SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (78 page)

Ysabeau was in
agony. Her leg hurt so badly she couldn’t take deep breaths anymore. The movement of her chest expanding with each inhale was too much to bear. How much longer could she take this? She didn’t have strength to reach into her bag for more Vicodin. Her will was gone.

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

Another aftershock hit. Ysabeau could hear the men near her screaming. This time, she didn’t make a sound. She tucked her head under her arms and prayed for it to be over. All of it. She waited for the final crushing blow, grateful for the end to her torment.

It didn’t come.

“Ysabeau! Picture Luke’s face,” a voice said.

“What?” Ysabeau had the sense the she was dreaming.
Am I unconscious?

“His face. Do it now!”

Gran? Was she calling to her from outside? Am I dying?
She could hardly keep her thoughts straight.
The pain.

“Ysabeau! Do not give up! Luke’s face. His dimples. The laughing blues eyes. You can do this.” It was Marisol.

Doing as she was told, she focused on her American. Her Guardian. He would never give up and she couldn’t either. What if he was trapped inside the hotel fighting to stay alive? She had to rescue him. She had to live.

“Thank you,” her voice croaked softly. She doubted if anyone heard.

Her throat was so terribly dry. So was her skin. Even though it was extremely hot inside her cave, her skin had stopped perspiring, which along with the pounding headache, was a sign that she was dehydrated. She had to drink more water and get some rest.

Gritting her teeth to the pain, she inhaled deeply and reached for the Vicodin and a water bottle.

Several minutes later, she let go and was no longer crushed under a hotel. With closed eyes, she tipped her cheeks up to the blue sky. The sun was warm and the breeze had a fresh bite to it. Letting her mouth fall open, she breathed in the salty air mixed with a touch of green cut grass. She was at a park overlooking the Bay. A flock of seagulls flew overhead, singing as they went. She didn’t need anyone to tell her where she was. San Francisco in the fall.

She wasn’t alone.

Sunny and Luke were sitting on a hand-knit blanket. A bucket of fried chicken and a bowl of fruit salad sat tantalizingly in the middle of the blanket. The smell of the food made her mouth water. A picnic?

“Ysabeau, close your mouth! Eating bird poop is nasty,” Sunny said.

“Since when have you eaten bird poop, young lady? Come here, angel, I want to show you the view.” Luke stood up and grabbed her in his arms.

“Great. More mushy stuff. You don’t mind if I text Jenna, do you?” Sunny said. “Give you guys some space?”

Luke grinned. “I didn’t raise a dumb kid. I’ll double your texting minutes if you keep using your noggin like that.”

“Suhweet!” Sunny raised her fist into the air and immediately started texting.

Taking her hand, Luke led Ysabeau down a dirt path. Although, she couldn’t feel her legs, or the dirt path beneath her bare feet, they were moving smoothly. Effortlessly.

“Just around the bend is the best photo op spot,” Luke told her.

And suddenly, they were there. The sparkling Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the coastline of the City, all of it stretched out before her like a treasure to be seized.

“What a gorgeous sight,” she whispered.

“Yes. It is.” He was looking at her with that intensity that singed her down to her toes. “Are you happy?” he whispered in her ear, sending sparks everywhere.

“For the first time in my life,” she said.

He cupped her cheek and kissed her so deeply her toenails nearly caught on fire.

Ysabeau knew she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or maybe she was dead. For the moment, she didn’t care. She wanted this—the man of her dreams, Sunny, happiness—more than anything. She wanted this.

‡

Thirty-eight hours after…

L
uke felt like
he’d been stuck in the squad car for three centuries. His cop buddy brought him food and removed the handcuffs but refused to let him out until the Search and Rescue teams arrived. His hands were free to pull his hair, scrub his face, and check his stupid watch every minute. Damned watch! He should have let Tico keep it for all the good it was doing him at the moment. It felt like the hands of time had frozen in place in this never-ending night.

