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  Kelly smirked and gave her French fry more attention than it deserved.

  “What? You can’t give me a look like that and not explain.”

  She popped the ketchup-laden morsel into her mouth, then slowly licked her fingers while watching him. He did groan. Out loud. She laughed.

  “I’ll wager a week’s pay Heather doesn’t know you two are, how did you put it, ‘not working out’?”

  Ian shifted on the cracked vinyl bench. Of course she was right. But that would change. As soon as he got back to his apartment he’d call and tell Heather they were through. They’d had so much in common; it had been easy to think there was more there than there really was. But the reality was they had never really been a couple. Hell, he was repeating the same mistake he’d made with Julie.

  He reached across the table and dabbed his finger on the smudge of ketchup at the corner of Kelly’s mouth. Her eyes darkened and her breath hitched.

  No doubt about it, blondes were way overrated.

  Chapter Three

  Once Kelly arrived at the air station the next afternoon, she didn’t have time to think about Ian, or the status of his girlfriend. Her Jayhawk crew had just landed from a training flight over the Gulf and she needed to check their safety equipment.

  She was working on the cargo aerial delivery system when the crew alarm sounded. A suited-up Ian ran toward the helo. His grim expression stopped her flip comment. Obviously this alarm wasn’t for another training mission.

  Caitlyn, Ryan, Joe and Kelly gathered around Ian. “There’s been an ordnance explosion on a Navy ship in the Gulf. Two sailors were killed outright, three badly burned. I’ve talked with the shipboard doctor and the receiving hospital. If we don’t get the survivors to a burn unit soon they’ll all die.”

  Kelly’s stomach rolled over. Treating burns challenged her medically and mentally. Her father had died in a similar explosion. She couldn’t help thinking of him whenever she treated a burn victim.

  While ground personnel refueled their helo, Kelly helped Ian load extra burn kits. The crew, normally talkative and boisterous, barely spoke above a whisper. It was as if they all held their collective breaths for the injured sailors.

  They launched quickly but ten miles out the doctor radioed Ian with the news they’d be picking up only one survivor. The other two had died. Kelly’s eyes filled. Dammit, what was wrong with her? She never allowed herself to get emotional on the job. She blinked rapidly, clearing her sight. They still had one sailor counting on them.

  Caitlyn slowed the Jayhawk and Joe slid open the side door and latched it. He lowered the litter first, letting the ship’s crew unhook and move it to the sick bay to collect the sailor. The attending doctor would be the best one to handle that painful and delicate maneuver.

  “Swimmer in position,” Joe directed over the headset.

  Kelly moved onto the floor behind him, her harness connected to the gunner’s belt. With a clear landing spot and seas at two to three feet, he’d deploy her directly onto the gently rolling deck below.

  Joe motioned her forward and she scooted to the doorway, her boots hanging out. He clipped the hoist hook to the V-ring of her harness and rapped her hard on the chest with his knuckles. She ignored the sharp pain, released the gunner’s belt, and gave him a thumbs-up signal. Once clear of the doorway, she checked her harness and gave him the signal to lower her to the deck below. And blew him a kiss on the way down.

  Take that, you rat-bastard. She resisted the urge to rub her breastbone. Why was she letting him get to her? She’d ignored a lot worse in her life; his petty jealousy shouldn’t rate serious consideration. Or change how she did her job.

  The smell of death hung over the ship like a shroud. The doctor and a Chief Petty Officer, his face pale and streaked with smoke, met her on deck with the injured sailor. They’d loaded him into the Stokes litter, two IVs rigged to a stand attached to its metal frame.

  Kelly balled her hands into fists. The sailor was on his stomach, his head turned to one side. Black smoke etched his face making him look older than his reported twenty-two years. His back, shoulders and upper thighs were smeared with antibiotic ointment and covered in loose gauze. Double-damn-son-of-a-bitch. With that much burn area, his chance of survival was down in the single digits.

