Page 16

Chapter 1

Had he known they would be deployed so soon after their last short mission to El Salvador, Rucker Sloan wouldn’t have bought that dirt bike from his friend Duff. Now, it would sit there for months before he actually got to take it out to the track.

The team had been given forty-eight hours to pack their shit, take care of business and get onto the C130 that would transport them to Afghanistan.

Now, boots on the ground, duffel bags stowed in their assigned quarters behind the wire, they were ready to take on any mission the powers that be saw fit to assign.

What he wanted most that morning, after being awake for the past thirty-six hours, was a cup of strong, black coffee.

The rest of his team had hit the sack as soon as they got in. Rucker had already met with their commanding officer, gotten a brief introduction to the regional issues and had been told to get some rest. They’d be operational within the next forty-eight hours.

Too wound up to sleep, Rucker followed a stream of people he hoped were heading for the chow hall. He should be able to get coffee there.

On the way, he passed a sand volleyball court where two teams played against each other. One of the teams had four players, the other only three. The four-person squad slammed a ball to the ground on the other side of the net. The only female player ran after it as it rolled toward Rucker.

He stopped the ball with his foot and picked it up.

The woman was tall, slender, blond-haired and blue-eyed. She wore an Army PT uniform of shorts and an Army T-shirt with her hair secured back from her face in a ponytail seated on the crown of her head.

Without makeup, and sporting a sheen of perspiration, she was sexy as hell, and the men on both teams knew it.

They groaned when Rucker handed her the ball. He’d robbed them of watching the female soldier bending over to retrieve the runaway.

She took the ball and frowned. “Do you play?”

“I have,” he answered.

“We could use a fourth.” She lifted her chin in challenge.

Tired from being awake for the past thirty-six hours, Rucker opened his mouth to say hell no . But he made the mistake of looking into her sky-blue eyes and instead said, “I’m in.”

What the hell was he thinking?

Well, hadn’t he been wound up from too many hours sitting in transit? What he needed was a little physical activity to relax his mind and muscles. At least, that’s what he told himself in the split-second it took to step into the sandbox and serve up a heaping helping of whoop-ass.

He served six times before the team playing opposite finally returned one. In between each serve, his side gave him high-fives, all members except one—the blonde with the blue eyes he stood behind, admiring the length of her legs beneath her black Army PT shorts.

Twenty minutes later, Rucker’s team won the match. The teams broke up and scattered to get showers or breakfast in the chow hall.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” the pretty blonde asked.

“Only if you tell me your name.” He twisted his lips into a wry grin. “I’d like to know who delivered those wicked spikes.”

She held out her hand. “Nora Michaels,” she said.

He gripped her hand in his, pleased to feel firm pressure. Women might be the weaker sex, but he didn’t like a dead fish handshake from males or females. Firm and confident was what he preferred. Like her ass in those shorts.

She cocked an eyebrow. “And you are?”

He’d been so intent thinking about her legs and ass, he’d forgotten to introduce himself. “Rucker Sloan. Just got in less than an hour ago.”

“Then you could probably use a tour guide to the nearest coffee.”

He nodded. “Running on fumes here. Good coffee will help.”

“I don’t know about good, but it’s coffee and it’s fresh.” She released his hand and fell in step beside him, heading in the direction of some of the others from their volleyball game.

“As long as it’s strong and black, I’ll be happy.”

She laughed. “And awake for the next twenty-four hours.”

“Spoken from experience?” he asked, casting a glance in her direction.

She nodded. “I work nights in the medical facility. It can be really boring and hard to stay awake when we don’t have any patients to look after.” She held up her hands. “Not that I want any of our boys injured and in need of our care.”

“But it does get boring,” he guessed.

“It makes for a long deployment.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Rucker. Is Rucker a call sign or your real name?”

He grinned. “Real name. That was the only thing my father gave me before he cut out and left my mother and me to make it on our own.”

“Your mother raised you, and you still joined the Army?” She raised an eyebrow. “Most mothers don’t want their boys to go off to war.”