The sun finally came up, streaking the sky pinky-orange above the mangled Hotel Montana. His heart warmed at the sight of it. Today, the rescue teams would arrive and pull Ysabeau out of that wreckage. Today, the two of them would start forever together.

At six forty-five a.m. trucks began pulling up to the hotel.

“Now we’re talking,” Luke said to himself.

Men and women dressed in dark blue suits and florescent yellow-green helmets, jumped out and hit the ground running. Their hands were full of packs, boxes, and equipment. When two of the rescuers walked past the squad car, Luke read the patches on their backs. Written in bright yellow were the words—Fairfax County. White letters below the yellow spelled out “Urban Search and Rescue.” On the left shoulder was a beautiful American flag. He thought his heart might explode with relief.

They were from the United States!

He cheered his joy.

One of the guys threw a bewildered glance over his shoulder and kept going. They hadn’t seen him in the back of the squad car. Time to rectify the situation.

He kicked the passenger door as hard as he could. “Hey! Let me out! I know where the survivors are! Hey!” he screamed. And kicked. And kicked.

The cop-kid showed up. “Cool it, man. Do you want to get me fired?”

“No. I want you to get me out of here. Now,” he growled.

“All right.” The kid opened the back door. “You can go. Please, do not steal anything or threaten my captain with any weapons, okay?”

“I promise,” Luke said and was off running. “Wait!” he called to the two rescuers. “I want to help!”

The men stopped to look at him. One of the guys was over six feet tall. His nametag said S. Mitchell. The other guy was short, barely five foot five, and named A. Lopez.

S. Mitchell spoke first, “I’m sorry sir, this is a restricted area. Off limits to everyone but the rescue teams. You can understand that, right? It’s dangerous. Stand back and let us do our jobs.”

“No,” Luke answered. “I won’t.”

A look passed between the men as if they wondered what to do with the lunatic standing before them. Would he attack? Foam at the mouth?

“Listen, I was here all day yesterday and all night last night using a sledgehammer until it broke. I found survivors. When I pounded, they yelled back,” Luke said, his voice rising with excitement. “I’ll show you where.”

S. Mitchell didn’t know that Luke saw the eyebrow lift he gave the other guy. “Sir, rescues are tricky. You could have heard all sorts of things. The building shifting, the wind, what you wanted to hear—”

“No. I heard people. I know where they are.” Luke had the distinct feeling that they were blowing him off. “Are you going to help me get them out, or do I have to do this myself?”

The shorter man cocked his head, studying Luke’s face. “Someone you care about is in there.” It was a statement, pure and simple.

Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. And no, that doesn’t mean I wanted to hear her and I did. I heard trapped victims. Period. And now I’m going to start pulling this hotel apart with my bare hands until I get them out. I’m warning you, stay out of my way.”

S. Mitchell’s voice clicked up a few notches. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to—”

He didn’t wait to hear more. Luke took off running toward the spot where he’d been working. Was that last night? Had it really only been five or six hours ago? Would he be able to find it in the daylight?

“Wait! Sir!”

Luke sped up, searching for tale-tale landmarks as he went—the downed air-conditioner, half of a bathtub, the paved steps to nowhere. They were chasing him down, leaping over the same piles of debris, crunching broken building beneath their thick-soled boots.

He stopped. This was it.

“Sir!” S. Mitchell bent over to catch his breath. His hands were on his thighs, his breathing labored. “We can’t…have civilians…here. You need to go—”

“This is it.” Luke said. “See the piece of my broken sledgehammer?” He pointed to a long splinter of wood. “That’s where I was working.” Both men stared at the broken pile of concrete that Luke had pulled out of the wreckage.

S. Mitchell studied the hotel. “We should get the hotel’s floorplan to figure out where we are. Exactly.”

“The lobby,” Luke said. “I checked in on the twelfth at four.”

