She was different from most women he knew.
She gave up being with her family to keep them safe.
Okay, most people would sacrifice for family, but she went out of her way for complete strangers, spent time helping kids she would never meet.
He felt attraction since he'd first laid eyes on her.
Now it mixed with frank admiration.
And, for the first time, Murph understood how or why a man could fall hard enough to give up his freedom.
He could understand it, but it still wasn’t going to happen to him.
He was going to make sure nothing happened to Kate while she lived under his roof, then see her safely on her way.
Chapter Six
The Middle Eastern sun was beating down on the eight-man team so hard, Murph felt like his liver was about to bake.
But he didn’t have to wipe his brow.
They didn’t sweat, not in this heat.
Moisture evaporated as soon as it formed on their skin.
Their military T-shirts had white rings around the neck and underarms from the salt their dry sweating left behind.
His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
They’d gone out on morning patrol and had brought four hours’ worth of water.
Ten hours later, every drop was finished.
The routine patrol turned into a lot more, his team pinned down behind a vineyard’s crumbling wall.
Curious lizards darted over the cracked mud bricks.
They tilted their small heads, stared for a second or two at the American soldiers surrounded by insurgents, then skittered away.
The team had taken a couple of bad hits.
One man had been killed and two were wounded.
There was heavier fighting to the south, holding up the reinforcements.
The rescue team might not reach them for hours yet.
A volley of bullets ripped into the wall, sending dust flying over their heads.
The insurgents were getting closer.
Soon they’d have cover and the angle to make every shot count.
Then the Americans could be picked off one by one.
Since Murph was the team leader, he had to make the call, no matter how much he hated his choices.
Going was as dangerous as staying.
He had to pick the lesser of two evils, decide which option was less likely to get them all killed.
“We’re pulling back.”
Mick looked at him wide-eyed.
“Where?”
“
To the wadi.”
He glanced toward the dry creek-bed maybe four hundred feet from their position.
It led around a small hill.
“We’ll keep low and find a better spot to make a stand.
Maybe we can reach a cave on the other side of the hill.”
They’d seen several coming in.
He sent his men first, Mick, Greg, Dave, Rob, Shorty, Antwan and Rasheem.
He stayed back to provide them with cover, ran backwards after them and lay down heavy fire to keep the insurgents pinned down and give his team a chance.
The first of his men were lurching into the wadi when a disturbed patch of dirt caught Murph's eye, and he realized that they’d been set up, had been purposefully herded that way.
The two IEDs exploded one after the other.
Mick was blown to pieces instantly.
Greg was nearly cut in half.
Antwan lost a leg, Shorty an arm.
Murph felt shrapnel bite into his chest, his shoulder.
“Don’t move!
Nobody move!”
But Dave, half-dead, fell forward.
And the world disintegrated around them when the third IED activated.
* * *
“
Murph.
Wake up.”
Kate shook his shoulders, then stepped back in case when he woke he didn’t remember where he was or who she was.
“Murph!”
His eyes popped open, his entire body tense as if under attack, his gaze snapping to her.
Moonlight illuminated the room enough so she didn't reach for the lamp on the side table.
No need for that harsh glare in his face.
“
You’re home.
It’s okay.
You had a bad dream.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said in a rusty voice.
Since he wore nothing on top, just sweatpants, she could see his muscles relax degree by slow degree.
She knelt next to the sofa, onto the blanket that he'd kicked off.
She was glad she’d set aside her skimpy nightgown and slept in her yoga pants and shirt.
“
Want to talk about it?”
“
Hell, no.”
“
You have nightmares like this a lot?”
“
Only when I sleep.”
“
It might help if you tell someone.
I mean with the whole PTSD thing.”
He shot her a cold glare.
“What do you know about PTSD?”
She held his gaze.
“Some abused children go through something like that.”
“
Sorry.”
He clenched his jaw.
“I don’t have it.
I lost some friends I shouldn’t have lost.
I can be pissed about that all I want without people hanging some bullshit diagnoses on me.”
“
It wasn’t your fault.”
“
I was the team leader.”
“
You didn’t kill them.”
“
No.”
He gave a hard, cold laugh.
“But I sure as hell didn’t protect them either.”
“
You were hurt, too.”
“
I lived to come home.”
She nodded.
“I’m glad you did.
What happened?”
He stared at her for a long moment, dark storms swirling in his bottomless gaze.
“We were pinned down in a vineyard,” he began, and little by little, he told her the rest, although she had a feeling he edited out the gory parts.
