Never Surrender (22 page)

* * *

G
ABE
WAS
AWAKE
long before Bay emerged from her tent. The air was crisp, hanging in the forty-degree Fahrenheit range. Low, foglike clouds hung above the smooth surface of the river. He watched with his binoculars, sitting in front of his hide after having a cup of hot instant coffee.

Gabe saw as she stretched fitfully, dressed in a pair of baggy gray sweatpants and a heavy red sweater and a green nylon jacket. She looked rested, and he heaved a sigh of relief. The sky was clear, dawn lightening the shadowed meadow area.

She crawled back into the tent and carried out a small Coleman stove. She proceeded to make herself a hefty breakfast of three eggs and a lot of bacon. His girl had her appetite back, and that made him feel good.

* * *

B
AY
FELT
EYES
on her. She looked up across the river toward the wooded hill. Usually, she’d have trusted her feelings of being watched. Now...well, she couldn’t trust herself at all. She went to the bank of the river, crouched down and washed her plate and flatware, scrubbing them with sand to cleanse them. The sun was up, the rays shooting across to the crown of the hill in front of her. The peace was exquisite, and she felt her spirit respond to the pristine surroundings.

* * *

G
ABE
HISSED
A
curse, quickly jerking the binos away from his eyes. Snipers knew if they watched their target too long through a scope, the targets would become peripherally aware they were being watched. And stalked. He tensed when Bay stood up, frowned and looked up in his direction. Gabe waited, slowing his breath, feeling himself become part of the thick vegetation surrounding the hide. At a thousand yards, he couldn’t pick up her facial expression without the scope or binos. Still, it warned him that Bay’s all-terrain radar was working just fine. He couldn’t afford to get caught watching her for too long again.

As Bay moved back to her Coleman stove, to fold it up and set it inside her tent, Gabe moved quietly back into his hide. He leaned his belly against the wall of dirt, his right hand near the trigger of the Win-Mag, his left arm folded across and in front of him.

He spotted movement from behind the meadow on a smaller trail. Scowling, he zeroed in with his Night Force scope on ten men walking very hurriedly toward the bridge. They, too, had heavy packs on their backs. And they all had that same determined look on their faces as the other group had the night before. Who the hell were these dudes?

This time, Gabe looked more closely. The leader was a tall white guy, with a shaved head and a perpetual scowl on his meaty face. Moving the scope downward across his torso, Gabe spotted the tip of a pistol muzzle an inch below the heavy coat he wore.

Moving farther down, he studied his pants. Yes, there was probably a knife or a small pistol on the outside left leg, hidden within the folds of his cammo pants.

He tensed as the leader looked into the meadow, halted and intently studied Bay’s small tent. Then, they moved on. The hair on the back of Gabe’s neck stood up. It was a warning.
Dammit.
All the men were wearing camouflage Army gear.

Was this some kind of Army gig? A forced march to get them in shape? Gabe had no idea, but he put it on his list of things to do today. He grabbed his computer, a modernized wheel book snipers always carried on them, and took a page for the commandos, as he referred to them. He marked down last night’s group and how many were in it, as well as intel on this latest group.
Something
was going on. But what?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A
FTER
THE
SECOND
WEEK
, Gabe moved his hide. Those Army dudes, or whoever they were, stepped up their activity by running through the meadow twice a day where Bay had her tent located. They were smart, doing it at dawn and late dusk, when she was asleep or inside her tent for the night.

Gabe used his camera with its long-range lens, continuing to take photos of every man’s face and gear. He had a bad feeling about them. This morning, the men quietly moved through the foggy meadow, heading for the Greenbrier River bridge. He was within a hundred feet behind Bay’s tent. His new hide took advantage of a fifty-ton boulder surrounded on all sides by trees and brush. No one, not even Bay, would ever know he was there. And that was the way Gabe wanted it for now.

Although he had the Win-Mag set up, it was much easier and less cumbersome to use his binos as he lay against the wall of dirt and rock. As always, Gabe felt the hair on his neck rise just before he’d get eyes on the group of men coming around the hill and heading toward the bridge. Sure enough, through the ground fog creeping silently across the meadow, he saw the bald leader once more.

Usually he led a group every three or four days. This time, six men walking like overburdened pack mules trudged wearily behind him. And always, Baldy would stop, glare toward the tent in the meadow, work his mouth and then move toward the bridge. Gabe could see the distrust and worry in his eyes. Maybe Baldy was concerned as to why the tent was always there. Thinking it was a spy watching his movements.

Gabe typed the intel in his wheel book computer after the group had crossed the bridge and were down on the Greenbrier Trail, heading north.

For a moment, he simply enjoyed the cold forty-degree temperature, the fingers of opaque fog stealing in slow, graceful twists and turns across the area. Gabe longed to be in that tent, holding Bay. Kissing her, loving her. God knew, he had a lot of time to fantasize about their stalled relationship as he watched her sitting outside her tent to paint or sketch. He often wondered what she was drawing. What beauty did Bay see that touched her heart?

He set the binos aside and made his breakfast of hot coffee thanks to a chemical pack that heated the water. He’d put a couple of slices of turkey between two pieces of bread and slowly chewed on it, his gaze always moving, noting and watching the surrounding area as the day grew lighter.

