Love Is A Battlefield: Heroes N Hearts, #1

Love Is A Battlefield

Heroes N Hearts, Volume 1

Carissa Marks

Published by Crazy Town Publishing, 2018.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD

First edition. November 25, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Carissa Marks.

ISBN: 978-1386111078

Written by Carissa Marks.

Also by Carissa Marks

Borderlands-Whitehall

Hellfire,Brimstone & Whiskey

Broken

Dirty Messy Love

Kissing Lightning

Heroes N Hearts

Love Is A Battlefield

Love In Their Stars

Love By Design

Assigned To Love

Ambushed By Love

Tides Of Love

Hustled By Love

Standalone

The Gold Standard

A Little Christmas Magic in Cedar Springs

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Carissa Marks

Dedication

Love Is A Battlefield (Heroes N Hearts, #1)

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Further Reading: Ambushed By Love

To the men and women of the military and those who love them.

Chapter One

Kat Carsten woke up, sprawled face down in the wet pine needles that meshed with old lichen to carpet the forest floor. The musty smell of damp, rotting wood and the acrid stench of the smoldering plane engine seeped in along with the scent of fresh falling rain. She couldn’t quite feel it, yet, but she knew it was coming down; along with something else that took a minute or two for her to comprehend. It hit the exposed areas of her skin like millions of sharp needles. Ice. Just great, exactly what I needed right now she thought. She laid there trying to decide if she could really breathe or if any of the hundred and one sore spots were actually broken bones. Where the hell am I? she shoved a wayward strand of honey blond hair out of her face as she waited on an answer, then the memories flooded back.

Andy, her pilot, one time senior editor and friend had a heart attack in the air. She remembered looking out the window and seeing the faint glow of lamplight in what she hoped was some stray houses off on the distance.  Jesus Christ on a stick.  You did not die and leave me here. She waited for a minute before calling out, Andy! the sound left her in a primal wail drifting into the mist and the tree tops.

She pushed herself into a half sitting position and waited for her head to stop spinning, and fought back the urge to be sick. Kat saw her trail pack and stretched to snag the strap, tugging it to her through the pine needles and fragments from the plane. As she looked around her the faint call of a lone wolf sent shivers up her spine. She spoke just to hear words, to have a sound that was familiar.

Okay, Andy had a hand gun in the plane; let’s see if I can find it. She started to crawl around on her hands and knees, pushing the stuff around carefully. What  would be here with me? Snakes. Would be wood rattlers, not everything on the ground is friendly. Okay, Bugs, yeah, not as big as we grow ‘em, rodents, oh shit please don’t be any of those. Kat tried to take a deep breath, instead it was more like a feeble wheeze that made her see spots and feel as if her head was floating. The sound of her own voice was all she had to draw strength from. She bumped into a sapling and used it to pull herself upright. The floor and sky swirled into each other for a few minutes then righted themselves, more or less. She dug her fingernails into the bark and could already hear her favorite nail tech having a fit over trying to fix them.

The bright orange stripe down the side of the plane caught her eye, the tail section was missing and the wings were splintered across the ground, but the main cabin lay slightly tipped toward the pilots side cradled by the trees, the door that had been on her side was nowhere to be seen. She shuffled that way, her ankle was just starting to yell at her and she knew it was move right then or be stuck away from the only shelter. With one hand on the cabin to steady herself; she worked her way down to the open spot. Andy, please don’t be dead. She already knew he was, she saw the gray he had turned and the look on his face, he knew it too, and that he wouldn’t even make the old runway. It was sort of cleared, a throwback to the Second World War, he wasn’t sure why it was still mostly cleared and hadn’t ever thought to find out. In the last few weeks they had made a similar run a half dozen times on their way to Seattle or Salem. She turned and looked at the tree tops, a swath had been cut by the props and she could see the faint light filtering down leaving freckled spots on the ground.

Again, the lone howl of a wolf off in the distance made shivers run the length of her spine. She felt along the edge finding a place where she could pull on the plane, it gave enough that she was able to hoist herself into the gap. For the effort, she was rewarded with waves of pain from her rib cage and she fought the nausea that accompanied it. The last of her energy spent she leaned back, propped between the console and doorframe and closed her eyes, willing the pain to go away. Her hand patted the spot under the pilot seat and she found the handle and jerked the box free, gasping as a wave of white hot pain washed over her. The cockpit spun and she held on telling herself it was like a weekend the summer she turned seventeen and had drank too much again. Eventually the feeling passed and she flipped the latch with a bloody thumb. Breathe in, breathe out. You can do this.

