Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) (11 page)

Disappointment struck. She’d gotten to know the other woman fairly well over the past five days, even liked her. It burned to find Kait was capable of such dishonesty and callousness. Which just went to show how terrible she was at reading people.

“I know what you’re thinkin’,” Rawls said.

“I sincerely doubt it.” Faith’s response emerged crisper than she’d intended.

“You’re wonderin’ how I—a man of science, a man who went through four years of medical school, and three years of surgical residency—could believe in something as unsubstantiated as metaphysical healing.”

Okay
. . .
he did know what she was thinking. But that didn’t make him a mind reader, any more than Kait was a “metaphysical healer.” He was just skilled at reading body language and facial expressions. Obviously, Kait was skilled at something else entirely.

“I believe in her ability because I’ve seen her heal people,” he said, his voice flat, certain.

Faith paused, feeling her way carefully. She didn’t want to argue with him—but seriously—metaphysical healing?

Give me a break.

“My understanding is that such healings are staged, and the person being healed isn’t actually sick,” she offered cautiously, although really, how he’d managed to fall for something so predictable was both a surprise and a disappointment. “So while the session looks authentic—”

“One of the people was me,” he broke in, lifting a challenging eyebrow.

Okay, that did change things considerably. She scrambled for another explanation. “The placebo effect can be quite powerful. If you expected her touch to heal you, perhaps your body and mind worked in concert to manifest the expected results.”

His lips twisted, but the expression on his face looked more haunted than amused. “I was dead at the time. Lights out. So my mind wasn’t exactly orderin’ my body about.”

“Dead.” The word erupted from Faith on a startled breath. “I don’t believe it. You’re here. You couldn’t have—” She mentally backed up and sought a more compassionate approach. He’d obviously undergone something traumatic, and convinced himself Kait had saved him.

“If you were unconscious, you couldn’t have seen what actually happened.”

The strangest stillness gripped him, he followed it up with a feigned casual shrug.

“True enough. I didn’t see what happened. I was out of it. You, however, saw every minute of it.” He cocked his head and watched her closely. “So tell me, sweetheart, was Kait fakin’ it? Was Cosky?”

“What are you talking about?” Faith whispered, but she suspected she already knew. Something about that moonlit night in the forest had been needling her.

His long, lean, absolutely still body stretched across the ground. Cosky and Kait kneeling beside him, their hands pressed against his motionless chest. The anguish on Zane and Mac’s faces. The ethereal play of moonlight silvering his glowing, frozen form.

He’d been glowing
. . .
so had Kait and Cosky.

He shook his head and tsked her. “Come on, darlin’, don’t play dumb on me now. Why don’t you tell me what you saw in the woods that night?”

There was an equal measure of curiosity and challenge in the blue eyes locked on her face.

Faith swallowed hard, regrouping. “You’re saying you were dead? That Kait healed you and brought you back to life?”

“In a nutshell.” He shuffled his shoulders and frowned slightly. “Although I hear Cosky had somethin’ to do with it too.”

“But if you were unconscious, you don’t know what happened.”

“I reckon I remember enough. Like gettin’ shot. Like bleedin’ out. I remember that.” The laconic, lazy drawl didn’t match the tight look in his eyes, or the tension on his face.

Shot
. . .
bleeding out
. . .

He had been drenched in blood, lying there so still
. . .
she’d been certain he’d been killed.

“Kait, Cosky, and Zane said you were just stunned. That your protective vest caught the bullets,” she repeated their explanation slowly, even as doubt swelled in her mind. She’d sensed something odd in their account, had been puzzling over it for days.

He tilted his head and considered her, curiosity eating at the tension on his face. “How’d they explain the blood?”

“They said you’d fallen on top of one of those
. . .
those men and that the blood was his, not yours.”

“Blood transfer, clever.” There was admiration in the comment.

Faith stiffened her shoulders and pushed aside her doubt. That weird glow arcing between the three of them had just been the play of moonlight illuminating their bodies in the dark. There was absolutely no proof that he’d been shot, let alone that he’d died and Kait had healed him and then dragged him back to life.

“Everything they said makes sense. I’m sure that’s what happened. You probably just had a bad dream, and events got mixed up in your head.” Which reminded her of his earlier excuse about why he couldn’t have a relationship with her. “You said yourself that your head’s all scrambled.”

“I wasn’t wearin’ a bullet-proof vest.”

He tossed the words at her like hot wax, where they hit and clung and burned into her mind. She froze, but just for a second. “But they said—they told me you were wearing a vest. The bullets hit the vest.”

