Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(79)

Which didn’t tell Mac a f*cking thing—other than the people here had too damn much time on their hands.

“Where”—Mac asked again with cold deliberation, far too aware that Amy and her kids had stepped up next to him—“are we?”

The orange-haired kid smiled at Amy, and Mac went rigid. There was far too much male appreciation in the grease monkey’s eyes—he had half a mind to pound that masculine interest out of the little punk.

“It isn’t so much where you are, as what you’re in.” The kid smiled conspiratorially at Amy, and it was all Mac could do to not flatten him right then and there.

His internal explosive reaction sent up warning flares. All this f*cking proximity to the woman had escalated the intensity of his hunger—and apparently his possessiveness as well. Time to take a long, permanent step back. Reconfigure. Avoid the woman as much as humanly possible.

“Okay . . .”Amy said slowly, apparently deciding to play along. “What are we in?”

But Wolf was the one to answer. “Shadow Mountain.”




Rawls stared at the computer screen displaying the Doppler echocardiogram of Faith’s heart. Like the EKG printout, it indicated a healthy, completely regenerated muscle. Full function of the left ventricle—with a normal ejection fraction of over seventy-five percent. The speed and strength of the electrical pulses passing through the cardio muscle on the electrocardiogram had been well within the normal range too. The electrical pulses had been strong, steady, with no suggestion of tachycardia. The ultrasound hadn’t picked up any abnormalities in the organ’s musculature—exterior or interior.

Unbelievable.

Every test showed a perfect heart, in prime condition.

No evidence of a heart transplant. No indication of ventricular tachycardia—sweet Jesus, no sign of tachycardia at all.

“As you can see,” Dr. Kerry said, reaching out to slide a finger down the computer screen, “the left ventricle and atrium show no sign of the previous atrophy or damage.”

With a slight nod, Rawls switched his attention to the second monitor with an image of Faith’s heart taken almost a year earlier. The image showed distinct diminishing of function of the left ventricle. If he hadn’t known the films were of the same heart, he would have thought they’d been taken from two separate people.

He didn’t ask how they’d managed to acquire a copy of Faith’s medical history, including all the results from her latest physical, or how they’d managed to get their hands on the file so quickly—for Christ’s sake, they’d had it on hand before Faith had even stepped through their medical-bay doors. The medical facility, along with the impressive array of equipment it housed, was positive proof Wolf’s people could get their hands on pretty much anything they deemed necessary. Including Faith’s prescriptions, as her meds had been waiting for her too.

They’d stepped off the helicopter into a huge aircraft-parking zone, and from there, he and Faith, along with Amy and her kids, had been shuttled across the massive facility to the medical wing. The last two hours had been one round of tests after another. He hadn’t seen Cosky, Zane, or Mac since disembarkment, and when he asked, Dr. Kerry had said they were with the beniinookee. Further explanation had identified the word as one meaning a high-ranking officer, which could mean Wolf—or whomever Wolf reported to . . . if he reported to anyone.

Faith’s hand slipped into his and clung. She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand. How can it be completely normal now? This doesn’t make sense. They sewed that heart inside my chest. There has to be evidence of that.”

You’d think so . . . but there wasn’t.

Far too aware of the warm, soft weight of Faith’s hand cradled in his, Rawls tried to concentrate on the conversation. She sounded shell-shocked. He didn’t blame her.

Admitting that her heart may have stopped and that Kait might have gotten it beating again had been hard enough for her.

But this . . . sweet Jesus, this took Kait’s ability into an entirely new realm.

Intellectually, he’d known there had to be some insanely strong mojo in Kait’s hands. She’d healed the damage from those bullets to his chest, after all. Even dragged him back from the dead.

But seeing the miraculous results of her healing power on the screen took it out of the abstract and into the here and now.

“Now that we have a baseline for your heart, we can move on to the exertion testing,” Kerry said, pushing his glasses up with his forefinger. He turned from the bank of computer screens to smile at Faith. “Later today we’ll get you on a treadmill and hook you up for monitoring, take a look at that heart of yours in action. But so far everything looks normal.”

He turned back to the screen to survey both sets of images before shaking his head, an expression of awe creeping across his face. “It’s remarkable, Commander, the strength of your sister’s ability. She’s markedly stronger than Will or One Bird.”

Commander? Obviously the doctor wasn’t addressing him. He turned, unsurprised to find Wolf standing behind them, his huge body swallowing what little space remained in the computer room.

And then Kerry’s comment registered.

Sister? Kait was Wolf’s sister?

Well shit, of course she was. How could he have been so obtuse? The facial resemblance was strong, now that he’d thought to look for it.