Christmas at Peleliu Cove Read online

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  But Sly wasn’t joking around. Had he been more battered by the waves than he’d let on? Or…oh. Clint decided it was definitely “Or” and figured he’d better tackle the subject head on himself.

  “Two weeks, Sly.” That’s how long Nika Maier had been letting him come to her bed.

  “How the hell did I miss that?”

  “She doesn’t talk much, does she?” He was particularly chagrined as he’d thought about it more while fighting the storm. Nika had told him all about things she had done, but never about anything she felt. A chasm-sized hole that he’d been too happy screwing her to notice. The more he’d thought about it, the vaster her silence had become.

  “Quick with a joke, but otherwise, no, not much,” Sly rubbed at his face with hands as large as Clint’s own. It reminded him of the Army-Navy wrestling match aboard the Peleliu that had started their friendship. A match that Sly had won, though Clint had definitely made him work for it. Until Delta Colonel Michael Gibson had wiped the mats with Sly seconds later, which had helped Clint feel a little better about losing.

  “She’s really something, Sly. I understand that.” Really something? She was making him reevaluate his whole never-trust-another-woman rule.

  “You forget it for a single second and you’ll have me to deal with. We clear on that?”

  “Crystal.” Clint didn’t point out that if he pissed off Nika, there probably wouldn’t be much left of him for Sly to take apart. They sat together in a silence that eventually became companionable as their body chill receded beneath the heater’s blast.

  As they dried out, Clint got to thinking about the woman on the other side of the boat. Sure, he knew she was something special; he’d never had a lover like her. But that wasn’t all of it—wasn’t even the half or a quarter of what had snared him about her.

  She’d taken a training run exercise that had turned into a storm and stayed strong right through the heart of it. He’d observed her closely these last few weeks, and not only because she was such a joy to watch.

  Every person she dealt with on a regular basis respected her immensely. Jerome, her assistant Loadmaster, practically worshipped the ground she walked on. Or perhaps the sea she flew on.

  He’d talked to Lamar and Jeffries, the two RSOV drivers. They too were as impressed as hell by LCAC-316’s Loadmaster. And then Sly had refused to take back the controls during the storm and Clint knew why. Sly was a good enough leader to know when one of his crew only needed a little seasoning to become truly superior. Maybe Sly knew a few other things about her. He decided to start off with a tease.

  “Nika flies this thing like a dream.”

  Sly nodded.

  “You fearing for your job, buddy? She’s way cuter than you too. Hell, she’s cuter than a boxful of puppies, though she’d kill me if she heard that. If it was between the two of you and it was me doing the picking, I’d sure—”

  “Incoming!” Jerome dropped down the ladder. “Friendly! Craftmaster says to get back out there.”

  “Shit!” The hovercraft was still slamming over the waves. He scrambled out of the cabin on Jerome and Sly’s heels and instantly caught of faceful of cold sea spray. Then he almost cried out when the big Chinook helicopter slipped down low above them.

  It was dangling a long line out of its rear cargo ramp as it hovered a hundred feet above them. The down blast from the rotors momentarily pinned him back against the side of the cabin.

  Had Nika called for a SPIES extraction after all?

  But it wasn’t a rope. It was a wire with a big clip on the end.

  “Don’t touch it,” Jerome shouted out.

  Clint dove to the deck as the cable whipped sideways and the clip hit the cabin right where his head had been. The sharp clang of impact was nearly drowned out by the loud Pow! of a spark that lit up the immediate area of the deck like a lightning bolt.

  Then Jerome grabbed the cable and shouted, “Static discharge from the rotors.”

  Clint knew that, and was glad it had missed him. He’d taken a full body shock from a winch cable before and it wasn’t fun.

  But instead of a snap ring for lifting out crew, it looked more like a spring clip for jumping a battery.