Suddenly, he heard Bay scream. It was that wild, scared scream he’d heard so many times before at the cabin. Dropping the sandwich, Gabe bolted out of the hide, his heart lurching in his chest. And then, he skidded to a halt fifty feet down the hill. What the hell was he doing? Breathing hard, Gabe paused, torn. He stared hard at the tent, and from this distance, he could hear Bay sobbing like a frightened child. Gabe’s eyes grew dark, and he wanted to run that short distance and go to her.
Hold her.
Bile rose in his throat as he continued to listen to her sobs until they lessened and eventually stopped.

Angrily, he turned on his heel and climbed quietly up the hill to the promontory of the massive rock. His heart was tormented. He grieved for Bay. Slipping back inside his hide was the last thing he wanted to do right now. As he slid into his observation position, Gabe rubbed his bristly growth of beard beneath his fingers. Every cell in his body screamed he should protect Bay. Hold her against the torture he knew she was reexperiencing. Closing his eyes, Gabe forced himself to slow his breathing, to get ahold of himself, even though adrenaline was racing through his bloodstream, pushing him to act.

From his other position on the opposite side of the river, he wouldn’t have heard her screams because he’d been too far away. Now, with his new hide directly behind her tent, a quarter of the way up a hill, he could. Gabe’s mind twisted in devastation. Did Bay have nightmares every night? Or not? She had at first when coming home, but eventually, it reduced to one or two a week.
Dammit!

His heart convulsed in agony. He loved her so damn much he could barely tolerate the pain ripping through him. Yet, Gabe knew if he’d go running down there to announce his presence, he couldn’t predict what Bay’s reaction would be. His heart was utterly vulnerable where Bay was concerned.

Gabe pulled out of his misery as he heard the tent open up. Bay emerged. She had on a pair of dark red flannel trousers, her red cable-knit sweater on and her green jacket. He saw the back of her head, her hair tangled and uncombed. She headed through the swirling mists toward the riverbank. Swallowing hard, his throat tight with emotion, all Gabe could do was watch and hurt for her. And for himself.

* * *

B
AY
LIFTED
HER
face to the sun, feeling the warmth penetrate her coldness. She sat by the river after lunch, her sketch pad in hand and her pastel chalks sitting beside her on an old, rotted log. The remnants of the nightmare from this morning still haunted her. Shivering even though the day had warmed up to nearly sixty degrees, she concentrated on sketching a great blue heron that was on the opposite riverbank, looking for fish to eat.

Drawing helped ground Bay. It allowed her to focus on something beautiful and creative instead of being held a constant prisoner in her own internal, tortured darkness. Her sketch pad had at least twenty sketches contained in it now, some in pencil, ink or in pastel chalk colors. Each one was better than the last. As a child, she had always carried a sketch pad and colored pencils when she came here with her pa. He would fish, and she would go find a quiet spot and draw or paint something that caught her attention. Something that was beautiful.

Gabe quietly whispered through her mind, grazing her heart. God, she missed him so much. It had been two weeks since she’d run away from the cabin. She’d call Poppy every third day to let her know she was all right. A little while ago, Bay had finally gotten up the courage to ask her mother about him

“How is Gabe?”

“He’s gone,” Poppy said.

Bay had stood very still, gripping the cell phone until her fingers hurt as the pronouncement worked its way through her.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” she’d asked, her voice unsteady.

“He’s gone, honey.”

“Where? Back to Coronado? Back to his SEAL platoon?” She’d heard Poppy give a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know, Baylee.”

Something so beautiful and so fragile that she’d clung to since becoming conscious at Landstuhl, that fed her hope to keep fighting, shattered into a million glittering fragments within Bay. Her heart had bled, and she’d sworn she’d felt it shrivel and die within her chest.

“Oh...” was all she’d managed to choke out. She’d pressed her hand against her eyes, feeling tears gather. She’d just lost her best friend. Her love. When she’d ended the call, Bay stood there staring out at the smooth surface of the quiet river.

A new kind of agony riddled through her. Somehow, Bay had thought Gabe would always be there for her, as he had in the past. The corners of her mouth pulled inward. She had no one to blame but herself for him leaving. She was the one who ran away from him. Gabe had been loyal. Faithful.

Tormented, Bay turned and trudged toward her tent, head bowed. Her entire life was turned inside out. She felt like an aircraft spinning out of control. The rape had taken so much from her soul, permanently stained her life, destroyed who she was. Her mind refused to give up anything else about those huge unknown gaps that were driving her crazy with wanting to know what else had happened to her.

Judging from the look in Gabe’s anguished eyes that afternoon they’d argued, something traumatic had occurred. She couldn’t take any more.

Touching her wrinkled brow, Bay reached her tent, knelt down and crawled inside. She put the cell phone near her jacket that doubled as her pillow. The canvas tarps surrounding her made Bay feel a little safer. They weren’t Gabe’s arms, but it served to help her feel secure. She sat there, knees drawn up, her arms around them, her head resting on top of them. Rocking herself a little, Bay closed her eyes. Warm tears drifted down her drawn cheeks. For the first time in a week, she cried. This time, it was for Gabe. And she cried for him, knowing how much he’d suffered, too. For a love that he’d offered her, and she’d run away from. Now all that remained was an empty shell of herself. No longer did Bay feel anything at all except for how agonizing it was to draw in her next breath. How much more could she bear?

