Free A SEAL to Save Her by Karen Anders

went down, he pulled her with him and she landed on the hard earth.
    â€œDex?” she whispered in his ear.
    No movement.
    She shook him.
    Still nothing.
    â€œOh, God,” she huffed out.
    She rolled him off her and put two fingers to his carotid artery on his neck. For a split second, she didn’t feel anything, then the steady beat of his heart.
    Her breath rushed out of her. She’d been holding it and she deflated like a balloon. The relief was so intense tears clouded her eyes, but that was as far as they got. She didn’t have time for losing her cool. She rose and looked around. There was absolutely no one to help them. She would have to leave him here and go on alone. Afsana Jamal.
    That was all she had to go by. Through the door, into the courtyard—her house was supposed to be just beyond the gate. She took a breath and reached for the door handle, her hand shaking.
    Turning the knob, which squeaked loud in the still of the late afternoon, she pushed it open a crack and scanned the immediate area, her eyes darting, her body vibrating with tension. Other than a few goats milling around, she saw no movement. Again there was no one there. She could hear normal village sounds coming from beyond Afsana’s proposed house. She took one more look at Dex. His closed eyes, his dark lashes thick against his skin, pale beneath the tan. She’d supported him because she had to.
    She wasn’t supposed to note the thick muscles of his back or the height of him, the sexy way his voice rasped, the stubble on his cheeks. Her heart did a little spin; her body seemed so alive around him. They’d connected so fast, so deeply, it scared her. In life and death, there was only the moment as it ticked by. She felt every roll of sweat, every beat of her heart.
    Even when he was unconscious and helpless, he still felt dangerous to her heart.
    She couldn’t let him die.
    Sweat pooled at the base of her spine, at her temples, running down her cheeks. God, she hated this damn burka. The clamminess of her skin reeked of fear.
    This was all about being on the run, and the fact that he had risked everything for her. She could do no less.
    She might have talked a good game, but she was right on the verge of hysteria. Taking several deep cleansing breaths, she cautiously approached the house, hoping to God she got the right place.
    She knocked lightly and heard footsteps from within the house. The door slowly opened to reveal...a man.
    Bagram Airfield,
Parwan Province, Afghanistan
    A black stealth chopper with Outcast stenciled on the side touched down without so much as a peep onto the pitted and ragged runway of Bagram. Raoul Markam, solidly built, with broad shoulders and an elegant, aristocratic face, formerly Senator Piper Jones’s DS agent, walked up to Carl Kruger, CEO of Outcast, a joint South African–British private security company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
    Carl was thin and ascetic, his clothes all black, his eyes ice blue. It was suddenly winter in July. “What the hell happened here? All this carnage to kill one unarmed woman and blow up a SEAL?” His thick British accent got thicker when he was angry.
    â€œTwo SEALs.”
    â€œWhat?” The one word cracked between them like a gunshot.
    â€œThat unarmed woman was saved by a wounded SEAL.” Raoul handed him the medical file. “Lieutenant Dexter Kaczewski.” Carl scowled down at the service photo. “I’m going to need some more men. We’ve already cleared this area and taken care of the insurgents. But Jones and this SEAL disappeared.”
    â€œUnbelievable! You said this was a cakewalk!” The shadowy man in the US who had hired them through Markam couldn’t be pleased, either. He hated screwups and he really hated wild cards like Kaczewski. Carl had built his company up from nothing after he’d gotten out of the military. A year after his birth, there was a shift in