Heat of the Moment. Karen Foley

come home with her brother one last time, to help celebrate her graduation from the Naval Academy. Despite the fact that her brother was an officer in the Navy while Shane was an enlisted man in the Marine Corps, the two men had remained friends. Her parents had thrown a party for her at their lake house in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Holly had been both shocked and delighted to see Shane. Admittedly, she’d had a little more to drink that night than she was accustomed to. Her only excuse was that his presence had caught her completely off guard, and she’d been acutely aware of him watching her the entire night. Four years had passed since her first inexpert attempt at seducing him, but she’d learned a thing or two about men since then.

      The alcohol, combined with the expression in his eyes whenever she looked at him, had given her the courage she needed to launch a sensual assault on him, and this time he hadn’t been able to resist. But when she’d woken up in his bed the next morning, she’d been alone. Shane had left without so much as a good-bye.

      Sgt. Martinez downshifted, the deep growl of the diesel engine pulling Holly out of her reverie. They were approaching a small village of mud huts, and Holly frowned as she noted the empty street. She made a small noise of concern and leaned forward to peer through the windshield, her hands gripping her M4 rifle.

      “It’s too quiet,” Martinez observed, echoing Holly’s thoughts. “I hope that doesn’t mean trouble.”

      “I see some kids up ahead,” Holly replied, nodding toward a group of children playing alongside the road just before the village. “That’s a good sign, right?”

      They rumbled slowly through the village, following behind the lead truck and the two Humvees assigned to provide security to the convoy. Aside from the children, there was no other indication of life in the village, and the hairs on the back of Holly’s neck prickled uneasily.

      They passed the children, who stopped to stare at them, and Holly told herself that the foreboding she felt was nothing more than her imagination. Reaching under her seat for her camera, she snapped several quick shots, capturing the awe in their big, dark eyes. Holding her camera and taking pictures gave her a sense of comfort, but as they drove through an orchard just beyond the village, she thought she saw something move deep in the shadowed recesses of the trees. Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash, followed by a deafening explosion. An instant later, the lead Humvee shot into the air and came down on its roof, completely engulfed in flames. The camera slipped from Holly’s fingers and landed on the floor at her feet, forgotten.

      “Goddamn! We’re under attack!” Sgt. Martinez screamed.

      “Pull over, pull over!”

      He wrenched the wheel hard to the right, dragging the vehicle to a shuddering stop. Behind them, the convoy split into two lines, one on either side of the road, even as a second rocket-propelled grenade streaked out of the orchard and struck the supply truck directly in front of them, flipping the vehicle onto its side and sending molten fragments of metal high into the air.

      Almost simultaneously, Holly heard the unmistakable spit of small arms fire, and realized they were being attacked from both sides of the road. Glancing through the passenger window, she saw that insurgents were firing at them from the orchard on one side, and a crudely dug trench on the other. Their forward position in the convoy made them a vulnerable target.

      “We’ve got to get out of the truck,” she gasped, and reached for her door handle.

      Martinez looked at her in horror. “Are you kidding? It’s not safe. We’ll be killed out there!”

      “It’s not safe here,” Holly insisted hotly. “We’re directly in the kill zone! We stand a better chance if we move toward the rear vehicles.”

      The other soldier blanched, his dark eyes expressing his fear. “I’m a supply clerk. I’m not trained for combat!”

      “You’re a soldier,” Holly said grimly, pushing down her own rising fear. “You’ve been trained for this, and you can do it. Now move! That’s an order!”

      Opening her door, Holly used it as a shield to survey her surroundings. The air was heavy and acrid with the stench of burning fuel and scorched metal. On the road behind her, the gun trucks were spraying both the trees and the trench with automatic gunfire. They’d formed two columns of vehicles on either side of the road, turning the road itself into a safe zone of sorts. Still, there were twenty yards of open space between Holly and that protected corridor, in which she and Sgt. Martinez would be completely vulnerable.

      The noise of the battle was deafening, but Holly scarcely heard anything over the roar of her own frantic heartbeat. Shane was on top of one of those gun trucks. Her heart clenched hard at the thought of anything happening to him. In the next instant she reminded herself that he was a seasoned soldier—a hardened Marine. He’d been doing this for eight years and he could take care of himself. Her only concern now was to get herself and her supply clerk to safety.

      She motioned for Martinez. “Stay low,” she commanded.

      Without waiting to see if he obeyed her, Holly crouched down and began working her way to the rear of the truck, keeping her weapon raised as she scanned the trees to her right, looking for any signs of movement. She blinked hard, peering through the thick smoke, and forced herself to move forward one step at a time. Her hands were slick on the assault rifle she carried and for a moment the only thing she heard was her own breathing, rapid and shallow. She forced herself to take several deep breaths and concentrated firmly on her goal.

      If she and the sergeant could reach the other trucks, she knew they would be safe. Behind her, another explosion rent the air and the force of the blast threw her forward onto the ground. Martinez plowed into her back, and for a moment the two of them lay sprawled in the dirt, stunned.

      Sgt. Martinez recovered first, rolling to his knees and dragging Holly upward. “Move, damn it!” he shouted. “Move!”

      Glancing over her shoulder, Holly saw it was the engine compartment of their own truck that had been hit. The cab where they had been sitting just moments before was fully engulfed in flames. She scrambled to her feet and made her way to the next truck, and then the next, until a movement from the trees to her right made her stop and swing her weapon around, ready to open fire if she needed to. Glancing back, she saw that Martinez was still two trucks behind her, crouched in a combat-ready position with his weapon raised and directed at the trees.

      Refocusing her attention on where she had seen movement, she cautiously crept forward, sweeping her rifle along the tree line as she went. Whatever movement she thought she had seen was gone, and she prepared to run the short span of open space between two trucks. Then she stopped short.

      “Ohmigod,” she breathed.

      She couldn’t believe what she saw; Shane Rafferty, swinging down from the top of his gun truck, his gaze fixed grimly on her as he made a beeline directly through the line of fire toward her position. He gestured wildly back toward her truck, but Holly couldn’t tell if he wanted her to be aware of the fire and move away from it, or run back toward it. She shook her head, not understanding.

      Through the haze, Holly could see his eyes blazing at her. He yelled something to her and gestured again, but his words were lost beneath the sound of explosives. Holly stayed glued to where she stood, unable to tell where the precise threat came from amidst so much chaos. Shane held his own weapon low and strafed the orchard with gunfire as he ran. And just when Holly thought he might actually make it across the open space to her side, it happened.

      The bullet hit him in the left leg, just below his knee. Shane staggered, his face expressing surprise. He managed to take three more steps before his leg buckled and he went down. Even then, he didn’t stop but began doggedly working his way across the ground toward her.

      Holly found herself running toward him before she was aware that her feet were moving. Shane was no longer watching her, but was staring at something behind her, his expression one of dismay. He shouted something unintelligible, and Holly felt a hard slap against her shoulder, spinning her sideways and causing her to stumble. She scarcely had time to register what