Friendly Fire

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Don’t choke, don’t hesitate, the voice in his head urged over and over as Logan Wilde pounded the ground, kicking up dust and sand as he ran through the field, his finger locked on his rifle. As the squad leader, he was never supposed to go first, but he wanted—needed—to; even though his heart was pounding. Adrenaline surged through his veins like cool liquid from an IV. Sweat made his T-shirt and uniform stick to his chest, a second skin…and the smell, it was something he might never forget. The dirt and grit scraped his lungs, his nose, his mouth. He had been told he would get used to it eventually.

The heat and dirt and grunge didn’t get to him, though, no matter how uncomfortable they were. What got to him was the guilt and worry, needing to be first through the door, because if anyone was going to take a bullet, it had to be him. These were his men. He had trained them, and they were his brothers.

He hunkered down, resting his rifle on the sandy mound and looking through his scope, eyeing the roadblock ahead as his Marines took their position. His men all knew what to do. Many of them were still kids, but they trained together and lived together, and they knew each other better than most families. To Logan, these men were family. He didn’t have to look to know that Sergeant Mike Duffy was manning the tank-mounted machine gun or that Corporal Jeff Starly had his back.

He gave the order right before a high-pitched whistle caught his attention—then there was a flash, heat and pain. His muscles seized at the long, rough droning sound, intense pain ripping through his leg. He gasped, fighting past the sense of being strangled. He couldn’t get his breath. His eyes were open, and he was on his back, staring up at the light blue sky. Was it the sky? He blinked. The sound was deafening; everything happening in slow motion. Where was the brightness, the obscured sun, and the colorless desert? It made no sense, this dingy, speckled ceiling.

He blinked again. The buzzing kept going on and on, irritating him. It just wouldn’t stop. His heartbeat was a booming sound in his ears, and something twisted around his legs, pulling him down. This time, he couldn’t get away. He was drowning, he was sure. Something had him, and he thrashed and fought. There was a crash, then silence. No noise, no buzz—nothing. He just stared. Logan blinked, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

He took a breath, beads of sweat rolling off his forehead as he tried to swallow past the dryness in his throat—his heart hammering in his chest. When he went to lift his hand, twisted in the sheets, he yanked it free and heard the cloth tear. He was naked, out of breath as if he’d been running for miles, and he was drenched with sweat. His face, his chest, even his hands were damp. He stared at a spot on the wall and then lower, to a shattered black alarm clock in the corner, then to his gun on the nightstand beside him.

Logan Wilde lowered his face to his hands and scrubbed hard over a day-old beard. “Get a grip,” he muttered, his hands trembling as he tried to shake off the dream that returned every time he closed his eyes. He never knew when the dream would hit him. It always crept up on him, sucking him back into the insanity of war. It took him a minute now, as he stood on shaky legs, staring at the plain, boxlike bedroom, his clothes stacked on a three-drawer dresser, before it started to come back to him. He had taken a job in MacKay, a small town, part of a ranching community nestled in a charming valley with Idaho’s nine highest peaks right at its back door.

This should have given him peace. MacKay had everything he wanted, everything he needed. He had told himself over and over that this would be good for him. He took in the rumpled double bed, nightstand, and dresser that had come with the older two-bedroom house he was renting at the edge of town. It was all he needed, since it was already furnished with everything, including a coffeepot in the kitchen. It was perfect, no stress, easy: So why was he still having these damn dreams?

He sat back on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping, and lowered his head in his hands. He ran his fingers roughly through his short, rumpled hair and over the back of his head. His damn hands still wouldn’t quit shaking. He held them up in front of his face, worried for a minute that he’d see blood; and let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t. He blinked, sweat rolling off his brow and down the bridge of his nose. His large, calloused, tanned hands should have been steady and sure and solid—instead he felt like some wet-behind-the-ears kid.

“Get a grip. Come on, it’s not real,” he said, his gruff voice sounding strange to his own ears. He was a man on the edge; losing control. He had dangled between life and death, seeing all the horrors of battle. He had teetered with one foot over that edge during the seventeen days he had been in a coma; tubes sticking out of him, a ventilator breathing for him. He had been left without a spleen, his skull fractured, his leg having to be pieced back together—all because of the roadside bomb he had never spotted. The explosion had ended his career as a first sergeant in the Marines, but that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst thing was his memories of the people he had lost because of that mistake.