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“Let her go, man,” Nick advised. “I mean, look at you.” He raised a hand in an L-shape like an artist’s viewfinder. “I only dig theladies, you know that, but I tell ya, you’re like a freakin’ male model.”
Ridge burst out laughing; it felt good, his first laugh in days. Nick was hardly exaggerating; with Arctic blue eyes, short-cropped, jet-black hair, and the physique only a Navy SEAL could boast, anyone could see that for Ridge Dawson, attracting the ladies would be laughably easy. “I’m just going to take it slow, thanks, Senior. Ain’t no need to complicate things again.”
Their radio blared into life so noisily that Nick had to turn it down. “Jesus, what are those morons doing up there?”
It was their observation team up on the ridge. “Grey Moon Five, Grey Moon Five, this is Blue Gopher. I have hostiles at my twelve o’clock, two point five miles distant. I say again...”
They were up and out of the tent in moments, donning jackets against the dawn’s cold. “Should we wait, or head straight up to the top?” Ridge asked, grabbing his weapon.
“Let’s see what the Lieutenant does, but if there really are hostiles, we gottaget some,”Nick drawled.
Before they could get confirmation, a jet approached from behind them, loud and closing in fast. Their radio caught the pilot’s transmissions as he maneuvered for a quick strike. Finally, after weeks of waiting and freezing, the SEALs were bringing in some help, fast and hard.
“Blue Gopher, have your target, engaging.” Ridge and Nick both knew what would come next for the terrorists hiding down in the valley: the silent fall of a precision bomb, a huge explosion, and then obliteration. Ridge felt the thrill of a hunt well executed; now it was time to turn the dogs loose and get some long-awaited payback.
Unable to see the target area from their camp, the two men had to wait for the sounds of success, and the radio call which would follow: “Targets are down, repeat...” It would make their work, their sweat and sacrifice and terror and boredom and heartache, all worth it. Entirely, jubilantly worth it. Both men found they were holding their breath.
Ridge turned toward the approaching roar and saw the speeding jet rising back into the sky above.Too early,said an anxious voice in his head.It’s two miles to the target. No. No. No!He turned to Nick and saw the Senior Chief open his mouth to yell as an orange haze surrounded them, searing hot, blinding white, and burning them up.
Then everything went black.
CHAPTERTWO
Raven Samuelson reckonedthat her Pontiac’s beaten-up engine had been running funny for about 400 miles, but the trooper of an estate car had resolutely refused to quit. She felt almost as though she were dragging the car through these endless miles, willing it to the finish line of this lonely marathon. Her back ached like fury, and the Pontiac was doing little better; the gas gauge showed nearly empty, and the windshield wipers had given up the ghost somewhere south of Waco. But she had made it. Route 539 had taken her straight into town, and now she followed the last few steps of Maggie’s directions and turned gratefully onto her friend’s street. It had been the longest journey of her life.
Pendale Springs was in the sleepiest hour of an early fall afternoon. The streets were quiet, most people taking their ease indoors, and with good reason; in this unseasonable heat, the car’s thermometer was trying to make up its mind between 96 and 97°F. Thankfully, the battered Pontiac’s air conditioning was among its most resilient functions. Unsure where to put the car, given the lack of a driveway, Raven simply pulled up on the street in front of the simple, one-story house and honked.
“Who’s making all that racket?” Maggie emerged beaming from the front door and jogged happily through their overgrown front yard to Raven’s car. “Look who it is! Wes? Come on out here, Raven’s finally landed!” The tired traveler slowly pushed her way out of the driver’s seat and Maggie gave her a moment to stretch, grinning from to ear to ear, before she clasped her friend close.
“Honey, I couldn’t be more glad to see you!” They hugged for a long moment, swinging comfortingly from side to side, letting the reality of Raven’s arrival slowly sink in. “What a drive, babe. This old heap put on a good show, but I don’t think she could do it again.”
“We ain’t gonna need her to do it again,” Maggie reassured her, stepping back to examine her friend like an aunt measuring the growth of a favorite niece. “You got a new home here, honey. You’ll be right as rain in no time at all, don’t you worry.” She kissed Raven’s cheek and giggled like a schoolgirl contemplating a fun sleepover. “Wes?” she yelled at the house. “Are yourootedto that damned chair, or what?”
Weston Bates appeared in the doorway shirtless and wearing an old baseball cap. “Hey, Raven! Welcome to Texas, darlin’. We’re mighty glad you made it.”
Maggie stood with hand on hip, regarding her boyfriend with the practiced disdain she reserved for the men she was truly crazy about. “Well, if it isn’t my knight in shining jean shorts. Get on down here, you chivalrous devil, and help this young lady with her bags.”
Maggie had given the matter perhaps three seconds’ thought before agreeing to have Raven stay with them. Old friends can hear it in each other’s voices when they’re truly in need, and she’d never met a girl in more need than Raven. Anyone who would pull up stakes — in the middle of a freezing October night in Chicago, no less — and drive 1,200 miles to the other end of the country would only have done so if things had gotten urgent. She knew enough about Raven’s family situation to draw her own conclusions, but she knew Raven would tell her what she needed to know, in time.
“Mi casa es su casa,” Maggie assured her as Wes set down her bags in their small spare room. “I got Wes to clean this place out yesterday. We could damn near have a yard sale with all the junk he found.”
“Yeah!” Wes enthused. “Got me some baseball cards from nineteenforty-eightthat should fetch a pretty penny, I’m guessing.”
“The prettier the better,” Maggie quipped. “This ain’t the Ritz, darlin’, but it’s home for us, and now it’s home for you. Come on in and get yourself settled.”
“Thanks so much, Maggie.”
“No thanks needed. Provided you get yourself a shower, sooner rather than later. You smell of Pontiac.”
Maggie fixed them a simple supper of burgers and salad while Wes took a look at the Pontiac’s aberrant engine. Raven had been looking forward to a long, hot shower since leaving the Super 8 near Springfield, Missouri, at the crack of dawn. She let the luxuriant water fall soothingly over her tired body, soaping up her skin and washing the day’s travel from her auburn hair. Looking down as infrequently as she could, she tried to ignore the bruises. They would heal, she knew, like the others, and no faster for her lamenting them.
“Gotyourself a tough oldvee-culthere, Miss Samuelson. I ain’t never seen an odometer that measures in seven figures!” Wes joked. “Reckon she just needs a servicing, maybe some new parts in the radiator, but it won’t cost too much. I got a buddy I’ll ask to take a look right quick.”
Catching up over dinner was deliberately one-sided, with Raven asking all the questions. Maggie and Wes had been living together for a year, she knew, since Wes’s previous landlord had decided to sell the property and invest elsewhere. “He was a son of a bitch anyways,” Wes remembered. “Always moaning about how I ran the AC too much. I mean, this ain’t exactly Alaska, right?” The twenty-eight-year-old had found steady employment with a local carpentry firm straight out of high school, and its owner had treated him like a son, lending him a car to travel to jobs in San Antonio and always making sure he and Maggie had enough to live on.
“How’s things at the high school?” Raven asked.
“Fine, I guess. There ain’t never enough money, but I just love the kids.” Maggie worked as an administrator at the tiny Pendale High, only ten minutes away, and had been fighting a running battle for what seemed like years with the local education board. “Getting what we need is like trying to get blood from a stone,” she sighed. “I ain’t giving up, though! They won’t be getting the better ofme.” She raised her fists like a prizefighter and sparred with Wes, jabbing him in the ribs and then kissing his forehead, but jabbing again, below the belt. Raven looked on in amusement.