“They lied. They gave you the most plausible explanation, one you’d believe. I wasn’t wearin’ a vest. None of us were. The blood was mine. Most of it, anyway, I reckon.” He paused to study her face, and whatever he saw softened the sharpness in his voice. “Kait doesn’t want her gift made public. We promised to keep it quiet when she healed Cosky.” He nodded slowly, emphatically, as her mouth opened in shock. “Yep, she did. She healed Cosky. I was there. I saw it. And guess what? There’s absolute proof in Cos’s case. X-rays indicatin’ a radical improvement in a twenty-four-hour period, which led to a confused and curious orthopedic surgeon.”

“There has to be some rational explanation.” Metaphysical healing? Really?

“There is—it’s called faith healin’.”

She wasn’t aware she had spoken the objection out loud until Rawls responded.

Rawls shrugged and absently picked up a chocolate chip cookie. “But it doesn’t matter whether you believe it’s possible or not. There’s no harm in tryin’. Worst-case scenario is status quo. Best-case scenario—you won’t have to worry about your heart’s viability for a very long time. Think of it as an experiment. You can measure the data, study the effect. You know the condition of your heart. You’ll know whether Kait is successful or not.”

Well, he obviously knew her better than she’d realized, since he was appealing to her scientific curiosity.

As Rawls raised the cookie to his lips, his hand suddenly jerked hard to the right. The cookie went flying, hitting the wall to Faith’s left with so much force it shattered.

Stunned into silence, Faith stared at the wall and then stumbled over for a closer examination. Four feet up from a sprawling pile of golden crumbles, a smear of brown grit was embedded in the wall. The cookie had hit the wood with enough force to embed some of its remains.

She shook her head in disbelief. What in the world was going on with the man? It was past time to find out. Pivoting, she turned to face him.

His face had turned white, as bleached as bone, and tension emanated from him like a static charge. The frustration that carved his face into deep ridges and valleys softened the demand in her voice.

“Okay, enough of this. Tell me what’s going on.”

Chapter Seven

R
AWLS GRIMACED
,
HIS
head pounding. She hadn’t believed in metaphysical healing. How likely was it she’d believe in ghosts or that he was being haunted? Yeah—not very likely. At least he had proof that his translucent troll wasn’t a result of his oxygen-deprived mind since the results from Pachico’s experimentation were noticeable to other people.

“It was an accident. A muscle spasm,” he said, surreptitiously scanning the room for his ghostly stalker, but Pachico had vanished.

While Pachico’s ability to manipulate physical objects was rapidly improving, the effort appeared to drain him. After each incident, he’d disappeared. Too bad the departures didn’t last long.

Faith pressed her lips together and shook her head emphatically. “I know what a muscle spasm looks like, Lieutenant Rawlings, and that wasn’t one. You deliberately threw the cookie at the wall. Why?”

“Look, it was an accident. Leave it at that.” Turning, Rawls headed for the door. He needed to get out of there before his ghost reappeared and directed its animosity toward Faith.

They’d been lucky so far. Pachico’s test objects had been harmless. But there was a block of kitchen knives next to the cookies. How long before Pachico grew bored with the innocuous experimentation and graduated to something more lethal? The camp was full of weapons—everything from guns and knives to flash grenades and explosives.

“Rawls!”

He kept walking.

How the hell was he supposed to protect the camp from an enemy that nobody else saw or heard? His only advantage was that invisible connection leashing Pachico to his side. At least this tie between them prevented the bastard from roaming the camp at will, wreaking havoc left and right.

To keep the camp and the people in it safe, he needed to distance himself. Avoid everyone. He’d grab some supplies and hit the woods, deprive the bastard of the opportunity to harm anyone. Pachico wouldn’t appreciate the isolation, which was bound to make the excursion uncomfortable, but hell—the damn ghost could hardly kill him. He’d lose his ride into the physical world.

Maybe . . . or maybe not.

Rawls frowned. He shouldn’t assume anything. He had no clue what the parameters of this situation were. For all he knew, his death would dissolve the tether anchoring Pachico to his side, leaving the bastard free to harass people at will.

His best bet was to wait for Wolf to return and hope like hell the big bad Arapaho knew how to drive Pachico back to that translucent otherworld. Which meant he needed to hang out close enough to the helipad to intercept their cagey host the moment the chopper landed, but far enough away so that Pachico couldn’t target any of his unsuspecting friends.

“Running away won’t solve anything.” Faith lifted her voice.

It would solve one thing. It would keep Faith safe. It would keep everyone in the camp safe until he came up with a better idea.

“Now, Doc. Don’t go getting all hot footed on us,” Pachico said from behind him.

Damn it . . .
he’d hoped to be gone before the bastard reappeared.

“You can talk to me. I might be able to help.” Faith’s voice rose entreatingly.

“Go ahead, tell her what’s going on. Better yet, I’ll do it.”

The ugly undertone in the raspy voice turned Rawls around. Pachico was floating there next to Faith, the block of knives within reach.

