Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(94)

This time she was the one to stroke his cheek. “I have to,” she said again. “If the machine is operational, they’ll need me.” She paused and leaned up to brush a kiss across his lips. “Besides, you’ll be there beside me, right? Keeping me safe.”

He flinched, memories of Sarah’s empty, dying eyes flashing through his mind. “You’d be wise not to count on me for that.”

A frown wrinkled her forehead and her dark eyes sharpened. But she just shrugged. “You’ve saved my life twice so far. I’d say you’re a safe bet.”

“My sister would disagree with that.” The admission was out before he could call it back.

“Why?” Her voice was neutral, but the palm she pressed against his heart was warm and calming.

“Because she died because of me. I couldn’t protect her.”

Maybe she expected something similar, because she didn’t look surprised, nor did she pull back. Her hand remained warm and encouraging against his chest. And her voice was the epitome of casual. “When was this?”

Somehow her lack of reaction made it easier to force the whole sordid story out. “Just before my final year of residency. Sarah was just startin’ medical school, and I knew the gruelin’ hours she was facin’, so I convinced her to join me and a friend, Carl, on his family’s yacht.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice unbearably gentle, as though she already knew what was coming, or thought she did.

“The boat was surrounded and captured by a flotilla of pirates. Those aboard were held for ransom. Carl and I were left alone.” Except for constant vicious beatings and the mental torture of watching what was happening to their loved ones, while being powerless to stop it. “But they . . . used . . . Sarah and Bitsy—Carl’s girlfriend—they used them over and over again, by the dozens.” His sister’s white, frozen face and hunched body as he had cradled her in his arms burst so clearly into his mind he could actually smell the blood in her phantom hair. “And I couldn’t stop it.” He could hear the hollowness in his voice.

“Oh Rawls—”

He flinched at the tenderness on her face.

“They released you after the ransom was paid?” The question was matter-of-fact, and he relaxed slightly.

“Hell no, that would have been too honorable for those bastards.” His grimace was more a snarl. “I’m sure they planned to kill us. But Carl’s brother was in the Corps and he had contacts. HQ2 cleared ST4 to take down the ship and rescue survivors. Those malicious bastards never knew what hit them.” For a second, the sound of close-quarters gunfire and screams filled his head.

“Your sister?” Her voice was tentative.

“She died hours before ST4 scaled the yacht.”

“And you’ve blamed yourself ever since.” But rather than understanding, her brisk voice was full of . . . exasperation?

What in sweet Jesus’s name . . .

He frowned and zeroed in on her face. Yep, definitely exasperation, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it. The unbelievability of her reaction banished the ghosts.

“So tell me, Lieutenant Rawlings, how many pirates were holding you hostage?” she asked in that same annoyingly exasperated voice.

“Hell, I don’t know, two dozen, but—”

“Two dozen, well then, of course you should have been able to defend your sister and defeat them all singlehandedly at age—what?” He could almost see her doing some quick estimation. “Twenty-four? Twenty-five?”

“Twenty-four,” he snapped. “You don’t know—”

“What I know is that that’s some mighty fine hubris you’ve got going on there,” she shot back.

What the hell!

He jolted upright and since she was lying on top of him, she did too, until they were sitting there, chest to chest, face to face, and eye to eye.

“Well, isn’t that what you’re telling me?” she asked, not backing down in the slightest. She lifted an eyebrow. “That even as an untrained twenty-four-year-old with no military experience, you could have subdued twenty-four heavily armed pirates? Who are you? Superman?”

“Of course I couldn’t . . .” He stumbled to a stop, suddenly seeing the trap she’d set for him.

“Exactly,” she said, the exasperation replaced by tenderness. “You couldn’t do anything. There were twenty-four armed men between your sister and you. Sometimes we have to accept that things are out of our control.”

“Jesus.” He collapsed back down to the bed, taking her with him. “That blitz attack was sneaky as hell.”

But to his surprise, he could actually feel a slight loosening inside himself, the easing of an ancient ache.

“Yeah, well, I knew you wouldn’t listen to reason.” The silence that settled between them was contented, rather than confrontational. “I’m sorry about your sister,” she said after a few seconds.

“Me too.” He forced the words through his tight throat and leaned down to brush his mouth across her forehead. “I’m sorry about Marcy and”—what had their names been?—“Bekka and Julio.”

“Me too.” Her voice sounded hoarse. She cleared it and slanted him a shrewd look. “When are you telling your buddies this entire rescue is based off information provided by a ghost?”