Course of Action: Crossfire (5 page)

“Hey,” he called gently, “do me a favor right now.”

She frowned and fought tears that wanted to fall. “What?”

Dan released her hand and gestured toward the curtains. “Close them? I want some privacy with you, Cait.” He knew he sounded in charge. Stern, almost, but Dan wasn't going to ignore Cait's needs any longer. He just couldn't. It was eating at his soul, squeezing his heart until the level of pain was far worse than the constant, gnawing ache in his leg. She hesitated and Dan pleaded with her. “Please? The guys aren't gonna say anything.”

She slipped off the bed and pulled the long curtain around in a U-shape until they were completely enclosed. Cait wiped her eyes as she came over.

Dan pushed the tray aside and it rolled on its own toward the end of his bed. He captured her hand. “Come here,” he ordered in a roughened tone, urging her to come and sit on the bed near his good hip. “Up on the bed here with me.”

He wasn't about to give Cait a chance to say no and he used his strength to get her to lift her hip and settle it on the left side of the bed. He held her confused gaze and opened his arms.

“Remember when you were nineteen, and you'd been stood up by that boy? And I was home on leave? I found you out back on the beach crying your heart out. I sat down with you and pulled you into my arms.” He searched her moist green eyes, noting the tremble in her lower lip as the grief overwhelmed her once more. She gave a jerky nod of her head. “Good,” he soothed in a low tone. “Now come here. Let me hold you for a little while, Cait. I'll just hold you...”

She gave him a worried look, resisting. “Dan...your leg. If I move the wrong way it will cause you horrendous pain—”

“Ask me if I care,” he said gruffly, gathering her slender form into his arms. Clenching his teeth, he felt pain shatter through his leg as she carefully eased forward, lying across him, her one hand against his upper chest, her head resting on his right shoulder. Nothing had ever felt so good to Dan. It was a dream come true even if he was going to pay for it with the agony the movement was costing him.

“Okay, I'll be careful.” Cait relaxed against him, nuzzling his broad, powerful shoulder. The green cotton fabric of his gown was rough against her skin, but she didn't care. Nostrils flaring, she dragged in Dan's scent—the perspiration caused by his almost constant pain, a clean soap smell and his own, unique masculine fragrance that woke up her lower body.

“There,” he said roughly, pressing his jaw against her hair, “now relax. No one has held you since Ben died. Let me at least do that for you, Cait...”

His growling words shattered her in an unexpected way, and she felt a sob jerk out of her as she pressed her face against the thick column of his neck, feeling his arms hold her more tightly, as if to somehow protect her from all the anguish that bubbled up at odd moments every day. Sometimes, she'd be helping a soldier with exercises when she'd suddenly burst into tears, embarrassed, having no explanation for them. With Dan, as the hot tears spilled down her cheeks, her fingers moving convulsively into the fabric across his chest, Cait felt no shame, no need to explain. Just...relief.

Dan closed his eyes, feeling the sweet curves and hollows of Cait fitting against his hard body. With every sob, his leg ached painfully, but oddly, just having her in his arms, able to comfort her, took so much of that burning nerve pain away.

Dan didn't know what was going on except that Cait was healing to him in every possible way. Sliding his hand across her back, following the curve of her graceful spine, nothing had ever felt this good. He could feel her skin tighten beneath his fingertips, even with the barrier of her shirt between his fingers and her velvet flesh. She started to cry harder now as he caressed and fussed over her. He knew now that since Ben's death, her parents hadn't been able to support her. They were too deeply mired in their own shock and anguish to reach out and help Cait, too. But he could.

Dan caressed her damp cheek, uttering soft, calming words to her, feeling the press of her small breasts against his chest. His erection stirred to life despite the nerve pain gnawing ferociously away in his thigh. Dan didn't care. He'd crawl over cut glass for this woman, who had always held his heart in her slender, beautiful hands. Cait had helped soldiers to heal over the years. He wasn't a healer, that was for sure, but Dan knew he could give Cait momentary shelter in his arms, a little TLC that she so desperately needed and deserved.

