Tangled Pursuit (31 page)

“Y-yeah . . . Wyatt? What—happened?” Her voice was husky and strained with pain.

“I think you got hit in the head by a log sailing past you,” Wyatt said slowly, giving her time to absorb his words. Her eyes widened a little and she clung to his gaze. “It probably knocked you unconscious. You’ve got a broken right lower leg.”

There was no way in hell Wyatt was going to tell her how bad it was. Tal’s brows dipped and she studied him. He could see her fighting the morphine encroaching upon her.

“M-my leg?”

“Yeah.” He smiled and smoothed her brow with his thumb. “You’re going to be okay, Tal. I’ve got a medevac coming. Should be here any time now.” Medics knew how to lie to a shocky patient, and he was clearly good at it, because he saw Tal’s tension ease. She could cope with a broken leg. He was scared, though. The way her ankle was bent, he was sure bones had been crushed, and he worried about possible amputation. Tal didn’t need to know any of that, either.

“Crap,” she muttered, closing her eyes. “I can’t finish this op . . .”

Wyatt shook his head and laughed softly. Smoothing her pale cheek, he whispered near her ear. “Go to sleep, darlin’. Next time you wake up, I’ll be standing next to your bedside at the Bagram hospital.”

CHAPTER 17

I
T WAS OVER.
Wyatt’s eyes burned with weariness as he checked one last time on Tal. She’d come out of surgery three hours ago and awakened briefly in Recovery. The surgical nurse had given her an IV morphine drip to control her pain, and she’d immediately lost consciousness.

Now, standing beside her hospital bed, he held her listless hand between his, warming her. He swayed with exhaustion. Wyatt had almost lost her. Twice, on the flight back to Bagram, she’d coded, having lost so much blood during the wait for the medevac.

Thank God for the two combat medics on that flight. They’d brought some whole blood aboard in an ice chest. The problem was, the blood had to be warmed. It couldn’t be placed into her chilled. Worse, her lower leg had swollen like a thick sausage up to her knee.

The bleeding had not stopped or slowed, and a human being had around six to twelve pints of blood in them, depending upon age and other factors. Until Wyatt got her carried on board the Black Hawk, guarded by Apaches above and the QRF SEAL team surrounding the area, he’d had no idea she had another life-threatening injury.

Two medics had been able to turn Tal on her side and discovered where a rock had gouged a hole deep into her lower thigh, just above her right knee.

Wyatt stood there, devastated as he saw that the blood in her lower leg had been leaking out above her knee from that jagged wound, and he’d never known about it. The rest of her leg had been covered with mud and debris, making it impossible for him to perform that kind of thorough examination. It had taken three SEALs to dig her right leg out of that morass once they’d arrived.

After Tal had gotten out of surgery, he’d found out that military officials had already informed the family that Tal had been injured. Afterward, he’d gone downstairs to the men’s locker room and taken a long, hot shower, washed the mud off, trimmed his beard, and combed his longish hair. He’d had one of his SEALs go to his locker at HQ and retrieve a clean work uniform.

Trailing his fingers gently up and down her lower arm, Wyatt wanted somehow to let Tal know he was near. That he would never leave her side. The nurses had taken great care of her after she arrived at the Bagram hospital. She had been covered in mud from head to toe, and they had quickly washed her and put her into a fresh gown. Two other nurses had unbraided her long, muddy black hair and washed it. Wyatt had hugged those nurses afterward, thanking all of them for their care of Tal.

Tal was then prepped for surgery and taken immediately into an operating theater. There, two of Bagram’s best orthopedic surgeons had begun to work on her. Wyatt had remained in the surgery viewing area during the seven-hour surgery. The surgeons didn’t like it, but he told them he wasn’t leaving. He’d stood there, the large windows showing the surgery theater where they were operating on Tal.

His gaze drifted down to the light metal brace that now held her right ankle and her lower leg slightly suspended above the bed so they could begin healing. He wiped his face, feeling tears threatening again. After Tal had come out of recovery, Wyatt had found a nearby empty room and cried out his relief that Tal had survived. She was in serious but stable condition now. He’d come so close to losing her . . .

