“Yes, sir.”
Gaia moaned. The pain in her head was excruciating enough to make her cry out. She whimpered as she slowly came to. Ryan sat next to the bed on a chair. Implacable as ever, he held a washcloth to her forehead. His gaze found hers.
“So you’re starting to remember,” he said calmly. He nodded. “I hoped you would.”
She narrowed her eyes. Little did he know, he wasn’t the only one with a mission.
“I want you to know,” Ryan said, “that I never faked a single thing with you. I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. You were just so fucking beautiful. I never expected you would fall in love with me these past few weeks, though I’ve been in love with you for a long, long time.”
“What do you know of love?” she hissed.
“Apparently more than you think I do.”
She pushed the washcloth and thereby his hand off her forehead. The pain rushed back, searing in its intensity. She grabbed her head and took deep breaths.
The voice retreated with a final scream and suddenly rough hands were all over her injured body. The hands poked and prodded, forcing a small whimper from her lips that didn’t match up to the horrific anguish the touching made her feel.
“She’s losing too much blood,” a man announced.
“I want her alive!” another man ordered.
Ryan—it was Ryan. She’d know that commanding voice anywhere.
“Bastard,” Gaia accused. No wonder she was still alive. The rigid general wouldn’t have permitted any other outcome. The resulting amnesia just made his goal easier to achieve. She closed her eyes. “How could—”
Dead, naked bodies hanging from trees. Screaming. Crying. Gunfire. Smoke—so much suffocating smoke. “Kill them all!” a man in military fatigues roared. “No survivors!” The man, the soldier, turned. His wolfish blue gaze bore into hers. “Get out of here, Gaia, before you are compromised.” When she didn’t immediately run, he again ordered her to evacuate. “Go! Now!” She obeyed. She ran three blocks before an extremist’s bullet felled her, throwing her to the ground. She was going to die. Nobody survived a gunshot wound to the head.
Gaia stilled. Her head was throbbing, but the new memory… what was going on? Her eyes flew open. She looked warily at Ryan.
“It’ll come back,” he murmured. “If there is a God, and there is, it will come back.”
“Ryan?”
“Shhh. Just relax. Let yourself remember.”
Her heartbeat was working overtime. Her skin was slick with perspiration. She wanted answers, yet feared them just as strongly. It didn’t matter. The answers were coming. She could no more stop the memories than she could stop the sun from rising and setting.
“You will go behind enemy lines. You will marry him. You will become one of them. We will tear them apart from within and annihilate them from without.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Take out that Russian-backed general first. I’ll find a way to get your next orders to you.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
General Adams dismissed them both. “I’ll call a chaplain.”
Gaia looked at Ryan. She smiled. “This wasn’t quite how I envisioned my wedding day would be.”
“What did you envision?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t have your military background. I am—was—just a simple girl with simple wishes.” She shrugged. “Flowers would have been nice.”
He inclined his head. “Then flowers you’ll get. They might be dandelions, but I’ll get you flowers if it kills me.”
She grinned. “Please don’t let it kill you.”
Gaia’s mouth worked up and down. Her eyes, round as saucers, looked up at Ryan. “You found some wild flowers. Despite how cold it was outside you managed to find a few wild flowers holding on for dear life.”
