Free His to Cherish by Christa Wick

keywords. Any search related to Mia, her stepfather or any other person in the entire county would get flagged and sent to Kane. That's if the keywords weren't blocked on the servers to begin with.
    Someone else could reason with Kane -- Reed could. Reed would want to protect Mia. But if we failed -- if I failed in protecting her -- what would be the cost to Reed?
    I settled from my knees onto my ass, the air I inhaled feeling thick and jagged as it moved through my windpipe and circulated in my lungs. Reed had been with Kane and me from Fort Bragg all the way through our last tour in Baghdad. He had married his childhood sweetheart along the way. Gotten her pregnant, too, right before we rotated into Iraq.
    I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight to relieve the tension cementing in my face. A dull, internal roar vibrated against my eardrums, blocking out the chirping of the birds around me. Opening my eyes, the forest floor looped a slow circle around me.
    Fuck -- my body was ready to fight. Kane had brought that on. But there was no one to punch, no immediate adversary to chase or flee. The adrenaline just kept pumping, sending my heart racing, the air moving through me in a rate that quickly approached hyperventilation. If I didn't calm the fuck down and breathe slower, the carbon dioxide levels in my blood would plummet, increasing the dizziness and bringing with it an unpleasant, tingling numbness.
    My best course of action would be to grab the phone, run to the SUV as fast as I could, and let the physical exertion eat up the adrenaline. I got on my knees, my hands on the ground to push up. The buzzing in my head increasing, I rolled onto my side then onto my back, my vision filled with the green needled pines above me.
    Green like Mia's eyes.
    Keppler had been right. She belonged in Keeling, seemed to spring up from its ground with her sweet, fresh looks -- looks she shared with Reed's ex-wife, Katherine, each woman having dusky hair, lush bodies, and pale skin that colored easily.
    Painfully ironic the other details they would come to share because of the men who chose to love them.
    The bomb in Dubai had been placed by members of the Holy Front, an extremist group opposed to an American company performing quality checks on the security protocols and systems for UAE military installations. Nothing personal -- if another company had won the bid and started executing on the contract, it would have been the limo of their senior executive mangled and on fire.
    The bomb in Baghdad had been impersonal, too. Instead of a car, it hit an old office building repurposed as temporary housing for those traveling on government business. Walls and ceilings had collapsed. Secondary bombs had impeded assistance to those inside.
    Katherine, five-and-a-half months pregnant, had been on a two-week visit before flying and Reed's duty restrictions insured she would not see him again until months after the baby was born. He had ordered and begged her to stay home, but she had found a way to secure the permissions without his authorization. A family friend who served as chief of staff to a senator on the Committee on Armed Services greased the paperwork. From his office in D.C., the damn fool thought it was safe, not understanding that it was never safe, no matter how many days passed without gunfire or explosions.
    An official stamp on a piece of paper and a plane ticket to hell culminated in a doctorless labor at five months, her husband's torso over hers the only thing separating her pregnant belly from the wall that crushed down on them. Kane and I were visiting when the blast hit. No way out or in, more explosions around the building. We pulled at the debris covering them with broken fingers as the pool of blood beneath Katherine slowly expanded.
    The baby wanted out.
    We all wanted the fuck out.
    On the ground in North Carolina, my breathing finally slowed. The air shook as it entered and exited my body. Not quite sobs -- I'd stopped