Comrades In Arms (In Love and War Anthology) Read online

  Dear Reader,

  We are delighted to present you with three brand-new stories proving that, from the battlefield to the home front, love can conquer all!

  Merline Lovelace will take you into the jungles of passion with “A Military Affair,” the story of a U.S. Air Force sergeant whose recovery mission lands her in the arms of an ambitious photojournalist. After he’s captured the story of a lifetime, will he take her heart, too?

  The determined army lieutenant in Lindsay McKenna’s “Comrades in Arms” believes a woman, especially one untrained in combat, can only be a detriment to his team. Until he faces the battle of his life—with her at his side.

  In Candace Irvin’s “An Unconditional Surrender,” two passionate ex-lovers fight a mission side by side and learn in the flames of war what it means to be consumed by love.

  We hope you enjoy this special collection of heroes and heroines who give their all for their country—including their hearts.

  The Editors

  Silhouette Books

  MERLINE LOVELACE

  A career air force officer, Merline Lovelace spent twenty-three years in uniform. She’s served at bases all over the world, including tours in Taiwan, Vietnam and at the Pentagon on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She has produced one action-packed sizzler after another and now has over forty-five published novels. Merline lives with her husband in Oklahoma City, where she is working on her next novel.

  LINDSAY MCKENNA

  A homeopathic educator, Lindsay McKenna teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers on those levels. Coming from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay was taught ceremony and healing ways from the age of nine. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.

  CANDACE IRVIN

  As the daughter of a librarian and a sailor, it’s no wonder Candace Irvin’s two greatest loves are reading and the sea. After spending several exciting years as a naval officer sailing around the world, she finally decided it was time to put down roots and give her other love a chance. To her delight, she soon learned that writing romance was as much fun as reading it. Candace believes her luckiest moment was the day she married her own dashing hero, a former army combat engineer with dimples to die for. The two now reside in Arkansas, happily raising three future heroes and one adorable heroine—who won’t be allowed to date until she’s forty, at least.

  MERLINE LOVELACE

  LINDSAY MCKENNA

  CANDACE IRVIN

  IN LOVE AND WAR

  Contents

  COMRADES IN ARMS

  Lindsay McKenna

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  COMRADES IN ARMS

  Lindsay McKenna

  To the men and women of our armed forces, our National Guard and those in reserve service—thank you for giving us the freedom that we enjoy.

  Dear Reader,

  It is an honor to be asked to create a story for the second military anthology in Silhouette history! Participating with Merline Lovelace and Candace Irvin makes this book special for me because we all served our country. Our services might have been different, but our hearts beat to the same patriotic tune. I’m very proud to be a part of this collection with my “sisters” from the military services.

  Freedom should never be taken for granted. I have traveled the world over—Canada, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand and South America—and I now know what we have in the U.S.A. is something to cherish with our lives. I wish we could invite people of all countries to our own, to live here and experience firsthand the life that freedom bestows upon human beings.

  “Comrades in Arms” is a story about hope. Set in Afghanistan, it shows how kindness and generosity can open up even the most tightly closed doors between very different people. I hope you enjoy it.

  Sincerely,

  Chapter 1

  “Dave,” Morgan Trayhern said, a note of warning in his tone, “I know you don’t want a woman on your Special Forces team going into Afghanistan, but it can’t be helped. No one on your team speaks Pashto, or any of the other dialects of that country.” Running his fingers through his silver-flecked dark hair, Morgan eyed Captain Dave Johnson, who was looking very grim and unhappy as he stood before him in the small office at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the Special Forces.

  “Sir, with all due respect,” Dave said, opening his hand in a plea, “she—”

  “Captain Tara McCain.”

  “Er…yes, sir. Her… Well, this is unprecedented.”

  “So was 9-11,” Morgan growled. He looked at his watch. In another five minutes, he had to leave and go help prep another Special Forces team that would soon be on its way to Afghanistan. It was September 29th, and the U.S. military had geared up to go after al-Qaeda who had been behind the attack on the World Trade Towers in New York City eighteen days ago.

  “Yes, sir, I know….”

  “Captain, you’ll be meeting McCain on the tarmac in exactly thirty minutes. You’ll be flying by Air Force C–141 Lockheed Starlifter to Afghanistan. Once you land, you’ll be taken by CH53 Super Sea Stallion helicopter to a remote mountain village known as Tarin Kowt. There’s a hotbed of Taliban there, along with U.S.-friendly Pashtun Afghan people. Your job is to get the leaders to tell you who is in the Taliban, who is in sympathy with Osama bin Laden, and where they are. You are then to call in air strikes or anything else you think appropriate, to either capture them or kill them. We want prisoners if at all possible. Without an interpreter, you are dead in the water, and we both know it. Now, Captain McCain has worked for Perseus, my secret black ops company, which is linked to the CIA. She’s a marathon runner. She has expertise in all weapons, up to and including the one you carry, the M–4 rifle. If you’re worried about her keeping up, don’t be. And if you’re going to give me a hard time because she’s a woman, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Typically, in all our missions with Perseus, we have a male and a female teamed up to work together. Each gender brings its own unique qualities to the table—strengths that complement one another for the best success of any mission.”

