Читать книгу Course of Action: Crossfire - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 12
ОглавлениеCait Moore tried to fight back her tears as she watched Dan Taylor slowly become conscious. Her brother, Ben, was dead. Word had reached them a week ago. No one had told her and her family how he’d died. Looking at Dan’s face, the deep tan, the slashes on either side of his thinned mouth, she knew he would know. Maybe it would give her and her family some desperately needed closure. They’d buried Ben three days ago at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl Crater on the island of Oahu. Her heart ached with loss for her big brother.
She stood watching Dan, who was in a slightly elevated position on the bed. He’d come out of seven hours of surgery at Tripler Medical Center, his second surgery in seven days. Cait had found out that they’d planned to amputate his leg during his first surgery at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. Dr. Allison Barker, who was an exceptionally talented ortho surgeon, had stopped the amputation. When Dan had arrived at Tripler, Allison had put screws into Dan’s leg instead, saving it from amputation.
Her heart swelled with feelings for Dan. Beneath his tan, he had an unhealthy pallor. Her gaze drifted to the two IVs, one in each of his arms. One was a continuous morphine drip because bone pain could only be addressed with this opiate. The other was feeding him the necessary fluids and nutrients he needed to stay alive and recover. He wore a blue hospital gown that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and his powerful chest.
Memories assailed her as she stood, her hand lingering on his arm, feeling the sprinkled dark brown hair beneath her fingertips. Would Dan ever be able to surf again? Allison and her surgical team worked on soldiers and Marines whose limbs had been destroyed. Dan would become Cait’s patient at some point because she’d pleaded with her boss, Dr. Jackson Berringer, to allow her to work with him. Cait was grateful Jackson had granted her request. She was a damn good physical therapist, and she wanted no one else but her to help Dan to recover his ability to walk and do the things he had done before being wounded.
Absently she moved her fingers slowly up and down Dan’s ropy forearm, watching his lids quiver. He was finally coming out of the worst of the anesthesia. She couldn’t settle her roiling feelings, which swung between her grief at Ben being dead and her relief that Dan had gotten out of that firefight alive. Tears stung her eyes at the thought that Dan could have been killed, too. She wiped her tears away and sniffed. He couldn’t see her crying. He’d ask why, and she couldn’t tell him. How long had she loved this brave soldier? Ever since she’d met him.
Cait made a frustrated, muffled sound, forcing her tears away. Dan’s eyes would open at any moment now. How she loved him. And he didn’t know. She’d never spoken of it to him. Ben had wanted her to consider Dan a brother, but she never had. Her big, overprotective brother would have been crushed if she’d ever admitted that she had, over time, fallen hopelessly in love with Dan.
Everything had changed now. Cait knew Ben had always worried about her falling in love with a military man. He’d warned her they were out for sex and sex only, that she needed to marry a medical doctor because they were more stable and reliable. They would respect her for her keen intelligence and she wouldn’t have to worry about her husband being killed in combat, making her a young widow.
Ben had wanted her to be happy. And to have a good, stable marriage. But it had become so tough on Cait, every time they came home on leave, to pretend and hide her feelings from Dan. And keep the secret from her brother.
Her hand stilled on Dan’s forearm. How many times had she dreamed of Dan loving her? Kissing her? Cait’s gaze drifted to his strong, chiseled mouth that only now was beginning to relax. The morphine drip was giving him some badly needed relief from the nerve pain.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes.
Cait moved closer, fingers wrapping around his wrist, watching his gray, cloudy gaze. He was drifting in a morphine cloud.
“Dan? It’s Cait.” She smiled down at him, reaching out, grazing his cheek and pushing his long, nearly shoulder-length hair behind his ear. His gray eyes suddenly became raptor-like and fastened on her. Her smile grew. “You see me?”
“Y-yeah...Cait...”
His voice was hoarse and rough. “It’s okay, Dan. You’re coming out from anesthesia.” His dark brown brows dipped. “Am I speaking too fast for you?” Cait knew words ran together when anesthesia still lingered in a person’s body. Her heart mushroomed with powerful emotions, wanting to kiss him, but he was conscious now and he’d remember if she did. And how could she explain her actions to him then?
“N-no...fine...where?”
