Wolf Haven

“Hey, we’re vets. We’ve seen combat. SEALs never leave anyone behind, baby. I’m not leaving you behind. Okay?”

Baby. The endearment renewed her hope. A broken sigh escaped from her taut lips. Gray continued to shower her with his attention. How many times in her life as a nurse had she done similarly for her vets who lay broken and hurting in her hospital ward? So many that Sky had lost count.

Gray eased back again, no doubt seeing the tears. “Good tears this time?” he asked, his throat tightening. She looked up at him, feeling her world shift. The corners of his mouth lifted. “Talk to me, Sky.”

Her throat ached with tension from the rawness of her earlier screams. “Y-yes, good tears.” His dark eyes changed and grew kind. Sky leaned against his chest, the soothing sound of his slow heartbeat continuing to calm her. She had no strength with which to move. She didn’t want to anyway.

“How can I help you, Sky?”

His words sank into her heart, and she swallowed hard. “What you’re doing right now,” she whispered brokenly.

Gray nodded and slid his hand down her back. “It helps to talk about it, Sky. Maybe not right now, but later. I’m a good listener. I’ve been in combat. I’ve had friends captured and tortured. I know a little bit of what you’re going through because of them.”

Something broke inside Sky. She realized Gray cared deeply. The low tenor of his voice vibrated through her, giving her the courage she’d lacked for a long time. Opening her eyes, Sky stared out into the darkened living room. Thin, milky streams of moonlight made the window and other areas where the beams struck look gray instead of dark. “I was in a Black Hawk crash. They were flying me and a surgeon to a forward operating base near the Pakistan border. An Army soldier had acute appendicitis and needed immediate emergency surgery.” Sky swallowed and emotionally gathered herself. She told him about the crash, being captured and of Aaron being shot in the head. When she got to her torture, she rasped, “They threw me on a board, covered my face with a cloth and poured water into my nose.” She felt his arms tighten around her, as if trying to protect her from the terrifying torture. Words failed her. The shame and humiliation were right there, eating away at her.

Gray closed his eyes, battling his rage. He forced his emotions deep, opened his eyes and asked in a low tone, “Do you know how many times you were waterboarded?”

Sky shook her head. “I was a captive for two weeks. Th-they would come in two days between each waterboarding bout and do it again. They’d cuff me to that damned table... I lost count. All I know is that by the time the SEAL team came, I was a shadow of myself. They found me quivering in a corner, no clothes on... I—I really don’t remember much after that, Gray. Someone put a blanket around me. The next thing I knew, he lifted me up and carried me in his arms. He got me out of that horrid room. I could breathe fresh air. I heard a helicopter nearby, and that’s the last thing I recall. I woke up in Landstuhl a few days later.”

Sky swallowed hard tears in her voice. “Gray...I didn’t even get to thank the SEALs who rescued me. I feel bad about that. Those guys risked their lives for me....”

“I can find out for you,” he reassured her, pressing a chaste kiss to her brow. “That’s ST3’s territory you were in. I’ll make a call and get the intel. I know you’d probably like to email them, and they’d feel good hearing from you. Okay?” Because it could be part of her ongoing healing process.

Sky wearily nodded, pressing her cheek against his warm, hard chest. The soft, silky hair tickled her chin and nose. Gray’s scent was evergreen soap and his own unique male scent. Inhaling it, Sky felt as if she were inhaling life. “Th-thank you. It would mean so much for me to do at least that much for them. They’re all heroes in my eyes.”

Gray stared into the darkness, his mind moving at light speed. Sky had been waterboarded a lot. It was an ineffective way to gather intel, that he knew. It had been proved that when a prisoner thought he was dying of suffocation, he would say anything to get the waterboarding to stop. And Gray was sure Sky had told them what they wanted to know. God, she was only a nurse! She wasn’t privy to black-ops movements. She didn’t carry a security clearance. All that was above her pay grade. Then why the hell had they done this to her? To what end?

“You went from Landstuhl to Balboa Naval Hospital to heal up?” he asked.

