by Lori Ryan
There was shouting and running and then all was quiet as she struggled to suck air into her lungs, struggled against the agony that overwhelmed her. She gasped for air, but her body was losing the battle to stay conscious.
She tried to focus on Heath. On the thought of him coming for her. It broke her heart to know he would find her like this. That he was too late. It would gut him and she hated that.
The pain was too much and she gave in as blackness engulfed her again.
Chapter 29
Heath heard gunshots ahead of them in the tunnel and felt his heart freeze in its tracks in his chest. They were far ahead of where he and Duff were. Too damned far. He couldn’t get to her to stop whatever was happening.
He moved, powering through the panic and fear, knowing if Eleanor was hurt, he needed to get to her. He needed her to be okay.
He’d been an idiot to think he could be with this woman again and not let his heart get involved. So damned stupid. His heart was in this and then some.
If he let himself imagine what might be happening to her up there, he wouldn’t get through this. Instead, he kept his head on target and his flashlight and weapon on the tunnel ahead of them.
Duff had his back as they moved. He still didn’t know how they’d get out of here once they found her. The compound was likely still teaming with Demir’s men.
But Demir and his brother had run so maybe his men had, too.
Zip broke through on their comms. “We’ve got the hostages. Bugging out.”
Duff gave Zip an update on their progress in the tunnels and listened to Zip curse on the line.
He kept his head on the goal. Keep moving ahead. Get Nori. Get her out safe.
Keep moving ahead. Get Nori. Get her out safe. He would repeat that damned mantra again and again until they had her.
He slowed as he saw light up ahead and listened. He and Duff pressed to either side of the tunnel.
“Any movement?” Duff asked.
“Nothing.” Heath could make out a widened portion in the tunnel, almost wide enough to be called a room. And in the light of the bare bulbs that hung suspended above it, he could make out a crumpled figure in a chair.
His heart wept. It was the only way he could describe the despair and hopelessness that flooded him. He knew that was Eleanor. And she wasn’t moving.
“Got you covered,” Duff said and they began to move. The space ahead of them was clear.
As they approached, Heath looked in either direction to be sure there were no alcoves or anything that could have a surprise in the form of people or explosives.
It killed him not to drop his weapon and run to Eleanor’s side. But if they got themselves killed, they couldn’t save her. And if he was sure of one thing, it was that he was going to do everything in his power to save Eleanor.
They swept the area and only when they were sure it was clear, did he kneel by her side as Duff stood sentry above them, weapon ready.
Heath’s heart couldn’t take the sight before him as he got her out of the chair and laid her down. Eleanor was bleeding from a shot to the stomach and a shot to the hip.
Her eyes opened and she moaned as he lay her on the floor. It was about to get a lot worse. And it gutted him to know he was going to cause her pain, but he had to stop the bleeding.
He grabbed quickclot from his pack, balling the material and pushing it into her wounds as she screamed. He had to do this, but it killed him to hear the pain wracking her body as he pushed the lifesaving material into the holes that asshole had put in her body.
He couldn’t lose her. Not now.
“I’m so sorry, Nori. I’m so sorry. I just have to get these packed and then we’re going to get you out of here.”
He followed this with sterile gauze, balling that and packing them into the wounds again and again before dressing them with a sterile covering and taping that into place. She had passed out by then, her brow sweat-dampened from the pain.
The caliber of the weapon had been small and he sent up a quick prayer in thanks for small favors. Then he lifted her and started to run.
He could hear Duff behind him and Zip came on comms. They were in the compound clearing out the few remaining soldiers from Demir’s army. Maybe the man didn’t want to start an all-out war because he had ordered his army to retreat when he ran. That or they’d simply run off on their own. It was hard to say.
When Heath hit the end of the tunnel, Jangles was there with Trigger and Lefty to pull Eleanor up for him. Now he only prayed they could evac her to a hospital in time to save her. Because if Eleanor didn’t make it, he didn’t know how his heart would either.
Chapter 30
Heath had slept fitfully next to Eleanor’s bed the last few days but he gave up and sat watching her now. The rest of his team had gone back to their new base in Killeen a couple of days after Eleanor checked into the DC hospital after her emergency surgery in Turkey.
He’d begged a week off from his commanding officer and was planning to put in for more. Her stepfather and his wife were staying at a nearby hotel and coming to see her every day, but Heath wanted to be there for her when she went home.
For now, she spent most days sleeping and was still heavily medicated for the pain. There were tubes and wires all over her. The bullet to her abdomen had punctured her stomach so she was on huge doses of intravenous antibiotics to prevent sepsis.
The other bullet had damaged her hip bone. It wasn’t shattered, but it was bad enough that she’d be getting a brand-new hip in a few days when her body was ready for another surgery.
Heath felt his phone buzz in his pocket and lifted it out to check the screen.
Jangles. The guys had been calling to check on her every day.