Turning his face toward hers, Dan inhaled deeply, as if dragging life into his body. His heart suffused with quiet joy. Her hand had inched upward, near his collar bone, opening and closing as she wept and released so much withheld grief. Her body shook and he continued to minister to her, his heart pounding with need for her. Dreams did come true, Dan realized, feeling that his lower body was fully awake now. He felt guilty even thinking about sex with Cait when what she needed was this: his touch, his quiet words of comfort. His whole world upended in these fifteen minutes. It was Cait who was always taking care of others. She probably hadn't ever thought of him holding her, silently loving her in his arms, and she surely didn't know how much he wanted her on every damn level he could name.

With trembling fingers, Cait tried to brush the tears off her cheek. Dan eased his hand downward and his large thumb dried the area with one stroke. Tiny sensations of fire radiated from where he'd caressed her. Cait wanted to stay in his arms, just to be held by him. She slowly extricated herself and sat up, giving him an apologetic look, trying to wipe her eyes dry.

“You needed a good cry,” Dan said, his voice thick.

She licked her lower lip, tasting the salt of tears across it. “It's been a long time coming.” Cait reached out, finding his hand and squeezing it. “Thanks...you always seem to be there for me, Dan. Every time I get in trouble, there you are to pick up the pieces of me.” She tried to smile but failed and just gave him a tender look of gratefulness.

“I do have a habit of doing that for you,” he agreed. Every time Cait broke up with her civilian boyfriends, he always seemed to be there, home on leave when it happened. Cait was right about picking up the pieces, but it was something Dan wanted to do for her. He always had ways of bringing a smile to her face, bringing laughter back into her life. During his thirty-day leaves, he, Ben and Cait would spend every day surfing on one of the many beaches on Oahu while she got over the worst of the breakup. Dan would leave, going back into deployment in Afghanistan, knowing that he would never have a chance for Cait's hand.

Until now.
He felt terrible even thinking that way with Ben dead only one week. Dan told himself he should feel bad about thinking in those terms but, dammit, he yearned for Cait as if she were a lost piece of himself. He wondered just how much she was drawn to him. Was it just compassion for him or more than that?

He knew Cait was not a one-night-stand woman. She took a long time to get into a relationship and they tended to last for years. Ben's death and her grief meant Cait's interest in him, if any, couldn't be like the dreams and fantasies he had about her. About them as a couple. About a serious forever relationship with him.

Cait slowly moved off the bed, trying not to disturb his wounded leg beneath the tent. She released her ponytail, smoothing the strands and then pulled her shirt back into place over her hips. “You're in pain, aren't you?”

Dan grinned sourly. Hell, yeah, he was in pain. But Cait couldn't see where he really hurt. “A little,” he lied.

“You're looking pale,” she said worriedly.

“I'm damn well not using more of that morphine, Cait.” He gestured to the Monopoly game. “Do you feel like playing? Or maybe you'd like to go home?”

She cleared her throat and whispered, “Can I take a rain check on the game, Dan? I feel so exhausted now.”

Of course she did. He gazed tenderly at her. “Get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow sometime, okay? And, yes, we'll reschedule the game and I'll beat your pants off another time.” He grinned wickedly, and Cait responded positively, a slight pinkness tingeing her previously wan cheeks. Her lips curved ruefully and she managed a slight smile in return.

“I owe you, Dan...”

And how he wanted to collect on that debt. What would Cait say if he told her the truth: that he wanted a chance to have a serious, ongoing relationship with her? That he'd always loved her? That he wanted a chance to explore what they had with one another?

 

Chapter 4

D
an was lying in a pool of sweat, the pain in his thigh nearing the threshold of having to punch that friggin' button to put more morphine into the IV drip to give himself some relief. It was barely 0700 and the other men in the ward had already gone for the day, leaving him alone. They were further along in the healing process. Five Army soldiers who had each lost a leg were in the ward. They didn't have to go through six weeks of hell lying in a bed, screwed together with nuts and bolts, but Dan was still grateful to have his leg.

