Page 28

“B ad news, Akbar left in a truck,” Smoke said.

“Feel better now?” Sophia asked Con, rolling her eyes as she wrapped a second bandage around Con’s thigh.

She looked at Smoke. “I found something I think is a signal jammer over by the hospital supplies. I took the batteries out and called Max. The SAT phone is over there somewhere.”

Smoke nodded and went to look for it.

Con wanted to shake and yell at her for taking the insane risks she constantly took. “No. You could have killed yourself lighting the lab up like that.”

“I wasn’t going to let Akbar take my equipment or me with him.”

Her steady tone had him on the verge of exploding. “So, it would have been okay if you’d died?”

She didn’t look up from tying off the bandage. “Yes.”

Wrong answer.

He took her by the arms, gently because she already had too many bruises, and brought her nose to nose with him. “Who the fuck brainwashed you into valuing yourself so little?” Whoever it was, he was going to hurt them.

“Who brainwashed you?”

“What?”

“You wanted to die, don’t try to tell me you didn’t. I’m a cancer survivor, remember? I’ve seen lots of people make the decision that death would be better than living. Sometimes, when you thought no one was looking, you’d look like that. Like you were telling your battle buddies you just had one more mission to do before you joined them.”

His mouth tightened. He should have known she’d figure it out. For someone so young, she saw with old, wise eyes.

“I don’t feel like that now.”

“Good.” She sighed and all the starch seemed to go out of her. “We’re all going to die someday.”

“Flippant comments like that are going to get you handcuffed to a bed so you can’t get into any more trouble.” He wasn’t kidding.

She reached out and stroked one hand down his face with a sad little smile on her face. “Sounds like fun to me.”

She was all misty eyed, like his sisters got when they were really emotional. It was so unlike her, a tsunami of cold concern washed away his anger in one sweep. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She laughed, but it was bitterly sad. “Would you like the entire list or just the highlights?” A tear tracked its way down her face.

“Sophia?”

She blinked at him, a little frown creasing her brow. “I don’t feel very good.” A trickle of blood came out of her nose, her eyes fluttered shut and she sagged in his hold.

Con cradled her against his chest and yelled, “Smoke, I need some help here!”

Smoke swept into Con’s field of view. “Find Dr. Blairmore. Sophia just passed out on me.”

Smoke took one look at Sophia and disappeared into the hospital.

“Come on, gorgeous, don’t do this to me,” he whispered. He wiped the blood off her face, but it kept coming in a slow, steady drip that worried him more and more with every passing second.

Dr. Blairmore arrived, took one look at Sophia’s bruised arms and bloody nose and sucked in a breath. “Was she tortured?”

“She says she has a clotting problem,” Con said. “But she gave herself a platelet transfusion at the base in Bahrain before we left.”

Blairmore shifted on his feet with the anxiety of a man who had really bad news for someone. “Can I do a couple of tests?”

Con glanced at the woman he held. He’d let her have her secrets because he had no intention of living past his chance for revenge. She’d changed him in ways he was still trying to process, but two things were clear. Death no longer appealed to him, no longer offered the solace he longed for. She gave him that and he wasn’t letting her go. “Absolutely.”

Blairmore drew some blood, then disappeared with it. An aid worker found a cot for her and Con moved it so it was next to River’s. The staff started an IV with saline for Sophia and after a look at Con’s leg, one for him, too.

“Without the supply drop this morning we wouldn’t have been able to help,” the aid worker said. “We haven’t seen a new case of the illness in six hours.”

Because Akbar had run out of his poison.

“Do you think the worst is over?” the aid worker asked.

“Probably,” Con said wiping the blood off Sophia’s face for the umpteenth time. “Unless someone starts a riot.”

“People are much calmer now. Someone would have to work really hard to start a riot today.”

Smoke set up a patrol around the hospital, keeping an eye on everyone and everything.

Blairmore came back, and from the lack of color on the man’s face, the news was going to be bad. The doctor cleared his throat. “She’s very sick. Not with rabies,” he said quickly. “But her platelet count is dangerously low, the rest of her cell counts aren’t good either.”

A numbing cold flowed over him. “She had leukemia as a child,” Con told him. “It went into remission.”

Blairmore just nodded. “Most childhood leukemias are curable now, but there are always a few that...come back after the patient is an adult.” He swallowed, then added, “I’m not certain, you understand. I can only do cell counts here. She’ll need further testing at a fully equipped hospital to determine if I’m right.”

Con looked at the woman who held his heart, his life in her hands, and vowed to make sure she got the best care there was. “Thanks.”

Smoke drifted over after Blairmore left. “Does she know?”

He thought about all the things she said and hadn’t said. “She knows.” And she didn’t tell anyone, not him or Max.

“Huh,” grunted Smoke. “I thought you were the suicidal one.”

“Not anymore,” Con said. Unconscious and without the force of her personality, he noted how pale Sophia was, how black her eyes were. Her bones stood out against her skin and her lips looked bloodless.

