SEALed With A Kiss(37)

“Good to fucking know. We’ll make a run down the alleys toward the base. If we can get close, they’ll pick us up.”

No choice. Like his old Master Chief used to say, pain is just weakness leaving the body. And Chris hoped it would leave really goddamned soon.





Chapter Two




‡


Saint muttered in Cajun French the entire time the doc stitched up his shoulder. Chris, who understood every word his CO said, lay on his side with a way bigger piece of him taken out, but he wasn’t telling Saint that without a running start.

“Any word?” Chris asked as the man checked his phone for the thousandth time.

“Just the same sit around and wait.”

He stared at the ceiling, the way he’d been for the last two hours since they’d arrived after being picked up a couple of miles from base by a truckload of Marines.

The wait would kill him this time if he let it, especially because he was so close to being homeward bound.

Except no helo was coming this way again for days. Normally, the prospect of spending Christmas OUTCONUS was perfect—had been since his mother died.

But not this year. He didn’t want to do that to Jamie.

She’d deal with it, he knew, but that wasn’t the point. She’d dealt with way too much in her life not to have this go right. She deserved it. But the little boy was breech—he could feel it. Happened sometime last week, and Jamie would find out about it today during the doctor’s appointment.

He’d insisted she visit traditional docs, would have whether or not he’d been home the entire pregnancy. He knew his brothers were back stateside, which was a comfort. Although they were adopted, they couldn’t be any closer if they were blood. Together from the age of fourteen, along with Chris’s mom and dad, they’d moved to Virginia and attempted to settle down.

Until his mom, Maggie, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died nine months later. All of them still felt that loss acutely.

Finally, the doc finished with Saint and headed toward Chris, who pulled the blood stained packing gauze from the wound and turned to give the doc a better angle with the stitches. “I could do this myself—” Chris started.

“Yeah, but then I’d be in the middle of this godforsaken country for nothing,” Doc drawled. He was from Mobile, Alabama, in for fifteen years—and probably until they forced him out.

Chris knew he wasn’t a lifer, but the teams had been good both to and for him.

The hospital was old with ancient looking equipment compared to what they had in Virginia and Germany. The sandstorm had blown through just after they’d arrived, trapping them there for hours. It was over now, but neither he nor Saint was crazy enough to drive around here in the dark unless it was absolutely necessary.

And unless there was a tank involved. He could definitely hot-wire a tank if he could find one.

“You all right?’ Saint’s Cajun drawl cut through the tension.

“Fucking fantastic,” Chris muttered.

There was silence for a long moment and then Saint said, “There’s a helo set to pick up some Deltas at 0400, about twenty miles from here. It’s our best bet.”

Chris glanced up at him. “Do they know we’re coming?”

“Reid says he’ll wait as long as they can.” Saint looked out the window. “A couple of Land Rovers out there look like they might make the trip.”

They would have to. Chris would make sure of it. “Well take it as far as it goes.”

*

The nightmare grabbed Jamie by the throat and refused to let go. It was six months ago and she was back outside the school, and PJ and Kevin were trapped inside by the man who’d made her life hell since she was little… they were trapped and she couldn’t help them. And Chris was nowhere to be found and she was completely panicked.

She woke with a start and grabbed her belly, as if to reassure herself that things on that front were fine. She hated that dream, more so because it was all real except for Chris being missing. He’d been the one to save them all that day and rescue her and PJ from a man who’d been trying to kill them their entire lives.

The man who’d adopted her and PJ, Kevin, had admitted that he’d been to blame for some of what had happened, indirectly, and while she and her sister had forgiven him, he still kept his distance, his guilt too great to overcome at the present time. He’d come around eventually, she knew that. And she’d stop having nightly reminders of the past, too.

“You don’t need to be saved,” she said firmly, out loud, trying to convince herself. “Baby boy, we’ll be fine if you come out now. Daddy will be home soon.”