Chapter 8
All she wanted to do was focus on her photography, get the photos she needed and leave. It was one thing to imagine somebody in her tent one night, but a rattlesnake the next and the theft of her laptop was too much. Her entire trip had a taste of fear and ugliness she didn’t want to deal with. She would be home safe and sound soon. That couldn’t happen fast enough for her.
She took ten steps to the left, her camera clicking aimlessly. She had no intention of using any of these photos, which just sucked. But her focus was complete, the one thing that allowed all her confusion and pain to die back down.
For every step she took, she had two men in sync with her. She shook her head, lowered her camera and faced Easton and Devlin. “You don’t need to babysit me. You know that, right?”
“Until you get on the plane, we will be babysitting you,” Easton said. “I don’t understand why you are alone here as it is. Doesn’t your boss send you with someone else on these trips?”
“No, no need,” she said blithely her eyes on the wind lifting a branch and giving it a nudge like pointing it in a specific direction.
“And yet look what happened this time.”
“An anomaly,” she said, turning to watch him. “It’s the first time in five years. I doubt it will happen again.”
She didn’t think he believed her. Hell, he was barely listening. His gaze never stopped searching the area around them. His tone was quiet, calm, controlled. It gave her absolutely no leeway to argue. His word was law, and she had just better accept it or else. At least when it came to keeping her safe. There was just something so very appealing about all that honor. Her heavy sigh slipped out as she tried to lose herself once again behind the camera. But this was no good. Her mind just kept circling.
She spun to ask, “Can you search for my laptop? I really hate to leave without it.”
“The military is handling that right now,” Devlin said. “The Canadians are quite pissed. They won’t let something like this go.”
She brightened. “That’s good, right?”
Devlin’s phone went off. He picked it up, stepping a couple feet away, and answered it. When he came back, he said, “Let’s head to the office. They found the laptop.”
“Yes!” That was perfect. Of course it also meant a side trip to get her head checked out.
The men on either side of her walked toward the office, keeping her between them. Sure enough, a laptop very like the one she had sat on the counter. The guy behind the counter asked, “Is this yours?”
She flipped it open and hit the Power button. As soon as it came up, she entered her log-in information. Within seconds, the desktop she knew and loved opened. She smiled, turned the laptop around and said, “Yes, this is mine.”
She clicked the keys to search the control panel for the most recent things it registered. But her downloads and transfers last night appeared to be it. Everything was still here, although not much, as she only used it as a conduit to save her material to the cloud. She never kept any of her log-in information on the laptop either, nor did her email program automatically open. She brought up the browser, logging into her email. Everything appeared to be normal. She logged off, grinned at the man and said, “It’s perfect. Thank you. Where did you find it?”
“At one of the places where you were taking pictures of the run this morning.”
His tone was slightly disapproving, as if she’d accidentally dropped it, putting the camp through a lot of extra effort because of her accusation.
She stared at him for a long moment, then said, “Thank you for finding it. But I never take my laptop out when I’m in the field. I have enough to carry without packing extra things like that.”
The slight accusatory look in his eyes fell away as his forehead creased in a frown. “When did you last see it?”
She quickly answered, “Under my pillow on my bed,” as he wrote in a notebook. She had no hope of the men finding the culprit, but, as far as she was concerned, she would leave in a couple hours. Since she had all her equipment, she was good. She turned and exited the building, checking her watch as she did so.
“You’re not leaving until after lunch, which is soon,” Easton said. “So first your head, then lunch.”
She pinched her mouth together and crinkled her nose. “I’m not very hungry. All I want to do is go home.”
“Where is home?” Devlin asked.
“San Diego.”
Devlin laughed.
She glanced at him and frowned. “Why is that funny?”
He shook his head. “It’s just too serendipitous to ignore. I’m from there as well.”
She studied him, not exactly sure what he was getting at. But no more explanation was forthcoming. She glanced at her watch again. “Maybe you can take me to wait for my flight.”
