Disclaimer: Janet Evanovich owns all rights to the following characters. This story is intended only as artistic exercise and I am in no way profiting financially from it.
Warning: This story contains adult themes and language. Babe story.
Intentions of the Heart
Chapter: 4 Incentive to Survive
Previously:
Joe…
I never thought that I would hold her like that again, and I relished in the moment brought to me courtesy of the "man in black".
The raw, emptiness in my chest seemed to fade away with her closeness. This was the way things should have been. This was right...
As I held her, a familiar mirage loomed on the horizon and I wondered if maybe… it wasn't really over, maybe without his constant interference we'd finally get a fair shot at being together, maybe she'd see how perfect we were for each other… maybe, just maybe, I wasn't too late.
**** 1 month into the mission … ***
Ranger's POV …
We'd been waiting for hours, hunkered down in the sand under the cover of a thin camouflage net. We were lying prone with our weight supported on our elbows, watching our objective through the scopes of our assault rifles.
I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, the mingled sweat and sand scraping painfully across my sunburned flesh. Our skin, boiling hot under the heavy material of our desert Ghillie suits, felt as though it would slough away from our bones at any moment, like the unsheathing of overcooked meat.
I hated that fucking desert.
I scanned the horizon through narrowed eyes, the sun reflecting blindingly off of the sand; the visible heat waves in the distance making the desert look like the rolling tide of a vast beige sea and I wanted nothing more than a cold glass of water.
A fiery burst of wind whipped around us blowing grains of dirt into our eyes and mouths, the particles sticking to the perspiration on our war-painted necks and faces like sugar poured over wet skin. I reached for the half empty canteen at my side, blinking the grit from my eyes as the stale, warm liquid drizzled onto my parched lips.
I wanted a raise… and a paid vacation… to Alaska. Hell, at that point I would have settled for a cold shower and fucking snow cone.
"Ya'll don't talk much, do ya?"
I turned to look at the man next to me with a raised brow and an expression that clearly said, "What the fuck do you think?"
He met my gaze and shrugged unaffectedly, perfectly content with our one sided conversation and the sound of his own voice. Which, I'll admit was entertaining enough all on its own.
"That's ah-ite, I reckon I talk 'nuff fer the both of us."
Yeah? No shit.
The man had barely paused to breathe over the last twelve hours. It seemed to be his way of staying alert and focused on anything other than the extreme heat. He spoke in hushed whispers about everything and nothing; mindless chatter that I tried to tune out… he could have rivaled Stephanie on a stakeout any day.
Thank God he didn't fidget with candy wrappers and moan while eating too.
I let her get away with it because she's a woman… a fucking hot woman, and I would've had to be dead… and probably castrated, to put a stop to anything that resulted in her moaning while licking frosting from her lips.
It was the sweetest kind of torture.
Was it normal to be jealous of a pastry? Because, I was. In fact, in my next life I wanted to be reincarnated as one giant Tasty Cake.
Unfortunately for my companion, his five o'clock shadow, raspy tenor and unruly chest hair didn't afford him the same leniency. One moan from him, anywhere near my vicinity, and it would have been his last.
"He" was Marshall Crawford, a new member to our Special Ops. Unit and my spotter for the mission. He was a backwoods, southern boy with an easy smile, a slow drawl, and a healthy appetite for food and women.
Based on his current topic of choice I surmised that he didn't have particularly great taste in either.
"I ain't kiddin' neither. Bitch was meaner than a snake... legs so skinny she looked like she was ridin' 'round on a chicken. But, boy, I'll tell you what, ain't nobody got a tongue like that woman. Whew-wee! Girl's got a mouth like a drive through car wash!"
Jesus, maybe Lester had relatives from the bayou…
For all Crawford lacked in social graces he made up for in talent. He learned to shoot at a young age out of sheer necessity, and over time the combination of need and natural ability created an incredible marksman.
