Tawny Weber – Call To Engage (страница 2)

“Yo, Rembrandt.”

Lieutenant Elijah Prescott woke drenched in sweat that felt like ice on his skin, his mind—his heart—still gripped by the sharp teeth of the dream. His breath came in guttural pants. His body flashed hot, then cold, then hot again as his pulse whipped furiously through his battered system.

Still spiraling through a hideous slide show of mental images, he pried his eyelids open and hoped like hell it really had been just a dream. No. Memories, he realized as he blinked in the dim light.

Half dreams, half memories. It didn’t matter.

He pushed himself upright, rubbing both hands over his face to scrub away the sticky layer of dried sweat.

“Rembrandt?”

“Yeah?” Face still buried in his hands, Elijah turned his head toward the voice in the shadowy dark of his doorway.

“Supposed to report for duty in less than an hour,” Lansky said, the shrug clear in his tone. “Figured you might not have heard your alarm.”

Was that the shrieking siren that had been blaring through his dream? His alarm clock? He glanced at the numbers glowing red and noted that it was already 5:08 a.m.

“Thanks, ” he said. For the wake-up, and for letting it go at that.

Waiting until Lansky melted back into the darkness, Elijah dropped his face back into his hands and breathed, shaking off the nasty dregs of the nightmare.

They had fifty-two minutes until they reported for duty. There’d been a time that he could go from waking to duty in ten. Three if he was stationed in a hot zone.

That was then.

Now?

Now he was rolling out of bed feeling like a goddamn eighty-year-old arthritic on a wet, cold night.

Or, worse, an invalid.

Elijah gave his face one last scrub before shoving to his feet. Ignoring the pain ripping down his side, tearing into his thigh, he stretched.

Katas, chaturangas.

His body was a machine.

He dropped to the floor for his customary one hundred push-ups.

His body was well honed and built for power.

By the time he’d finished his morning trifecta with sit-ups and pull-ups, he was ready to admit that his well-honed, powerful body hurt like hell.

Bare skin covered in a layer of sweat and boxers, he ignored the trembling muscles and moved back to his bed. A part of him wanted to drop down, face-first, into the pillow, wanted to burrow under the covers and find the sweet oblivion of dreamless sleep.

Instead, with the military precision honed by a dozen years served in the Navy, he tucked and stretched the bedding into place with a couple of practiced moves. He didn’t have to think about what to wear, just grabbed the neatly pressed digies—blue camo multipocketed pants and tee—on their mutual hanger, snapped up boxers and socks and headed for the shower. He didn’t bother with the lights. He had vision like a cat, and the dark was easier on the burning behind his eyes.

He stepped into the shower, letting the brutally hot water pound away the ache of a restless night. Letting it wash away the nagging pain he couldn’t explain. Or, rather, chose to ignore. Elijah rubbed his thigh, running soap over the glossy, puckered flesh as if it didn’t bother him. But the water, comforting a second before, felt like shards of glass. Instead of stepping out from under the water, he turned up the heat.

He refused to be a wimp.

It took him under ten minutes to shower, shave, dress and get ready for the day. He’d spent a couple of years serving on a submarine, so he could have done it in three, but he kept finding himself frowning at the wall, trying to recall what he’d dreamed that had left such a hollow feeling in his gut.

Following the scent of coffee through the living area of the apartment-style barracks he shared with Lansky and into the postage-stamp-size kitchen, Elijah took the mug his new roomie held out and gulped the caffeinated elixir with a grunt of appreciation.

By the time he’d drained it, Lansky had eggs scrambled into a tortilla, covered with a couple of slices of bacon and a tidy sprinkling of cheese.

“Living with you is going to be one sweet pleasure,” Elijah stated, nodding his thanks as he eyed his teammate. Both SEALs, he’d served with Jared Lansky for a decade now. Elijah had never realized the guy could cook like this. Goes to show you could know someone for years, train and serve and bleed with them, drink until sick together, but they could still surprise you.

Elijah used to like surprises.

“I figured you could use a hot breakfast today,” Lansky said, his words light and friendly. But there was a deep well of concern in the man’s eyes. “First day back and all that.”