  Jerome snapped it onto a piece of the LCAC’s hull. Then a hose snaked down from the hovering helicopter. A fuel hose. Christ! Fueling was the most dangerous operation anywhere. Doing it from an airborne platform down to a storm-tossed hovercraft was the craziest damn thing he’d ever seen.

  Sly had the fueling port open. Jerome twisted the hose onto the locking ring just as another wave slammed into them.

  Clint managed to get a handhold on both a deck tie-down and Jerome’s life vest. He held on for all he was worth until the water had run down and back out the scuppers.

  “Begin fueling!” Jerome shouted over the radio once he’d spit out enough water to speak. The hose snapped from flat to round as fuel rushed down to them from the hovering helo.

  Clint glanced up at the control station.

  Tom was watching them closely. All he could see of Nika was the back of her helmet as she continued to pay attention forward, but it was enough. He’d know her anywhere.

  And in that moment, he knew that was a feeling he wanted to have for the rest of his life.

  # # #

  Nika was ragged by the time they spotted land. Another storm front had swept south out of Italy along the Adriatic Sea and collided with the one headed northeast across the Ionian Sea. The two collided right over their position.

  With the fifteen hundred gallons she’d grabbed from the Chinook helicopter before Captain Roberts had to wave off, both Italy and Greece were technically possible, but not through this storm. Any thoughts of turning about and fighting back upwind toward the Peleliu were shut down when Lola Maloney ordered Roberts to continue on to Izmir Air Base in Turkey rather than return to the ship. The sea state around the ship hadn’t slackened and there was some doubt whether the big Chinook could land safely back aboard in this weather.

  What had it taken to launch from such a pitching platform? It had taken a Night Stalker. She was damned lucky to serve with such amazing people.

  She was shooting for Crete, but even that landfall was getting dicey.

  “Gavdos,” Tom called out. “We can land on Gavdos Island in ten minutes. Crete is still thirty minutes beyond that.”

  She didn’t know if she had thirty more minutes of fuel, or ten for that matter. They were down to fumes now. Just as she was. Lack of sleep, lack of caffeine, and all of the hours on high alert, she didn’t know what she had left in her.

  The new storm was still driving her from behind when she first spotted the island.

  “Cliffs, Tom. Cliffs and more cliffs. How am I supposed to—” she clamped down on her tongue because she was that close to losing it completely.

  “Around the south end. Cape Tripiti. I’d stay well out to sea, it looks nasty on the map. There’s a beach named Aliki around the back side that should be out of the wind.”

  “Aliki Beach by Cape Tripiti,” she muttered to herself. “Coney Island in Brooklyn. Now that’s a beach.”

  A wave batted her into a sideways skid and she cursed as she reoriented the craft. Dave had given her half a dozen different warnings: temperature this, pressure that, strain the other. They were held together with spit and bailing wire.

  “Give me a Nathan’s cheese dog and crinkle-cut chili fries. That’s what you’re supposed to have on a beach, not hour seven of a god damn storm!” She leaned forward to yell the last of it up at the sky.

  Stars. There were stars here. The waves and wind were murder, but there were stars.

  “Approaching Cape Tripiti,” Tom called out, his voice carefully neutral.

  “Shit!” She was approaching it head on.

  The cape
was a long crag of rock that reached well out from shore at the very southern tip of the island which made it the southernmost point of all of Europe. The sea had punched great arches through the headland. She was half tempted to see if she could race through the big one without a wave smashing her against the top of it.

  Instead, she swung wide around the headland and turned for the beach. It faced east, away from the storm, and was set back in a cove. The waves here were smaller but terribly confused. No clean surf line to ride ashore.

  “No wakeboarding today, campers.”

  None of the crew answered her.

  She picked her line, gave the hovercraft maximum lift and slowed to ease ashore. After the hours racing over the ugly sea that was always in motion, the unmoving shore was approaching deceptively fast. Nika was at best approach speed, but the land looked unreal and dangerous after so long on the waves.

  The beach had a shallow slope, which was a good thing.