His family had been poor… dirt poor, and his sharp eyes and steady hands helped to put food on their otherwise sparsely filled table. A failed shot meant a long night of hunger pangs and a house full of empty stomachs. He could call the wind, measure distance and trajectory and follow a vapor trail better than any spotter I'd ever worked with.
Hunger, it seemed, had been a powerful motivator in perfecting his craft.
"Giddy-up, motherfucker! We got movement at 2 o'clock…"
Finally
In an instant every cell in my body hummed with adrenaline and I focused intensely on the task at hand. I watched as a group of men exited the compound, our objectives, a high-ranking enemy commander and his second, walking among them.
"Well, ain't that a purdy sight? High Value Target confirmed annnnddd…," he drew out the word as he adjusted the dial on the top of his spotting scope, "on scope."
I pressed my cheek against the stock of my rifle, looking down the barrel and aligning my sight accordingly, "Range to target?"
"832 yards, and walking."
"Wind?"
"Moving east to west… quarter value."
Crawford's voice, the target in my cross-hairs, and the cold metal in my hands were the only things that existed in my world at that moment. This was what I was trained for… this was what I excelled at…
"On target." I adjusted my scope and held my breath, forcing my pulse to slow as I waited for Crawford's signal to engage.
"Fire, fire, fire."
I gauged the rhythm of my heart, waiting for a pause between beats when I knew my body was absolutely still before slowly rolling the pad of my finger over the trigger. I felt the rifle recoil against my shoulder and waited….
It took three seconds for the bullet to reach my target, for his head to whip back and a spray of pink mist to fill the air.
"Hit."
One shot, one kill, just as our Sniper Motto read. Not that it would have mattered. From 800 yards I could have unloaded my gun without our target hearing or even suspecting that he was the aim of enemy fire… until it was too late.
But, I didn't need target practice… just a single spent round.
Kill confirmed.
I exhaled slowly, scanning the distance for our next objective, "Sniper ready. Target?"
"Captain, 3:00, low crawlin' east towards compound. Fire when ready."
I watched through my scope as our second target scrambled frantically on his hands and knees across the ground, utter chaos ensuing around him as struggled in vain to reach safety.
He wasn't fast enough.
My bullet tore through the upper part of his torso, the impact toppling him over onto his side where he collapsed in an awkward, motionless sprawl.
"Hit."
Some of the soldiers left standing ran cowardly for cover, others fired blindly into the desert surrounding them. I couldn't blame the later. There was nothing more terrifying than an invisible enemy and I admired their courage to stand and fight through their fear. Though, they never would have spotted us. We were over a half a mile away, camouflaged and on a series of rolling sand dunes that almost completely obscured our location from view.
"Thank God," Crawford sighed. "Let's get the fuck outta' here."
I couldn't have disagreed with that. We were six miles into hostile territory on a mission that our government would deny any knowledge of. "Getting the fuck out of there" sounded like a pretty damn good idea to me.
"Sure hope they're fixin' to send us home soon. Lotta' poor, lonely ladies prob'ly missin,' Ole' Craw-daddy somthin' fierce right 'bout now," Crawford chuckled while nudging my shoulder with his own. He pulled the netting off of our bodies, sat back on his knees and brushed the dirt from his chest, "fuckin' sand," he grumbled in irritation.
I watched the scene unfolding before me for a moment longer, scanning the horizon for any sign that our location had been compromised. Crawford began gathering our supplies, singing softly under his breath…
"Ain't found a way to kill me yet. Eyes burn with stinging sweat."
It happened in seconds...
A sick feeling twisted in the pit of my stomach and the hairs stood on the back of my neck. Something was coming… something was close. I could feel it.
"Seems every path leads me to nowhere. No wife and kids 'n household pet."
I was frozen in place, watching, listening for the unseen danger I instinctively knew was there.
"Army green was no safe bet. The bullets scream to me from somewhere."
The slightest movement shifted in my peripheral vision and I instinctively rolled to my back, aiming my rifle towards the disturbance.
