“Ryan never killed that bird, Dad. It was Jake. I saw him from the window. I didn’t understand why Ryan took the blame, but I can see now. He was protecting Jake from you. He thought you would lay into Jake for what he did.”
Her dad frowned. “I would never—”
“I know that,” she cut him off. “But don’t you see? Ryan’s always protecting everyone else and putting them before himself. Even as a kid. He’ll take the blame for this; for me not being able to do the research program and having this baby when he can’t be there for us. I can’t let him do that. I can’t let him be distracted when he needs to focus. He has to come home safe, Dad. I couldn’t bear it if …” Her throat constricted and her father took her hand and squeezed.
“You’re right, love. It’s possible Ryan will take the blame, but you have to trust that he knows what he’s doing over there. He’s going to be a father. No matter what happens, I think he deserves to know that, don’t you?”
“I need to think,” Fin admitted. “I’m all over the place right now.”
“Don’t think too hard. You might hurt yourself.”
“Dad!” Her lips curved at her father’s attempt to lighten the situation. “That was a lame joke.”
“Hey. I’m going to be a Grandpa. Lame jokes are my job.” Her father smiled down at her, and his eyes sparked with a light that had been missing for too long.
Fin tried returning the smile and faltered. “How am I going to do this without him?”
Four days later
Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan
The C130 Hercules circled Bagram Airbase in the dark of night. Weather conditions were shit. Turbulence was knocking the plane around wildly as they waited for clearance to land.
Last time this happened they got sent back to the Arabian peninsula to wait out another night. Ryan just wanted to get this deployment the hell under way. The sooner he could focus on something other than Fin the better.
The load masters turned, and giving the thumbs up, yelled, “We’re going in!”
Ryan exhaled, closing his eyes in relief as the talk of fifty troopers around him became loud and boisterous.
“Ryan?”
“Hmmm?”
Monty elbowed him in the ribs and waved a bottle of water in his face. “Drink?”
Ryan scratched at his head and yawned. “Yeah, thanks.”
“You alright, mate?” he asked as Ryan took the water from his outstretched hand.
Fuck, no. This would be his first tour without Jake and it burned. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Monty assessed him carefully and lifted his chin. “Good.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Kyle called from two seats across as Ryan cracked the lid on his water bottle and took a sip. “Kendall doesn’t even know how to handle his own dick.”
Water spewed out Ryan’s nose, laughs ringing out as he choked. “Sonofabitch,” he rasped with watery eyes and wiped at his face. “You handle yours so much it’s worn down to a stub.”
Kyle responded with a wink, but it was no joke. Sexual frustration after months of deployment on the front line was a bitch. They would all be suffering soon enough. All Ryan had to do was close his eyes and remember the taste of Fin and his dick didn’t just twitch, it flooded so hard it was almost painful.
He cursed silently. There was no getting her out of his system, not even here, and that was dangerous. Afghanistan was a hot zone of IEDs and enemy fire. He couldn’t afford to lose focus.
“Alright, troopers,” Monty yelled. “Move out.”
Kyle clapped him on the back as they both stood, and Ryan met his eyes. They glimmered with a fierce eagerness to get outdoors and into the thick of the action. “Let’s go do what Jake would want us to do.”
Ryan gave a short nod and then grinned. “Let’s f**k shit up.”
After waiting for everyone else to head out ahead of him, Ryan shifted the heavy pack onto his back and moved down the ramp of the Hercules. He took a deep breath as his feet hit the ground, taking the dry air into his lungs and feeling a bittersweet excitement climb his throat at what the next few months had in store.
The next day Ryan’s patrol was already shipping out into the frontier of Eastern Afghanistan. Monty gathered them together and issued detailed verbal orders for the reconnaissance mission. Ryan’s eyes slid towards the new man on their team with a heavy heart. Their squadron commander had personally selected Nathan for this patrol, showing a high level of trust in the man’s abilities. Ryan knew Nathan well enough. He was young and cocky, but that was off the field. He’d witnessed Nathan’s fitness levels first-hand, and his self-discipline, honour, and reliability as a team player were intense—he wasn’t a weak link.
When the operation was completed successfully, they returned to Bagram Airbase and settled into a familiar rhythm of training. It wasn’t until a little over two months after arriving in Afghanistan when Ryan’s deployment began a steady decline into a steaming pile of shit.
In the late afternoon, Ryan made his way to the computer room to check his emails. Mike and Julie corresponded regularly, along with some of Ryan’s friends, but it was seeing an email from Finlay Tanner in his inbox that had him breaking out in a cold sweat.
Ryan stared at the email, feeling it taunting him with feigned innocence. It was bolded with no subject line, giving no hint to its contents. His hand hovered over the mouse. Shit. Reading that email would be a crappy idea. He closed his eyes for a moment. How much longer did he think he could keep doing this to himself? Why couldn’t he be selfish and have her any which way, regardless of the cost? He wanted to fight everything that stood in the way of keeping her with him, but he would only lose, because he couldn’t fight himself.