Looking at his watch through bleary, burning eyes, Wyatt saw it was 0900. The sun filtered through the nearly closed slats of the venetian blinds, sending shafts of light throughout the private room. He’d already called Tal’s father, General Robert Culver. Tal had given him a piece of paper with her father’s private sat phone number in case something ever happened to her the morning she left him for her op. Right now, he was on his way aboard an Air Force Gulfstream jet, heading to Bagram with his wife, Dilara.

Ten minutes later, Wyatt received a call from Tal’s cousin Angelo Mykonos from Athens, Greece. He was sure that General Culver was calling Tal’s extended family, which was why they were calling him. Angelo and his wife, Maria, would be flying into Bagram in his personal jet.

Two minutes after he’d hung up after speaking to Tal’s emotional Greek cousin, the phone rang again. Wyatt talked to the soft-spoken Turkish uncle Ihsan, the one Tal adored.

Matt Culver, Tal’s brother, was still out on an op and hadn’t been told what had happened to Tal, which was standard military SOP. Matt would be told once the op was over, not before then. Alexa had been at her squadron HQ and she’d raced over to be with her sister. Unfortunately, she had been called for an emergency flight and reluctantly had to leave. Wyatt’s head had been spinning, his emotions shredded, and he’d had to stuff it down to talk to all these people who clearly loved Tal. He found himself drawn to Uncle Ihsan, the Sufi, who was very kind. After hearing about Tal’s condition, he’d actually asked him how he was doing.

Wyatt had nearly broken down and wept at that point because Tal had just come out of two successful surgeries in a row. Ihsan had assured him that he and his two brothers, plus their wives, would be on board their family jet, racing to get to Bagram as swiftly as possible. He also said he was genuinely looking forward to meeting Wyatt and thanking him in person for saving Tal’s life. He was an upstanding man in his eyes.

Wyatt’s hopes rose as he watched some color finally start to seep back into Tal’s parchment-colored face. Surgery was a bitch, but the docs had saved her life. And he loved her so fiercely he could barely stand the depth of the emotions tearing through him.

Everything was so unsure. Chaotic. Wyatt knew life was never as stable as people would like to believe, and in black ops, they lived in chaos all the time. But he wanted more with Tal than that. So damned much more.

He wanted peace and quiet to court her, to get to know her without danger swirling around them, to hear Tal give that husky laugh of hers, to hold her in his arms, to kiss her into oblivion, their bodies fused into one another once more.

Wyatt rested his callused hand against her cheek, leaned down, and lightly brushed his mouth against hers. The kisses they’d shared burned through him like a beacon of hope as he felt the coolness of her lips beneath his. He had to let Tal know, even while unconscious, that he loved her and that he couldn’t see life without her.

Wyatt had no way of knowing how to go about accomplishing that. He had no plan, because everything was up in the air. Looking up at the monitor, he saw that her blood pressure had risen to normal. Before, it had been very low. But she’d felt his kiss. He knew it. Even unconscious, Tal knew he was here with her and that he loved her. Smoothing a few tendrils away from her ear, he turned and drew up a nearby chair. He would get a catnap and remain at her side.

The nurse would check in on her hourly, although all her stats were being fed into a central computer at the nurses’ station. He’d wake up every time, but that was all right.

Mentally making calculations, he figured Tal’s family would start arriving early the next morning. The first to arrive would be her father and mother. Then Angelo. Last, her three uncles and their wives from Kusadasi, Turkey.

In a way, Wyatt was looking forward to meeting Tal’s family, because they had helped shape Tal’s life, made her who she was, and all of them loved her deeply. He and her family already had a lot in common.

T
AL AWOKE SLOWLY,
her mind bouncing around like a loose billiard ball on a pool table. As she lay there, struggling to open eyelids that felt like heavy weights, she slowly became aware of a man’s warm, comforting hand around hers. She knew instantly it was Wyatt’s, protecting her. Sensing his nearness, his confidence and power, she sighed with relief. His hand tightened slightly around hers and she weakly responded by curving her fingers a little. It took such an effort to expend the least bit of energy.

“Tal? It’s Wyatt.” His voice was low, emotional, and close to her ear. She felt the moisture of his breath across her cheek. Rallying, Tal used every last ounce of her energy and barely forced her eyes open to mere slits. She stared up into his deeply lined, exhausted face. He was wearing a fresh uniform, his hair was clean and combed, and he’d trimmed his beard, too. This image was a far cry from what he’d looked like out on that mountain slope.

