“Where’s that airsupport!?!”
Like a vacuum imploding, Jake’s voice yanked Cord from the dark memory. The chaos of battle crashed back in. His heart beat. Once. Twice. The shooters were stillactive.
Cord brushed off the flashback and dropped his eye to his scope, following the trail of smoke back through the nightsky.
Low moans drifted up the ravine. Cord blew out a breath. It was his job to protect thosesoldiers.
“Tracking.” Cord tracing the smoke to its launching point. Two men dressed in black stood in the center of the road, one holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder the other shoving in the second grenade for areload.
Cord put his site on the shooter first. Not needing a laser to aim at his target, he put the crosshairs right over the asshole’s face and pulled the trigger. The guy dropped like a stone, the rocket launcher clattering to the ground. Terrorist number two dove for the rocket launcher. Cord drew in a breath, yanked the bolt back and chambered another round. His hand drifted down to his trigger. He exhaled and squeezed. “Threatneutralized.”
“Five mils to the right. Small boulder.” Jake’s tone was all businessnow.
Cord followed his lead without thought or question. The dry dirt barely made a sound as he shifted and took aim at a single man holding a laser pointer in his hand. Cord fired. The man dropped, his head split intwo.
He heard Jake say, “Command, we need medics and backup now. Hitman’s team is hit. I repeat, we wereambushed.”
The loud crackling static of the comm system filled Cord’s ears as they waited on a reply from command. “This is command, air support ETA 90 seconds.Over.”
Bang! The telltale whistle of a second RPG filled the split second ofsilence.
Cord rolled to his right, lifted his rifle and then the world exploded aroundhim.
* * *
Cord jerked awake,body drenched in sweat, hands clammy.Shit.
Would he ever stop reliving that night? He’d gone almost a week without the nightmare, long enough that he’d started to hope he’d put it behind him. After all, getting this assignment was a huge step in the right direction. And then last night, withSamantha…
His arm shot out reflexively, searching for her, only to find the other half of the bed empty. The hint of sunlight through the bottom of the closed curtains gave evidence that the sun had risen. Knowing Sam, she was already out working the ranch. Thank God she hadn’t been in here during his nightmare. They were bad enough alone; it would be so much worse to have a witness to hisweakness.
Cord rolled up to the side, slung his leg over the edge of the bed and dropped his sweat-drenched head into his hands. Ms. Reid had said nightmares were to be expected with any case of PTSD. He had completely ignored her, unwilling to admit he had PTSD. If he had a screw loose, she was the one who’d taken a wrench toit.
He’d seen death hundreds of times before he lost his leg, and most of his missions involved direct hand-to-hand combat and killing. Not once had he lost a wink of sleep. His nightmares were just a result of his counselor’s need to plant doubt and fear in his subconscious. He hadn’t even had them until after their first session, which proved exactly how much she’d fucked up his copingprocess.
He had a system down pat—the same one that had gotten him through his childhood without therapy. Deal with the problem. Eliminate. Come home and pretend like it had neverhappened.
She’d called it compartmentalization and told him his demons wouldn’t stay hiddenforever.
He called itsurvival.
Cord shoved to his feet, hopping with purpose over to the faded recliner. He’d propped his prosthetic there last night after Sam had fallen asleep. Grabbing the prosthetic, he locked it into place with an ease born of plenty ofpractice.
Another flash from his nightmare shook him, but he ignoredit.
As soon as he got mission clearance again, he’d go right back to his old lifestyle and forget that he’d ever been in a rehabfacility.
So why did the thought of leaving Sam make his chestache?
Cord carefully got to his feet and went to his room, grabbed a few items from his bag and hopped in the shower. Once he cleaned and changed, he went off in search of Ryder. They planned to do some recon. He needed to be able to watch as much of the ranch as possible, look for anomalies, things out of the ordinary. And from a distance, he could study the ranch hands—especiallyThad.
Dressed in a pair of loose black pants and a fitted black T-shirt, Cord went into the kitchen, intending to dig through Sam’s pantry for a protein bar. Instead, he found Ryder cleaning up dishes and pots. “Morning. Got some leftover bacon and eggs if you’reinterested.”
The smell of fried pork tickled his senses. “Hell yeah, I’m interested. Never turned down bacon in my entire life. Not going to startnow.”
Ryder pulled his hand from the sink, gesturing toward the stove with a wet fork. “Just grab a plate, eat what you want. What’s left over I’ll put up fortomorrow.”
Cord served himself and slid onto the bench seat of the kitchen table, forking up the food in silence as he studied Ryder’s methodical dishwashing. The edgiest part of his hunger craving satisfied, Cord took a minute to chew his food before talking. “You don’t strike me as acook.”
