“Won’t we be trapped in there if they overrun the camp?” Rachel asked. Max undoubtedly knew what she was doing, but even conversation was better than thinking about the hell she’d been thrust into.

“If they overrun the camp, we’ll be trapped no matter where we are.” Max’s shoulders and arms flexed as she dug the shovel into the soil again. “At least from in here a few of us can hold off five times our number in all directions. Even inexperienced shooters like the two of you. If we take enough of them out, they might think hard before sacrificing too many people to get to us.”

“Do we have enough ammunition?”

Max wiped her forearm across her face and looked up. “We’ll be all right.”

“You should drink some more water.”

“I’m out.”

“Good thing I’m not.” Rachel pulled another bottle from the pocket of her cargo pants, uncapped it, and handed it down to Max. Max had shed her armor and camo jacket and worked in just T-shirt and pants. Sweat plastered the tan T-shirt to her shoulders and chest. She was solidly built, the muscles in her torso sculpted beneath the tight cotton, her biceps and forearms etched with muscle. She wore no rings, only a large watch on her left wrist and dull silver dog tags on a chain around her neck. Her uniform pants, even with her heavy equipment belt laden down with ammunition, her sidearm, and other things Rachel couldn’t identify, didn’t quite obliterate the curve of her toned hips and thighs. Even dirty, sweat-soaked, and disheveled, Max was more attractive than any woman she’d ever met.

“You need to keep hydrated,” Rachel said, her voice husky.

Max swallowed the warm water until the plastic bottle was empty, watching Rachel appraise her as she drank. She was used to being surrounded by troops, used to eating and sleeping in close quarters, used to semi-strangers seeing her in various stages of undress, but no one had ever looked at her the way Rachel did now, with appreciation and interest. Rachel’s eyes tracked up her chest to her face and, when their eyes met, Rachel’s cheeks flushed.

Max grinned, liking Rachel’s consternation. She liked the way Rachel’s mouth thinned a little too, as if she was irritated at being caught with her guard down. There wasn’t much of anything to be happy about out here. Just being alive rated pretty high on the be-thankful list. The spark of playful pleasure Rachel set off in her when she least expected it was completely foreign. Even back in her other life, she hadn’t enjoyed anything quite as much as the swift stirring in her belly ignited by Rachel’s slow-lidded smile. She crushed the plastic bottle in her fist and stuffed it into an outside pocket of her pants. “Thanks for the water.”

Rachel nodded, the tip of her tongue sweeping over her lips as if searching for words. “Anytime.”

“Is there rice or flour on those pallets behind the tent?”

“Rice, I think,” Rachel said. “Why?”

“Sandbags.”

“Oh. I guess that means we have to carry them over here.”

Max shook her head. Rachel was trying to be tough but her face was drawn and pale despite the sunburn coloring the stark arches of her cheekbones. She tossed the shovel up and out. “I’ll take a look around. There must be something around here with wheels on it.”

Rachel knelt by the edge of the pit and reached down to Max. “I’ll come with you.”

Max grasped her hand, dug her toes into the side of the pit, and with the other arm, levered herself out. She dusted herself off, shouldered her rifle, and scanned the jungle. Nothing out of the ordinary. The animals were quiet during the heat of the day. Even the birdsong had faded. “We’ve got a couple more hours till sundown. I can handle this. You go check on Amina.”

Rachel hesitated. She dreaded the oncoming darkness. In the sunlight, she felt more in control, but in the dark, fears were so much harder to push aside, courage more elusive. She wondered if Max dreaded the dark, and somehow doubted it. Her focus was so singular, so intense, Rachel doubted Max really noticed much of a difference between day and night. She was not a woman who dealt in shades of gray. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. So stop trying to get rid of me.”

“I could make it an order.” Max pulled on her camo jacket. “You agreed to follow orders.”

“Don’t test me,” Rachel muttered. “I know how to shoot this thing now.”

Max laughed, a sound so alien in this place of death and horror, Rachel’s heart lurched at the sound. That had to be the cause of the rush of blood through her veins. She turned away to break the spell, but she could still see the way Max’s eyes gleamed with mischief and something a lot more intriguing.

Chapter Ten

Max dragged the small flatbed wagon across the camp for the fifth time. Her shoulders ached, the back of her neck was burned raw, and her skin itched everywhere from the sand embedded in her clothes, inside her socks, in her hair and ears. Her legs quivered, the muscles having turned to jelly in the soup of humid air, festering heat, and stress. Rachel waited for her beside the jerry-rigged sandbag barrier they’d built up around the foxhole out of fifty-pound bags of rice. Rachel hadn’t complained, hadn’t flagged, though every time she picked up one of the heavy bags of rice to pile it on top of the others, her arms visibly trembled. Max would have ordered her inside if she’d thought Rachel might go without a fight, but that was unlikely. And she had to admit, she needed her help. “This is the last of it.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry,” Rachel muttered. “I never thought I could hate an inanimate object quite so much, but I’ll never eat rice again.”

Max laughed. The sound hurt her dry, sandy throat, but the little bit of humor helped ease the tension twisting her muscles into steel bands. “What do you do for showers around here?”

“We’ve got portable ones rigged up out behind the medical tent. Always guaranteed to be lukewarm.” A shadow passed over Rachel’s face. “There should be plenty of water stored up. Today would have been shower day.”

Max didn’t have to be a mind reader to know Rachel was thinking about those who hadn’t gotten out. Somehow, giving Rachel some comfort, even a distraction, seemed as important as keeping her physically safe. Usually her job ended when the blood stopped flowing or the wounded were loaded onto transport for a trip to the base hospital. She rarely had time or reason to worry about the toll this place took on the heart and mind, beyond a few minutes of battlefield comfort. Words they’d all repeated so many times she barely heard them any longer. Don’t worry, troop. Doesn’t look too bad. Nothing keeps a Marine down long. You’ll be fine. Merciful lies, and she regretted none of them, but she wanted more than hollow reassurance for Rachel. She had none and felt lacking. “I’d say we’ve earned a shower.”

