Page 60 of Duty Bound

“Thinking about how we’re going to get Lily out of Afghanistan.”

“You mentioned the Taliban were on your tail,” said Stitch. “Could you be more specific? How long have we got?”

Blade smiled at the use of “we.” Old habits died hard.

Lily flashed him a nervous look then glanced at Soraya.

“None of the people here like the Taliban.” Stitch, as intuitive as ever, guessed what she was thinking. “We try not to get involved in politics.”

“We have no poppies, you see,” Soraya explained mostly for Lily’s benefit. “So there is little to bring them to our village.”

“We narrowly avoided walking into an ambush about twenty klicks over the mountain.” Blade nodded in the general direction of the hills. “They’ll be looking for us, for certain. They know we were there. It won’t take long for them to figure out which way we came.”

Lily gnawed on her lower lip. Blade knew she was thinking about the goat herder.

He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault.”

She gave him a watery smile.

Stitch shot Blade an inquisitive look, which he pointedly ignored.

Soraya just smiled at Lily. “Why don’t I show you where the bathroom is, and you can get cleaned up while we let the men talk. I’m sure they’ve got some planning to do.”

Blade smiled his thanks as Stitch’s wife guided Lily out of the room.

“She’s great,” Blade said, nodding after them.

“What’s going on, Blade?” Stitch came right out with it.

“Nothing.”

Damn. He hated that defensive tone of his.

“You sure?” There was a pause, where Stitch studied him. “Tell me you’re not sleeping with Spade’s girl.”

“Fucking hell. Of course not,” blurted out Blade. That much was true, at least. During their time in the unit, they’d never lied to each other because trust was everything.

“You like her, though.”

“Yeah, she’s a nice person.” Smart, spirited, motivated, sexy as hell. He coiled his hand into a fist.

“If you really dig her, that’s one thing, but don’t mess her around.” His army buddy knew only too well his ‘no strings’ policy.

“Stitch, there’s nothing going on.” He’d made sure of that. He knew not to disrespect the bond they had. He’d never “mess her around” as Stitch put it.

Stitch didn’t push it, but Blade could tell he wasn’t convinced.

“Why does she think it’s her fault?” he asked, changing the topic.

Blade told him what had happened at the ruins.

Stitch shook his head. “That’s a tough call. I’d have done the same thing. Better not to take a chance. Remember those Iraqi kids back in 2011? We let them go—almost cost us our lives.”

Blade nodded. That had been a close shave. The kids had run straight to the Iraqi soldiers. Minutes later, the team had a full-on firefight on their hands. Ricky had taken a bullet in the shoulder, and they only just managed to get the upper hand and get to the emergency rendezvous point on time.

Kids were different, though. He couldn’t kill a kid. None of them could, even if it meant getting shot up.

“Did you know Spade was suffering from PTSD?”

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