  Dave frowned as he held Trayhern’s blazing blue eyes. When Morgan jabbed a finger in his direction, he almost felt it physically.

  “I have years of studies showing that man-woman teams are a helluva lot more successful than same-gender ones. So get rid of your prejudice and get your team ready to rock. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  Nodding, Morgan grunted, “Good luck, Captain,” and he reached out and shook the army officer’s large, square hand. “Bring everyone home safe and alive. Your families will be waiting for you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dave muttered, releasing his hand. When Trayhern left, Dave scowled heavily and sat on the end of the olive-green metal desk, his arms folded against his chest. What was he going to do? He commanded the most elite of the U.S. Army’s teams—a Special Forces A team. There had never been a woman on any of his missions—ever. He rubbed his wrinkled forehead. Dave understood why Tara McCain was coming along; they needed someone who spoke at least one of the major languages of Afghanistan. Now he wished mightily that he had taken advantage of the language classes the army had offered him two years ago, to learn Arabic. But he’d declined. What a fool he’d been.

  Heaving a sigh, Dave acknowledged that his own
actions and reactions toward McCain were going to determine how his ten-man team would respond to her. The urgency to get covert military teams on the ground in Afghanistan was paramount. Tiger 01, his team, had been given a plum assignment, and no one wanted to settle the score with the perpetrators more than his men. Thousands of innocent civilians had died in the attack on the World Trade Towers. Dave closed his fist, wanting to extract his own personal revenge.

  It was 1500. His men were waiting for him at the operations area, near the tarmac where a huge Air Force C–141 was waiting to take the team and their supplies on the long, long journey to Afghanistan.

  Pulling his dark green beret out of the epaulet on his left shoulder, Dave placed it on his head. The door was ajar, and he could hear frantic calls from other teams as they prepared to go to war. Dave slid off the edge of the desk, straightened his desert fatigues, and strode outside. It was time to meet this woman who was like an unspoken curse to his team.

  Tara McCain stood just inside the Ops building, near the glass doors to the tarmac. Outside, a Starlifter was being hurriedly prepared for a number of Special Forces teams. Nervously, she licked her lower lip. Dressed in desert fatigues, her pack and rifle nearby, she waited. Morgan Trayhern had called her two days ago at the Pentagon, where she worked as an intelligence officer for the army. He’d begged her to go on this mission. How could she say no?

  Tara watched the hundreds of men milling around in the terminal, their own packs and rifles resting on the shiny waxed floor. The din they made was low but constant. More than a few eyeballed her and she could see the question in their eyes: what was a woman doing here? Except for some of the air control and meteorology desk people, she was the only woman present. And she was the only woman dressed in combat clothes, so that made her stand out from the office personnel. Because her brown hair was short, those that glanced at her had to look hard to see that she was female. She knew that, at five foot nine inches tall, and weighing in at 140 pounds, she could probably pass for a man. The flak vest she wore over her fatigues effectively hid her breasts and other curves, so that, upon first inspection, she looked more like an eighteen-year-old youth than a twenty-seven-year-old woman.

  From out of the crush of soldiers, Tara saw a man roughly six foot two inches tall coming toward her. His features were dark and set. He had narrowed green eyes, a square face, a crooked nose and a thinned mouth. His gaze was trained on her.

  Instantly, her heart beat once in response to the searing look he was giving her. Dressed in battle fatigues, he wore a pistol around his waist, along with a tan web belt that contained essentials like extra magazines of bullets. The green beret shouted that he was one of the proud A team officers. Seeing the black embroidered captain’s bars on his epaulets, Tara knew without a doubt this was her boss, Captain Dave Johnson, leader of Tiger 01. Her team. Her assignment.

  As he slipped through the last barricade of men, Tara tried to brace herself. Johnson was clearly not a happy man. His mouth was pulled downward, his brow was furrowed and those thick black eyebrows were dipped in a V. Tara saw the warrior in this man as he walked purposefully toward her. He seemed more hunter than human. Still, she liked his eyes, even if they were narrowed. They were a beautiful forest-green, with huge black pupils, and she liked the alertness she saw in them. Widely spaced, they stood out against his darkly tanned, weathered features.

  Out of habit, Tara’s gaze flicked for a moment to his left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But that didn’t really mean anything; many men took off their rings on missions like this.

  Girding herself, as he rapidly closed the distance between them, Tara ordered herself to relax, or at least appear that way even if her stomach was knotted. She reminded herself that she, too, was a captain, the same rank as Johnson, and that he did not have seniority over her. They would share the command, and Tara was glad of that. Judging from the thunderous look he was giving her, she guessed that anyone of a lesser rank he’d eat alive.

