Sky pushed her trembling fingers into the tight weave of the carpet, trying to orient herself to here and now.
Why wouldn’t the images go away? Why wouldn’t she stop feeling the Black Hawk shivering and whumping around her? Get up! Get up!
Sobbing for air, Sky forced her paralyzed body to move. Her nightgown was soaked with sweat. Shaky and unsteady, she got to her knees and slowly straightened her long fingers against her curved thighs. It was nearly dawn, the light leaking in around the drapes of the Wyoming Inn. Looking over at the bed stand, she saw the red numbers: 5:20 a.m.
Pushing the damp strands of her hair off her face, Sky hung her head, trying to steady her breathing. At the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, this was what they’d taught her when she’d get anxiety reactions or a full-blown panic attack. She’d been a broken shell of a human being when she’d been rescued by a SEAL team two weeks after being captured. They’d brought her fractured soul and tortured body to Bagram hospital, where she’d been an E.R. nurse.
Whispering her name, she held on to it. Skylar Pascal. First Lieutenant. U.S. Navy. She repeated her name again and again. She had to concentrate on her physical body. Damp palms moved down the soft cotton of her damp gown. She forced her attention to the temperature in the room on an early-June morning. Focused on any sounds she might hear, like the ticking of the clock. Finally...finally...the sensations of riding the helo down into a crash left her. The terror of thinking she was going to die in that moment eased, as did the harsh gasps tearing out of her mouth.
Slowly, Sky lifted her hands, threading her fingers through her long, straight hair. She reveled in its silkiness. Feeling how soft and sleek it was compared to the nightmare’s smells, sounds and sensations. Ground. Ground. Get back in your body, Sky. Her throat tightened, and tears jammed into her eyes. No longer did she see the movielike frames of the nightmare. Relief shattered through her as the hot tears fell down her cheeks.
Pulling her thick hair off her shoulders, the bulk of it falling between her shoulder blades, Sky didn’t even try to stop the tears. Her therapist, Commander Olivia Hartfield, a specialist in PTSD at Balboa Naval Hospital, had told her they were good. It would help to cleanse her, help her emotionally stabilize. Above all, she’d told Sky, never fight crying. Let the tears flow. They were healing. Sky wiped the perspiration off her wrinkled brow. Gulping, her mouth dry, she wanted water.
Water.
Opening her eyes, Sky let the word filter through her and bring up the soul-destroying sensations and what they did to her. Water. Once, she’d loved water, loved swimming, loved walking in the rain, running outside to feel the fury of a thunderstorm as a child. Not anymore. Water was her enemy. Water had nearly killed her. But she was thirsty.
The nightmare was leaving her, and Sky looked around. She was in a small hotel room in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She had a job interview at 9:00 a.m. She frowned, and her heart began a slow beat, underscoring her trepidation. Sky absently touched her heart. She desperately needed this job. She’d gone through so many of them and had been either fired outright or let go with apologetic sympathy. Either way, she was unemployed when she had to find a way to survive and work like everyone else.
Water.
As she forced herself to stand, her knees felt wobbly. Sky sat down on the bed, understanding she was having an adrenaline crash. It made her weak. Made her unable to do much of anything until it passed. Her mouth felt dry and cracked. Thirsty. She was so thirsty. Sky couldn’t stand to see a pitcher of water. Shaking her head, she forced herself to lie down. Usually, once she had a nightmare, she could go back to sleep. Since Afghanistan, since the Black Hawk crash, she was lucky to get two or three hours a night. Sky closed her eyes and didn’t even try to pick up the sheets off the floor. All she wanted to do was escape into sleep. There, she didn’t have to feel anything. There, Sky could go away for just a little while....
* * *
THE ALARM STARTLED Sky out of her badly needed sleep. She jerked up, the noise sending her into panic. Heart crashing, she quickly pushed the buzzer on the clock, and it stopped shrieking at her. Looking up, she saw sunlight around the curtains. She’d set the clock for 7:00 a.m.
I have to get up. Get moving...
Glancing at the sheets and blanket strewn across the floor, she felt guilty. Sky got up and walked slowly toward the bathroom. She smelled of fear sweat. As she ran her hand down her cotton nightgown, she felt the dampness from the nightmare. She would wash her hair, as well. Today she needed to be presentable. Needed to look normal. Whatever normal meant.
She’d never be normal again. After turning on the water for a bath, she closed the bathroom door. This was the hardest thing to do: take a bath. Water meant suffocation and dying. It meant terror beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Olivia had worked long and hard with her that six months she was recovering. Worked to get her to take a bath. Sky would never take a shower again. Not ever. It would remind her of the torture she’d endured. At first, she’d wash only with a cloth and water in a steel bowl. In six months, she’d graduated from a bowl of water to taking a bath with a small amount of water in the tub. It was progress, Olivia said, congratulating her for her courage to challenge the very thing that had nearly killed her.
As Sky turned off the faucets and slowly put one foot into the tub and then the other, she got herself to focus on her coming job interview. She was to see Iris Mason, owner of the Elk Horn Ranch, at 9:00 a.m. This morning. Somehow, Sky would find the strength it’d take to gut through that interview. She needed the job. Would she get it? Or would Iris Mason see right through her and turn her down as so many other employers already had?
* * *
GRAYSON MCCOY WAS walking from the main office of the Elk Horn Ranch after talking with Iris Mason when he saw a silver Kia Sorento SUV pull up in front. He’d settled his black SEAL baseball cap on his short brown hair and slowed a little. The early-June morning was near freezing, not uncommon at this time of year for this part of Wyoming. To the east rose the jagged, tooth-shaped Teton Mountains, their slopes glazed with white snow.
Because he’d been a SEAL for seven years, he was alert and watchful. Iris, the owner of the Elk Horn Ranch, had been excited about a woman named Skylar Pascal, who was coming to interview for a job. It wasn’t just any job, either. Gray wasn’t sure he wanted to work with a woman at the wildlife center. He’d been hired a year ago because his mother, Isabel McCoy, was a noted wolf biologist and wildlife expert. Iris had wanted to create a one-hundred-acre wildlife preserve on the Elk Horn for their dude-ranch families who came every year for a vacation.
Further, Iris, who always had an eye on saving the planet, wanted part of the refuge for timber wolves and to bring them back to the States. His mother had told him about this job, and Iris had hired him on the spot.
The green grass beneath his cowboy boots was thick with dew as he slowed. Across the dirt road stood the log cabin. He watched with a little more interest as a woman dressed in a tasteful, coffee-brown pantsuit with a white blouse emerged from the SUV. His eyes narrowed speculatively as he absorbed her.
Being a SEAL, he had the ability to see all the details, which was always important. She was young, mid-twenties, with long, beautiful, ginger-brown hair that swung gently around her shoulders. The way she squared them, the way she walked, made Gray think she had a military background. Military people walked a certain way: shoulders back and proud, a straight spine, the chin slightly tilted upward. This woman was probably around five foot ten or so. Long, lean and damned graceful. She had a white leather purse she pulled over her left shoulder. Another sign of being in the military. Gray smiled to himself. It left the right arm free to salute with, and women in the military always carried their purses on their left shoulder as a result.
He didn’t want to be swayed, but when she lifted her chin and looked around—looked at him—his heart unexpectedly thumped once. It was a crazy reaction and surprising