Pushed to the Edge (SEAL Team 14) (3 page)

One Day
Later

Landstuhl,
Germany

Oh.  My.  God.  Did you
see all those fine gentlemen out there?  Is there a GQ male model convention
today in lovely Landstuhl that you forgot to tell me about?”

Olivia Lewis peered up from the clipboard that she
had been filling out charging sheets on to see her friend, Jackie Garrett,
leaning over her desk.

Jackie was an army ward nurse for the U.S. medical
center at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.  The Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center was unique in that it was the largest U.S. run hospital
located in a foreign country.  The U.S. Army and the Department of Defense
oversaw the everyday operations of the hospital.

Jackie was a pretty woman in her mid-40s, with
cropped blonde hair and an athletic figure.  She was an accomplished female
body builder and loved to regale Olivia with the stories of her competitions. 
She also had a habit of flirting with young, handsome men.  This was mostly a
front because as much as she loved to flirt, she was in a very committed
relationship with a German doctor at a local civilian hospital.  Jackie was
originally from New Jersey, but had been living in Germany for about three
years, now.  She was one of the only civilians on the medical staff at
Landstuhl.

 In contrast to Jackie, Olivia had a caramel
colored skin tone—courtesy of her Swedish mother and African American father. 
She was of medium height at 5’6’’ and slender, almost tomboyish in her figure. 
In addition, she had sparkling eyes that were such a deep shade of blue that
they appeared violet. 

Olivia also had long, curly brown-blonde hair that
had the unfortunate habit of frizzing up at the ends.  Because of this
tendency, she usually wore it flat ironed and in a bun or a ponytail that hung
down to her waist, such as was the case today. 

Olivia was finishing the second year of her
general surgery residency at the German medical facility.  At the beginning of
last year, she had been lucky enough to complete the prestigious U.S. Air Force
Flight Surgeon School.  She was going to return to the States in the next few
months to begin completing the remaining three years of her surgical residency
at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. 

Olivia’s first two years in residency training had
gone as well as could be expected, given the grueling schedule of a surgical
doctor.  Today, surgical residents only had to work 80 hours per week instead
of the 100-hour weeks that were the norm until 2003.  However, physician
fatigue was still a significant problem even with the new scheduling
restrictions. 

During one of Olivia’s first few weeks in her
residency, she had been paged to scrub into an intestinal surgery that was
being performed on an elderly man.  Olivia’s excitement about the new
experience had been dimmed by the fact that she had just finished with a
24-hour “shift” and then was assigned retractor duty for another six hours. 
She had almost blown the surgery when her grip on the retractor slipped;
causing the lead surgeon to accidentally puncture the patient’s intestinal
wall.  Luckily, the chief resident had been able to prevent further damage. 
After the chewing out she got, Olivia made sure to load up on extra cups of
caffeine throughout the day.

While working some of her other shifts as an
emergency room trauma surgeon in a busy Los Angeles public hospital, she had
seen people come in with a myriad of ailments: multiple gunshot wound victims,
stabbings, child abuse cases, rapes, and assault cases—just to name a few.  The
extent to which human beings could sink into depravity and senselessly cause
violence to other human beings still managed to make her sick to her stomach at
times. 

Olivia still took pride in her career.  She
genuinely loved helping people.  Despite some of the truly awful things that
she’d witnessed, she recognized that she had been given the opportunity to make
a real difference in someone’s life.  And on some occasions she could even save
lives.  

“Yeah, they are U.S. Navy SEALs.  One of their
teammates was wounded during some sort of mission, and they flew him here,”
Olivia replied, looking back down at her charts.

“Oh yeah, how is he?”

Olivia looked back up at Jackie.  “He’s holding up
pretty well, all things considered.  He needed an orthopod.  His right femur
was cracked pretty badly from the force of the bullet, but luckily, for him it
wasn’t shattered.  With some intense physical therapy he should be as good as
new.” 

“Good.  That’s great to hear.  It would have been
a shame if his career had to end over the injury.  How is Congressman Henning
doing?  Well, former Congressman, that is.  I heard that he was banged up
pretty badly.  I still remember him from his campaign two years ago; he was a
very formidable figure.  A little scary, actually,” Jackie commented, bending
her body down over the counter to peer down at Olivia. 

