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Laura Drake Books
Category:
Romance
Publisher: Hachette - Grand Central - Forever
ISBN-10: 1455521930
Type: Fiction
Pages: 384
Copyright: August 2014
ISBN-13: 9781455521937
Price: $7.99 (eBook)
When a battle-fatigued medic washes out, she takes a cushy job as sports therapist to spoiled pro bull riders. There she meets a beat up former world champion, who just might heal her.
Ex-army medic Katya Smith has always healed other people's pain. Now she has to deal with her own. Taking a job as an athletic trainer on the Pro Bull Riding circuit seems like the perfect escape from her grief - except Katya doesn't know anything about bulls, and even less about the tough men who ride them. She doesn't expect to fall for the sport, or for one tantalizing cowboy who tumbles her defenses.
For rodeo Champion, Cam Cahill, fifteen years of bucking bulls have taken their toll on his body. Before he retires, he wants a final chance at the world title - and he doesn't need some New Age gypsy telling him how to do his job. But when the stunning trainer with the magical hands repairs more than his worn muscles, everything changes. Soon Cam finds himself trying to persuade Katya to forgive her past so she can build a future . . . with him.
Excerpt
Another night of blood and adrenaline.
Katya pulled her shower-wet hair into a bun. The weight of exhaustion tugged, but the fine hum of tension running just under her skin warned her that she wouldn’t sleep.
But beneath that, resting close to her heart, was a firm pillow of satiety. They’d saved two soldier’s lives last night.
Alone in the small, fake wood paneled room of the ‘B Hut’ was an odd occurrence, given her three roommates. But ‘Role 3’ inhaled medical personnel. They must be working a shift. The army was so desperate for medics that Katya had been transferred from physical therapy to become a triage medic two years ago.
She took the few steps to the American flag-draped wall and the small chalkboard beneath it, almost covered in chalk lines. Neat bundles of five, representing men that they’d saved from the enemy. She picked up the chalk, to add her night’s conquests, but hesitated. Keeping score against the bad guys only made sense if you were clear that there was a bad guy.
But that’s not right. The enemy they fought in the ER wasn’t the Afghani insurgents.
It was death.
She brought the chalk down on the board so hard that it broke. She made two marks, one crossing four others – another neat bundle.
Beep beep! The bleat of a Jeep through the thin walls got her moving.
Shouldering her rifle and pack, she opened the door and slammed into the dry blast of Kandahar heat. By the time she had the door locked, her shower had worn off.
Murphy grinned from the seat of the Jeep he’d commandeered – best not to ask where. Last night in the ER, when he’d invited her on a trip to town she couldn’t resist. Most soldiers longed for a taste of home. They cheered when fast food franchises opened on base.
Not Katya. She loved exotic spices and unfamiliar local dishes. She’d even tried the boiled sheep’s head a street vendor once offered, finding the flavor of the facial meat fabulous once she got past the staring white eye and the grinning exposed teeth.
She tossed her pack in the Jeep and climbed in, cradling the rifle in her lap. “I don’t remember it being this hot last May.” She put her hand to her cloth-covered helmet, shifting it to blot the sweat tickle that made her scalp feel it was crawling with bugs.
Murphy’s cool green eyes watched her with appreciation. “It’s probably just my proximity, Ma’am. I have that effect on women.”
She knew she shouldn’t encourage him, but couldn’t help but smile at the combat medic. He looked like a pencil wearing a helmet -- all long bones and knobby joints. His helmet covered buzz cut red hair, but even if she hadn’t known his surname, the flushed, freckled skin declared him a Celt.
He gunned the engine, but drove at a sedate pace to keep the dust down until they cleared the security check at the entrance of the base.
She would have loved to be alone for a while, but knew that was impossible. Kandahar was not safe -- especially for a solitary female. Even a female Second Lieutenant.