“Tripler Medical Center. Honolulu.” She didn’t want to stop touching Dan. At the very least, there was the healing value of touch with physical therapy, but her need to touch him ran much deeper.
His large, black pupils widened as she ran her fingers through his mussed but clean long hair. The nurses had washed it, but it needed to be combed. Cait knew Special Forces A teams grew long hair and wore beards so as not to stand out in the Middle East.
She watched his eyes grow dazed and then slowly wander back to her and actually look at her. Cait couldn’t stop smiling. How badly she wanted to kiss Dan, welcome him home, celebrate that he’d survived.
“H-how long since...since I got wounded?”
“Seven days. They kept you in a drug-induced coma after taking you out of the field, Dan.” She saw his eyes grow to slits, felt the shift of energy around him. He remembered the firefight. She could sense it and see it in his wrinkled brow, the hardness coming back to his gray, murky eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Ben didn’t make it...but you did.” Cait swallowed and fought the tears flooding her eyes. “You’re alive, Dan. And you’re going to live...”
At that moment he jerkily lifted his hand, his roughened fingers weak but still able to lift and capture her hand.
“I tried to save him, Cait...God...I tried...”
“It’s all right.” She wobbled, heard the grief and guilt in his gruff voice. “No one’s told us what happened...only that he died in a firefight.”
Dan closed his eyes, fingers tightening around Cait’s slender hand. She wore a hospital uniform of blue scrub pants and top. Her beautiful red hair was up on her head in a loose, askew topknot. She wore pink lipstick, but the flush across her cheeks was natural. Her scent, the cinnamon shampoo she used, the steadying firmness of her warm skin beneath his cold fingers, helped him focus. Hearing the stress, the grief in her low, tortured voice, brought up his own anguish over Ben’s death.
Dan stared up into her green eyes glistening with unshed tears. She was fighting back those tears, and it ripped into him. He’d never had any defense against Cait. He was vulnerable to her at all times. His fingers tightened around hers.
“He didn’t feel any pain, Cait. He got hit in the neck.” He stopped. His voice had become harsh with agony. “I—I tried to save him... I’m sorry... I wanted to so damned bad but...” Dan choked, tears burning in his eyes. He turned away, embarrassed that tears ran down his face. He released her hand but Cait caught it, wrapping her fingers tightly around his.
“It’s all right, Dan. I know you did everything you could. God...I’m so grateful you’re alive...” She choked back a sob.
Just having Cait’s strong hand around his helped. Dan couldn’t stop the tears and finally pressed his face into the pillow. He couldn’t bear to look at her since he knew grief was written in her features.
Finally, as he got a hold of his floating, amorphous emotions, Dan forced himself to turn and look into her shadowed green eyes. “I—I’m so damned sorry, Cait...”
“Hush,” she whispered, lifting her hand, gently smoothing out the wrinkles on his tanned brow. “It’s all right. Ben died doing something he loved, Dan. And you were with him.” Her eyes grew misty. “At least he died with you there. That had to be a comfort for him.”
Dan shoved the grief down deep inside himself. “Yeah...I was there. I tried.” Her fingers trembled slightly as she continued to graze his brow, his cheek, her touch so featherlight. Dan felt like a dying man who was being given absolution by a saint. He lifted his lashes, staring into her warm, anguished gaze—Cait had never looked so beautiful, so fresh and alive, as right now.
“Are you in pain?”
Yeah, his heart felt like hell, writhing with anguish. “A little,” he mumbled. “I’m on morphine. I can feel it dialing back the pain.”
She smiled a little. “Yes, you are.”
When she continued to hold his hand, Dan felt a gratefulness he couldn’t give words to. How like Cait to intuitively know he needed her right now. She wasn’t a physical therapist for nothing. At Tripler she was considered the best of the best. And she’d been helping soldiers recover from lost and wounded limbs since she was twenty-two and now she was twenty-eight.
“You’re an angel,” he rasped, holding her eyes, watching her pupils enlarge. “You’ve always been my angel.” Dan forced himself to stop. He was blithering because the morphine had loosened his closely held emotions for her. He saw surprise on Cait’s expression and then the joy that suddenly shone in her pale green eyes.
