Zack illuminated his watch once more, the dim blue carefully shielded by his hand to avoid being seen, and read out the numbers which stared back at him through the pitch-black. “3820 meters, 0121h, 21°F”.

“So, what you’re saying is,” Nick whispered back, “we’re way, way up a mountain, it’s the middle of the night, and we’re freezing our asses off?”

Zack sighed. “That’s a roger, Senior Chief,” replied the younger man, tiredness obvious in his voice. They were perched on a snowy ridge-line in a remote, frozen landscape. In the daytime it had been a beautiful sight, the undulating hills topped with fresh snow, gleaming white under clear, high-altitude sunshine. From their position, were it not the wrong side of midnight, they could have seen the whole valley, a swooping half-horseshoe with towering, domed peaks on either side. The long, scenic overview was, in fact, exactly why they were there.

Fighting at night was a SEAL specialty, of course, even in conditions like this. Tough and experienced, neither man wished to let his tiredness, boredom, or freezing extremities distract him from keeping an eagle-eyed watch for any movement down below.

“Sweep fifteen left and confirm,” Nick instructed. Zack panned his NV goggles to view an area of the valley floor where, earlier this evening, both had felt they had seen movement.

“Nothing,” Zack said, seemingly for the hundredth time.

“Screw this, Zack.” Senior Chief Petty Officer Nick Vines had been in this line of work for long enough that he knew a freezing, mind-numbing waste of time when he saw one. “I’ll bet it was a herd of damned
goats
or something. There ain’t nobody dumb enough to be wandering around in this cold. ’cept us, that is.”

Zack muttered in agreement. He yearned for a warm tent and a hot cup of coffee back at their tiny patrol base, but despite their belly-aching, the two SEALS were professionals and left their overlook only when they were finally relieved, far too long into the freezing night, trotting briskly downhill to warm chilled limbs.

Their little cluster of dome tents was quiet. “No news is good news, right?” Zack muttered as they stripped off their gear.

Nick grunted impatiently. “We’re here to kill terrorists, right?”

“
Damn
right,” Zack agreed.

“I don’t remember doing any of that this evening, do you?” He tossed his heavy jacket onto the camp-bed and stretched at length before removing his boots.

“Patience, Senior Chief, patience.” Zack was on his fourth tour in Afghanistan and knew perfectly well that their jobs would consist of endless waiting, a brief and terrifying period of outrageous noise and confusion, and then a lot more waiting. “This is chess, not checkers,” he said.

The two men sheltered in their tent, which was as warm as they could make it. “Think they’ll bring us back down tomorrow?” Zack asked. With a senior rank, Senior Chief Petty Officer Vines was somehow expected magically to know the plans of their superiors.

“No idea,” was his usual reply. “Looking forward to getting out of this little paradise, are ya?”

Zack hadn’t been home in four months, although his longest stretch away was twice that. “Much as I love the place,” he joked, “I’m ready to move on.” His voice carried a weight he hadn’t intended, but which he sincerely felt, down in his very soul.

“Got plans for when we get back?” asked Nick, gingerly. “I’m thinking I’ll fix up my boat and do some serious goddamned fishing in the gulf,” he breezily added, smiling at the thought. “Got a whole bunch of snappers just begging to make the journey from the ocean to my back-yard barbecue.” He looked up. “What about you?”

This was sensitive territory, and Nick knew not to ask too much. “Lots to do,” Zack said simply. “Gonna be a different place from the one I left.”

“You OK?” Nick asked, turning on his side. “I mean, after that . . . news from home, and all?” he asked sensitively.

Zack gave his friend an appreciative nod. Three weeks had passed, and the shock and sadness of Kristine’s letter had barely eased, but he knew that life had to go on. Every solider had his list of gripes, but Zack’s really had become intolerably lengthy.

“It’s her call, man. Ain’t nothing I could have done about it, you know? She’s a tough one, knows her own mind. And out here, I can do . . . well, less than nothing.”

