Chapter 8
“Get down.”
Caitlyn hit the sand a hair before Ryder pushed her down.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
With her and Dr. Robertson flat behind a small hill, she watched as Ryder peeked over the top, his head barely visible to the vehicle approaching.
She didn’t need to look; the cloud of dust they left behind them showed up for miles. She exchanged a worried glance with Dr. Robertson.
The only one with a weapon was Ryder. But she had no intention of being taken captive again.
She shifted slightly, and Ryder placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t move.”
Her breath caught in the back of her throat, her muscles locking. The sounds of the vehicle raced past. Her breath released on a gust of air. When Ryder didn’t move, she whispered, “Aren’t we safe?”
“They’ve driven past, but I want to make sure they don’t come back.”
She could understand that. But lying in the hot sun on hot sand was deadly. She struggled to stay calm, and, just when she was sure they were safe, Ryder swore.
“Shit.”
She turned as Ryder bolted to his feet, swinging his rifle around. A hard spit sounded, followed by several more shots. He grabbed her by the shoulder. “Let’s go. Move. Move. Move.”
With Dr. Robertson at her side, she ran in front of Ryder as he kept up a spray of bullets to give them enough clearance to get out of danger.
“Head to the trees,” he cried, running at her side, firing at the men she could see racing toward them. Panicked, she ran faster and harder than she ever had before. But running in the sand made it impossible to make any headway. Her feet sank, and her footing rolled under her, giving her no foundation to push off for the next step.
She turned to look at Dr. Robertson beside her. He struggled as well. Suddenly he tripped and fell.
Caitlyn dropped to her knees at his side. “Get up. We have to move.” She tugged on his arm, forcing him to the tree line. As soon as they were among the few trees, they both collapsed, gasping for breath. On her hands and knees, her head hanging low, she groaned softly. Her legs burned, and her feet were on fire.
She felt a rifle at her back.
No. Oh, hell no.
She didn’t even think about it; she spun, kicked, both hands reaching for the barrel, shoving it skyward as it fired harmlessly in the air.
And suddenly she held the weapon, but the rebel soldier was on the ground, staring sightlessly at the sky.
She spun in a panic, looking for the next attacker, to find the three of them were alone with Ryder holding his weapon on the downed soldier.
“Is it over?” she cried. “Did you kill him or did someone else?”
“I did.” Ryder wrapped his arms around her. “It’s over.”
Dr. Robertson stood up, a little shaky but unhurt and smiled at Caitlyn. “When the chips are down, Caitlyn, you know how to make them count.”
She grinned at him. “I couldn’t let him hurt us,” she cried out.
“Thankfully he’s not a problem anymore.” Ryder ushered them deeper into the trees. “We have to keep going. They will come looking for their man.”
“How many did you kill?” she asked. “How many were there?”
“I took out the two who arrived in the one vehicle, but you know another truck will be along soon enough. We need to make sure we are a long way away before they get here.”
With that he pushed them forward. And Caitlyn knew he was determined to get them to safety no matter what.
*
They marched steadily, but he knew they would travel on foot at least another hour if not longer. Caitlyn was fading already. After that rush of adrenaline and panic, she’d slowly come down as the shock wore off. But he knew they didn’t have time to wallow. They had a rendezvous up ahead to make. If he could contact them to bring it closer he would, but the comm system was down. Casting his gaze to Caitlyn, he slowed his march, so he could walk beside her with Dr. Robertson slightly ahead. “How are you holding up?”
She shot him a look. “I’m fine.”
An edge to her voice made him smile. “Good. Glad to hear that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand why they’d shoot their own men,” she said, her voice pained. “They were already injured.”
“They were a liability. The fact of it is, we are where people do some of the worst things possible to each other.”
“If that’s the case, I’m worried about humanity,” she admitted. “I wonder how we could possibly survive, if we even should survive as a species, given all we do to each other,” she said painfully. “There is no need for any of this.”
“No, but somebody has to stand up for all the people who have been annihilated by groups like this. The carnage has to stop somewhere, and it takes people like us to stand against them. To let them know they can’t just kill whoever they want because they decide to.”
She fell silent. And he knew there was really no point in discussing it. Wars happened all over the world. He didn’t know a time when there wasn’t one somewhere. He was doing what he could. He had to focus on that and to let the rest go.
Another forty minutes passed. He’d been walking between the two, keeping them strong while ensuring they weren’t being followed. “We’re almost there,” he said.
“Thank God for that,” Caitlyn said in a fervent whisper.
“About a half mile to the rendezvous.” He offered her a drink from his bottle of water, and she took several gulps before passing it back.
“We haven’t seen anybody along the way, so I assume we’re safe,” Dr. Robertson asked, his voice tired, worn out.
“We’re safe enough. The rest of the units have taken out the rebel camp.”
He watched Caitlyn. She nodded. It seemed she understood that likely dozens of men had just died in the fight behind them. “It’s so sad.”
Maybe because he agreed with her, or maybe because he was tired of thinking about all the things wrong in the world, his tone was harsher than he meant when he said, “So many things in life should change. We change what we can, and we have to accept it might not be enough.”