“It was that or join a gang and end up dead in a gutter,” he said. “She couldn’t afford to send me to college. I was headed down the gang path when she gave me the ultimatum. Join and get the GI-Bill, or she would cut me off and I’d be out in the streets. To her, it was the only way to get me out of L.A. and to have the potential to go to college someday.”

She smiled “And you stayed in the military.”

He nodded. “I found a brotherhood that was better than any gang membership in LA. For now, I take college classes online. It was my mother’s dream for me to graduate college. She never went, and she wanted so much more for me than the streets of L.A.. When my gig is up with the Army, if I haven’t finished my degree, I’ll go to college fulltime.”

“And major in what?” Nora asked.

“Business management. I’m going to own my own security service. I want to put my combat skills to use helping people who need dedicated and specialized protection.”

Nora nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.”

“I know the protection side of things. I need to learn the business side and business law. Life will be different on the civilian side.”

“True.”

“How about you? What made you sign up?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I wanted to put my nursing degree to good use and help our men and women in uniform. This is my first assignment after training.”

“Drinking from the firehose?” Rucker stopped in front of the door to the mess hall.

She nodded. “Yes. But it’s the best baptism under fire medical personnel can get. I’ll be a better nurse for it when I return to the States.”

“How much longer do you have to go?” he asked, hoping that she’d say she’d be there as long as he was. In his case, he never knew how long their deployments would last. One week, one month, six months…

She gave him a lopsided smile. “I ship out in a week.”

“That’s too bad.” He opened the door for her. “I just got here. That doesn’t give us much time to get to know each other.”

“That’s just as well.” Nora stepped through the door. “I don’t want to be accused of fraternizing. I’m too close to going back to spoil my record.”

Rucker chuckled. “Playing volleyball and sharing a table while drinking coffee won’t get you written up. I like the way you play. I’m curious to know where you learned to spike like that.”

“I guess that’s reasonable. Coffee first.” She led him into the chow hall.

The smells of food and coffee made Rucker’s mouth water.

He grabbed a tray and loaded his plate with eggs, toast and pancakes drenched in syrup. Last, he stopped at the coffee urn and filled his cup with freshly brewed black coffee.

When he looked around, he found Nora seated at one of the tables, holding a mug in her hands, a small plate with cottage cheese and peaches on it.

He strode over to her. “Mind if I join you?”

“As long as you don’t hit on me,” she said with cocked eyebrows.

“You say that as if you’ve been hit on before.”

She nodded and sipped her steaming brew. “I lost count how many times in the first week I was here.”

“Shows they have good taste in women and, unfortunately, limited manners.”

“And you’re better?” she asked, a smile twitching the corners of her lips.

“I’m not hitting on you. You can tell me to leave, and I’ll be out of this chair so fast, you won’t have time to enunciate the V.”

She stared straight into his eyes, canted her head to one side and said, “Leave.”

In the middle of cutting into one of his pancakes, Rucker dropped his knife and fork on the tray, shot out of his chair and left with his tray, sloshing coffee as he moved. He hoped she was just testing him. If she wasn’t…oh, well. He was used to eating meals alone. If she was, she’d have to come to him.

He took a seat at the next table, his back to her, and resumed cutting into his pancake.

Nora didn’t utter a word behind him.

Oh, well. He popped a bite of syrupy sweet pancake in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. She was only there for another week. Man, she had a nice ass…and those legs… He sighed and bent over his plate to stab his fork into a sausage link.

“This chair taken?” a soft, female voice sounded in front of him.

He looked up to see the pretty blond nurse standing there with her tray in her hands, a crooked smile on her face.

He lifted his chin in silent acknowledgement.

She laid her tray on the table and settled onto the chair. “I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“Fair enough. You don’t know me,” he said.

“I know that you joined the Army to get out of street life. That your mother raised you after your father skipped out, that you’re working toward a business degree and that your name is Rucker.” She sipped her coffee.

