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“Oh, that’s great! She just had a baby. I want to see their little girl!”
Alex smiled. Their baby is beautiful,” he said warmly. “And they are so happy with her.”
“That’s good,” Sierra murmured, feeling tiredness wash through her. The blankets were warm. She was safe and could let down. Alex, being the gentle giant he was, was soothing with his bedside manner. She’d never seen the man angry or upset. It was as if he were a healing energy, wherever he went. Maybe it was his combat medic personality.
She said, “That’s in five days. I’ll be able to attend. I’ll call Sky and let her know I’m coming. See if she wants me to bring something up for the casserole dinner that we always have.”
“That would be good,” Alex agreed. “There, you are finished, Sierra.” He looked proudly at his handiwork. “It looks very good. I’m going to dress it and then place a waterproof bandage over it. I will need to see you in three days. We can meet here at Shield. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, pardoner. You’re the best.”
“I am sure Jack will expect a sit rep, situation report, on your mission, but I will tell him I’m giving you five days off due to the wound before it is to be handed into him. Okay?”
Sierra reached out and touched Alex’s thick forearm sprinkled with its dark hair. “You’re the best. You’re SUCH a hen mother, Kazak.”
Alex grinned and said, “It is ‘mother hen’, Sierra.”
“Somehow,” she said, sitting up, smiling, “some of your converted slang has taken hold around here and now everyone is slaying our slang. This is all your fault, you know?”
Chuckling, he nodded, placing items in an organized way back into his medical kit. “I am trying very hard not to slay the slang, but every day, someone will drop by my office and give me a new saying to see what I do with it.”
“In hopes that you’ll say it backwards?” she chuckled. The humor in Alex’s hazel gaze made her feel good. He had a good touch with people and everyone at Shield loved him dearly because he could take a joke and laugh with them.
“I suppose so,” he said, grinning. “Did you pick up any Somali language? Some of their slang to share with me?”
Easing off the table, she said, “No, unfortunately I didn’t. But,” she gave him an evil look, “one of the SEALs knows the language and he put a few down on paper and gave it to me. It’s in my rifle bag. I’ll get them to you when I see you later this week.”
“Right now,” he said, patting her shoulder gently, “I require you to go home and rest and sleep. Do a lot of both. Okay? You’re still up on that cortisol cliff.”
She tested her leg and it felt so much better. “I can’t fool you, can I, Alex?”
“No, not when it comes to anything having to do with combat. Come, I will walk you to your car.”
Sierra sat up, gasping. She was covered with sweat, the flannel nightgown she wore soaked through. Wildly looking around the bedroom of her cabin, she saw that it was barely light outside the curtained window. Rubbing her face, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would leap out of her chest, she muffled a frustrated sound. The nightmare had been the Somalis chasing the HVT team through the city. They were racing for their rally point when they were jumped by a group of machete-wielding attackers just outside the city.
Making another sound, Sierra pushed the covers aside. As she lifted her legs across her queen-sized bed, pain rippled up her right calf. Dammit! She’d been back five days and every night this same scenario stalked her dreams. Her feet hit the cool cedar floor. It was stabilizing. Looking at the clock on the bed stand, she pushed her thick hair away from her face, some stray strands sticking in rivulets of sweat. It was nearly 0800, eighta.m. Helluva way to celebrate the New Year’s party. She’d stayed overnight at Sky and Cal’s home, driving back to her place the next morning. The same nightmare had occurred at their home, too.
Pushing out of bed, ignoring the pain that came when she put her full weight down on her right leg, Sierra headed for the bathroom. She had to get out of her fear-drenched, smelly nightgown, and wash her hair. Desperate to be rid of the sour odor off her skin and clothing, she muttered a curse. Wrinkling her nose, she entered the tiled bathroom, feeling the electrically heated floor beneath the bare soles of her feet. They warmed. Shutting the door, Sierra pulled the bamboo curtains aside and looked outside at the coming dawn. Her cabin sat on a hill, ensconced with bare, deciduous trees, their gray limbs lifting skyward. She saw a cloudless sky. An oak tree, one that sat near the north side of the cabin, had its branches covered in ice and layers of snow. It looked beautiful to her. Turning, Sierra knew the drill. This wasn’t the first time, and it wasn’t going to be the last time, she had nightmares. It was part of her business. As her mother had told her, dreams were the way people worked through their emotions about something that had happened to them.
