Kandahar, Afghanistan August 2021
One second I was fighting with Nate, and the next, he took me to the ground, covering me with his body as glass shattered. My heart beat into my throat, and my entire body locked.
The sound of another blast mingled with the screams of the girls and their parents.
“Rockets!” one of the operators behind us shouted, but I couldn’t see which one.
“Fuck,” Nate swore. Then his arms swept around me, and I was against his chest as he stood and moved with what felt like inhuman speed, quickly carrying me behind a nearby wall. Once my feet were on the ground, we crouched and he tucked me under his arm. Then he motioned to the chess team, saying something to them in a language I didn’t speak.
They all scurried toward us as another blast sounded, and a flurry of Afghan soldiers ran by. Three more explosions sounded in quick succession.
Fear tasted like metal in my mouth. I would never forgive myself if I got these girls killed—if by coming here, I cost Nate his life.
“I know. You’re sitting ducks out there,” Nate said, and I noted the button in his hand. He was using his radio. “Go. Bring the gunships back with you.”
The next explosion made the wall shudder, and Nate held me tighter.
“We can’t do anything,” he explained, even though I didn’t ask. “The rockets are probably being fired from miles away. All we can do is wait.”
I nodded, trying to force a reassuring smile for the girl closest to me— Kaameh. I recognized her from the hours I’d spent on their paperwork. Her mother sheltered her the best she could.
The others were covered by their parents and, in one case, an Afghan soldier.
The sound of rotors grew dimmer and dimmer through the shattered window. The helicopters were leaving.
I jolted when another round of explosions sounded, and Nate didn’t even flinch as he surveyed everything around us. He’d always been vigilant whenever we’d been together in the past, always looking, always watching everyone else, and now I understood why. Those reactions I worried about for all those years were the ones that kept him alive over here.
A minute passed, and then another, without anything blowing up.
“I think it’s over,” Sergeant Gray said from the other side of the waiting area, his back pressed to the opposite wall.
“Agreed,” another called out.
“Helos are gone. Nothing left for them to care about,” someone else added.
Nate’s hand cradled my cheek as he tipped my chin up. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, unable to make my tongue work.
He pulled back and looked me over for himself as the other operators moved in, checking on the chess team and their parents. “You’re all right.”
I started nodding and couldn’t stop.
“It’s okay, Izzy.” He tugged me against him. “It’s just shock and adrenaline. It will pass. Just take deep breaths.”
I forced air through my lungs one breath at a time until my galloping heart slowed to a canter, then a trot, and finally a steady walk.
“There you go,” he said softly, gently rubbing his hand up and down my back. “Gray, get me a situation report.”
Gray took off.
“If you could have any superpower in the world, what would it be?” he asked.
I blinked.
“Come on, Iz. Play along.”
“Running really fast so I’d never have to fly again,” I managed to get out. Shifting my head, I looked up at Nate. Other than the worry in his gaze
as he met mine, he seemed completely unfazed. “I always thought I’d be calm and collected if anything like that happened,” I whispered. “I froze.”
“You telling me that Isabeau Astor might actually be human? She’s not perfect?” He flashed a grin, and that dimple appeared, rendering me speechless again.
“You know every flaw I have.”
“Including your horrendous taste in men,” he teased. I scoffed.
“There she is.” He ran his thumb over my cheek and stood, helping me to my feet. He took stock of everyone around us doing the same. “Hate to break it to you, but it’s about to be a long night.”
“Because the helicopters are gone.” I nodded. “We’re stranded.” “Stranded and surrounded,” he said. “But don’t worry, our ride will
come back armed to the teeth. Until then, we’ll make sure we’re safe here.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “And in the meantime, the twelve-inch rule still applies.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled myself together, and all playfulness left Nate as we went to greet the people we’d been working for months to get out.
 |
Later that night, we sat around one half of the VIP lounge we’d taken over on the second floor to give the operators a higher vantage point. They all took shifts, some patrolling, some sitting, others sleeping.
Everyone except Nate, who’d stuck to my side, only breaking the twelve-inch rule when I told him he would not, in fact, be handing me the toilet paper. At least he’d let me take off the helmet once they’d made sure the airport grounds were clear. The actual fighting was miles away.
Darkness settled around the airport, and the lights in the lounge were dim as most of the squad finally settled in to eat. Turned out that they traveled with their own food, which they’d split with the families who were now mostly asleep a couple of rows over, stretched out on the chairs like they were just on an extended layover.
“That’s not what happened,” Sergeant Rose said, pointing his finger at Gray as the others laughed.
Nate shook his head, but a smile curved his mouth as his friends told stories. At least, I assumed they were his friends. I could tell he was close to a couple of them, though they didn’t have names on their uniforms. Seeing Nate smile, even briefly, was intoxicating. I found myself watching him to see if he’d do it again.
“What?” he asked, catching me staring.
“Just thinking that it’s been a while since I’ve seen you really smile.
Go figure we’re in an airport.”
“Fucking airports.” His dimple appeared again. “You should eat,” he said, handing me an opened, heated packet of something. “It’s spaghetti, and trust me, it’s the best of the options.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m guessing your meds are wearing off, so you’ll be ravenous any minute.”
My lips parted as I took the packet. “You remember that.” He nodded.
“Okay, since it’s just us,” Gray said, leaning back in his chair across from us. The radio unit was next to him, which I guess made him the comms guy. “Tell us about Sergeant Green here, would you?”
Every other operator, even the guy sitting at the window, turned to look at me.
“No.” Nate shook his head as I took my first bite.
It wasn’t gourmet, but it would stop my stomach from growling.
“Come on,” Gray groaned. “It’s more than obvious she knows you.” He grinned at me and lifted his eyebrows. “You do, don’t you? I bet you know tons of stories he won’t tell us.”
