Nothing Sweeter (Sweet on a Cowboy) (23 page)

“Well, then, I guess I fall into whatever category’s left.”

Wyatt walked by carrying a cooler, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Welcome to the fringe, bro.”

Max cuffed the back of his brother’s head, then pulled Bree into his arms.

Laura Drake grew up in the suburbs outside Detroit, though her stories are set in the west. A tomboy, she’s always loved the outdoors and adventure. In 1980 she and her sister packed everything they owned into Pintos and moved to California. There she met and married a motorcycling, bleed-maroon Texas Aggie and her love affair with the West was born. Laura rides motorcycles:
Elvis
, a 1985 BMW Mystic, and
Sting
, a 1999 BMW R1100.

In Texas, Laura was introduced to her first rodeo, and fell in love. She’s an avid fan of Pro Bull Riding (PBR,) attending any event within driving distance, including two PBR National finals.

Laura now lives in California with her family. She is hard at work on her next novel.

For more information on Laura Drake, please visit:

http://lauradrakebooks.com/

Twitter: @PBRWriter

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/LauraDrakeBooks

Also by Laura Drake

The Sweet Spot

1

A
nother night of blood and adrenaline.

Katya pulled her shower-wet hair into a bun. The weight of exhaustion tugged at her, but the fine hum of tension running just under her skin warned her that she wouldn’t sleep.

Beneath that, resting close to her heart, was a firm pillow of satiety. They’d saved two soldiers’ lives last night.

Finding herself alone in the small, fake wood–paneled room of the B Hut was a rare occurrence, given that her three roommates were medical personnel. They must be working a shift. The army was so desperate for medics that Katya had been transferred from physical therapy to become a triage medic two years ago.

She took the few steps to the American flag–draped wall and the small chalkboard underneath it, almost covered in chalk lines. Neat bundles of five, representing men that they’d saved from the enemy. She picked up the chalk to add her night’s conquests, but hesitated. Keeping score against the bad guys only made sense if you were clear that there
was
a bad guy.

That’s not right.
The enemy they fought in the ER wasn’t the Afghani insurgents.

It was death.

She brought the chalk down on the board so hard that it broke. She made two marks, one crossing four others—another neat bundle.

Beep beep!
The bleat of a Jeep through the thin walls got her moving. Shouldering her rifle and pack, she opened the door and slammed into the dry blast of Kandahar heat. By the time she had the door locked, her shower had worn off.

Murphy grinned from the seat of the Jeep he’d commandeered—best not to ask where. Last night in the ER, when he’d invited her on a trip to town, she couldn’t resist. Most soldiers longed for a taste of home. They cheered when fast-food franchises opened on base. Not Katya. She loved exotic spices and unfamiliar local dishes. She’d even tried the boiled sheep’s head a street vendor once offered, finding the flavor of the facial meat fabulous once she got past the staring white eye and the grinning exposed teeth.

She tossed her pack in the Jeep and climbed in, cradling the rifle in her lap. “I don’t remember it being this hot last May.” She put her hand to her cloth-covered helmet, shifting it to blot the sweat tickle that made her scalp feel as if it were crawling with bugs.

Murphy’s cool green eyes watched her with appreciation. “It’s probably just my proximity, ma’am. I have that effect on women.”

She knew she shouldn’t encourage him, but couldn’t help smiling at the combat medic. He looked like a pencil wearing a helmet—all long bones and knobby joints. His helmet covered buzz-cut red hair, but even if she hadn’t
known his surname, the flushed, freckled skin declared him a Celt.

He gunned the engine but drove at a sedate pace to keep the dust down until they cleared the security check at the entrance of the base.

She would have loved to be alone for a while, but knew that was impossible. Kandahar was not safe—especially for a solitary female. Even a female second lieutenant.

The wind swirling behind the windshield cooled as well as a fan in hell. Katya looked out at the receding puddles and rapidly parching grass at the side of the road, thanking God for the road the Corps of Engineers had built last year. Spring rain in the desert was beautiful, but it was hell on goat-track roads that morphed from sliding mud pits to foot-deep cement-like ruts overnight.

