She was squinting and doing her best to look through the hole, toward the bright sunshine outside, but it was obvious it was causing her pain.
“Hang on,” he told her, then raised his head and yelled, “Phantom?”
“Right here,” his friend said.
“I need your sunglasses.”
Without a word of question, a hand thrust a pair of sunglasses down the hole. Rex grabbed them and turned to Avery. “Here, these will help until your eyes can adjust.” Then he slipped them onto her face, brushing her hair behind her ears in the process.
He heard her sigh in relief. “Thank you, you have no idea how…” Her voice trailed off when she finally looked at his face.
“What?”
“Cole?” she whispered.
Rex did chuckle this time; he couldn’t help it. “Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone call me that. How’d you know my name?”
She shrugged. “I may or may not have asked around,” she admitted freely.
“You can call me Rex,” he said, flattered beyond belief that she’d wanted to find out more about him. He knew she wouldn’t have learned anything but the basics. Because of his top-secret clearance and the secrecy surrounding the SEALs, anything said about him would’ve been general knowledge.
“Thanks, but I think I like Cole better. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said quietly. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark lenses of the sunglasses, but he could feel her gaze boring into him nonetheless.
“Wanna go out sometime?” she blurted.
Rex knew his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
“I mean…” She began to falter at his obvious astonishment. “I just…I made a promise to myself that if I got out of this hole in the mountain, I’d go after what I wanted.”
“And what you wanted was me?” Rex couldn’t help but ask.
He saw her cheeks pinken, and it was a welcome sight. She was way too pale for his peace of mind. She shrugged. “Yeah.”
“You should know, I was kicking my own ass for chickening out and not asking you out for coffee before you were deployed,” Rex told her honestly.
They smiled at each other for a long, quiet moment before Avery swayed.
And just like that, Rex recalled where they were and what the hell they were doing.
“Okay, this should be an easy fit for you, you’re a lot less broad than I am,” Rex told her. “I’m going to give you a boost. Put your arms out of the hole when I lift you and my teammates on the other side will grab hold and do all the work from there. I’ll help from this side, making sure you don’t scrape the hell out of yourself as you’re pulled through. Sound good?”
Avery nodded. She loosened her grip from his hand and edged closer to the hole. She lifted a foot and he took a firm hold, slowly lifting her. Her arms disappeared out of the hole he’d lowered himself through, and within seconds, she’d been pulled out of the cave by his teammates.
After grabbing the flashlight, Rex was right on her heels, his extraction from the cave going a lot faster than when he’d gone in, since his teammates were there to help pull him out.
The second he was free of the rubble, he stepped toward Avery, who was standing beside Phantom. The other man had his arm around her waist and looked like he was literally holding her up.
He ran an assessing gaze from the top of her head down to her toes. She was far skinnier than she’d been before she deployed. The bruises and marks on her skin looked more stark in the sunlight than in the darkness of the cave. She’d definitely been beaten. She was holding on to her side with one arm even as she held onto Phantom’s camo top at his waist with the other.
Things had been quiet the entire time they’d been working to free her, but of course, now that they were out, Bubba’s voice came over the radio. “Looks like we’re going to have company soon,” he said.
“Fuck, how many?” Rocco asked.
“Two trucks with an unknown number of tangos,” Bubba responded. “They aren’t speeding up the hill, but they aren’t taking a Sunday stroll either. I’m guessing they were tipped off that we were here for the lieutenant and are going up to make sure she’s still trapped.”
“She’s hurt,” Gumby said. “We’re going to need to be extracted.”
Before their teammate could respond, Avery said firmly, “I can walk.”
“Lieutenant Nelson—” Gumby started, but she cut him off.
“I. Can. Walk,” she enunciated. “The last thing we need is a chopper coming in here to pick us up. There were missiles and RPGs in that convoy. They won’t hesitate to use them to shoot us down. We’re better off disappearing into the terrain. If they can’t see us, they can’t kill us.”
She had a good point, but Rex knew he was thinking the same thing the others were. “You’re right, but the question is more about your physical condition. You’ve been held captive for two weeks. Your body isn’t in good shape, you haven’t eaten much, if anything. If you can’t make it, you’ll be more of a liability than if we risked a helicopter extraction.”
Slowly, Avery reached up for the sunglasses on her face. She pulled them off and tilted her chin to look him in the eye. She was squinting, and it was obvious the sunlight was still painful to her sensitive eyes, but she didn’t back down. “I’ll be damned if those assholes are going to succeed in killing me after everything I’ve been through. I admit that I’m weak and it’ll be a challenge, especially without shoes, but with the way I’m feeling right now, I can run down this fucking mountain barefoot if that’s what it takes to get away from them.”
Impressed anew at her fortitude, Rex nodded once, then turned to Gumby. “Figure out a route for us to take that doesn’t include the roads. She’s right, we don’t need to be shot down by our own weapons. I’m not adverse to risking a chopper extraction, but not right now, and not here.”
“Rex,” Rocco said in a tone that clearly stated he didn’t think the right decision was being made, but Rex ignored him.
He nodded at Phantom, then pushed him aside and put his own arm around Avery’s waist. His team already knew what Avery meant to him. They might not be a couple, but the others were well aware he’d been interested in the woman before she’d been deployed. The fact that she’d been in danger, and had obviously had the shit beaten out of her, had only strengthened his protective instincts.
He knew his teammates already liked her. They’d seen her in action during BUD/S week, how she’d professionally dealt with the trainees’ injuries. But seeing her strength and determination in the face of her obvious pain now would make them respect and admire her all the more.
Rex led her over to a boulder and helped her sit. “Walking around on these rocks and the hot sand hurts like a bitch,” he said as he unzipped his pack and reached inside. “How about you wear a pair of socks and boots instead?”
Avery had put the sunglasses back on, but she gaped at him in surprise.
“We had every intention of finding you, Lieutenant,” Rex told her. “We didn’t know what kind of shape you’d be in though, so we’ve got all the basics covered. Shoes, shirt, pants, you name it, we’ve got it.” He dug around some more and pulled out a pair of small bolt cutters. Then he picked up her foot that had the cuff around it and got to work freeing her from the rusty metal.