“I didn’t handle his case specifically, but from
what I’ve gathered he’s doing a lot better.  He was roughed up—had a lot of
bruising and abrasions, but he is now conscious and he has been able to speak
with his family,” Olivia looked up and to the right of Jackie as the glass
double doors that separated the waiting room from the back patient area
whooshed
open. 

Dear Lord
.  In walked one of the GQ models
that Jackie had been drooling over.  Well, at least Jackie hadn’t been
exaggerating.  This guy was built like a Greek God.  He was at least 6’4.”  He
had a square jaw and an overgrowth of beard that largely hid his facial
features.  Given that Navy sailors were usually a clean cut group, his beard
likely meant that he was either just coming from or going to a not so American friendly
country in the Middle East.  His dark blonde hair was tied in the back in a
ponytail.  The soldier also had heterochromia, with his right eye being blue
and his left eye being green.

The mystery man wore standard military fatigues
and combat boots.  The name CASTLE was emblazoned across the left front of his
military-issued, camouflaged jacket. 

“Well, aren’t you a tall drink of water,” Jackie
said.  Olivia stood up by her desk as Jackie stepped in front of her and gave
the mystery soldier a lengthy “up and down” look.  Apparently, she liked what
she saw because she actually winked at him. 

God
.  If Jackie wasn’t embarrassed by her
behavior, Olivia was mortified enough for the both of them.

The mystery soldier laughed, showing off two rows
of perfectly straight white teeth.  “I’ve been called a lot worse, darling,” he
replied in a deep southern drawl.  His striking eyes shifted from Jackie to
Olivia, and then fixated on Olivia.  He was standing there, staring at Olivia,
his muscular arms folded across his chest.

“Do you speak English?” the soldier asked Olivia
as his gaze lingered on her, giving her a lengthy once over. 

“Yes, of course I speak English,” Olivia replied.

He quirked up a corner of his mouth and raised an
eyebrow.  “Indeed you do.  With a voice like that, how far below the Mason
Dixon Line are you from, doll?”

“May I help you with something?” Olivia asked,
ignoring his question.  He was flirting with her, but she recognized the game
that he was trying to run on her—and she wasn’t interested in playing.

“Yeah, sweetheart, we’d like to get some more
information about our friend Jax,” the SEAL erupted into a mischievous grin. 
It was the type of grin that suggested that he was laughing at some internal
joke.  A joke that involved Olivia, one that he was too smart to utter aloud. 

“My name is Dr. Lewis, thank you.  Or Lieutenant
if you so prefer.  Not sweetheart or doll.  Try to remember that.”  It really
ticked her off when men did not take her seriously.  She had worked extremely
hard—four demanding years of medical school—to get that particular prefix in
front of her name.  “And who exactly is ‘we’?” Olivia continued. 

As soon as the question left her lips, the double
doors
whooshed
open again and in walked another incredible male
specimen, but this time a familiar one—Joshua Laurent.  Joshua was an old
friend and happened to be one of her best friend’s ex-boyfriend. 

Looking up from his iPhone, Joshua treated Olivia with
a broad grin.  “Well, if it isn’t none other than
the Dr.
Olivia Lewis. 
What the hell are you doing here?”

Returning his smile, Olivia walked directly past
the newly intrigued blonde soldier and reached up to give her old friend a big,
warm hug. 

“Well, if it isn’t none other than
the
Lieutenant
Joshua Laurent.  Congrats on your promotion,” Olivia said.  Since the two of
them had mutual military friends she had heard through the grapevine that
Joshua had ranked-up a few months back.  “I should have known that you were a
part of the mayhem that brought us a wounded warrior and a former U.S.
Congressman,” Olivia continued, “Are you doing okay?”  

“Thanks, Olivia.  Yeah, I’m doing just fine.  You
know me, master of mayhem.  Kicking ass and taking names.  It will undoubtedly
take more than some nut-job extremist to kill me.  How long have you been
stationed here?”

“I’ve been here for about a year now.  My tour is
up in a few months and then I’ll be heading back to the States.”