The story still left her horrified and breathless.
He rubbed his bad shoulder as he finished, his muscles shifting, rippling under his tan skin as his powerful body moved.
He had a smattering of chest hair that looked natural on him, masculine and attractive.
The sudden lust that hit her hard and fast threw her for a loop.
As she scrambled to regain her mental balance, she somehow ended up blurting out a completely inappropriate question she’d been thinking about before she’d gone to sleep.
“
Why isn’t your family here, welcoming you home and rallying around you?”
That was what normal families were supposed to do, wasn’t it?
Not that she was an expert on that subject.
“
That’s another long and less than cheerful story.”
She could have left him and went back to bed, but something in his shadowed gaze kept her there.
“I told you my less than cheerful family story.
You can tell me yours.”
His eyes narrowed, a predatory gleam coming into them.
“I’d rather play the I-show-you-mine-you-show-me-yours game.”
Heat crackled in the air between them.
Something inside her responded.
She blushed, even as she told herself he only said what he said to regain the upper hand.
He was the quintessential alpha male and she’d just seen him vulnerable.
He wouldn’t like that.
She drew up an eyebrow.
“Keep dreaming buddy.”
“
I’d rather dream about you than the usual.”
A wry smile twisted his lips.
Since his words flustered her, she pushed on with the family thing.
“Any other siblings besides Doug?”
He shook his head.
“
Parents?”
“
Father was a deadbeat who took off shortly after Doug was born.
My mother passed on three years ago.
We were never close.”
“
I miss my family,” she admitted.
“Emma will be twenty-one this year.
I can’t believe I’m going to miss that party.
I’m the older sister.
I’m supposed to be making a big fuss over her.”
Suddenly his left arm shuddered against the white cotton sheet that covered the couch—just the arm, but not the rest of his body.
He held it down with his other hand.
“
I've got shrapnel in there.”
He did a one-shouldered shrug.
“Probably some nerve damage.”
“
What’s your treatment plan?”
“
I’ll get that once the VA processes my claim.
They’re backed up.”
“
How much pain are you in?”
“
I’m fine.”
Right.
Now that she thought of it, she couldn’t remember seeing him use his left arm.
“
Let me see.”
She pulled the pillow from behind him.
“Lay back on your stomach.”
His eyes narrowed, but after a moment of hesitation, he did as she asked.
Heat radiated off his body as she placed her hands on him.
She started gently, feeling her way around, warming up his muscles, looking for the hard knots and tangles.
She was especially careful, she didn't want to move or dislodge the shrapnel.
But if she could relax his muscles, his entire back and neck wouldn’t be a tightly-wound, painful mess.
She started with his trapezius muscles then moved on to the deltoids, careful with his injury site.
He was stiff all over, long minutes passing before he relaxed little by little and gave himself over to her kneading fingers.
“
How do you know how to do this?”
“
I used to be a massage therapist for traumatized children.
There are kids who’ve never been touched in a way that didn’t hurt.
We tried to rehabilitate them so they'd be able to accept affection and physical contact.
Turns out, we humans really need that to be healthy individuals.”
“
Is this what you did for a living?”
“
Yes.
First the kids get talk therapy.
Then, when they’re ready, they might get sent to us as part of their physical therapy needs.”
“
Children who were hit or sexually abused?”
“
Yes.”
He waited longer before asking the next question.
“Is that what happened to you?”
She normally avoided all discussion of her pre-adoption life.
Her hands stopped on his back.
“
Sorry.
I have no businesses asking.”
“
My birth mother didn’t let it happen.
I owe her for that.
She used to get jealous if her boyfriends so much as looked at me.
When I was nine, one of them got me alone and pushed me up against the dresser.
She walked in.
She was furious at me.
She told me I better not spread my legs for a man.
It’d burn like hell, and he’d tear me apart and leave me with a bastard.
I suppose that was her birds and bees talk.”
Her fingers clenched.
“
I didn’t want to burn.
I knew what that meant.
She pressed her hot curling iron between my thighs as punishment the week before for stealing bread from the cupboard.”
“
Jesus.”
The hoarseness of his voice snapped her out of whatever rare sharing mode she’d slipped into.
She went back to the business at hand, untangling his trapezius.
“Let me know if anything I do hurts.”
But all he said was, “Please don’t stop,” in a voice filled with gratitude.
She worked over his entire back, down to the lower back then up again and down the arms, up to the neck.
When his muscles were all warmed up and fully relaxed, she returned to the trouble spots.