Blinking, she stared into his dark gray eyes, stormy with concern. “Water?” she whispered unsteadily. Tal could hear the low beep of nearby machines. As her mind began to clear, she could feel an IV drip in her left arm. Her right lower leg throbbed with dull pain. Closing her eyes, she felt Wyatt release her hand and momentarily leave her side. Tal panicked. Wyatt meant safety, because right now, her heart was starting a slow pound as the moments when they had been deluged with a wall of water in their hide, and she had seen Wyatt trapped inside it, nearly drowning, raced through her mind.

“Here you go, darlin’,” he rasped, easing his arm beneath her neck and shoulders to steady her. “All the water you want.”

Tal opened her eyes to slits again, feeling the straw pressed gently between her lips. She felt so damned weak and helpless, her head resting wearily against Wyatt’s shoulder. She sucked until all the water was gone from the cup and heard Wyatt’s chuckle as she released the straw.

“You’re going to live,” he promised her gruffly, easing her down on the bed. “Want more water?”

She barely nodded, eyes closed, searching for more strength. Tal had so many questions. There were so many blanks in her memory. She was apparently in a hospital room, because she could smell bleach and other antiseptic odors. Tal remembered shaking with cold, being wet, unable to stop her constant shivering and going hypothermic out on that ridge.

By the time Wyatt gave her a second glass of water, Tal had revived a little. He’d placed the bed in a slightly elevated position so she could look around. The room was painted a pale blue. There was a small lamp over on a dresser that shed just enough light for her to absorb her immediate surroundings.

Everything was quiet except for those beeps, which she hated. As Wyatt walked over to her bedside, slipping his hand into hers, looking deep into her eyes, she felt how worried he was.

“Tell me what happened,” Tal croaked.

Wyatt gave her the short version. He spoke slowly so she could grasp the information. People on morphine tended to short out and miss half of what was said. When he finished telling her, he asked, “What happened to you after I pushed you away from me?”

Tal grimaced. “The rain was so heavy, I couldn’t see in front of my face, Wyatt. I slipped in the mud and fell backward. I screamed out for you . . .”

“I couldn’t hear you, darlin’. About that time, I was tumbling ass over teakettle down the slope.” He squeezed her hand, looking into her barely open eyes. “You made it to the ridge, though. That’s where I eventually found you.”

Her mouth pulled down. “Yes, but as soon as I made it up there, all hell broke loose. I remember hearing a horrible sound far above me, the earth shaking under my feet, the snapping of those timbers above us.”

“Yeah,” he grunted, “the entire overburden gave way and became an avalanche.”

Tal desperately needed his hand around hers, because it gave her stability. Almost intuitively, he threaded his fingers gently through her loose black hair. How did Wyatt know she needed this?

“I got clipped by branches off a tree trunk flying past me. I remember that, but that’s all.” Tal licked her chapped lips. Her throat was raw and sore. Searching his exhausted features, she asked, “How badly was I injured?”

“Your ankle was crushed by a tree trunk, Tal. Thank God, the surgeons saved it, but you’ve got a lot of metal pins holding everything together right now. You broke both bones in your right lower leg, too. They’ve pinned them together. The worst was that a main artery in your leg was partially severed and you were bleeding out on me.”

“God,” Tal forced out. She gripped her fingers around his a little more tightly. Her strength was slowly coming back. “How bad was it?”

“Bad,” Wyatt admitted. “A team of SEALs flew in to help me dig you out of there and we got you into the medevac. There were two medics on board, so you were in good hands. We got you here to Bagram and you underwent two surgeries over seven hours. Now”—Wyatt looked around—“it’s 0300, and you’re still coming out from under the anesthesia. The doctor has already lightened the amount of morphine they’re giving you.” He looked down her blanketed body to where her leg was suspended above the bed beneath a tent. “Are you in pain, darlin’?”

Tal sighed and whispered, “Just a dull ache in my leg is all. Kinda like a low-level toothache.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m fine, Wyatt.” She saw amusement in his red-rimmed eyes. “Really, I am.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Thank you for saving me . . .”

“We saved one another, Tal,” he rasped, his voice unsteady, as he smoothed his hand across her uncombed hair.