Lindsay McKenna – His Duty to Protect (страница 4)

“Get out of my life, Hamilton. I want nothing to do with you,” she rasped.

Could he blame her for her rage? No. After all, he’d tried to deep-six her career. “Sorry, that’s not going to happen.”

“I don’t care. Of all the people I never wanted to run into again, you’re it.”

He accepted her anger. In the five years since his removal by the general, who ran the Apache program, Ty had bitterly come to grips with his past. “Life is twisted, at best. You know that.” He stood with his arms at his sides, his hands curving slightly. Captain Trayhern looked like she was going to leap off that gurney and attack him. His head spun with the violence of her reaction toward him. After all, he’d just saved her life. Was he expecting a thank-you? Apparently that wasn’t going to happen. So why had he come looking for her? Ty didn’t have an answer and that bothered him.

“No joke,” Rachel snapped. She jabbed her finger in his direction. “Go back into whatever hole you crawled out of, Hamilton. I don’t ever want to see you again. Do you understand me?”

His dark brows rose a little. Rachel’s face became flushed, her gold-brown eyes narrowed on him like a hunter. He felt the full thrust of her hatred. After the secret decision by the general running the program to oust him due to his prejudice against women pilots, Ty had never seen her again. Not until now. “Five years is a long time to carry a grudge, isn’t it?” he snarled back. “I just saved your friggin’ life, in case you didn’t realize it. If I hadn’t seen you go down and the smoke covering you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Rachel squared her shoulders. “Well, let’s just call it even then, shall we?”

Confused, he uttered, “What do you mean?”

“You tried to kill my career. I’ll never forget what you tried to do to me. You lied to your superiors. You used every manipulation, every twist you could think of to get rid of me. I still don’t know to this day why you targeted me, but that’s water under the bridge. And if you saved my life, then I consider the slate between us clean. You tried to end my life back then. You saved it today.”

Her raw, unfettered emotion made him step back. Apache pilots were, if nothing else, excellent killers. And the look on her face, the hoarse fury in her low voice was about killing—him. “So we’re even?” he said.

“That’s right, Hamilton. Now get out of my sight.”

Stung, he saw Rachel point toward the opening between the curtains. Obviously, she was still reliving those events from the past. Wasn’t it just like a woman to drag it into the present? In his experience, men let things like that go. They got on with life. He had. Until now. “Well, you aren’t going to get your way,” he warned her in a dark tone.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Anxiety sizzled through her. If Rachel had met him under any other circumstances, she’d have thought Hamilton damned handsome. Real eye candy. He appeared to be a cocky, arrogant flight jock when she’d first met him. His eyes were large and well spaced, his mouth full and certainly one that any woman would appreciate. His cheekbones were high and his black hair only accentuated his hard-jawed features.

Hamilton managed a twisted grimace with one corner of his mouth. Finally, the energy shifted to his side. “Our squadron was just assigned to Camp Bravo. We’ll be stationed here for the next year.” He saw the shock land across her pale features. A part of him, a tiny part, felt sorry for Rachel Trayhern. Her hair was in disarray, dirty and with bits of grass still buried in the strands. Her uniform was dusty, as well. When he’d seen her hit the asphalt and try to crawl away during the attack, he had no idea who she was. And when he’d run between the bullets and the lobbing grenades to reach her, Ty had only wanted to save a life.

Rachel felt his statement reverberate through her. She saw a bit of a savage gleam in his narrowing eyes. Realizing he was enjoying sharing that news with her made Rachel hate him even more. “You trash haulers aren’t in our squadron area. That suits me fine.” She’d deliberately called him a name she knew no transport helicopter pilot ever wanted to hear. The Apache pilots were the warriors of the Army helicopter fleet. Transport helos like the Chinook and their pilots were privately called “trash haulers” behind their backs. To hurl the words at him, however, was akin to throwing down the gauntlet between them once more. Rachel had no fear of this man. Her hatred of him trumped any thanks she might give him for saving her life today.