  She looked at the doctor and narrowed her eyes. He didn’t look optimistic. Fine, she’d do her damnedest to prove him wrong. “What volume do you have the IV running?” she asked.

  While the doctor gave her the bolus rate and morphine dosage in a clipped unemotional voice, a Navy health tech secured a sheet over the top of the basket. She nodded to the four men standing at ease behind the doctor. They moved into position, picked up the litter, and headed to the open deck area. The stench of burnt flesh mixed with antibiotic and spent ordnance. It smelled like a damn battlefield and yet they sat in the calm blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Here are his things. His gear will be shipped back to his wife at our next port,” the doctor said, handing a clear plastic bag to Kelly.

  She took the container automatically. “Wife?” She hadn’t expected a twenty-two-year-old officer to be married.

  “Yes, with a new baby. Hell, they were all just kids down there,” he said harshly, gesturing to the lower level where the explosion and fire had taken place.

  Suddenly Kelly noticed the bleak look in his eyes. His detached assessment and impassive expression of only a minute ago had cracked. He cared all right, but he’d given up hope.

  Kelly gave him a nod and forced her mind on what she had to do. She secured the cable to the litter and signaled Joe to begin the hoist. Ian would check the sailor’s vital signs the minute they hauled him into the helicopter, while she waited impatiently for her return trip up. Thank God he’d been assigned to the mission. Of course, they’d sent two medical crewmembers because there’d originally been three sailors to tend.

  She tried to quell the verse in her head: and then there were none.

  * * *

  Ian helped Joe swing the litter into the helicopter and get it safely stowed. One look at the extent of burned body surface area and his optimism died. Unless God had a few extra miracles to distribute, this kid had run out of luck.

  Despite the odds, Ian set to work with only one goal in mind—keep his patient alive. Shock and subsequent cardiac failure were very real concerns to deal with first, by fluid resuscitation.

  Intent on the sailor, Ian didn’t realize Kelly had joined him until she set to work wrapping a blanket around the litter. With so much skin damage, a rapid drop in body temperature became inevitable. Ian swiped at the sweat running into his eyes with the sleeve of his flight suit. Hell, with so much trauma, everything was life threatening.

  He and Kelly settled into a rhythm as if they’d been working together for months. In reality their being assigned together was more luck of the draw and circumstances. As a Health Tech, Ian’s schedule tended to be limited to the base and was much more predictable than Kelly’s. Medical emergencies, not search and rescue missions, dictated his addition to an air crew.

  Thirty minutes from the hospital, the sailor regained consciousness with a strangled cry that cut through the Jayhawk’s engine noise. Kelly dropped the chart she’d been writing notes on and immediately bent over him, her face inches from his twisted features.

  “We’re almost there, Ensign Balinski. We’ll have you in a hospital soon.” She cut a quick glance to Ian. “Give him another ten of morphine.” Her attention back on her patient, she grabbed his hand and moved closer still. “Listen to me, Balinski,” she shouted above another anguished cry and the roar of the helicopter. “That’s an order, dammit. You will survive, you hear me? You have a little baby and a wife counting on you. You will do what it takes to get the job done. Nothing else is acceptable. Do you hear me, Balinski?”

  I
an pushed the morphine, as mesmerized by Kelly’s force of will as the sailor appeared to be. Her hand, looking crushed in the man’s return grip, vibrated. Even as tears flooded her eyes, her voice never wavered, her demands never ceased. Her strength and sheer determination awed Ian.

  Interminable minutes later, Caitlyn’s calm voice announced their ETA at the hospital. Ian immediately contacted the receiving physician and delivered the patient’s current vital signs. Heart rate too rapid, blood pressure too low, but by God, he was still alive.

  Joe slid the door open and a ground crew dispatched a gurney before the helicopter’s wheels touched the tarmac. Ian jumped out, pulling the litter behind him while Kelly accompanied them, still issuing orders to the sailor.

  “You aren’t done yet, Ensign Balinski. You still have a job to do,” she shouted. She still gripped his hand.