Easton shook his head, grabbed her arm and started toward the mess tent. “We aren’t leaving you, and, if you don’t want to eat, that’s fine, but we need to eat. And you’re getting that head checked over.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Just go and eat. I’ll be fine here. Leave me in the administration office if you’re so concerned.”
“We’re not leaving your side,” he reiterated quietly but firmly. “If you want to stay here, we’re staying here. And you won’t get on that flight without getting your wound cleaned.”
Disgruntled, she stared at him. “Fine. But there’s no reason for you not to eat just because I’m not going to.”
“What time are you landing tonight?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably late afternoon.”
“You’re not eating the entire time?”
She thought about that and realized it was way too long to go without food. “It won’t be a straight flight, and I’ll take a trip to one of the stores and buy some nuts or something.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come and eat, then we’ll take you to the airport and wait with you until you’re on the plane.”
She glared at him. “Aren’t you taking this protective duty a bit too far?”
“You’ve forgotten about the rattlesnake. Besides, we don’t want anything to happen to you on our watch.”
“Right. So, it’s all about your watch, not my safety,” she said with a slight pout.
At that, he nudged her arm slightly as he led her toward the mess tent, where once again he would ensure she ate. Just before they got there, and just as she hoped he’d forgotten, he detoured to a small tent. Inside she found herself in a chair and her head being checked over.
Easton stood, arms across his chest, right in front of her the whole time. She glared at him. “You don’t have to stay here, you know. I’m getting treatment.”
He deliberately gave her a bland look.
“Are you always so damn honorable?”
His eyebrows shot up. “It’s who I am.”
She groaned. “Of course it is.” Just then the medic hit a spot that burned, and she cried out.
Instantly Easton stepped forward.
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
But he didn’t step back. Instead he reached out a hand. She gripped it like a lifeline as the wound was washed, then some kind of ointment was gently placed on top. At this point her head was throbbing again. She could hear the conversation rumbling between Easton and the doctor, but the words were slipping in and out of her conscious mind.
“Bullet.”
“Burn.”
“Close.”
She shuddered when someone poked the soft tissue on her head, and waves of greasy pain rose up. She gasped and bent forward, away from the prying fingers and to stop the dizziness.
Easton gripped her hand firmly. “Easy, Summer. Just keep taking deep breaths.”
She closed her eyes and followed his instructions. Slowly the nausea eased back. By the time she was on her feet and back outside, she felt better.
Until she remembered the earlier conversation. She turned toward Easton. “What was that about bullets?”
Devlin, who’d been waiting outside for them, looked at Easton.
His face hard, Easton said, “Her injury appears to be a graze by a bullet.”
“What?” Devlin asked in a harsh whisper. “Are you sure?”
Easton nodded. “As sure as anyone can be without having been at the site at the time.” He twisted slightly to look at Summer.
She stared at him in shock. In a small horrified voice, she asked, “Are you saying someone shot at me?”
He nodded. “And missed. Thank God. Are you sure you don’t remember getting shot at?”
She closed her eyes, recalling what had happened. “I thought I was being watched. I was pretty unnerved for a time,” she admitted. “So I hunkered down in the long grass. When I popped back up, I remember hearing something, but you guys were approaching then, and the runners made this heavy rumble. Although …” She frowned. “My headache started around that same time.”
“No wonder,” Easton said quietly. “You were damn lucky.” He wrapped an arm protectively around her and steered her toward the mess tent. “Now food. It will help settle the nausea in your stomach.”
Once inside, still disquieted by the news, she made a sandwich from the sandwich bar, grabbed a cup of coffee and a bottle of juice, and motioned to the table in the far back as Easton navigated her through the crowd. Maybe it was her state of mind from the suspicious events, but people seemed to be watching her. Commenting, maybe gossiping about her. She hoped her laptop scenario hadn’t impacted others. She knew it wouldn’t take long for the bullet-graze news to travel through the ranks.
Then everyone would really be looking at her.
Their table was against the far corner beside the back entrance, set enough out of the way that they wouldn’t be impacted by people coming and going. She carefully put down her tray, unloading the plate, juice and coffee onto the table. She stopped to stare at the sun. It was a beautiful afternoon.
