Hungry Like the Wolf(69)

“No,” he said. “They’re all dead.”

Crap. Why the hell had she asked that question? Couldn’t she have just left well enough alone?

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject.”

He gently twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. It was a long time ago anyway. It hurts to think about, but not like it used to.”

She rested her head on his chest again, furiously trying to think of something that would help change the topic of the conversation. But her mind was completely blank.

“It was back in August, 1996.”

Gage’s voice was soft and so full of sadness that she almost stopped him, but she didn’t. If he wanted to talk, she’d shut up and listen.

“We were supposed to be on a simple training rotation in Kuwait. You know, run around, shoot some blanks, cross-train with the Kuwaitis and Saudis. But for some reason, somebody with a star on his shoulder decided to send First Platoon up to the northern part of Iraq—the part that’s called Iraqi Kurdistan now—to conduct some goodwill development with the regional Kurd forces. My squad leader tried to point out it wasn’t even a Ranger job, but nobody really cared about that, so we were sent up there anyway.”

He fell silent for so long that Mac thought he was finished. But then she realized she could hear his heart beating fast beneath her ear.

“It wasn’t so bad at first. Kind of fun, actually,” he continued. “The platoon leader had each of the squads farmed out, working with a different part of the Kurdish militia. They certainly needed our help, so none of us minded. Then on the thirty-first, Saddam got a hair up his ass and decided to send his forces up to the town of Irbil for a little ethnic cleansing. Right where our squad was set up. Nine of us, stuck right in the middle of a place we really weren’t supposed to be, with no support and almost no ammo.”

Mac held her breath, waiting.

“As you can imagine it didn’t go well for us. We were fighting side by side with the Kurds, and we put up one hell of a defense, but they didn’t have much in the way of heavy equipment, and we didn’t have any. A whole lot of people died in a really short period of time, including every member of my squad but me. My squad leader died in my arms as I tried to drag him out.”

Mac was crying, and didn’t have a clue why. She hadn’t known those men. But Gage had, and their deaths had hurt him, so she hurt, too. “August of 1996,” she murmured. “Isn’t that what they called Desert Strike? I remember reading about it somewhere, but I don’t remember seeing anything about any US ground casualties. We just dropped a bunch of bombs and fired off some cruise missiles.”

He snorted. “Yeah, that’s what they called it. But the bombing and cruise missiles happened in the days after the initial attack. Didn’t do us or the Kurds any good. My squad was wiped out by then and I just barely dragged my shot-up ass back to the extraction point in time to hook up with the rest of the platoon. They’d been pretty beat up, too, but nothing like my squad. The worst part? The official report reads that my squad members all died in a training accident down in Kuwait. No one wanted to admit the US even had ground forces up in the Kurdish region.”

Crap. “Is that why you decided to get out?”

He hesitated for a long time before answering. “That had a lot to do with it. I just couldn’t be part of the big machine anymore. They didn’t even care about us.”

Mac understood Gage a little better now than she had before. How he’d risen so fast through the Dallas PD ranks, why he’d taken over the SWAT team and rebuilt it in his image. They were an organization that took care of their own above all else.

His arm tightened around her. “Sorry I unloaded on you like that. I’m not sure why I did. It definitely doesn’t qualify as romantic pillow talk.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I get the feeling you’ve needed to tell somebody that story for a long time. I’m just glad it was me.”

“I guess you’re right.” He sighed. “I try not to think too much about that part of my past. I didn’t even realize it was weighing on me until I told you about it.”

She tilted her face up to kiss him. It was amazing how close she felt to him after that little peek into his past. It made her want to learn everything about him. “You can tell me anything.”

He gazed at her so deeply and thoughtfully she almost teared up again. “I might just take you up on that offer sometime.”

She rested her head on his chest again, smiling as she realized his heart was now beating in the strong, slow rhythm she was used to. “Anytime you’re ready.”