His to Protect

by Karen Rock

  Despite the crude setup, she sighed when she stripped off her limp uniform and lathered her hair, washing the grime away, wishing the devastating losses she’d witnessed today were as easy to erase. None of the wounds she’d treated had come close to soothing the hurts of these people who’d been separated from homes and loved ones.

  She pictured the desperate locals who’d searched the patient board, looking for their family members, leaving hollow eyed and empty-handed. How she ached for them. She knew what loss felt like. The crushing pressure that seemed to bury your heart alive, made taking a full breath impossible, your mind spinning in hopeless circles, trying and failing to understand that a part of you was gone forever. That your life would never be the same, would never be whole.

  Water pulsed against her hair as she scraped her nails over her scalp, massaging in the shampoo. Pushing back the rising darkness, Cassie drew on a memory of the most rewarding part of the day—reuniting a girl with a stuffed dog that had been a dumb-luck find. Cassie had spotted it during her lunch break when she’d helped pull one of the stretchers off an emergency vehicle.

  How elated she’d felt to see the girl’s tears dry and a small smile emerge. The ultimate rewards weren’t always big successes, but sometimes the quiet, small victories.

  She turned beneath the water and held out the length of her hair. Shampoo streamed to the drain and swirled, rising in bubbles before disappearing. Washcloth in hand, she rubbed a bar of brown soap then slid the cleanser over her body, the stringent smell stinging her nose. Despite the devastation caused by the storm, or perhaps because of it, Cassie had most often witnessed love today. Dedicated spouses, partners and family members, waiting for hours outside the station, patiently holding vigil until their loved one was out of danger.

  Love...

  She’d never been in love before. Commuting to her local college, then moving into the apartment above her parents’ garage, meant she hadn’t gotten out much. Dated. Definitely no mind-blowing one-night stands like last night.

  Heat flared at the juncture of her thighs as she skimmed the wash cloth there, her flesh deliciously sore after the long, passionate night.

  If Mark was anyone else, she would have said it was the greatest sex of her life. When was the last time she’d felt so giddy and uninhibited? So powerful?

  Only it’d been a lie. A cruel cosmic joke that made her want to scream, not laugh. Mark was her enemy.

  Yet, based on Raeanne’s story, she wondered.

  Did Jeff haunt Mark, too?

  An alarm sounded as she finished rinsing. Warned that such a signal heralded increased wind and dangerous conditions, she yanked the T-shirt over her slick body, pulled on the shorts and dashed outside.

  Straight into a wall of muscle.

  “Oh. Excuse me,” she muttered, her apology withering on her lips as she glanced up. Mark.

  Her pulse quickened under his intent stare, shock rooting her feet to the ground. The gaining wind whipped her wet hair around her face.

  His gaze traveled down her body, from the collar of her wet shirt to the hem of Nurse Little’s shorts, which, thanks to Cassie’s longer frame, barely covered her ass. His predatory eyes narrowed.

  Before she could whirl away, she caught sight of her duffel, dangling from his hand.

  “That’s mine.”

  He cleared his throat. “I was dropping it at the aid station. Didn’t think you’d still be working.”

  Oh. So he’d hoped to avoid her? Anger sizzled through her, despite her own strategy to evade him.

  Well. Too bad, flyboy.

  “And why’s that?” she demanded, grabbing the bag from him. At the brush of his fingers against hers, hungry need growled low in her gut and she shoved it down. Focused on her anger. Outrage. “You didn’t think I’d last?”

  Before he could answer, something whizzed by her ear and he grabbed her, lightning fast, and pulled them to the ground. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as he crouched over her protectively, his smell familiar and sexy as hell.

  She shoved him away. “I don’t need your help,” she muttered then stopped. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of a piece of sheet metal buried in the shower wall where she’d stood seconds ago.

  The words thank you could never come out of her mouth when it came to Mark...yet he’d just saved her. Conflicting emotions churned in her stomach like the lousy coffee she’d drunk all day—gratitude, fury and desire.

  God help her.

  “I’m getting you back to your quarters,” he said in a tone she’d bet was usually obeyed. He shrugged out of his uniform jacket, draped it around her shoulders and hustled her toward the nearby women’s quarters.

  * * *

  OF ALL THE people to run into after his long day. Cassie Rowe.

  The last person he wanted to see.

  Mark had struggled to compartmentalize as he’d worked to rescue survivors. Flying through bands of the storm, he’d sweated ten gallons trying to wrestle the Jayhawk through the remnants of the hurricane weather, pulling people out of tossing waves. That used to all be in a day’s work. Now? He battled demons harder than the buffeting winds, Jeff’s specter riding shotgun beside him, a dark copilot and a reminder of the biggest screwup of Mark’s career.

  He needed some R & R to decompress. Get his shit together. He was flight ready, damn it. Could more than handle this disaster response.

  As for Cassie?

  He had to get his feelings for her under control, too. His plan to leave her bag with the Red Cross’s chief nurse would have helped. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Then, holy hell.

