Page 1 of Trapped with the Covert Ops Soldier

Chapter One

“Ihate flying,” Dr. Abigail Westward groaned as she bent forward to breathe through her nose. The commercial Airbus she was on was full, and then some. Full of soldiers returning from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They’d boarded in New York and were headed west to Missoula, Montana.

Most of them were asleep.

She was lucky, she was going directly home from Missoula.

If she wasverylucky, she wouldn’t lose her last meal before she landed.

“You gonna throw up, doc?” the soldier next to her asked, giving her a curious side-eye.

“Probably.” She closed her eyes and held the barf bag ready. Her stomach jiggled in ways God hadn’t intended.

“Huh,” the soldier grunted. “How come you can pick pieces of people and their guts off the ground without flinching, but get sick on a plane?”

“Motion sickness and one’s gross-out-meter aren’t the same thing.”

The soldier chuckled, but didn’t say anything else, just put his head back and closed his eyes. Not 60 seconds later a snore sailed out of his nostrils.

Abby was tempted to do something childish, like tie his boots together in revenge.Shewouldn’t be sleeping. She never could on planes. It had been bad enough when she’d had to deal with simple air sickness. The attack that killed most of the people she worked with at the Combat Support Hospital in Syria only amplified her suffering. She, along with one other guy, had crawled out of the wreckage of their convoy, banged up and bleeding, and damn near killed themselves trying to save two critically injured survivors while keeping a group of fighters from killing them all.

By the time the rescue helicopters arrived the injured were dead and she had scars in places she never wanted anyone to see.

The plane rocked back and forth, sending her stomach spinning. Yep, this plane ride was going to accomplish what months of duty in Syria couldn’t...finish her off for good.

She sat, head bowed over the barf bag, for a couple of hours before the plane began its descent into Missoula. The soldier next to her had woken up and was staring a hole in her temple.

“What?” she asked, not really caring what his answer was as long as he looked at something else.

“I heard you maybe killed a couple of people.”

If he’d heard that, he’d also heard that she didn’t like talking about it. Not to anyone.

She gave him the finger.

“Yeah, you look real tough, doc.”

What was he doing trying to pick a fight?

She sat up and looked at him. “Listen asshole, I’m the last person you want to piss off.”

“Oh yeah? Why?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “Because I’ll barf all over you if you don’t shut up.”

“That’s not what Smitty said.”

Smitty. That stupid shit. He’d set this meathead up to get his ass handed to him. She turned around in her seat to look at Smitty, seated several rows behind her.

He grinned at her and winked. Good thing she liked the guy as much as she did or she would have done something nasty to him a long time ago.

He was the only man she’d have at her back if FUBAR happened.

She glanced at her neighbour. “I’m going to do you a favor and forget you asked me anything.”

“Yeah?” the meathead still had a stupid grin on his face.

She met his gaze and held it, letting all her nightmares out to stare back at him. “Yeah, because if you bug me any more all you’ll be to me is pieces of people and their guts on the ground.”

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