Risk Taker

“Hey, Sarah? Are you in there?”

She started. “Aylin? Come on in. I’m home.” Sarah grinned as the nearly six-foot Apache combat helicopter pilot pushed open the flaps.

“Hey, I’m checking up on you. We just got word over at Jaguar you got attacked yesterday afternoon. Are you all right?”

Sarah gestured for the Turkish pilot to sit down on the cot. “He got the worst of it,” she said, glad to see her friend.

Aylin was in her flight suit and had her helmet bag and kneeboard in hand, which meant she was going to be flying soon. Her black hair was captured in a ponytail. Her golden eyes were slightly tilted, giving her an exotic look.

“Hmph,” Aylin said, sitting down. “You look beat-up. What the hell happened?” Her friend sat down, placing her helmet bag next to her flight boots.

Sarah told her and saw anger leap into Aylin’s eyes. She was a deadly woman in the air as well as on the ground. They were sisters in that they both carried a black belt in karate. But Aylin also knew Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Forces self-defense system, which was especially deadly.

“Where’s the bastard now?” Aylin gritted out, flexing her fists.

“They took him to Bagram. He’s going to be held there for court-martial. Eventually, I’ll have to fly in and testify.”

“Too bad he isn’t still here.”

Sarah knew Aylin was good for her word. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

“You look tired.”

“Very,” she admitted.

“And you said a SEAL saved you?”

“Yes. God, did he ever move fast.”

Aylin chuckled. “Black ops. Those boys haul ass.”

“Where are you off to?” Sarah asked.

“Going to go with my wingwoman up toward the border,” Aylin said in a bored tone. “The Pakistanis are throwing 105s across into Afghanistan and at some of our Army forward operating bases. We’re supposed to fly in as a show of force.” Her eyes narrowed, predator-like. “Frankly, I’d love to throw some Hellfire missiles into those sites that are sitting just a few meters inside the Pakistan border. It would only have to happen once and those cowards would stop. Of course, that would be an act of war. No one said war made sense, right?”

Laughing softly, Sarah agreed.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Sarah?”

“No. I’ve got four days to rest up.”

Aylin’s arched black brows rose. “Oh, good. You can join us tomorrow then. We’ve got a poker tournament starting up.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned. “Going to be a big pot. Come and join us?”

“I’ll come as your cheerleader. How’s that? I’m not a very lucky person.” She snorted and pointed to her face.

Aylin looked at her watch and stood up. “Okay, drop by if you feel like it and be my good luck charm, then. It starts at 1900 in the ready room. Gotta go, girlfriend.” She picked up her bag and left.

The tent diminished in energy as The Turk, as they referred to Aylin, left. Sarah felt better having had some company. The Jaguar women pilots had embraced her wholeheartedly. Sarah finished the first cinnamon roll and picked up the second one.

It felt rather lovely to just sit and not have to be on the flight roster. She felt a little guilty about it since she knew some of the pilots were going to max out their flight hours every day because she was sidelined. They were missing two pilots who had been killed three weeks ago. A Taliban RPG had rocketed into their Black Hawk just as it had landed to pick up some wounded Special Forces operators. Everyone on board had died, the two pilots, an aircrew chief and a medic. It had been a huge and devastating loss to the squadron.

Sadness moved through Sarah. She’d lost her only male friend at Bravo on that ill-fated flight. Chief Warrant Officer Ted Bateman had been her age, twenty-nine, with three kids and a wife he loved very much. He was sensitive, someone she could confide in. There was never a time he wasn’t respectful of her. Most important, he’d treated her as an equal.

Sarah quickly closed her eyes. Ted had been an incredible pilot—so damned passionate about his job—and she’d seen him fly into a firefight many times to rescue wounded men. Many of the pilots would not. Major Donaldson, who ran the squadron, never wanted to lose a multimillion-dollar Black Hawk. It would risk his yearly budget’s bottom line. He would rant and rave during planning sessions about never risking the helo. The man or woman who was bleeding on the ground could wait until the firefight was over, and then they could fly in to safely pick them up.

