Risk Taker (3 page)

As he walked, he couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. She’d felt good in his arms, and he’d thrilled at having her firm, soft body against his. Dragging in a deep breath, Ethan shook his head. He sure as hell had wanted to meet Blue Eyes, but not this way. Now she probably would lump all guys into one bin labeled “would-be rapists.” And then she wouldn’t allow him within ten feet of her.

Grimacing, Ethan flexed his right hand as pain drifted up from his swollen knuckles. He couldn’t deny his satisfaction over decking the bastard. It was worth bruised knuckles for a week. More than anything, he wanted to connect once more with the mysterious, exotic Blue Eyes. But how to make it happen? SEALs were creative if nothing else. They were good at thinking outside the box. Work-arounds. Ethan grinned and took off for his tent in SEAL territory.

Chapter 3

W
hen Sarah sat up on her cot the next morning, her head aching, she saw someone open the tent flap just enough for a crisp white envelope to slide beneath the fabric of the closed flaps. She recognized the back of Ethan Quinn’s head. What was he doing there? What was the envelope? Did he go get her mail for her? The feelings over his act flooded her with warmth and confusion.

She needed coffee first. It would help tame her headache. She sat in a pair of long gray cotton gym pants and a red tank top. In case Bravo got hammered by Taliban, her flight boots, her .45 pistol in the holster, her Kevlar vest and her helmet bag were all stowed below her cot.

She was stiff and bruised. In fact, her knuckles were black and blue where she’d struck her attacker in the nose. She moved her long fingers gingerly, and they felt stiff, too. Sighing, she went over to her hot plate and set a copper kettle on it to boil. Coffee consisted of a terrible instant variety, but it was better than nothing.

The envelope sitting on the plywood deck called to her. It resembled a greeting card more than a business letter. Once the teakettle whistled, she took it off the hot plate and poured the steamy water into a bright red mug twice the size of a normal coffee cup.

After stirring her coffee, Sarah pulled out a couple of old cinnamon rolls she’d taken from the chow hall yesterday morning. This would be breakfast. Outside, she could hear helos, both Apaches and Chinooks, spooling up, their engines sounding very different and distinct. She glanced at the watch on her wrist. Her lower arm, she noticed to her chagrin, was purple with bruising. It was 0600.

Scowling, she set the two dried-out cinnamon rolls on the small TV tray that doubled as her table. There wasn’t much room in these tents and everything had to be squeezed in to fit. Leaning down, her back protesting, she scooped up the envelope. On it, in beautiful black ink calligraphy, was her name.

Ethan Quinn had delivered it. Was it from him? There was no return address.
Nothing.
After ambling back over to her table, she sat down in a camp chair and picked up her black coffee, sipping it gratefully. She then slipped her finger beneath the envelope, and it opened. Inside was thick papyrus paper that almost matched the color of her eyes. Something good flowed through her.

Sitting back, she opened up the folded paper. Inside was a poem written in beautiful calligraphy.

Sarah,

As Long as I Breathe, I Will Seek the Diamond of Your Heart

It isn’t enough for a poet to entertain;

I want also to connect—

There are precious few who ever get to view

Both the wildflowers and ornate lawns of your garden...

(to be continued as poet gets time)

She smiled and felt her heart flutter. The letters were crisp and lovely to look at. Ethan had written this? Someone at this forward operating base was a
poet,
of all things? Ethan? He had delivered it. Or was this a sick joke by her squadron mates? Her mind revolved back to her medevac squadron, wondering if one of the guys was pulling a trick on her. For all she knew, someone could have stolen this from a real poet to make it look like he’d written it. Her heart told her Ethan had not only delivered but had written it.

Still, her fingertips tingled as she held the rich paper. The words, if she were honest, touched her deeply. She loved symbolism and saw it in just about everything in her life. Growing up, she’d found solace reading poetry. Although she couldn’t write a line of iambic pentameter to save her life. Intuitively, Sarah knew Ethan had written it even if he hadn’t signed it.

She looked at the green metal locker in the corner of her tent. In it was her favorite book of poems, a small leather-bound volume by a Jewish American poet who wrote lush, drenching prose that made her heart sigh just as it did with this stanza of a poem Ethan had written for her.