“I like being your angel,” she managed shyly, her voice strained. “In fact—” she squeezed his large, rough hand “—I’ve been assigned by your ortho surgeon to help you through recovery, Dan. I’ll be with you all the way...”
Oh, yeah, his leg. He’d forgotten about it until just now. His emotions, his mind and heart had been on Ben dying and how it was affecting Cait. She took his hand and laid it against his belly and he squeezed her fingers in return, a little of his strength returning. This was the first time there had been any real intimacy between them, man to woman. Dan tried to ferret out the unexpected joy he saw banked in her eyes. Did Cait want his touch?
Maybe it was his opiate-drenched mind, Dan told himself. Cait had had other relationships over the years, all with civilian men, who’d come and gone. What on earth had he just seen in her eyes? She kept grazing the flesh of his hand and lower arm, as if wanting to touch him. It felt like more than a medical touch. But was it just her normal bedside manner? Dan didn’t know, and he was too drugged right now to think two coherent thoughts in a row.
“Are you thirsty?”
He nodded. “Thirstier than a camel.” When Cait released his hand, he wanted to reach out and capture it once again. But he didn’t. Dan ached for continued contact. Wanted so much more of it—and her. Even now, he could feel himself stirring beneath the blue blankets across his lower body. Even on morphine. He had it bad for Cait. Dan savagely suppressed his sexual desire.
Cait rolled the tray over to his bedside, filled a glass of water and placed a straw in it for him. She lifted the straw, placing it between his lips. The gesture was so damned sensual Dan felt his body respond again. He drank the entire contents of the glass. He ended up drinking one more glass before he was sated.
After pushing the tray aside, Cait sat on the side of his bed, her hip inches from his. Dan could see a tent of covers over his lower legs from his knees to his feet. “How are your parents doing, Cait?” His voice was stronger now. His brain was actually functioning up to a point.
Cait’s expression saddened. “They’re suffering, Dan. If you’ll allow me, I’ll tell them what you just told me. That you were there with Ben when he died.” She reached out, fingers skimming the hand resting on his belly. “It would help them so much.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” Dan saw moisture in her eyes again, her grief on the surface. “His last words,” he rasped, “were about you. Ben asked me to take care of you.”
Her fingers closed around his, and he saw how badly Cait needed to be held and comforted. She would have to be the strong one for her devastated parents. Who was there to comfort her? He wanted to be the person to do that. But Dan could barely do anything right now. He was so damned helpless trussed up in the bed, not to mention physically weak. It took every bit of his strength to speak, to squeeze her fingers. Wanting to do more, unable to, he saw her strength, saw her swallow back the tears and give him a tremulous smile of gratefulness.
“Ben was always overprotective about me.” She shook her head.
“Because he loved you.”
“I know.” Cait closed her eyes. “I miss him so much. I was so looking forward to you two coming home.”
It felt as though a knife had sliced open his heart. All Dan could do was cling to her fingers, somehow convey his guilt. “I’m sorry, Cait. You can’t know how much...”
She sniffed and sat up, pushing red tendrils behind her ear. “We need to concentrate on you now, Dan.”
Dan watched her struggle with her emotions, place them gently aside for Ben, her whole attention now focused on him. It felt good. Fortifying. Necessary. “My mother? Joyce?”
“Oh, I talked to Joyce earlier. She couldn’t get off work at the software company to come and wait for you to come out of surgery. I told her no worries, that I’d be here for you. She was relieved. She’ll be here tonight after work to see you.”
Dan grimaced. “Just as well.” Worried, he asked, “Did she yell at you?”
After years of abuse by her alcoholic husband, Joyce had become a testy and defensive woman. Soon after they’d moved from Rush City, Texas, to Honolulu, his father had died. It had been his dream to move. His father had sold their small cattle ranch and dragged them to Hawaii in order to fulfill his wish. His mother hadn’t wanted to leave her extensive family in Texas. And Dan had been in the Army six months later when his father died of a massive heart attack here in Honolulu while out on a golf course. Dan had come home on emergency medical leave to bury his father and listen to his angry, bitter mother curse her husband at his graveside.
Now, Dan worried that Joyce had taken out her bile on Cait.
“She was upset, which is understandable, Dan. She wanted to be here.” Patting his hand gently, Cait said, “Joyce is worried about you.”