  When she’d dashed out of the showers, a flimsy T-shirt molded to her voluptuous breasts, short shorts revealing the sweet curve of her ass, all the blood in his brain had gone south. In an instant, he’d forgotten all the reasons he was staying away from her, his hands itching to touch her smooth skin long before his sense kicked in.

  He took a deep breath and tried to banish the image of a nearly naked Cassie from his mind. The oversize jacket that hung to her knees should have helped...but he kept picturing her gorgeous body on the beach last night. The feel of her soft flesh, yielding to him. Demanding, too.

  He quickened his pace.

  “Hey!” she protested, flipping back her damp hair. All around them, the air moved like a wild thing, dark and dangerous, reminding him of everything he’d battled at the controls today over the Atlantic. How close he’d come to losing the bubble.

  He needed her out of here. She drew his attention like a fireworks display. One about to detonate in his face.

  “Slow down or let go,” she warned him, edging out of his grip.

  Which was just as well. He had no business putting his hands on her.

  “You didn’t have a problem keeping up last night.” Where had that come from? He sounded like a horny teenager. Or an arrogant asshole.

  She huffed beside him as a downed palm tree frond caught against the coat and she yanked a piece of stray foliage loose, her shape barely discernable now in the moonless night. “Really?”

  He slowed his gait, guiding them carefully over the branches. “That’s my recollection.”

  “I’d rather forget. I wish it’d never happened.”

  Her bitter tone left little doubt that she meant every word.

  So why wasn’t he glad about that?

  “If I’d known...” he began.

  A bitter laugh escaped her. “Then what? You would have avoided me. Stayed away like you did at Jeff’s memorial?”

  “An emergency came up.”

  “You could have visited his stone anytime.”

  Guilt ripped through him. Yes. He’d thought of that. Was planning to go, actually, after this mission. After he’d figured out what the hell to say to Jeff’s fam
ily. But now Cassie was here, her presence more intimate than he could ever have prepared for, catching him flat-footed.

  He breathed in the bracing, briny air. “Look, I can’t take back what happened last night.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t take back any of it. So what’s the point? I’ve got my bag so you can go now. I’ll find my way alone.” She wrapped the coat tighter around herself. Was she still oblivious to the flying debris, or just that stubborn?

  “Where’s your room?” he challenged as he ducked beneath a tree, and pulled her with him when the air suddenly swooshed by carrying stinging pebbles.

  Her eyes darted around him. “I’m number ten.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And where is that?”

  She flung an arm east. “There?” She pivoted and peered into the night. “Or did Raeanne say to the left of the showers...?”

  Overhead, a Jayhawk whirred, going out to sea. Out to face the nightmare winds that he’d just waged war with for hours.

  He nodded firmly. Felt his back teeth clench. “Right. Let’s go.” The USCG and Red Cross had commandeered a resort that had suffered limited damage for their operations. He’d passed the side they’d designated as women’s quarters on his way here—a string of bungalows deemed safe by the engineering crew.

  “Just tell me where...”

  Despite the gloom, her blond hair gleamed, her fresh-scrubbed face making her look young. Vulnerable. Why the hell had she come here? Anger seared his insides. She should be home safe with her family. Not in a place still full of danger. Where she could get hurt, like Jeff. Where she added to the crap factor of his first mission back.

  “I want to make sure you get there.” That was all this was. Duty. Nothing more. He owed Jeff a debt, and her presence here couldn’t have been a stronger reminder.

  She kicked a car part out of her path. A tailpipe. “Shouldn’t you be more concerned with your pilot duties? You must have other people to keep safe.”

  Her words slashed right through his chest. When she jerked away, he didn’t stop her.

  Suddenly she slowed. Swung around. The wind lifted her hair so that it swirled like a veil. “Forget I said that. We’re almost there anyhow.”

  She fell into step with him again and silence stretched between them, taut, nearly to its breaking point.

  “Why are you here?” he asked at last, wanting an answer to the question that’d plagued him since he’d learned her identity. If he understood that, he’d leave her alone, he vowed.

  Then, without warning, the wind blew itself out for a long moment, the warm air seeming to hold its breath. They paused beside an overhang and the rushing ocean nipped at the jagged beach below.

  She looked out at the sea. “I want to know what happened to my brother,” she murmured quietly.

  “Everything is in the report,” he forced himself to say, moved by her words.

  Not everything, whispered a voice inside, one he smothered. He wouldn’t listen to it. Relive it. Much too dangerous.

  “But I don’t know.” She turned and her anguished eyes met his.

  “There’s nothing more I can share,” he said curtly and ignored the scalding regret that flared in his gut when her mouth trembled. Her face was an accusation.

  “Of course not,” she said, her voice cracking. “That’s all it is with you guys. Files. Records. Procedures. But what about people?” She jabbed a finger into his chest “What about Jeff?”

  “Jeff was a brave man. The best rescue swimmer I ever had the honor to work with.”

  They were the truest words he’d ever spoken but not the whole truth. Not even close.

  “Yet you left him to die.” Her mouth thinned.

  Words slammed against the lump in his throat. Collided with one another, forming a pile that made it hard to breathe.

  He couldn’t go any further in this conversation or he’d risk falling back down the black hole that’d kept him out of the cockpit. He’d worked hard to fly again and needed to be in control...in command.