Wiping her eyes, Sarah sniffed. She ached to have Ted around right now. If he’d found out she’d been assaulted and nearly raped, he’d be right there at her side. He had been a fierce advocate for her to be in the squadron. When Ted came into the squadron, the rest of the pilots didn’t heckle her or play mean jokes on her as much. She wasn’t a man, so in those pilots’ eyes, she was defective. Ted always wanted to fly with her because, as he’d told her once, she had a set of invisible titanium balls. She’d laughed with him, shaking her head. He had always lifted her spirits and had been a role model of what a medevac pilot should be.

“Oh, Ted,” she whispered. “I miss you so damned much....” Sarah had felt terribly vulnerable since his death. Three weeks ago, she’d penned a long letter to Ted’s wife, Allison. He’d always called her Ali. Sarah had written between her tears, the words blurring as she poured out heartfelt words for Ali. She’d included a CD with the letter of all the photos she’d taken of Ted over the past three months they had flown together. Sarah closed her eyes and hoped that Ali would treasure the photos and that her words would help her bear her grief in some small way.

Making a grumpy sound, Sarah finished off her breakfast. She hated going to the chow hall precisely because she was usually the only female. Ted wasn’t there anymore to escort her and keep the men from hitting on her. And all the Jaguar pilots were done eating and in the air. Sarah tried to eat with the Apache pilots every time she could.

After she pulled on a pair of tennis shoes, she put a towel and her weight lifting gloves into a small bag and got ready to go work out. It was 0700, and most of the guys would be out of the gym by now. Maybe some of the off-duty Apache women pilots would be over there. It would be nice to have some female company. Sarah worked out with them as often as she could.

Of late, she’d been pulling eight hours of flight time every day or night, the max any pilot could fly in a given twenty-four-hour period. There had been no downtime since the loss of the two pilots, and she knew she needed to work out. Sarah pulled on a loose T-shirt that had a black dragon snarling on the front of it. She always wore it in the hopes it would scare off any guy who thought about giving her a line and trying to pick her up. She put on her red cotton gym pants, pulled on her green baseball cap with the medevac squadron symbol on it and left her tent.

The morning was cold for June. She pressed the Velcro shut on her tent flaps and turned, appreciating the white clouds over the camp. Sarah hurried down the dusty street, heading for the gym, which was next to the medical dispensary. Her heart turned back to the poem given to her. It soothed the anxiety she always got when going someplace where there were more men than women.

* * *

Ethan was bench-pressing two hundred and fifty pounds at the end of his ten repetitions when he spotted Sarah Benson walking into the gym. He damn near lost his concentration. He’d never seen her in there before.

“Hey,” Tolleson called. He was standing nearby as his spotter.

“I see her,” Ethan breathed through his teeth, slowly lowering the huge barbell back into its metal cradle. Sweat was rolling off his face, his shoulders were strained and the muscles in his upper arms trembled. Ethan watched Sarah move like a shadow along the wall. There were about fifteen other men in the gym.

“Okay, rest,” Tolleson told him, handing him a towel.

Ethan ducked out from beneath the barbell, sat up and wiped his sweaty face. He rested his elbows on his hard thighs. Like most of the men working out, they were naked except for a pair of gym shorts. There was a lot of grunting and straining going on. The gym smelled of male sweat and testosterone.

His heart beat a little faster as he saw Sarah walk over to the other side of the room, where dumbbells and the lighter weights were kept along the wall. Something a woman would probably want to work out with, he supposed. Damn, she was so graceful. He noticed the purple-and-blue bruises around her wrists. Anger stirred in him.

A number of the other men watched her, too. She probably felt like a piece of meat, all those eyes on her. He wouldn’t like it, either.

“I’m taking five,” Ethan told his LPO, wiping his face again, then throwing the towel over his shoulder.

Sarah felt Ethan’s presence even though she never heard him approach. She’d just sat down on a bench with a ten-pound weight when Ethan appeared before her. He gave her a slight smile of hello and crouched down a few feet in front of her.

“Hey, how are you feeling today?”

Sarah felt heat race up her throat and into her face. The man had hardly any clothes on. Her eyes widened momentarily. “I didn’t see you when I came in,” she said, stiff and on guard. He was incredibly well built with powerful shoulders, dark hair across his chest and a line going down across his hard abs and disappearing beneath the waist of his dark blue gym shorts. Lean. He was built like a swimmer, and then she realized he was a frogman. So, yes, he did indeed have a swimmer’s amazing body. Finding her voice, she said, “I woke up this morning stiff and figured an hour of working out will help me loosen up.”