Biting back a curse, he growled, “Just as well she’s not here, Cait. I’m not up to dealing with her. All she can do is say the sky is falling, that life sucks. She’s like a toxic black cloud that overshadows everyone within five minutes.”
Dan knew Cait was more than aware of Joyce’s depression and mood swings. She had tried to get her some help, but his mother was stubborn and angry. She was in control of her life, finally, and that was that.
Cait give him a doleful look and a tremulous half smile.
“She’s been abused, Dan. But let’s not talk about that right now. I know Dr. Allison Barker, your ortho surgeon, is going on rounds right now.” She looked at her watch. “It’s 0800. She should be here any moment now. She’ll tell you about the state of your leg.”
Dan had lost track of time and days. His whole world centered on Cait. She wore an ID badge clipped to her left pocket, indicating she was hospital staff. “Okay,” he said. “Are you on duty?”
“Yes, beginning at 0900. I asked Dr. Barker if I could come and stay with you until you became conscious. She said yes.”
“Nice waking up to an angel,” he said thickly. Her eyes sparkled.
“I’m glad you think of me as your angel,” Cait teased, smiling.
Her smile went straight to his grieving heart, lifting him, making him feel hope. The love he held for Cait wanted to be known. Dan quickly squelched the urge to tell her how he felt. “Yeah, I’ve always thought of you that way, Cait. I know some of the soldiers you’ve helped, talked with them, and they say the same thing about you—that you’re an angel. You’ve helped so many people.”
“And now, I get to help you.” Cait caressed his shaven cheek, holding his cloudy gray gaze.
A doctor in her early forties quietly entered the ward. She was a brunette with blue eyes and she wore a white lab coat. The talk among some of the other men in other beds farther down the line stopped.
“Oh, here’s Dr. Barker,” Cait said, standing. She smiled down at Dan. “She’s the best.”
The tall, spare woman approached his bed. She offered her lean hand and Dan weakly raised his.
“You’re looking awfully good, Sergeant Taylor. I’m Dr. Barker. I was your ortho surgeon for your injured leg. Are you up to a little talk about the surgery I performed?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Dan liked her warmth. She wasn’t like so many doctors—cold and robotic. Her alto voice conveyed her concern for him.
Opening his chart, Barker said, “You were hit with a bullet in the right femur, Sergeant. You’d lost nearly four pints of blood. They took you to the hospital in Bagram, where they stabilized you. The next day, you were taken on a C-5 flight to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. I have a good friend there—Dr. Travis. He’s an ortho surgeon like myself. He called me because he said your broken femur was so bad that he thought he needed to amputate it.”
Dan scowled, sudden shock hitting him. He couldn’t lift the tent to see if his leg was still attached or not.
“Oh,” Barker said, following his gaze, “your leg is still there. I told the ortho to stabilize you, do what he could, and bring you here where I’d do the final operation on you and determine whether or not we could save your leg.” She smiled a little. “And we did save it. Me and my team. But Dr. Travis is a brilliant ortho surgeon and he helped make my job possible.”
“I still have my leg?”
“Sure do, Sergeant. And you’re going to keep it.” Her brows went down. “But because you’ve got a lot of screws in the bones, holding the femur together so it can knit and grow strong once more, you’re in for a lot of bed time.”
“How long?” Dan tried to steel himself, watching Cait who had stood back, her hands at her sides, her expression open and vulnerable.
“Two months minimum, Sergeant. It’s a very difficult recovery and that’s why so many surgeons amputate. Your recovery time is going to be a lot longer, a lot more painful, but I have a great PT here.” She motioned toward Cait. “And she felt saving your leg was a viable option. So did I. Cait will be your PT specialist, Sergeant. I know you know one another, so that’s a plus. Cait said you are fast friends.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dan said. “We’ve known each other for eleven years.” And I’ve loved her all that time. He glanced over at Cait, whose eyes glimmered with unspoken joy, and he managed to lift one corner of his mouth to show he was glad, too.
“These first two months are going to be a special hell, Sergeant,” Barker warned him. “You’re lucky—I understand Cait plays a mean game of Monopoly. You play Monopoly, Sergeant?”