  “We’ve got him now, ma’am. You can let go.” A young male nurse grabbed Kelly’s arm.

  For a minute, Ian thought she was going to argue. Or deck the guy. But she blinked, then closed her eyes and released the sailor’s hand. The gurney and the team quickly disappeared though a set of swinging doors and Kelly stood absolutely still.

  After a moment or two, a tremor rippled through her, and she gave a single sharp nod. She turned and climbed into the helicopter, her movements unnaturally slow, each hand and foot placement deliberate, as if she might shatter. Ian wanted to pull her into his arms, but her fierce expression demanded space. He grabbed Joe and headed toward the doors that swallowed their patient. They needed to retrieve their rescue litter.

  “Ian!”

  He wheeled at Kelly’s shout and jogged back to the helo. She held a plastic bag out to him, her expression guarded. “Here, these are his things. Could you…would you find out who…?”

  “Yeah, I’ll find out who to call for an update,” he said.

  She had her right hand curled between her breasts. He frowned and reached for it, but she backed away. Hell, the way that kid had been hanging on, he could have broken several bones. “Maybe you should have that x-rayed.”

  She shook her head, her eyes overly bright. “Go, we have to get back to the station. With two helos down for repairs, they might need us again.”

  He hesitated for a second, then turned and hurried after Joe. He damn well hoped they didn’t get another call, because Kelly was about as strung out as a person could be and still functioning. This wasn’t the way he’d envisioned their first night together, but he knew he wasn’t about to let her go home alone. Even if it meant he’d be taking cold showers for the next week.

  * * *

  Ian ignored his brother’s wink as he set two beers on the table. He didn’t need, or want, his brother’s advice, which as the oldest, Brendan seemed to feel it was his birthright to dispense. Today had taken something out of Ian. And Kelly.

  “Go away,” Ian said to his brother, his attention focused on a somber Kelly. Brendan briefly clasped his shoulder then, miraculously, left them alone. An Irish ballad of young lives lost played in the background, echoing their own horrific day.

  He’d delivered the news of the young sailor’s death to Kelly in person, then persuaded her to go out with him. He didn’t want her sitting on her boat, brooding all by herself. Since his brother’s bar wasn’t a Coastie hangout, they wouldn’t have to worry about running into familiar faces.

  He wasn’t in any mood for laughter or crude jokes.

  Kelly latched on to her beer mug with both hands. But she didn’t drink—she simply held on.

  Exactly what he wanted to do, only instead of cold glass, he wanted to wrap his arms around her. He needed to erase the bruised look that appeared so out of place on her normally cheerful face.

  “So this is your brother’s place,” she said. Her gaze darted around the room, but didn’t seem to take in the polished wood and gleaming brass before returning to her beer. Her brows nudged her forehead into tiny lines of a frown.

  Ian couldn’t sit back and watch her suffer any longer. She’d avoided his touch, drifting away anytime he moved into her space. Tough, because he needed to touch her.

  He slipped from his seat across the table and scooted in next to her. “You did everything you could, but honey, you’re not God. There are things that happen, and there’s not a damn thing we can do to change them.”

  Inch by slow inch, Kelly relaxed, letting her body rest against his. He took that as a good sign and pressed for more, lifting his arm to encircle her shoulders. She immediately stiffened.

  “Hey, I was there with you. Maybe I need this,” Ian said softly.

  Startled, she looked at him, brown eyes widening. “I, I’m, sorry. God, I’m such a fool.”

  She shivered and Ian pulled her closer. “No way. I’ve never seen anyone more determined to win.” Hell, if the doctor had let her stay, maybe she could have badgered that sailor into living.

  Her frown returned. “Win?”

  Ian swallowed his craving to kiss away her pained look. “Yeah, you waged a battle with death out there and damn near won. Were you a fool for trying? A fool for caring about a kid with his whole life in front of him? Hell, no.” He brushed her hair back from her face. How had she come to mean so much to him in only a few weeks?

