Breaking Point

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“I will. There’s a nearby hospital in the lowlands at Dunmore, and I’ll work there, but I intend to be home on weekends. That way, I can support Mama, who takes care of my sister, Eva-Jo. She’s two years younger than me.” Bay picked up her coffee mug and sipped from it.

“What’s your sister do?” Gabe asked, finishing off the hamburger and wiping his hands on a paper napkin.

“Oh,” Bay said softly, pain in her tone, “not much. My sister is mentally challenged. She has the mind and emotions of a ten-year-old.” Shrugging, her voice low, Bay added, “Eva-Jo is special, Gabe. I love her dearly. And Mama is able to take care of her at home. She helps Mama in the garden, hanging the herbs out to dry and things like that. She has trouble reading and writing. It’s sad....”

Hearing the concealed pain in Bay’s husky voice, Gabe started to reach out and hold her hand. He wanted to take away some of her pain. His reaction shocked him enough to keep his hands right where they were. There was something kind, soft and sensitive about Bay that deeply touched him. And even more disconcerting, he had no way to armor himself against her. “I’m sorry to hear that.” And he was. Her eyes widened slightly. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I was an only child.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t surrounded by my family, my aunts, uncles and cousins, my grandparents,” Bay said, and smiled fondly. “Family means everything to me. When you’re together, you’re strong and you can weather life’s storms more easily. You have support.”

“The SEALs have a similar philosophy. If you consider one twig, it’s easy to break it between your hands. But if you wrap a bunch of twigs together, they can’t be broken. That’s why the teams are so tight—they’re like that bundle of sticks. The guys are close. We trust one another with our back out there and call each other brothers, and we are.”

“At least you have parents,” she pointed out.

Gabe shook his head. “My father’s dead. All I have left is my mother. Both sets of my grandparents lived in California and Oregon, so I rarely got to see them before they passed away.”

“A scattered, broken nuclear family,” Bay whispered, meeting his hooded look. “Maybe the SEALs have given you back the family you lost?”

“Maybe they have,” Gabe agreed. He wanted to share with Bay that he’d longed for a family of his own for a long time. He wanted children, knowing he’d raise them very differently from the way his father, Frank, had raised him. Gabe thought he’d found that dream coming true when he married Lily. As Bay said, he was part of a scattered, broken family in more ways than she would ever realize. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t accurately gauged Lily. He’d been driven to want family. Want that warm, loving support. Without having it as a child, how could he know which woman would be right for him to fulfill that dream with? For his vision of his future? Sometimes Gabe would feel panic in his chest, of having lost out on a very important part of life by not marrying. When he’d decided to try and capture that lost element, he’d met Lily. Marrying her five days later had been the worst decision he’d ever made. Gabe knew, without a doubt, he lacked something within himself to find the right woman who wanted to share his dream of love and having a family. A real family. Not dysfunctional like the one he’d grown up in.

To his consternation, Gabe found himself comparing Lily to Bay. There was a blinding difference. What if he’d met Bay first? God, he was so drawn to her that it scared the hell out of him. She was maternal and nurturing, unlike Lily, who was always in some kind of emotional drama. Bay was quiet and watched a lot and kept counsel to herself unless someone asked her for feedback. Lily was always telling him how she felt and usually it came out as a whining diatribe that about made him nuts.

Moving uncomfortably, Gabe was attracted to Bay’s quiet strength. It exuded from her like sunlight. What man wouldn’t want someone like her around him? And yet, he knew there wasn’t anything he could say or do about it. He wasn’t going to break Bay’s trust in him by coming on to her. Gabe had to keep everything professional. Or else.

CHAPTER SIX

BAY SAT NEXT to Gabe in the small, stuffy room the SEALs used to plan missions. Chief Doug Hampton had a whiteboard set up front and was drawing a valley where they were going to pull an op tomorrow morning. He also used a PowerPoint presentation for the details. The rest of the SEALs were sitting on the other two benches. Not one of them had said anything when she’d arrived with Gabe earlier after getting off a Chinook flight from Bagram. Bay had to admit, she looked like a SEAL with all the gear she had to wear. And maybe, as Gabe had said to her, she was just being too sensitive. Even Hammer didn’t say anything or give her a dark look when she’d entered the room earlier.