A pair of shocked, dark eyes peered back at me through the peep hole of a black, dessert Shamagh, the rest of the man's face and head concealed within the head wrap, making his eyes seem to float mysteriously in the dark fabric.
My gaze didn't linger on his face for long, what caught and held my attention was the AK47 strapped across his chest.
Fuck!
He had just reached the top of a sand dune lateral to ours, less than fifty yards away, on foot and alone, his approaching footsteps utterly silent in the loose sediment. He was probably on a random security sweep of the area surrounding the compound, heard the "crack" of gunfire, went to investigate and somehow stumbled upon our location.
The look of surprise in his eyes told me that under the cover of our Ghillie suits he hadn't seen us until we began to move and the sudden shock of our close proximity left him temporarily stunned.
I knew without a doubt that someone wasn't making it out of there alive… I just hoped it wasn't me.
He fumbled with his gun.
I fired mine.
His, sending a spray of rogue bullets into the air before he collapsed into a boneless heap on the desert floor.
I didn't even see him coming...
We'd been so focused on our target… on the kill, that we had been completely caught off guard. Crawford jumped to his feet and pointed his rifle towards the man's lifeless body, "How the… where the fuck did he come from? Jesus, that was close."
"Fuck," I breathed, unable to articulate any further. We had been a split second… a single breath away from what could have been our last…
An obnoxious rattling noise filled the air and I looked down towards the source, shocked to see the gun in my hands trembling violently.
What the fuck?
It wasn't the closest I'd ever been to death, not by a long shot, but, it was the first time that I actually feared it.
Not long before then I craved the adrenaline rush of a high stakes mission and the surge of power and pride that I felt when I completed the task. The medals decorating my dress uniform told the story of the best U.S. Sniper in history. And, I was undoubtedly the best. Partially, because I didn't hesitate when a decision needed to be made, I had nothing to hold me back, nothing to lose. I gambled with my life with the leisure of a wealthy man with nothing of consequence riding on the draw.
But, everyone knows that the odds are always stacked in favor of the house. Losing was inevitable, my luck would run out… but, the thrill of the hunt was worthy of any consequence.
But, that was before her; before I fell in love with a blue-eyed, brunette from the Burg. I realized in that moment that suddenly my life held value that it never had before… and, it made the thought of dying… of never seeing her again, absolutely terrifying.
If I had panicked a second longer…
if I hadn't sensed his presence…
if my trigger had jammed…
if he hadn't hesitated…
IF… IF… IF…
My mind played out every possible scenario and all of them led to a very different outcome.
So close… way too fucking close.
She didn't have any idea how dangerous my missions really were. Not that I'd ever told her. What good would it have done for her to have known? Maybe I didn't tell her because I didn't want her to worry. Maybe, I was worried that if she really knew the odds then she'd stop wasting her time waiting for a someday that I knew may never come.
I could have told her, prepared her for the inevitable. But, she thought of me as a superhero, and the way she looked at me… with so much trust and confidence… she actually made me feel invincible, like I could conquer the world.
I wanted to be the person for her… for us.
But, I was just a man; A man who had nothing to offer her. How could I promise her forever when I couldn't even guarantee tomorrow? I couldn't ask her to wait for me when I didn't know when, or even if I was coming home at all. Hell, there were times when I couldn't call or even write to her for months on end.
She deserved better than that… better than me.
Until my life was my own and not dictated by others, I had absolutely nothing to offer her.
Crawford was uncharacteristically quiet as we quickly covered the body with dry brush and sand, hoping to cover our trail and buy us enough time to escape without further detection. The men we were sent to eliminate were, to me, justifiable kills. They were a threat to our people and theirs alike. Their deaths, on the grander scale, would save lives on both sides of the line. But, killing a lowly foot soldier that just happened to stumble upon us was not something either of us took any semblance of pleasure in.
"Him or us, ya know?" Crawford mumbled. I wasn't sure if he was trying to convince himself or me with his words but I nodded somberly in agreement. It was true, but, taking a life that could have been spared was never easy.