Nodding, Sky opened her eyes. “I spent six months there. The first month—” she grimaced “—I was on a cocktail of drugs. Emotionally, I was a basket case.”

“Baby, anyone who’d gone through what you did would be, too.”

“It tore me apart.” Shaking her head, Sky sponged in Gray’s quiet strength, his warmth and his attentiveness. He understood. All SEALs went through SERE, where they were all waterboarded to show them what it was like. But because of her military classification, she never had to take that dreaded course. Maybe if she had, she’d have been more mentally prepared, not taken by the shock and terror of it. Maybe...

“You’ve come a long way in a short time, Sky, with those kinds of experiences behind you.” Gray held her desolate gaze. “You realize that, don’t you? You’re functioning at a high level despite it.”

“I feel so damn weak, Gray. I feel like I’m set back every time I have that same flashback.”

“That’s going to change,” Gray promised her quietly, curving his fingers against her cheek. “You’re with someone who knows the score. I’m here for you. I won’t walk away from you, either, so don’t think you’re taking advantage of me.” He smiled a little as he watched hope flare to life in her shadowed eyes. “We’ll take this one day at a time. What you have to do is tell me when the stress is getting to you. I can take you out of the line of fire, and you can come back here to the house and rest. Ramp down.”

“But won’t Iris be upset if that happens? She’s paying me for eight hours of work a day.” She saw Gray give her a very male smile.

“Technically, Sky, you work for me. Iris cuts the paychecks every two weeks. If I tell you to go back here to rest, you do it. Iris would understand anyway. She’s hired a number of returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan in the past. She’s no stranger to PTSD and what it does to us. I know she wouldn’t be upset with you, so don’t you be.”

Sky nodded. “Okay. I get it.”

“Feel like moving? I can make us some tea. Or you tell me what you need.” Gray didn’t want her to leave him. She fit beautifully against him, her soft, womanly curves meshing against his hard angles. He didn’t want to stop touching her here and there, but he knew he had to. There was a difference between care and making love to this woman. He couldn’t cross that line with Sky.

Stirring, Sky sat up, pushing her tangled hair off her face. “I need to get a bath. I reek.” She wrinkled her nose and gave Gray an apologetic look. Touching the damp nightgown she wore, she added, “I’ll take a bath, change into a dry nightgown and then I need to try to go to sleep. Thank you, though, for the offer of the tea.” Thank you for saving my life tonight. Without thinking, Sky placed her hand against his square jaw, leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss against his sandpapery cheek. And then she forced herself to her feet, her knees mushy from fear. Gray held her arm until she got steady enough to walk slowly toward the hall.

He watched her slow progress, worry clouding his expression. His cheek tingled hotly in the wake of her lush lips kissing him. It took everything he had not to enclose her with his arms once more and turn and trap that mouth of hers. He watched her move robotically, her stride tentative, unsure of her balance. Once she reached the hall, Sky put out her hand, using the wall to help guide her toward the bathroom.

Gray wanted to help her, but he understood her need to try to get stronger despite her injuries. And he didn’t want to enable her. It was a fine balance to walk with her.

The door to the bathroom opened and then quietly closed. With the sound of water running in the bathroom, he sat there, elbows resting on his thighs, hands clasped between them. Gray shook his head, feeling the rage and injustice of her torture by the Taliban. He’d contact the senior chief of ST3 and find out the SEALs who were involved in Sky’s rescue. And he’d talk to the men who had found her. She wasn’t telling him everything. If he was going to help her, he had to know the whole story.

Gray slowly got to his feet, very aware of his erection. When Sky had unexpectedly kissed him, he’d gone hot and burned with sudden need for her. Only seconds later did he realize she’d kissed him out of gratitude, not out of desire. His body had its own miniature brain, and sure enough, he’d hardened beneath her entirely innocent gesture. What Gray didn’t want was for Sky to feel he was a sexual predator, using her flashbacks as a way to get to her. She hadn’t said she’d been raped. But he needed to know one way or another. Tomorrow morning, he’d place that call to his old SEAL team in Coronado.

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