Authors: Lindsay McKenna
Jim leaned back against a tree trunk, honing in on Pepper's face. Anger sizzled through him. Well, what was wrong with the perfect Captain John Freedman that he'd never noticed Pepper's lovely mouth?
She began to scrub. "I'm sorry…."
His mouth tightened and he stiffened against the pain. "Somehow, I think I have this coming. I was such a bastard to you earlier," he groaned.
Pepper shook her head and bit down hard on her lip. She knew how much pain Jim was in as she continued to cleanse the wound. "It's the mission."
And his love for Laura
Trayhern
.
Fire leapt up his arm, and Jim felt sweat pop out across his face and under his arms in reaction. He shut his eyes tightly, fighting off a dizzying faintness. "I was thinking about you," he gasped. His lips lifted away from his gritted teeth. He fought swirling dizziness—and more pain. Finally, it was over.
Pepper watched Jim worriedly. He lay in a prone position now, sweating heavily and breathing raggedly. His eyes were tightly shut. She couldn't blame him. Pulling the antibiotic syringe out of the pack, she gave him the shot in his upper right arm, above the injury. Much of what she did in fire-fighting situations was coming back to her, and she was grateful for her paramedic training.
Glancing around, she saw hundreds of trees, mostly rubber trees and palms of all sorts, silhouetted against the coming dawn. Odors of decay mingled with the salty smell of the ocean and some unidentifiable, exotic floral fragrances. Focusing on Jim's wound, Pepper located the surgical strips that would pull the edges of the wound together. At least he wouldn't have to be stitched up.
"This is going to hurt," she warned in a low voice. She used one hand to pull the wound together, and instantly he became rigid, his entire body convulsing. Hating to hurt him, she quickly taped the adhesive across the wound, closing it. In a matter of a minute, she'd completed her task. Breathing shakily, she began to rewrap the wound in clean gauze to protect it.
Jim wiped sweat from his eyes. He felt awkward using his left hand, but he'd better get used to it—it was the only one in working order. Concentrating on Pepper, he absorbed her clean profile as she worked over him. Her touch was exquisitely gentle, and in his hazy, shorted-out state he wondered if she made love with that same kind of touch. It was a crazy thought in an even crazier situation, he told himself harshly.
"I wish," he rasped unsteadily, throwing his arm across his eyes as she worked, "that we were anyplace but here right now."
Pepper smiled grimly and glanced at his face. His mouth was a line of pain. "That makes two of us." She completed the bandaging and stretched
an Ace
elastic around the gauze to further protect it.
"I keep seeing us talking over a candlelit dinner. I know some good restaurants in D.C. You'd like them, too.
Quiet places.
Intimate. Where good conversation can go on and on…."
Pepper felt mild shock over his rambling. Was Jim out of his head?
Impossible.
But his words were disjointed, ragged sounding, filled with fervency. Was he teasing her? Her heart said no, her head said yes. She remained kneeling beside him, more uncertain of herself than she'd ever been in her life.
"We've lost the time advantage," Jim said when she sat back, the bandaging of his arm completed.
"What should we do?"
Jim looked up through the canopy of palm fronds and heavy rubber-tree leaves. Daylight was already upon them. In another half hour the sun would be up. He didn't want Pepper to feel bad that her getting snagged in a tree had wrecked their initial timing. Being injured was something he hadn't counted on, either.
He slowly sat up, his back against the tree for support, and rested his right arm across his belly. Pepper remained kneeling and alert, slowly perusing the area with her sharpened gaze. There was little to be wary of now. But as they neared Garcia's fortress, her watchfulness would pay off.
"I worked out two plans with Jake," he said quietly. "The first involved striking before dawn, but that opportunity's gone. The second is to hit them tomorrow at 0300. Noah
Trayhern
is sitting off the coast of
Nevis
, on a Coast Guard cruiser with a helicopter platform. If we get to Laura and can spring her, we're to meet at the beach south of Garcia's fortress. I showed it to you on the map."
Pepper nodded. "If I hadn't blown it by getting hung up in the tree, we might be there now."
Jim sat up, reached out with his left hand and gripped her arm. "Things happen, Pepper. Let it go."
She shrugged. "At least our chutes opened this time."
He breathed deeply. "Yes, there's plenty to be grateful for."
"Do you really think you can continue the mission with that arm, Jim?"
It was a fair question. He held her worried gaze. "We don't have a choice. You can't do this alone, and I'm not going to call in air support for further medical help. No, we'll do it. We're just going to have to be particularly careful—and quiet." He scowled. "But if we get in a firefight, I'm going to be next to useless."
Feeling bad for him, Pepper said, "I don't want to kill anyone. I have real issues over that, Jim."
"Fine time to tell me."
She saw his mouth quirk. "Seven years ago, when I was young and wild and going through Ranger school, I thought I was capable of killing. At least I convinced myself I could do it." Pepper shook her head. "I'm older now, and looking back, I'm glad they didn't graduate me. I liked the army for its discipline and organization, but I found those same elements in smoke jumping."
"The best of both worlds without lifting a weapon."
Jim removed his hand from her arm. The intimacy between them was strong and good. If Pepper minded his touch, it didn't show this time. Instead, she had opened up, and was talking with gut-level honesty. "We have no backup if we get in trouble." He tapped the walkie-talkie strapped to his waist. "But we can change channels and call for Noah to send the Coast Guard helicopter in."
