Tangled Pursuit (29 page)

“He’s got six weeks off. Which is why I wanted to talk to his CO—you. With his wife pregnant, I think sending him home to recuperate with her would be best, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, absolutely. Can you pass on to Major Dickenson that I’ve endorsed your recommendation?”

“Certainly. The major is my next call, Captain. So, no worries. The sergeant warned me that you were out on that op, and he didn’t want to distract you with paperwork.”

Tal smiled. Even at a time like this, Jay was thinking about her. What a tremendous asset he’d been! “Sergeant Caldwell is good that way. Tell him I said to get well soon. I’ll contact him myself when I return to Bagram. Thanks so much, doctor. This takes a real load off my shoulders.”

He chuckled. “I thought it might, Captain Culver. Out.”

Tal sat there, feeling the sting of tears. Wyatt’s hand settled lightly on her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she looked up at him. His expression was filled with concern.

“He’s okay. Jay’s going to be fine,” she whispered, suddenly emotional. Tal felt his fingers grip her shoulder a little more, not hurtful but supportive. His mouth curved, and she thought she saw him blink back something.

“That’s great news.” Wyatt released her and slowly crouched down behind and to the right of her, the brush hiding both of them. “He’s going home for six weeks, I assume?”

“Yes,” she said, placing her radio in her pocket and pressing the Velcro closed. “Linda is going to be so happy to have him home. They really love one another, Wyatt. Except for my family, I’ve rarely seen that kind of love between a husband and wife. But Jay and Linda are a great example of a relationship that keeps getting better.”

He moved his hand slowly down her long, black ponytail. “That’s the kind of love my parents have for one another. And you’re right, you don’t see that kind of devotion very often.” He removed his hand. “Did you have that kind of connection with Brian?”

He’d asked this gently, and there was something about Wyatt that just made Tal open up and tell him the truth. Moistening her lips, Tal said, “Close . . .”
But not really.
“I guess,” she admitted, frowning, “I’m learning that there’s all kinds of love in this world, Wyatt. Different levels of depth and breadth.”

“My mother once told me that there was one woman in the world for every man and vice versa.” His voice dropped with a hint of humor. “Damned if she hasn’t been right so far.”

Tal looked up at him. “Will you know her when you meet her, I wonder?” She saw his eyes narrow as her hunger moved into him. It was easy for a woman to mistake that look for love, instead of what it could also be—a man wanting sex with a woman, which usually had little or nothing to do with love.

“Oh,” Wyatt said, grinning, “I’ll know her for sure, darlin’. And you’ll be first on my list to find out.”

CHAPTER 16

“T
HIS DOESN’T LOOK
good,” Tal muttered, eyeing a line of thunderstorms to the west of them coming their way. It was 1500, and she was sitting at the rear of their hide, regarding the threatening sky, hearing the wind whipping around the slope where they were embedded.

Wyatt was on the sniper scope, watching, moving it slowly as he panned it across the border region. Everything was quiet, the area swamped with human activity. Tal knew many of the enemy snipers were sleeping but that someone over there was scanning their area right now.

“What doesn’t look good? The thunderstorms?” Wyatt asked. Lifting his head, he looked back at her over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” she said, glumly gesturing toward the west. “I keep hoping it will split and go around us like it does sometimes.”

Wyatt sat up and stopped panning. He rubbed his eyes and said, “I see you have your ruck buttoned up.”

She snorted. “This isn’t my first rodeo, cowboy.” She had placed her huge, sixty-five-pound ruck in one corner, zipped up and ready to grab in case a flood suddenly washed down the steep slope above them.

Wyatt got up and moved on his hands and knees to his own ruck, which was still open. “Time to prepare,” he muttered, quickly closing the Velcro around it. “You have an egress plan in case the worst happens and we get flooded out?”

“Yes.” She gestured toward the rear of their hide. “We’ll move out here and make for the higher ground on that ridge behind us. It’s a hundred feet higher than where we are presently, and that should keep us above any torrents of water coming down.”

“Good plan. I’d pick the same place.” Wyatt grinned a little, settling his large pack next to hers. “Of course, it means we’ll have to build another hide.”

