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Her Healing Touch
Lindsay McKenna
HER TOUCH WAS LEGENDARYHe had come to South America to find her, to learn from the legendary healer what it was to mend lives. But Sergeant Burke Gifford hadn't expected the surge of powerful feeling Angel Paredes would stir in his heart. After all, he was a rough-and-tumble Special Forces man on a mission, not a man come to fall in love.HIS LOVE WAS ALL-CONSUMINGShe had healed many, but her own heart remained wounded. Yet from the moment Angel looked into Burke's eyes, she knew this strong, silent sergeant had a power far greater than hers. The power to love her–and to make her whole again.
“My head tells me I’m crazy to fall in love again…” Angel said.
“But my crazy heart has decided it likes you,” Burke said, taking her hand in his.
She felt his fingers close more firmly over hers. “Mine, too.” She met his stormy-looking eyes. “But I’m scared, Burke. Scared as hell. You’re going to be gone in a month. You’re never comin’ back.”
“I know….” Burke clearly read the frustration in her face, felt it in his own heart.
“I’m just not built emotionally for an affair, Burke.”
“I know that. That’s why I’ve been fighting my attraction to you. But it isn’t easy, Angel. It isn’t easy at all….”
LINDSAY MCKENNA
A homeopathic educator, Lindsay McKenna teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers on those levels. Coming from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay has taught ceremony and healing ways from the time she was nine years old. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.
Her Healing Touch
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my husband, David,
whose love has always been healing for me.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Dude, this sucks,” Sergeant Angel Paredes muttered as she sat sulking on the gurney in the Black Jaguar Squadron dispensary.
Dr. Elizabeth Cornell studied the X rays she had put up on the light box. “Hmm. Well, Angel, you did it up right this time.” Tracing the X ray of Angel’s left shoulder with an index finger, Elizabeth turned to look at her assistant. “Your biceps tendon is inflamed. You have tendonitis. Congratulations.”
“Damn…”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Elizabeth said, quirking her lips. “You know what that means?”
“That you’re gonna give me an anti-inflammatory shot to ease my considerable pain, so I stop acting like an irritable pit bull. Right?”
Grinning, Elizabeth turned off the light box and put the two X rays into a large folder that had Angel’s name at the top. The dispensary shook and trembled as two Apache helicopter gunships began powering up for takeoff. The whole Black Jaguar operation was hidden in a cave complex within a mountain fifty miles from the archeological wonder Machu Picchu, and the picturesque tourist town of Agua Caliente. The alarm had rung earlier, which meant the two pilot crews on duty would be intercepting a drug shipment flight somewhere near Peru’s border with Bolivia.
“I’m going to save the squadron from my bad mood,” Angel said once the trembling had subsided. “I’ll bet I get written up for a commendation on it.”
“Very funny, Angel,” Elizabeth said, rummaging in another cabinet. “Even the Angel of Death looks like death warmed over,” she continued, casting a grin at her faithful assistant, a paramedic with the Peruvian army. Angel held her left arm guardedly against her body, her right hand cradling it. “Sorry, bad pun. I couldn’t help myself,” Elizabeth murmured sympathetically as she filled a syringe with the pain-relieving drug she knew Angel needed.
“I’m no crybaby, Doc, not even at a time like this. I’m one hundred percent Incan Indian,” she muttered defiantly. Her ancestors were known for their ability to handle pain.
Though she tried to rise to the occasion, Angel didn’t have her usual spunk and feistiness, Elizabeth realized as she flicked her finger against the syringe and approached her colleague. “Hey, you’re in a lotta pain. It shows.”
Angel eyed Elizabeth, the only physician on staff at BJS. They’d been teamed up together nearly three and a half years and worked like a well-oiled machine. “Dude, I never knew an inflamed tendon could make me throw up and then pass out.”
“Hmm, well, pain can do those things to you. You just lifted one heavy box of supplies too many from that Blackhawk helicopter, and did your tendon in.” She moved to Angel’s bared left shoulder. Elizabeth had had to cut away the patient’s T-shirt to examine her injury earlier, when one of the crew had brought Angel in on a gurney, passed out.
“This is so humiliating….” Angel watched as Elizabeth lifted the needle in her direction. “What are you gonna do? Put the needle right into that inflamed tendon? Am I gonna pass out from pain again?”
Cupping her shoulder gently, Elizabeth murmured, “Relax. I’m the best shot-giver on the face of the earth. This won’t hurt, I promise….”