  “Ya know what?” he asked, threading his fingers through the short silk of her hair.

  She shook her head, eyes still wide.

  “I think there’s the heart of an Amazon warrior hidden in that compact little body of yours.”

  The corner of her mouth tipped up and her gaze drifted to his mouth. Ian could almost taste her. Hell, this wasn’t the right time to take this further. Not drunk like before, but certainly not the lighthearted Kelly he wanted to make love to either. He didn’t want the specter of death overshadowing their first night together.

  He turned away and reached for his beer. With a nod to her foam-topped stout, he asked in his very best brogue, “Been to Ireland, have ye lass?”

  Her grin started slow, but grew steadily. “Aye, laddy, a time or two.”

  Oh, God, if his mother ever met Kelly, there’d be talk of marriage and babies for sure.

  * * *

  Kelly didn’t know how, or precisely when, but she no longer feared flying apart. A rescue had never affected her so deeply. She didn’t like it and didn’t intend to make it a habit. Willpower allowed her to laugh at Brendan’s blonde jokes when he cruised by to pick up their empty mugs. Had they been not so subtle jibes against Heather?

  She cupped her chin in her palm and watched Ian argue good-naturedly with his brother about covering the cost of their beers. And sighed. Why was someone that good looking interested in her? From the narrow-eyed looks aimed her way, more than a few women in the bar apparently wondered the same thing.

  “Ready to go?” he asked and slipped his wallet back into his hip pocket, no lighter than when he’d pulled it out.

  She nodded and slid out of the booth. But when his hand settled against the small of her back, a surge of heat flowed through her, igniting her nerves and sensitizing her skin. Shocked by the intensity of her reaction to a simple touch, she stumbled.

  “Careful there, I don’t want Brendan claiming I got you falling-down drunk,” he warned, slipping his arm around her waist.

  His scent encircled her. It almost made her whimper. She’d never felt anything so, so—oh, hell. A flush climbed her throat and scorched her face. Caitlyn would know the diagnosis even without medical training. Kelly Bishop was horny. For the first time since forever, she wanted a real man more than her fantasy one. No, not so simple. She really, really wanted Ian Razzamenti, Irish-Italian hunk extraordinaire.

  They were both quiet on the drive to the marina. She could tell he was trying hard not to think about doing what they both wanted to do—well, at least what she wanted to do. He parked her J
eep and sat for a minute as if afraid to leave its safe confines. Kelly hopped out, determined to persuade him to stay, if not the night, at least a few hours.

  She leaned in through the open door and retrieved a small paper bag from the glove box. What had seemed like a foolish purchase last night looked like a wise investment now. Of course, it would only work if she had the nerve to use it as leverage against his excuse of not being prepared.

  The cool Gulf air teased her hair and filled her lungs with its edgy saltiness. The sound and smell of water called to her like a familiar lover. For her, water would always be home. Even during its angriest moments, she never feared it. Respected it, stood in awe of it, but never feared its deadly force.

  “Did I tell you I was born underwater?” she asked. She led him along the lighted walkway, his hand now holding hers. He made her feel…special…in a nice way.

  “No, you didn’t. Does that mean your mom lived on a submarine or something?”

  Kelly laughed, the ponderous weight of the day’s events easing from her shoulders. “No, silly. She was a Navy pilot.”

  Ian whistled. “Seriously? Both your parents were in the Navy?”

  She turned down another walkway, bollard lamps lighting the steel and wooden pier. “Uh-huh. They were living in Eastern Europe at the time and her doctor believed it would be less traumatic to actually deliver in warm water, like—”

  Ian stopped abruptly. “Jesus, you’re serious aren’t you?”

  She tugged his hand playfully. “Yes, of course I am. I came into the world in the water, and if I’m lucky, that’s the way I’ll leave.”

  Ian’s face darkened. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t—”

  Kelly watched a battle storm across his face, mesmerized by his anger. He wanted to do the right thing because of what they’d been through that day. But she didn’t want noble any longer. She simply wanted…him.