Hamilton stood there thinking through his options over her insult. The noise around them was a dull, constant roar. Doctors were yelling orders, orderlies were scrambling and nurses were hurrying at optimum speed as more injured were being brought in through the doors. Rachel was pale. She sat there coughing, her long, beautiful fingers pressed against her slender throat. Some of his anger over the insult dissolved. Without a word, he turned on his booted heel and left.

Rachel continued to cough. Relief sped through her as Hamilton exited. She watched him stalk angrily out of the dispensary, shoving the door open. It slammed against the building, he was that furious. Grabbing the glass, she poured water into it from a nearby container. She gulped the cooling liquid down her raw, burning throat and closed her eyes. She felt guilty. She shouldn’t have, but she did. That bastard deserved every bit of hatred she had stored up within her. She opened her eyes and set the empty glass back on the stand.

“Captain, are you ready to leave?” A nurse with the name tag Morayta, L. came in. She had long, brown hair wrapped up in a knot behind her head, a stethoscope hanging around her neck. She had large, brown eyes that sparkled as she drew near.

“More than you could ever know,” Rachel muttered. She had seen Lauren Morayta over at the chow hall from time to time. “You got my orders cut?”

Laughing, Lauren said, “I do.” She scribbled her name on a piece of paper on her clipboard. “Dr. Henson wants to see you in three days. By then—” she turned to look around at the busy place “—we should be back to normal.”

Taking the folded piece of paper, Rachel thanked her. “How many died in this attack?”

Lauren’s smile disappeared. “Three so far. All burn casualties.” She patted Rachel’s hand. “You were the lucky one. The doctor wants you to rest for seven days.”

Rachel didn’t feel lucky. She slid off the gurney, thanked the petite nurse and walked out of the chaotic dispensary. Outside, she gratefully breathed in the hot August air. Turning, Rachel walked back to her Black Jaguar Squadron headquarters. There was no way she was resting now. Black, oily smoke hung over the base like a funeral pall. Rachel could hear the roar of fire trucks over in the Ops area. She wondered if they needed help.

As she entered the busy tent, Rachel noticed how every office clerk was frantic and busy. Women were running here and there. It was an intense energy in the place as she stood just inside the door. To her relief, Rachel spotted her copilot, blond-haired Lieutenant Susan Cameron.

“Susan!” she called, hurrying over to her desk. “Are you okay?”

“Hey, Rachel. Yes, I am.” She came around the desk and gave Rachel a hug of welcome. “Are you all right? I was in Ops when the attack came. I got the hell out of there and tried to find you. I never could. And then we got word from the clinic that you had suffered smoke inhalation but were going to be fine. I stayed here because they really needed me.” Susan released her, relief in her gray eyes.

Rachel smiled. “It’s going to take more than smoke to keep me down. Is anyone else from our squadron injured?”

“No. We’re fine. Major Dallas Klein is going crazy, though.”

“Why?”

“Because we’ve lost two Apaches.”

“That sucks.”

Shaking her head, Susan returned to her desk. “The major has her husband on the phone to the Pentagon right now. She’s trying to find replacement Apaches for us. They aren’t easy to find.”

Rachel liked Major Mike Murdoch. He had joined the Army once again when his wife, Dallas, was given the BJS command in Afghanistan. “Well, if anyone can tear some Apaches loose, it’s him.” She rubbed her hands together. “I can hardly wait to get back in the saddle.”

“Right now, we’re two helos short,” Susan murmured, worried. She sat down and pulled a pen from the pocket of her flight uniform. “I just hope the Pentagon doesn’t screw us with wait time to get replacement Apaches. We keep our reflexes sharp because we’re flying all the time.”

Nodding, Rachel saw Major Klein emerge from her small office at the other end of the huge tent. She appeared grim. And when Dallas spotted her, some of that grimness fled from her expression for a moment. She seemed relieved to see her. The CO walked over.

“How are you, Rachel?” Dallas demanded.

“Fine, ma’am. Just some smoke inhalation. Nothing more.”

“Good, good.” Dallas looked around at the beehive of activity. “Helluva attack.”

Rachel nodded. “Yes, ma’am, it was. The Taliban is really threatened by this base. It won’t be the last time they try to move us out of their territory.”