By 0730, each of the five of them had left either in a wheelchair or on a set of crutches to go down the elevator to the chow hall. He was stuck waiting for his breakfast, which always tasted awful. The pain was coming in scalding waves, so damned excruciating that all he could do was breathe shallow and fast, teeth clenched, the sweat rolling down his face. His gown was soaked. He hated hitting the morphine button. The damned stuff took his head out of the game and he drifted in a white cloud of nothingness. He despised the opiate.

The door to the ward opened. Dan recognized Dr. Ann Moore, Ben and Cait's mother. She was dressed like a typical physician in a white lab coat over dark blue scrubs. Dan knew this had been coming ever since Ben had been killed. The serious look, the grief in Ann's face warned him things were going to get a lot worse.

“Dan? How are you doing?” Ann asked, giving him a weak smile of hello and coming to his bedside.

“Been better, Ann,” he rasped. Oh hell, this was going to be a monumentally emotional encounter. Dan saw she'd been crying. Ann was an internist at a nearby civilian hospital.

She grimaced and looked over at the IV. “You're in a lot of pain. Have you given yourself some more morphine?”

He grunted. “No...not yet. Hate the stuff.”

“It's not fun,” she agreed somberly, reaching out and gently touching his shoulder briefly. “You should hit it. Pain actually stops the body from healing itself.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, “that's what Cait keeps telling me.” Dan pressed the button. Not because he wanted to, but because he could see the emotional storm stirring in Ann's brown eyes. She had red hair like Cait, was tall and slender where her daughter was a head shorter than she was. Ann was in her midfifties and Dan could see Cait's face in hers. Only, there was a chasm of difference between the two, and Dan tried to shield himself from what he knew was coming.

“I didn't come to see you until now. I know Cait has been over here every day checking up on you. I was hoping you were sufficiently along in your healing to talk to me for a minute, Dan.” She gave him a pleading look, her fingers tightening on his lower arm. “Please...can you tell me how Ben died? I've been going crazy imagining horrible things. Please tell me what really happened.”

Dan felt the first hints of morphine easing his bone pain. His heart twisted in his chest. “I told Cait. Didn't she pass it on to you and your husband?” he grunted.

“She did tell us the basics. I need more information than she gave us. I just can't sleep at night, Dan. I lie there imagining things that are horrifying to me. If I just knew the truth...”

Because Cait was equally grief stricken, Dan thought, she might not have shared everything he'd told her with her parents. He owed the Moores this moment. The agony in Ann's eyes, the tightening of the muscles in her face as she tried to prepare herself for whatever he might say, it broke his heart.

“I'll tell you what I can,” he rasped, “given that we're black ops. You know what that means, Ann.”

She bit her lower lip. “Yes...yes I do...”

Dan closed his eyes, unable to stand the suffering in her face. In a low, tortured voice, Dan told her what he could, emphasizing that Ben had felt no pain and died with him at his side. It hurt like hell to even speak about it. Worse even, because of that damn bone pain gnawing constantly at him. Yesterday, Cait had come into his arms and cried her heart out, soaking the shoulder of his gown with her tears. Now, Ann was here, and tears dripped down her face as he finished a shortened version of the story. Her hand grip his arm firmly and then released him.

“T-thank you, Dan. I'm so sorry I had to ask you. I know how much you loved Ben. You two were like brothers.”

Tears burned in his eyes and it took everything he had to hold himself together. The only good thing was that they were alone, the ward already emptied out for the day.

“Ben will always be a part of me, Ann,” he managed, beginning to feel that vague, floating feeling, the pain in his leg becoming muted. He saw anguish in her eyes as well as anger and frustration. Dying on a battlefield wasn't pretty. She was a doctor and she now understood how Ben had died.

“Wasn't there anything else you could have done for him?” she asked in a wobbly voice.

Dan felt as if a bomb had gone off between them. He stared up at her, angry at the accusation that he hadn't done enough to save Ben. Instantly, he reminded himself that Ann had lost her only son. She would never see him married. Never see him with his children. He tried to wrestle his own shock over her question and put it into context.

