Chapter Ten
S harp watched Grace’s face as she thought about what he said and didn’t say.
He opened his mouth, but he never got the chance to say anything.
She kissed him.
He froze, letting those soft lips slide against his own.
After a couple of seconds, he let his lips follow hers, allowed her to take the lead. When she nibbled on his bottom lip, he groaned. She took total advantage of his lapse by sending her tongue on a teasing foray into his mouth. He had to fight with himself to keep his hands off her, to let her set the pace.
She pulled back with a frown. “What the hell am I doing?”
Sharp played dumb. “Kissing?”
“Exactly. First we’re kissing, then we’re fighting, then we’re kissing again. We shouldn’t be kissing at all.”
“Just for the record, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”
She snorted. “You are a menace.”
“To what?”
“My peace of mind.”
“If I had a nickel for every time a woman said that to me...”
“You’d have five cents.”
“Probably. What do you say, Doc, want to get some rest?”
She answered with a chuckle that told him she was okay.
Despite the pain from his injuries, the lack of sleep and the precariousness of their situation, he’d never felt better. He settled into the uneven ground beneath him with a twitch of his shoulders and damn near purred, “Anytime you want to make out, I’m your guy.”
* * *
G race woke to Sharp shaking her with one hand and holding the other over her mouth. Fear spiked through her, leaving her shaking. It took a few seconds for her vision to adjust to the darkness and to realize what was happening.
The sound of feet scuffing against the rocky ground outside their cave had her nodding at Sharp to let her go and reaching for her Beretta.
Sharp put his hand on her wrist and pushed hers down. When she glanced at him, he sat up, pulled a knife and motioned for her to back away from the entrance.
What was he going to do, kill whoever was outside in hand-to-hand combat?
Idiot, of course, that’s what he’s going to do.
By the time she thought of questioning his plan, he was already gone, out into the gathering darkness with no sound at all.
Would the man he was about to kill hear him coming, or die not knowing he was being hunted?
Grace waited, straining to hear any sound that might tell her what was going on outside. A short, faint moan was all she heard, gone almost immediately. No sounds of movement reached her. No sounds at all other than faint insect noises.
A dark wraith slipped into the cave and came to rest in front of her. It surprised the hell out of her and she sucked in a breath.
Two fingers covered her lips, and she relaxed as she recognized Sharp’s touch. He leaned in and put his mouth to her ear. “Only one man,” he said in that soundless whisper she wished she could reproduce. “I put him down and hid the body in another cave. There are others searching for us, though. We need to move.”
“Where?” she asked. “You’re injured. How far are we likely to get?”
“I heard helicopter blades out there. I think those flares you used may have been seen by our guys and they’re now looking for us. We need to find another spot to set off another flare. Someplace defendable.”
“You know of a place?”
“Yeah, about a half mile from here.”
“How’s your leg?”
“It’ll hold. How are you?”
She had so many cuts, bruises and aches she wondered if any part of her was injury free. “I’ll make it. There’s no other choice.”
He grabbed her hand and squeezed. “We have to go now.”
She nodded, and he led her out of the cave.
She’d been wrong about how late it was. The sun was just setting, but it was overcast and the clouds were low and dark.
A few feet away from the cave, there was a wet patch on the sandy soil, with a trail of blood leading a few feet toward the surrounding rocks.
More blood. Lots and lots of blood.
As long as it wasn’t Sharp’s blood.
Grace forced herself to follow Sharp, who moved quickly and silently. How he could do it in his current condition, she had no idea.
He’d probably smirk and say, That’s what put the special in Special Forces .
Twice, they had to hide from Afghan men. Sharp whispered that it was better if they didn’t kill anyone else, since that person could be missed or the body discovered, alerting all the searchers.
That was just fine with her.
They were approaching a plateau when a helicopter seemed to emerge out of the cooling air. The markings on the bird proclaimed its allegiance and function. It was American. A Combat Rescue team.
Relief spurred her feet and she ran with Sharp toward the craft.
Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones.
From three o’clock came movement on the ground, along with gunfire.
Sharp put his stolen rifle to his shoulder and returned fire. So did soldiers on the bird. As they came closer to the helicopter, now hovering a few feet above the ground, the Afghans rushed the aircraft.