He nodded, secretly pleased she’d remembered all that. Maybe there was hope for getting to know the pretty nurse before she redeployed to the States. And who knew? They might run into each other on the other side of the pond.

Still, he couldn’t show too much interest, or he’d be no better than the other guys who’d hit on her. “Since you’re redeploying back to the States in a week, and I’m due to go out on a mission, probably within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, I don’t know if it’s worth our time to get to know each other any more than we already have.”

She nodded. “I guess that’s why I want to sit with you. You’re not a danger to my perfect record of no fraternizing. I don’t have to worry that you’ll fall in love with me in such a short amount of time.” She winked.

He chuckled. “As I’m sure half of this base has fallen in love with you since you’ve been here.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s love, but it’s damned annoying.”

“How so?”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I get flowers left on my door every day.”

“And that’s annoying? I’m sure it’s not easy coming up with flowers out here in the desert.” He set down his fork and took up his coffee mug. “I think it’s sweet.” He held back a smile. Well, almost.

“They’re hand-drawn on notepad paper and left on the door of my quarters and on the door to the shower tent.” She shook her head. “It’s kind of creepy and stalkerish.”

Rucker nodded. “I see your point. The guys should at least have tried their hands at origami flowers, since the real things are scarce around here.”

Nora smiled. “I’m not worried about the pictures, but the line for sick call is ridiculous.”

“How so?”

“So many of the guys come up with the lamest excuses to come in and hit on me. I asked to work the nightshift to avoid sick call altogether.”

“You have a fan group.” He smiled. “Has the adoration gone to your head?”

She snorted softly. “No.”

“You didn’t get this kind of reaction back in the States?”

“I haven’t been on active duty for long. I only decided to join the Army after my mother passed away. I was her fulltime nurse for a couple years as she went through stage four breast cancer. We thought she might make it.” Her shoulders sagged. “But she didn’t.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. My mother meant a lot to me, as well. I sent money home every month after I enlisted and kept sending it up until the day she died suddenly of an aneurysm.”

“I’m so sorry about your mother’s passing,” Nora said, shaking her head. “Wow. As an enlisted man, how did you make enough to send some home?”

“I ate in the chow hall and lived on post. I didn’t party or spend money on civilian clothes or booze. Mom needed it. I gave it to her.”

“You were a good son to her,” Nora said.

His chest tightened. “She died of an aneurysm a couple of weeks before she was due to move to Texas where I’d purchased a house for her.”

“Wow. And, let me guess, you blame yourself for not getting her to Texas sooner…?” Her gaze captured his.

Her words hit home, and he winced. “Yeah. I should’ve done it sooner.”

“Can’t bring people back with regrets.” Nora stared into her coffee cup. “I learned that. The only thing I could do was move forward and get on with living. I wanted to get away from Milwaukee and the home I’d shared with my mother. Not knowing where else to go, I wandered past a realtor’s office and stepped into a recruiter’s office. I had my nursing degree, they wanted and needed nurses on active duty. I signed up, they put me through some officer training and here I am.” She held her arms out.

“Playing volleyball in Afghanistan, working on your tan during the day and helping soldiers at night.” Rucker gave her a brief smile. “I, for one, appreciate what you’re doing for our guys and gals.”

“I do the best I can,” she said softly. “I just wish I could do more. I’d rather stay here than redeploy back to the States, but they’re afraid if they keep us here too long, we’ll burn out or get PTSD.”

“One week, huh?”

She nodded. “One week.”

“In my field, one week to redeploy back to the States is a dangerous time. Anything can happen and usually does.”

“Yeah, but you guys are on the frontlines, if not behind enemy lines. I’m back here. What could happen?”

Rucker flinched. “Oh, sweetheart, you didn’t just say that…” He glanced around, hoping no one heard her tempt fate with those dreaded words What could happen?

Nora grinned. “You’re not superstitious, are you?”

“In what we do, we can’t afford not to be,” he said, tossing salt over his shoulder.

“I’ll be fine,” she said in a reassuring, nurse’s voice.