Grief, Dan knew, did odd things to people. There was no such thing as normal behavior anymore. Ann was a solid, quiet, person, a good physician, a loving parent and a good one. He felt blindsided and gutted by her question.

“Ann, I did my best under the circumstances,” he growled, his fists tightening in the bed covers at his sides.

“Y-yes, of course you did. It's just...God, I miss Ben so much.”

“I do, too.”

* * *

Cait dropped in midafternoon to check on Dan. He was staring darkly out the window next to his bed, the sun slats looking like prison bars sliding silently across his bed. Something was wrong. His brows were drawn together and there were beads of sweat across his wrinkled forehead. His large hands gripped the bed covers.

Her heart ached for him because she knew how much he disliked taking morphine. It knocked him out and Dan didn't like not being in control, awake and alert. He must have sensed her because he lifted his chin, staring in her direction. She managed a soft smile of welcome.

“Hey, I was just on the floor and thought I'd swing by for a moment.” She reached out, running her fingers gently across his fist. “You're in pain?”

Dan felt so much of his anger, hurt and guilt dissolve beneath Cait's quiet, husky voice and her cooling touch. He wasn't about to tell her about her mother's visit to see him earlier this morning. Cait still looked exhausted from yesterday when she'd cried while he held her. She didn't need what Ann had said to him on top of everything else. Dan suspected Ann hadn't told her daughter about her visit.

“Yeah, bad morning” was all he said. “I'll be okay. Stop looking so worried. Okay?” He hungered for her presence because Cait always brought that calm ocean feeling with her. She was like a rock, so damned stable and reliable, which was what he needed right now, feeling out of sorts over Ann's veiled accusation. He opened his hand, turning it over and gripping her extended fingers. “Nice to see you. Did you get any sleep last night after you left?”

Cait managed a one cornered hitch of her mouth. “A little. I really needed that cry, Dan. Thanks for being there. I never expected you to offer to hold me, but it was so nice, exactly what I needed.” Leaning over, Cait chastely kissed his cheek, looking deep into his dark, pain-filled eyes. “You are such a hero to me in so many ways, Dan.” Her voice grew hoarse. “Thanks for holding me yesterday... Nothing has ever felt so good to me.” She slid her hand over his rough jaw. “You've always been there for me. Always...”

“I wouldn't want it any other way, Cait.” Closing his eyes, feeling like a needy beggar, Dan absorbed her tender touch and her healing words. Her mother, Ann, thought differently about him. He was no hero in her eyes, that was for damned sure. Asking him why he couldn't save her son's life. Accusing him in so many words of not having done enough. Damn, that hurt. It hurt more than he ever wanted to let on. He'd never expected that from Ann.

And Cait, whether she knew it or not, melted that hurt within him with just her quiet presence, her touch. Now it was Dan who wanted to turn toward her, throw himself into her arms and sob. Because he was close to doing just that, his throat tightened up, a lump forming.

“Do you need another hit of morphine? You're so pale and you're sweaty.”

He saw concern for him in her tender green gaze, felt what he thought was love. It had to be the drug's influence, Dan sternly told himself. They'd never talked about loving one another. Dan ached, literally, from his heart down to his lower body, to kiss those full lips of hers, to feel her heat, share it and give it back to her, to love her until she screamed with pleasure.

Dan knew he could make her feel good. He knew he could love Cait enough to take away the sadness that was banked in her eyes, if only for a little while. Love was an antidote to pain. And Dan had never wanted to love a woman more than he did this one. He curved his fingers gently around hers.

“Yeah, I'll take a hit of the juice. I just don't like getting knocked out by it.”

“I know,” she soothed. “I've got a few minutes. Get the morphine into you and I'll give you a massage.” She held up her hands. “I do it all the time for the guys who do PT with me. Knotted muscles, cramps, that kind of thing. Your shoulders feel so tight. Does your neck feel stiff?” She pulled a small bottle of lotion from her pocket, holding it up toward him. “I always carry this with me because as my patients start pushing unused muscles, they get horrible cramps. It's the fastest way I know to ease their suffering, soothe those overworked muscles and get them back to their exercises.”

