a whistle sounded from below. crusty. jarring jack as well as monica beside him.

"hey, korba," crusty shouted up the stairwell with plenty of notice for anyone needing a chance to straighten clothes. "the licorice is all gone and the sandstorm is easing up. so roll your lazy ass out of the bunk and let's get tiara to her sister."

a flashlight gained brightness as crusty climbed the stairs. the beam increasingly illuminated monica's face as she expected., .what? jack stared back. he didn't have a clue what to offer her other than finishing this mission. hell. it seemed they both agreed that's all he could do.

chapter 20

it was all yasmine could do not to duck and run.

perched on the top step of the building that had first been her jail and then her haven with drew, she watched and waited with the others for the sister reunion. finally, monica and sydney would see each other. certainly she did not begrudge them one moment of the impending closeness or joy, what they had all been working toward.

she just hated feeling on the periphery of it all. she wanted to be invited into the circle of hugs and to rejoice with them, but knew she would not be welcome. no one had even bothered to tell her sydney was being held hostage, instead leaving her to discover it in such a painful way.

early morning sun poured over the crowd of rangers parting as monica plowed past, her pilot lover firmly at her back for support. the possessive stance stabbed at yasmine, reminding her too much of what she could have had with drew.

she focused on the throng of rangers instead, studied their grit-covered faces and uniforms, sand from the now-passed storm caked in their sweat. for some, it caked in blood. jack korba limped ever so slightly as he followed monica. what had all of these people been through during the night? her eyes skittered along the group again, searching for drew just to reassure herself he wasn't hurt and hiding it.

the mass parted on the opposing side. sydney stepped through. alive. yasmine snuck a hand behind her back to steady herself against the cement wall while she searched her sister for signs of mistreatment.

sydney walked slowly, but then she always did, their dreamer sister never rushing for fear she might miss something or someone. and yet this woman who already gave many of her days to others had been robbed of months of her life. her normally short caramel hair now grazed her shoulders after so long without a cut, attesting to those lost months.

monica and sydney fell into a hug. there was no other way to describe it as both stumbled the last steps. reaching. laughing. crying. unrestrained emotions and so much love mixed with grief.

the solid block of cement behind yasmine wasn't enough to steady her. she couldn't imagine what would be.

rage and shame scoured her. if only she had loosened her hold on her pride enough to communicate with her family, she might have known her sister was in rubistan, then held hostage. perhaps she could have sought information. helped. brought an easier end to the situation so all these battle-weary faces might have seen less blood today.

so young private santuci might have lived.

self-examination stunk. yasmine slipped her other hand behind her back for a double dose of steadying against the bullet-pocked wall.

monica and sydney eased apart from their hug. tears streaked tracks down their dusty faces and slid into wide smiles.

"are you okay, kiddo? god, i've missed you." monica hugged sydney again, pulled back. "look at your hair. it hasn't been this long since you were in the second grade. are you okay?" she asked again in an un-monica-like jumble of words.

sydney's hand tucked into the clasp of the grubby oversize soldier beside her. "i am now. i just want to go home. sleep. eat a whole pizza. sleep some more."

"soon. very soon. just a few more hours. and, hon, that pizza's on me." monica's smile held firm, but her hands shook as she hooked her sister's hair behind her ear, eyes searching, sister and doctor in tandem seeking reassurance. "i need to check the three of you over while the rest of the medical team treats and loads up the wounded. and these folks need to check airfield security. then we're out of this place."

monica looped an arm around sydney's shoulders and began retracing her path through the crowd. closer to where yasmine stood.

would monica gather her up with relief, as well? before she could discover the answer, sydney gasped. locked eyes with yasmine. "oh, my god! you're here, too?" she bolted up the stairs and hugged yasmine with typical sydney openness. "this is too wonderful. i don't even care how it all happened. it's just so awesome to see you both."

monica paused at the foot of the cement steps. climbed up, peering at yasmine with a more caged expression. "are you all right?"

yasmine stiffened for recriminations.

monica reached. yasmine waited for a rebuff after the frosty way they'd parted last. instead, monica straightened the trailing end of yasmine's scarf.

affection? or restraint?