Dan grinned a little, trading a glance with Cait. Her cheeks were flushed now. “Yes, ma’am. She usually beats the pants off me.”
“Well,” Barker said, smiling a little, “be prepared to play a lot of Monopoly these next two months. You’re bed bound for the first six weeks, and you’re going to be bored out of your skull. Miss Moore can’t begin PT until we can get you ambulatory, and that won’t happen until the six-week mark. So get your mind wrapped around that, Sergeant Taylor, for the long haul. Okay?”
“Anything to keep my leg, ma’am.” Dan held the surgeon’s gaze. “Thank you for saving it...”
Giving a curt nod, Barker said, “It was my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” She moved on to the soldier in the next bed.
* * *
Cait tried to get a hold of her emotions. She walked from the swimming pool area at five o’clock, finished with her last soldier of the day. Wanting to see how Dan was, she’d promised to have dinner with him tonight. How she looked forward to seeing him! She hurried through the massive medical center and made it up to the third-floor Ortho. When she entered the ward, she saw Dan had been placed in Fowler’s position, and he looked sad but alert.
“Hey,” she called softly, “how are you doing?”
Dan lifted his head. Instantly, his heart took off with joy. “Better now that you’re here.”
Grinning, Cait came over and looked him over. “How’s your pain level? Holding?”
“Yeah. Nurse was just in and adjusted the drip.” Cait’s red hair was now tamed into a ponytail, the tendrils lovingly caressing her high cheekbones. “I’d give anything to get a shower, though.”
Cait sat down on the edge of the bed gently, not wanting to cause his leg any discomfort. “Hasn’t the nurse given you a bath yet?”
“No.” Dan grimaced and rubbed the seven-day growth of beard on his face. “I’d like to get cleaned up. Is that possible?”
“Do you mind if I give you a bath and a shave?” She held up her hands and she smiled. “I’m well trained.”
The idea of Cait doing that for him damn near sent Dan into a boiling cauldron of heat and need for her. “Sure...”
Cait stood. “Be back in a minute. I know there’s a nurse who’s out sick today on the Ortho ward, and that’s probably why you didn’t get your bath. I’ll ask the head nurse if she minds if I take care of you instead. Be right back.”
Within ten minutes, Cait was back with everything she’d need. Using the rolling tray, she set up what she’d need to shave his face.
“I didn’t know you did this kind of thing,” Dan muttered, apologetic, his throat tightening with sudden emotions. Cait had brought over a small washbowl of warm water and applied the shaving foam to his face, which felt like sensual foreplay to him.
“Well, you’ve never asked what I do here,” she teased lightly, her palm light against the side of his face while bringing the razor downward from his temple to his jaw. “Now,” she said, smiling into his eyes, “don’t talk while I’m shaving you, okay? Just sit back, relax and enjoy it...”
Dan closed his eyes, head against his pillow, drawing comfort from her quick, light touches. Cait was so close, her hands delicate and yet firm against his flesh. Sparks of heat zigzagged down through him. This was intimate. This is what he’d always wanted to share with Cait. In no time, she’d scraped the beard free from his face. Dan was sorry it was over as she gently patted his face clean with a warm, damp towel.
“Are you always going to shave me?”
She laughed and took a warm cloth, gently finishing cleaning up his face. “Only until you feel stronger. Maybe a day or two more. Why? Was I that bad?” She tilted her head, studying him. “No cuts.”
Dan managed a sour smile of sorts. “No...it was good. Thank you...”
Cait gave him a serious look. “Have you ever been bathed before, Dan?”
He stared at her. “As in a hospital bath?”
“Yes.”
“No...never. Why?”
“Because—” she cleared her throat “—it’s kinda intimate.” She gestured down toward his lower body. “Everything gets washed.” She gave him a worried look. “I don’t know if you want me to do this. Would it be embarrassing for you? Uncomfortable? Maybe you’d rather wait and let a nurse you don’t know do it for you?”
Dan noticed how Cait’s face turned red with embarrassment. “Oh” was all he managed to choke out. And then he searched her eyes. “You don’t have to do this, Cait. It’s all right. I understand.” Because she’d never seen him naked. Never seen his whole body. The thought filled him with a sudden shaft of boiling desire. His dreams were coming true in real life. Only, as he saw Cait’s face and expression, he said, “I’m okay with it. But are you?”