She’d come close, perilously close to working herself to death. If she thought he was going to stand back and let that happen, she was in for a rude surprise.

A unit of Army Rangers arrived first. They secured the entire camp and Smoke finally ceased his unrelenting watch over the hospital and crashed on a cot alongside Sophia’s.

They were going to need their own wing at a real hospital at this rate.

Max arrived three hours later, took one look at their beat-up-looking group and ordered them all back to the base in Bahrain. River was going to need surgery, Con a blood transfusion, and Smoke was ordered to take forty-eight hours to rest.

When Max found out about Sophia’s cell counts he calmed down to an extent Con knew was not good. He stopped talking. He stood there, looking at her for so long that Con had to say something.

“She lied to us?”

“Yes.” Max’s gaze met his own and Con could see that her lies had hurt the other man deeply.

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“You’re both stupid,” Smoke said.

When they looked at him in confusion, the big man added, “Cancer doesn’t just hurt the victim.”

“She didn’t tell us because she didn’t want either of us to worry?” He was going to spank her ass when she was better.

Max nodded. “Yes, that feels right.”

“Fuck, Smoke,” Con said to his friend. “Ever think of becoming a therapist?”

For a moment Smoke looked completely disgusted. Then he said, “Killing bad guys is my therapy.”

“I’d say that’s fucked up, but I’ve been doing the same thing.” Con shook his head. “What about you, Max?”

“Let’s just say I’m a workaholic and leave it at that.” He gave Sophia another long look, then nodded at Con and Smoke. “Keep an eye on her. Consider it an order.”

Max left to take care of a number of details left behind after Akbar’s departure, not the least of which was replacing the water tank and making sure the water was clean and safe to drink.

He came back and woke Con from a deep sleep. “A medical helicopter will be here in thirty minutes to transport you all back to the base. Keep me apprised as information comes in.” The last sentence delivered with a glance toward Sophia.

“Yes, sir.”

She was still asleep. How had she managed to do all the shit she’d done? It spoke of a mental fortitude that was stronger than anyone’s he’d ever met.

The chopper arrived and everyone got loaded on. They’d been in the air for twenty minutes when she woke up.

The first thing she did was grab for his hand.

Who needed painkillers when all it took to make him feel like a superhero was her reaching for him without thinking?

He was sitting next to her gurney, strapped into the large helicopter. He leaned close and yelled, “You’ve been asleep for a few hours. I think all the crap we’ve been through caught up with you. We’re heading toward Bahrain and Max wanted to keep us together. River is going into surgery as soon as we land.”

She relaxed more and more as he talked. When he finished, she closed her eyes briefly, then smiled at him.

“Max gave strict orders,” Con added. “You’re not allowed to do anything until he comes back.”

That made her frown.

“I did, however, talk him into letting me continue to give you Tai Chi lessons.”

She grinned and nodded.

The big sneak. He knew she’d never be satisfied with that. She dozed for the rest of the trip, but he could see her reliving things in her mind. Her fists would clench and a couple of times, she screamed as a rough bump woke her.

He’d hold her hand until she got herself out of the nightmare or memory, then settle in to covertly watch her.

Back at the base, all of them were taken to the base hospital for a thorough check.

Con had lost more blood than he thought and got a couple units.

River made it through the surgery. A small hole was drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure from his concussion. He woke up wondering what the hell happened.

Smoke ended up getting a unit of blood, too, then slept for almost twenty-four hours straight.

Sophia tried to tell the staff that blood tests weren’t necessary. Even argued with them, until Con asked for a minute alone with her, then told her quietly, “Blairmore did some cell counts while you were out. He told us they were really low.”

“Big mouth,” she muttered.

“No, he was doing his job.” Con thumped her gently on the head. “What were you thinking, going into an outbreak situation with an unknown pathogen, knowing you were sick?”

“I was thinking this was my chance to do something important.” She dropped her gaze and picked at the blanket under her fingers.

“You’re not going to pull that shit again,” he told her in a hard tone. “You’re going to take care of yourself and do everything you can to get better.” He should take his own damned advice.

“Wow, listen to you, Dr. Button,” she shot back, pink warming her cheeks.

“I’ve been hanging around you long enough for some of it to sink in.”

She seemed pleased by that.

“So, why did you do it?” Con asked her.

“Max needed me to do my job. I decided what I could do in the here and now was worth the risk.”

“You lied to me,” Con said.

She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished yet.

“You also lied to Max. Me, I’m just a soldier, but Max? He’s not happy with you and I think you’re going to find out there’s a steep price to pay for what you did.”

“Just a soldier?” She stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “You’re my partner .” She narrowed her eyes and said, “Let’s talk about the price I’m going to pay.” Fuck, he was going about this all wrong.

“My lifespan isn’t going to be counted in decades, Con. Where else could I make the most of the time I have than in this team?”

“This isn’t some suicide squad,” he barked at her. “The Army needs you long-term.”

He had never seen a more resolute face than hers. “I don’t have a long term to give them.”