Doug pointed to the red oval line on the whiteboard. “This is going to be a recon mission. Alpha Platoon will go and I’ll be joining you. Our assets on the ground in this valley have said that there are three villages. They’re all from the Shinwari Tribe, which the U.S. has a peaceful alliance with. Assets at the Pakistan border are reporting that this valley has been targeted as new rat lines or newly created routes to get their weapons and fertilizer into the country. We have no idea when this will take place. We need to try and understand how the villagers are going to react to this new outside threat from their ancient enemy, the Hill Tribe. They’re farmers and all they want to do is be left alone to go about their daily business. Unfortunately, there’s a war going on around them and we don’t know how they’ll react to the insertion of Taliban carrying these supplies through their valley. We’re going to fly in at 0600. It’s an eight-hour day op, so pack your kit accordingly with first and second line gear.”

Hampton looked up and pointed to Bay. “Doc, I’m wanting to use your linguistic and medical abilities out there tomorrow. Are you up for that?”

“Yes, Chief, I am.”

“Good. The rest of the team is going to look around. Watch for IEDs, always. Just see how the farmers act or react to our presence. We’ll also go out in teams of four to search for new trails across the area around the first village. This would tell us the shift has been made and the supplies are coming through that valley. There’s a difference between a goat path and one that’s being used to haul supplies. If you find a path, verify it with the kids herding the goats. Find out if they use it for the animals or not. If they don’t, then put GPS coordinates on it and send it back here to the LT. When SEALs, Rangers or Special Forces have gone through the valley before these villages have offered no resistance. Maybe it’s different now. We have to find out. Questions?”

Bay raised her hand.

“Doc?”

“Chief, if I’m going in as a medic, you want me to set up a clinic?”

“I do. Gabe? If you don’t mind, I want you shadowing her. We don’t have a familiarity with these Afghans in this shifting of routes with the Taliban. We’re trying to establish some nation building with them, some goodwill so they’ll trust us.”

“I’ll have her back,” Gabe promised.

“Babysitter,” Hammer muttered.

“It’s better than babysitting you guys as a sniper on this op,” Gabe challenged him. On many occasions, Gabe, because he was a sniper, would be ordered to high ground to have a look-down, shoot-down capability as his squad went through a village, searching for Taliban. His job was to spot a Taliban shooter and take him out before he could kill one of the SEALs. He saw the hurt in Bay’s eyes over Hammer’s comment. She was too sensitive to the harassment that SEALs gave one another. He’d far rather be with Bay than sitting up on a ridge if he didn’t have to.

Snorting, Hammer shook his head and said nothing further.

“Chief?” Bay asked. “I’m treating women and children only? My experience over in Iraq is the men won’t come to be helped because I’m a woman. Their Islamic laws decree the men can’t be seen except by a male doctor.”

Shrugging, Hampton murmured, “Well, we’ll test that one out, won’t we? We’ll find the head elder of the village and depending on how bad those folks need medical help, you may find everyone lining up, no matter what their gender. You okay with that if it occurs?”

“Sure, no problem. I just need to know what to pack in my ruck, because male medical issues differ from women and children issues, is all.”

Hampton nodded. “Plan for both genders, Doc. Better to be prepared than not. The Pashtuns sometimes bend rules when it suits them. If a guy has gone septic, he wants a shot of antibiotics to live. Infection is the number-one killer in this country because there are no medical services available. They die from infection, unable to obtain antibiotics, so you may well see men standing in your line as a result.”

“Got it,” Bay said, writing down a list of drugs to take on her small notepad. “What about food for the people?”

“This is an initial op to check them out,” Hampton said. “We’re going in to make first contact. Let’s see what they need. Sometimes its medicine. Sometimes food. Just depends. If you can get the wives to talk, diplomatically ask them about Taliban activity through their area. See if it’s happening. Maybe we’ll get lucky and some woman will tell you the routes the Taliban is taking. That would be actionable intel.”

Bay smiled a little. “I’m very good at getting the women to talk, Chief. Don’t worry, I know how to mix business with medicine. If I get anything, you’ll be the first to know. Since Gabe will be nearby, I can tell him if it’s something urgent and he can pass the intel on to you.”

“I like it,” Hampton said, grinning. “You’ll be a key player out there tomorrow, Doc.”

“I’ll do my best to be of help, Chief.” Bay was relieved that Hammer said nothing further. With Gabe at her side, Bay felt confident that she could wrest intel from the women. They always liked talking with her in their native Pashto, were delighted she was a woman in this man’s ongoing war. And they knew she could help their sick and ailing children. A trust was built quickly between women, no question.

After the planning was over, the assignments handed out by the chief, everyone left. Bay had finished up her notes, Gabe sitting nearby, when the chief ambled over to them.

“Doc?”

She looked up. “Yes, Chief?”