Angel sucked in a breath and shut her eyes tightly. She barely felt the prick of the needle. And just as Elizabeth had promised, there was no pain.
“There,” her friend murmured, pleased with her efforts as she gently swabbed the area with a cotton ball drenched in alcohol. “All over.”
“And relief from this gutting pain is right around the corner, right, Doc?” Angel asked weakly.
“Yep.” Dropping the syringe into the designated wastebasket, Elizabeth pulled off her latex gloves and dropped them in there as well.
“What does this mean? How long am I gonna be laid up and useless?”
“Well, you’ve really injured that tendon, but by resting your shoulder and not lifting heavy items and limiting your mobility, I think in four to six weeks you’ll be back in the saddle again.”
Eyes widening, Angel gasped. “What? Four weeks?”
“I said four to six weeks.” Elizabeth turned to her and studied her dark brown eyes, which were filled with worry. She handed Angel another dark green T-shirt and helped her get it on. “Four would be minimum. And even if it is completely healed in that time, you’re looking at occupational therapy exercises to regain and support the muscles around that tendon. You also—” she patted Angel’s other shoulder gently “—need to learn your weight-lifting limits. And how to lift in order to never have this happen again. Next time—” she held Angel’s mutinous stare “—it may mean surgery or partial loss of mobility in your arm. Now, that’s enough of a death sentence that it should make even you—the Peruvian superwoman—think about the consequences. And I know that look, Angel. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re going to heal up in a jiffy and be back at work in a week. It isn’t gonna happen, so get over it and roll with this one—the right way.”
“B-but…what about you? I’m the only paramedic at BJS. You need me, Doc. You can’t get along without me. What are you gonna do? You can’t handle this place by yourself, and I can’t be a one-armed paramedic. What if one of our Apaches gets fired on by a Kamov Black Shark drug helo, and pilots get wounded? You’re gonna need my help.”
“I know….”
Opening her good hand, desperation in her tone, Angel added, “You gotta get a stand-in—a temporary paramedic—up here.”
“I know.”
Morosely, Angel looked around the quiet dispensary. The aluminum Quonset hut sat at the very back of the huge lava cave that housed the entire black ops base. “Dude, this sucks.”
“You said it, Angel.” Elizabeth gave her a slight smile. “Listen, I’m authorizing you four weeks of sick leave. I want you to go back to the barracks and rest. Put a hot pack on that shoulder from time to time and alternate it with an ice pack. Rest, sleep, drink plenty of water, and leave that shoulder alone. Don’t pick up anything with that arm, you hear?”
Glumly, Angel looked around. Already the pain was beginning to ease, and she was grateful. “Yeah…I hear you, Doc. No sling, right?”
“No, not at this time. Just be careful how you move it around, is all. But if you reinjure it, Angel, I’ll have to put one on you.”
“That’s good news.” Angel brightened. “At least I’ll save what’s left of my Inca pride.”
Elizabeth grinned. “Get outta here.”
Carefully sliding off the gurney, Angel continued cradling her bad arm against her body; it was the only position that felt comfortable right now. Pushing open the dispensary door with the toe of her black GI boot, she headed down the hall, then left the metal structure. Looking up, she saw bright shafts of sunlight flickering through the Eye, a large hole in the lava wall that protected the huge landing area and the rest of the cave. It was 1000. The day was young. And she was screwed. Glaring toward the Blackhawk helicopter, where she’d injured herself unloading supplies, she saw that all the boxes were stacked on a pallet on an electric golf cart, ready for distribution. Who was going to unpack all the medical supplies that would be dropped off? The doctor was up to her hocks in work. And Angel was useless to her now with only one good hand available.
Frowning, she ruffled her short black hair, then pulled her soft green army cap from the back pocket of the jungle-green-and-brown camouflage pants she wore. Settling the cover on her head and positioning the bill so it protected her eyes from the sudden bright light cascading into the cave, she headed for the headquarters building, which sat off to one side. She was going to talk to their commanding officer, Major Maya Stevenson.
The knock on her open door made Maya lift her head from the relentless paperwork that encircled her like a wagon train on her green, army-issue metal desk.
“Enter,” she called, wondering who it was. When she saw the Angel of Death, Maya frowned. Angel had earned that name from her legendary ability to cheat death by rescuing people from the door of it.