Kristine had left Zack in the middle of his tour, at perhaps the worst possible time. The bad weather had dampened his spirits, and the lack of action made him reconsider both his role in this strange, drawn-out conflict, and his career in the military, especially after his being unexpectedly passed over for promotion.

Either Kristine hadn’t understood his state of mind, or she hadn’t cared, but three weeks later he received a ‘Dear John’ letter, announcing in broken prose that she was leaving the home they shared and moving in with ‘a friend’ in Dallas.

“If she didn’t know what she had,” Nick offered, “she didn’t deserve to have it.” The Senior Chief’s advice and steadying wisdom – gained in part through his own horribly messy divorce a year earlier – had been priceless. “It’s ingratitude, I tell ya.”

“What, you think she should have been grateful we’re out here, climbing hills and scanning for goats all night long?”

“Yes,” he spat. “Yes, I damned well
do
. She lives in the greatest and freest country there ever has been, and you’re
right here
, on the ten-yard line,
protecting
it.” Nick was never more animated than when encouraging others to see the big picture. His friends wanted him to enter politics once his time in the Navy came to an end, although some feared that his brand of Iowa farm-hand vernacular might not sit well with the voters.

“Senior, I couldn’t
guess
what’s going on in that head of hers.” At least there had been no children, sparing him the sorrow of a Nick’s fractious, divided home life. It was a meager comfort amid the unrelenting pain of a broken heart.

“Let her go, man,” Nick advised. “I mean, look at you.” He raised a hand in an L-shape like an artist’s viewfinder. “I only dig the
ladies
, you know that, but I tell ya, you’re like a goddamned male model.”

Zack burst out laughing; it felt good, his first laugh in days. Nick was hardly exaggerating; with Arctic blue eyes, short-cropped, jet-black hair and the physique only a Navy SEAL could boast, anyone could see that, for Zachary Norcross, attracting the ladies would be laughably easy. “I’m just going to take it slow, thanks Senior. Ain’t no need to complicate things again.”

Their radio blared into life so noisily that Nick had to turn it down. “Jesus, what are those morons doing up there?”

It was their observation team up on the ridge. “
Grey Moon Five, Grey Moon Five, this is Blue Gopher, I have hostiles at my twelve o’clock, two point five miles distant. I say again
. . .”

They were up and out of the tent in moments, donning jackets against the dawn cold. “Should we wait, or head straight up to the ridge?” Zack asked, loading his weapon.

“Let’s see what the Lieutenant does, but if there really are hostiles, we gotta
get some,
” Nick drawled.

Before they could get confirmation, a jet approached from behind them, loud and rapidly closing. Their radio caught the pilot’s transmissions as he maneuvered for a quick strike. Finally, after weeks of waiting and freezing, the SEALs were bringing in some help, fast and hard.

“
Blue Gopher, have your target, engaging.
” Zack and Nick both knew what would come next for the Taliban hiding down in the valley: the silent fall of a precision bomb, a huge explosion and then obliteration. Zack felt the thrill of a hunt well executed; now it was time to turn the dogs loose and get some long-awaited payback.

Unable to see the target area from their camp, the two men had to wait for the sounds of success, and the radio call which would follow: “Targets are down, repeat . . .” It would make their work, their sweat and sacrifice and terror and boredom and heartache all worth it. Entirely, jubilantly worth it. Both men found they were holding their breath.

Zack turned toward the approaching roar and saw the speeding jet rising back into the sky above.
Too early,
said an anxious voice in his head.
It’s two miles to the target.
He turned to Nick and saw the Senior Chief open his mouth to yell as an orange haze surrounded them, searing hot and blinding white and burning them up.

Then everything went black.

Chapter 2 – Safe Haven
Sutherland Springs, Texas
Wednesday

Eva reckoned that her Pontiac’s beaten-up engine had been running funny for about 400 miles, but the trooper of an estate car had resolutely refused to quit. She felt almost as though she were dragging the car through these endless miles, willing it to the finish line of this lonely marathon. Her back ached like fury and the Pontiac was doing little better; the gas gauge showed nearly empty, and the windscreen wipers had given up the ghost somewhere south of Waco. But she had made it. Route 539 had taken her straight into town, and now she followed the last few steps of Trish’s directions and turned gratefully onto her friend’s street. It had been the longest journey of her life.