Groaning, Tal said, “Don’t even mention it.” She held up her hands. “My fingers are bruised and cut from hefting all these rocks around.”

“I know all about that,” he said sympathetically.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this weather, Wyatt.” Tal studied the dark, gathering clouds racing their way. “Will you take our rucks right now and put them up on that ridge? You can hide them in the brush.”

He looked at her appreciatively. “Good call. I was thinking along the same lines. I think I’ll make you an honorary SEAL,” he said with a teasing grin. “You’ve got excellent intuition.” He moved past her and took her ruck, shoving it up and out of their rear egress point. Moving it with some effort, she brought his over to him. Hefting it, Wyatt shoved it out the hole.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, pushing himself out of the hide.

Tal felt better with their rucks removed from the hide. They had to leave their M4s and the Win-Mag in place, but it would be easy to grab them and go should things turn sideways. She heard the thunder rumbling, and she frowned.

Tal had to admit, having Wyatt on an op with her was different but good. Whether he knew it or not, he made her feel safe in their unsafe world. Despite their situation, she felt a strong need for him, physically. Damn it, he knew how to satisfy her, and she’d caught him looking at her with the same hunger she felt for him.

She knew that, for both of them, this was about far more than just wanting sex from each other. However, right now she needed to focus on their changing situation out here in enemy territory.

Wyatt crawled into the hide once more. “Okay, done. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of. You?”

“We’ll wait it out,” he said. “There’s a squall line coming our way, so we’d better prepare for the worst.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, “I thought the same thing.”

As he moved past her to the Win-Mag, he said, “Cheer up. At least you know Jay is going to be all right. He’s probably on a C-5 heading home about now.”

“Yes,” she murmured, “that’s great news. I’m really happy for him and Linda.”

Wyatt resumed his position on his belly across the blanket behind the Win-Mag. “If that overburden above us gets so wet that it avalanches down toward us, it’ll hit us.”

“I’ve been looking at it,” she said. “But if we get deluged, I’m getting us out of here long before that. I’d rather sit up on that ridge in the bushes and get soaked than sit down here.”

“Roger that.”

T
HE FIRST HEAVY,
warning plops of rain struck their hide an hour later. Wyatt liked Tal’s ability to think ahead. She’d asked him to put the Win-Mag in the protective nylon sheath and place it with their rucks on the ridge. That left them with the M4 and their pistols, in case they got attacked.

But he didn’t think anyone would be out and about at this time of day. The Taliban didn’t like these violent rainstorms any more than they did, so they were likely hunkered down in their caves far below. The clouds raced and swirled around the mountain, and as he sat there, listening to the rain starting to fall steadily, he slid a glance in Tal’s direction.

She was sitting with her back to the hide, facing south, where the overburden hung far above them. She had a spotter scope and was slowly panning it across the heavily forested area, looking for Taliban. Like her, Wyatt knew that was where they were open to attack more than at any other position. It wasn’t wise, even in a gathering rainstorm, not to watch their six.

Wyatt drew in a deep breath. He knew he was falling in love with Tal. But the road ahead of them was a damned rocky one. She would leave the Marine Corps. And he had six months left on his enlistment with the Navy. Rubbing his beard as he thought, he tried to contemplate their future.
If
there was one. He knew he couldn’t push Tal into anything, and he didn’t want to.

Wyatt could feel the sizzling connection between them right now. They might not have been speaking about it or acting upon it, but it was there, alive and vital, filled with the promise of a heady future, he believed.

Every sniper was trained to look critically at every possibility when hiding out in the environment, undetected and unseen by the enemy. No details could go unnoticed. So Wyatt had been looking at himself and Tal, and the possibilities for them as a couple.

Wyatt was aware that the rain was coming faster, the wind howling off and on, the hide shuddering and shaking from the virulent gusts sweeping powerfully upward and across the slope. He could feel Tal’s discomfort and knife-edged nerves. She’d stopped using the spotter scope and was now staring at the overburden far above them like it was her enemy.