“Stop,” he said, holding up his hand. “You’re only digging the hole deeper.” He tossed more salt over his other shoulder.

Nora laughed.

“Don’t laugh.” He handed her the saltshaker. “Do it.”

“I’m not tossing salt over my shoulder. Someone has to clean the mess hall.”

Rucker leaned close and shook salt over her shoulder. “I don’t know if it counts if someone else throws salt over your shoulder, but I figure you now need every bit of luck you can get.”

“You’re a fighter but afraid of a little bad luck.” Nora shook her head. “Those two things don’t seem to go together.”

“You’d be surprised how easily my guys are freaked by the littlest things.”

“And you,” she reminded him.

“You asking what could happen? isn’t a little thing. That’s in-your-face tempting fate.” Rucker was laying it on thick to keep her grinning, but deep down, he believed what he was saying. And it didn’t make a difference the amount of education he had or the statistics that predicted outcomes. His gut told him she’d just tempted fate with her statement. Maybe he was overthinking things. Now, he was worried she wouldn’t make it back to the States alive.

Nora liked Rucker. He was the first guy who’d walked away without an argument since she’d arrived at the base in Afghanistan. He’d meant what he’d said and proved it. His dark brown hair and deep green eyes, coupled with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, made him even more attractive. Not all the men were in as good a shape as Rucker. And he seemed to have a very determined attitude.

She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d deployed. Being the center of attention of almost every single male on the base hadn’t been one of her expectations. She’d only ever considered herself average in the looks department. But when the men outnumbered women by more than ten to one, she guessed average appearance moved up in the ranks.

“Where did you learn to play volleyball?” Rucker asked, changing the subject of her leaving and her flippant comment about what could happen in one week.

“I was on the volleyball team in high school. It got me a scholarship to a small university in my home state of Minnesota, where I got my Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.”

“It takes someone special to be a nurse,” he stated. “Is that what you always wanted to be?”

She shook her head. “I wanted to be a firefighter when I was in high school.”

“What made you change your mind?”

She stared down at the coffee growing cold in her mug. “My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was a senior in high school. I wanted to help but felt like I didn’t know enough to be of assistance.” She looked up. “She made it through chemo and radiation treatments and still came to all of my volleyball games. I thought she was in the clear.”

“She wasn’t?” Rucker asked, his tone low and gentle.

“She didn’t tell me any different. When I got the scholarship, I told her I wanted to stay close to home to be with her. She insisted I go and play volleyball for the university. I was pretty good and played for the first two years I was there. I quit the team in my third year to start the nursing program. I didn’t know there was anything wrong back home. I called every week to talk to Mom. She never let on that she was sick.” She forced a smile. “But you don’t want my sob story. You probably want to know what’s going on around here.”

He set his mug on the table. “If we were alone in a coffee bar back in the States, I’d reach across the table and take your hand.”

“Oh, please. Don’t do that.” She looked around the mess hall, half expecting someone might have overheard Rucker’s comment. “You’re enlisted. I’m an officer. That would get us into a whole lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, but we’re also two human beings. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel empathy for you and want to provide comfort.”

She set her coffee cup on the table and laid her hands in her lap. “I’ll be satisfied with the thought. Thank you.”

“Doesn’t seem like enough. When did you find out your mother was sick?”

She swallowed the sadness that welled in her throat every time she remembered coming home to find out her mother had been keeping her illness from her. “It wasn’t until I went home for Christmas in my senior year that I realized she’d been lying to me for a while.” She laughed in lieu of sobbing. “I don’t care who they are, old people don’t always tell the truth.”

“How long had she been keeping her sickness from you?”

“She’d known the cancer had returned halfway through my junior year. I hadn’t gone home that summer because I’d been working hard to get my coursework and clinical hours in the nursing program. When I went home at Christmas…” Nora gulped. “She wasn’t the same person. She’d lost so much weight and looked twenty years older.”

“Did you stay home that last semester?” Rucker asked.