"we need to head over to the medivac." monica's hand fell away. "see you there later? i'll need to check you over, as well."

the old yasmine would have only heard the subtie nudge that monica wanted a few more moments alone with sydney. now, yasmine stuffed aside her pride and reminded herself the invitation to join them would not have been issued at all in the past.

yasmine nodded. "i will be right with you."

she stared out over drew's world while her sisters ambled down the steps. monica's words from earlier washed back over her, caking the grit into her skin with more guilt as thick as sweat. she'd taken their protection and given nothing in return.

so what that she had not known sydney in particular was being held hostage? she had known ammar snatched people, and thought only of her own escape. of a freedom she had not earned any more than she had earned her sisters' affection.

drew, monica, they were all correct. freedom did come with a price-the responsibility to safeguard it for others.

monica and sydney walked away, both shadowed by the men in their lives. yasmine's gaze landed back on drew. his head dipped as he listened to one of his soldiers beside him while talking on his ever-present radio. what was her freedom worth if she had no one to share it with?

drew had told her he did not really know her. she had been so quick to question how that could be possible when she knew him so well.

the answer unfolded clearly. because her defensiveness and pride had kept her from showing her true self. trust had to be earned. and love had to be nurtured.

she would not give up. now was not the time to push him, but thanks to drew she had forever in a new country to make the effort. once she had her american nursing license, she would find a job close to his ft. benning army post. there was no reason at all why she could not work in georgia, and she would still be close enough to see her sisters in south carolina and virginia.

and her ride out of rubistan waited a short stretch away.

yasmine started down the first step. stumbled. a hand steadied her from behind with a firm grip to the arm pulling her upright. albeit a bit brusquely until she landed back in the doorway. she glanced over her shoulder to thank her rough savior.

her blood iced in her veins. ammar al-khayr stared back at her.

before she could do more than gasp, he yanked her inside, clapped a hand over her mouth. his other hand lifted to thrust a machine gun in her line of sight. "not one word or i will open fire on the crowd outside and your colonel will be the first to fall."

drew? her heart stuttered like a machine gun already in motion as ammar tugged her into darkness, deeper into the cement building that had been her prison. how could he know about her connection to drew? and how in the world was he here...

blinking, she noticed the pit waiting open in the comer of the floor. a trap door gaped.

tunnels. of course ammar had secret rooms and tunnels out. her memory even niggled with drew's words into the radio to his men about how they had to take cover from the storm in places that had already been checked. yet, she had led him right here, to the area that hadn't been cleared. where ammar had hidden just below them until the storm had passed.

he hauled her down into the pit. shadowy. full of cobwebs and ammar's gross stench of garlic and body sweat. she gagged under his bruising grip over her mouth.

"do not worry. we will not be in here long." his fanatical eyes bit into her through the hazy dark as sharply as his hands grinding into her skin. "only long enough for me to plan. since the americans collapsed my escape route, i will need to devise an alternate means of getting away. and what better hostage than the colonel's woman."

her sister was pregnant.

monica called upon every molecule of doctor calm. the toughest thing she'd ever done. but she would hang tough because, damn it, she'd come here to support her sister, not to curl up and cry like a baby.

baby.

oh, god. monica rolled her latex gloves off while her sister adjusted her clothes. military-green privacy curtains offered a modicum of isolation from the rest of the noise and bustle in the medivac aircraft, exams in progress, wounded being treated.

she reminded herself to be grateful that her sister was here. healthy. alive. the rest, they would deal with. hyatt girls stuck together no matter what the world threw their way.

if only she didn't feel like such a failure. this time, there would be no barbie band-aid that could make her sister's hurts go away.

monica reorganized her supply tray, gauze rolls, tape, alcohol swabs. intellectually, she understood this wasn't her fault. but that didn't ease the brain-searing sense that she was responsible for watching out for sydney, a duty that had been ingrained in her since childhood.

ingrained.