“Nice.  Are you still living in Southern
California?  Looks like you are a big time surgeon now,” Joshua said, gesturing
at her green scrubs. 

Olivia laughed off his compliment.  “I wouldn’t
quite say that.  I still have another three years of residency to go.  But yeah,
I still live in SoCal.  I had just moved to Glendale before I was assigned my
rotation in Germany.”

“Nice, Olivia.  I’m glad to see that you are doing
so well.  I always knew that you could do it.”  Joshua glanced behind her, over
her shoulder at the hallway where an orderly was pushing a hospital cot into an
empty patient room.  Then clearing his throat he asked, “So um, yeah . . .
how’s Vicki doing?”

Vicki was Victoria Sanchez, a Dallas-based local
TV news reporter and one of Olivia’s best friends.  Vicki also just happened to
be Joshua’s ex-girlfriend.  The two had dated for a couple of years until their
relationship had epically crashed and burned.  Vicki had quite literally cut
and set fire to a significant portion of Joshua’s wardrobe. 

Suffice it to say, the two of them had been like
hot embers together.  When they were happy with each other the heat between the
two had left Olivia envious.  Olivia hadn’t been pining for Joshua, but for a
love that was
that
passionate.  The downside was that when Joshua and
Vicki had been on the outs with each other, their tempers had flared with just
as much intensity.

“She was doing well the last time I heard from
her.  I haven’t had a chance to talk to her in a while though.  She’s still
working at the
Dallas Star Gazette
in Texas as a crime reporter.  How is
Emmani doing?  She’s graduated by now, right?” 

Emmani was Emmanuelle Laurent, Joshua’s
twenty-two-year-old little sister.  Olivia had been able to get to know Emmani
when Joshua and Vicki were dating.  Emmani absolutely adored her big brother,
and Josh was super protective of his little sister.  Both of the siblings
shared their mother’s dark Italian features, “Roman” nose, and piercing brown
eyes.

“Oh, okay.  That’s good to hear.  Emmani is doing
great, thanks.  She graduated from UT-Austin back in May and just got a job as
a nurse.”

“That’s really awesome, Joshua.  I know you must
be very proud of her,” Olivia said.  She had lost track of Emmani since Joshua
and Victoria’s breakup.  After his parents’ death, Joshua had become the legal
guardian of his sister who had been sixteen at the time.  Joshua had still been
on active duty with the Navy and given his transient lifestyle, it hadn’t been
an option to have his sister move into military housing with him. 

So, he’d taken a significant portion of the money
left from the inheritance that both he and his sister had received to pay the
tuition for her to attend The Thacher School.  Even with a partial scholarship,
Joshua had dropped $20,000 a year on the prestigious boarding school in
Southern California.  A lot could be said about a man who took care of his family.

“Yeah, I am very proud of her.  She’s a tough
kid.  Anyway, Will and I here just wanted to get some information on our
friend, Jack Manners.  How’s he been doing since his surgery?”

“He’s holding his own,” Olivia answered.  “He’s in
serious, but stable condition.  He lost a lot of his blood volume.  He’s
resting right now.  We gave him morphine for the pain, so he will be sleeping
for a while.  His right femur was cracked, but we were able to pin it back
together in the operation.  You’ll be able to visit him when he wakes up in a
few hours.  He certainly won’t be running any marathons anytime soon, but with
about four to six months of physical therapy he should be able to make a full
recovery.” 

Glancing over at “Will,” she saw that he was still
staring down at her with a wry expression on his face.  He had stuffed his
hands in the pockets of his military fatigues.

“Great.  Thanks a lot, Olivia.  Hey, we are all
going out later tomorrow evening—to check out the town and blow off some steam
before we return to the States.  You should join us.  It’d give us a chance to
catch up,” Joshua said. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Olivia saw Will throw
Joshua another raised eyebrow that Joshua chose to ignore.  “Maybe . . . I will
try, but no promises.  I’m not sure what time I’ll get out of here.  I’m on a
twenty-four hour shift and I never seem to be able to leave on time.  Something
always has a way of coming up right when I have one foot out the door.”