Her voice pinged about the cabin, reminding her of her acid dropping days. Kat’s hand slid over the Spectre; slowly she lifted the gun and used the same thumb to move the safety, leaving a red path across the grip.  She remembered Andy taking her out to the desert and giving her lessons in how to use and load the weapon. At the time she thought it was a waste of time, she was from Texas and everyone in her town had at least one gun in the house. In the moment, she was happy he had taken the time. Faintly at first, then they seemed closer. The yips were high pitched and from the sound of it, there was more than one. Coyotes. Damn it to hell. She brushed back a bloody lock of hair. One wolf I can reason with, coyote pack and we’re screwed Andy. She glanced his way. I won’t let ‘em have ya for supper buddy.

With every breath she was sure a rib was going to rip through the skin, she took what was substituting for a deep breath and leaned a little further until she could grasp the gun in the ankle holster that Andy always carried. His personal arsenal had been a life saver in Guatemala a few years earlier and she could only hope she wouldn’t need to use it now. Pain shot through her head as she pushed away from the pilot seat and tried to right herself. Things Andy had said ran through her mind, like wondering about the airstrip. Idaho had plenty of organized groups that wanted nothing to do with the government and didn’t care for strangers, even if they fell from the sky. The alternative wasn’t any better; drug smugglers weren’t high on her list of people to have coffee with. It would help if she knew exactly where she had dropped to, all she could say for sure is she was somewhere between Montana and Washington, maybe Canada and that left way too much room for trouble.

Time suspended, held in a place by a fragile thread while she listened to the ragged sound of her own breathing, and the whisper of winds high in the tree tops. When she moved again she realized that darkness was creeping in along the ground, and reaching for the canopy. Then she saw lights bobbing along and remembered the houses. She couldn’t move to signal them in any way. One leg hung from the remnant of the plane, one hand on the gun she had pulled from under the seat. She couldn’t look at Andy for more than a second or two, she thought back to the day before.

They had thrown their bags and her camera gear into the plane and filed a flight plan, grabbed some sandwiches and filled a couple of thermoses before heading out. They had done the same thing a hundred times before, they would land, race off to whatever the assignment was and then they would load up and be off again. The only time she hadn’t flown with Andy was when his ex-wife was battling cancer. He had dropped everything to go help out and Kat had thought he was an everyday hero for her and the kids. She remembered when he came back to work, he had talked for days about the birthday gift he was getting for his son, he had flown to New Mexico for the big event only to find the house empty and none of the neighbors knew where they were. He had turned the universe upside down, but no one knew anything. That was three years ago, figures, you just start to act like you again and then you die and leave me out here with god only knows who or what. She tried to focus on the bobbing lights, it registered that they were now larger and should therefore be closer, but that was as good as she could get.

Kat swiped at a trickle of blood that had managed to slide from the leafy mud caked spot high on her temple, and stared at the bobbing lights. For the first time in ten years she found herself wishing she had someone that would miss her, that would wonder why she hadn’t called, that wasn’t an editor. Her parents were gone and she hadn’t even slowed down long enough to date in the last five or six years. Not since her sophomore year in college, and that, well... it was best left in the memory locker; at least it provided a few smiles when she thought about him. Her eyes closed;"Que sera sera. Just don’t let it be a Sasquatch with a stolen batch of flashlights. She drifted into a place from a time that for her, was long ago.

I’m Kat Carsten, reporting from Iraq, Happy Valentine’s day, back to you Dana and Sam. The camera never had a chance to move, the explosion rocked the truck next to her, as she spun to see what had happened. She saw bodies falling back onto the dusty ground and blood spraying everywhere. They had tramped all through that area during the course of her segment and first instincts took over. She had been an EMT for a while, before the wanderlust grabbed her and the small town she was from became more of a prison. Kat remembered sliding in next to a soldier with a sucking chest wound. She dumped the contents of the baggie in her pocket across the ground and grabbed it with her teeth as she ripped his shirt open. The wound was ragged, his K-nine was close by, whimpering, a paw had dropped across his leg and the animal eyed her every move.

She slapped the plastic over the hole and pressed as she screamed for someone to get back-up there. The Malinois yipped in an ear piercing pitch and Kat leaned over the soldier, one arm bent to partially shield her head, as pieces of the wall in front of them rained down. A medic was running toward them and then he was on the ground rolling. From somewhere behind her she heard medic down and then he was crawling into a spot next to them using his elbows and the one good leg.

