her hair?

her hand drifted up to her bare head. she'd been so concerned about drew she'd abandoned twenty-three years of training by leaving her scarf behind.

all because of a man she'd known less than a week.

the wind whispered her mother's voice over her. ah, sugar, five seconds after i set eyes on your daddy stepping out of that mercedes, i knew. he was the one.

as much as she loved her mother, she wasn't sure she wanted the kind of emotion that made a woman do reckless things. but what if she never had the chance? what if the ambulance speeding in the distance held drew?

yasmine's feet carried her a step farther outside, as far as she dared. she did not want her escort hauling her back inside where no one would care to give her answers to the questions already tumbling over themselves in her head.

she watched her sister sprint toward the open end of one of the planes. light poured from the gaping back ramp, people massing into a clump of desert-tan uniforms. she would have thought she could recognize drew anywhere, but there were too many, too far away.

a military ambulance streaked across the cement. stopped. unloaded, the mass of uniforms blocking her from viewing the patient.

who?

night wind whipped all around her as it had her first night cooking the goat stew. the chilly gusts were nothing compared to the icy fear stinging through her veins. only a handful of days before she had stared into intensely beautiful blue eyes and everything changed.

she inched deeper into the biting wind's path. time was precious. she should have remembered after her mother's and father's deaths too early in life from a fluke flu epidemic.

just as the unrelenting gusts tore away facades with brutal force, she felt her own self-delusions strip away. she wanted more than just a memory to take with her when she left. she craved the freedom to be with drew.

jack threw away his half-full paper cup of coffee and charged down the side stairs of the mobile command post now that the army ambulance had arrived. not that he would be able to do a damned thing for the injured private.

his boots pounded pavement toward the open ramp of the medivac plane--fully equipped for surgery. shouldering through the crowd at the base of the plane, he worked his way into sight of the mayhem inside. he didn't know who the page had found, monica or one of the other deployed doctors. either way, he hoped to find the physician doing nothing more than setting some bones or stitching up an arm.

instead he found monica covered in blood.

he didn't do blood well, odd thing for a military guy, but there it was. since tina's death, all he remembered about that night was blood from the emergency c-section as they worked to save the baby while trying to save her. all the while dragging him out of the room.

to this day he couldn't even get a vaccine without breaking into a cold sweat.

for the most part his job didn't involve a lot of blood, and that was fine by him. monica's job was all about blood. but even as his head went a little light, he couldn't look away from her involved in something so much more intense than a routine flight physical.

iv bags dangled from poles, some with clear fluid, another two dripping blood into the tube. even with the olive-green surgical drapes, jack could still see enough-the young man's boots, his head with an oxygen mask over his nose. a medic stood to the side, suctioning out the soldier's mouth. and in the middle of the orders and bustles and suctioning noise he heard wheezing.

gurgling.

death sounds of a lung deflating.

the magnitude of what was happening hit him. a kid was in there dying. someone he had brought here. jack braced a hand on the side of the c-17. constricted breaths pinched inside his chest.

monica flipped up the field medical card and scanned the contents, face unemotional. her fingers tightened momentarily around the card.

she spoke succinctly, her firm unshakable voice somehow piercing the echoing clatter of feet and jangling equipment. "abcs, people. airway. breathing. circulation."

her gloved finger swiped his mouth, pulling free a j-shaped device that had secured his tongue flat. with quick efficiency, she slid a tube down his throat, setting up oxygen and suction into one system while the flight nurse took vitals and called out updates.

monica peeled back the bandage.

"damn." the word hissed from between her teeth, her only hint of emotion before she began to flush out the wound.

monitors squawked a half second before the flight nurse called, "he's crashing."

"paddles."

the cavernous aircraft filled with activity. equipment rolled from offstage closer to the litter holding their patient. medical staffers moved around each other at breakneck speed, all focused on the patient yet never impeding one another's momentum. an absurd ballet of life and death. organized pandemonium.