We walked for two days to reach the rendezvous point with the rest of our unit, each painstaking step slowed by the loose sand and nature's punishing elements. Ironically, the worst hours came at night, when the temperature dropped dramatically as dusk descended upon the desert.
We curled up onto the ground, shivering in our sweat-soaked, sand-encrusted clothes, absolute darkness blanketing the blazing white landscape. The wind howled around us, sending sand raining down upon us, the sound cruelly mimicking the soft shower of water.
That place made Hell look like the lush green gardens of paradise. I never wanted to see another fucking grain of sand for the rest of my life.
Our team's food and water rations had depleted rapidly while Crawford and I were away, and restocking was detrimental to our survival. I looked around the barren wasteland and cringed at the thought of another day's journey to our check in point.
If our next rally point was compromised we were literally dead men walking, and at that moment I couldn't imagine a worse way of dying than stumbling deliriously through that blazing inferno. If that happened, a quick death was the only mercy we could hope for.
I signaled for Crawford, Sergeant Cooper and the remainder of the men to stop and rest near a large sand dune, the slop providing fire cover and protection from the wind. The real enemy directly above us was inescapable; the sun's sweltering rays beating down upon us relentlessly.
My head throbbed from the heat, my temples hammering in warning of the threat of heatstroke… as if I could forget how fucking hot it was. Beads of sweat trickled down my back and thighs, my clothing chafing against my raw skin with every painstaking step.
I sat several yards away from the group, sinking into the sand, my thighs baking in the heated seat. I could feel my blood pulse through my weary limbs, my muscles shaking from the mixture of dehydration and exhaustion.
I flinched as the sand beneath my hand trembled and rose between my fingers… What the fuck?
I snatched my hand away as a yellow scorpion scuttled angrily to the surface, its venomous tail twitching in warning at my intrusion, poised and ready to strike.
I flicked it away from me with the butt of my M16, sending a spray of sand along with it as it tumbled down the slop. I watched as it scurried away across the ground, pinchers flexed and extended, its tail coiled tightly above its hard, segmented body as it burrowed back into the sand.
Dios, I really, really HATED that fucking desert!
In desperate need of a distraction I opened my left cargo pocket, retrieving the small, military-issued Book of Psalms from inside. I flipped it open to the back cover and ran my thumb gently across my Babe's picture concealed within.
A different type of warmth spread through my chest as I sank into baby blue depths. My eyes caressed the line of her jaw, the curve of her full lips, the arc of her dark lashes. My hands ached to twine in those silky, chestnut curls, to skim over the sultry curves of her body, to hold her to me and never let go.
I closed my eyes, imagining the porcelain texture of her skin, the feel of her lips, warm and inviting against my own, the rhythm of our bodies joining together, the only way I knew how to express how much I loved her.
Just thinking of her took me away from that place. She was my escape, my comfort.
Our one night together replayed in my mind with startling clarity, the image of her rosy and glowing with need deeply engrained in my mind. I could see her wild curls spilling over her shoulders, feel the cascading locks tickling the bare skin of my chest as she moved above me, hear the throaty rasp of her moans, husky and raw with sex. My body responded to the memory, never too exhausted to crave her touch.
My thirst for her was unquenchable.
I was asked once what I would take with me to a deserted island, if given only one item from my previous life to take with me into exile, a single object cherished above all else to accompany me for the rest of my days. The answer to that question rested in my open hands. I carried her picture in my pocket and her love in my heart.
She was with me wherever I went.
A soldier is allowed to carry very little with him into battle, but the personal items he has are symbolic of his purpose in life and of his greatest incentives to survive...
She was mine.
I repeated this ritual several times during the day and at night before I fell asleep. No matter how beaten and bruised I may have been, no matter how hopeless and defeated I may have felt, one glimpse into those eyes and I was home, my will to survive renewed and raging within me.
