Risk Taker Read online

  “I’m okay with it. Hank and Mary made up for it. They gave me love and stability and supported me.”

  “What happened the first twelve years of your life?”

  Her mouth crooked, as if to avoid answering his question. “It wasn’t pretty,” was all she said, her voice clipped and growing hard. “I am who I am today because of Mary and Hank. That’s all that counts.”

  Ethan tried to translate what he saw in her dark glance, but he couldn’t. There were a lot of layers to Sarah, a complexity, and he wanted to figure it out. His nature was to delve, understand and see the larger picture. It certainly served him well as a SEAL in black ops.

  She finished her hamburger and picked at her fries. “Are you an officer?”

  Ethan knew where this conversation was going. Warrant officers in the Army lived in a netherworld between officers and enlisted people. The Army considered them officers, higher in rank than any enlisted person. And he was enlisted. What was Sarah thinking? Was she interested in him personally? Checking out his rank or rate status to ensure the fraternization order wasn’t broken? Officers and warrants were not allowed by UCMJ law to fraternize with enlisted people. There was to be no affair, no personal relationship between the two parties.

  He squirmed. “I’m a petty officer first class.”

  “I see,” she murmured. In a way, Sarah was relieved he was enlisted. It would make it easier to stop the burning connection between them. Sarah wasn’t going to risk her career on an affair with an enlisted man. And yet, as she studied Ethan’s somber expression, that was exactly what she wanted to do. He had a kindness to him, a curiosity and intelligence. They all appealed strongly to her, but she couldn’t get beyond that wall of distrust she had toward all men.

  Ethan continued eating his French fries, no longer tasting them. He could see Sarah had already made her decision about him. She was single; that much he knew. Was she available, though? In his SEAL world, which blurred the lines between enlisted men and their officers, he didn’t see this as a deal killer even if Sarah did.

  Over the years, Ethan had seen plenty of officer-and-enlisted romances. If the two people involved were discreet, no one said anything. Only those stupid enough to flaunt their affair brazenly out in front of their commanding officers got the order to stop it or else. He’d seen, in some instances, the woman renouncing her military career in order to marry the officer she’d fallen in love with. And sometimes not. He understood what Sarah was thinking about. Weighing and measuring him because she was attracted to him or she wouldn’t have asked the question at all. He could sense her considering the costs to her career and to herself if she allowed their attraction to grow.

  “Do you have a wife and kids?” Sarah asked him.

  Ethan felt himself smile. “No, I’m not married.” He pushed the empty plate away and picked up his beer.

  “Do SEALs replace the need for a woman in their life with their team family instead?”

  He chuckled. “No way. About half the guys in our platoon are married and have kids. The rest of us are alpha male wolves without a partner yet.”

  She smiled at his description, pushing a few of the last French fries around with her index finger. “Maybe your job, the black ops part of it, stops you from having a serious relationship?” she wondered.

  Ethan could feel her trying to grasp the world he lived in. Was this a personal question? Or just a more generalized question about the SEAL community because Sarah knew little about them? He wished it was personal, but he didn’t think it was. “I don’t think most women can take the nature of our business,” he told her seriously. “There’s a ninety percent divorce rate among SEALs. Most marriages last only ten years. It’s like a disease.”

  Her brows flew up. “Ninety? My God, that’s high!”

  “Can’t disagree with you.” Ethan opened his hands. “Put yourself in a wife’s place, one who is married to a SEAL operator. She will never know where he’s sent, the danger he’s in, whether he’s coming back or not. She has to take care of everything stateside, the house, the kids, and he’s not there to support or help her do it. It’s a pretty daunting task when a husband is sent overseas for six months and you, as the wife, only get emails and maybe a Skype call monthly, if that.”

  Nodding, Sarah whispered, “That would be really rough.” And then she looked at him. “Is that why you never married?” Because Ethan struck her as a man any woman would stumble all over herself to be with. He wasn’t like those ego-busting Delta operators. He was settled, mature, intelligent, and all those things appealed strongly to her whether she wanted them to or not.