Only it was hard to appreciate it at the moment.
She hadn’t told her boss all that had gone on and knew she didn’t dare mention her head injury. He’d never send her out in the field again. She hadn’t had a problem before though, so she was determined to look upon this as an anomaly. Maybe she should have arranged to leave earlier. Then again, there were only so many flights out of the base. She wasn’t sure what flight she was taking, and honestly she didn’t care. She was a good traveler, and she should be fine. She just hated waiting.
She heard a funny sound like a cross between the crunch of dried leaves and a baseball hitting a bat. She turned in the direction it came from, bringing her to the back exit of the mess tent. She peered around the corner, her camera already in her hand, ready to take a picture.
“Hey,” Easton said in a low tone. “Stay close.”
She half-smiled, half-chuckled as she nodded at him. “Just a second.”
He rolled his eyes making her laugh again. The one good thing about her life was she was following her passion. Apparently she was in the right place for what was meant to be in her life. She had a lot of friends who did their jobs but didn’t have the same love for it she did. She’d prefer to do just gallery showings, but the income from those sales was very unstable, so she still needed something a whole lot more secure. A day job. Her freelance assignments.
She didn’t see anything outside, but, just for good measure, she quickly shot several photos in panoramic view from the tent opening. As she turned to step inside, returning to the table, she looked for Ryder, Devlin and Corey, but they were still at the food counter. Easton had his back to her as he snagged a few more chairs for their table.
At least they could all eat together now. She stepped toward her meal, and an arm came around her throat, a hand over her mouth, and her feet were kicked out from under her. She hit the ground hard, but the hand over her mouth stopped any sound from escaping. Just as quickly, she could feel her cameras banging against each other around her neck and her beaded necklace giving way as she struggled.
She couldn’t see who had attacked her. When she realized they were after her equipment, her adrenaline kicked in—and her training. From a lying position, she kicked up full force and smacked her attacker in the head with a head butt. She continued all the way over into a backflip, turned around and lashed out with her right foot—caught him on the jaw. But she didn’t stop there. She crouched down as she gave him a very hard punch to the throat.
By the time she straightened again, she was surrounded by uniformed men. Angry men. They glared at her. She put her arms across her chest and glared back. Almost instantly Easton and Devlin were at her side. The attitude around her rose perceptively. She continued to glare at the military men, pointed at the man on the floor and said, “He attacked me and tried to steal my cameras.”
The atmosphere changed. Easton reached down, grabbed the man by his collar and whacked him hard across the face, waking him up.
She said, “You could let me do that.”
When Devlin crouched to watch the attacker, Easton straightened. “I think he’s had enough from you.”
She spun on him but saw the humor on his face. She shrugged. “I told you that I knew self-defense.”
“That’s way more than ‘knowing’ self-defense,” he said quietly.
She shrugged. “I was good at it.”
The man on the floor groaned, opened his eyes, saw Devlin above him and cringed, his gaze darting from side to side, landing on Summer’s face. He pointed at her. “She attacked me.”
She snapped, “Not until you threw me to the ground with a choke hold and tried to steal my cameras.”
He glared at her. “Like hell I did.”
“Right, so you got beaten up by a woman for nothing?”
A twitter started at one end of the group gathered nearby and circled around the men. The attacker frowned at them, made his way to his feet. When he tried to disappear into the crowd, Devlin caught him and said, “Not so fast.”
The man tried to shrug him off. “I didn’t do anything.”
Summer stepped forward. “So, when we take fingerprints off these cameras, we won’t find yours at all, will we?”
He stared at her, a haunted look on his face.
She nodded. “That’s what I thought. So maybe you’d like to explain why?”
The other men in the circle stepped forward too.
He held up his hands. “Look. I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what?” Easton snapped. “Knock her to the ground? Try to steal her equipment?”
“Not to mention broke my necklace,” she snarled. It wasn’t the necklace that mattered as it was just a trinket. It was the fact that he’d attacked her in the first place.