“Did the big, bad soldiers tucker poor little Kendall out?”
Ryan’s fingers jolted on the mouse. Opening his eyes, he found Kyle smirking in the doorway. Turning to face the computer, he shut his email down in hurried, jerky movements and logged out. “I could do with some sleep,” Ryan replied as he got to his feet. “No one gets any rest bunking with you, a**hole. You snore like a wounded elephant in heat.”
“How would you know what a wounded elephant in heat sounds like?”
“Easy. It sounds like you.”
Kyle tipped his chin towards the computer. “Heard from Fin?”
Ryan raised his brows. “Why do you ask that?”
“You just got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look you get whenever you’re around her or when someone mentions her name. You know—the puppy eyes.”
“Puppy eyes!” Ryan shoved Kyle into the doorway as he walked through to leave. Being a rock solid bastard, Kyle barely budged an inch, which for some reason only irritated him further. Puppy eyes his f**king ass. “Fuck off, Brooks. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kyle choked with laughter as Ryan stalked away. Usually the normal banter between his patrol mates slid right off his back, but the mention of Fin made him an easy target.
“Hey!” Ryan turned at Kyle’s shout. Kyle was leaning casually against the doorframe, a smirk still playing on his lips. “I wasn’t here to stalk your ass. Monty called a briefing at 1900 hours.”
A briefing meant an operation was on the horizon, and they were all itching to get out into the field. “Good,” he muttered, and cracking his knuckles loudly, Ryan left to grab something to eat.
Two days later found them scoping the back of the mountains behind a suspect village for evidence of enemy presence. Their task was not to engage fire, but gather intelligence. Either way, an incident occurring was highly probable.
As Ryan crested a small rise, he came across what looked like a weapons pit. Crouching down, he examined the man-made rock structure. The ground had been flattened and an etching into the rocks gave no doubt enemies were occupying the area. Standing, Ryan signalled to both Nathan and Kyle to come over and document the site. Just as he was putting down his machine gun to grab his binoculars and scope further down, a bullet zinged passed his head, flying over the top of Nathan and Kyle and slamming into the tree above.
“Sonofabitch,” Ryan growled.
Snatching his weapon, Ryan folded himself behind the thick barrier of rock and assumed a firing position, his mind racing. Were they under attack? He was lucky that bastard was a bad shot.
Nathan reached his side, crouching down to assume defensive fire. A shot rang out as Kyle joined them, and Ryan’s heart thundered in his chest when he heard Kyle suck in a sharp breath.
“Fuck,” Kyle groaned with clenched teeth. “I’m f**king hit.”
Ryan’s stomach rolled, his vision tunnelling when Nathan turned towards Monty and barked, “Man down.”
Pull your f**king shit together, Kendall.
With clammy skin and sweat pouring down his face, Ryan shuffled over to Kyle as Galloway appeared with first aid. Kyle’s face was red, his lungs drawing in short, sharp gasps of air.
“Where?”
“Right arm,” he panted. “It’s my goddamn elbow.”
He could already smell the blood, the same metallic tang that hung so thick in the air when Jake died. When Ryan closed his eyes he could still see it pouring out, Jake’s life slowly seeping into the ground.
Ryan shook his head, blinking hard and gingerly took hold of Kyle’s arm. Bone and muscle tissue were exposed. It looked messed up, but this was no life-threatening injury. “Suck it up, Brooks,” he ribbed, relief lightening his tone as he reached for gauze and bandages. “It’s just a scratch.”
Kyle tried to laugh but the sound came out choked. “Fuck you, Kendall,” he mumbled, his eyes scrunched shut from the pain.
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t.” Chuckling, Ryan met his eyes as he numbed the area and began to patch the injury. “Your firing arm is gonna be out of action for a little while.”
They locked eyes, a silent acknowledgement of what this would mean. Not just surgery to piece the bone and muscle back together, but likely months of physiotherapy to get him back to the standard of fitness the Regiment expected. Kyle was going home.
“Fucking hell, Kendall,” he muttered with quiet frustration. He closed his eyes, tilting his head to the sky. After several deep breaths, he re-opened them, the pain and disappointment shuttered—tucked away for what was probably a more private moment. “I’m gonna have to learn how to use my left hand to jack off now,” he said loudly for the team’s benefit.
Unable to work up a smile, Ryan focused on putting together a sling, the team falling silent and keeping watch as Tex set up satellite communications. With a major attack appearing unlikely, and with Kyle patched up, they were informed the request for casualty evacuation had been granted.
Monty inched towards Ryan. “We don’t know what the f**k we’re dealing with out there. Could be one or two rogues, but from the intelligence we’ve gathered so far, which isn’t much, it could be f**king hundreds. Let’s retreat to a pick up position for Brooks, and then we can formulate a plan.”