Outside, he could hear water beginning to run around them and through the cracks and crevices created by the smooth rocks surrounding the hide. Suddenly, hail began to pelt down upon them, pounding into the tarp above. Wyatt looked out the front of their hide. Damn, that was golf ball–sized hail! He thought it could only get that big in Texas. The sound was deafening as the fury of the escalating storm moving slowly into the area slammed the hail into the mountain. Hail could hurt like hell, but Wyatt would rather see that than rain. Rain meant flood potential. The white hail struck the rocks outside the hide, bouncing high into the air and then shooting off in all directions. The hammering echoed loudly within their hide, and he saw Tal looking up at the rafters and the tarp, worried. The hail began to ease and drift away, moving over the top of the mountain above them. The distance improved until Wyatt could see down the slope.

Then a deluge of rain struck full force behind the hail. It was coming so fast and hard that Wyatt couldn’t see a foot outside the hide. He heard gurgling and looked to see water pouring in from upslope.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tal ordered him, yelling above the din. “Time to move!”

He grabbed the M4 and fastened it over his chest harness. “Roger that,” he growled, shifting to his hands and knees. He saw Tal slide up and out of the rear of the hide, heading up to that ridge a hundred feet above them.

And then Wyatt heard a horrendous cracking sound that vibrated through the air around them, throwing him onto his back, slamming him into the side of the hide. He heard Tal cry out. The whole earth shook around him as he scrambled to get to his knees and hands. Water poured into the hide like a tsunami, drenching him as he struggled to get up. There were more cracking sounds, like wood being snapped in two by an unseen giant directly above the hide in the pounding rain.

Sonofabitch!

He grunted and threw himself toward the rear of the now water-filled hide.

“Wyatt!” Tal cried, flattening onto her stomach at the edge of the hide, throwing her hand out toward him.

The water swirled angrily around him, jerking his boots from beneath him as it rose swiftly up to his neck. Wyatt cursed, lunging for her outstretched hand. He saw the terror in Tal’s eyes, her mouth contorted in a soundless cry as she stretched toward him. If he didn’t reach her hand, he was going to drown!

Wyatt grabbed on to Tal’s hand, surprised at her strength as she hauled back, dragging him toward her. Water rushed over his face, and he held his breath, closed his eyes, and pushed with the toes of his boots into the rocks under his feet. His head popped up out of the rushing, angry water now swirling within the hide before it raced down the side of the mountain. Spitting out muddy water, his eyesight blurred by it, he felt Tal hauling him out of there. God, she was strong!

He heard her grunting, taking his weight, breathing hard as she grabbed at his other hand.

As Wyatt crawled out of the destroyed hide with her help, Tal released him, fighting to get to her feet. The veil of rain was so thick, he couldn’t see anything but the two of them. He struggled through the slippery mire of mud and rocks, getting to his knees.

Tal turned, sheltering him with her body. Spitting out water he’d swallowed, Wyatt wanted to yell at her to get the hell away from him and up to the safety of the ridge in front of them. But she wouldn’t leave him, her hands curving around his waist, starting to lift him upward.

There were sharp snapping sounds echoing around them. It sounded ugly. Just as Wyatt got his feet beneath him, he jerked his attention to the left. His eyes widened as he saw a huge, broken tree coming out of the pall of rain, sailing straight at them like a hurled spear. With a grunt, he shoved Tal away from him, sending her flying toward the ridge.

Branches from the hurtling tree crashed into Wyatt, spinning him around, knocking him off his feet. He found himself tumbling through the air. Slamming into the rocks on his back, he grunted again, his Kevlar vest taking the brunt of the jarring impact as he hit the rocky slope. He let out an “
Oomph!
” as the air was completely knocked out of him.

Tal!

The tree trunk landed with a crash six feet away from him, continuing its swift slide down the slope, dragging him along with it. The branches slapped and swatted at Wyatt as he rolled away from it, trying to find purchase elsewhere on the slippery, wet rocks. His fingers turned into claws as he repeatedly dug in and tried to slow his slide while being dragged farther downward by the tree’s momentum.

Lightning zigzagged above him. The booming sound of thunder followed instantly, and the brutal vibration slammed him down onto the slope again. Cursing, Wyatt grappled and slipped. He had to find Tal!