“I had to,” he cried out. “I didn’t have any choice.”
“So you admit to attacking me? And then trying to steal my stuff?” She wanted to make sure his confession was heard by everybody.
With a glare in her direction, and Devlin giving him a head shake, he nodded his head and said, “I thought it would be an easy snatch and grab.”
“But you thought wrong, didn’t you?” Easton said.
Sullen now the man nodded. “It should’ve been.” He glared at Summer. “Bitch.”
“Right. When a woman defends herself, she’s a bitch.” She snorted. “How typically male.”
He rubbed his jaw. “What the hell did you hit me with anyway?”
“My foot. You can have the other one in your mouth if you keep it up.”
“No, you don’t,” Easton said. “We’ll see that he’s disciplined. Let the military deal with this.”
Her gaze slid from one to the other. “But will he get punished? Or will he get to walk free? You heard him. He tried to knock me out, steal my stuff, and all he’ll get is a couple days latrine duty?”
A harsh voice behind him said, “No, it will be a lot more than that.”
She turned to see one of the Canadian brass glaring at the man, who was now visibly wilting in front of them.
“He will be disciplined for this.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. From the look on the man’s face, it would be enough. “Good. Hope he knows better than to attack a defenseless woman in the future.”
“Defenseless,” the man snorted. “You damn near broke my neck.”
“Only after you wrapped your arm around my neck and threw me to the ground. If you hadn’t attacked me, I wouldn’t have had to defend myself.” She glared at him. “A simple snatch and grab, you said.”
“Bitch,” he said.
“Soldier!” the Canadian officer interrupted. “One more time with the name-calling and I’ll make sure you get your pay docked—twice.”
“You attacked me first,” he said to Summer, as if backtracking.
With her arms across her chest, hating his accusations, indignant that he did this in the first place, she fumed as she reined in her temper. Finally she snapped, “Listen, soldier, if I’d attacked you first, I would have had one hell of a good reason, and you would not be talking right now, because you’d be dead.”
Silence filled the mess tent.
She didn’t know who started the sniggering, but, within minutes, the place erupted in laughter, and then the clapping broke out. She didn’t know who this soldier was, but his reputation would be in tatters now. She backed off, turned to look at the brass, nodded once and then said to Easton. “I told you how I could take care of myself.” And she walked off.
*
With a sharp hand motion at Devlin and Ryder to stay behind to watch what happened with the attacker, Easton grabbed Corey and bolted through the crowd after Summer. He took her arm. When she spun around and dropped into a crouch, he held up his hands. “It’s just me.”
She slowly straightened, but he could see she was still in combat mode right now. He didn’t know where she had learned to fight like that, but he was damn glad for it. “I’m not going back in there,” she snapped.
“And you don’t have to. I’ll grab our food, and we can sit out here.” He motioned at a tree with some benches.
“Fine. Give me a minute or two to calm down. Do not haul me back into that place.”
Easton turned to Corey standing nearby and motioned him to the bench.
Corey nodded.
Easton slipped back inside the mess tent, grabbed one of the trays and three plates, quickly piled up the food, grabbed some drinks and carefully walked back outside. Surely it was safer to eat directly from the buffet than from her unattended plate. Everyone in the entire mess tent watched him. He didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to get her home, but, even then, he was afraid that wouldn’t be the end of it. He didn’t know what the hell she had caught with her camera, but it was something she shouldn’t have. Therefore, his unit must look through the photos and figure this out.
Just because her attacker wore Canadian military garb didn’t make him someone who belonged here. The nametag said Nick. But was he wearing his own clothes or had he stolen it from someone else? With so many men around, it would be easy for somebody to slip in snag a uniform and wear it. Not a nice thought, but it was possible.
Back outside, his tray overladen, he slowly made his way to the bench. Corey had worked his way around behind the crowds and leaned against a tree on the far side. Summer sat in the middle of the bench, her legs crossed, her arms crossed, her knees bouncing restlessly. She still fumed. By the time he reached her, she didn’t look to have calmed down at all.
She stared at the tray in front of her. “What did you do, take everybody else’s plate too?”