Hampton rested his hands on his hips. “This village is pretty safe from what our ground assets have been telling us. None of the other black ops groups moving through the area has had trouble with them. I really want you to try and ingrain yourself into these villages as we check out each one of them. Build trust with them. I want to find those Taliban rat lines through their valley ASAP.” Rat lines were military slang for Taliban safe houses, villagers who were sympathetic to them or a series of new trails being created into an area by the enemy. Frowning, he added, “Now, we have no idea if this has happened yet or not. But when we go in, you know the rest of the story. You might ask the women if they’ve been feeding more strangers lately or not.”

“Pashtun code says you feed those who ask for food,” Bay said. “Okay, good to know. I’ll see what I can do.” If they were feeding more strangers, Bay knew it meant potential Taliban were coming through the area.

Hampton smiled a little and said, “How you getting along wearing our gear?”

Bay felt heat come to her face. “To tell you the truth, Chief, I had a hissy fit about wearing a SIG. That’s a special pistol that SEALs have earned the hard way. I haven’t earned it.”

Hampton pursed his lips. “I understand how you feel, Doc, but this order came directly from the LT. So, if anyone gives you any grief, you come to me. It’s important you look like one of us. We can bring you up to speed on how to handle the weapons.”

“I will, Chief.”

“Gabe?” Hampton said, shifting his gaze to the SEAL. “I want you to take Doc out on the shooting range sometime this afternoon and get her acquainted with the SIG. She’s got to know how to use it and clean it. Plus, do some rattle battle with her.”

Gabe nodded. “Already figured that out. And the Win Mag?”

“Leave it here. This is a day op. We hopefully won’t need it. But work in a rotation daily until she’s good friends with that rifle. Have her shooting at twelve hundred to fourteen hundred yards with accuracy.” Hampton looked at Bay. “You okay with filling in as a sniper trainee, Doc?”

Bay shrugged. “I’ll give it a whirl, Chief. But I’m not a trained sniper.”

“Gabe is one of the best in the sniping business. He’ll teach you the basics.” His gaze narrowed. “You okay with being a sniper?”

Bay nodded. “Chief, I was gunning and running with Special Forces over at the Syrian-Iraq border. I know I’m a medic and I’m charged with saving lives. But when my team is being shot at with the intent to kill them, I don’t mind lifting my M-4 and taking out the bad guys.”

“Okay, just checking,” Hampton said. “You should know our LT talked to your commanding officer, Captain Morton, over in Iraq. The captain had good things to say about you. It looks like you’re a solid player. You have our back and that’s good to know.”

Bay tried to hide her shock. Given the nature of her being an experiment, it made sense that the SEAL LT would check her out. “I’m glad the LT knows that. I’m not here to get anyone killed on my behalf.”

“It’s SOP to get the dope on the new guy coming into our platoon. Reputation is everything in the SEAL community,” Hampton told her. “And he was calling mainly to find out your reputation among the spec op guys.”

“And is the LT satisfied?” Bay wondered what Morton had said. Everyone saw her differently. Some saw her as a gun in the fight, one who could perform coolly under fire. Others saw her as a compassionate medic and trusted her with their lives.

Hampton smiled. “Yes. And so am I.”

Relief trickled through Bay. “That’s good to know, Chief. Thank you.”

“Many guys who enter combat corpsman duty are pacifists by nature,” Hampton said, assessing her.

“I don’t enjoy killing anyone, Chief. But I will shoot in self-defense for myself and my team. The way I look at it, it’s just another way to save a life. It’s one more bad guy who isn’t going to kill one of us.”

Nodding, Hampton appeared satisfied with her answer. “If you haven’t already got it in your notes for your medical ruck you’re bringing along, put some vaccinations in there.”

“Ahead of you, Chief.” She saw Hampton’s eyes gleam with approval.

“Can you give us a few minutes alone, Doc? I need to talk with Gabe.”

Easing off the bench, Bay nodded, picked up her M-4, placed it in a harness over her chest and left.

Hampton sat down on the bench next to Gabe. “What I didn’t say to her is that Captain Morton raved about her under-fire abilities. He said we don’t have anything to worry about, that she’s calm and thinking through the firefight. She takes orders and when she’s placed in a position, she stays. She doesn’t run.”

Gabe placed his elbows on his thighs. “Good to know. How’s it going with Hammer and his men?”

Hampton grimaced. “My threat is still working. We’ll see if it lasts.”

“Doc is really uncomfortable wearing that SIG.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“And the look on Hammer’s face when we came in was one of fury.”

“I saw that, too.”

Gabe shrugged. “SEAL exclusivity can work against us at times.” He gave Doug a twisted smile.