  She reached up and hit the big landing lights.

  “Damn it!” She slammed her eyes shut and shoved the night-vision goggles out of her way. Still she saw spots from that hugely amplified glare.

  Mostly blind, she rolled out of the heavy surf and, with a hard jolt, cushioned by all the air two jet engines run to redline could produce and blow downward, she hit the beach.

  “Cobble beach. Not even decent sand like Coney Island.”

  The LCAC continued to meander inland.

  Moments later she was over water again.

  What the—?

  Oh.

  A broad lake just at the back of the beach. A lagoon.

  A hundred yards later there was land again…a path…goat-wide…she started to follow it until a few scrub trees to one side and a large boulder to the other stopped the progress of her fifty-foot wide hovercraft.

  “Ease it down, honey,” a nice deep voice wrapped around her. “You got us here.”

  She slid the steering wheel to neutral.

  Dave pulled back on the throttles between their positions and the hovercraft settled.

  Shut down. She should be telling someone to shut down…but they already were…she was…shutting down.

  “Come on, honey.” That warm voice again. “Let’s get you out of that seat.” Strong hands released her and swept her up effortlessly.

  Nika curled against that wonderful chest that she’d come to know so well.

  She was really going to miss that chest.

  # # #

  “Why did you push her like that?” Clint felt as ragged as Nika looked. She was passed out on the starboardside cabin floor cocooned in blankets, her face pale with exhaustion as the storm roared outside almost as loudly as the now silent LCAC’s engines.

  Sly didn’t glare at him or snarl back as Clint deserved.

  Instead he simply looked down at his sacked out petty officer.

  “You’re a Ranger, Clint. You know about training past limits.”

  He did, and that was more effective than any snarl. Clint was arguing with a man he liked and trusted about the training methods he was using on his own crew. And Sly was right.

  Much of Ranger training was about discovering what actually was possible, rather than what he had thought he could do. A 10k hike with a full pack? How about twenty-five? Or lead a team? No problem. Through a swamp when he hadn’t slept in so long that it was hard to tell if he was hallucinating whether or not there was a map in front of him? He’d learned he could do that too.

  “Petty Officer Maier,” Sly’s tone was surprisingly soft, “has never reached a limit. Last night is the worst I’ve ever left her to face. Think about what she learned about her own capabilities; a whole new yardstick. And, honest truth, I don’t know if I could have done as well. That’s the other reason I didn’t take over.”

  “I recall that we had some work to do ourselves. I’m just as glad it wasn’t her out on that deck. That was harsh.”

  His comment earned him a slow smile. The two of them and Jerome would be sporting bruises for weeks from the battering they’d taken doing the deck work while underway. The hourly patrol of the tie-down chains had become a near constant battle which kept them out in the bitter weather effecting some repair or other so that Nika had a functioning craft to fight the storm with.

  Then Clint looked down at Nika and tried not to think about the way she’d clung to him once he’d extracted her from the Craftmaster’s seat and then gone unexpectedly limp in his arms. A whole new type of panic had swamped him until he’d been able to verify that she was still breathing. He’d handed her below, then they’d wrapped her in blankets. Without the engines running, there was no heat. So he’d pulled his Santa cap down over her ears until only her eyes and nose were showing between the hat and the blankets. Still she looked like a merry elf, just a very tired one.

  “Damn woman has gotten all the way under my skin.”

  “That problem,” Sly raised bloodshot eyes to look at him, “that’s one I know all about.” He raised his left hand and tapped his thumb against his wedding ring.

  Clint had already been there once. But his stated intention of never going back there sounded downright stupid now. Looking at the sleeping Nika Maier, he couldn’t imagine not asking her to marry him some day. Some day soon. Which was impossible, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  Though he hadn’t said a word, Sly studied him through narrowed eyes.