“Enough for us three, right?”
She helped take the plates off the tray and laid them on the bench, then took a plate with a sandwich and dug in.
If nothing else, apparently that fight had given her an appetite. She polished off the sandwich without realizing it.
He handed her a second. He had just shorted his own lunch, but, if she kept eating, it was all good. The mess tent was still open, so he could get more food if necessary. But, with her current temperament after the scenario that just happened, her stress level was off the charts. He knew that would drop her blood sugar fast once the adrenaline rush was gone.
“I recognized him.”
“Where?” He sat beside her, picking up his plate.
“He works in the kitchen.”
He turned to look at her. “The man who attacked you?”
She nodded. “I never forget a face. I always forget the name that goes with a face but not the face.”
He glanced where the culprit had been taken away. He tried to remember the man’s face, but it hadn’t been terribly distinguishable.
“He works in the back. Not in the front.”
“How do you know?”
“He brought out several tubs of fresh food when we were in line.”
“Interesting.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think he attacked me for himself. Somebody either paid him or forced him to take my cameras. But I doubt we’ll get that information from him.”
“Don’t make excuses for him.”
She shook her head. “I’m not,” she snapped. “I just want to forget all this happened and go home.”
“At least you get to go. You’re alive, safe, and you’re on your way home soon.”
She stared at him for a long moment and then slowly sank back on the bench. “You’re right. I have to remember the good things, not just the bad.” She handed him her empty plate. “Do you know whose sandwich this was?”
He grinned. “Probably Corey’s.”
She groaned and stared down at the empty plate. “Now I have to apologize to him.”
“You don’t have to,” Easton said cheerfully. “He’ll get more.”
She brightened. “Good thing,” she said. “I might eat that next plate too.”
A noise behind them had them turning toward Corey, walking around the tree to pick up his plate. “I’ll grab my lunch before you empty the kitchen,” he said with a grin. “By the way, nice display there.”
“Display of what?”
“Self-defense moves. I watched you take him down, simple as pie.”
She brightened. “Thanks.”
He nodded. “You were doing a good job defending yourself. I didn’t need to step in. I would have if need be.”
She turned to Easton and snapped, “See? I told you how he attacked me first.”
“And I believed you. I never said I didn’t.”
She glared at him, and he stared back.
“Why are you so lacking in self-confidence? You’re good.”
She frowned. “I just hate it when nobody believes me.”
“Understandable,” Corey said. “None of us likes it when our word is called into question.”
She stared at her lap, picked up the coffee beside her and said, “I used to compete. I lost a bout once. But I knew my opponent had cheated. When we were rematched, and I won, she accused me of cheating. It was a controversy for quite a while. I ended up keeping the title, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Something like that always does,” Easton said. “Corey, she says the man who attacked her works in the kitchen.”
Corey nodded. “I heard her. And she’s right.”
“We need to find out what he wanted with her equipment.”
“And I won’t know until I look at the pictures.” She shrugged. “The trouble is, I have no idea what people did or were doing that was wrong. So they all will look fine to me.”
They nodded. Easton checked his watch. “Finish your coffee. You leave in about ten minutes.”
She nodded at his plate. “You better eat.”
He rolled his eyes. Now she was looking after him. He settled back to finish his lunch. They were quite a pair. The thought made him freeze for a moment, then he relaxed. He’d be worried about anyone who’d gone through what she had. That she’d been shot at infuriated him. Then to be attacked here … in broad daylight. Nothing made sense. He didn’t want to contemplate that whoever was behind this could then follow her home.
Ryder walked over and sat down beside him. “Negative on this morning’s checks.”
He studied his friend for a long moment, shifting from the thoughts in his head to Ryder’s comment. Then it clicked. The trip wire in her tent hadn’t been engaged, and their security showed nothing out of the ordinary.
“Good,” he said quietly. “We’ll keep it up until she’s safely on the plane heading home.” He had to hope she’d be safe there, but inside he didn’t see it happening.
As he studied the food on his fork, he asked, What would he do about it?