Elijah’s shoulders jerked, his spine stiffening. He knew the concern was heartfelt, brother to brother. Just as he knew it was justified. But damned if he wanted it. Concern like that, it was a heartbeat from pity. And he’d had enough of that in the past few months to last a lifetime.

Enough to put doubts in the corners of his mind. Doubts that tried to creep out in his dreams. Doubts that, if left unchecked, could destroy him.

“All I need is a great breakfast to kick today’s ass,” he said, biting into the burrito and grinning as the heat and spice hit his tongue. “This is damned good.”

“You need anything else? Fruit or oatmeal or something?”

Oatmeal? Elijah had to swallow quickly to avoid choking on the second half of the burrito.

“Dude, you think I’m so pathetic that you need to stick me with oatmeal?”

“Sorry. It was my mom’s go-to for big mornings. You know, first day of school, finals week, the day I enlisted, the day of my dad’s funeral.” Looking embarrassed—something Lansky never was—the other man gave a good-natured shrug. “Guess it’s one of those crazy kid things that we never lose, ya know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

And he appreciated it. The offer. That Lansky cared enough to make it. And the guy’s insight. The idea of oatmeal itself? That he didn’t appreciate so much.

“Pretty sure this burrito and coffee are all I need to handle going back on duty.”

He’d handle it.

He would. He had to.

Because he was a SEAL.

Being a SEAL, it’s all he had. It’s all he was. He’d protect that, hold that, to his dying breath.

While Lansky scooped up another burrito for each of them, Elijah poured coffee and pondered how he’d gone from the classic skinny kid growing up in a small town outside Napa to become a supposedly badass SEAL.

He’d spent his childhood in Yountville, a dreamer more interested in drawing pictures and scoring with girls than taking on bad guys. When he’d learned that bad guys—or rather, the hard-ass jocks who’d run the school like gangs ran the streets—didn’t check interest before they kicked ass, he’d figured he’d better reconsider his thinking.

He’d joined the service fresh out of high school, eager to serve, sure he could make a difference. That choice had taken him the world over, had shown him man’s highs and lows and had netted him a fistful of commendations. Trained first in linguistics, then in cryptology, he’d put his skill with words and his talent with puzzles to good use.

He’d learned to fight. He’d developed strategic skills. He’d found himself.

But true credit for making him the man he was came down to his being a SEAL. A SEAL and, more to the point, a member of the elite group of SEALs that formed Poseidon.

Twelve men had come out of BUD/S together ten years back, and thanks to Admiral Cree, all twelve served among SEAL Team 7’s various platoons. That meant they were able to continue training together, studying together, excelling together.

And when called up, to serve together. They were an elite force of warriors, all focused on one purpose: to be the best of the best. They trained longer, they pushed further, they fought harder than anyone else. They focused on strategy; they specialized in everything.

They were, Elijah knew, the reason he was the man he was, and they were the reason he was alive today. They’d pulled him from the flaming bowels of hell, he admitted to himself as he and Lansky finished their breakfast.

“I cook—you clean. Since I hate dishpan hands, I figure this works fine,” the other man said with an easy smile at odds with his bloodshot eyes. As the sun rose, washing color into the jut of space deemed the kitchen, Elijah studied his roommate. You’d think Lansky’d been the one having the crap dreams from the drawn-out lines on his narrow face.

“Works for me. Don’t wanna do anything to hurt your pretty looks.” Elijah gave him another once-over. The guy resembled one of those cherubs his mother had painted on little china dishes, only all grown up. Blond hair, blue eyes and a sweet-cheeked innocence combined with a body sculpted by military training were just a few of the many tools Lansky put to use in his never-ending quest to bag as many chicks as he could.

And speaking of...

“I didn’t figure I’d see you this morning,” Elijah said, dumping the pans into the sink with a squirt of soap before adding hot water. “Thought you had plans last night that’d keep you in someone else’s bed until reveille. What happened? You strike out?”

“I never strike out, my man. I simply move on.”

Didn’t look like he’d moved on. Looked more like he’d spent the night suffering, brooding and hating life.