Sarah felt oddly comforted by the words. Did Ethan see her as a garden filled with beautiful flowers? Was that his message? An invisible balm eased through her heart. Here she was, out in a war zone, getting shot at almost daily, and this beautiful poem arrived at the door of her tent. The title...well, that held her heart captive, too. Wouldn’t any woman want the man of her dreams to whisper those words to her? That she was seen as a diamond, multifaceted, complex, having depth? Of course. Well, she would. Her experience with men had left her wary. To them, she was something to be lusted after. Something to be chased and caught and used.

Her lips drew into a soft smile as she reread the lines of the stanza. They made her feel good. An invisible touch from a potential lover? Snorting softly, she laid the envelope aside and picked at a cinnamon roll. She was such a sucker for stuff like this. A romantic idealist, which was not a good way to be. Her love life resembled the chaos of a bull hooking its horns around in a china shop, not the reverent beauty of the words contained in this poem.

As she sipped her coffee, Sarah felt a kind of mellowness invading her stiff limbs. Ethan’s words
were
beautiful. And profound. And sensitive.

Shaking her head, she thought of the other sensitive guy at the FOB, Pascal, one of her medics who flew with her. She liked all the medics, truth be told. The rest of the pilots were thick as bricks, for the most part. All they saw when they looked at her was a body. Sarah was sick of being hit on by those Neanderthal types. She yearned for a deep conversation, flights of fantasy, someone who could join her on the magical carpet ride of her imagination and fly with her.

“Hey, Sarah? Are you in there?”

She started. “Aylin? Come on in. I’m home.” Sarah grinned as the nearly six-foot Apache combat helicopter pilot pushed open the flaps.

“Hey, I’m checking up on you. We just got word over at Jaguar you got attacked yesterday afternoon. Are you all right?”

Sarah gestured for the Turkish pilot to sit down on the cot. “He got the worst of it,” she said, glad to see her friend.

Aylin was in her flight suit and had her helmet bag and kneeboard in hand, which meant she was going to be flying soon. Her black hair was captured in a ponytail. Her golden eyes were slightly tilted, giving her an exotic look.

“Hmph,” Aylin said, sitting down. “You look beat-up. What the hell happened?” Her friend sat down, placing her helmet bag next to her flight boots.

Sarah told her and saw anger leap into Aylin’s eyes. She was a deadly woman in the air as well as on the ground. They were sisters in that they both carried a black belt in karate. But Aylin also knew Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Forces self-defense system, which was especially deadly.

“Where’s the bastard now?” Aylin gritted out, flexing her fists.

“They took him to Bagram. He’s going to be held there for court-martial. Eventually, I’ll have to fly in and testify.”

“Too bad he isn’t still here.”

Sarah knew Aylin was good for her word. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

“You look tired.”

“Very,” she admitted.

“And you said a SEAL saved you?”

“Yes. God, did he ever move fast.”

Aylin chuckled. “Black ops. Those boys haul ass.”

“Where are you off to?” Sarah asked.

“Going to go with my wingwoman up toward the border,” Aylin said in a bored tone. “The Pakistanis are throwing 105s across into Afghanistan and at some of our Army forward operating bases. We’re supposed to fly in as a show of force.” Her eyes narrowed, predator-like. “Frankly, I’d love to throw some Hellfire missiles into those sites that are sitting just a few meters inside the Pakistan border. It would only have to happen once and those cowards would stop. Of course, that would be an act of war. No one said war made sense, right?”

Laughing softly, Sarah agreed.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Sarah?”

“No. I’ve got four days to rest up.”

Aylin’s arched black brows rose. “Oh, good. You can join us tomorrow then. We’ve got a poker tournament starting up.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned. “Going to be a big pot. Come and join us?”

“I’ll come as your cheerleader. How’s that? I’m not a very lucky person.” She snorted and pointed to her face.

Aylin looked at her watch and stood up. “Okay, drop by if you feel like it and be my good luck charm, then. It starts at 1900 in the ready room. Gotta go, girlfriend.” She picked up her bag and left.

The tent diminished in energy as The Turk, as they referred to Aylin, left. Sarah felt better having had some company. The Jaguar women pilots had embraced her wholeheartedly. Sarah finished the first cinnamon roll and picked up the second one.

It felt rather lovely to just sit and not have to be on the flight roster. She felt a little guilty about it since she knew some of the pilots were going to max out their flight hours every day because she was sidelined. They were missing two pilots who had been killed three weeks ago. A Taliban RPG had rocketed into their Black Hawk just as it had landed to pick up some wounded Special Forces operators. Everyone on board had died, the two pilots, an aircrew chief and a medic. It had been a huge and devastating loss to the squadron.