* * *

G
ABE
WAS
RESTLESS
. As a sniper, he’d learned to crush that feeling and wait. Patience was their hallmark. He could wait until hell froze over, if that was what was demanded of him during a mission. It didn’t matter the weather, the temperature, how much he physically suffered, he’d learn to wait. His gaze remained on the green canvas tent. The November weather had turned, becoming colder and rainy for a few days. Now, the sun was back out, the sky a deep cobalt-blue as he looked up at it.

Near noon, Bay was sitting near the river like she always did at this time of day. The past week, Gabe had seen her go downhill. He could see it in her drawn features. The hollows of her cheeks were more pronounced. She no longer brought her Coleman out each morning to make herself breakfast as she had in the past few weeks. Worried, he couldn’t figure out why her sudden decline. What had happened?

Gabe remembered Dr. Torrance warning him at Landstuhl that Bay would hit an emotional “wall.” A place where it smacked her down, gutted her emotionally, left her depressed and giving up. Every PTSD patient would hit that wall sooner or later, she warned him. And it was then that someone who loved her would have to step in and help her fight back, symbolically be her hope until she internalized it once again and was able to move forward by herself once more.

He watched Bay stop drawing. Her profile was clean and beautiful but he sensed her profound anguish, as if...as if she’d given up. Frightened of that discovery, Gabe wondered if he was making it up because he wanted any excuse to leave his hide, walk down there and let her know he was nearby. But he stayed where he was.

* * *

A
WEEK
LATER
,
at dawn, Bay crawled out of her tent. She felt numb and empty. Why did she continue to struggle when she felt no hope? And then, Bay froze. There, sitting in the tufts of damp yellowed grass just a foot away from the tent opening was a carved jaguar. It was no more than two inches long, delicately rendered. Beautiful.

Entranced, Bay knelt down. The carving looked familiar. Reaching out, she curved her fingers around it. The moment Bay touched it, felt the smooth golden wood resting in the palm of her hand, she closed her eyes. This carving meant something important to her. Something so profound, so quintessential to her soul and heart, even if she couldn’t remember why. Pressing it to her wildly beating heart, Bay moaned and tipped her head toward her chest. She could feel the warmth of it seeping into the cold abyss that inhabited her mutilated soul. It infused her with hope, something she’d lost a week ago.

It was then, eyes closed, that her brain gave up more memories. She saw Gabe smiling as he invited her over to a rock he was sitting on near the bay at sunset. His eyes burning with love for her. She sat down on his thigh and placed her arm around his broad shoulders. Gabe then handed the carving to her. Bay gasped, felt intense love for Gabe as she turned and threw her arms around him, thanking him for the utterly beautiful gift he’d created for her. He’d carved the jaguar he said to be her protective guardian spirit, because she’d be leaving shortly for her next rotation into Afghanistan.

For the next half hour, Bay knelt there, the carving against her vulnerable heart, finally understanding the breadth of their original relationship. She understood how consummate their love had been for one another, the memories of so many happy times they’d shared. Some were at his condo, many at a beach near La Jolla, scuba diving with Gabe in the kelp beds as he searched for abalone to make steaks later that night for them. She saw them making slow, delicious love. And then, the last memory was of Gabe standing there at Lindbergh International Airport, near the security line, kissing her goodbye as she left for Afghanistan. This time, she was going alone, ordered to a Special Forces team in an Afghan village in a valley. She saw the searing grief on his face as he reluctantly released his fingers. She had to leave.

Bay loved Gabe so damned much she could barely breathe. Soft cries of utter loss, of finally understanding what she had done by running away from him, overwhelmed her.

She had no idea of time as she knelt just outside her tent, gripping the carving against her aching heart. When she finally managed to struggle above the powerful memories now alive and a part of her once more, Bay slowly sat up. She scrubbed her damp face dry, looking toward the river. Her mind wasn’t working well, and she wasn’t thinking clearly at all, prisoner to a new avalanche of emotions and memories now circulating through her heart and body. Was she making all of this up? Was the carving merely a figment of her distorted imagination? She believed in magic, she always had. That part of her was strong and unaltered.

Slowly, Bay opened her palm and gazed at the jaguar, almost afraid it would no longer be there. That it would mysteriously dematerialize. But it was there. And it felt so physical, so rock solid in her palm that it infused her with hope. She saw the tiny stippling holes pressed into the wood’s gleaming surface across its gold coat, denoting the cat’s many black spots. The fierce snarl on the cat’s broad face told her he was guarding her, always watching over her. Gabe would be this close to her while she was gone to Afghanistan, he’d promised her.

The sun felt good on Bay’s chilled body. The fog moved in soundless fingers through the meadow, hiding the river not far from her tent. There were a few birdcalls, and she eagerly absorbed them. Everything was so still, as if Nature was holding its breath and waiting. For what?