Rachel’s face brightened and some of the sadness left her eyes. “Can we? I mean”—a bit of color returned to her cheeks—“is it safe?”

“I’ll stand guard for you if you stand guard for me.” A fleeting image of Rachel under the water, sunlight bathing her and water streaming down the slope of her back and over the curve of her ass, popped into Max’s head. Afraid for a second Rachel could read her mind, she said quickly, “I even promise not to peek.”

Rachel gave her a look through narrowed lids. “Under other circumstances I might find that insulting.”

The teasing lift of Rachel’s smile caught Max off guard. Maybe Rachel had read her mind, but that didn’t track. If they’d met anywhere else in the world, Rachel likely wouldn’t give her a passing thought. Their lives were as different as the arid desert sands and the bright lights of Times Square. “Under other circumstances, you probably wouldn’t care.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rachel said. “You don’t seem to know—”

“Max!” Amina’s scream cut through the air with the force of a gunshot. “Max!”

“Down!” Max pushed Rachel to the ground and crouched over her, her rifle on her shoulder. She panned the perimeter, expecting a surge of rebel forces or a barrage of gunfire. Nothing moved. She listened. Nothing. “Clear! Come on.”

As soon as Max let her up, Rachel grabbed her rifle and they sprinted to the tent. Max burst inside, searching for enemy. Amina knelt by Grif, both hands pressed to his thigh. Scarlet streaked her arms.

“What happened?” Max dropped her rifle and squatted across from Amina.

“He woke up and started thrashing. The bleeding started so fast…” Amina’s breath caught. “There’s so much.”

“Don’t move.” Max pulled her med kit closer and dug around for drugs and bandages. She was running low on both.

Grif jerked, nearly throwing Amina aside, and shouted, “Contact! We have enemy contact!”

“It’s okay, Grif,” Max said calmly. “I’m here. You’re okay.”

Grif pushed his big body up with surprising strength, bracing himself on his arms. He stared from one to the other, his eyes glazed with confusion. Sweat rolled down his face, rivers of tears coursing through the paint and grime. “They’re shooting. Fuck. Shooting everywhere. Deuce!”

“I’m here. Keep your head down, buddy. You’re okay.” Max drew up an ampoule of Demerol, slid it into the IV, and pushed it home. “Everything’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

For an instant, Grif’s eyes cleared and he focused on Max. “Fuck, Deuce. I don’t want to die out here.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Tell Laurie I love her.”

“Fuck, no.” Max gripped his shoulders, her face close to his, and pushed him back down. She looked into his eyes as the Demerol started to take him away. “You’ll have to do that yourself. I hate that kind of thing.”

He grinned. “No wonder you never get any women.”

“Yeah. Like you would know.”

His lids fluttered closed and his body relaxed. Wiping sweat from her eyes, Max shifted down to where Amina held both hands on his thigh. Blood welled between her fingers and puddled on the floor. She’d run out of time. “Rachel, can you get that propane light from that table over there and figure out how to get it to work?”

Rachel crouched a few feet away, her pupils black and big as dimes. A pulse hammered in her throat. “Yes.”

Her voice was firm.

“Good. Prop it on that chair.”

For once, Rachel didn’t have a single question. She bent over the lantern-shaped light, ignited the propane, and brought it back. “What are you going to do?”

Max nearly smiled at the question, welcoming the familiar in the midst of chaos. “I need to explore this wound and get the bleeding stopped. I need both of you to help me.”

“In here?” Amina asked. “In the hospital ten—”

“Believe me, I’d like to have a nice clean OR table to put him on and a full set of shiny instruments, but we can’t move him. Right now, getting the bleeding stopped is our number one priority.”

“I’m sorry,” Amina said.

“Don’t be.” Max knew she sounded gruff and didn’t have time to worry about it. “You saved his life.”

“What can we do?” Rachel said.

Max pulled off her jacket and gear and dropped it next to her rifle. “Find that big pack of medical instruments we brought over from the hospital. Open it up next to me.”

While Rachel hunted for the instruments, Max tore open a foil container of Betadine, swabbed her forearms, and pulled on gloves from her kit. “Amina, get ready to take those scissors and cut the bandage free. Keep pressing down in the center of his thigh with your other hand. Rachel, put on a pair of gloves and open the gauze packs. I’ll need you to keep the field clear.”

“I…” Rachel glanced at Grif’s face. “Will he know?”

“Not consciously, but he might react. If he does start moving around, I want you to kneel on his lower legs and keep them still.”

“Okay,” Rachel whispered.

“I need you to do exactly what I say when I tell you to do it.”

“I will.”

Max looked across at Amina. Her jaw was set, her mouth a thin tight line. “You ready?”

“Yes.”

“You see those two small right-angle retractors that look like little scoops about two inches wide?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to use them to hold the wound open so I can see inside.” The less time she gave them to think about what they were about to do, the less likely they were to get nervous. “I’m going to take the bandages off, put the retractors into the wound, and you’re going to hold them apart. You’ll need to pull. You won’t hurt him. We’re going to save his life.”

Amina swallowed visibly. “All right.”

“Good. Now.” Max removed the field bandage, and bright red arterial blood immediately welled up and spilled down Grif’s thigh. Max slid the right-angle retractors into the center of the crater with their slim, eight-inch handles sticking out either side. “Amina, take these and pull. Rachel, keep the field as dry as you can. Just keep mopping it up.”