  “Your quarters are over there.” He pointed at the bungalows a few yards away and pinned his gaze on a distant spot over her shoulder.

  After a moment, she made a strangled noise and stomped away, leaving him alone in the dark.

  He watched until she slipped inside her room. Cassie’s desperate words returned to him on the wind. Yet you left him to die.

  He had left Jeff to die.

  And he’d never forgive himself. He didn’t deserve anything, but he needed the absolution the rigorous work in the days ahead could give him.

  And he’d do everything in his power to make sure none of those days included Cassie.

  5

  CASSIE RUBBED HER aching back and trudged outside the aid station the next evening, heading home. The overcast sky grayed the uneven terrain and her boots squelched in ankle-deep mud more than once before she remembered to keep her weary eyes on the ground.

  Twelve hours. Where had the time gone? It seemed like she’d started her day shift only moments ago, tired but determined to banish the thoughts of Mark that’d plagued her all night.

  Was he in the air now?

  She scanned the empty sky, its steady drizzle streaming down her face, dripping from her chin. The air held the salt tang of the sea.

  Gulls wheeled and shrieked, then dove back to the ocean, out of the persistent wind. Whitecaps striped the churning water while palm trees bent with each salted gust. The massive Category 5 hurricane had stalled east and its bands continued to lash the precarious island. From the nonstop line of patients, it seemed few of the residents had escaped unscathed. The injured and ill list kept growing.

  She should feel disheartened. Discouraged even.

  Strange that this urgent, unpredictable work left her feeling fulfilled instead. Stressed? Yes, of course. Yet it also settled a restless part of her nature she hadn’t known existed, or admitted to herself, until now.

  Did that make sense?

  No.

  She was tired and probably—definitely—not thinking straight.

  But deep down, something about being here felt right.

  It had been twelve months since Jeff’s death, and she’d spent half that time incapacitated by grief. Now, for the first time, she’d had a day where she’d thought of him often but in a good way.

  While treating patients, she’d pictured him alongside her, flashing the wide smile he wore when lending a hand to others. He would have enjoyed this work.

  The familiar US Coast Guard patch, attached to a duffel in the back of a parked military SUV, caught her eye and she stopped to study it. A blue eagle, wings spread, dominated the center, an embroidered American flag across its chest. She mouthed the Latin words beneath the emblem. “Semper Paratus.”

  Always ready.

  Yes. That had been Jeff.

  She pushed back her flimsy hood as the rain eased and fog rolled off the ocean, thickening the air to murk.

  When a cat strutted over and arched its spine, Cassie crouched to stroke its back. Wet fur clumped around its narrow face and one of its oversize ears bent at the tip.

  “Hey, beauty,” she murmured. The cat pressed its cheek into Cassie’s hand and purred. “Who do you belong to?” Before she could check for a name tag, the cat bolted away, swallowed by the thickening mist.

  Cassie followed it a few steps then stopped. It’d be impossible to catch given the worsening visibility. In fact... Cassie turned in a slow circle. She no longer had her bearings. Which way was home? Taking her best guess, she headed in what she hoped was the right direction. She couldn’t wait to close her stinging eyes.

  At least her whirlwind day kept her from focusing on the enigmatic pilot who’d left her yesterday with more questions than answers.

 
; The most haunting one of all...was he struggling with Jeff’s loss as much as she?

  Off in the distance, the sea smashed against the beach, relentless and powerful. Cassie shrugged off her jacket now that the rain seemed well and truly gone. In its place, the cloudy, humid air clung to her skin, a clammy layer, thin and sticky as cellophane.

  When Raeanne had mentioned Mark’s suffering yesterday, Cassie had dismissed it. After watching him struggle to contain his emotions, however, something inside her had shifted. Her antagonism had tempered. And in spite of everything, some of that connection she’d felt to him on the beach that first night had returned.

  She’d wanted to know, not just what’d happened to Jeff, but what’d happened to Mark, too.

  That need to understand him made no sense when he’d made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with her. When she shouldn’t want a damn thing to do with him, either. Her family would disown her if they knew about her time with the pilot they blamed for Jeff’s death.

  “Help!” came a hoarse shout in the distance. A man’s voice.

  Cassie cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hello?” Her eyes strained in the gathering dark and fog, making out the shapes of overturned cars, downed power lines and a debris-filled roadway, the remains of one-story buildings leaning on either side. A putrid stench rose around her and she coughed. She must have wandered off the resort.

  “Hello?” she tried again.

  “Here!” An elderly man emerged from the gloom. His dark eyes darted to hers and he beckoned to the damaged house behind him. “Please! Help my wife. She’s fainted.”

  Cassie bolted after him, across a yard made of something crunchy—seashells and pebbles. She hurried into a mostly upright house and paused, letting her eyes adjust to pitch dark.

  “I’m Cassie. A nurse. Where’s your wife, sir?”

  The old man leaned against a table and wheezed, “In bedroom. There. Her name. It is Eloise. I am Jacque. We celebrate fiftieth anniversary here.”

  What a terrible holiday. She wouldn’t let it end in tragedy.