Couldn’t comprehend that the unthinkable had happened.
Had it been a grenade, or a IED? Slowly, she lifted her head and made a mental inventory of her injuries. Her back ached, and the exposed skin of her face and neck had been sandblasted by the dirt that had been flung up from the explosion. Her ears were ringing and the ground seemed to tilt beneath her. From the convoy, she saw another soldier had taken control of Shane’s gun and was spraying the orchard with a constant barrage of fire. Through the swirling dust and settling debris, she could just make out Shane’s prone body lying on the ground.
Holly became aware of a fierce burning sensation in her arm and glanced down, noting the darkening stain on the camouflage of her sleeve. Her left arm hung at an awkward angle and when she probed the area, raw pain sliced through her. Her hand came away covered with blood. She’d been hit, and from the total weakness in her arm, she knew the bone was broken. Cradling the injured arm against her side, she pushed herself to her feet and staggered over to Shane. He lay face down in the dirt and even when she saw the trickle of dark blood seeping into the ground beneath him, she refused to believe he might be dead.
“Please, God,” she breathed. Just let him live and I promise I won’t ask for anything more. Just let him live. Let him live.
Holly had heard about the effects of adrenaline giving people unnatural and amazing strength during high-stress situations, but she’d never experienced it until that moment. Reaching down, she hauled on the straps of Shane’s vest with her good hand and dragged him toward the trucks, digging her heels in and managing to move him across thirty feet of open ground with seemingly little effort.
Only when she had reached the safety of the trucks did two soldiers and a medic come forward to help her, lifting Shane’s body and carrying him to the rear of the convoy. With Shane out of harm’s way, Holly realized she was panting and light-headed and soaked with sweat. A fourth soldier caught her as she staggered, and supported her weight as he hustled her to a secure spot behind a truck and lowered her to a sitting position against one of its enormous tires.
She strained for a glimpse of Shane, stretched out on the dirt road as the medics worked on him. Around her, the sounds of battle continued. The world spun dizzyingly and Holly dropped her head to her knees, dragging in great gulps of air. Fear consumed her, so intense that she was certain her heart would stop beating. Her stomach twisted in a sickening knot. She didn’t know what she would do if Shane died. The very thought made her go weak. Blackness fluttered at the edge of her vision, and she was only vaguely aware of sliding sideways onto the ground…and then she knew nothing more.
SHE WAS HAVING the dream again, but this time it seemed so real…she could actually feel Shane’s hands on her, unbuttoning her shirt and exposing her skin to the cool air. His fingers brushed over her flesh, causing a thrill of awareness to shoot through her. She moaned softly and arched upward, seeking more of the delicious contact. She’d wanted this for so many years and now here he was, touching her, and even if it was only a dream, Holly didn’t want to miss a second of it.
The faint odor of gasoline hung on the air, and overhead she could hear the soft whir of a ceiling fan; they were in the boathouse, where Shane preferred to sleep whenever he came to stay at her family’s summer place. How many times had she been tempted to follow him here? To undress and spread herself across the bed in the small bunk room and show him how good it could be between them? She wasn’t a kid anymore, and it was time he stopped thinking of her as his best friend’s little sister. She’d caught him watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and the expression in his hazel eyes told her that he wanted her, too. Only his damnable honor and pride kept him from accepting everything she had to offer.
But not now.
For this moment, at least, he was hers, and even if this was just a dream, she’d take it. As dreams went, it was a pretty good one. Her entire body was on fire with need.
“Shane,” she breathed, “kiss me.”
“Holly.” His voice sounded strained, with an underlying urgency that she had never heard before. He didn’t sound at all like the Shane she knew. “Holly, stay with me.”
She frowned. Stay with him? Of course she intended to stay with him. She’d opted for an assignment in Iraq because that’s where he was stationed. Practically every decision she’d made over the past seven years had been for one reason: Shane Rafferty. Oh yeah, she intended to stay with him.
His touch was incredibly gentle as he eased the fabric of her blouse back, and Holly shifted to grant him better access. As she did so, agonizing pain flared in her shoulder and made her cry out, jerking her out of the sensual dream and into a harsh reality that was equally as surreal.
Through a haze of pain, Holly opened her eyes and saw two soldiers crouched over her. One of them cut away the sleeve of her camo jacket with a knife while the second one prepared an I.V. drip. She concentrated on the face of the first man and struggled to bring him into focus. Not Shane.
Slowly, she became aware that they were in a military helicopter, and Holly could smell fumes from the aviation fuel. What she’d dreamed was the soft whir of a ceiling fan was, in reality, the rhythmic thwap-thwap of the rotor blades. All around her, male voices barked orders while others were raised in urgent discussion. None of those voices belonged to Shane.
“Stay with me, Lieutenant,” the first soldier commanded, his eyes flicking to hers. “You’re going to be fine.”
Her entire body ached, but her left arm burned with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. Holly shifted her gaze to where the soldier probed at her shoulder. There was so much blood soaking her clothing and covering his hands that at first, she couldn’t tell where it came from. Then, as he pulled away a bloodied gauze pad, she saw the gaping wound high on her upper arm. She had a hole the size of a half-dollar and bone fragments protruded through ragged flesh around it. Blood pumped in a slow, steady flow from the injury even as the medic tried to staunch it. Immediately, her head felt woozy and a wave of nausea washed over her. She turned her face away and struggled to draw in air.
“What happened?” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.
“Your supply convoy drove into an ambush,” the first soldier said curtly. “You were shot, but you’re going to be fine.”
She’d been shot?
She struggled to remember, and pImages** drifted through her mind, as hazy and insubstantial as smoke. Sifting through them, she winced as she recalled the attack.
As she turned her face away from where the medic was working on her arm, she realized there was an injured soldier on a gurney next to her, and two medics were frantically working over his prone body. The medics blocked her view of his face, but she recognized the black tribal tattoo that encircled his bicep. Shane.
Holly tried to raise herself on her good elbow to get a better look at him. They had stripped him of his protective body armor and camo jacket and…oh, God, there was so much blood covering his muscled torso. The medics bent over him, while another barked into a radio. All she heard was “men down, one urgent.” She knew what urgent meant—loss of life was imminent without immediate medical intervention, and not the kind that they could provide on the battlefield.
Shane was going to die.
Another wave of dizziness swept over her.
“Shane.” Her voice was no more than a gasp.
“Lieutenant, I’m going to sedate you,” said the medic who crouched over her. He pushed her back down and the second soldier deftly inserted an intravenous drip into her uninjured arm. Almost instantly, the agonizing pain in her shoulder subsided and Holly had the oddest sensation that she was floating.
She could see Shane’s face now, it was covered in dust and blood, but there was no mistaking the strong line of his jaw, the proud nose and thrusting cheekbones, the dark shadow of his lashes against his cheeks. A thin trickle of blood ran from his ear and nose. The sight made Holly feel