Son of a bitch
. Rawls spun and launched himself at the door. The sooner he got the hell out of here, the sooner the phantom rubber band would retract and drag his ghost back to his side—away from Faith.

“Rawls!”

Except, Faith’s voice didn’t sound fainter. Hell, it sounded louder.

Footsteps sounded behind him and he glanced over his shoulder. She was following him.

Sweet Jesus, he wouldn’t be able to keep her safe if she insisted on tagging along. To protect her, he needed to kill any interest she had in him. Make sure she avoided him. Regret swelling, he pivoted, ready to go on the attack—no matter how much he hated it—only to find Pachico floating along beside her. The ghost’s intent expression as he studied Faith sent alarm bells peeling through Rawls’s gut. He flashed back to the moment Pachico had tried to hit his arm, only to sink into it instead.

The pain had been immediate and horrific—an acidic burst that had seared through muscle and bone. Why in hades it had hurt that time was an excellent question, one he still hadn’t figured out. Zane hadn’t reacted when Rawls’s hand had pierced his shoulder, or when Rawls had Caspered through his legs.

But damn it all, Pachico’s last punch had hurt. Hurt like hell.

And suddenly Rawls knew exactly what the bastard had planned.

“Son of a—” Rawls launched himself toward the pair.

Separating himself was no longer an option. There wasn’t time for that tactic. Somehow, in the here and now, he had to stop Pachico from piercing Faith’s body.

“What’s wrong?” Apprehension touched Faith’s face. She half turned, as though to look behind her.

“Oh, this is going to be fun.” On a deep-throated laugh, Pachico stepped to the left, directly into her. His translucent form merged with Faith’s body and vanished.

“No! Goddamn you!” Rawls roared, watching helplessly as the asshole he’d dragged back from death disappeared into Faith’s body.

Faith froze, her muscles locked and trembling. Her face contorted. Her pupils dilated. And then she screamed. And screamed. And screamed. One long, endless shriek of agony.

The pain when Pachico’s hand had plunged into his arm had been overwhelming, but it had also been localized and fleeting. What the bastard was doing to Faith was worse. Much worse. His entire translucent form had merged with her flesh and bone, so the pain was likely widespread, rather than restricted to a specific area. Plus, he’d already been in her twice as long, with no sign of retreat.

Cold, greasy clamminess broke out as her screams reverberated through the room.
Ah shit . . .

Not knowing what else to do, he swept her up in his arms and cradled her against his chest, gently rocking her while her screams reverberated through the room.

Jesus, Jesus.

The most god-awful sense of helplessness swamped him. An emotion he hadn’t experienced since the events leading to Sarah’s death—an emotion he’d promised himself he’d never feel again. Except his SQT was useless against an enemy with no physical form.

How do I get the bastard to vacate her body? Demands won’t work.

His arms froze around her. But bribes might.

“All right,” he shouted, uncertain if Pachico could hear him through Faith’s screams. “I’ll call your parents. Hell, I’ll call anyone you want.
If
you get out of her—
now
.”

For a moment nothing happened, and then the acidic burning from before swept through him. He turned in a circle, Faith’s screams still pounding him, and scanned the room for his ghost’s transparent form. Nothing. If Pachico had vacated Faith’s body, he’d vanished again.

Suddenly Faith collapsed in his arms, her screams snapping off in midshriek. From her hoarse, ragged breathing he knew she was alive. Relief flooded him. His legs weak, he carried her to the kitchen table, dragged a chair out with his foot, and sat down, cuddling her on his lap. He checked her pulse, it was rapid and irregular beneath his fingers.

Sweet Jesus, tachycardia was often brought on by stress. Where were her pills? In her pocket or in her room?

He adjusted her limp body and slid his hand in her pocket, exhaling in relief as his fingers touched something small and oblong.

Thank you, Jesus. The pill was in reach if she needed it.

“Shhh, shhh. I got you, baby. I got you,” he crooned in a rough voice, his heart pounding as hard and fast as it had the last time he’d sprinted five full klicks to catch the evac chopper. “You’re okay. I got you.”

She stirred against him, a cross between a whimper and a groan breaking from her.

“Shhhh.” His arms tightening, he dropped a gentle kiss on top of her soft, silky head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Her strangled breathing eased. Her arms stole around his waist and clung, and with something close to a sigh, she nestled closer, tucking her head beneath his chin.

He checked her pulse again. This time the beat was slower and more regular beneath his fingers.

Relaxing slightly, he tightened his grip on her and tried like hell to concentrate on the fear still emanating from her, rather than the sweetest, softest ass this side of the Dixie line. Christ almighty, her butt fit his lap like it had been handcrafted for him alone, sculpted to match him perfectly. Each rock of his arms rubbed those softly curved cheeks against his crotch. Jesus H. Christ, he was the biggest ass alive to get all hot and bothered right now. This was the
last
thing she needed.