"switch to 300. clear."

the body jolted.

silence.

twice more she repeated the routine until defeat slowly filtered onto every face. except monica's.

"two minutes down, doctor," the flight nurse called.

"get me the rib spreaders," monica called.

a brief hesitation.

"spreaders." no shouting, just an irrefutable order that elicited instant results, her complete control essential when seconds counted. her assertiveness, that bossiness he teased her about, took on a new complexion, a forgivable trait in light of what her job demanded.

she leaned over the private with the oversize tongs.

he would never forget the sound. like cracking open a chicken carcass.

blood splurted.

he heard gagging behind him, followed by retching fading with running feet heading to the side of the plane. he didn't turn, immobilized even as his own supper knocked around inside his gut.

never leave your wingman.

she reached her hand inside the prone man's chest. looked up. closed her eyes. he watched the gentle ripple of muscles flexing under her sleeve while she held the man's heart in her hand and squeezed, again, again.

silence.

stubbornness and confidence stamped on her features. no wonder this woman gave off the air of never needing anyone.

"four minutes," the flight nurse said.

her jaw tightening, monica kept squeezing.

"dr. hyatt, it's been six minutes."

her eyes closed tighter for-hell, he didn't even know how long-before her chest deflated with a sigh, eyes opening.

her bloody hand slid out of the chest cavity.

the roaring pandemonium stopped. short. quiet. nothing but blood, hanging tubes and still people remained.

shit. jack's fist clenched against the metal of the plane. his eyes closed.

"time of death..." monica checked a watch, continued the pronouncement of calm facts riddled with bitter undertones.

this woman did not accept failure well. being responsible for her family, her patients-feeling the weight of someone's life in her hands-had to be one helluva load to carry.

jack looked down, saw a pair of boots beside his, not even sure when someone had joined him. he glanced up, found the colonel, not looking much steadier than he felt.

monica tore off her gloves. snap. fling. restrained anger and frustration filled the belly of the plane.

he started to go toward her, but realized she wouldn't be ready for comfort. not yet.

at least he'd learned something from the vegas mess.

backing away, he left monica to her patient, the colonel to his troop. jack cleared the ramp, pivoting back toward the mobile command post, the death gurgle still echoing in his head.

a shadow snagged his attention.

across the cement, near the main terminal door, a lone female figure stood with a military cop a few feet to the side. yasmine. what the hell was she doing here? regardless, the last thing monica needed was round two of a hissing match with her sister tonight.

here was something he could do to help her. jack strode across the open tarmac toward yasmine, his steps heavier than just ten minutes ago but no less determined. slowing but not stopping, he gripped her arm to guide her through the door. "you need to be inside."

she dug in her heels with far more strength than her size or weight would dictate. "who?''

"what?"

"who was hurt? how bad is it? monica wouldn't tell me anything."

what did it matter to her? she knew her sister was fine and she'd only just met the rest of them. could she care that much about the colonel after only a few days?

of course, he'd been knocked on his ass five seconds after seeing monica for the first time.

jack gentled his hold on her arm. "one of the troops-a private-was injured during a training exercise."

he left out mention of the death until the rest of the deployed soldiers could be told. still couldn't quite wrap his brain around it himself yet.

yasmine blanched, flinched. then undeniable relief flooded her face. "but colonel cullen is all right?"

"yes, he's fine. i saw him myself less than a minute ago." how odd that she hadn't waited to ask monica. he knew yasmine was scared spitless of him, but she'd opted to question him rather than her own sister.

her sister.

yasmine was his sister-in-law.

what a strange damned thought right now. but after a life spent in a tight-knit family, the connection niggled at him. this woman wasn't just a pain in the ass, she was also at least temporarily his family, which made her his pain in the ass, too. his responsibility, even if things went to shit while she was here, the woman's connection to monica was permanent.

"thank you, major korba, but maybe if i stay a while longer they will have more information."

"come on, yasmine, you really do need to be inside before one of the security police makes a scene none of us needs tonight." he reached for her arm again.

she almost managed to suppress her fearful wince. just as proud as someone else he knew. but she wasn't leaving without more of an answer.

