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Sierra chuckled. “You’re not only a man of few words, but even when you speak them, there’s a lot more behind them than most people would ever suspect.”
“I warned you I had played Scrabble. Remember?”
“Yes, yes, you did, Kilmer. I guess I was very arrogant about my own Scrabble abilities and thought I could easily win a game against you. That’s on me.”
Mace rubbed his jaw, the stubble thick, soon to become an actual beard. After three months spent in the jungle, he looked more like a Neanderthal than a civilized man upon emerging out of the Green Hell.
All three of the crew looked rough and tumble when they arrived back in Cusco for their two weeks of R&R.
He said, “I like that you aren’t too proud to admit you made a mistake.”
“Oh,” Sierra murmured wryly, “my parents believed in supporting me, building my confidence, but they had an invisible ax, and when I got too smart for my own good, they chopped me down to size in a hurry. Not in a mean way, but showing me that we all make mistakes, big and small.” Tilting her head, she studied him. “Was your father a lot like you? Did you take after him?”
He tied his boot lace. “I suppose you could say that. My Dad is a dirt farmer. His own dad was before him. I grew up with a plow in my hands, the leather reins over around my shoulders, and two big-assed mules hauling me around that hundred-acre patch of red clay dirt,” and Mace’s expression softened as he remembered those times with fondness. “He was a man of few words, just like me.”
“So that’s why you laughed when I told you about the deer eating my garden like it was nature’s buffet specifically grown for them?” she replied.
Mace met her warm smile. “Yeah, for sure.”
“Maybe I can give you some pointers on what kind of fence you might want to think about putting up around your garden.” he said.
Through a grin she couldn’t help, Sierra said, “I’d like that.”
“I’m hungry,” he said, getting up. “Feel like trying a little more food?”
She nodded. The light was shifting in the cave. And the temperature was dropping. Every once in a while, she heard the rumbles of distant thunder booming somewhere over the jungle. Her heart wouldn’t stop aching. She didn’t want to leave Mace. She wanted to keep peeling away the ever deeper and deeper layers of him; how he thought and how he viewed the world. Rubbing her aching head, Sierra knew that, after she ate, she would tumble fast into badly needed sleep. This would be the last night she’d be able to spend with Mace. The last…
Sierra moaned.
Mace was lying on the blanket beside her, his rifle within a hand’s reach next to his ruck. He insisted on sleeping next to Sierra for a lot of reasons. One of them, purely selfish. He’d given her the space age blanket, its shiny side down so as to radiate the heat of her body back into itself. He’d slept in his t-shirt and cammos, always leaving his boots on. Not sure of the time, he lifted the flap on his watch dial. It was 0200. Outside, he heard thunder crashing down nearby, overwhelming even the sound of the noisy but somehow musical waterfall. Sierra was restless. He was a light sleeper, came with the job, and every time she’d made a soft noise, any distressing sound, he’d snapped awake.
Turning over, she pushed the blanket off her. Flashes of lightning above the cave lit up its interior for brief, stuttering moments, refracted through the waterfall’s turbulent curtain. She was sweaty, mumbling something, her arms tight around her belly, legs drawn up. A nightmare? More than likely.
Just as Mace was about to reach out and slide his hand across her shoulders to try and calm her, he saw the tears running down her cheeks. What the hell? Worried it might be a side effect of her head injury, he propped himself up on one elbow, reaching out, settling a hand on her shoulder. She sobbed, tucking her head downward, chin against her chest, almost rolling into a ball. WTF?!
“Sierra?” Mace called, his voice low, urgent. He gave her a slight shake.
“No!” she screamed.
Jerking upright, Mace froze, hearing her cry echo around the cave. His heart banged once to underscore the utter grief her heard in her voice. Afraid she’d scream again, not knowing who might be around to hear it, he moved closer to her, both hands on her shoulders. He stopped her rocking motion. Was she having a stroke? Hell, he didn’t know. Now, Mace wished Nate or Sacha were here. They would know if it was her head injury doing this or not.
“Sierra!” he whispered near her ear. “Wake up!” and he gave her a strong-enough shake, but not so much as to damage her neck or injure her more than she already was. He heard her give a low, keening cry, like an animal that had been mortally wounded. And then, she stiffened.
“It’s all right,” he soothed roughly, “it’s all right. Are you in pain? Is it your head?”
A partial sob caught in her throat, and she struggled upright. “Oh, God… oh, God…” she whimpered. Sierra pushed the loose hair away from her face, tears streaming down it. “Not now… not now… I’m so sorry, Mace…”
“Are you all right?” he gripped her shoulders. Another flash of lightning illuminated her face. It was frozen with grief, her eyes dark and large, tears spilling from them down over her cheeks. “It is your head?” he demanded, panic eating at him.
“N-no,” she choked out, placing her hand against her mouth, knowing sound carried.
“Then what?” Mace asked thickly, his emotions unravelling. What the hell had scared her this badly? His heart was pounding with an unaccustomed urgency. He heard her moan and she crawled into his arms, seeking, finding him in the darkness. Surprised, his arms automatically swept her up against him. Her sobs drowned in his t-shirt, her fingers digging into his chest as she shook.
Confused, Mace didn’t know what to do or say. He did the only thing he knew and that was to run his trembling hand across her shoulders and lightly caress her thick hair. As he skimmed her shoulders and upper back, her sobs lessened, and she began to relax. She felt good against him. For a moment, Mace closed his eyes, picturing them on that velvet quilt over her bed, holding her, kissing her, stretching her out beside him to love her.
All he wanted to do was kiss Sierra. Kiss her and feel how her lips felt beneath his mouth. She burrowed into him, between his legs, pressing herself against him, brow against his jaw. Mace could feel her warm tears wetting the material of his t-shirt, could hear her wincing inwardly with every soft hitch as she struggled not to cry. He knew all too well that, for the wounded, the nightmares often came.
She’d led a dangerous life as a sniper. PTSD came in many forms but, whatever its format, it was trauma and grief expressing itself in their sleeping world, making them revisit and relive the same thing over and over again. He wondered obliquely what her own trauma was about. He thought it might have to do with Jeb. It would make sense that it was.
