Her Tempting Protector: Navy SEAL Team (Night Storm Book 2)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  “It’s a shitstorm, but yours is a goatfuck, so you and Carys are the priority,” Kane said succinctly.

  “Great.”

  “Exactly. We should have taken the mission in Chad. Keep your head down, Lyons. Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

  The line went dead. He handed the phone back to Carys without taking his eyes away from the highway.

  “What is a goatfuck?” she asked. “For that matter, what’s a shitstorm?”

  Cullen laughed without any humor. Then he realized she’d just sworn. “Put down the phone and give me your hand,” he said as he reached out. When he felt her warm palm hit his, he twined their fingers together.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted quietly.

  “Ahhh, Baby. I know. But the good news is that we have the two best men I know, coming to cover our ass.”

  “Friends of mine have died, and Shada’s two little girls are in the middle of the poop-storm, I’m not seeing an upside.” Carys’ voice wobbled.

  He snorted out a laugh. “You said poop-storm. For someone who’s scared, you have quite the sense of humor.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing, right?” she asked.

  “Absolutely, Carys, it is. You amaze me.” Reluctantly, he untangled their fingers, but he brought her hand over to his leg and placed it on top of his thigh. “I need to use both hands to drive.”

  “I understand,” she whispered. They continued on in silence. She was even quiet when they passed a bus pulled over with all its passengers kneeling at the side of the road, their hands clasped behind their heads as four armed men stood behind them.

  As the minutes passed by, Cullen started to slow down. He knew the petrol station was coming up. He’d been counting on it. Even from the highway, he could see at least four RSF Jeeps parked alongside the pumps. Armed RSF troops patrolled around the perimeter.

  This had now escalated past a goatfuck. Maybe an albino-yak-fuck? What in the hell had happened in just three days?

  “Carys, give me the phone.”

  She handed it to him.

  “What’s going on?” Kane asked.

  “The petrol station I was planning to stop at is overrun by rebels. I’m going to run out of fuel in thirty kilometers or less. I need a contingency plan. Any ideas?”

  Cullen could almost hear Kane’s mind grinding through options. Apparently, he wasn’t coming up with any, because he wasn’t talking.

  “I’ll call you back,” Kane finally said. “Don’t worry.”

  The line went dead.

  Up on the left side of the highway a huge pillar of smoke was coming up. Carys’ nails dug into his thigh as she saw it too.

  “Was that Kane again?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “He sure tells you not to worry a lot, is that normal?”

  Cullen’s lip twitched upwards. The phone rang again. Before Cullen had a chance to answer it, all hell broke loose.

  Another armored combat vehicle came down the middle of the highway, causing vehicles on both sides to swerve to the shoulder—what there was of one. Carys answered the phone. Cullen had no idea what she was saying, all his concentration was on the road.

  Cullen watched as a car going south was hit and careened into northbound traffic up ahead. There were no guardrails, no nothing on their side of the road only gravel that fell off into a gulley. One, then two cars plowed into one another, the third skidded sideways and the fourth ended up going into the southbound traffic as the armored vehicle bared down toward Cullen’s Unimog.

  He knew that he didn’t have anyone crawling up his ass because no one was anxious to go into Khartoum, so he hit the brakes. But it still wasn’t good enough as one of the cars in front of him spun around and skidded toward him.

  He wrenched the steering wheel and headed to the shoulder, bouncing over the gravel, and he drove the Unimog damn near at a ninety-degree angle along the side of the gulley, maneuvering around one car that was beginning to smolder. At last he was past the wreckage, but the truck’s wheels skidded in the gulley gravel. For a moment, Cullen didn’t think they would gain enough traction to make it back up the hill, but they caught, and they were back up onto the highway.

  Adam was wailing.

  Shada was screaming.

  He turned to look at Carys, worried that she and the baby might have been injured. She was bent over in the seat, her arms tightly wrapped around the baby. In one trembling hand she still held onto the phone.

