His Duty to Protect. Lindsay McKenna

smell of alcohol and other antiseptics made Rachel wrinkle her nose. Couldn’t she leave now? Every nurse was super busy with the wounded still coming in. Rachel pondered leaving on her own. And then she made the fatal error of looking up toward the entrance. Her lips parted in shock. Captain Tyler Hamilton walked right through the door. And he was looking for her.

      Instantly, Rachel’s heartbeat quickened and she gripped the gurney. Hamilton was six feet tall, lean and tightly muscled. He had military-short black hair, glacial-blue eyes, a strong chin and broad brow. He couldn’t be looking for her? Impossible. How she wanted to disappear.

      Anxiety and anger warred within her. Hamilton had tried to sink her career and smear her good family name. If it hadn’t been for her uncle, Morgan Trayhern, Hamilton would have gotten away with it. The power that Morgan held in the military at every level had evened out the playing field. Her own father, Noah, had been in the Coast Guard for thirty years. He had flown into Fort Rucker to meet with the higher ups who had created the Apache flight program, along with her uncle Morgan. They met behind closed doors with the general. Hamilton had thought his power as an instructor pilot would bring her down and eject her from the program. He’d made a colossal mistake. No one tried to smear the Trayhern name like he had tried to do. In the end, Rachel had watched the general throw Hamilton out of the Apache program and send him to transport helicopters for the rest of his career. Further, he would never be promoted from captain. For the next twenty years he’d have no chance to climb in rank or to a better pay grade. Rachel had been told by her uncle Morgan about the behind-the-scenes change that had been made. She remembered clearly the shock written across Hamilton’s face. He’d expected the general to kick her out of the program. Instead, he’d been the one jettisoned.

      Lips tightening, Rachel sat back so that Hamilton couldn’t see her. The bastard! She hated that he had rescued her. Five years had gone by and she’d never heard or seen him again. Until now. What kind of twisted irony was going on here? The man who hated her, who wanted her out of his training squadron had shown up again like the bad penny he was.

      Rachel watched as he moved like a sinuous jungle cat through the busy dispensary. He found a nurse and talked to her. She gasped softly as the nurse turned and pointed directly at her cubicle. Damn! Hamilton turned and headed in her direction. Of all things, she didn’t need this confrontation on top of all else!

      Ty Hamilton approached the green-curtained cubicle where the nurse had sent him. He swallowed hard. The past was right in front of him as he walked around the desk, the other gurneys and the doctors dealing with the injured. Fear rose up in him as he drew closer to the cubicle. He couldn’t see anyone, but the nurse had said Captain Trayhern was in there. He took a deep breath. With his right hand, he pulled back the curtain.

      “Why the hell are you here?” Rachel snarled at him.

      Taken aback, Hamilton stopped about three feet away from the gurney. The hardened look on Rachel’s face made him go on the defensive. She was a beautiful woman even five years later. She’d matured and, if possible, in Ty’s mind, was even lovelier than before. “I came to see if you were all right,” he said in an even tone. That five years slammed back into him. She was angry. Rachel had always been a warrior. He’d seen it back in flight school. Now, sitting there, she looked like an eagle who was ready to defend over her kill. Only her gaze was directed at him.

      “Get out of my life, Hamilton. I want nothing to do with you,” she rasped.

      Could he blame her for her rage? No. After all, he’d tried to deep-six her career. “Sorry, that’s not going to happen.”

      “I don’t care. Of all the people I never wanted to run into again, you’re it.”

      He accepted her anger. In the five years since his removal by the general, who ran the Apache program, Ty had bitterly come to grips with his past. “Life is twisted, at best. You know that.” He stood with his arms at his sides, his hands curving slightly. Captain Trayhern looked like she was going to leap off that gurney and attack him. His head spun with the violence of her reaction toward him. After all, he’d just saved her life. Was he expecting a thank-you? Apparently that wasn’t going to happen. So why had he come looking for her? Ty didn’t have an answer and that bothered him.

      “No joke,” Rachel snapped. She jabbed her finger in his direction. “Go back into whatever hole you crawled out of, Hamilton. I don’t ever want to see you again. Do you understand me?”

      His dark brows rose a little. Rachel’s face became flushed, her gold-brown eyes narrowed on him like a hunter. He felt the full thrust of her hatred. After the secret decision by the general running the program to oust him due to his prejudice against women pilots, Ty had never seen her again. Not until now. “Five years is a long time to carry a grudge, isn’t it?” he snarled back. “I just saved your friggin’ life, in case you didn’t realize it. If I hadn’t seen you go down and the smoke covering you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

      Rachel squared her shoulders. “Well, let’s just call it even then, shall we?”

      Confused, he uttered, “What do you mean?”

      “You tried to kill my career. I’ll never forget what you tried to do to me. You lied to your superiors. You used every manipulation, every twist you could think of to get rid of me. I still don’t know to this day why you targeted me, but that’s water under the bridge. And if you saved my life, then I consider the slate between us clean. You tried to end my life back then. You saved it today.”

      Her raw, unfettered emotion made him step back. Apache pilots were, if nothing else, excellent killers. And the look on her face, the hoarse fury in her low voice was about killing—him. “So we’re even?” he said.

      “That’s right, Hamilton. Now get out of my sight.”

      Stung, he saw Rachel point toward the opening between the curtains. Obviously, she was still reliving those events from the past. Wasn’t it just like a woman to drag it into the present? In his experience, men let things like that go. They got on with life. He had. Until now. “Well, you aren’t going to get your way,” he warned her in a dark tone.

      “What the hell are you talking about?” Anxiety sizzled through her. If Rachel had met him under any other circumstances, she’d have thought Hamilton damned handsome. Real eye candy. He appeared to be a cocky, arrogant flight jock when she’d first met him. His eyes were large and well spaced, his mouth full and certainly one that any woman would appreciate. His cheekbones were high and his black hair only accentuated his hard-jawed features.

      Hamilton managed a twisted grimace with one corner of his mouth. Finally, the energy shifted to his side. “Our squadron was just assigned to Camp Bravo. We’ll be stationed here for the next year.” He saw the shock land across her pale features. A part of him, a tiny part, felt sorry for Rachel Trayhern. Her hair was in disarray, dirty and with bits of grass still buried in the strands. Her uniform was dusty, as well. When he’d seen her hit the asphalt and try to crawl away during the attack, he had no idea who she was. And when he’d run between the bullets and the lobbing grenades to reach her, Ty had only wanted to save a life.

      Rachel felt his statement reverberate through her. She saw a bit of a savage gleam in his narrowing eyes. Realizing he was enjoying sharing that news with her made Rachel hate him even more. “You trash haulers aren’t in our squadron area. That suits me fine.” She’d deliberately called him a name she knew no transport helicopter pilot ever wanted to hear. The Apache pilots were the warriors of the Army helicopter fleet. Transport helos like the Chinook and their pilots were privately called “trash haulers” behind their backs. To hurl the words at him, however, was akin to throwing down the gauntlet between them once more. Rachel had no fear of this man. Her hatred of him trumped any thanks she might give him for saving her life today.

      Hamilton stood there thinking through his options over her insult. The noise around them was a dull, constant roar. Doctors were yelling orders, orderlies were scrambling and nurses were hurrying at optimum speed as more injured were being brought in through the doors. Rachel was pale. She sat there coughing, her long, beautiful fingers pressed