  Clint looked straight back at him and answered the unspoken question, “I’ve second guessed a lot of choices in my life. Joining the Rangers isn’t one of them. She isn’t either.” It didn’t matter that she had secrets; he knew how she felt or they couldn’t have shared what they had.

  Sly nodded toward the door. The two of them strode out onto the LCAC’s deck. Everything was dark now except for a small worklight in one corner. The rear ramp was down—the front was jammed against a stout pine tree barely a dozen feet tall—and Sly led him off the stern of the hovercraft and out into the night.

  With no other lights shining from the LCAC or up on the hills, the stars were a solid arc across the sky. Dawn was still a several hours off. By some unspoken agreement, they stopped a hundred yards toward the beach and watched the sky together. A lone meteor slid by, otherwise the sky was motionless. There was a sharp smell of pine pitch in the sheltered cove.

  “I’ve served three tours with her now, two of them aboard my boat,” Sly’s voice sounded out of the dark barely louder than the wind on the cliffs that surrounded them. The sea salt was so thick on the air that even the storm couldn’t clear it away.

  Clint waited him out.

  “Still don’t know what drives her, but I’ll tell you one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Clint asked when Sly had lapsed into a long silence.

  “I’ve never seen her serious about a man before. There’s the occasional light and casual…”

  And Clint did his best to ignore the gutful of jealousy that had him clenching his chilled hands into fists when he pictured another man touching her.

  “…but mostly she keeps men away. Tosses them aside hard when they try to stick.”

  “Uh huh.” Clint didn’t like that image any more than the last one.

  “If you’re serious, don’t let her do that to you.” And Sly’s tone said that’s all he was going to offer.

  Clint was a US Ranger. He knew all about hanging tough.

  Chapter 11

  “We’re done, Lieutenant,” Nika held her voice steady as they strode up the beach. “It’s not you. You’re the best man I’ve ever been with. It’s me. I just don’t want what you do.” There. She’d said it.

  “Uh huh,” Clint nodded comfortably. She glanced over at him and, though he was gazing ahead, she could tell that he wore that knowing half smile of his that looked so good on him, even if she did want to scrub it off with
a beach cobble. “Fine day for it.”

  She’d slept thirteen hours on steel decking and it felt good to be out and moving around. The Peleliu was still six hours out, so they owned this remote corner of Gavdos Island for a while longer. No rain had reached the parched island but the wind still roared and she was glad to be wearing the Santa hat, no matter how ridiculous it must look. She just ignored the impression of Clint’s warmth inside it.

  Clint strode along with his hands rammed into his jacket pockets, but otherwise appeared oblivious to the chilly wind. Or her declaration that it was over between them.

  It was the last hour of sunset and the sun was already blood red as it descended into the distant storm clouds that had yet to reach the island. Perhaps they never would. The sky above arced a blue so brilliant that it was possible to believe it would always be there, never changing, never marred by overcast. The tan rock and sand, looking dusty gray with age, was taking on the sunlight’s red hue.

  The crew of LCAC-316, along with its obstinate US Ranger stowaway, were the sole occupants of this end of the island. And Cape Tripiti was off the beaten path. Literally—path. In a final haze that she barely remembered, she’d driven the hovercraft partway up a hill—trackless except for a footpath barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. It had left the LCAC with a very uncomfortable nose-up tilt. But there had been insufficient fuel to reliably start the engines, so they’d left it there for now.

  The hills were dotted with a coarse, thorny scrub and the occasional wretched pine that survived the constant drought and the battering wind. She and Clint were headed for the Cape itself. The narrow headland reached almost a quarter mile past the beach, its great arches and flat top making it look like some Roman aqueduct carved by giants from living rock.

  Clint still didn’t say anything as they scaled up the couple hundred feet from the beach to the top surface.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” she managed a relatively neutral tone, but had expected more of a reaction. Wanted one. Wanted to know she’d been important, even if they were done. Which was a little petty, after all, since she was the one ending it. But still she wanted some reaction.