Oath Of Honor

Chapter Fourteen

Evyn woke with Ricochet draped on her left ear. “Get off.”

Ricochet stretched, shifted, and settled around her forehead like a fur hat. His belly reminded her of feathers dancing on her skin. Feathers. Fingertips. Wes’s thumb tracing over her cheek. A shot of adrenaline spiking her pulse, her clit instantly hard. Her eyes jolted open. “Hell.”

She stared at the ceiling. Flat gray light. The weatherman had said more snow was coming. More freezing cold. She wasn’t cold now. She kicked the covers off. Ricochet complained and stalked haughtily to the bottom of the bed. Evyn touched her cheek and her clit did that twitching thing it had done yesterday when Wes had touched her. Wes made her so freaking hot—didn’t mean a thing, though. Just good old reflexes. Never mind the way Wes had looked at her when she’d been moving her shoulder around—so serious, so right there. Wes looked at her—looked into her, and okay, that freaked her out too. She’d grown up in a houseful of men she wanted to be just like—tough, competitive men who taught her to win. And any fear or uncertainty—and, God forbid, tears—that cropped up along the way, she hid. And eventually she didn’t need to hide those things because she didn’t feel them any longer.

Except when Wes touched her, she felt the doors opening and light leaking into the closed rooms where she kept her secrets. Not good. Didn’t matter, though. She had a handle on it. She slid her hand down her belly. Had a hand on it too. She was hard all right, and wet, and damn if she couldn’t get Wes’s scent out of her head. So she closed her eyes and let the green of Wes’s gaze and the piercing winter-bright scent of her fill her mind as she came.

*

“Morning,” Wes said when she found Evyn in the ready room at 0730. A box, empty save for a lone white powdered doughnut, sat in the middle of the round table. Evyn was dressed for fieldwork again—khakis and a blue polo shirt with the USSS logo on the chest.

“Hi,” Evyn said, rising abruptly and dumping the remains of her coffee in the sink. “Ready?”

“Another sim? Sure.”

“Nope. Today we go live.” Evyn raised her left wrist and said, “Team One, ready to move out.”

Wes followed her out into the hall, waiting for Evyn to fill her in on what was happening. They’d reached the south exit before she finally asked, “Isn’t it customary to brief me?”

“There is no customary.” Evyn reached the door first and held it open. “The only thing you can count on in this detail is that plans always change. Today’s already have.”

“Am I the only medic?”

“You’ll have the usual backup in the follow car.”

Wes caught the door and followed Evyn outside. A limo idled with the three black SUVs on the circular drive. Gary waited by the open rear door of the first vehicle, sunglasses on, earbud just visible behind his left ear. He nodded briefly to Evyn, and Wes thought she saw his eyebrow quirk before his stony expression returned. Several other men and a woman stood waiting by the other vehicles, and the profiles of additional agents were visible inside each one. She hadn’t expected so many people to be involved in a training scenario but said nothing. Evyn obviously wasn’t planning to answer any of her questions.

“We’ll be in the first follow car,” Evyn said. “Eagle is on his way.”

Wes hesitated. “I thought this was a training scenario.”

Evyn met her gaze, no trace of humor in her eyes. “Did I give you that impression? This is as real as it gets.”

Wes adjusted her expectations and reassessed the situation. “Then shouldn’t I ride with the president?”

Evyn opened the rear door of the SUV directly behind the limo and gestured for Wes to climb in. “Under most circumstances, no. You’re part of the secure package now—we need you out of the kill zone. You can’t treat Eagle if you’re dead.”

“Makes sense,” Wes muttered. She accepted the reasoning behind safeguarding the first responder, but in light of the sim the day before, she didn’t like it. If the vehicles were separated or the president’s vehicle took a direct hit, she wanted to be closer than she would be in a follow car.

Evyn must have read her displeasure, because she said, “If a threat arises, we’ll do our jobs and you’ll stay out of the way until needed.”

“I know the protocol, Agent Daniels.”

“Then we’re all happy.” Evyn pulled out her handheld and started flicking through screens. Conversation over.

Wes settled onto the black leather bench seat and watched out the window as a group emerged from the White House. She caught a fleeting glimpse of President Powell, flanked by four agents, striding briskly toward the limo. Seconds later, they pulled away and exited the South Grounds onto E Street. The streets had been plowed and snowbanks lined the curbs. Somewhere in front of them, motorcycle engines rumbled, probably a police escort clearing the way. Across from her, Evyn texted.