She shrugged. “Listen, I bathe guys in the ortho ward. Sometimes, when they’re short a nurse and I don’t have a PT patient, I’ll come up here and lend a hand. I’m game if you are.”
He was more than game, but he tried to look serious about the issue. What was he going to do if he became erect? Still, Cait wasn’t totally innocent...and she was a professional. “Okay,” he said gruffly. “Let’s do it.”
Cait nodded and leaned over him, pulling him slowly into a more upright sitting position in order to start the process. “I’ll untie your gown and then I’ll pull the curtains around your bed so you have privacy.”
Dan nodded, his skin tightening as her fingers flew over the three ties against his back, releasing them. Suddenly all his torrid thoughts, all the hot dreams of loving Cait he’d had through the years, rose unbidden. Dan watched as she pulled the long, light green curtains around his bed. When she turned, he saw how serious she’d become.
“Are you sure about this?” he demanded. Because he loved her, cared for her and never wanted to hurt her or make her feel embarrassed. He was the antithesis of his alcoholic father, would never want to harm someone he loved.
“Well,” Cait said wryly, pulling the gown off him and keeping the covers in place around his waist, “this is a bit uncomfortable for me, but don’t worry. I’ll deal with it.”
“You’ve almost seen me naked, Cait,” he teased, leaning back, closing his eyes.
“That’s true. And I know what a man looks like. So, you just lie back and let me get you cleaned up. You’ll feel so much better afterward.”
Dan nodded. “Well, if it gets to be too much—” he pried his eyes open, seeing how flighty Cait had become as she retrieved the towel, wash cloth and soap on the tray “—you can stop at any point. I’ll be okay with that, Cait.”
She gave him an amused look. “Maybe if I was a greenhorn eighteen-year-old I’d have issues, but I’m not eighteen anymore, Dan. We’re adults. We’ll handle this. Now, close your eyes and just enjoy this warm wash cloth and the wonderful scent of Ivory soap. Okay?”
And enjoy her hands on him... Already he could feel himself hardening. He swallowed. “Yeah...okay...but I’m not made of stone...”
He lay back and tried to relax as she soaped down his neck and shoulders, that cloth so soft and warm feeling. He couldn’t help but think this was beyond any fantasy he’d ever had about Cait. And as much as Dan tried, he couldn’t stop his body and mind from thinking of Cait as his lover as her hands skimmed across his powerful chest and torso. It felt as if she was loving him, exploring him, not just washing away the stink. His morphine-laden mind dreamed whether he wanted it to or not.
“Just relax,” Cait said as she moved quickly, washing Dan’s upper body. His eyes were closed, but she could tell that he was affected by her touch. His skin kept tightening where she washed his body. It was pure, unadulterated pleasure to see this man’s body. She hurt inwardly to see the scars, the cuts and old bruises discolored with age. His body was a story of combat. Cait had secretly wanted to touch Dan in this way, a loving way, caressing him. Her throat felt parched as she patted his upper body dry with a soft, white towel. Afterward, she placed another dry towel across him to keep him warm.
As she pulled down the sheet and blankets, positioning them up and over the tent, her heart started hammering. He was erect. This wasn’t anything new to Cait. It happened. But this was Dan, the man she’d secretly loved for so many years. And he wasn’t the average man at all. It sent unexpected heat pooling into her lower body. Cait was well aware that Dan was powerfully masculine, but his arousal made him even more potent.
Feeling shaky inside, her breathing shallow, she quickly began to wash him from the waist down. As her fingers slipped around his erection, she felt him tense and then try to relax. Her heart leaped, and she imagined him inside her. Something told Cait that Dan would be a gentle lover, a man who knew how to please a woman, giving her pleasure, as well, and not just satisfying himself.
Finally she was done washing him. She quickly placed a small towel across his body. She noticed the ugly red welt of the surgery scar and the pins over half his thick, treelike thigh. Cait’s mouth was dry and her heart was hammering with need. Now she ached for him. She’d gone two years without sex. Two years. But this man required more than just physical attention. He was wounded, and she had to control her desire. Easier said than done as her body longed for him to touch her, fill her with himself.