“Don’t say that. Goddamn it, don’t even think it.” He wanted nothing more than to hunt Akbar down and finish killing him.

“I had to do this,” she said after a moment. “I had to keep the truth to myself. If I had told Max, he would have immediately put me on a plane and sent me back to the United States.”

“Damn straight.”

“Then we wouldn’t have found out just how insane Akbar is. We almost did catch him, and now we know his goal isn’t just to kill, it’s to cause as many people as possible pain while they die.”

She wasn’t listening. He needed to try a different tactic. “You wanted to do something worthwhile with your life. Something worth dying for. Isn’t that what you said to me the day we met?”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Hell, yes, I remember that. It’s almost word for word what I said when I wanted to get back on active duty.” He leaned down and said in her ear, “And it was the truth, as far as that goes, because I also wanted, in the worst way, to die in the performance of my duty.”

“I figured that out the night those goons tried to kidnap me. You threw yourself into taking those men down with no thought to yourself. None at all.” She held her breath for a moment. “There I was, fighting so hard to live just a few weeks longer, and you were trying so hard to die.”

“I’m not trying to die anymore. I hung around this crazy, gorgeous doctor for too long. I have something to live for now. I’m hoping she feels the same way.”

She stared at him with tears in her eyes and it nearly killed him to act casual and say, “Now stop arguing with the lab tech and let her take some blood so you can figure out what’s wrong with you and fix it.”

“It’s never that easy,” she whispered.

“You’re the smartest and most stubborn person I know.” He kissed her on the nose. “I’ve got some paperwork Max is squawking at me to fill out. I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not just a soldier, by the way,” she said before he could go three steps. “You’re my soldier. Remember that.”

For the first time since the explosion, he smiled with no hint of sorrow at all. “Sounds good to me.”

An hour later, one of the doctors came around to talk to Sophia. Twenty minutes after that, a nurse set up a unit of platelets for transfusion for her. Then a unit of blood.

Connor asked when he could visit her and was told he couldn’t. She’d requested no visitors.

What the fuck?

Smoke distracted the nurse so Con could sneak into her room.

“How did you get in here?” she asked, glaring at him.

Wow, where did Miss Crabby come from? “Smoke is making your nurse’s life difficult.”

“Connor.” She looked away. “You should go.”

Something had happened to cause this about-face. He wasn’t leaving until he knew what it was. “No.”

She frowned at him, then deliberately turned on her side and stared at the wall.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked her.

“You’re what’s wrong with me.”

“Sophia.”

“I told you before, all my cell counts are low.”

That didn’t sound like cancer.

He had to work to keep excitement out of his tone. “You don’t have leukemia?”

“No.”

No cancer. “The nosebleeds?”

“Not enough platelets and too much stress from idiots who can’t take a hint.”

Not cancer .

Thank God . “I’d go, but we have some unfinished business.”

“Tai Chi lessons?” she asked hesitantly.

She was pushing him away, probably thinking it was for his own good.

Sometimes, it was good to be bad.

If he told her how he really felt, how much she really meant to him, she’d fight him every step of the way. It was time for a little tactic called fishing, and he had the perfect bait. He bent down so he could whisper in her ear, “Sex.”

Her breath caught right before she inched away. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“You? Ms. I'll Get It Done or Die Trying, you’ve changed your mind?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, then she sighed and said, “It was a nice idea, but the reality is, I’m in no shape for it now.”

“Nice?”

She rolled over to stare at him.

“Sweetheart, you’re covered in bruises and every time you sit up you have a nosebleed. I know I can be an idiot sometimes, but I’m not that stupid.”

“Max is going to have me on a plane for the lower forty-eight within the next twenty-four hours. I don’t know if I’m ever going to see you again, so there’s no point in...discussing it.”

He’d deal with the I don’t know if I’m ever going to see you again statement in a minute. “Why is Max putting you on a plane so fast if you’re not dying?”

She sighed. “Because he thinks, and I agree with him, that I have aplastic anemia—my bone marrow has totally gone on strike—and I’m too sick to work. I need to have more testing to determine what my next treatment steps are, but that will have to happen in the States.”

“But not dying?” he asked, holding steady to his determination. Hope was too wild an emotion to let loose inside him.

She hesitated for a long couple of seconds. “It’s just as deadly as any cancer if my bone marrow doesn’t respond to treatment.”

“So, that’s it?” He couldn’t believe it. “You’re just giving up?” This woman always had a will of steel. Where had that gone?

She smiled at him, but it was wobbly. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to live. I was incredibly lucky to have you as a partner and battle buddy. You’re big and sexy and you make me laugh. I wish I could have had more time with you, but it’s not going to work out that way.” She sniffed. “I hope you continue to kick terrorist ass, and you find happiness, because you deserve it.”

Her words gutted him. She was leaving him so she could die where he couldn’t be with her, comfort her, love her.

This wasn’t a casual brush-off.

She was saying goodbye forever.

No fucking way.

He’d fought for her, lived for her, and he wasn’t about to let her give up on herself.