“Mom insisted I go back to school and finish what I’d started. Like your mother, she hadn’t gone to college. She wanted her only child to graduate. She was afraid that if I stayed home to take care of her, I wouldn’t finish my nursing degree.”

“I heard from a buddy of mine that those programs can be hard to get into,” he said. “I can see why she wouldn’t want you to drop everything in your life to take care of her.”

Nora gave him a watery smile. “That’s what she said. As soon as my last final was over, I returned to my hometown. I became her nurse. She lasted another three months before she slipped away.”

“That’s when you joined the Army?”

She shook her head. “Dad was so heartbroken, I stayed a few months until he was feeling better. I got a job at a local emergency room. On weekends, my father and I worked on cleaning out the house and getting it ready to put on the market.”

“Is your dad still alive?” Rucker asked.

Nora nodded. “He lives in Texas. He moved to a small house with a big backyard.” She forced a smile. “He has a garden, and all the ladies in his retirement community think he’s the cat’s meow. He still misses Mom, but he’s getting on with his life.”

Rucker tilted his head. “When did you join the military?”

“When Dad sold the house and moved into his retirement community. I worried about him, but he’s doing better.”

“And you?”

“I miss her. But she’d whip my ass if I wallowed in self-pity for more than a moment. She was a strong woman and expected me to be the same.”

Rucker grinned. “From what I’ve seen, you are.”

Nora gave him a skeptical look. “You’ve only seen me playing volleyball. It’s just a game.” Not that she’d admit it, but she was a real softy when it came to caring for the sick and injured.

“If you’re half as good at nursing, which I’m willing to bet you are, you’re amazing.” He started to reach across the table for her hand. Before he actually touched her, he grabbed the saltshaker and shook it over his cold breakfast.

“You just got in this morning?” Nora asked.

Rucker nodded.

“How long will you be here?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? I thought when people were deployed, they were given a specific timeframe.”

“Most people are. We’re deployed where and when needed.”

Nora frowned. “What are you? Some kind of special forces team?”

His lips pressed together. “Can’t say.”

She sat back. He was some kind of Special Forces. “Army, right?”

He nodded.

That would make him Delta Force. The elite of the elite. A very skilled soldier who undertook incredibly dangerous missions. She gulped and stopped herself from reaching across the table to take his hand. “Well, I hope all goes well while you and your team are here.”

“Thanks.”

A man hurried across the chow hall wearing shorts and an Army T-shirt. He headed directly toward their table.

Nora didn’t recognize him. “Expecting someone?” she asked Rucker, tipping her head toward the man.

Rucker turned, a frown pulling his eyebrows together. “Why the hell’s Dash awake?”

Nora frowned. “Dash? Please tell me that’s his callsign, not his real name.”

Rucker laughed. “It should be his real name. He’s first into the fight, and he’s fast.” Rucker stood and faced his teammate. “What’s up?”

“CO wants us all in the Tactical Operations Center,” Dash said. “On the double.”

“Guess that’s my cue to exit.” Rucker turned to Nora. “I enjoyed our talk.”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

Dash grinned. “Tell you what…I’ll stay and finish your conversation while you see what the commander wants.”

Rucker hooked Dash’s arm twisted it up behind his back, and gave him a shove toward the door. “You heard the CO, he wants all of us.” Rucker winked at Nora. “I hope to see you on the volleyball court before you leave.”

“Same. Good luck.” Nora’s gaze followed Rucker’s broad shoulders and tight ass out of the chow hall. Too bad she’d only be there another week before she shipped out. She would’ve enjoyed more volleyball and coffee with the Delta Force operative.

He’d probably be on maneuvers that entire week.

She stacked her tray and coffee cup in the collection area and left the chow hall, heading for the building where she shared her quarters with Beth Drennan, a nurse she’d become friends with during their deployment together.

As close as they were, Nora didn’t bring up her conversation with the Delta. With only a week left at the base, she probably wouldn’t run into him again. Though she would like to see him again, she prayed he didn’t end up in the hospital.