Eyes on the road, Murphy yelled over the wind, “We could swing by the airport on the way back and watch the planes do touch-and-go’s. Not very romantic by normal standards, but it’s the finest that this corner of Afghanistan has to offer.”

Like everyone, she enjoyed the Nebraskan’s down-home, upbeat sense of humor that had lit up the ER since he’d transferred in a month ago. But comments like these made her wonder if the E-4 had a bit of a crush. “Did you miss the lecture about not fraternizing with officers in boot camp, Corporal?”

“I think that must’ve been the day that the general’s daughter and I were—uh, indisposed. ma’am.”

She smiled.
Incorrigible.

He slowed as they rolled into town. The two-story stucco buildings might have been handsome before the bombing. They passed one with a missing front wall, exposing jagged
rooms like broken teeth. Between the damage and the dust, the town looked tired, weary of all it had seen. Murphy parked, and they got out. Katya shouldered her pack and rifle, wondering when it had stopped feeling odd to carry armaments on a shopping trip.

Tourists were an extinct species in a war zone. The shops were shuttered, but people still needed to eat. Intrepid vendors had set up tables in the narrow band between the buildings and the street. Vegetables mostly, sold by men with light, loose clothing and disrespectful eyes. The bright blush of pomegranate skin and green grapes looked incongruous in the sepia scene.

Dusty muslin awnings extended from the buildings, blocking the sun, but didn’t help much in the torpid air. She and Murphy joined the shoppers, keeping their rifles slung but remaining alert. Instinctively, when Murphy bent to examine something on a table, Katya’s eyes scanned the crowd.

An hour later, the cloth bag on Katya’s shoulder held her treasure—local figs. She found their dusky sweetness cleared her palate after a mess hall dinner. “I’m ready to head back if you are, Murphy.”

She glanced at her sweat-slicked companion, looking as if his M16 would overbalance him. He carried a palm-sized, hand-sewn stuffed rabbit.

“You know, you may want to tuck that under your pillow at night, or your roommates are going to give you hell.”

He lifted the toy to his lips, kissed it, and dropped it into the pocket of his damp shirt. “It’s for my new niece. I haven’t met her yet, but I’ll show you photos when we get back.”

They headed for the Jeep. The next block was unpopulated, its bombed-out buildings long abandoned. The
light seemed harder here, as if showcasing the damage—throwing it in the onlooker’s face. In contrast, the inky black of the narrow alley on her left made Katya shiver, conjuring pictures of scorpions and snipers. Katya’s skin pricked, but it wasn’t from sweat. She moved quickly past.

A boy stepped around the corner, a few buildings ahead. He held his forearm, and blood dripped between his fingers into the dust. He was nine or so, wearing a traditional long shirt and loose pants, a round pakol cap on his head. He shuffled toward them, tears streaking his dusty face.

Kayta’s heart rate shot up, kicking into triage mode. Quickening her pace, scanning the boy for other injuries, she reached into her bag for her ever-present first aid kit.

Then she hesitated. The boy’s eyes darted, his movements jerky with fear.

The gun was in her sweaty hands almost before she knew she’d unslung it. Sound ceased. She tried to remember when a vehicle last passed.

Murphy rushed past her, his still-slung rifle bouncing, as he reached for his first aid kit. Alarm sirens of panic echoed through her head. Something was wrong. She snatched at Murphy’s arm, but missed. “No. Murphy, wait!”

He reached the boy and leaned over him, blocking her view. Katya took two running steps forward.

The harsh light exploded in a starburst of yellow and red. A giant fist of percussion punched her, followed by a roaring wall of sound.

Then blessed blackness.

Katya listened. The hushed conversation and echo of hurried squeaky shoes sounded familiar. So was the smell—dust, antiseptic, and the metallic undertone of
blood. She shifted her arms, her legs. All there, thank God, but her slight movement woke a hot poker stab in her side and a throbbing in the fingers of her right hand.