  “Just haven’t run into the right woman yet, I guess,” Ethan said, giving her a good-humored look. “Have you run into the right man?”

  Sarah frowned. Her voice grew terse. “No.” Sarah rubbed her brow, and he could see her weighing whether or not she wanted to reveal any more of herself to him. Desperate, Ethan waited, wanting to know.

  She shook her head and gave Ethan a confused look. “I’ll bet a lot of people confide in you….”

  “I’m trustworthy,” he assured her. And he was. Ethan didn’t spread gossip around, and he held every relationship as sacred. Sarah was staring at him, unsure. His mouth pursed as he waited. This was a key to Sarah.

  “I don’t have a very good track record, so let’s leave it at that.”

  Ethan felt sadness blanketing her. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business,” he rasped. And he was sorry because he saw moisture come to her eyes and it tore at his heavily guarded heart. A woman’s or child’s tears ripped him wide-open and he had absolutely no defense against them. Ethan wanted to touch her but stopped himself.

  God help him, he wanted to gather Sarah into his arms and hold her. She needed that right now, judging by the stark look in her eyes. He could feel how alone she was in this male world. In one aspect, Sarah looked fragile and too vulnerable to be a Black Hawk pilot. In other ways, Ethan sensed her steel backbone. She was complex. And that is what drove him to know her on a personal level. What moved her? What passion directed her life? Why was she in the military? There was so much more to Blue Eyes.

  Sarah seemed to force a brittle smile. “It’s life. Everyone gets kicked around by it sooner or later.” She finished off her beer and pulled out some bills from the pocket of her jeans. “Thanks for letting me buy you lunch,” she told him. “I’ve got some stuff I gotta do over at my squadron whether I’m on the flight roster or not.”

  It was a lie, but Sarah knew if she stayed there one more minute with this SEAL, she was going to give him her trust. And that just couldn’t happen. She owed Ethan for protecting her, but she didn’t owe him personal access into her wounded heart. That, Sarah guarded, because she couldn’t stand to have her life ever shattered again.

  Rising, Ethan nodded. “Thank you.”

  Sarah lifted her hand. “Stay safe out there, okay?”

  Ethan knew a brush-off when he got one. He nodded and held her blue gaze, feeling the warmth and gentleness that was an intrinsic part of her despite the walls she erected. He also saw she was frightened. Of him? Why? Need for Sarah wrapped around his heart, and Ethan wanted to groan over his loss. “You, too,” Ethan told her, meaning it. “There’s only one of you, Sarah, and we need you here on this planet. Okay?”

  Struck by his parting words, she blinked, assimilating his statement. There was a hidden depth to Ethan, and she saw it in his genuine care for her. That protective energy of his embraced her even more powerfully than before. “Yes…of course.”

  *

  Well that went swimmingly, didn’t it? Ethan was angry with himself as he walked toward SEAL HQ. He had to be at a mission-planning session at 1400. He’d blown it with Sarah. She was wounded, grieving, and he’d just romped into her life like a sledgehammer shattering crystal. Damn. Running his fingers distractedly through his hair, he wondered how to repair the damage he’d done through his ignorance and impatience.

  He heard a Bl
ack Hawk spooling up at Ops. The sun, hot and burning, fried and dried out everything in its path. Ethan hated it, preferring the cool, damp and humid Alaskan wilderness. That or jumping into the ocean, where he truly felt at home.

  What was he going to do to win back Sarah’s attention? Should he continue his other black ops strategy with her? Continue to place an envelope with a stanza of a poem he’d written about her every morning before she woke up? Ethan felt driven to do it by some invisible, unnamed source. His drive to know Sarah to her soul was intense, almost dire. And he’d never felt this before with a woman.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning when Sarah awoke, she found another envelope waiting for her beneath her tent opening. Rubbing the sleep from her drowsy eyes, she sat up in her cot and looked at her watch. 0700. She was sleeping long and deep. Moving her fingers through her loose, tangled hair, she pushed to her feet. She leaned down and slid the pristine white envelope between her fingertips. Everything was so dirty and dusty here, and it looked so clean and untouched in comparison. Her heart beat a little harder as she sat down on the cot, holding it with anticipation between her hands.