Ethan nodded, his heart contracting. “You have a helluva bruise on your temple. That’s enough to give me a headache just looking at it.” One corner of his mouth lifted. Her right eye was bruised and slightly swollen from the strike the bastard had given her. The bridge of her nose was also swollen. She had pulled her shining black hair into a ponytail, and he appreciated the clean, classic lines of her face, still beautiful even with her injuries.

“I took some aspirin and I’ve only got a mild headache now.” She started repetitions with the weights, counting how many times for each arm. Panic seized her. He was a man. And he was so masculine that it triggered old memories. She almost asked him about the poem. If he had written it.

“What did the doc have to say? Are you all right?”

Sarah heard the care in his low, husky tone. She swore those gray eyes were looking straight through her. She felt off balance with him, yet she felt his protection, too. It was a crazy feeling, not one she had ever experienced before. Maybe SEALs exuded that kind of protectiveness toward others? She’d never met a SEAL before except to pick up wounded ones on the battlefield. Black ops tended to keep to themselves. It left her confused and wary.

“Just a lot of pretty bruises.” She pointed to her wrist. “And my nose isn’t broken, thank God. The doctor forced me off the flight roster for four days.”

“Mmm,” Ethan said, nodding. Sarah rarely met his eyes. She seemed shy, unlike the tigerlike demeanor he’d seen in action yesterday. He could see only fear in her eyes. Why? Ethan also wondered how she’d become a medevac pilot. They took risks every day out in the field and were considered aggressive pilots. “Did she think you might have a concussion?”

Sarah sat on the anxiety that bubbled just beneath the surface and started counting again as she lifted the weight in her other hand. “Yes.” She tilted her head and met his warm gray eyes. “How did you know? Are you a combat medic?”

Shaking his head, Ethan murmured, “This is my fourth rotation out here and you get used to seeing certain kinds of injuries. My specialty is comms—communication—not medicine.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Tolleson, who was doing some bench-pressing in his absence. “He’s my LPO. Tolleson is one of the combat medics in our platoon.”

“I see.” Sarah watched him for a moment. “I’m really ignorant about SEALs,” she confided. Ethan was easy to talk to, and she didn’t see lust in his eyes as he observed her. For whatever reason, she found herself tense, unused to a man treating her like this.

“How long you been here at Bravo?”

“Three months. Got six more to go before I get rotated stateside.” Sarah wrinkled her nose. “I’ll probably get four to six months home and then they’re going to send me right back over here.”

“How long you been flying?”

She frowned. “Joined the Army at twenty. I had two years of college under my belt and they wanted me to shoot for warrant officer status. My foster father, Hank, was an Army Black Hawk pilot during the Gulf War. I was lucky and got into their family when I was twelve years old. He’d take me flying in his helicopter duster. By the time I went into the Army, I had about five hundred hours of flight time, so the Army pushed me in that direction. I chose to become a medevac pilot.”

“The Army doesn’t like to waste talent,” Ethan agreed. He had a tough time seeing her in the cockpit of a medevac. Those pilots were ballsy risk takers. Why was she looking at him like he was going to hit her? “You seem pretty laid-back for a medevac pilot.”

Sarah shrugged and switched hands with the dumbbell. “I think the word you’re looking for is shy. I’m a terrified introvert living in a world of in-your-face extroverts.”

He chuckled, liking her dry sense of humor. “Nothing wrong with being an introvert.” He shrugged. “I’m one, too.”

“Could have fooled me.” Sarah wiped the gathering perspiration off her brow with her towel. “You were the first guy to stand up to stop those three Delta dudes from coming over to my table. The look on your face scared the hell out of me.”

Ethan absorbed her praise. He wanted to know what she thought of the poem he’d slipped beneath the flap of her tent that morning. The expression on her face kept him from asking. “No one said an introvert can’t be a mean mother when they need to be,” he said in defense, liking her hesitant smile. That mouth of hers was sending his body a damned heated message.

