Running Fire (10 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

K
ELL
MOVED
SILENTLY
into the darkened cave. He halted, sensing. Before, Leah would have been awake with the penlight on. Feeling her presence in the cave, he pulled the penlight from one of the pockets of his H-gear. The light slashed through the darkness.

He saw Leah sleeping, her body curled up into a fetal position on her right side. The blanket had slipped off, revealing her legs and hip. Grimacing, he knew he was late. It was almost midnight. Not wanting to disturb her, Kell moved to the other cave and shrugged out of the ruck and his H-gear. His mind was on the Taliban next door. But his heart was squarely on Leah.

How was she? Was she all right now? Throughout the day he'd remained in a new hide he'd created above the two caves where Khogani's men were staying. He'd taken photos, sent them from his laptop via the sat phone back to Bravo. He'd counted twenty more men in the ranks. Khogani was amassing a large group. Why? Something was going down, but Kell hadn't put it together yet.

“Kell?”

Leah's drowsy voice intruded on his thoughts. He turned, seeing her standing at the cave entrance, her expression sleepy, her hair mussed. His heart blew open with happiness. Kell saw a soft smile of welcome on her mouth. When he looked into Leah's eyes, someone was home. She was home. Relief flooded him.

He dropped his H-gear next to his ruck and smiled in return. What he wanted to do was walk over, drag her into his arms and give her that protection she so badly deserved and needed.

“I'm late,” he said quietly in apology, pulling off his Kevlar and laying it across a box.

Rubbing her eyes, Leah saw the sharp shadows across his face, that gray gaze warm upon her. She felt heat tunnel through her. Halting about six feet from him, she said, “Your business isn't nine to five.”

He grinned a little more, shucking down to his T-shirt and cammies. “Neither is yours.” He became serious as he pulled a couple bottles of water from the box. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Leah murmured. “I could use some water, though.”

He gave her two bottles and they walked back into the other cave with his penlight. They sat down on the two sleeping bags next to one another. Kell made sure he gave her some space. Leah seemed calm. Almost at peace. She looked exhausted; there were shadows beneath her green eyes. He watched her twist the cap off the water bottle, her left hand looking stronger, almost normal. That was good. Tonight, he was going to have to change the dressing and take a look at how the wound was healing.

“Hard day?” she asked, drinking.

Kell tried to ignore her tipping her head back, exposing her slender neck. Groaning inwardly, he felt his erection stir. There wasn't anything that wasn't graceful or beautiful about Leah to him. He was completely under her spell even though she had no clue how much he cared for her, wanted her. And maybe, Kell thought, drinking his own bottle of water, it was best that way. At least he wasn't seen as a threat to her like Grant was.

He'd had all day and half the night to think about Clutch's sister, Tracy, and to realize Leah had the very same actions and reactions as she'd had after being raped. Though unable to prove it, but with his gut screaming at him, Kell now knew that the “abuse” was most likely spousal rape. Though maybe Grant had beat the shit out of her, instead. Or worse, both. His gaze moved to the bump on Leah's nose. It was a bad break, and it had never been properly fixed. Had Grant hit her? Rage flared in him every time Kell thought about it.

And tonight, he'd found Leah sleeping in the fetal position. It was a position of protection a rape survivor often curled up in when asleep. Tracy had for years after her rape. Only with Kevin in her life had she eventually stopped sleeping like that.

Kell ached for Leah. He wanted to help her, but he'd done a damn bad job of doing it. She'd just about gone catatonic on him last night. The crash, the shock of her friends dying in it and now Grant haunting her from the past, it had just been too much for Leah to cope with. Hell, it would be for anyone. The fact she looked normal tonight was a testament to her inner strength and amazing resilience.

“What do you think Khogani's doing?” Leah asked, capping the bottle. She rested against the wall, filling her eyes with his hard, rugged-looking face, knowing how gentle his hands had been on her. Even now, Leah yearned for Kell's touch. She had been dreaming of him holding her just before she woke up.

Wiping his mouth, he shrugged. “No clue. Just have to wait and watch. He has twenty more men, so it looks like he's calling in favors or, more than likely, throwing cash around, buying more horse soldiers.”