  Why did this matter so much to her? Did it contain another stanza to Ethan’s poem? She slid her finger beneath the opening. The same blue-colored parchment was folded inside it. The paper felt rich as she slowly moved her fingers across it. What had he written this time? A part of her was eager to know. After opening it, she read.

  And I am truly honored and humbled

  In this brief respite of life

  To be given an invitation, however slight,

  To take in the scope of your sacred blooms…

  (to be continued when poet has time)

  Sarah sighed softly, grazing the beautiful calligraphy. The black ink was bold against the blue paper it was written on. Touched, she absorbed his words, those pictures he painted in her mind with them. Ethan had written this. Even though she’d only seen him do it one time, she knew. Looking up, Sarah frowned. To think even one man at Bravo had this kind of sensitivity in his soul surprised the hell out of her.

  Her mind and, if she was honest, her heart, quietly revolved back to Ethan Quinn. Frowning, Sarah didn’t dare be drawn to him. But she couldn’t help herself. His quietness, his insights into her, startled and scared her. Sarah couldn’t get his rugged good looks out of her mind, either. His gray eyes… God, his eyes just felt like they had X-ray abilities and he saw straight through her, wounds and all. Equally important, Ethan wasn’t the type to judge others from what she’d seen so far. Sarah was constantly being judged in the medevac squadron, especially by Major Tom Donaldson. He had it in for her and was being very careful as to how he put the screws to her, always covering his ass so he couldn’t be officially challenged by her. The bastard.

  Folding up the envelope, Sarah rose. Day two of her enforced healing. She decided to go over to the gym after making her instant coffee. And then to the chow hall for a late breakfast.

  As she picked up a clean dark green T-shirt and a pair of clean trousers, she wondered if she’d accidentally meet Ethan. A part of her wanted to. A larger part of her didn’t. He was enlisted. She was a warrant. The two could never legally mix. Mouth quirking, Sarah figured if her commanding officer ever found out, he’d take great pleasure in getting her into plenty of trouble. He was a lousy leader, interested only in protecting his career and making colonel. He didn’t care what he had to do to get it, either. She’d seen him step on too many other pilots to make himself look good. Him and that damn yearly budget he kept holding in her face. Keep costs down….

  Sarah swore Donaldson was an accountant wearing Army green. He felt his path to the next rank was achieved by cutting costs. And by doing that, he was willing to order a medevac flight to wait instead of flying into the fray to save a man’s or woman’s life. Sarah clenched her teeth, all her warm, fuzzy feelings about the poem dissolving in the reality of her life. Every day for her was getting harder and harder to work under the major’s command. And today she had to go over to the office and see Donaldson.

  Sarah’s stomach automatically tightened when she saw Major Donaldson, his red hair close-cropped, working at his desk. She quietly entered the office, quelling her anxiety. Donaldson’s thin face snapped up. His eyes were small and close together, and he rapidly raked her with an angry glance.

  Coming to attention in front of his desk, Sarah reported in.

  “At ease, Chief Benson,” he growled, jerking out a sheaf of papers from another stack on his neat, organized desk. He threw the sheaf, and it slid to her side of his desk. “You know what this is?”

  Swallowing hard, Sarah tucked her hands behind her back. “Yes, sir. It’s a budget, sir.” She wanted to roll her eyes, but if she did, he’d gig her on it and probably write her up on insubordination. Any little excuse would send her CO into a fit of glee as he caught her in some infraction. It would then go into her service jacket, her personnel file, and it would always be there. Such things could stop her from getting her next rank. She had to play it cool and remain detached even though she was breaking out in a sweat, feeling like she was flying into a firefight to rescue wounded men.

