of her skull. Studying the helmet, Kell realized it had been cut open by something. Maybe a flying blade? Whatever it had been, it had created a one-inch gash in her scalp, the blood still leaking out of it and down the left side of her temple, cheek and neck.
He placed his fingers on the inside of her wrist after pulling off her Nomex flight gloves. She was medium boned, her skin ivory colored. Her pulse was strong and steady, a hopeful sign. Kell began to breathe a little easier.
He put a small blanket he kept rolled up in his ruck beneath her head and tilted her neck back slightly to open her airway. Quickly and expertly, he examined her for other injuries, burns, bullet wounds or broken bones. She was unconscious and he was fairly sure it was due to her head wound.
Still, Kell missed nothing. Rolling her toward him, the front of her body resting against his knees, he checked her back and legs for exit wounds and injuries. There were none. Turning her back over, he concentrated on her left lower arm. Her flight-suit sleeve had been ripped open from her wrist to her elbow. There was a three-inch gash that she’d probably gotten egressing out of the cockpit window, Kell guessed. It was deep and oozing blood, but it was not life threatening. It would need a lot of stitches, though.
He placed another blanket beneath her knees, bringing the blood back to the center of her body to halt the devastating shock. He then went to work on her head wound. In a cave, Kell wouldn’t be able to use his radio or his satellite phone to reach help. They were cut off from everyone due to the thick rock. For now, Kell was all right with that, so long as the pilot hadn’t sustained a life-threatening concussion. If she had, then it became a very dicey situation because the Taliban were actively hunting them.
Pulling a bottle of water out of his ruck, he drank deeply, replenishing badly needed fluids lost in the run for safety. Taking a washcloth he always carried in a plastic storage bag, he poured sterilized water from another bottle onto it and began to carefully wash the blood away from her head wound. He had to see how deep it was and if her skull had been fractured.
To his relief, it was merely a flesh wound, but these types often bled like a stuck hog. It took him several minutes to clean it up. Getting out a surgical needle and thread, he carefully stitched the wound closed. Most important was sterilizing the area before and after. Brushing antibiotic cream over the sewn area, Kell placed a battle dressing across it. In minutes he had the wound protected, the white gauze around her head. He noticed it damned near matched the color of her flesh right now.
Hauling the ruck closer, he pulled out a syringe and a bottle of antibiotics, giving her a maximum dose in her upper arm, wanting to stave off any bacterial infection. That was the last thing she needed.
All the while he worked over her, his hearing was keyed to outside the cave. The tunnel systems within the mountain were both a labyrinth and an echo chamber. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was 0200. He was exhausted, but pushed through it.
Trying to ignore how attractive Chief Mackenzie was, Kell went to work on the gash on her arm. It was then that she groaned.
He stopped, watching her shadowed face. Her softly arched brows moved down. Her mouth—and God, what a mouth she had—closed, and then she licked her lower lip. Any moment now, Kell knew she’d start to become conscious. Her right arm lifted toward her head. He caught her hand.
“Chief Mackenzie? You’re safe. You need to lie still. Do you hear me?” Kell leaned down, a little closer, watching her thick lashes quiver. Another groan tore out of her and her nostrils flared. Kell knew she was in pain. Probably from the wound on her arm.
And then his breath jammed in his throat as her lashes drifted upward. She had incredibly green eyes, although Kell couldn’t tell much more than that with the deep shadows in the cavern. Her gaze wandered. They were glazed over with shock. Finally, they wandered in his direction and stopped. Kell could see her trying to think, to remember what had happened.
Her pupils were dilated and he checked them closely. Both were of equal size and responded. Relief moved through him. If one pupil was fixed, larger or smaller than the other, it meant she’d sustained serious head trauma.
She had beautiful eyes, the kind a man could get lost in. They reminded him of the summer-green color of the trees in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, where he had been born. Pushing his personal reaction to her aside, he said quietly, “Can you hear me, ma’am? I’m Navy Chief Kelly Ballard. You’re safe here with me.”
Leah heard the man’s soft, Southern drawl, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Her head throbbed with pain and her vision was blurred. She felt white-hot heat throbbing through her left arm. The pain was overwhelming and she struggled, feeling as if trapped in a netherworld. Her vision cleared for a second. She was staring up at a man with a deeply tanned, craggy face, whose intense, narrowed gray eyes studied her. Oddly, she wasn’t frightened of him. He was dressed in SEAL cammies. Her vision blurred again. Leah shut her eyes, struggling to remain conscious. Where was she? Where was Brian? What had happened?
LEAH FELT THE man’s calloused hand on her left arm that hurt so damn much. She felt nauseous, dizzy, and couldn’t think coherently.
“Ma’am,” he drawled, “just be still. You took a bad bump to your head. Things will clear if you don’t struggle so much.”
This time, she heard what he was saying. It was low in timbre. Caring. His tone calmed her frantic, chaotic mind. Her whole body hurt. Leah felt as if she’d been in a major car wreck.
Opening her eyes, she blinked, staring up into the deeply shadowed face of the man kneeling beside her. She noticed the lines around the corners of his eyes. Laugh lines, maybe? Her mind was wandering, shorting out. He had an oval face, strong chin and large, intelligent-looking eyes. The word rugged had been created for him. He wasn’t pretty-boy handsome at all. Rather, it looked as though his face had been hewn and sculpted out of mountain rock. His nose reminded her of a hawk’s.
It was his eyes that snagged her attention the most. Wide spaced, gray with large black pupils and a black ring outside of the iris, they also gave the impression of a hawk. Maybe an eagle. And then her gaze wandered down to his delicious-looking mouth. Leah saw a lazy smile spread across it, and she felt relief tunnel through her. As hard as this man looked, his mouth was his saving grace. It was chiseled, the lower lip slightly fuller, the corners curved naturally upward. This man laughed a lot, Leah thought. His black hair was longish, almost to the nape of his neck, his face bearded. That made sense if he was a SEAL. They always wore beards and had long hair in order to fit in with the male Muslim population of Afghanistan.
“That’s it, Sugar,” he soothed, “just rest. You’re going to be fine. I’ll take good care of you.”
Those last words rang in her mind. I’ll take good care of you. Leah closed her eyes, his hand cradling her left forearm as if he were holding a much-beloved child. A large hand, the fingers so long that Leah could feel their length against her upper limb. His hand was calloused and felt rough on her sensitive skin. Her mind was cartwheeling between the past and present.
Hayden Grant, her ex-husband, came out of the blackness and threatened to engulf her. His leering features, those pale blue eyes that looked almost colorless when he was going to beat her, stared back at her.
The man with the Southern drawl broke the hold of her building terror. He would take care of her. No man had ever done that before. Not her father. Not her ex-husband. Yet, as Leah felt herself fighting not to lose consciousness, she honed in on this stranger’s quiet, soft voice.
“Now