Sadness moved through Sarah. She’d lost her only male friend at Bravo on that ill-fated flight. Chief Warrant Officer Ted Bateman had been her age, twenty-nine, with three kids and a wife he loved very much. He was sensitive, someone she could confide in. There was never a time he wasn’t respectful of her. Most important, he’d treated her as an equal.

Sarah quickly closed her eyes. Ted had been an incredible pilot—so damned passionate about his job—and she’d seen him fly into a firefight many times to rescue wounded men. Many of the pilots would not. Major Donaldson, who ran the squadron, never wanted to lose a multimillion-dollar Black Hawk. It would risk his yearly budget’s bottom line. He would rant and rave during planning sessions about never risking the helo. The man or woman who was bleeding on the ground could wait until the firefight was over, and then they could fly in to safely pick them up.

Wiping her eyes, Sarah sniffed. She ached to have Ted around right now. If he’d found out she’d been assaulted and nearly raped, he’d be right there at her side. He had been a fierce advocate for her to be in the squadron. When Ted came into the squadron, the rest of the pilots didn’t heckle her or play mean jokes on her as much. She wasn’t a man, so in those pilots’ eyes, she was defective. Ted always wanted to fly with her because, as he’d told her once, she had a set of invisible titanium balls. She’d laughed with him, shaking her head. He had always lifted her spirits and had been a role model of what a medevac pilot should be.

“Oh, Ted,” she whispered. “I miss you so damned much....” Sarah had felt terribly vulnerable since his death. Three weeks ago, she’d penned a long letter to Ted’s wife, Allison. He’d always called her Ali. Sarah had written between her tears, the words blurring as she poured out heartfelt words for Ali. She’d included a CD with the letter of all the photos she’d taken of Ted over the past three months they had flown together. Sarah closed her eyes and hoped that Ali would treasure the photos and that her words would help her bear her grief in some small way.

Making a grumpy sound, Sarah finished off her breakfast. She hated going to the chow hall precisely because she was usually the only female. Ted wasn’t there anymore to escort her and keep the men from hitting on her. And all the Jaguar pilots were done eating and in the air. Sarah tried to eat with the Apache pilots every time she could.

After she pulled on a pair of tennis shoes, she put a towel and her weight lifting gloves into a small bag and got ready to go work out. It was 0700, and most of the guys would be out of the gym by now. Maybe some of the off-duty Apache women pilots would be over there. It would be nice to have some female company. Sarah worked out with them as often as she could.

Of late, she’d been pulling eight hours of flight time every day or night, the max any pilot could fly in a given twenty-four-hour period. There had been no downtime since the loss of the two pilots, and she knew she needed to work out. Sarah pulled on a loose T-shirt that had a black dragon snarling on the front of it. She always wore it in the hopes it would scare off any guy who thought about giving her a line and trying to pick her up. She put on her red cotton gym pants, pulled on her green baseball cap with the medevac squadron symbol on it and left her tent.

The morning was cold for June. She pressed the Velcro shut on her tent flaps and turned, appreciating the white clouds over the camp. Sarah hurried down the dusty street, heading for the gym, which was next to the medical dispensary. Her heart turned back to the poem given to her. It soothed the anxiety she always got when going someplace where there were more men than women.

* * *

Ethan was bench-pressing two hundred and fifty pounds at the end of his ten repetitions when he spotted Sarah Benson walking into the gym. He damn near lost his concentration. He’d never seen her in there before.

“Hey,” Tolleson called. He was standing nearby as his spotter.

“I see her,” Ethan breathed through his teeth, slowly lowering the huge barbell back into its metal cradle. Sweat was rolling off his face, his shoulders were strained and the muscles in his upper arms trembled. Ethan watched Sarah move like a shadow along the wall. There were about fifteen other men in the gym.

“Okay, rest,” Tolleson told him, handing him a towel.

Ethan ducked out from beneath the barbell, sat up and wiped his sweaty face. He rested his elbows on his hard thighs. Like most of the men working out, they were naked except for a pair of gym shorts. There was a lot of grunting and straining going on. The gym smelled of male sweat and testosterone.

His heart beat a little faster as he saw Sarah walk over to the other side of the room, where dumbbells and the lighter weights were kept along the wall. Something a woman would probably want to work out with, he supposed. Damn, she was so graceful. He noticed the purple-and-blue bruises around her wrists. Anger stirred in him.