Sutherland Springs was in the sleepiest hour of an early fall Wednesday afternoon. The streets were quiet, most people taking their ease indoors, and with good reason; in this unseasonable heat, the car’s thermometer was trying to make up its mind between 96 and 97°F. Thankfully, the battered Pontiac’s air conditioning was among its most resilient functions. Unsure where to put the car, given the lack of a driveway, Eva simply pulled up outside the simple, one-story house and honked.

“Who’s making all that racket?” Trish emerged beaming from the front door and jogged happily through their overgrown front yard to Eva’s car. “Look who it is! Tyler? Come on out here, Eva’s finally landed!” The tired traveler slowly ached her way out of the driver’s seat and Trish gave her a moment to stretch, grinning from to ear to ear, before she clasped her friend close.

“Honey, I couldn’t be more glad to see you!” They hugged for a long moment, swinging comfortingly from side to side, letting the reality of Eva’s arrival slowly sink in. “What a drive, babe. This old heap put on a good show, but I don’t think she could do it again.”

“We ain’t gonna need her to do it again,” Trish reassured her, stepping back to examine her friend like an aunt measuring the growth of a favorite niece. “You got a new home here, honey. You’ll be right as rain in no time at all, don’t you worry.” She kissed Eva’s cheek and giggled like a schoolgirl contemplating a fun sleepover. “Tyler?” she yelled at the house. “Are you
rooted
to that damned chair, or what?”

Tyler Gray appeared in the doorway, shirtless and wearing an old Hooters baseball cap. “Hey, Eva! Welcome to Texas, darlin’. We’re mighty glad you made it.”

Trish stood with hand on hip, regarding her boyfriend with the practiced disdain she reserved for the men she was truly crazy about. “Well, if it isn’t my knight in shining jean shorts. Get on down here, you chivalrous devil, and help this young lady with her bags.”

Trish had given the matter perhaps three seconds thought before agreeing to have Eva stay with them. Old friends can hear it in each other’s voices when they’re truly in need, and she’d never met a girl in more need than Eva. Anyone who would up sticks – in the middle of a freezing October night in Chicago, no less – and drive 1200 miles to the other end of the country, would only have done so if things had gotten urgent. She knew enough about Eva’s family situation to draw her own conclusions, but she knew Eva would tell her what she needed to know, in time.

“
Mi casa es su casa
,” Trish assured her as Tyler set down her bags in their small spare room. “I got Tyler to clean this place out yesterday. We could damn near have a yard sale with all the junk he found.”

“Yeah!” Tyler enthused. “Got me some baseball cards from nineteen and
forty-eight
which should fetch a pretty penny.”

“The prettier the better,” Trish quipped. “This ain’t the Ritz, darlin’, but it’s home for us, and now it’s home for you. Come on in and get yourself settled.”

“Thanks so much, Trish.”

“No thanks needed. Provided you get yourself a shower, sooner rather than later. You smell of Pontiac.”

Trish fixed them a simple supper of corn, beets and salad while Tyler took a look at the Pontiac’s aberrant engine. Eva had been looking forward to a long, hot shower since leaving the Super 8 near Springfield, Missouri, at the crack of dawn. She let the luxuriant water fall soothingly over her tired body, soaping up her skin and washing the day’s travel from her auburn hair. Looking down as infrequently as she could, she tried to ignore the bruises. They would heal, she knew, like the others, and no faster for her lamenting them.

“Got yourself a tough old
vee-
c
ul
there, Miss Montgomery. I ain’t never seen an odometer that measures in seven figures!” he joked. “Reckon she just needs a servicing, maybe some new parts in the radiator, but it won’t cost too much. I got a buddy I’ll ask to take a look.”