  “Damn straight it is.” He glared up at her. Jabbing an index finger down at the thick group of papers, he said, “This squadron is very close to hitting its maximum number of repairs, Chief Benson. You, of all people, need to know that.”

  Sarah kept her face neutral. There was no way she was going to blow back on her CO. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Donaldson lifted his lip in a sneer.

  “We’re probably damned lucky you got set out for four days. That’s four days I know I’m not going to have to have our mechanics section repair one of our birds you flew.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tapping the papers, Donaldson hissed, “When you get back on the flight roster, you damn well better stop your stupid risk taking. You hear me? I will not lose my colonel’s leaves because of you. Dismissed!”

  “Yes, sir!” Sarah snapped to attention, turned on her heel and headed out the HQ door and into the main area of Operations.

  Her heart was pounding. Donaldson reminded her of the past—of a horror she didn’t want to revisit. She wiped her mouth, walking straight, shoulders squared and chin up. Sarah had learned a long time ago never to show anyone she was scared. It just brought more crap raining down on her.

  As she headed out the main doors to go back to her tent area to rest, she thought of Ethan. God, she couldn’t get involved with him. She had to keep her head in the game. Donaldson was just aching to bring her down. Nail her ass to the deck. Embarrass her. No, she had to focus.

  *

  On the third morning, Sarah slept until nearly 0900, which shocked her. The trauma she’d endured was far deeper than she’d initially realized. And as she opened her eyes, she automatically looked toward the tent opening. Her heart raced as she noticed a third white, pristine envelope on the floor. Sarah didn’t even try to fool herself about the quiet joy running through her. It was another poem from Ethan. She sat up, pushed the hair off her face and walked over and picked it up.

  Sarah wanted to believe Ethan truly liked her—beyond her appearance. The chances of that, however, were slim to none. Men saw her in sexual terms only for the most part. Not romance or love—both yearnings she had but didn’t feel were possible in her life. Still, as she picked up the envelope, the idealistic part of her swooned with excitement.

  Sitting back on her cot, Sarah opened it up, her hand trembling slightly. She pulled it out and opened it up.

  Who could gue
ss that beneath the pastiche of outer appearances

  You would be imbued with lush streams, blooming banks of gladiolas

  And cypress trees? Everyone agreed

  That yours is a colorful personality,

  But until you recently whispered to my psyche,

  Who knew you retained a range and hue of vivid colors

  Streaming to the periphery of awareness, then back again?

  (to be continued as poet gets a chance)

  Sarah closed her eyes, pressing the envelope to her breast. She felt this man, his energy and his heart. How could this be happening to her? She hoped with all her heart this wasn’t a mean trick being played on her, that his poem was truly as it appeared: a man courting a woman. Ethan could be doing this to manipulate her.

  Her hand fell into her lap, the envelope still in her fingertips. Sarah had been hurt so often by men who professed to like her, wanted to get to know her, and it always ended up the same: they wanted to use her body and that was it. Did Ethan want the same thing, even with such an elaborate plan? She hoped not, but her years of experience in the military overrode her idealistic wish.

  Slowly rising, Sarah stretched, hands above her head. The gym workouts were helping, and she was feeling a bit stronger, more together. She had tried to swallow her disappointment when she didn’t see Ethan at the gym or chow hall yesterday. Maybe today? It was something she looked forward to without questioning too closely why.

  *

  On the last day of her enforced medical rest, Sarah awoke much earlier. She looked toward the tent door and saw a fourth envelope from Ethan sitting there. Her watch read 0600. This time, she let happiness flow through her as she retrieved the card. Her heart squeezed with anticipation as she sat down on the cot and eagerly opened it. The envelope awoke the part of her life that had been set aside due to her military career. War was harsh and took no prisoners. The weight of the envelope, its perfect cleanliness against the dirtiness of daily combat, transported her to another time and place. A place where civility, romance and social graces all lived. Holding her breath, Sarah pulled out the creamy papyrus and opened it up.