Prologue
“Livvy, don’t move. Don’t. Even. Fucking. Breathe.”
The harsh tone of Sergeant Ryan Stone normally sent a shockwave of excitement through Livvy’s senses, but not this time. Icy terror froze her in place. She stared straight ahead but saw Stone from the corner of her eye, racing at her.
It seemed like half a minute passed, but she didn’t even have time to blink before his body slammed her, throwing them. She hit the ground first, tasted the sour Afghanistan dirt. Ryan flattened her under his bulk as the explosion rocked them both.
Sand washed over them, scouring what skin she had exposed—face, hands, forearms.
First thing that came to mind was she was deaf. There was total silence, but she knew from witnessing other blasts that grenades were not silent weapons. The blast, so close, had most likely burst her eardrums.
Second thought was, where the hell was her camera? She had a backup, but she’d been using her favorite equipment to photograph the living history of soldiers at war when—
Those fuckers tried to blow me up.
On the heels of that was the fact that Stone was still pinning her to the earth, his weight crushing her so much she couldn’t even draw a breath of the dust-thick air.
He was dead. He had to be dead.
A warm, sticky liquid pooled between them, some under her cheek. Blood—they were both bleeding. Injured. Stone probably dead after taking the brunt of the explosion and saving her life.
As these memories circulated through her mind, just as real as they’d been a year ago, Livvy raised a hand to the scarf knotted at her throat.
Some people called it post traumatic stress disorder, but she called it being human. No one could live through an experience like she had and not recall it daily.
Especially when the jagged scar running down her throat was a constant reminder. After the event, she’d worn bandages and then transitioned to a scarf, which had become part of her daily uniform.
Every time she recalled the moment when Stone had saved her, she told herself how lucky she was. The scar on her throat from landing on shrapnel had been small in comparison to what he’d endured. When someone had finally hauled his unconscious body off her and she’d seen all the blood… Well, she was damn lucky a man like Stone had been there.
Of course, that was what made him a Marine—his ability to put himself in the line of fire.
She ran her fingers over the silk scarf as she stared at the photographs lining the walls of her darkroom. She did a fair amount of work in digital photography, but she preferred the old-fashioned way a picture emerged through the chemical baths, letting her see if she’d captured the moment as she’d seen it in real life.
Some of the images made it into the historical accountings she was hired to take them for, and others ended up taped to the walls of her apartment. One photograph could have gone either way, but she’d selfishly kept it off her boss’s desk.
She stood back and stared at the image of Ryan Stone. Stacked with muscle, bulked out by gear, face grim, weapon in hand as he crossed the camp where they’d all stayed on his way to a sortie. His platoon had become like her family and she’d captured so many moments of their lives, both good and bad.
Thankfully, she had no visual proof of what had gone on that last day she’d seen Stone. After he’d been triaged out and flown home, she’d never seen or heard from him again.
Then she’d been relocated to the jungles of South America. After that, a jungle fever had landed her in a Stateside hospital for months and she was just now getting her stamina back to go on shoot in a month.
She reached up and touched the photo of Stone. Where was he now? She’d spent a fair share of her time searching for him while in the hospital recovering. But the man seemed to have fallen off the planet. Nobody knew his whereabouts. Was he even alive?
The thought of him succumbing to the injuries he’d received in saving her made a lump form in her throat. But no, he’d survived his wounds, at least she was told.
Now that she was back in the States and well enough to travel, it was time to locate him. To thank him and close the book on that chapter of her life so she could move on.
Trailing her finger across the photo of the strong, proud warrior she’d come to know in Afghanistan, she whispered, “Where the hell are you, Stone?”