On Fire. Lindsay McKenna

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      * * *

      WHEN MIKE ARRIVED back at ICU forty minutes later, he found a chair sitting beside Khat’s bed. It hadn’t been there before. He’d left all his weapons in a nearby armory locker, not wanting to scare the hell out of the medical staff. This time, he had on clean cammies and his baseball cap, and was wearing a sidearm only, plus his KA-BAR knife in a sheath on his lower left leg.

      When he entered, he moved to Khat’s bedside and picked up her hand. Because he was clean, he could trail his fingers across the high slope of her cheek, feel the velvet of her flesh beneath his pads. Her hair had been washed and someone had tried to comb it into order. He leaned over, kissing her brow. “I love you, Khat. I can tell you right now the food at the cafeteria is about on par with those MREs we were eating.”

      He heard the monitor’s beeping change. Looking up, he saw her blood pressure drop below two-hundred. Her pulse rate was going down, too. Now, he wondered if talking with her, holding her hand, threading his fingers through her hair, all helped in some small way.

      The door opened.

      Mike turned. A small nurse with dark brown eyes and black hair smiled hesitantly. “Petty Officer Tarik?”

      “Yes?”

      “Um, we just wanted you to know that when you were in here before, and you touched your fiancée’s hand and kissed her...”

      Mike gave her a hard look, expecting to be told it was against some asinine reg that he couldn’t kiss her. “What?” he snapped.

      The nurse jerked, her eyes rounding. “I...uh...well we noticed her vitals going down.” She quickly pointed to the monitors. “We thought it was a good sign and we brought in the chair, hoping you’d stay a while with her?”

      Mike relaxed and erased the scowl on his face. He knew he could look like one mean sonofabitch if he chose to put on his game face. “I’m a permanent fixture here until she gets better,” he growled. “I was noticing that, too.”

      “Yes, it’s a hopeful sign.” Nervously, she opened her hands. “Can we get you anything? Coffee? Water? And oh—do you know there’s a room for visiting family if you’d like to catch some sleep?”

      “I’ll sleep in here. And yeah, I can use some bottles of water if you got some handy.” He noticed the name on the nurse’s lapel was Gardner, E.

      “Great! I’ll be right back. If you need anything, just press this buzzer right here?” She walked over and showed it to him, the device clipped on the edge of Khat’s pillow.

      “Water will do,” he said stiffly. All he wanted was to be left alone with Khat. He was sure even in an unconscious state, she hated the sounds of all the beeps of the monitors in the room. He watched Gardner’s look of relief he wasn’t going to rip her head off. SEALs had a very dark name in the world. You simply didn’t mess with them, their team or their loved ones. Nurse Gardner had reason to be jumpy around him.

      He lowered the railing on the bed and sat close, encasing Khat’s hand in his.

      Gardner came back, giving him a warm smile. She set the bottle of water on the tray table.

      “Is this dry ice they’re packing her with?” he asked, pointing to Khat’s neck.

      “Yes, dry ice. It’s wrapped so that it won’t freeze her skin,” Gardner said. “It’s to cool the blood going to and from her brain. When we first brought her in, her temp was 105 degrees fahrenheit. Now—” she pointed to the monitor “—it’s 104, so that’s hopeful.”

      Mike wiped his eyes. “When will her fever break?”

      Gardner said, “No one know for sure, Petty Officer.”

      “She’s sweating heavily,” Mike noted.

      “That’s the fever,” the nurse explained gently. She went over and checked the two IVs, one in each of Khat’s arms. “She was really lucky to get Dr. Mason. He’s one of our best surgeons.”

      Nodding, Mike said, “Any chance of dimming the lights in here? They’re damn bright.”

      “Of course.” She showed him where the dimmer switch was located.

      “Thanks,” he said gruffly, dismissing her. Gardner smiled nervously and quickly left.

      Mike looked at Khat’s relaxed face, her lips slightly parted. Her red hair was in tangles. He found himself threading his fingers through that clean mass, taming it slowly into place around her face and shoulders. Exhaustion weighed down on him. He hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours. Pulling the chair up next to the bed, he laid his head on his arms, his one hand holding Khat’s limp, sweaty fingers. Like all SEALs, he’d learned a long time ago to drop off to sleep in a split second.

      * * *

      NURSE EILEEN GARDNER watched the SEAL go to sleep. Her supervisor, nurse Celeste Rogers, stopped and looked at the computer that showed Khat’s bodily function recordings. “She’s improving a little.”

      Eileen sighed. “You can see why. That SEAL is a total piece of eye candy, with or without a beard and that long hair of his.”

      Celeste laughed softly. “Careful, Gardner. He seems nice because you’re giving him what he needs for his lady. The moment something goes wrong, he’ll be climbing our asses so fast it will take your breath away.”

      Looking up, Eileen said, “No way.”

      “Way.” Celeste was forty-five years old, an Army major, and she’d worked with all the black ops groups. “You can’t tame a tiger, or in this case, since we’re here in Afghanistan, a snow leopard.” Her mouth curved ruefully. “I was married to a SEAL once.”

      “Really?”

      “Not for long,” Celeste drawled, sitting on the counter, pushing her dark brown hair back behind her shoulders with her fingers. “Those guys are big-time protectors of the ones they love.” She shrugged. “I found it suffocating. He was ready to defend me at every turn, and I really didn’t want my husband fighting my battles. I can fight my own.”

      “He’s sure all of that,” Eileen agreed, resting her chin in her palm, curiously watching the SEAL.

      “He’s a first class petty officer,” Celeste warned, her voice going deeper. “That means Tarik’s been around the block more than a few times. So, don’t back up on him. This guy knows how to pull rate, rank and anything else if he needs too in order to manipulate the medical and military system to get what he wants for his woman.”

      “But, he’s enlisted!” Eileen protested. “We’re officers.”

      “Yeah,” Celeste said, grinning, “SEALs don’t much notice the difference between officers and enlisted personnel. He won’t follow your orders, so don’t expect it. The best way to work with this guy is to explain what you’re doing and why. It will go a long way toward neutrality between him, his woman and us, okay?”

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