Chapter 8
Aspen woke up after a shitty night’s sleep. She was jittery and as excited as a six-year-old on Christmas morning.
Kane would be here today.
The missions she and the Ranger teams had been on over the last month hadn’t gone as planned. They hadn’t been able to find the man behind the most recent uprisings in the area, and the Army had called in a Delta Force unit to assist.
Derek was furious when he’d learned Kane was on the Delta team and would be arriving at the base soon.
The last three days on patrol had been hell.
Derek had pushed both his team and hers beyond what was safe in a bid to find the terrorist leader before the Deltas arrived.
The two Ranger teams ran joint missions.
And while Aspen generally felt there was more safety in numbers, especially when they patrolled the town outside the base’s gates, just this once she wished her team and Derek’s weren’t working so closely together.
It seemed to her that Derek was looking at the hunt for the terrorist as a competition, when it was nothing of the sort.
But Aspen hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t reported Derek to their commanding officer. He hadn’t done anything illegal, had just walked a fine line between being reckless and determined. Instead, she suffered in silence alongside both platoons.
And finally, after all the emails over the last month in which she’d attempted to tell Kane what was going on without actually saying anything that would break security protocols, he was going to be there.
She’d be able to see him, talk to him in person.
Aspen knew nothing physical could happen between them, not while they were on deployment, but that was okay.
It would be enough to simply see a familiar, friendly face.
Things between her and her own team had been better the last few days—danger tended to do that—but she still felt there was a wall between them that she simply couldn’t breach.
She’d asked to be able to bunk with them in their tent, but the Army had said not under any circumstance.
Men and women had to have separate quarters, period.
Because Derek, Sergeant Vandine, and their commanding officers were meeting with the Delta team as soon as they arrived to go over intel, the Rangers had a rare morning off.
Aspen knew they were all planning on going to the chow tent to eat a hot breakfast, then back to their tent to play cards.
She hadn’t been invited. A week ago, that probably would’ve devastated her.
But nothing could faze her today because she was going to see Kane.
Feeling like a groupie or a desperate twelve-year-old waiting to see her favorite boy band, Aspen hung out near the landing pad where helicopters flying in from the nearby larger base arrived.
She’d had her hopes dashed twice already when the choppers that arrived weren’t carrying the Deltas.
But the third time was the charm, and she watched with a huge smile as seven familiar faces climbed out of the huge machine.
She itched to throw herself into Kane’s arms, but she controlled herself, barely.
The guys walked toward her, and Aspen was all ready to be professional and welcome them to the post with a handshake, but Trigger blew that out of the water when he dropped his rucksack and enveloped her in a huge hug.
Shocked and surprised, Aspen could only wrap her arms around him and hug back.
“Thank you for the wedding present,” he told her when he finally let go.
“Wedding present?” Aspen asked.
“Yeah. From you and Brain. I’ve already taken Gillian shooting twice; that Glock you guys got her is a huge hit.”
“Um…you’re welcome,” Aspen told him. She’d had no idea Kane had put both their names on a gift. It made her feel all tingly inside.
Then she was tugged into Lefty’s embrace, as he told her how happy he was to see her and to find she was all right.
She went through the same thing with the other guys on the team as well, each one giving her a huge hug.
Lucky was the second-to-last man in line, and he whispered in her ear as he held her to him, “It’s so good to see you alive and well,” Lucky said.
“And in case you’re wondering, we’re not just hugging you because you’re a friend…
but also because we know Derek would do anything to make your life hell.
He can’t claim you’re doing something inappropriate with Brain if we’re all joining in. ”
They shared a grin when he pulled back, and Aspen wanted to cry.
It made no sense how quickly these men had accepted her when her own team still held her at arm’s length.
But she wasn’t going to think about it now.
She was so thankful she’d get a chance to have Kane’s arms around her, she could barely process anything else.
Then she was standing in front of Kane. His hazel eyes twinkled, and it was all Aspen could do not to throw herself at him. “Hi,” she said shyly, thinking about everything she’d shared in her emails.