Her care, like a cooling balm, defused his anger and guilt over Ann's visit. “Hey, I could use a massage, thanks.” God, he felt like a greedy fox in the hen house. To have her massage him?
Unbelievable.
Wonderful. He lay back and hit the button, searching her radiant eyes and finding an unnamed emotion in them. “Thanks, Cait. You don't have to do this.”

“No worries, Dan. I've got twenty minutes before my next patient downstairs.” She reached around his neck, loosening the tie, pulling the gown gently downward, exposing his upper chest. Patiently, she eased each of his arms out of the short sleeves and folded the material down around his waist. “There,” she murmured, opening the lotion and spreading it on her hands. “Close your eyes. Just enjoy.”

He was in heaven. Her hands were cool and gliding across his neck and shoulders. Cait was surprisingly strong, those slender fingers of hers pushing, manipulating and gentling his tight muscles. A groan rolled through him. Cait had magic hands and as he lay there, feeling the cloudiness of his fantasy-filled mind, he couldn't help a deep moan of pleasure rolling through his chest. His skin felt as if it were on fire, felt like a sponge pulling energy from her, absorbing it as if he were dying.

Never had he relaxed more than he did when her hands glided across his neck and shoulders. As Cait began to knead, pull and coax the muscles in each of his arms, Dan had no idea how tense he still was from the firefight. He had still been carrying it with him until she melted it away beneath her knowing, healing hands.

He was glad they were alone. The guys in the ward were down for lunch in the cafeteria at the medical center. He appreciated the intimacy that swirled and deepened around them with each stroke of her hands. Her touch coaxed his muscles into deep relaxation. The sensations were heated, the fire licking straight down to his lower body, his erection throbbing. He had to focus on controlling himself for her sake.

“You really do have magic hands,” he said.

“I aim to please.” Cait moved to Dan's large, splayed hand, loving his long, square fingers, the calluses on his palm. He elicited secret pleasure from her. Beneath her blue scrubs, her nipples were hard. Thank goodness they wouldn't show. Cait had wanted to do this to Dan for the longest time. He needed massage badly after what he'd been through.

She watched him carefully. He had short, thick golden-brown lashes that fell against his cheeks, and she saw that his face began to lose that hard, tight look. How badly she wanted to kiss him.

Sliding her hands across the expanse of his upper chest, sprinkled with gold-brown hair, she absorbed his masculine power. As the morphine took over his system, Dan was no longer with her in one sense, but in another Cait relished the reaction her fingertips still drew from him, his skin faintly responding to her tactile connection with him. Even unconscious, Dan responded to her. Her whole lower body felt like a slowly boiling cauldron aching for him to slide into her, give her the pleasure she so badly wanted from him.

As she worked her way down each side of his well-sprung rib cage, loosening the ribs themselves and seeing the terrible yellow and purple of bruises that hadn't fully healed, she swallowed convulsively. Cait wanted to feel Dan's mouth beneath her lips. Just once. She felt like a coward, wanting to sneak a kiss from him. Cait was afraid to broach the subject. Right now, she felt too fragile, too broken up, but somehow, Dan just being himself, whether wounded or not, fortified her, gave her strength and made her acutely aware she was a woman with needs.

Glancing at her watch, she saw that fifteen minutes had fled. She didn't want to leave Dan. She wanted to keep running her hand over his body, appreciating him, his strength, the tenderness he always shared with her. She owed him so much. Would she ever get up the courage to tell him how she really felt about him?

Sadness filled her because when Ben and Dan had come home this time, she'd planned to sit down with her big brother and have a long, serious talk with him. She was going to let Ben know that while she appreciated his protectiveness, she had fallen in love with a military man. Cait was sure Ben would be aghast until she told him it was Dan Taylor, his best friend. And that she'd loved him almost from the moment she'd met the tall, strapping Texan. She had been prepared to fight for Dan without knowing if it was mutual or not. Cait had had to clear the decks with her brother, first. But now it wasn't necessary for the most tragic of reasons.