She pulled the glass door open, wanting so badly to get beneath the double rain sprinklers located on either side of the huge room. There was a tiled bench as well, and she gratefully sat down, double-checking the waterproof bandage on her calf. Her knife-wound was healing quickly, and she appreciated how good Alex was. The scar was just a thin red line now under the surgical tape holding it together.
As she showered, the warming droplets soaking into the hair running halfway down her back, the water in streams across her face, Sierra tried to put out of her mind what Jack Driscoll had told her at the New Year’s party. He’d said an urgent South American mission had just been handed to them by the CIA. There was an immediate need for a sniper to join a three-man hunter-killer Special Forces team in the highlands of Peru. Jack had said he was targeting her for the mission. Was her leg healed-up enough to take the assignment?
Sierra washed her face with her favorite bath gel. The one scented with a Plumaria fragrance. Inhaling that wonderful fragrance, she quickly washed the fear-sweat away, luxuriating in the steam, humidity and heat around her body. Did she want to take that mission? Jack had said that no other sniper was available. They were all out on other assignments. She was the only one left. Grimacing, she didn’t feel good about it. Her gut had never led her wrong. Jack seemed to think it was a straightforward op. One certainly well within her skillset to handle. Best of all, she was fluent in Spanish, the language of Peru. She was the perfect operator for the mission.
Washing away the bubbles from her face, Sierra quickly scrubbed the rest of her body. Her ribs were still sore but improving. The bruises along her ribcage were turning from blue and purple to green and yellow. Alex had looked at them approvingly, satisfied that, in another week, she’d be fine. Frowning, Sierra realized she’d been dragging her feet about the up-and-coming mission. Why? Whenever she got a bad vibe on a mission, it usually went to hell in a handbasket sooner or later. Or worse, a busted op.
She’d had a bad feeling about the Somali mission, too, and look what had happened. Her mother was very psychic, and Sierra had her DNA. She could sense things when others could not. Feel things, and yet not be able to interpret exactly what she was sensing. As a sniper in the Marine Corps for many years, her intuition had saved her life far too many times to be mere fantasy. Her full mouth thinned as she reached for the shampoo that was also scented with Plumaria. Whenever she ignored her intuition, things didn’t go well. Her heart squeezed with guilt and anguish as she began to wash her long, thick black hair.
The last time she hadn’t listened to her intuition, it had gotten Jeb killed on a mountain in the Hindu Kush. Sierra should have said something sooner. Should have… he died because she’d ignored her sense of danger nearby. Why? Why had she done that? Jeb had died in her arms, and she’d been unable to save him. The man she’d loved for five years, had worked with as a sniper and spotter team all that time, had bled out in her arms. And there’d been nothing Sierra could do to halt the bleeding or save his life. Even now, her heart wrenched in her chest, reliving that event.
That had happened several years ago. And, on some days, Sierra almost forgot about it, about losing the man she’d loved. And, on other days, like right now, the grief of the loss of Jeb brought her to her knees. She missed him so much. Missed his Tennessee laid-back southern-boy way of talking and outlook on life. His easy-going sense of humor. The kindness and love he always bestowed upon her. The only reason they hadn’t married was that the Marine Corps would have separated them. Forced them apart. Because husband-wife sniper teams were not allowed.
Tears formed in her eyes. She missed Jeb. His deep love for her, his gentleness, his respect for her as an equal, all mixed with the soothing water from the shower heads above.
At times like this, when a mission had gone sideways and her life had been in danger, Sierra found that the nightmares always brought back memories of Jeb. When he’d been alive, he would hold her, murmur soft words against her hair, give her a sense of safety in their dangerous world. Because he’d loved her with all his life. And he’d given his life so that she could live.
CHAPTER 2