Without a word, Kane reached for her. It felt good to have hugs from his teammates, but having his arms around her, smelling his clean scent even after what had to be hours of traveling, had her melting into him.
“Fuck, this feels good,” he whispered.
Knowing they couldn’t do anything but share a quick hug, Aspen closed her eyes and did her best to memorize the moment.
But of course the embrace ended way too soon.
Kane was the first to pull back, but he didn’t step away from her like the other guys did.
He brought his hand up to her temple and brushed her hair away from her face, examining the bruise left when her head had hit a concrete wall the previous week.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked quietly.
Aspen shook her head. “I’ve got a dull headache, but it isn’t too bad anymore.”
He frowned, but said, “Good.”
“We got Gillian a Glock for a wedding present?” she asked, wanting to lighten the mood, and to try to prevent herself from planting her lips on his.
He grinned. “Yup. It’s dark purple, almost mauve. And it rocks, if I do say so myself.” Then he sobered. “How bad has Derek been?”
Aspen shrugged. “He’s frustrated we haven’t been able to find Mullah Abbas Akhund. I think he wants the glory that might come from killing him.”
“He’s an idiot,” Kane said with a shake of his head. “I mean, yeah, the man needs to die, but anyone who’s more concerned about personal fame and glory in our line of work has no business being in charge of anyone.”
“Agreed,” Aspen said. “And rumors are that Abdul Shahzada is really the man to be worried about, anyway.”
When Kane didn’t say anything, Aspen bit her lip. “I’m telling you shit you already know, aren’t I?”
“No, go on. I want to hear your thoughts on what’s going on over here,” Kane told her.
Looking around, Aspen saw that the rest of the team was listening intently to what she had to say as well.
“All right, well, Akhund is the face of the current uprising. He’s the one who has the rallies and who the villagers taken into custody claim is in charge.
But there have been a few who insist Akhund isn’t really in control.
They’ve mentioned Shahzada’s name, but no one knows where he is or what alias he’s using. ”
Kane nodded, letting Aspen know for sure she wasn’t telling him or his team anything they didn’t already know.
“We’re gonna find Akhund,” Doc said from her right.
“And he’ll tell us everything we need to know about this Shahzada guy,” Lucky added.
“We need to get going,” Trigger said. “The post commander is waiting for us.”
“Give me a second,” Kane told his team, and they all nodded as they backed away.
Aspen looked at Kane and licked her lips nervously.
She was so happy to see him, and it seemed as if he was glad to see her too, but when he didn’t say anything for a long moment, simply stared down at her with a heavy look in his eyes…
she had the crazy thought that maybe he was going to say he didn’t think things would work out between them after all.
Or maybe that they were moving too fast and needed to slow things down.
“Stop worrying,” Kane said with amazing insight.
“I just…I’m so happy to see you.”
“Me too. I’ve missed you so damn much, you just don’t know.”
“Actually, I think I do know,” she replied with a small smile.
“Even though I can’t touch or kiss you like I want to, simply standing here and seeing for myself that you’re all right makes me feel better than I have in more than a month. I was really worried when I found out about you hitting your head.”
It was a beautiful thing to say, and Aspen swallowed hard, doing her best to hold back her happy tears. “I’m okay. I promise.”
She saw his gaze settle on the bruise on her head before once again meeting her own. “I’ll be in meetings for a while, but do you want to eat lunch with me and the guys afterward?”
“Yes,” Aspen told him without hesitation. She usually tried to eat with her Ranger team, but that was more about making sure she arrived at the chow tent at the same time, rather than the team actually asking her to join them.
“Good. We’ll probably head out on patrol not too long after that, to get the lay of the land, but I want to spend every second I can with you in the meantime. Even if we’re not doing anything but eating next to each other.”
She didn’t want to think about him or his friends heading outside the post to hunt down Mullah Abbas Akhund, as she knew firsthand how hostile the villagers were, but she had no control over what his superior officers had planned for the team, so she had to let it go.
He was good at what he did, and he had a hell of a team of men at his back.
“Same,” she told him with as much feeling as she could muster.
“What are you going to do this morning?” he asked.