hadn't jack said something close to the same thing about the way his father expected him to kick ass for women? of course jack knew his wife's death wasn't his fault, but that wouldn't stop the guilt or pain. how odd to find a common ground in this.

at least something made sense in this whole crazy day. she couldn't stop the snarl of emotions tangling tighter inside her, as never-ending and convoluted as the cables along the c-17's ceiling. but for her sister's sake, she would contain herself a little longer.

her sister didn't need her falling apart right now. sydney had enough to worry about with blake crawling around in tunnels working sse to reestablish airfield security so there wouldn't be a repeat of what happened to jack. the tangle knotted tighter in her stomach until the threads began to fray.

rustling sounds of sydney dressing slowed. monica turned, hitched up onto the edge of the litter to sit beside her sister. "whatever you need, i'm here."

"i know. and thank you. i'm trying not to make too many plans yet. i want to take the next few months off from work, spend time with blake, get my head together. heal." her mouth lifted into a sad, one-sided watery smile. "have a baby."

the smile creasing sydney's sunburned face clenched the snarl around monica's heart. her sister's pale complexion never could tolerate more than fifteen minutes at the beach without sunblock. how damned silly to obsess over the fact that no one gave sydney sunscreen when so much worse had been inflicted upon her and the other two hostages.

monica slung an arm around her sister's shoulders. sydney slid one right back around monica's waist and they simply sat, heads tipped and touching, connected by blood and bonds years in the making.

the raveling emotions inside monica multiplied until they strained against her ziploc-seal control. damned if it didn't feel like sydney seemed to be propping more than being propped.

sydney slipped a fresh stick of gum into her mouth. "how wild is it having yasmine here?"

monica snorted, let the dry humor ease the tangle a bit. god, what she wouldn't give for one of jack's jokes right now. "she's not quite so obnoxious, anymore."

"she never really was except around you." sydney's smile dimpled both sides of her face below wise eyes. "you two didn't bring out the best in each other."

instinctive defensiveness eased as more perceptions shifted. "i guess not."

sydney studied the tops of her dusty sandals, her toes flexing and relaxing while the hum of activity beyond them droned into an indistinguishable blur of noise. "part of the reason i came here was to find some peace about her."

"yasmine?"

"our mother."

apparently she wasn't the only one keeping emotions, fears and unanswered questions locked tight. "you always seemed okay with things growing up."

"no one is okay with their mother walking out on her kids for some rich dude." sydney snapped her gum in a minibubble.

"i guess not." the million-dollar question knocked at her brain. "do you think she really loved him?"

"god, i hope so. i would hate to think she left us just for the money. but i guess we'll never know for sure. maybe there aren't any answers here for us." her hand curled protectively over her belly.

how damned sad to think there would be no answers since they'd both come so far and hurt so much to find them. would they ever be able to move forward?

were they both fated to a life on hold?

the noise faded around her. her mind focused inward. her world levered sideways until it righted when she hadn't even realized how off-kilter it had been.

she didn't have to stop living life while waiting for her answers. just as jack had said. santuci, too. they didn't need the full picture or a total plan to forge ahead as long as they knew they were on the right path. and she'd almost thrown away their relationship because she hadn't fully understood the importance of living in the moment. "i'm learning we don't have to know all the answers about our childhood right now. we found some new pieces of the puzzle, and we're putting it all together. we're getting there. making progress. that's good."

"what's this laid-back attitude?" sydney cocked a brow. "who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

monica laughed because sydney needed it. but the emotional tangles were still multiplying with illogical but real guilt over her sister's pain. over the pain she'd caused jack during the past months.

sydney gave monica's waist a gentle squeeze-hug while the privacy curtain rippled with the drift of a muggy breeze blowing into the open aircraft. "thank you for being here."

"nothing could have stopped me." and wasn't that the truth? only a week ago she'd been waiting in jack's voq room in vegas still reeling from what they'd done nearly four months ago in a wedding chapel on the strip. they'd known so damned little about each other, sharing only a killer attraction and a love of atlanta braves' baseball.