Divine Phoenix(Divine Creek Ranch 10)(120)

“One of the guys had received a care package from home and he’d opened a small foil container of smoked salmon. It must have been what attracted the kitten because it was pretty pungent. This Afghani woman followed the cat right into the house like she knew her way around. It must have belonged to people she knew at one point. She followed the cat right to us.”

“Oh, no. Did she scream? Did she try to alert her people?”

“No. No, she was more scared for us than of us, I think. A male member of her family, who must’ve been in charge of watching over her, followed her into the house. We gave her the kitten and asked her to go. We needed to get out of there. She did as we asked, and when she met the man on the staircase, she explained that she’d found her kitten and that she didn’t know why it had snuck into the old house. He griped at her and they left together. We thought she convinced him.”

“What happened?”

“They returned in the direction from which she’d come. There was no indicator that we’d been discovered, but we got out of there anyway. We were back on duty the following night because there was a meeting going in that same location. We expected to locate a handful of Taliban operatives. Instead we listened as they tortured her. She never gave away our location and denied doing anything but going after her kitten. In the end, they accused her of aiding Western forces, found her guilty, and executed her.”

“And you…”

“I could do nothing. We couldn’t go in guns blazing. We were waiting for the targets to show up. We would’ve blown our cover. I had to sit there…and listen. Shit like that changes you. It was never the same for me after that. Of all the places I’ve gone with that company, that one was the worst.” He would never get over the nauseating feeling of not being able to help someone in desperate need of it. Each blow he’d listened to her receive had been a crushing blow to his soul.

“You retired?”

“Yes. When my contract expired, I didn’t renew and came home.” Along with two other members of the same detail, including his friend with the smoked salmon.

“Did you at least get the information you sought?”

“Yes. But it didn’t help her any. They were making an example of her for the whole town. They water-boarded her when a beating didn’t get anything out of her. The sound of them striking that innocent woman. The blows…I still hear them, Lily.”

“I’m so sorry, Del.”

“With the job done, we left the next day.”

Lily wrapped her arms around him and rubbed the nape of his neck as the tension became stronger and stronger inside of him.

“She sounds like she was a very brave woman.”

There was no doubt about that, but Clay wished that she hadn’t been, not that it would’ve guaranteed she’d have lived. Maybe she’d known that.

“All she had to do was tell them. We had fire power and we could’ve taken care of ourselves, gotten the hell out of there and collapsed the tunnel. We were under orders to not engage. By the time she was executed, we were begging her to tell. I wanted to help her. She probably felt so abandoned.”

His voice broke on the last word, and a quiet sob escaped. That one little weak-sounding noise burst the dam on a reservoir of grief and shame. Lily held on tight as the words of self-hatred flowed from him, mingled with tears.

Del appreciated that she didn’t try with words to make him feel better. She didn’t try to rationalize what had happened. She just held him as he let it out, until he was done. She only said one thing.

“I know how it feels to be struck, slapped, and tortured, Del. I know what it feels like to have a gun to my head. You didn’t do any of those things to her. I wouldn’t have held it against you.”

“You’re a survivor, aren’t you?” he asked in a rough voice. His territorial instincts all fired to life. He could do something about Lily’s situation. Damned if he wouldn’t kill the bastard if he ever laid a hand on Lily again.

“Yes. It’s a process, Del. I work on it and think I’ve got it licked but sometimes it comes back just as strong. I keep working on it.”

It felt to Del as though she held him in her arms, comforting him, instead of the other way around. It was a foreign sensation, but he accepted what she offered. A little peace finally descended over his spirit. If she could do it, so could he.





Chapter Twenty-Nine




Tuesday morning, Clay looked up from the gold setting he was preparing as Lily came in through the back door. She ended her cell phone call and slid her phone into her purse. She sat on her stool and turned slowly to meet his gaze.