"physically there's not a mark on him. colonel cullen is as all right as any commander who just had one of his troops injured can be. but yeah, physically, he's fine."

she backed away from him, toward the door. "thank you."

he thought about saying more, but what? like her sister in more ways than one, it seemed yasmine would only tolerate help and comfort in small, measured doses.

jack glanced back at the plane. monica needed his distance for now. fine. but she had to come down off her hill sometime and she would need him then whether she wanted to admit it or not.

even under all her calm, he hadn't seen her this rattled since the news about sydney. god, if that was the case, then he probably shouldn't set foot anywhere near her.

thing was, he'd learned long ago with tina that he didn't always make the rational choice.

gut-weary, drew reached for the doorknob to his quarters. he needed sleep. he needed peace.

above all, he had to get himself together if he expected his men to recover morale. officially announcing pfc santuci's death had been beyond hell. no matter how many times he performed that task, it always sliced away a piece of him he would never get back.

he swung his door open. and stopped short.

yasmine sat at his desk, elegant, ramrod straight.

her uncovered hair gleamed in the lamplight, her daisy scarf in her lap.

"how the hell did you get in here?" he slammed the door shut behind him before anyone saw her in his quarters.

"people were preoccupied with the tragedy outside, which made it easy enough to slip my guard." she shrugged. "i am very quiet."

"all right. fine. i get the picture." he pinched the bridge of his nose, not that it did a damned bit of good easing the remorse biting the edges of his brain, hampering his thinking, impeding his already-compromised ability to be rational where yasmine was concerned. "what the hell are you doing here?"

"waiting for you. i was worried. i needed to see that you were not hurt on the training exercise."

"are there no secrets in this place?"

she pleated the daisy scarf between her fingers, her only sign of nerves. "i am sure there are many."

unhooking his m-16 from his shoulder, he wondered why the hell he didn't just throw her out.

"who was injured?"

"one of my men." he shrugged out of his flak vest.

"i know that much."

he glanced over his shoulder, questioning. "major korba told me. will your soldier be all right?"

"no."

"oh." her fingers stilled their quilting. "is he-"

"yes." he turned his back to her and resumed the reliable routine of cleaning and stowing his weapons. "now get the hell out of my room so i can write the report."

"do you have to write it tonight?"

"before tomorrow. yes. i do. that's my job." he emptied his pockets, his hand closing around a roll of lifesavers.

a whispery rustle sounded behind him, his only warning that she approached until she eased close enough for him to smell her. a man could lose himself in that smoky sensuality.

and damn but did he ever need to lose himself tonight.

anger, frustration and a pile of other emotions he didn't want to label popped through him like gunfire until he snapped at her, "are you dense or just that pushy to stay where you aren't wanted?"

she stared back unflinching, her hands loosely clutching the scarf. "if i only went where i was wanted, i would not have anywhere to be lately, now would i?"

he would not allow himself to feel sorry for her. "well, lady, at least you're alive."

her clasped hands inched forward until she hooked one soft finger over his clenched fist. "i thought perhaps you might be upset by what happened. you do not like for others to know you are sensitive, an understandable thing for a man in your position."

"upset?" he jerked back. "yeah, i'm upset."

he stared down at the roll of candy in his hands. his fist clenched tighter until the fire of emotions inside him built into a collective blast. he hauled back. flung the candy with a curse.

the roll exploded against the wall, raining lemon- and cherry-flavored fury on the floor.

yasmine flinched, but didn't pull away or even speak.

"if you had any sense, woman, you'd get the hell away from me right now."

still she didn't move or answer.

he wanted to punch his fist through the wall, which would break his hand and put him out of action. damn it, he needed an outlet for the rage bellowing inside him.

more than that, he needed yasmine to leave his room before he lost what little control he had left. "what do you want from me? i'm not in the mood for games. damn it, i'm not even sure you know what you want."