  He pulled over to the side of the road. He took a deep breath.

  “Honey, are you okay?”

  She looked up and swallowed, her green eyes huge in her pale face. “I’m fine.” She pressed the phone at him, then tugged free of her seatbelt as she quickly scanned the screaming baby.

  “Is he good?”

  She just nodded.

  “Give him to me.” Shada’s screams had turned into moans. “Check on Shada.”

  She unwrapped Adam from his sling, and carefully handed the squalling child to Cullen. He looked around them. It was cramped as hell in the truck, but there was no way he was going to risk going outside on the highway or go into the bed of the truck with the newborn—he wouldn’t put Adam into that kind of risky situation.

  Carys was opening her door. He dropped the phone and grabbed her arm. “No.”

  “What? I need to get back there.”

  “Crawl over the seat. I don’t want you outside this truck, it’s too dangerous on the highway right now.”

  She scowled but nodded. Then she scooped up the phone that he’d ignored and handed it to him as she somehow managed to twist and wiggle her way over the front seat.

  He heard Shada’s groan of pain as Carys landed.

  Fuck.

  But it couldn’t be helped.

  “Cullen! Answer me.” It was Raiden’s voice on the phone. He did not sound happy.

  “I’m here,” Cullen answered above Adam’s cries.

  “Explain to me what is going on, it’ll make it easier for me to help you.”

  You had to hand it to Sato, he knew how to sound calm in any situation. Cullen explained about the wreck and that they were on the side of the road.

  “Perfect. It will make it that much easier to stop and fill you with fuel.”

  “So, you want me to stay here?” He did not like this plan. Not at all. “How long will it take you to get here?”

  “Twenty minutes. I’m going to be the one to stop. I might have lost the coin toss, but my vehicle doesn’t stick out like Kane’s.”

  “Get here faster, Raiden, because if the RSF stops here at the wreckage site, they’re going to see Carys’ ass up in the air in the backseat working on Shada, and me in the front seat with Adam. I don’t care if I’m in a thobe or not, it’s going to be suspicious as hell.”

  “I promise you, I will be there as fast as humanly possible.”

  “Be faster than a human.”

  “Roger that.”

  Carys wanted to scream.

  She wanted to cry.

  The blanket that covered Shada was bloody, that meant that the bandage and the sheet beneath the blanket had to be soaked in blood. The only blessing was that Shada had passed out when she landed on her legs.

  Carys unbuckled her and unwrapped her from the bedding as fast as she could. When she took off the bandage, she could see that blood was still pumping out of the incision. The surgical site had dehisced, opened up, probably due to infection and made worse by the driving, and now the woman was in danger of wound evisceration—an organ could actually protrude through the wound. And if the blood’s coming from a tear in her abdominal aorta...

  Carys backed up on her hands and knees, and opened the back passenger door, praying that Cullen’s tie down of the medical kit had held up during their near-miss.

  “Carys,” Cullen roared when he heard the truck door being opened. She ignored him and got out. She didn’t bother to respond. What was the point, she was going to do what needed to be done, wi
th or without his permission.

  She saw two people standing next to their vehicle, and one person kneeling next to someone lying on the ground near a car that was on fire. She ignored it all. She had to get back to Shada with her kit, or she would die for sure.

  “Thank God,” she breathed when she saw that the kit was still in place. She untethered it, pulled it out of the truck bed and sprinted back to the door she’d left open.

  “Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Cullen yelled over Adam’s crying.

  There wasn’t time for a pissing match, so she ignored him. Carys swung the med kit up onto the little available space in the already crowded backseat. She knew what she needed, it was a matter of getting to it in time.

  The other back seat door slammed open. Carys looked up and saw a steely eyed Cullen standing there. “Put me to work, Doc. Adam’s fine where he is.”

  “Apply pressure to the wound. I think her abdominal aorta is leaking, tissues probably weakened by infection.” She tossed over some gauze as she dug down to the bottom of the kit. Dr. Nazer had helped to pack the kit, but she had put in the QuikClot packets. Her darn bloody hands were so slippery she was having trouble feeling for things.