There were times when my survival had been nothing short of miraculous, having been placed into situations that I never should have walked away from, but my overwhelming desire to return to her, made me capable of near super-human feats, beating the odds time and time again.
For the first time in my life I had something, someone, to live for and I would fight until my last breath for one more moment with her.
My mind was still reeling from our last conversation before my deployment. I knew that I had hurt her. Dios, I could feel her pain from thousands of miles away, her heartache mixing caustically with my own. She was a breath away from saying the words that would have changed the course of our lives forever, but I couldn't bear to listen to promises from her that in my current position I couldn't possibly return.
I told her once that my life didn't lend itself to relationships, and sitting there then, half a world away, helpless and aching to comfort her, I realized the harsh truth behind my own words. How could I sustain a relationship when I couldn't be there with her, for her, when she needed me the most?
Every mission that I evaded death only increased the odds that the next assignment would be my last, and I couldn't handle the thought of her clutching a folded burial flag to her chest, the last tangible evidence of my legacy as a soldier, as the man she loved, grieving someone who willing walked the line between life and death.
I loved her too much to ask that of her.
I remembered the exact moment that I knew I was in love with her; it was like being blindsided by an unexpected enemy force. It took me completely off guard and shook me to the core.
And, so, I did what any soldier is trained to do in the case of an ambush … retreat. I ran like the Hounds of Hell were nipping at my feet.
Within an hour I was parked outside of the airport, watching the planes take off through the windshield of my car, the passengers within being carried away to a new day and a fresh start.
I spent the entire night there, trying to summon the courage to leave, willing myself to believe that it was the right thing to do… but I never stepped foot out of the car.
When the sun broke across the sky the next morning I drove back to Haywood, knowing in my heart that I would never be the same. I would love Stephanie Plum for the rest of my life, and I would protect her from myself at all costs. Someone as good and pure as her could have never been meant for someone like me. I resigned myself to living on the outskirts of her life, knowing that I wasn't strong enough to remove myself from it completely. I would serve as her protector, as her mentor, and as her friend.
But, at night when I closed my eyes, she was always there to welcome me home, my woman, the love of my life.
I rose up to my feet, brushed the sand away from my calves and thighs, and stared off into the distance. Maybe in the future our "someday" would be more than just a dream. A tiny glimmer of hope carried me forward, each step bringing me closer to home.
****Please review :) I'd love to hear some thoughts from everyone including all of the lurkers following my story… come on; you know you want to ;)
*The song Crawford sang above is called "Rooster" by Alice in Chains. The guitarist, Jerry Cantrell, wrote the lyrics in honor of his father who served in the Vietnam War. Cantrell's father was a member of the 101st Airborne, who wore patches on their arms featuring a bald eagle. There are no bald eagles in Vietnam, so the Vietnamese referred to them as roosters. That is where the term, "Snuff (kill) the Rooster," came from.
Jerry Cantrell stated in the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, "It was the start of the healing process between my Dad and I from all that damage that Vietnam caused. This was all my perception of his experiences out there. The first time I ever heard him talk about it was when we made the video and he did a 45 minute interview with Mark Pellington and I was amazed he did it. He was totally cool, totally calm, accepted it all and had a good time doing it. It even brought him to the point of tears. It was beautiful. He said it was a weird experience, a sad experience and he hoped that nobody else had to go through it."
Here are the lyrics to the song. You will see that I added the word, "No," to the beginning of the fourth line to make it more applicable to the story.
Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullets scream to me from somewhere
Here they come to snuff the rooster
Yeah here come the rooster, yeah
You know he ain't gonna die
No, no, no, ya know he ain't gonna die
Walkin' tall machine gun man
They spit on me in my home land
Gloria sent me pictures of my boy
Got my pills 'gainst mosquito death
My buddy's breathin' his dyin' breath
Oh god please won't you help me make it through
Here they come to snuff the rooster
Yeah here come the rooster, yeah
You know he ain't gonna die
No, no, no ya know he ain't gonna die
Thanks again for all of the encouragement with my writing :)
Jen