“That’s true.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Every time we get a new copilot in our squadron, the major sends him to be trained by me. I think he does it just to screw around with the newbie. They take one look at my face and I guess I don’t look like a warrior. Then they get hyper because I don’t fit their idea of a medevac pilot. I’m a woman and—” she sighed “—I have to prove my abilities every day in the right seat. It takes a new copilot a couple of weeks to settle down in the left-hand seat with me at the helm. Like a woman can’t fly a damned helo? Give me a break.”

“I like your feistiness.”

“More than one pilot has seen me under fire coming in for a rescue, and I’m as cool as ice when I need to be.”

Ethan believed it. He held up his hands. “Hey, I’m on the receiving end of you medevac pilots. I couldn’t care less what your gender is. If I’m bleeding out, all I want to know is you’re going to get to me as fast as you can and save my sorry ass.”

Sarah laughed for the first time. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” She wanted to like him. That shocked her. And instantly another kind of cold fear settled in her stomach.

Ethan saw the happiness shining in her eyes for just a moment. Her laughter was husky, and his flesh rifled beneath it. His body had a mind of its own, reacting to her sweet smile and shy demeanor. That’s great, all he needed was an erection in a pair of gym shorts. Not good. He remained where he was, controlling his body. Above all, he didn’t want to scare Sarah off. Providence had given him an opening with her, and he damn well wasn’t going to squander it away like a teenager run by his hormones. “Listen, can I buy you a beer over at the canteen without you going into your black belt routine?”

Her lips curved. “Ah, I see my karate abilities have gotten around the base?” Thanks to the pilots in her squadron, who were gossip queens that put women to shame.

“I think you could have saved yourself yesterday with that bastard because you knew how to fight back,” Ethan said solemnly. He saw her eyes narrow a bit, her soft mouth become pursed.

“I busted his nose and blackened his eye. I was hoping to kick him in the crotch, but he took me down and started dragging me around the corner of the building.” Sarah pushed some strands of hair off her damp brow. Giving him an earnest look, her voice low with emotion, she said, “If you hadn’t come along, Ethan, he’d probably have been able to rape me. He tried to knock me out. No one would have seen him do it behind that building and he would have gotten away with it. I wondered this morning if he had, would he have killed me afterward? You didn’t give him a second shot at me.”

The fear banked in her eyes grew. Sarah’s emotions were right there on the surface, and damned if he didn’t want to straighten up, walk over and haul her into his arms. Ethan found himself wanting to protect her. But this woman was clearly able to fight a two-hundred-and-forty-pound hulk. “You sell yourself short, Sarah. I think, all things being equal, if I hadn’t come along, you’d have found a way to knock the hell out of him and escape.”

The look in the SEAL’s eyes went along with the deadly sound in his hard voice. Sarah shrugged. “We’ll never know.” She set the dumbbell down on the bench. After picking up the towel and wiping her brow, she said, “Actually, I was trying to figure out a way to find you and then ask if I could buy you a beer to thank you. It’s the least I could do for you coming to my aid.” She owed him that, scared or not.

Ethan slowly rose, making sure his towel was strategically in place over his gym shorts. This woman turned him on in a heartbeat. “Name the place and time.”

“Noon? I’ll buy you lunch, too.” Ethan gave her a very male look, and this time, Sarah felt her heart flutter. This SEAL was incredibly confident, easygoing as if he didn’t have a care in the world. And she liked his mouth because it was expressive and he wasn’t acting like he was going to slobber all over her.

He grinned. “Yes, sounds good. I’ll see you over at the canteen.”

Chapter 4

Sarah was nervous as she sat at her favorite table in the noisy canteen. Lunchtime brought everyone out, and those who wanted American food like pizza and hamburgers came here instead of eating over at the chow hall. She’d decided to wear civilian clothes instead of her flight uniform because she wasn’t on duty. After changing into a pair of loose jeans, sneakers and a pink tee with a long-sleeved white blouse to hide her curves, she nervously waited for Ethan. Sarah wanted to get up and leave. He was an unknown. And the unknown scared the living hell out of her.

She glanced at her watch; she was five minutes early. The men at the bar were looking her up and down. Sarah wished she could stop being so sensitive about male stares. Maybe it had to do with her childhood. Who knew? She was drinking beer from a sweaty glass, a pitcher in the center of the table, when she felt Ethan’s presence.

