooden plank you found. And I need a rock that weighs as much as she does.”
Burt slowly rose to his full height. He slid the knife back into its sheath. “Yes, sir, I’ll be right back.”
“Find the right rock, Burt. You know what to look for. Have Seabert bring me the plank.”
“You bet. I’ll be right back….”
Tara watched the sergeant leave. She heard Dave get up, then come around in front of her, his brows drawn down, his eyes narrowed. “W-what are you going to do? How can you help me out of this?”
“We’ll get a piece of wood and a rock that weighs as much as you do.” Kneeling down, he used the tip of the knife to begin removing sand, just enough to expose the land mine Tara was standing on.
Confused, she watched his very slow, careful movements. Heart pounding, she whispered rawly, “Oh, Dave, I’m so scared. I’m sorry I stepped off the path….”
“Hush, babe, you didn’t do it on purpose. The wind here is bad. There’s been more than a few times we’ve all been knocked sideways by it.”
“Y-you could have stepped on this mine….” Tara closed her eyes for a moment.
“Yeah,” he rasped grimly as he smoothed the sand away from the metal rim. The mine was round and rusty, and he recognized it as a Russian-made one.
“I thought you and your men cleared this area yesterday?”
“Most of it,” Dave corrected. “Not all of it. We had gone over this area, but we must have missed this one. We don’t have a mine detector with us. All we have are our knives and our eyes. We screwed up.”
Tara shook her head. “You’re all doing the best you can, Dave. I don’t blame you or anyone.”
He sat back on his heels and looked up at her, close enough to reach out and touch her. “I blame myself. I don’t want anything to happen to you, babe.”
Seeing the love for her burning in his eyes, Tara sobbed. She pressed her hand to her lips and forced herself to remain very still. “Oh, Dave, I love you. I should have told you before, but I was afraid….”
Holding her tear-filled gaze, he whispered raggedly, “And I love you, Tara. Never forget that. Now, just hold on. We’ll get you out of this in one piece. No way are you going to die. I just found you….”
Dave saw Burt coming back, staggering beneath the weight of a huge white rock. Tara weighed around a hundred forty pounds, and the sergeant had to estimate as closely as possible that the stone was that same weight, or more. Was he right? Dave didn’t know. Eyeballing the boulder that his sergeant struggled with, he thought it probably came close.
Tara saw Private Seabert approach with a rectangular piece of old, dried out planking. It wasn’t more than two feet in length or a foot in width.
“Give it to me,” Dave ordered Seabert, “and then back off. I don’t want anyone else hurt if we don’t do this right.”
Nodding, Seabert said, “Yes, sir…” and handed him the plank.
> Dave set it carefully at his side. He was kneeling on Tara’s right side, the land mine mere inches away. He would be the one to do the dirty work. No one else.
“Okay?” he asked Tara, looking up into her tense face. He noted that two tracks of tears wound their way down her dusty cheeks.
“Y-yeah, okay.”
“I’d reach out and pat you, but I don’t want you to move,” he teased her quietly.
“Right now, all I want to do is fall into your arms, Dave, and be held by you.”
“Hold that thought, babe….” And he swung his gaze toward Lovell, who was huffing toward them with the boulder in his arms.
Tara watched, barely breathing, as the sergeant carefully placed the boulder behind her right foot, about six inches away from the exposed land mine. She listened as Dave quietly gave the sergeant instructions.
“Okay, Tara,” Dave said, looking up at her, the plank in his hands. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to gently ease the edge of the plank beneath your right heel. You’re going to have to allow me to slide it slowly in between you and that mine. All the while, you’re going to have to maintain the same weight on it. Once the plank completely covers the mine, Burt is going to roll the boulder forward on the exposed edge of the planking. As he does so, you’re going to have to slowly slide your foot forward, giving him more and more room to roll the boulder up on the plank. The mine won’t go off if more weight is on it than was there previously, it will go off if there’s less weight. Understand?”
Swallowing, her voice scratchy, she asked, “How does Burt know the rock weighs as much as me?”
The sergeant briefly smiled. “Ma’am, I think this rock is about a hundred and sixty pounds, by my estimate.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Tara rasped.
“Then we all die,” Dave told her quietly. “Don’t worry, Tara. This rock is heavy enough. You need to listen to me now, and do exactly as I say, when I say it. Are you ready?”
No, she wasn’t. Tara felt a lump rising in her throat. She felt her muscles shaking. Still, she struggled for calm. “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it….” How brave she sounded. And how scared she was!
In Love and War Page 11