Wes wondered what would happen next, and when. The thrum of anxiety in her belly was probably something she was going to live with indefinitely. Every trip the president took outside the White House was akin to a military engagement. Danger was always imminent. Stress and uncertainty didn’t bother her, as long as she knew she was prepared. And she planned to be.

Forty minutes later, the motorcade pulled off the highway onto a wide drive and stopped in front of a row of large stone buildings. Car doors slammed, and Wes saw the group from the first car moving inside. Evyn opened the door and said, “You’ll stay here with one of the military aides. If you’re needed, he’ll inform you. I hope you brought something to read.”

“It never occurred to me I’d need it.”

Evyn laughed. “Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to kill on this assignment. I recommend an e-reader. Travels easily and holds up well.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

Evyn closed the door and disappeared inside along with several other agents. Wes settled back to wait, watching out the window. No foot traffic. An occasional car passed along the drive. She wasn’t sure where they were. The uncertainty heightened all her senses. Her pulse was a little faster than usual, and tension in the back of her neck indicated her blood pressure was probably slightly higher than normal too—nothing to worry about as long as the tension didn’t escalate into anxiety, which blunted response time. A certain degree of stress augmented essential reflexes. She felt on edge but sharp. The way she needed to be.

An hour passed before the main doors of the building opened and Evyn walked out, followed by the president and a phalanx of agents. A blur of motion cut across Wes’s field of vision, shouts erupted, the loud crack of gunfire shattered the quiet. Evyn crumpled, the president staggered, and Wes grabbed her FAT kit and bolted from the SUV along with a sea of agents from the other cars. Agents converged on the president, others swarmed a young man holding a pistol and dragged him to the ground. Wes raced up the sidewalk, scanning the injured, automatically triaging. Only those who would die without immediate attention could be treated. Those who would die despite emergency care and those who would survive without it were passed over.

Evyn lay on her back, eyes closed, the collar of her shirt soaked in blood. Neck or chest wound—likely fatal without urgent treatment. Another agent, a man she didn’t recognize, curled on his side, clutching his abdomen. A second potential fatality. The agents with the president pushed past her toward the vehicle she’d just vacated. The president seemed to be moving under his own power—injury status unknown. Without medical treatment, Evyn and the other agent would likely die.

Wes stared at Evyn—she was still breathing, but for how long? Ignoring her instincts, ignoring all her training, she ran for the SUV with the president inside and jumped into the back. The doors slammed shut, tires screeched, and they jolted forward. The president was supine on the rear seat, and the duty nurse already had an oxygen mask on his face.

Bracing one arm against the side of the speeding vehicle, Wes dragged the FAT kit closer. “Status?”

“GSW to the leg,” Thompson, the nurse, replied.

“You,” Wes said to the closest agent, pulling gauze from the field trauma kit, “hold this over the wound, press hard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get us to the nearest trauma center.” She didn’t wait for an answer. After grabbing a stethoscope, she pushed closer and slid a hand behind the president’s back to check for any wounds she couldn’t see. Nothing else. The leg wound was the only injury, but in that area, if he didn’t bleed out, he could lose his leg. She found an intravenous pack in the kit and tossed it to another agent. “Hold this up.”

“Got it.”

She quickly connected intravenous tubing to the bag, opened the line and let the fluid run down, and clamped it off. With scissors, she cut the president’s coat and shirt sleeve up to the level of his shoulder and wrapped a tourniquet around his arm. As she unwrapped a large-bore intravenous catheter, an agent gripped her wrist.

“I think you can hold up there, Doc.” He grinned. “Dave here is afraid of needles and we wouldn’t want him to faint on us.”

Thompson removed the O2 mask, and the agent playing the president grinned at her. He could pass for Andrew Powell at a distance, but this close, she could see he was younger and a little heavier. “How are you feeling, Mr. President?”

“I’m doing great, Doc. So are you.” The presidential double pushed up on the seat and swatted at the man holding the compression dressing on his groin. “Let up there, will you? My toes are falling asleep.”

The agent holding the gauze laughed, said something into his microphone, and the vehicle slowed. “Nice work, Doc. We’d be arriving at the trauma center about now with the president stabilized.”

“What about the two we left behind?” Wes asked, thinking of Evyn and the blood running down her throat. Everything in her rebelled against leaving a dying patient in the field.

His grin faded. “They’re not your concern.”

“Understood.” Methodically, Wes packed up her kit, the image of Evyn bleeding to death on the sidewalk burning in her mind. The next time she had to leave her behind might not be an exercise. She wasn’t sure how to square that with her conscience, or her ethics, or her heart.