Catching up over dinner was deliberately one-sided, with Eva asking all the questions. Trish and Tyler had been living together for a year, she knew, since Tyler’s previous landlord had decided to sell the property and invest elsewhere. “He was a son of a bitch, anyways,” Tyler remembered. “Always moaning about how I ran the AC too much. I mean, this ain’t exactly Alaska, right?” The twenty-eight year old had found steady employment with a local carpentry firm straight out of high school, and its owner had treated him like a son, lending him a car to travel to jobs in San Antonio and always making sure he and Trish had enough to live on.

“How’s things at the high school?” Eva asked.

“Fine, I guess. There ain’t never enough money, but I just love the kids.” Trish worked as an administrator at the tiny Stockdale High, only ten minutes away, and had been fighting a running battle for what seemed like years with the local education board. “Getting what they need is like trying to get blood from a stone,” she sighed. “I ain’t giving up, though! They won’t be getting the better of
me
.” She raised her fists like a prize fighter and sparred with Tyler, jabbing him in the ribs and then kissing his forehead, but jabbing again, below the belt.

“Ouch! Hey, you’re gonna wish later that you’d been nicer to my junk.”

“Language!” she cried, swatting his head. “We’re with a
guest
at our
dinner table
, you bad-mouthed so-and-so.”

Eva loved every second. The two of them had built a simple, comfortable home together and were clearly crazy about each other. Tyler’s work had kept him trim, and Trish was clearly in the habit of being good to her body - in contrast to many of the town’s women, it had to be said. She watched them joking and roughhousing, giggling and name-calling, and it brought back the happier moments of her own childhood. She had met Trish at band camp when they were thirteen, before her father’s problems, before her mother had left. Seeing her again, it felt as though the fifteen intervening years might never have happened; might simply have been a bad dream from which she could now awake.

It wasn’t an hour after dinner when Trish decided to retire. Her eyes were closing of their own accord and her body cried out for rest in a comfortable bed. Well-built for a long-distance drive as her Pontiac was, her back was just murder, and her ass seemed to have tried to mould itself to the car’s seat. Clean sheets were just heavenly and she was asleep in seconds. Nothing disturbed her until around 1am when, waking in that groggy way of one briefly unsure of her surroundings, Eva heard a rhythmic thumping from the other bedroom which could have only one explanation. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep once more, with the barely stifled, rising moans of Trish’s third and final orgasm the only sounds.

A large and healthy breakfast was a household tradition, and it was ready even before Eva had opened an eye. Tyler was at the stove, singing his own cherishably off-key rendition of CCR’s
Lookin’ Out My Back Door
with a verve most would consider inhuman at 6.25am. Eva emerged blearily and instinctively looked around for coffee. “I’m singing your tune, babe!” he announced, starting over:

“Just got down from Illinois,

Lock the front door, Oh boy!”

Trish was already dressed, further marveling the muzzy Eva. “You’ll have to forgive this performance,” she said as she tied back her clean, blonde ponytail. “Tyler was born at 5am and reckons it’s made him forever a morning man. I ain’t got no choice but to go along with it, right honey?”

“Doo, doo, doo looking out my back door.”

Bacon, eggs, muffins and coffee got the day started. Tyler was like a jack-in-the box, rising every few minutes to pack something in his bag, add a note to his ever-present legal pad list of ‘things to do’, or fetch more food. Eva found she was starving and shyly requested seconds of everything.

“Got to get myself going,” Tyler told them. “Whatcha got going on today, ladies?”

Trish brought her plate to the sink. “I don’t have to be at the school until one. I thought I’d give Eva the dime tour, maybe see who’s hiring.”

“Good idea!” Tyler agreed, and slung his bag of tools over his shoulder with practiced ease. “I’ll call Jessie and tell him to expect Eva with the Pontiac. Back around six, honey,” he said, kissing Trish and giving Eva a friendly, encouraging smile before he jogged down the yard to his faithful Ford Taurus.