Heath stood and went out the door, standing just outside of it so he’d hear her if she called out to him. Her stepdad and his wife were out getting lunch and taking a turn showering and changing clothes so he didn’t want her to wake up alone and be frightened.
“Hey Jangles,” he said when he’d connected the call.
“How’s she doing, Woof?”
It was the standard question the guys asked.
Heath scrubbed a hand over the new growth of hair on his chin and cheek. He needed to shower and shave something awful. “She’s resting. Seems to be having fewer nightmares but I can tell she’s in a lot of pain. She’s trying to hide it but it’s bad.”
Jangles cursed, echoing Heath’s feelings.
“Anything they can do for that?”
“Besides the morphine? Not much. Once she gets the hip replaced, she’ll be able to start walking and they think that will actually help with the pain some. I’m not sure how that works, but that’s what they tell me. She’s going to have a lot of PT though. It’s not going to be a short road.”
He still needed to figure out how he was going to be there for it all. He had forty days ordinary leave he hadn’t used yet and he’d banked another one hundred days special leave he could use. He hated to leave his team for that long, but Nori needed him. And he had to admit to himself, he was in love with her. He needed to be there for her. He needed to help her through this, even if that meant leaving his team temporarily.
“How are you doing?” Jangles asked.
Heath sighed, rubbing his eyebrow with his thumb, wishing he could rub away the headache that had been dogging him for hours.
“I fucked up, Jangles,” he said, hearing the emotion thicken his voice. He wasn’t the kind of guy to spill about his feelings easily, but he needed to get this out there. It had been eating him up for days as he watched Eleanor pay for the aftermath of his screw up.
“How do you figure that?” There was protective indignation in his friend’s voice.
“She shouldn’t have been in there. You know it and I know it. I let my feelings for her get in the way of my judgment. I fucked up.”
“Her boss okayed her going in. What were you going to do? You didn’t have a choice. None of us did.”
“Bullshit. We were on the ground here. We could have overruled her boss. Should have. But I knew how important her career was to her so I sent her in there knowing it was a bad move.”
Jangles wasn’t having it. “Oh hell no, man, you don’t get to put this on you. We all could have said no. None of us did.”
Heath felt his temper rise with his voice. “Were you standing outside that room when she was grabbed? Did you fail to hear a fucking thing when they were pulling her down into that hole? Was it you that didn’t get to her in time when she was shot?”
“Woof, you got to her. You got her out of there and she’s okay now. She’s going to get through this and so are you.”
Heath didn’t answer. He shut his eyes tight and prayed again that she’d make it. He loved her. He needed her, more than he ever thought possible. He needed her to be okay with a desperation he’d never felt before.
And that left him feeling helpless. He wanted to fix this for her. Wanted to take away the pain. To make this all better for her. To erase everything that had happened down in that tunnel.
“Woof, man, don’t do this to yourself. She needs you to be there for her right now. And if you’re busy beating the shit out of yourself, you’re not truly giving her what she needs. Let it go and focus on getting our girl up and out of that bed.”
Heath nodded, even though his buddy couldn’t see him. He would at least do that for Eleanor. He would make sure she got out of that bed and made it home.
Chapter 31
Eleanor closed her eyes and willed away the tears. Morphine couldn’t begin to dull the pain she was feeling. Her heart ached as she listened to Heath. It wasn’t only his words. It was the change in him. She’d seen it in the last few days.
He was no longer the confident sure soldier who had gotten her through the hell she’d gone through in Kazarus. He was sounding more and more like the boy she’d known years ago. Filled with doubt and self-loathing. The only difference was he wasn’t trying to hide it from the world with jokes and bravado like he had as a kid.
She hated thinking she’d done that to him. She’d brought up all the worst memories of that last year in high school and now she was affecting him in ways she hadn’t imagined.
She felt more than heard him enter the room and he was by her side in a heartbeat.
“What is it, Nori? Are you hurting?”
She nodded because it was all she could do. She couldn’t speak right now. Her throat hurt with the effort of trying to hold in the emotions battling her.
He put the little switch in her hand that would let her up her pain med dose and heaven help her, she pushed it. Not because her wounds hurt. But because she couldn’t face the pain of knowing she needed to say goodbye to this man again. She wanted the oblivion that the medicine would bring.
That made her weak and she hated that. Hated knowing she was running like this, but she needed to stop the feelings for just a short while. She needed to close her eyes and pretend this wasn’t happening. Needed to make all of this go away.
Chapter 32
Eleanor’s stepdad, Bill, stepped from the room as Heath was coming back with coffee.
When he’d left to grab lunch, Eleanor had been awake and more coherent than she’d been in the last few days. He could see her head was more clear and she didn’t have the pinched lines near her eyes that had come from the pain. The hip surgery had gone well and the nurses were prepping her for a transition to a rehab center in the next few days.
“Hey, Bill. Is she sleeping?”
He had hoped to get back before she closed her eyes for a nap again but he was happy to sit by her bed and watch her sleep if that’s all he could do. He just wanted to be close to her.