“Ma’am? May I have a moment of your time? I know you’re busy,” Angel said in a rush as she came to attention in front of the major’s desk. She saluted carefully, keeping her left side immobile.
Maya returned the salute. “At ease, Sergeant.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Angel replied, automatically cradling her left arm.
“I heard what happened.”
“Already?”
Lips twitching, Maya sat back. “You know how word gets around here, Angel. Telepathically.”
Laughing a little, though it hurt to do even that, Angel nodded. “I guess one of the crew told you?”
“Yeah.” Maya rose and came around the desk. She pulled one of the green metal chairs from a corner and brought it over. “Sit down, Angel. You look like death warmed over.”
Touched by her C.O.’s care, Angel sat down. “You’re the second person to use those exact words. Thank you, ma’am.”
Maya grinned wryly. “How’s the pain level?” she asked as she sauntered back to her desk and sat down.
Angel gestured awkwardly to her injured shoulder. “It’s getting better by the moment. Doc gave me a shot of an anti-inflammatory into the tendon.”
“Good. I once ruptured a tendon here—” Maya pointed to her left shoulder “—when I was a young girl. I was out climbing a tree, thinking I was Tarzan. Only my arms weren’t very long and the branch I was swinging to was too much of a stretch….”
“Ouch. So you know what this feels like?”
Wryly, Maya said, “Yeah, I do.”
Angel smiled. She always felt better when she was around Maya. The major was a woman steeped in mystery and mysticism. She was the reason the Black Jaguar Squadron even existed. Her black, shoulder-length hair shone beneath the fluorescent lights, curling slightly on her proud shoulders. Like all her pilots, Maya wore a black flight uniform that had no insignias, except for one—the Black Jaguar Squadron patch, sewn on the left upper arm.
Reaching toward one of the piles of paperwork, Maya said, “I think we might have an answer for this predicament, however. A real godsend.”
“Oh?”
“You’re here because you’re worried the doc will need help you can’t provide, right?”
Angel never got used to her C.O.’s uncanny ability to seemingly read her mind. As a Quero Indian, steeped in the traditions of her Incan ancestors, Angel understood how energy could be used in many inexplicable ways. Telepathy, as far as she was concerned, was energy sent from one person’s brain to another, much like a telephone call without the cord between them. She had come to expect it from Maya.
“Er…yes, ma’am….”
With a brief smile, Maya dangled a file in front of her.
“I think our collective prayers have been answered in a highly synchronistic development. Take a look at this file for a moment while I fill you in.” Maya handed it across the desk. “I just got this request last week, as a matter of fact.” Leaning back in her creaky chair, she laced her long fingers across her belly. “As you know by now, our little black ops down here, which was the laughingstock of the army when it began, has now become the darling of it. Amazing what time, diligence of effort and a fifty percent reduction of drug flights out of Peru will do to make the military look kindly upon us.”
Angel nodded. “Yes, ma’am, we were just a renegade bunch of women when you created this operation, making that vision of yours a reality.” Curious, she settled the file on her lap and opened it. There was a letter on the front page, a request.
“Well,” Maya murmured humorously, “the U.S. Army is begging us to allow more of their men to come down here and train with us, in many capacities. They want their best pilots to learn from ours. Our flight crews refuel and rearm Apaches faster and better than anyone they’ve got up there in the U.S.A. I have crew specialists wanting to work with us and see how we do what we do. And—” she smiled at Angel “—now even Special Forces are sticking their nose into our black ops.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, that letter, which I want you to read, is from the head of Special Forces, General Rutherford. He wants a Sergeant Burke Gifford, an A team paramedic teacher, to come down here and train with you.”
Angel’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Me?”
“Yes. Read on.” Maya waved her hand at the file resting on Angel’s lap.
Angel rapidly scanned the official-looking letter, which had been penned by the general. It was basically asking that Gifford be allowed to work with the paramedic at BJS in order to understand unique aspects and uses of their medical model, and how it might be utilized in other places of combat, black ops or not. Brows bunching, Angel read the last paragraph. “This is too much….” she murmured.
Maya chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t it?”
Looking up, Angel said, “This general knows of me. He actually refers to me as the Angel of Death.”
“Your legend precedes you, Paredes.”
Maya’s dry wit wasn’t lost on her. Angel saw the spark of humor in her C.O.’s eyes.
“What I find interesting is that some of the little extracurricular activities you engage in, the tricks you employ as a Quero Indian, trained in your Incan traditions, is getting their attention.”