  “Captain McCain?” Dave tried to keep his voice low and smooth, though he felt anything but calm. The large-boned woman before him was tall and proud looking, her shoulders thrown back. Morgan had told him that she would not advertise herself unduly as a woman for the duration of the mission. Dave could almost believe she could pass for a man, except for the soft fullness of her lips. And that was his undoing…her mouth. Even though she wore absolutely no makeup, Tara McCain was a damn good-looking woman, in his estimation. Her dark brown hair was cut short, hidden mostly by the red beret she wore. Her eyes were blue and thickly lashed and he found himself being pulled by her wide, arresting eyes as she looked up at him.

  “Yes, I’m McCain,” she answered, and offered her hand.

  Dave halted, staring at her proffered hand. Her nails were blunt cut and he could see calluses on the palm. Still, she had a beautiful, graceful hand with long fingers. Mouth tightening, he reached out and gripped it. He was surprised at the returning strength. Okay, so she wasn’t one of those cushy Pentagon types that never worked out.

  “Dave Johnson. I’m the leader of Tiger 01.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Well, maybe, Tara thought, as she released his large, square hand. There was nothing pretty about Johnson, either in his face or his demeanor.

  “I wish I could say the same.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Dave stared down at her. He noted the steely glitter in her eyes, saw her mouth pursing with displeasure. “Look, I don’t like this. I don’t like the fact that I have to take a woman into a dangerous combat situation with my team, but I’m saddled with you. So we’re going to make the best of it. My men are my family. We’re tight and we’ve bonded over the years. You’re a stranger walking into our unit, and I have to get you folded into my team’s dynamic so we operate as one fluid machine. Got that?”

  “Yeah, I got it, Captain.”

  Dave sighed and straightened. He dropped his hands on his hips and looked around, and then back at her. Anger was banked in her blue eyes. “Time’s short, McCain, and I need to say a few things.”

  “Like you haven’t already? Are you throwing down a red flag, Captain? You want me to pick it up? Maybe you’re forgetting whose side I’m on. Well, you don’t speak Pashto. I do. And I’m fluent in two other dialects of Afghanistan, not to mention Farsi, the language of Iran. You won’t have a prayer of a chance without me acting as interpreter, so if I were you, I’d be treating me far better and with a lot more respect than you are presently. I stand between you and the enemy, Captain. If you can’t understand the language, the only way you’ll know who’s going to kill you is when they raise their weapons in your direction, and by that time it may be too late. So let’s start again, shall we? I’m not going to be bullied by you because you’re having a tizzy over a woman being on your all-male team.”

  Her low, husky voice flowed straight through all the defenses Dave had erected. The blazing blue of her eyes reminded him of Wyoming, where he’d been raised. The sky over the Grand Tetons was exactly that shade.

  “Okay,” he muttered defiantly, “so you aren’t the soft marshmallow I thought you were going to be.”

  Tara almost smiled, but thought better of it. “Don’t count out marshmallows, either, Captain.”

  Managing a sour smile, he took a step back, raised his head and looked around. “Okay,” he rasped, meeting her mutinous gaze, “I apologize, Captain. I came on strong. Me and my team are all uptight and eager to get the bastards who did this to our people.”

  “Like I’m not?”

  A sliver of a grin started. He swallowed it. Seeing the petulance and defiance in her oval face, those huge blue eyes slitted with silent rage, Dave realized she was a fighter, too. “Truce,” he murmured, and held up his hand. “Okay?”

  “We’re on the same page, right? We’re all going after the Taliban. We’re a team. I’m going to dress like a man and keep my femininty subdued as best I can. I will be at your side at all times, Captain Johnson, when we in
terface with Afghan people. Right?”

  “Right,” Dave said, some of the anger going out of him. He looked down at her military pack and the M–4 rifle leaning against the wall nearby. “You ready to go?”

  “Of course I am. How about you?”

  Plucky. Feisty. A woman warrior. Okay, he could buy that. “Yeah, we’re saddled up. All I’m waiting for is the Air Force loadmaster out there on the tarmac to give us the signal to board.”

  Tara eyed him warily. She saw his anger receding, replaced by open curiosity—about her. She wasn’t too sure she wanted that kind of attention from him. Burned by another Special Forces officer in a relationship that had ended more than a year ago, she had sworn never to get involved with one again. Still, Dave Johnson was larger than life. He had that kind of quiet, demanding charisma that a good military leader possessed. It seemed to flow naturally from him, and whether she liked it or not, Tara was drawn to him. Unhappy with the stirring in her heart, she tamped down her feelings. This was not the time or place for such a thing. They had an objective: locate the Taliban and destroy them. Give Afghanistan back to the people, and release the Afghan women from the terrible bondage they endured under that regime.

  “Once we get on board, you and I need to go over the mission briefing.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “You ever been out in the field like this?”

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “It’s not a sin, Captain.”

  “No, but it’s a detriment to my team.”

  “I’ll try not to be a pain in the arse to you.”

  “Oh, I have a feeling you’re probably a pain in the rear most of the time, Captain, but where we’re going, that may prove to be a positive.”