Eva patted her friend’s shoulder and said, “You got yourself a keeper, there.” Trish smiled, very obviously proud of her man, and even more so of the relationship and home they had built together. “And he’s nuts about you, of course.”

“Well, he’s only human,” Trish replied with a sassy wiggle. “Some nights, maybe just a little
super-
human.”

Eva blushed slightly. “He’d have to be, to keep up with you.” Trish feigned a horrified gasp, hands to mouth, and then tickled Eva until she dashed across the room to get away. Laughing and catching up, the two young women washed the dishes together, straightened the house for a few minutes and got dressed, ready for an important day.

“You still like to get flour on your hands?” Trish asked as they walked to the Pontiac.

“Sure,” Eva replied happily. “Not been doing much baking lately, but I still love it.”

“Let’s see what old Cheryl thinks of you. I know she needs someone part-time.” Cheryl’s Coffee Shop and Bakery was an institution in the little town of Stockdale. Only three blocks from Trish’s school, it seemed the ideal place for Eva to make some friends, get some experience and make a few bucks. As a regular customer, Trish hoped her say-so might smooth the hiring process.

By the time they reached the intersection which took them east down Route 87, clouds had gathered in a suddenly leaden sky, and just as Trish shepherded Eva into Cheryl’s little coffee shop, the heavens opened, dousing the town with rain not seen for three weeks.

“Bless me if the Lord don’t
always
know when we need a drop o’ rain!” Cheryl exclaimed as the young duo bustled in, closing the door behind them to keep out the abrupt downpour. “How are
you
, sweetie?”

Cheryl was perhaps sixty but looked ten years younger. Her dirty-blonde hair was tied up beneath her ever-present hairnet, and she sported the ample figure of a woman who spent her life baking. With five tidy tables, a muted TV in the corner and the rich, stomach-growling scents of cookies, bread and cakes perpetually wafting through the place, it was a favorite hang-out for many in Stockdale, especially for a mid-morning “li’l somethin’”.

“I’m just great, Cheryl. Managed to dodge the rain, I guess.” Cheryl set out coffee in a ritual so often repeated as to have become automatic. “I want you to meet a great friend o’ mine. Eva, this is Cheryl Cunard, baker to the stars. Cheryl, meet Evaline Montgomery. Be nice to her, now. She just
drove
down here from Illinois.”

“Well, by the
heavens
above, there’s a
long
way for a little thing!” She extended a hand and smiled with motherly affection.

“Cunard?” Eva wondered. “Is that maybe a French name?”

Cheryl poured thick, black coffee. “They tell me we all started out in Nova Scotia, but heavens knows how we wound up down here! My momma said it ‘
kew-
nard’, like the old ship company which had the
Titanic
, back in the day,” she confirmed. “And if anyone wants to make a joke about the size of the proprietor,” she warned the six other regulars at their tables, “now would
not
be a good time!” There was a gale of laughter; this well-worn trope was a crowd favorite, Eva could see.

Trish waited for things to settle before asking, “Cheryl, I’m wondering if you’d still be needing that help you were advertising for?”

The older lady cleaned her hands with a sack-cloth towel and sat heavily on a tall, wooden barstool behind the counter. “Would this be how it is that I’m coming to meet the lovely Miss Montgomery this mornin’?” she asked with a glint in her eye.

Trish took Eva’s hand. “She’s a fantastic baker, just the best I ever knew.” She caught herself. “’cepting you, Cheryl. You’re just a miracle with a bowl o’ dough.”

“I should say!” Cheryl replied with a surfeit of self-respect. “But yes,
Lord
knows I could use a hand around here. The last girl . . . well, she just up and left after
three weeks
! Didn’t even wait for her last few days’ pay, so we can all draw whatever conclusions we might.” Two customers nodded sagely; this too, Eva saw, had been thoroughly mooted in the coffeehouse courtroom. She looked Eva up and down. “Would you be OK with waiting tables, honey?” Eva nodded, still shy of Cheryl’s no-nonsense air. “And can you be here for 5:30AM on a weekday?”

BOOK: Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1

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