  She gasped with relief as she pulled out the two packages. She tore the first one open with her teeth and looked up.

  “Ready?” she asked Cullen. He nodded.

  He lifted his hands and removed the gauze from the bloody wound, and she stuffed it with the combat gauze, getting right in there next to the aorta, just in case. She continued to apply it until she could see that the hemostatic agents in the QuikClot were doing their job and stopping the bleeding. It wasn’t a cure-all, but, God willing, it would last long enough to get her to the hospital in Khartoum.

  She looked up and saw that Cullen’s white robes were now covered in blood, so was her light brown robes, but at least it blended in a little better.

  “Take off your thobe. If we’re pulled over, we’re going to be in worse trouble than if you’re in your uniform. Can you get the tight pants and soccer jersey?”

  He nodded and closed his door.

  Carys efficiently bundled up Shada. Once again, the mother was out cold. She took her blood pressure which was terribly low. She switched out the bag of saline, which was all she could do at this point, and once again buckled her into the car.

  She shimmied out of the backseat, dragging her medical kit with her. She started to turn to see what was happening with the others along the side of the road. She couldn’t resist, if she could help, she was going to help.

  “Ah. Ah. Ah.” A mammoth chest covered in red blocked her view. “Get into the car, Carys.”

  “But—” she started to protest.

  Cullen tipped her chin up until she stared into his steely blue eyes. “Get in the car. It’s not safe out here. Adam and Shada need you.”

  She closed her eyes. Cullen was right. She needed to prioritize. But maybe if she—?

  He snagged the kit out of her hands, pulled open the passenger seat door. “Pick up Adam, he’s scared as hell. You can’t leave him like that, can you?”

  She saw the baby where he was squalling, his arms waving in his makeshift bed on the floor of the truck. All thoughts of other people along side of the road left her for the moment.

  “Get your butt inside,” he commanded as she picked up the baby.

  He shut the door behind her after she sat down. She rocked Adam, trying to get him to settle, waiting for Cullen to get into the driver’s seat. It took minutes for her to realize that he wasn’t coming back. Where was he?

  She turned around in her seat and saw him crouched over the man who was passed out beside the road. Now she was ready to open her truck door, his eyes shot up to look at her. Even from forty yards away, she could see his command. She was to stay where she was. She peeked over the seat to look at Shada and held on tighter to the screaming baby who needed to be fed.

  “Lyons!” a voice roared.

  That was when she noticed the blue Toyota truck and Raiden Sato.

  15

  Cullen walked away from the dead man. He wanted to slam the medical kit into the back of the truck for all the good it had done. He’d heard Raiden, but he needed just thirty seconds to get his head on straight before the next crisis, so he took it by tying down the bag into the truck bed.

  He peered into the back seat where Shada was, the cloth that had been covering the back window was long gone. He could see that even with her naturally dark skin tone, she looked pallid and wan. He still wanted to get his hands on the man who had beat her up. The thought of torturing that bastard put a grim smile on his face. He turned to look at Raiden.

  The man already had the nozzle of the jerry can shoved into the filler neck and was transferring fuel into the truck. “What’s going on at the city? Why the hell is Carys’ name on a hit list? Who was killed? Basically, what in the hell went so damned FUBAR in Khartoum?” Cullen demanded low enough so Carys couldn’t hear.

  Raiden’s face went blank. Stone cold solid. Cullen’s stomach clenched.

  It was going to be bad.

  So bad.

  “It started out fine. It always starts out with good intentions, doesn’t it?” Raiden’s voice was a trace of its normal level, but his words’ impact was easily heard over the highway traffic. “The people had had enough of the brutality of the Rapid Support Forces. The killings and rapes had started, but when two people were doused with gasoline and…”

  Raiden didn’t need to finish the sentence. The same things had occurred last summer. The same violence had precipitated Hamdok coming into power.