“He's an opium drug lord, he should have plenty of cash on hand.”

Snorting softly, Kell nodded. “You up to me changing that dressing of yours? It's time.”

Her heart leaped. “Sure. Where do you want me to sit?”

He rose. “Stay where you are. I'll get my ruck.”

She watched him walk away; that lithe grace and yet that sense of protection he wrapped around her. Leah knew Kell could be a warrior in a heartbeat. She'd seen it yesterday morning. Why did she want his touch when she'd wanted no man touching her since Hayden?

He returned with the medical items and knelt down next to her. As Kell's fingers grazed her arm, positioning it against his thighs, Leah felt her lower body contract. It was a feeling like a gnawing of an animal deep within her wanting out, wanting freedom. She closed her eyes, relaxing and absorbing his quiet nearness. Sponging in his gentle ministrations.

“I'm sorry I melted down yesterday,” Leah said softly, keeping her eyes closed. She didn't want to see Kell judging her, to see what he really thought about her abnormal behavior. His fingers moved against her flesh with knowing ease, removing the dressing.

“It was my fault,” Kell muttered, holding her lower arm, looking at it beneath the light. The stitches were holding well and her skin was seamed and a bit red, indicating scar tissue was building around the area.

Leah frowned, moved her head to the left, looking at him. “No, it wasn't.” She saw him lift his chin, his gray eyes flat and unreadable. “It was me.”

“I triggered it with a really badly timed question,” he admitted. Kell struggled. Why the hell was Leah shouldering the blame? He was the one who had initiated the questions about abuse. Had Grant beat her down that far? Made her think the reason he hit or raped her was that it was her fault to begin with? That she deserved any type of punishment he decided to mete out to her?

Kell didn't want to get into that discussion tonight because he was too damned exhausted. He wanted to shove some food into himself and then get some desperately needed sleep.

She watched Kell quickly add antiseptic with his gloved finger across the healing cut. Just his tender care fed her breached soul. Did Kell know how much he was helping her? “I don't remember much from last night. Did you sleep with me? Did I scream out during the night?”

His mouth pulled in at one corner as he finished placing a clean, waterproof dressing on. “I didn't try holding you last night,” Kell admitted, finishing taping both ends of the dressing. “I lay close enough so that you'd know I was there, but that was all.” He met her calm gaze, excruciatingly aware of her vulnerability. “And no, you didn't have a nightmare last night. Or—” he tossed the gloves into his ruck “—if you did, you didn't scream out.”

Relieved, Leah whispered, “Good.” She lifted her hand from his thighs. “Thanks. It's feeling better every day.”

“It should.” He looked at her head. “How about your head injury? Headaches?”

“Less headache today,” Leah said, giving him a half smile, touching the stitched area beneath her hair. “You're a healer, Kell.”

He wished. Unhappy with how he'd pushed Leah over the edge last night, he gathered up the medical items and put them in his ruck. Getting up, Kell asked, “Have you eaten yet?”

Nodding, she opened the water bottle. “Yes, earlier.”

“I'm going to get something, then,” he told her, walking toward the other cave. Kell honestly didn't know how Leah was keeping herself together. He'd always known women were a hell of a lot stronger than men. He saw it in his mother, who was the center and hub of their family. It was in their DNA.

Grabbing an MRE, he moved back to the other cave. Always alert, Kell keyed his hearing. The Taliban could still discover them here. He never took these caves as a completely safe place. Ever.

Sitting down opposite Leah, he crossed his legs and opened the MRE, a foot away from where she sat. “I talked to Master Chief Axton late today,” he said.

“Giving him your daily report?”

“Yes.” Kell tried to brace himself internally for what he was going to tell her next. He had no idea how Leah would react. Would it be another nail in her mental coffin like Grant was? Hell, he didn't know, but he had to tell her, anyway. Kell held her green, shadowed gaze. “Your father is asking to speak directly with you,” he said. “He wants to make sure you're all right.” He saw her eyes go wide with surprise. And then, she frowned. The feeling around Leah was like a small earthquake of surprise followed by happiness. But he didn't see it in her eyes. Just a blank look. “Are you all right with that?” Kell demanded, his voice deepening because he wasn't going to force her into talking to him if she didn't want to. She'd damn well been forced into enough things by men in her life.