*

“Nice job, Doc.” Vince, the agent who had assisted Wes during the resuscitation of the “president,” veered off toward the ready room, leaving Wes alone.

“Thanks,” Wes called after him. She headed for the locker room to store her gear. After the exercise had ended, their SUV had turned around and followed the limo back to DC. She hadn’t seen Evyn since she’d left her on the sidewalk, but if Evyn wanted her for anything else, she’d no doubt find her.

The locker room was empty, except for a navy blue polo shirt and khakis folded neatly on a bench in the center of the room. The shower ran in the adjoining room. Those clothes were most likely Evyn’s. She’d seen a few other female agents in the halls, and they’d all been dressed the way Evyn usually was—in jackets and pants. She wanted Evyn’s take on the morning’s scenario, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the day with the mental image of Evyn bleeding out on the street. She knew it was all a fabrication, but on some instinctual, primitive level, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she’d let her die.

Wes leaned against the lockers and reran the incident again. She’d been doing that all the way back in the SUV while the agents relaxed, cracked jokes, and gossiped. Someone had speculated on where Evyn had spent the night of the storm, noting she’d turned up for work wearing her emergency change of clothes and they hadn’t had an emergency. Wes tried to tune out the good-natured griping about some people having all the luck. If Evyn had spent the night with someone, it was no business of hers. She blocked the chatter the way she did the constant hum of voices during a trauma alert and concentrated on what she had done earlier, and why. She still wasn’t happy with the choice she’d made, despite knowing she’d made the only choice open to her. And would make it again.

“You planning on taking a shower?” Evyn walked in with a white towel wrapped around her torso, covering her to mid-thigh. She pointed to a closet. “In there.”

“No, I’m fine. I wasn’t out there long enough to work up a sweat.”

“I wish I had.” Evyn opened a locker across from the pile of clothes on the bench and stowed a bath kit on the top shelf. “I froze my ass off lying on that sidewalk, and it was wet.”

“And of course, there was the blood.”

“Since it wasn’t real, it wasn’t even warm.” Evyn glanced at Wes over her bare shoulder, loosened the towel, and let it drop to the floor. “You sound a little pissed.”

Wes jerked her gaze up to Evyn’s face, but not before she’d taken in the entire naked panorama of Evyn’s back and backside. Smooth skin, toned muscles, all blending into inviting tanned curves. “Not exactly pissed. Just not sure of the point.”

“I thought the point was obvious—GSW is still the most likely form of assault on POTUS.” Evyn slid black panties from an open nylon bag inside the locker and pulled them on. They were cut high on the sides, accentuating the expanse of honed thigh from hip to knee.

“And do you really think if I’d been briefed beforehand, I would have reacted any differently?” Wes shook her head. “I’m sure you practice that scenario regularly—knowing what is coming—and without the benefit of simulated blood.”

“You’re right—we do. Dozens of times, for months, before we ever ride in a vehicle on PPD.” Evyn grasped the khakis, pulled them on, and slipped the polo shirt over her naked chest. “You haven’t.”

Wes watched. Evyn didn’t seem to mind, and pretending she wasn’t watching would only make her interest even more apparent. Evyn was beautiful and looking at a beautiful woman came naturally. Pretending she didn’t want to would be unnatural, and she wasn’t any good at pretending. That’s what bothered her about the morning. She had done the right thing and her instincts screamed otherwise. “Had it been real, you would have died out there.”

“This is where I say something like, ‘That’s my job. You shouldn’t worry about it.’” Evyn regarded her across the small room. “Do you believe that?”

“Yes, and I respect your bravery.”

Evyn waved her off with a snort and tucked her shirt into her pants. She zipped and buttoned and sat down to fish socks and shoes out of her locker. “It’s not a matter of bravery, it’s a matter of training. When you’ve done it enough times, you don’t think about it. Isn’t that the way it is for you?”

Wes moved down the row of lockers, wanting to see Evyn’s face as they talked. “Yes, that’s exactly how it is for me. Only my training says I don’t leave a seriously injured patient in the field when my attention could make the difference between life and death.”

“You see,” Evyn said lightly, “that’s the whole point. Your training might get in the way, and we can’t let that happen, can we?”

“You’re purposely being obtuse.”

Evyn grinned. “Is that painful? It sounds painful.”

Wes smothered a laugh. Evyn was very, very good at deflecting the conversation from topics that touched on the personal. “Any emergency physician could have handled that situation this morning. And any ER doc—”

“But that is the point, isn’t it, Dr. Masters?” Evyn stood, zipped her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “You aren’t just any doctor anymore, you are the First Doctor. Your training isn’t going to prepare you for what you need to do, because you are not going to deal with mass casualties as long as you are the First Doctor. You’re going to deal with one patient. No matter what else happens, you only have one patient.”