"They don't carry weapons, either."
"No, not on the chopper."
Jim was worried, but he didn't voice the fact. It was one thing on a Recon mission planned to be exactly that. But this mission had too much chance of human contact, and weapons might well be used. He held her clear blue gaze.
"Would you use your weapon to defend?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Good."
"I'm not a pacifist, Jim. I just don't want to kill if I don't have to." She added more softly, "I know if I do, it will haunt me the rest of my life."
He understood only too well. "It's all right," he said gently. "I still get nightmares from what I did in Desert Storm and
Panama
."
Without thinking, Pepper reached out, her hand covering his injured one. "Somehow I knew you'd understand."
The tremble in her husky voice sent a sheet of longing through Jim. But it was the wrong place, the wrong time. "Help me up. We'll go slowly and take our time circling the volcano to reach Garcia's fortress. We can use the daylight to time the guards and observe the routine."
Somehow, Pepper thought this might end up being a better plan, after all. Knowing the guard's coming and goings and getting a direct feel for the place would help them tomorrow, when they made their raid into the plantation itself. She got to her feet and leaned over, offering Jim her hand. His grip was strong and steady as he heaved himself to his feet with her help.
She watched him for signs of dizziness but saw none. When she'd fashioned a sling for him to rest his right arm in, he went over to his pack.
"There's no sense in me carrying all this weight," he said, bending over it and fumbling with the straps. A left-hander he was not.
Pepper crouched next to him and opened the pack.
"Thanks," he rasped, offering her a crooked smile.
"I'll be your hands on this trip," she joked weakly, as she spread out the items from the pack so he could choose what to take and what to discard. He kept his handgun and its ammunition. At his request, Pepper dug a
hole
deep enough to bury the items he didn't need. It took nearly half an hour to repack the contents,
then
he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders.
Pepper opted to continue carrying the full weight of her own pack. If they got into trouble, she could still use the submachine gun to spray the area and protect them.
As the first streaming rays of the sun shot across the ocean and touched the island, Jim and Pepper began heading toward the fortress. He took the lead, since he was more familiar with jungle trekking. Mainly, they had to be careful not to step on branches that could crack or snap, since the sound carried too far for comfort.
Birds had been calling since dawn. As Pepper followed about fifty feet behind Jim, she noticed how he moved not in a straight line, but in one that took advantage of the brush and taller bushes in the area as protection from curious eyes. She could smell smoke from a wood fire in the breeze drifting toward them. Dogs barked now and then, and once she heard children laughing in the distance.
Because they were skirting the volcano, there were few homes, just thick brush that made for slow going. Every once in a while Jim stopped, consulted his compass and map, then moved on. Pepper worried that his arm must be hurting terribly, but she knew he wouldn't complain. Still, she watched him for signs of weakening or fever. The antibiotics should hold him, unless she hadn't cleaned out his wound well enough, which was always a possibility.
Near 0800, Jim stopped. He'd found a fairly thick grove of rubber trees that provided excellent cover, so he dropped his pack and sat down. He watched as Pepper silently came into the circle of trees. Her face had
a sheen
of sweat from the high humidity coming off the ocean. He was sweating heavily, too, as evidenced by the dark splotches on his utilities.
Taking out the canteen, Jim awkwardly opened it and drank deeply. Pepper joined him, sitting not more than a foot away, after placing her pack next to his. He capped his canteen and watched her drink from her own. She had such a long, slender neck. The greasepaint they wore had streaked off with her sweat. It didn't matter now, anyway. Jim looked around, satisfied that they were fairly safe from natives who might inadvertently discover them. They were miles from any of the dirt or asphalt roads that lined the coast.
Another sound caught his ears and he looked skyward.
A helicopter.
Pepper was watching the sky intently, too. They knew that Garcia had a helicopter. The
whapping
sounds grew closer. The aircraft was coming in from the west and heading south—toward the fortress. Jim barely glimpsed it as it skimmed by, nearly at treetop level.
Pepper stood, straining to catch sight of the aircraft. "It's a blue-and-white
Bell
," she reported.
"That's Garcia's," Jim said. He gestured for her to sit down near him. "Let's eat."
Pepper wasn't really hungry. The excitement and danger levels were too high for her to be in touch with something as basic as the need for food. The chance to be near Jim was enough, however, and she sat down next to him, her legs crossed. He handed her an MRE—one of the military's ready-to-eat meals that needed only to be reconstituted with water. She watched in distaste as he showed her what to do.
"At least out on the fire line we get real food," she grumbled.
He laughed softly. "Yeah,
MRE's
are the pits. I prefer the C-rations we had before they instituted this new stuff." Glancing at Pepper, he saw that some of the fear had left her eyes. Sobering, he asked, "Are you settling into the routine?"
She nodded and picked at her mushy MRE. "Yes, I am." She wrinkled her nose as she tasted the fare. "It tastes like cardboard."
Chuckling quietly, Jim agreed. He tried to ignore the pain in his arm by concentrating on Pepper—which was easy to do. Despite their circumstances, her vibrant inner beauty shone through. Several more curls had escaped from beneath her black knit cap. "You're the first woman I've seen wear Recon gear and look damn good in it."