“Seriously? My father asked to talk to me?” Leah's world tilted a little. She saw Kell scowling, felt his fierce protectiveness wrapping around her as never before.

“Yes. I told my master chief I'd leave it up to you. I was ordered to tell you, but you weren't ordered to do it.”

Taking a breath, she murmured, “I'll talk to him.”

“Do you want to?”

Leah gave him a slight shrug. “I rarely speak to my father when I'm not in a jam like this, so yes, I guess if he cares enough to see how I am, I'll talk with him.”

Wincing internally, Kell had made several decisions after that sat phone confab with Ax. The master chief warned him that Major Grant was blaming Leah for the crash. That they needed to retrieve the black box from the bird to prove or disprove the Army major's charge.

Kell was angry and upset about the false charge. He had seen Leah egress out of the copilot's window. He talked to the master chief about getting the black box recording from the crash site, via SEAL stealth, to prove who was on the radio. Because if Leah had been on the radio just before they landed, it proved conclusively that she hadn't been flying the helo. If Larsen was at the controls, that would also be on the recording.

Ax gave him permission to try to retrieve the black box. He warned Kell that Major Grant was gunning for Leah, for whatever reason. He wanted to destroy Leah and Kell could feel it. That was why he'd gone back to the crash site under the cover of darkness last night, searched and finally dug into the ruptured soil around where the helo had burned and located the black box.

He'd also found five scattered bone fragments from what he thought might belong to the two crewmen or the pilot's femur, as well as two half-melted dog tags from the hapless crew. He'd had to be very careful, exposed in the valley, no place to hide if Taliban came by.

Kell had relentlessly scoured the wreckage. Only when he was walking around the front of the destroyed helo had he seen the partially visible hole in the ground. Kneeling down, he'd dug into it farther. And there was the badly scratched black box. He had no idea if the information on it was intact or destroyed.

Tomorrow, he'd let Ax know what he'd found. But right now, he wasn't going to tell Leah anything about it, or about Grant's desire to implicate her in the crash.

“What are your dreams, Kell?”

The question completely shook him out of his train of thought. Kell stopped eating and stared over at her. There was no guile in Leah's eyes. Just curiosity, maybe? People didn't ask questions like that out of the blue. There were reasons behind them and he knew it. Leah's expression was pensive.

“Well,” he drawled, “when I was a skinny little kid, I used to lie out in one of the dairy-cow fields and look up at the clouds and imagine shapes in them. I always saw myself as a knight on a white horse, slaying all those dragons in the clouds.” He grinned a little.

“So even then, you were a dragon slayer?”

“I guess so. My pa loved the classics, especially about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He used to come in every night when we were little kids and read us a chapter from a book about knights, dragons and damsels in distress.”

Warmth flooded Leah's chest as he gave her a boyish look. Kell stole her heart with his soft Southern accent, the kindness in his eyes when he held her gaze. She wanted to know everything about this man. He was so different from Hayden. Kell invited her trust. When he looked at her with those gray eyes of his, Leah felt herself melting, wanting and becoming sexually awakened. Even needy. As her gaze fell to his well-shaped mouth, that boyish grin spread across it, she felt an ache building in her. A starving, gnawing sensation that always leaped to life whenever she was around him.

“Did your dreams change after you grew up?”

Finishing the MRE, Kell put it aside and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “No. I always saw myself protecting weaker kids. In grade school one of my best friends, Bobby, got picked on by some bullies. I took them on.” He gave a dark chuckle. “Came home that afternoon with my best white shirt torn, which upset my ma plenty. And when she saw the blood on the shirt and around my nose, she figured it out. She asked me what happened and I told her. That night, Pa found out about it and he told me I'd done the right thing, that there were people who were weaker in our world, and sometimes, they needed protecting.”