He fought to keep his movements gentle and soothing, to ignore the tension ballooning in the lower quadrant of his body and the prickles and chills that erupted as her humid breath bathed the bare skin of his neck.

With another of those soft, shaky sighs, she eased back in his arms and stared at him. “What
. . .
what happened?”

Her face was so close he could see the pinpricks of silver shining in the gunmetal blue of her eyes.

“Just rest, darlin’.” He stopped rocking her long enough to check her pulse again and breathed a sigh of relief to find it slow and steady. Much more of that friction and she was bound to notice that he was getting all lumpy down there—which was not the reaction she needed at the moment.

But sexual urgency wasn’t the only tension rising. Pachico could pop in any moment. He needed to be gone before that happened—get as far away from her as possible—yet he couldn’t leave just yet. She was still shaky and traumatized. She needed the company, not to mention the cuddling.

“But what happened to me?” While a breathless rasp still roughened her voice, the unfocused haze was rapidly fading from her eyes.

He didn’t want to lie to her, but hell, she wouldn’t believe the truth.

“Did I have a seizure?” she asked, staring at him with huge fragile eyes.

“I’m not sure,” he hedged. It could have been a seizure. A possession-induced convulsion
. . .
He doubted that knowledge would provide any comfort.

He could clearly see the fear in her eyes, the uncertainty, and his chest tightened, guilt hitting hard. This was his fault. He’d brought that
thing
back. She’d been attacked because of him, and every second he sat there left her vulnerable to another attack.

He needed to leave
. . . hell,
he had to leave—
now
.

Reluctantly, he opened his arms, letting them drop to his side, silently urging her to vacate his lap.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t read minds. Instead of scrambling off and putting some distance between them as he’d hoped, she frowned and studied his face.

“That wasn’t my heart. I know what tachycardia feels like,” she said slowly, her eyes still clinging to his face. “And that wasn’t tachycardia. That was different.” Her eyes lost focus again, like she was remembering. A shudder traveled through her and fear glossed her eyes. “What if it happens again?”

The small, fragile undercurrent in her voice constricted his throat. Before he even realized he’d moved, he framed her worried face with his hands and pressed a comforting kiss to her forehead.

“Nothin’s gonna happen,” he said in his most soothing voice. He pressed another satin-soft kiss to her right cheek and then her left.

“But what if it does?” she asked, a slight flush climbing her cheeks. The fear drained from her eyes, and her gaze dropped, focusing on his mouth.

He wanted to promise her that nothing would happen to her, assure her he’d keep her safe. But that promise wasn’t his to make. He had no control over what Pachico did, other than making sure the bastard wasn’t close enough to attack her again.

And damn it, he needed to get moving. Sitting here cuddling was just asking for trouble and not just from his obnoxious troll of a ghost. He liked the warm, soft weight of her ass snuggling his cock too damn much.

One last kiss and he’d evict her from his lap and get the hell out of dodge. He’d intended for this final kiss to be in line with the first three. Gentle, calming, a comfort. But sweet Jesus, that luscious bottom lip of hers, with its sassy dip in the middle, had been tempting him since that moment on the bed, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that his good intentions got all scrambled up. Rather than dropping a harmless, asexual caress on her upturned lips, his mouth closed over that sexy bottom lip and suckled. Hardly soothing, definitely not comforting, and a little too rough to be considered gentle.

Even so, he could have salvaged that moment of insanity, if she hadn’t responded—if she hadn’t pulled her lips free so she could press them against his mouth. Hell, he could even have withstood the feathery caress of her lips, if she’d left her tongue out of it—out of him.

But sweet Jesus, the minute her tongue took matters into his mouth, the tide swept out, dragging him into dangerous water. Deep, dark, sensuous depths fraught with undertows and wicked currents.

Her lips were soft beneath his and seasoned with chocolate, like she’d helped herself to one of those cookies Pachico had flung against the wall. His arms lifted, circling her slender frame. As they tightened around her, anchoring her to his chest, his belly clenched, hunger digging in. Holy hell, he’d just discovered the aphrodisiac to end all aphrodisiacs.

Nothing, absolutely nothing compared to Faith’s lips spiked with chocolate. She was the dessert he hadn’t even known he was craving.

Their mouths clung, their tongues explored—rubbing, dancing, tasting—fanning the fever higher and higher until the fire raged through him into her and back through him again.

Christ, he wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted anyone before.

Which was why he needed to get the fuck out, now, while he still had the discipline to do so. Much more of this kissing and he’d have her naked and on her back. Hell, the table was looking better and better by the second.