Under the Gun. Lyn Stone

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      “The way you were looking at that boy in there. He means something to you besides an assignment, right?”

      Holly delayed her answer as she drained her mug of coffee and set it down. Then she looked the old soldier square in the eye. “Right. We’re on the same team. And we’re best friends. Got a problem with that?”

      He shook his head. “Don’t let’s get off on the wrong foot now,” he said, holding up one hand as if warding off an argument. “I just hope you won’t let personal stuff cloud your judgment if worse comes to worst.”

      She met his frowning gaze with one of challenge. “My professional and personal objectives are one and the same here—to keep that man alive at all costs. He’s very important to me, yes. But he’s also vital to the success of future missions.”

      Grayson pursed his lips and nodded. “I see. You’ll keep your head.”

      “I always keep my head,” she replied. But Holly felt a little angry with Grayson for planting the seed of doubt in her mind. Nonsense, of course. Hadn’t she remained perfectly detached when Will was threatened in the hospital? Hers had been a textbook response when the shooter appeared.

      Will surfaced with a raging thirst. His skin felt like shrink-wrap. “Water,” he said, hating the croak that emerged.

      A few seconds later, a cool cloth bathed his face. Crushed ice chilled his lips. He opened his mouth, dying to drink something. Anything.

      He felt a straw and grabbed it with his lips. The delicious trickle of cold streamed down his parched throat and pooled in his stomach. He seemed aware of every cell in his body soaking it up.

      “Easy now,” crooned a voice near his ear. Holly.

      He reached out to the voice and his palm met her face. He slid his fingers over her cheek, touched her ear, threaded them through her hair.

      Holly’s was clipped almost as short as his own, lying in little black satin wavelets close to her head. Neat, efficient and sexy as hell. He wasn’t supposed to think sexy, not about her, his muzzy brain reminded him.

      “Where are we?” he demanded.

      “At a safe house not far from Roanoke,” she explained, taking his hand in both of hers as she leaned close. “You remember what happened?”

      He recalled bits and pieces. There had been trouble. “Some of it,” he admitted. “The hospital. A helicopter.”

      “I’ll fill you in on the details later. Just so you know, Solange sedated you. You aren’t permanently addled.”

      Addled didn’t begin to describe how he felt. Will turned his head from side to side, struggling to take in his surroundings, but the room was dark. Or he was blind. He remembered the blurriness he had experienced before. “It’s night,” he said.

      “Yes.”

      “What night?”

      “Friday,” she told him. “Well, Saturday morning early. About four o’clock. Be daylight soon.”

      “Holly?”

      “Yes, Will?”

      “I can’t see.” He forced the words from between clenched teeth. The thought scared the absolute hell out of him, but he was trained to conceal his emotions. He did so now. No point getting panicked, he told himself. It wouldn’t help and might even hurt.

      “I know, you told me in the hospital, but your eyes will be fine. It’s temporary.” A hopeful lie. If she had any basis for it, Will knew she would have explained in detail.

      Her voice held a note of desperation. Or maybe not her voice. That sounded calm enough, now that he thought about it, but he strongly sensed her overwhelming concern. It scared him more that she tried to conceal it than if she’d stated her worry openly.

      He forced his lips to stretch into a semblance of a smile. “Thanks for sticking around.”

      “Now where else would I be, you doofus?” He heard her sigh, a slight breath of sound. She patted his hand.

      “Well, I guess you might have to be my eyes for a while. Sorry.”

      She was talking, but Will stopped listening. All he could think about was getting out of bed and back on his feet. How he would manage that, feeling the way he did, he didn’t know how yet, but he would find a way.

      There was something he needed to remember, something that haunted him, but his train of thought kept breaking. He hoped to God it was the medication causing the terrible sense of foreboding.

      Morning arrived, just as his grandmother had promised when he fell asleep. That had been a dream, he realized now. Grandmother was gone, died when he was sixteen.

      So his mind was refusing to function fully at the moment. At least he was aware that it wouldn’t, and things seemed to be coming back to him bit by bit.

      Sunlight flooded the room, but the shape of objects in it remained nebulous as hell. Colors were fugitive, fragmented.

      He rubbed his eyes. Blinking didn’t help, either. It was like looking at things through the patterned glass wall tiles that encircled his shower at home.

      He fought panic. Before it took hold completely, he sensed he was no longer alone. Holly. She was back.

      “Hey, you’re awake! Good morning. How’s the noggin?”

      “A little confused,” he said.

      “That’ll pass. Ready for breakfast? You must be starving.”

      Her voice sounded too bright, too chipper. She should be ragging him the way she usually did, ordering him around and poking fun, trying her damnedest to make him laugh. That meant he must be even nearer death than he felt, and God knew that was near enough.

      He could make out her shape standing just to the left of the foot of his bed. “You look good…in red.”

      The silence lasted a beat too long. “Thanks.”

      “You are wearing red, right?” he asked, the question tentative.

      “Well, no, not right now. I’m wearing green, but I am holding a red robe. I brought it for you.”

      “Oh.” He swallowed hard, the dryness in his throat much more noticeable. “Thanks.”

      He felt her settle on the bed beside him. Her arms slid around him and she rested her forehead lightly on his shoulder. “This trouble with your eyes will pass, Will. I know it. I promise….”

      “You mentioned breakfast?” he said, gently pushing her away, unwilling to accept what felt too much like pity. That, he could do without.

      She moved quickly. He heard her inhale a shaky breath. “Yeah. How about some broth? When you can tolerate that, maybe some Jell-O later. How’s that sound?”

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