A. Lopez’ mouth dropped. “That wasn’t even an hour before…”

“I know. The point is, this is the lobby and there are people trapped in there. At least they were six hours ago,” he groaned. If only the sledgehammer hadn’t have broken, he might be kissing Ysabeau right now. “You’ve got to help me get in there.”

“It’s possible. There could be survivors, especially if the lobby had pockets of protected space.” S. Mitchell nodded. “Okay. Anthony, get the dogs and the team. This is where we start.” He turned to Luke. “Good call.”

“I’m not leaving,” Luke said. “You can use me.”

“He did a good job all by himself,” A. Lopez said. “In the dark.”

S. Mitchell’s gaze covered Luke’s beat-up and filthy body. “No.”

“I’m not asking. I’m doing it, with or without you,” Luke growled.

S. Mitchell put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You need to understand. Our USA-1 team members are all highly skilled. With the exceptions of the dog trainers and the canines, every one of us is a firefighter who has undergone ten years of urban SAR training. You haven’t. You’ll be a liability.”

A. Lopez pointed at the structure. “Who’s in there? A friend? Relative?”

“I’m trained too. Ex-Navy SEAL.” Luke looked him in the eye. “The woman I plan on spending the rest of my life with is in there.”

S. Mitchell groaned. “Stay out of the way and we’ll look for her. Get in our way, or get yourself injured and you’ll slow us down. Do you understand?”

Luke shrugged S. Mitchell’s hand off his shoulder. “You’ll have to shoot me to stop me from searching for her. Do
you
understand?”

“I say we let him help. He’s done pretty well for himself so far,” A. Lopez said.

“Anthony, look at this guy. He’s in no shape to help us. Looks like he’s about to keel over.”

Luke pulled his shoulders up and caught a glimpse of a familiar face coming around the corner. “The Haitian police have already authorized me to be here. See that cop over there? He told me to search. Ordered me, actually.”

Luke gave the kid cop a thumbs-up. The kid gave him his insanely huge smile and thumbs-upped him back.

“See?” Luke asked. “You really want me to disobey his orders?”

“I don’t have time for this…” S. Mitchell grumbled.

A woman came around the corner with a black German Shepherd. “Where do you want us?”

“Over here.” S. Mitchell directed the dog trainer. Then he turned toward A. Lopez. “We’re getting started. He’s yours Anthony. Don’t let him get in the way.”

“Yes, sir!” A. Lopez raised his fist. “Come on, um, what’s your name?”

“Luke.”

“Call me Ant, everyone except the Commander does.”

They shook hands.

“Okay, Luke, come with me. We need to get you suited up. Everything you’ll need is in the truck.”

Having a suspicion that he meant to toss him in the truck and leave him there, Luke said, “All I need is a tool.”

“Nope. There will be several teams arriving this morning and we can’t have a civilian wandering all over the site looking like you do.” Ant scrunched his nose. “And smelling like you do.”

Luke frowned, still skeptical of his motives.

“Do you know the expression—if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a guy trying to loot the hotel?” Ant paused. “If you are dressed like one of us, people will leave you alone.”

“You’re really going to let me?” He got choked up.

“Only if you promise to do as I say. This sort of rescue is highly dangerous. The building could shift and pull you under like quicksand, or a chunk from above can slip down. You could be crushed to death before anyone has a chance to yell, ‘Look out!’”

Luke swallowed a mouth full of dust and fear. “I know.” He lifted the collar of his T-shirt and scrubbed at his eyes. If the hotel caved-in further, Ysabeau’s chances would be gone.

Ant’s hand rested on the door handle at the back of the truck. “You are my responsibility. I’m the expert and you’ll be my assistant. I tell you to jump back. You do so without an argument. I tell you to sit it out for a while. You do. I tell you to go get us a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast?”

“I got it.”

“Damn. I’m hungry.” Ant opened the back of the truck revealing supplies, boxes, medical kits and a stack of dark blue workmen’s suits. There were several boxes of boots stacked up against the wall. “Find a pair of boots that fit and get dressed. The helmets are over here.”