“What Hammer and those guys don’t understand is that she’s in combat, too, and needs that pistol to protect herself. Or them...”

“She tried to talk me into carrying a .45 instead of the SIG,” Gabe told him. “I told her no. Reasoned with her that she’s got to look like a SEAL whether she’s one or not. A camouflage point.”

“That persuaded her?”

“Enough for her to wear it, but she’s unhappy about it.”

Scratching his head, Hampton muttered, “Well, I hate to say it, but we’re going to be in firefights sooner or later, and at that time, she’s going to realize how important that SIG can be.”

Gabe sat up and clipped the M-4 over his chest, muzzle down. “Bay is savvy,” he reassured the chief. And then he realized he’d called her by her first name. Damn. He was working hard to keep distance between them. Grimacing, Gabe looked up to see Hampton grinning crookedly at him. “What?” he demanded testily.

“She’s a very attractive woman.”

“Not going to argue that point,” Gabe growled. “But we’re in combat and grab-ass isn’t what you want in a platoon going into firefights, either.”

“No,” Hampton agreed equitably. “But there is a special connection between you and her. I can feel it.”

Snorting, Gabe stood up. This was not what he wanted to hear. “She’s a decent, caring person, Doug. Her word is her bond. There’s no bullshit with her.” The kind of woman he wished he’d met before marrying Lily. Gabe had discovered his idealism about women was just that: not based on rock-solid reality. And Baylee-Ann Thorn was as sincere and real as a woman could get. And dammit, that sincerity called to him. And he was struggling not to be get entangled in it. Relationships had no place out here. None.

“She’s solid, no question,” Hampton said, standing. “Half the guys have bought in to her being with us. We have one half to go.”

“Over time,” Gabe said, heading for the door, “the other half will be convinced once they see her in action.”

Hampton agreed. “Help her get her kit together for the mission. I know she’s used to that length of mission, but this is Afghanistan, not Iraq.”

“Roger that.”

* * *

BAY STOOD WITH the SIG in her hands, firing off at a target fifty yards in front of her. The sun was low on the horizon, the heat stifling, the wind erratic. Gabe had been giving her good dope on how to use and fire the .30-caliber pistol. It packed a hell of a punch, jerking her hand hard every time she squeezed the trigger. Finally, she ran out of bullets in the mag, dropped it out of the SIG and quickly slapped another into its place and began firing again.

Gabe wanted her to be able to drop an empty mag on the run, grab another out of her H-gear harness, slap it into the pistol and keep on firing. When they got back off the op, he was going to make her run and shoot. That was rattle battle, he told her. She had to be totally at ease switching out mags and keep on firing accurately in the process while in constant motion.

Gabe seemed pleased with her progress. She hit the target every time. When she finished firing the last mag, he called, “That’s enough. You’re good to go.”

Bay turned and smiled at him. Gabe’s green eyes gleamed and he nodded in her direction. Turning, she picked up the dropped mags and placed each of them in a canvas pocket in the front of her H-gear she wore around her torso. “This is a nice pistol. Now I see why you guys like it so much,” she said.

The breeze blew a number of strands of her hair across her face and she pulled them back with her fingers. For a moment, she saw something else in Gabe’s face. What? As a medic, she had to be observant. Sometimes a person was in so much pain, or semiconscious, and she had to interpret his facial expressions. Did she really see what she thought she saw—longing? A man-wanting-his-woman kind of look?

Licking her lower lip, she cleared the chamber on the SIG and holstered it. There was such a powerful connection between them and it was growing stronger by the day. Bay knew it could never be spoken about. Much less acted upon.

“I’ll let the chief know you’re dialed in on the SIG,” Gabe told her as they walked off the range. A group of Afghan boys raced forward, having waited patiently in the background. They quickly snatched up the spent cartridge shells. They would sell them and make a little money for their destitute families who lived nearby. The cartridge casings would be melted down and the metal sold to a dealer for a decent sum of money. A family could eat well for six months or more on it.

“Great,” Bay said, feeling a lot more confident about carrying the special pistol. She enjoyed walking at Gabe’s side. He had such an easy stride and she never heard his boots hit the ground. “Hungry?” Gabe asked. He liked the happiness he saw mirrored in Bay’s face. The corners of her mouth pulled upward. A soft mouth. A damned kissable mouth. When she’d smiled at him earlier, he’d had no defense against it. Heat had flashed through his lower body, scalding and reminding him of what he’d been missing. There was such undisguised warmth in her smile, her lips lush and curved. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her, to touch those lips and feel her response. Gabe berated himself for these wayward thoughts.