She lay still in the dark, afraid to open her eyes. Afraid to assume the responsibility, because she sensed, deep in her mind, something lurked that she did not want to know. Opening her eyes would force her—

“Welcome back, soldier.” The deep voice was familiar too.

Katya pulled her eyes open. Major Samuel Thibodaux, her superior officer and lead surgeon at Role 3, leaned over her. She turned her head, disoriented to see her work environs from a reclined angle. Beds in rows, most filled with wounded—white skin, brown skin, no skin.

The major peeled back her eyelid and flashed a penlight in her eye. The light seared to the back of her brain. She flinched.

“Headache?”

She closed her eyes and nodded.

“Nauseous?”

A brush of air as the sheet was pulled to her hips. He gently prodded her side.

She winced and shook her head, frowning. It was coming. A hulking memory lumbered down the pathways of her brain, moving fast.

“You were downtown. A bomb—”

The rest was drowned out by the sound of a wailing moan. She realized after a beat that it had come from her. The heat, the sound, the
light.
“Murphy.” She opened her eyes.

The major’s jaw tightened, pulling his lips to a thin line.

She realized she hadn’t stated it as a question. Her
stomach muscles pulled taut, to protect her solar plexus from the blow. A memory came forward, burned into her brain. Murphy bringing the toy to his lips to kiss it. “No. Oh no.” Her legs writhed, trying to find an outlet for the pain—the horror.

The major pressed the plunger on a morphine drip. “We took shrapnel from your side, along with your spleen and a chunk of your liver. You lost the fingernails on your right hand, but you’re going to be okay.”

A face swam to the surface of her mind. Wispy black hair, huge, dark eyes full of liquid fear. “The boy.” Her voice came out as a thready whisper, fading.

He shook his head. “Suicide bomber.”

She rushed to meet the sweet blackness that rose to swallow her.

Cam Cahill coughed up dust. The sun branded his skin through his shirt. He kicked his borrowed gelding to a canter, chasing down another steer, wild from months on the winter slopes.

How could it be this hot and dry in Texas in April? He tugged the bandana off his nose, where it was doing nothing to block the dust, and settled it around his neck. It would at least keep sweat from rolling down his back.

Another billow of dust rolled over him as Len Robertson reined up alongside. The old man’s hair might be gray, his face tanned and creased as a burlap sack, but he sat relaxed in the saddle even after ten hours. “You know what Phil Sheridan said about Texas, don’tcha?”

“Go east, young man?”

“Close.” Len smiled, showing the gap between his front teeth. “He said, ‘If I owned Texas and hell, I would
rent out Texas and live in hell.’ ” The old coot cackled and rode on ahead, his horse kicking up more dust.

He actually enjoys this.
Cam spit mud and reached for his canteen.
Five more miles till the home corrals.
He uncapped the bottle and took a long drink of the hot, metallic-tasting water.

And more of the same tomorrow.
Cam hadn’t expected a stock contractor’s life to be glamorous, but the past five days convinced him he could cross this off his short list of careers.

Which left… exactly nothing.

His last season as a rider on the pro bull riding circuit was half over, and his future resembled a black hole in space, sucking light, gravity, and all his peace. He capped the water jug and hung the loop over his saddle horn. He should be content—it had been a great career. The first rider to win back-to-back titles and he had the belt buckles to prove it. He reined left, to try to stay upwind of the small herd.

What if the past fifteen years had been the best of his life? Thirty-two was too young to give up and do nothing, even if he had enough money to live on the rest of his life. The drive that pushed him to the top hadn’t lessened with the years, even if his reaction times had.

He shifted in the saddle to ease his sore hip. His body was about done.

He’d planned to have a wife and kids by now. He’d planned to settle on his own ranch in Banderas and live out the rest of his days in peace. But he no longer had a wife, much less kids, and after years of traveling, the thought of holing up in his run-down cabin all alone wasn’t a happy one.

What good were gold buckles and bull-riding stories, when you didn’t have a life?