Wes swallowed back a snarl. Cool reason was the only way to get through a head as hard as Evyn’s. “Let’s just say, theoretically, that my primary patient sustains a superficial wound to the shoulder. He could easily be transported safely to a level one trauma center and receive simple field care en route. All of you are trained in CPR and emergency medical management, right?”

Evyn nodded. “That’s true. But what happens if on the way, he develops a drug reaction, or a second wound is discovered, a more serious one. That happened with Reagan after Hinckley’s assassination attempt. What if he crashes and you aren’t there?”

“You’d rather I let one of you die despite how unlikely the worst-case scenario is?”

“Bingo.” Evyn pointed a finger at her. “That’s it in a nutshell. We have to assume the worst-case scenario every time and act accordingly. And if you don’t believe that, then you don’t belong in your job.”

“I guess you’re going to decide that, aren’t you?”

“Not all by myself,” Evyn said, her voice losing its faintly teasing edge. “You admitted yourself, you’re an academic—and it isn’t a classroom out there.”

“That’s what this is really all about.” Wes took a slow breath. “You don’t think I should have this job, do you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Peter Chang would be your choice.”

Evyn colored. “Not my call. That doesn’t figure in the equation and never did.”

“If the medical team feels the same way, it’s a problem. I can’t allow such a vital unit to be destabilized due to politics and personal loyalties.”

“Look, those people are all military. They’ll follow orders.” Evyn sighed. “We’re on the same side here, Wes. I just need to know you have a clear idea of what the game looks like before you get to play.”

“Fair enough.” Wes couldn’t argue against being prepared. Evyn held all the cards, and for the most part, she agreed with Evyn’s call. “What’s in store for the next inning?”

Evyn just smiled and shook her head.

*

Evyn shrugged into her windbreaker, grabbed her go bag, and headed out. She thought about stopping by Wes’s office but vetoed the idea immediately. Her job was to see Wes got a crash course in the way PPD operated, and she wasn’t about to apologize for the way she did it. If Wes was pissed about the way the sim had gone down—well, she’d just have to stay pissed. Not like they had to be best friends or anything.

“Evyn!”

Evyn spun around at the sound of the familiar voice. Speaking of friends. “Hey, Pete! You’re back!”

“Yep.” Pete wore a bulky down parka, and his straight black hair was covered by a dark watch cap. He pulled off his cap and ran slender fingers through his hair. “I picked a good time to take a few days’ leave.”

“Yeah—you missed the worst of the storm. You working tonight?”

He nodded. “Anything happening?”

“No, it’s been quiet. Emily is shift leader tonight. She’ll fill you in, but he’s not scheduled for anything.”

“Good. I could use a little time to catch up on paperwork.” He looked around and moved closer. “How’s the new chief settling in?”

Evyn thought about Wes leaning against the lockers while she dressed, and the way Wes’s gaze occasionally glided over her body. She liked the direct way Wes had looked at her, as if she’d appreciated what she saw and wasn’t going to hide the fact. There’d been nothing flirtatious or suggestive in Wes’s behavior, but Wes had noticed her, and remembering the flicker of heat in Wes’s eyes made Evyn’s nipples harden. Glad to be wearing a coat, she said casually, “A little soon to tell. She’s got the creds for the job.”

“I know,” Pete said. “I met her briefly at the wedding. She seems nice enough.”

Nice. That wasn’t exactly the word she would use to describe Wes Masters. Intense, focused, honest, uncompromising. She supposed those things made Wes nice, but they also made her incredibly attractive. And if that wasn’t enough, she was gorgeous. The morning’s fantasy popped back into her head. Okay—kill that picture right now. “How do you feel about her getting the job?”

Pete shrugged. “I don’t mind not having to deal with the politics.”

“That’s very political of you.” Evyn nudged his shoulder with hers.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just see how it works out.”

“Yeah. I guess we will.” Evyn waved good-bye and pushed out into the flat gray afternoon. As much as she liked Pete, she didn’t want to see Wes fail. Right now, what she really wanted was to see Wes again. When she was around her, she felt electrified. All of her senses were so charged, she thought she might start humming. She hadn’t been this keyed up during the night she’d spent with Louise. That had her worried. Whatever the strange effect Wes had on her, it was something she’d never experienced before. Reason enough to keep a safe distance. Fantasies, though, were harmless.