Grace pulled her Beretta and fired until her clip was empty.
Sharp stumbled and fell to one knee, but was up, firing and running at the same time almost immediately, with one difference.
He was limping worse than before.
“Are you injured?” she yelled at him.
He didn’t answer.
She scanned his body, trying to see what had happened and narrowed her gaze on his right leg. It looked wet. Again. Bloody. Again. “Have you been shot?”
“Not now, Grace. You can screech at me later. If we survive.”
“ Screech? ” Ha. She was going to take a strip off of him, she really was. She was also very tired of being shot at.
More shots were fired behind them. Sharp shoved her down behind a pile of rocks, spun and returned fire. They were only ten or fifteen feet from the helicopter.
“Get over here, you moron,” she yelled. “You don’t have any body armor on!” Okay, maybe she was screeching a little.
But the gunfire directed at the helicopter stopped. Sharp grabbed her by the scruff of her uniform and dragged her with him as he continued on.
“Sharp, how bad is your leg?”
“It’s still attached,” he barked. “Get in the bird.”
A soldier manning the doorway, returned fire over her Grace’s head as Sharp threw her inside and covered her body on the floor of the helicopter.
She tried to get up, but he yelled in her ear, “Stay down.” With his entire weight on her, she didn’t have any choice.
More bullets pinged overhead as they lifted off. This time two soldiers fired back before slamming the door shut. She couldn’t see much, but she could tell the men on board were yelling at each other, trading hand signals and preparing for God knows what.
Sharp finally got off her and helped her up. She immediately looked at his leg. Damn it, he had blood all over himself. She got in his face and yelled, “Sit down. I want to see your leg.”
He hesitated, like he was going to argue, but sat down in one of the jump seats instead. She put her hands on his leg and began searching for the wound.
Someone put a headset over her ears.
“Ma’am,” a man said over the headset. “I need to check your injuries.”
She looked over her shoulder at the soldier behind her. He wore a paramedic patch on his shoulder and his helmet.
“I’m a trauma surgeon. Major Samuels,” she told him calmly. “My injuries are minor and can wait. Sergeant Foster has sustained multiple wounds to his leg. He’s first priority.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. He dipped his head and came up with a pair of scissors.
She loved working with the Combat Rescue guys. They were prepared for everything.
Grace cut Sharp’s pants where the blood seemed heaviest and found the bullet wound she’d bandaged hours before sluggishly bleeding. She checked the back of his thigh to see if there was anything new there, but aside from more bleeding, it was okay. She reached up and squeezed Sharp’s hand.
“Through and through happened a few hours ago,” she said to the paramedic. “Doesn’t seem to have involved the femoral artery, but he might need a transfusion. Let’s pack it for now. He can be sewn up at the base.”
She and the medic went to work, put an IV line in and had him bandaged up in a few minutes.
“Am I gonna live?” Sharp asked, now wearing his own headset.
“Yep. You might have some muscle damage, but nothing that should put you on the sidelines for long.”
A grimace etched lines onto his forehead and around his mouth. “Sidelines? I don’t want to go there at all, Doc.”
She got herself strapped into the jump seat facing her patient. “You don’t get a choice, Sharp.”
His grimace dug in deeper. “We might all have fewer choices when we get back to the base.”
That sounded ominous. “What does that mean?”
“I mean, these guys—” Sharp glanced around at the soldiers surrounding them “—say Marshall is not a happy camper. He’s pissed. At you.”
“Because I went over his head about his cleaning plans?” She pressed her lips together. “Too damn bad. It’s not a situation he’s in control of. He doesn’t have enough info to make the right decisions.”
“He doesn’t agree.”
“He doesn’t need to. This is over his head and his pay grade.”
“He can still make trouble. Slow things down.”
“Why would he do that? He’d be risking lives of soldiers and civilians both.”
“I didn’t say I agreed with him, I said what I think he’s going to do. Right or wrong, the guy was king shit of his island until you voted him out without a paddle or a canoe.”
And here she thought the man couldn’t get any lower or behave any worse. “Well, that’s just fucking perfect.”