The wind swirling behind the windshield cooled as well as a fan in hell. Katya looked out at the receding puddles and rapidly parching grass at the side of the road, thanking God for the road the Corps of engineers had built last year. Spring rain in the desert was beautiful, but it was hell on goat-track roads that morphed from sliding mud pits to foot-deep cement-like ruts overnight.
Eyes on the road, Murphy yelled over the wind, “We could swing by the airport on the way back and watch the planes do touch-and-go’s. Not very romantic by normal standards, but it’s the finest that this corner of Afghanistan has to offer.”
Like everyone, she enjoyed the Nebraskan’s down-home, upbeat sense of humor that had lit up the ER since he’d transferred in a month ago. But comments like these made her wonder if the E-4 had a bit of a crush. “Did you miss the lecture about not fraternizing with officers in boot camp, corporal?”
“I think that must’ve been the day that the General’s daughter and I were – uh, indisposed. Ma’am.”
She smiled. Incorrigible.
He slowed as they rolled into town. The two-story stucco buildings may have been handsome, before the bombing. They passed one with a missing front wall, exposing jagged rooms like broken teeth. Between the damage and the dust, the town looked tired, weary of all it had seen. Murphy parked, and they got out. Katya shouldered her pack and rifle, wondering when it had stopped feeling odd, carrying armaments on a shopping trip.
Tourists were an extinct species in a war zone. The shops were shuttered. But people still needed to eat. Intrepid vendors had set up tables in the narrow band between the buildings and the street. Vegetables mostly, sold by men with light, loose clothing and disrespectful eyes. The bright blush of pomegranate skin and green grapes looked incongruous in the sepia scene.
Dusty muslin awnings extended from the buildings, blocking the sun, but didn’t help much in the torpid air. She and Murphy joined the shoppers, keeping their rifles slung, but remaining alert. Instinctively, when Murphy bent to examine something on a table, Katya’s eyes scanned the crowd.
An hour later, the cloth bag on Katya’s shoulder held her treasure – local figs. She found their dusky sweetness cleared her palette after a mess hall dinner.“I’m ready to head back if you are, Murphy.”
She glanced at her sweat-slicked companion, looking as if his M16 would overbalance him. He carried a palm-sized, hand-sewn stuffed rabbit.
“You know, you may want to tuck that under your pillow at night, or your roommates are going to give you hell.”
He lifted the toy to his lips, kissed it, and dropped it into the pocket of his damp shirt. “It’s for my new niece. I haven’t met her yet, but I’ll show you photos when we get back.”
They headed for the Jeep. The next block was unpopulated, its bombed-out buildings long abandoned. The light seemed harder here, as if showcasing the damage -- throwing it in the onlooker’s face. In contrast, the inky black of the narrow alley on her left made Katya shiver, conjuring pictures of scorpions and snipers. Katya’s skin pricked, but it wasn’t from sweat. She stepped quickly past.
A boy stepped around the corner a few buildings ahead. He held his forearm, and blood dripped between his fingers into the dust. He looked to be nine or so, wearing a traditional long shirt and loose pants, a round Pakol cap on his head. He shuffled toward them, tears streaking his dusty face.
Kayta’s heart rate shot up, kicking into triage mode. Quickening her pace, scanning the boy for other injuries, she reached into her bag for her ever-present first aid kit.
Then she hesitated. The boy’s eyes darted, his movements jerky with fear.
The gun was in her sweaty hands almost before she knew she’d unslung it. Sound ceased. She tried to remember when a vehicle last passed.
Murphy rushed past her, his still-slung rifle bouncing, as he reached for his first aid kit. Alarm sirens of panic echoed through her head. Something was bad wrong. She snatched at Murphy’s arm, but missed.
He reached the boy and leaned over him, blocking her view. Katya took two running steps forward.
The harsh light exploded in a starburst of yellow and red. A giant percussion fist punched her, followed by a roaring wall of sound.
Then blessed blackness.
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