She found him smiling down at her.

“I never heard you coming.”

“You won’t,” Ethan said by way of greeting, pulling a chair out next to her and sitting down.

“Thanks for coming. I’ve already ordered us hamburgers and French fries.” Sarah tried not to be affected by Ethan, but that was impossible. He was wearing a red T-shirt that showed off his incredibly fit body. The jeans he wore made her lower body stir, and that shocked her. She’d now seen two sides of him, the poet and the SEAL. She noticed a number of scars, white and more recent pink ones on his lower and upper arms as well as on his large hands. When he moved to pick up the pitcher of beer, she watched his biceps flex. Every move he made was graceful, and Sarah knew only someone in very good shape could have that boneless kind of grace.

“There’s that risk-taker attitude of yours,” Ethan teased, grinning as he poured himself some cold beer.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t like hamburgers and French fries.” Sarah wanted to ask him if he’d really written that poem. She didn’t have the courage.

Ethan pushed the chair back on two legs. “I’m a red-blooded American male. Relax, it’s fine. I can never get enough hamburgers.” He grinned, seeing relief come to her eyes. Damn but he wanted to know everything about Sarah. He was afraid that if he fired off too many questions it would scare her away. All morning after coming back from the gym, Ethan had tried to figure out the best way to gain Sarah’s trust. Given that a man had just beat the hell out of her, she probably wasn’t too trusting toward any guy. Not even him.

“The workout go okay?” she asked, trying to get herself to relax. Sarah liked looking into his amused gray eyes, the way his chiseled mouth drew up into a hint of a smile. Heat flashed through her, stronger this time than at the gym. There was no question Ethan was sexy. Sensuality oozed out of his pores and it sure had a giddy effect on her. Actually, he could have been a cover model for a fitness magazine with his athletic body and rugged good looks. Why would she suddenly be interested in this man? Sarah quietly tucked her question away.

This guy had saved her from being raped. She should focus on him, not her own scarred past. “You aren’t like a lot of these other guys.”

Ethan shrugged, sipping the beer, holding her blue gaze. “If you haven’t had much experience around SEALs, I’d say that’s why.”

Tilting her head, Sarah said, “Educate me.”

It was easy to talk about his own kind. “We have an ethos, a way of living and conducting ourselves in the world. We’re a band of brothers and a family. We’re professionals, Sarah. We don’t have to swagger around, boast or tell the world about ourselves. We let our work speak for us.”

She felt the coolness of the frosty glass between her fingers as she listened to his low voice. “When I saw you coming up to hit that guy, I thought you were a shadow. I didn’t even hear you coming.”

Ethan’s eyes dropped to her parted mouth. He struggled to keep his body in line, but damn, it was tough. “SEALs take the fight to the enemy, and they’ll never hear us coming until it’s too late.”

The bartender brought over two huge platters of food and set them down in front of them. Sarah thanked him and put her beer to one side. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.” After the assault, she’d had no appetite. Now she did, and she wondered if it was because of Ethan.

“I don’t get over here too often, but when I do, this is my order.”

Sarah placed the pickles, onions, tomatoes and lettuce on the huge half-pound hamburger. “I don’t get over here too often, either. Heavy flight demands.”

Picking up his burger in both hands, Ethan grunted. “I must have gotten lucky seeing you the other day then.”

They ate in companionable silence. Ethan was always aware of the space around him. More than a few dudes looked longingly toward Blue Eyes and then scowled, jealousy written on their faces because she was allowing him to sit with her. He had to keep himself in tight check; he had a hundred questions for her.

“I imagine being back home on such a short rotation plays hell on your family demands?” he asked. Another way to find out if she was married, engaged or single.

Shrugging, Sarah said, “My foster parents love to have me at home. They live in Dallas, Texas, and I’m always sent to an Army base elsewhere. I do take my thirty days of leave to be with them.”

“No other family?” he wondered.

Sarah hesitated. Should she get personal with Ethan? There was something about him that inspired her confidence. Stiffly, she said, “No. I was given up at birth. I’m sure I have family, but I don’t know who they are. My foster parents, Hank and Mary Benson, adopted me when I was twelve years old. They’re my life. They took me in and I’ll always be grateful.”