“And maybe this is as good a time as any. I might never get another chance.” She took a deep breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”
The doctor walked at their side, slightly ahead. He didn’t appear to be listening to the conversation. He struggled to put one foot in front of the other. Still this discussion was personal, and Ryder really didn’t want anyone listening in. He let Dr. Robertson get slightly ahead.
“How could you not expect to hurt me? The fact that you just stepped out of my life after twenty years of friendship …” He shook his head, letting his voice trail off. “It made no sense. I told you how I had loved you. Always. And you never talked to me again.”
She sighed heavily.
He wasn’t sure how much was fatigue or the discussion.
“I was so confused.”
He snorted. “Really? That’s your excuse?” He shook his head. “There’s confused, and then there’s walking away from a twenty-year friendship.”
“And that’s why I was so confused,” she said, trying for honesty.
At least he thought she was trying to be honest. He studied her face, seeing the fatigue and the earnestness. “Explain.”
“What we had was so much more. It was just almost too much. You shocked me. The weekend shocked me, and my feelings were overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.”
“Ran? Why would all of that have been too much?” He didn’t get it.
“Because, up until then, my relationships hadn’t the depth I thought they had. Which had also been my ex-husband, George’s, complaint. But I hadn’t realized it until I spent the weekend with you. Somehow that twenty years of friendship had morphed into something so much more. Yet, I wasn’t ready to accept that realization. There was a richness, a complexity between us that added to what we had, and I didn’t understand that beforehand.
“At the time I wasn’t dealing well with the aftermath of my divorce. Instead of grieving for that relationship, you showed me how that relationship was much less than I thought. That George was actually correct in his complaints,” she exclaimed softly. “I see now that what I felt was nothing but a childish infatuation, real enough at the time, but … I felt like I’d hurt him because I hadn’t known better. In my defense I thought he was the one for me. I didn’t understand that my feelings for George were so … thin. But after I’d seen the depth of the feelings between you and me, I realized I hadn’t been there for my husband. I’d cheated him. I couldn’t give him a real and mature relationship.”
Ryder almost came to a dead stop at her words, but he forced himself to keep marching. Keeping them in the shadows as he led them to safety, he took a deep breath and responded, “That makes no sense.”
“I know,” she admitted. “At the time it didn’t to me either. It took me weeks, if not months, to fathom my way through it all. I felt so damned guilty. I’d been devastated over the breakup with George. And yet, that weekend with you was like a complete paradigm shift. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had to figure it out.”
It was not what he’d expected to hear, but it was an interesting explanation to consider. One he had never contemplated for sure.
She looked at him. In a hesitant voice, she asked, “You didn’t feel the same?”
“The same as what?” he asked with a quick glance at Dr. Robertson. But the doctor was in front, still putting one foot in front of the other. He could be listening, but, if so, he was keeping his thoughts to himself.
“About your previous relationships?”
He shook his head. “No. I had deliberately kept my relationships light, knowing I was going on more and more missions and one day might not come back.”
There was silence after that point.
After a long moment, she said, “So that part was easier for you than it was for me. That slap of awareness was harsh. I didn’t like myself much. I felt like a heartless fraud. And no way would I show up in a relationship with you when I was such a mess. I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I had to find something inside me that was better.”
He shook his head, completely dumbfounded. “So you didn’t talk to me again because you felt you weren’t worthy?”
There was silence again, and then, with a broken laugh, she said, “It sounds stupid when you put it that way, but I guess maybe that’s exactly how I did feel. As if you showed me how much of a fake I’d been. I really hated myself afterward. Maybe I had been too young, like George had suggested. I certainly hadn’t shown up for the relationship. Not fully. Not as I would now. If I was less of a person with George, had I been less of a person with you? I really cared about you. But I didn’t want to shortchange you, and I couldn’t be sure I was ‘all in.’ You deserved better.” She shrugged. “Now that I look back on it, it seems stupid in so many ways. But it was very real to me.”
He tried not to keep staring at her, but it was hard when these revelations were not making much sense. “Did you ever explain any of that to George?”
“No way.” She shrugged. “I might tell him down the road. Let him know he was right about me. He kept saying things—like he didn’t feel we were connected on a deep-enough level, that he didn’t think I was there for him. At the time I had been insulted and upset, thinking he was taking my love and tossing it away.” She snorted. “But he was right. I had nothing to give because I just didn’t realize so much more was inside me to actually give. I didn’t even know until I spent that weekend with you.”
“Well …” The word clipped out on an exhale. He had no more.
“Is that all you can say?”
“I’m trying,” he muttered. “Of all the reasons I came up with about why you never talked to me again, none of this was ever one of them.”
“How could it have been? You couldn’t have seen the real me because I hadn’t let the real me show up in any relationship—including the one with you,” she said quietly.
“Not true. I knew who you were inside and out. I watched you grow from pigtails and freckles to a beautiful young woman. I assure you that I understood who you were before and after our weekend. If the after person, who put me through hell is the authentic you, I might prefer the earlier model.”
She shot him a strange look. “That would be too bad. Because that woman is gone.” She hurried her steps and caught up to Dr. Robertson.
He could see the US military trucks racing toward them and guessed this was the end of their conversation.
Still, it would take him some time to figure out how he felt about her explanation. And what that meant for them now.