I folded my legs under me so I sat crisscross in the wide seat and glanced Nate’s way.
“Just because you guys are a bunch of narcissists who talk about yourselves all the time.” He glared at Gray.
“As opposed to you, who says absolutely nothing,” Black countered. At least I thought the blond guy was Black. Pretty sure the guy with the dark beard in the corner was Lilac or something ridiculous.
“You have to give us something.” Gray leaned forward, putting his hands together. “Please. We’ll never get this opportunity again.”
I took another bite and looked at Nate.
We locked eyes for a second, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just . . .” He sighed. “I’m trusting you.”
I nodded, understanding what he was saying. If he didn’t share the personal details of his life, there was a reason for it. He’d barely shared the details with me. “What do you guys want to know?”
Gray whooped and sat on the floor like it was story time. “How long have you known our boy here?”
“Almost ten years.” Innocuous enough.
“Did he hatch from an egg? Arrive in a spaceship?” Lilac asked. “Grow up like George of the Jungle?”
“No.” I laughed. “He grew up on a farm.” The farm. I glanced at Nate, wondering if his father still lived there, or if he’d sold it like he’d threatened.
We locked eyes, and his expression softened.
“A farm?” Gray’s eyes widened. “Really?” he asked Nate. “Really.” Nate nodded, looking away with a slight smile. I took another bite.
“What else do you have, Ms. Astor?” Black asked, rubbing his hands together.
“He likes cookies and cream ice cream.” I grinned. “Traitor,” Nate accused, his eyes lighting up.
For a second, I forgot we were in Afghanistan. No, we were on a street on Tybee Island, laughing and flirting behind ice-cream cones. I could almost taste the butter pecan. It was a lifetime ago, and yesterday, all in the same breath.
That’s what Nate was to me. As far away as a lifetime and as close as yesterday, as near as twelve inches.
“This is so good.” Gray glanced between the two of us. “Has he ever been married?”
I nearly choked on my spaghetti but forced it down my throat. Had Nate found someone and married her in the almost three years it had been since New York? If he had, surely these guys would have known, since they were a part of his present. Why did the thought cut like a damn knife? I’d worn Jeremy’s ring until last night. I was hardly in a position to judge.
But apparently, I was in the perfect position to be jealous as hell of a woman I’d never met and would never know. She’d have his heart, his laughter, his smile, his arms around her at night, his body, his kids . . .
And I hated her.
“So is that a no?” Gray asked.
But he’d never changed his next of kin form.
“Only once,” I answered, ignoring the way Nate gaped at me. “Really?” Lilac’s eyebrows rose.
“Really.” I grinned. “At least that’s what he told the nurses so he wouldn’t get kicked out of the waiting room when I was in surgery.”
Nate snorted. “Never living that one down.”
Gray laughed. “This is amazing. Okay, what’s with the taped-up tag he carries around?”
My brow puckered, and I looked to Nate. He went rigid.
“I honestly don’t know,” I answered, doing my best to cover whatever reaction he was having to the question. “But I can tell you I know why he carries this scar.” His hand was warm as I picked it up, turning it toward Gray so he could see the scar across the back of it.
“Tell me it was something undeniably stupid,” Brown pled. “You have to give us something.”
I grinned. “Coral in Fiji. My necklace fell off, and he swam down to get it, cutting his hand up.” My touch lingered before I let his hand go, and our eyes met.
“Must have been some necklace,” Gray said. “Coral cuts like a knife.” “It was,” I said without looking away from Nate, remembering the
way he’d made love to me when we’d gotten back from snorkeling that afternoon. My body heated at the memory, and given the way his eyes darkened, I wondered if he was reliving those hours too. “It’s still one of my favorite pieces of jewelry, considering you gave it to me twice, first on my birthday and then after you found it.”
“It always looked good on you,” he said softly. “Took me hours to pick out the right one.”
The block of ice I’d kept around my heart when it came to Nate didn’t just thaw; it melted. Whatever had bound us together in the first place was still there, as tangible as ever. We’d buried it, ignored it, burned it to the ground, but never managed to sever it. At least not on my end.
It would always be there.
The radio made a noise, and Gray’s attention shifted as he lifted the handset, answering what appeared to be a call.
“Do you have any embarrassing stories for us? Anything we can use against him?” Rose asked. At least I thought it was Rose. Lilac was a real
possibility.
Nate lifted a single brow.
I shook my head. “No.” Ripping my gaze from Nate’s, I managed a smile at Rose. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Green,” Gray said, lifting the handset.
Nate stood and crossed the aisle, breaking the twelve-inch rule.
“Is he scared of anything?” Gray asked, sliding into Nate’s seat. “Spiders? Bats? Cucumbers?”
I laughed at the cucumber question and shook my head as Nate picked up the receiver. I knew exactly what Nate was afraid of, but that wasn’t my secret to share. And from what I’d seen, he wasn’t anywhere close to becoming his father.
“This is Navarre,” he said so quietly that I barely heard it above the ridiculous suggestions being tossed my way. Cats. Hugs. Snakes. He wasn’t afraid of any of them, so I didn’t respond.
“Navarre?” I whispered, watching Nate’s shoulders straighten as he nodded at whatever was being said, but his reply was lost in the hum of voices around me.
“His call sign,” Gray answered quietly. “The color thing is so you don’t know who we are. Our call signs are so we know who’s actually on the other end of the call.”
Navarre. Gravity shifted beneath my feet.
Isabeau’s lover, cursed to only see her at dawn and dusk. Doomed to love her but never touch her. Never hold her. Never make a real life together.
“You okay?” Gray asked. I nodded.
Guess Nate hadn’t managed to sever the connection between us either.
