Except that was absurd. The soldier sitting across the mess had the same profile, but the sergeant couldn’t be a twin, or the same mercenary. Every joint in Draycott’s body attested to the years since 1968. Although Draycott knew three men who seemed eerily unaging, this soldier couldn’t be like them. He might be the son of the man from Mogadishu, but not the same man.
With his steak finally cut to a width matching the oven fries, he set the knife across the top of his plate. His shoulders itched to fill in the blanks and connect this sergeant to the Mogadishu hit, but gathering information about a member of Special Forces could boomerang and impact cargo ops. The company pulled in two-point-five million euro per week, nicely north of three-point-three million dollars, tax-free. He earned one percent of gross as a combination secret shopper, help desk, quality control and security hotline. His thumbs-up or thumbs-down went to the Director. Therefore his decisions had to align as perfectly as the food on his plate. Because operations in Eastern Afghanistan were as orderly as the stacks gracing his dish at the three, six, nine and twelve positions, he would not check into this sergeant.
Personal curiosity about an episode from his past couldn’t be allowed to jeopardize his current job. If it did, the Director would fire him. With extreme irrevocability.
Chapter Three
Another Saturday afternoon in her plywood office. While the nurses were in staff training, Theresa anticipated tomorrow’s break. Most of Camp Cadwalader worked seven-day weeks, but Colonel Loughrey ran the clinic half staffed on Sunday afternoons. Barring mass casualties, she had four hours off every fourteen days. Four hours to lounge on her bunk, ponder her leave itinerary and maybe paint her toenails.
“Busy?” The deep voice pulled Theresa out of her reports and to her feet.
“No, sir. Paperwork.” She blinked to merge her memory with the ruffian on the other side of the intake counter. “Sergeant Wardsen? You’re here?”
He stuffed his boonie hat in a cargo pocket. His hair, definitely shaggy, showed the imprint as he rubbed his neck. “We were on patrol with the Afghan National Army for ten days.”
“You look like you returned in the last five minutes.” Dirt blurred the pixelated camo patterns on his pants and shirt, and his smell rivaled the dining facility Dumpster.
“Fifteen.” One corner of his mouth turned up as he indicated his uniform. “Guess I should’ve waited to come. The others draw lower pay, so they get first shower.”
“No privileges for rank?” She’d learned that Staff Sergeant Wulf Wardsen was the A-team’s noncommissioned officer in charge.
“None I’ve noticed.” He slid a folded paper across the particleboard counter. “Still get yelled at by officers.”
Her face heated as she recalled telling him to knock it off. “I didn’t mean—” When the wicked teasing in his eyes registered in her brain, she closed her mouth.
“The email I promised. I told the team we were chipping in for a baby gift, so they don’t know about this.”
“You should do that. In fact, buy a baby jogger. I read about postpartum depression, and sometimes exercise helps. Wait.” She hunted on her desk, then joined him at the counter. “These are details on the new-parent-support program at Campbell. They’re trained to recognize depression, make medical referrals and facilitate infant bonding.” He didn’t smell much worse than the gym, and the trade-off for standing this close was that she could see the cleft in his chin. “And they do home visits. I emailed the coordinator last week, and she has openings for Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning—”
The crinkles around his eyes deepened as his lips twitched and ohmigod she’d turned into an uncapped gusher again. She shut up, but couldn’t look away. Above his stubble, his cheekbones beckoned her fingers to explore, so she locked her elbows at her sides.
“You don’t mess around, do you, Captain?” His voice had dropped to a register that vibrated the air trapped between her skin and her loose shirt. His compliment sounded like an open-door invite straight to trouble.
“I wanted to be ready in case you came the next day.” She bit her lower lip. In a softer voice she added, “I hadn’t realized you were in the field.”
He stared at her so long she stifled the need to touch her hair and check for strands that had escaped today’s bun. Amber flecks swirled in his blue eyes like a whirlpool, but she needed to avoid being sucked under, no matter how much she wanted to lean close to count each speck and learn their different colors.
“Would you like an adventure?” No one had ever asked her something so ambiguous or seemingly forbidden. “We need a female doctor to examine a village leader’s third wife. She’s pregnant. You’d fly in with us and do what you can.”
Her chest inflated and she bit her lip to keep from cheering at the thought of going beyond the sandbags and blast wall. Aching to do anything that wasn’t paperwork for her four-hundredth respiratory complaint, she must’ve nodded her agreement because he smiled.
“Monday. Be at the flight line in battle rattle at 0600. Doctors do have combat gear?”
“Of course. We even have to qualify with our weapons.” Crap. Her mouth had sped past her brain again, but at least he was too polite to roll his eyes at a doctor who talked weapons.
“Until then.” When he removed his palms from the top of the counter and left as silently as he’d arrived, legs and arms flowing as smoothly as his namesake, she realized her forearms were also on the counter. They’d been leaning far too close to each other.
She’d see him again in two days. Then the enormity of his request hit: pregnancy, real Afghans, outside the wire. After six months of staring at the mountains that ringed this plateau, she’d set foot on one. With him.
On the counter he’d left a playing-card-size patch of dark fabric embroidered with a poppy. She opened her mouth to call him, but then she understood. For her.
The silk’s miniscule irregularities caught her dry skin as she traced the stitches of the blood-tinted petals. In her brown-toned world, the red blossom popped with promise. Verdant leaves reached for her as she lifted the fabric to her face. The scrap retained his body heat and caressed her cheek like skin on skin.
She squashed those thoughts. A sergeant was off-limits. If Colonel Loughrey authorized the medical mission, she could see Sergeant Wardsen again, but she could never consider more.
Monday morning arrived before Theresa felt ready.
“I am so freaking jealous.” Jennifer leaned against the metal bunk post, watching her quintuple-check the tactical vest spread on her bed. “I haven’t escaped Caddie since we got here. You’re going out on a mission and in two weeks you’re on midtour leave.”
“Sixteen days.” Theresa tried to ignore her stomach flutters. She was due on the flight line in twenty minutes.
“Glad you’re not counting.”
She clutched a sealed bag of surgical gloves and another with antibiotics. “Where should I stuff these?” Four loaded magazines for her Beretta M9 pistol filled the vest’s ammo pouches, her most serious pocketknife and a strap cutter graced chest loops, and her personal first-aid kit and tourniquet attached on the shoulders.
Her roommate studied the bulletproof vest. “Cargo pocket.”
She squeezed her left thigh, where she’d stuffed a meal-ready-to-eat. No space. In her right she had a waterproof notebook—as if it might rain this year—and pens, but the bags fit. Even her gear was cooperating to send her packing.