  “The people took to the streets. First it was the students, in less than twenty-four hours it escalated to tens of thousands. They were out for blood. They wanted to take down everybody in authority. They set the first government building on fire thirty hours ago. Soon, not just the RSF were targeted, but anyone in uniform. Countries all over the world have sent in their special forces to get their people the hell out of here. Captain Hale came in with the Midnight Delta crew to help us get the rest of the Americans out.”

  “Why? I thought we had it covered with the Marines coming in on the two Ospreys. Wasn’t it just two days ago or a day and a half?” Cullen ran his hand over his head. He was confused at the timeline, just too little sleep. “Anyway, Kane told me that it was less than two hundred Americans left to be evacuated maybe a day and a half ago, so shouldn’t they all be gone? Why aren’t we done?”

  “There’s a problem with that. The bomb that went off at the embassy hit their computer system. They gave us the wrong initial numbers. We’ve since got updated numbers from the back-up server in the US. So as of an hour ago, we have over three hundred Americans to evacuate, that’s another reason why Captain Hale is here.”

  “FUBAR,” Cullen bit out.

  “You do have a way with words,” Raiden said.

  “You still haven’t answered my other questions.”

  “Now isn’t the time. I’ll tell you when we get to the hospital in the city.”

  Cullen nodded. “Where’s Kane? I thought we were convoying.”

  “I’m taking the lead. Kane’s two klicks up the road, he’s going to come in on your tail.”

  Cullen nodded, they gripped hands and stared at one another for a moment. Everything was conveyed without words.

  “Still think I should lead, your Toyota is a loser.” Cullen scoffed.

  “But I’m the better driver,” Raiden smiled before he hot-footed back to his truck.

  Why do people, men in particular, think that they can say things and not be heard?

  Why?

  She waited to ask until after Cullen got buckled in and the truck started up. She wanted to make sure they could ease up along the shoulder and were able to safely follow Raiden.

  “What is—”

  “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition,” Cullen answered her question before she had a chance to ask it.

  “How di
d you—?”

  “I didn’t leave the window rolled down even a little bit. Now it is. You were listening.” He glanced over at her and gave her a wide grin. “I totally would have done the same thing.”

  “You guys use a different word than ‘fouled’ don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Carys sat back in the seat and continued to feed Adam his warmed-up bottle. She went over everything they’d said. After her time in Greece, she had taught herself to become hard in the face of tragedy, it was the only way to survive. But she hated the person she had become. That was the reason she had left DWB. The eight months she’d been in the States had helped get her right in the head. But here she was again—dull, lifeless, uncaring.

  “Carys, it’s going to be okay.”

  “I know.”

  Cullen’s warm hand snuck under her braid to clasp around the back of her neck. She jolted, then settled into his gentle caress. “Talk to me, Honey.”

  “About what? FUBAR?” Her voice sounded funny.

  “Ah, Carys, you’re crying. Do you mean to be giving Adam his first shower?”

  Carys touched her cheek. Her finger was trembling too.

  “I’m not supposed to be crying. I’m made of stone. I don’t care about things.”

  Cullen snorted as his thumb stroked up the middle line of her neck, hitting the base of her scalp. “Relax your head. Just let it tilt down.”

  “You need both hands on the wheel.” Her voice was slurring, his hand felt like molten gold, sinking into every physical and emotional hurt.

  “Raiden and Kane are protecting us. Let me help you.” Distantly she saw Adam’s eyes drift shut. She set the bottle down next to her and soothed circles over his tummy as she soaked in Cullen’s touch.

  “Talk to me, Carys.”

  She didn’t respond.

  He waited and continued to press in, stroking and swirling his fingers in just a way that melted her muscles and dissolved her hurt. How could one man’s touch make her feel so treasured?

  “It’s just too much,” she finally answered. “But I promise I’ll be fine when we get to Khartoum. I won’t let you down.”