Something about the look the man gave him slowed Heath’s steps.
“She wants to talk to you, son. We’ve set up the rehab center and they’re going to move her tomorrow. She wants to say thank you and goodbye.”
Heath froze, the blow to his chest feeling like a physical one.
“Goodbye?”
He’d heard the man wrong. Or her stepdad didn’t realize how close he and Eleanor had become. Didn’t get that he wouldn’t be leaving her side any time soon.
The man sidestepped. “Why don’t you go on in? I’ll wait out here.”
Heath’s stomach clenched and turned to acid as he clutched the coffee cup in his hand. He couldn’t drink it anymore. Something told him this wasn’t some misunderstanding of Bill’s. Eleanor was about to send him away.
But why would she do that?
He walked into the room, putting the cup on a side table before turning to face Eleanor.
She was propped up in the bed and was smiling at him. It was a fake smile. He knew it to his toes.
“Hey,” he said. It was lame but it was what he had. He crossed to the bed. He’d just talk her out of whatever the hell she was about to say. That was all there was to it.
She swallowed. “Hey.” There was a heartbeat where he thought she might give him a genuine smile and everything would go back to how it was between them. To how it should be.
Then she spoke and it passed. Hope passed.
“I want to thank you for all you did for me, Heath.”
He took her hand and sat by the bed but she didn’t grip his hand back. Her hand sat in his.
“I’m going to be moving to rehab tomorrow. They say I’ll be there a month. Maybe a little less.”
“I’ve got leave time saved up—” he started but she was shaking her head.
“You’ve done enough for me, Heath. You’ll never know how grateful I am, but I can’t ask you to stay here any longer with me. You’ve done enough for me.”
Now he shook his head. “I wanted to do it. I want to be by your side through this, Nori. Look I know I said it couldn’t be anything more than a temporary thing, but I was an idiot. I don’t want this to end, Eleanor. I want to be with you. Now that we’ve found each other again, I don’t want to let this go.”
She looked away from him and he froze.
“But you don’t want that,” he said, realization dawning. He was such an idiot. She hadn’t wanted more than what they had in Kazarus. He’d been the only one hoping for more.
Hell, she had probably been wondering why he was still hanging around.
She looked back to him. “I want to put all this behind me, Heath. I don’t want to remember what happened over there.”
Her words hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest and he thought his heart might just give out right then and there.
He was such an idiot.
“So, that’s it, then.” He said, his words laced with the shock that was coursing through him. How had he not seen this coming? How had he so misread her?
“Thank you for all you did for me, Heath.”
He nodded at her words and stood, his motions stiff and awkward.
“Yeah,” he said, and he threw a smile he wasn’t at all feeling onto his face. “Well, you know. Here to serve and all that.”
He winked at her and turned away. He didn’t want to see her reaction. Couldn’t watch the pity that would enter her eyes if she realized he was reeling from the blow of her telling him she didn’t want more with him. He couldn’t take pity from her.
He should say something more. Do something more. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak. He could only walk woodenly from the room, fighting to keep from breaking down and begging her to tell him why she didn’t want him. Why she didn’t feel the same incredible connection he felt between them. The connection he’d felt when they were younger. The one that had never, in all those years, gone away.
Chapter 33
Heath was going through the motions of a night out at The Ugly Mug with his team, but it was just that. He felt dead inside.
He barely tasted the beer in his hands. Nothing tasted good. In fact, nothing had any taste at all. And every time he let himself think, Eleanor was the only thing that he could focus on. The look on her face whe
n she told him goodbye.
He wanted nothing more than to throw himself into the next mission or at the very least a solid PT session. Physical training was what his body needed to forget everything that had happened with Eleanor. To forget how much he wanted her and that she would be lost to him for good this time.
Instead, his team was going to be at the base for the next few weeks. He’d been pissed when Trigger and the guys got a callout while he and his team were left home sitting on their asses, but at least that meant he didn’t need to watch those guys with their women at the bar.
It was shitty of him to be so fucking jealous of their happiness, but there it was.
His team had been assigned to do their five-year renewal of Code of Conduct Certification to cover COC applications in wartime, peacetime, and governmental or hostage detention environments. Which meant being deskbound in a classroom with a lot of time to think about what Eleanor was going through without him.
He couldn’t stop himself from wondering how she was doing. He wanted to know if she was hurting. How her recovery was going. If her career had been hurt by what had happened out on the mission.
Not that it was her fault that the analysts back home had decided Demir couldn’t be trusted. Not that she could have known Demir’s team would somehow get tipped off to the fact a Delta team was watching the bunker, ready to raid and rescue the hostages.
But still, technically her negotiation had been a failure and that left a sour pit in his stomach knowing that he’d been part of that.
He stood, grabbing his beer as Jangles and Zip looked up at him.
Jangles looked like he was about to say something when Duff entered and wove through the tables to the booth at the back where they sat.
