Page 97 of Keeping a Warrior

“You did the best you could,” she whispered against his temple.

With a muffled sob, Rhys lifted his hands and dug his fingers into her forearms. Devon didn’t try to speak, just held him tight, and when he tugged her around and into his lap, she went willingly.

He clutched her, burying his face in her dusty, sweaty hair. “They were hurt so bad,” he choked out. “I just couldn’t—”

“I know, baby.” Devon let her hands stroke his back, his chest, any part of him she could reach, her own cheeks wet. “You did the best you could.”

They huddled together until darkness fell and neither one of them had any tears left.

Chapter Seventeen

“Time to get up.”

Devon jolted awake when Rhys gently touched her ankle. She rolled over and stretched, peering through the predawn light at his tall silhouette.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. “Getting up.”

As she swung her legs over the side of the cot, he sat down next to her and drew her close. “Did you keep everything warm for me?”

“You know it.”

With a soft groan, he laid his cheek on her hair. “One more week. Then it’s you, me and a big, soft, clean bed.”

Devon scratched her newest flea bites ruefully. “Shower, soap and a razor.”

They both sighed, then Devon pulled her boots on while Rhys tugged his off. He stretched out fully clothed on the grungy mattress she’d just vacated, his hands stacked under his head, watching her as she buttoned her uniform blouse.

“Be careful today,” he murmured, already half-asleep.

“I will.”

Devon gathered her equipment and sat at the small table checking over her weapons and ammo supply while Rhys snored noisily from behind the curtain. After she was all jocked up, she knelt next to him and kissed his forehead, smiling when he turned on his side to hug the pillow like he hugged her on those rare occasions they shared a bed anymore.

For months now they’d been like ships passing in the night. Since the EOD guys had determined it was a recent IED emplacement, the SEALs and Rhys were constantly on the move. It was an op tempo too fast-paced for Devon to keep up with, and recognizing that, she didn’t argue on those times they left her behind. They’d disappear for weeks, returning filthy, smelly and grim-faced from chasing an enemy so wily, so well-entrenched, that stopping them seemed an almost impossible task.

She had been keeping busy with the women of the village, especially the ones who’d lost their children to the IED. As for most Afghans, though, violence and loss weren’t anything new to them, and sadly, the deaths of their children was just something else to be endured in a life already full of hardship.

Today Devon was scheduled to accompany a visiting detachment of Green Berets up to a nearby village in the mountains so their battalion commander could meet with the elders. Despite her exhaustion, a tingle of excitement went through her. This was essentially a dress rehearsal for when she joined Beck’s ODA.

Out in front of the Humvees, she stopped in her tracks at the sight of Matt and Shane loitering next to one and chugging cans of Rip-It. They were heavily bearded, and looked exhausted, but were standing close together, shoulders touching. Matt was almost leaning against Shane.

The sight made her happy, mixed as it was with a sudden yearning to crawl back into bed and cuddle up with Rhys.

“You going with?” she asked, surprised. They’d just come in from a forty-eight-hour recon patrol.

“Hell, yeah,” Matt grunted. “Not letting you go anywhere alone.”

Devon sighed in annoyance. “Rhys put you up to this?”

Matt vehemently denied it, but Devon knew he had. He had clinic hours or else he’d be here himself, she was sure of it.

I’ll smack him upside his head later.

“All right, people. Mount up!”

“Mind if I drive?” Matt asked her. “If I sit still doing nothing, I’m so gonna fall asleep.”

Devon waved him toward the driver’s seat while Shane climbed into the gun turret. At her feet, she stashed a ruck containing some treats for any children they might come across.