Doctor, heal thy self. She reached for the pouch he set down. Chaos was normal there, commotion was normal; her fingers brushed the soldier’s dog tags out of the way as what she presumed was a second medic shoved a needle in the man’s vein and started running fluids back into him. She glanced at the patch on his shirt and snagged his dog tags, turning them so she could read the name and then the world stood still to her. She turned his face back toward her. His eyes fluttered and a feeble smile crossed his face as he recognized her.

Kat.

Yeah Jake. Talk later they’re coming in to get ya.

Just like old times yeah?

Yeah Jake, only no one was shooting at us.  From behind them, the tatta-tat of machine gun bursts echoed back and the unmistakable sound of chopper blades slicing through the air above them filtered in. His head rolled to the side, and his words slurred as he spoke. Kat Carsten, hottest chic in west Texas. I always had the hots for her. She shook her head and glanced at the medic.

I see the desert has done nothing for his ability to grasp reality has it? He chuckled, before he told her he was impressed with her skills and added she would be a damn fine medic. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, Not bloody likely. The sights and smells swirled in front of her, and a man appeared saying her and her camera man needed to load up then and steered her toward the chopper. She remembered hearing insurgents and imminent but missed the rest, and then Caja the dog was in her lap and she was handed her care card. Jake was in and out on the trip to the base.

I’m sorry Kat. I wanted to tell you that for a long time. His mouth moved, but if she hadn’t had her head next to him, she wouldn’t have heard anything. She grabbed the dogs leash as they landed and reeled it in like she would have done with any of her dogs if she was home. As she got to the doors she heard him telling the medic, I fucked up there, far beyond screwin the pooch, I always had a crush on her.  Kat was convinced the painkiller was making him hallucinate. She still had his helmet in her hand; it banged off the door as she burst through to get out of the way of the next round of incoming wounded. A man in a blood splattered uniform leaned around a curtain.

Ma’am, Lt. Lovelace would like a second. As one, she moved with Caja to the spot. His hand grabbed her sleeve and pulled her down close enough to lock his lips on hers. Be here when I get out of surgery, okay? Please?

A nurse scurried around her and grabbed the IV pole, Let’s roll, we’re in three. Kat walked over to the corner and slid down the wall to the floor, his helmet in her lap, his dog’s head on her leg as she sobbed into her sleeve.  Caja let her cry it out for just so long then muscled her way into Kat’s lap and licked at the salty trails through the dust that had become like a war zone makeup for her.

Okay, Okay. Let’s take you out to pee and find some food. The big dog moved and patiently waited as her emergency care taker stood up and dusted herself off. True to her word, she walked the dog around until she had accomplished her immediate mission and then headed off to the boardwalk, in just over a half hour she had a whopper with cheese and a plain cheese burger for the dog. No one really noticed the bloody clothes or the K-nine sitting on the bench seat across from her, daintily eating bits of burger and leaving the fingers whole. Her camera man had eased into the spot next to her, still green around the gills from tossing his toenails and everything he had eaten in the last month.

Where did you learn that?

My uncle trains dogs for the military. She held out another bite.

No, the stuff you did back there...was fuckin amazing. I’m scared shitless and you have a handmade bandage and are doing all sorts of shit.

I used to be an EMT, back in the day. She watched every movement of the dog, knowing full well that Caja would alert if the need arose. Kat drained her cup and emptied a bottle of water into it and held it for the dog as she lapped up the offering.  

For two days she had been glued to Caja’s side, right to the point where they said Lovelace was going to make it. She had left Caja yipping as she walked away leaving her tied to his bed post. Kat drifted back to reality, her eyes fluttered and she squinted into the area around the plane.

Darkness was upon her as the memories faded away and reality slid firmly and painfully into its place. In the distance she could swear she heard a dog and chuckled to herself. One eye had nearly swelled shut from the impact and she could feel the skin pull as the blood dried. Kat shivered as the dampness and cold leached away her reserve of guts, body heat, and determination.

Of all the places to crash, why couldn’t it have been Cancun? Her only answer was an owl hooting from an overhead branch.

SO WHAT DO YA THINK it is L.T.?

Plane crash. He could hear the muffled laughter drift back from the lead spot .

Do you think we were able to scramble the radio call soon enough? The fresh faced appearance of the radioman belied the battle hardened man behind it.

Nope. Not at all. He looked up into the night sky; soon stars would begin to pop out and lend their brightness to the search.

So do you think this was the FBI plane they were talking about?

Maybe.

A Sargent further back said to give it up, he had already gotten more out of him on this hike than most people got in a year. The black and tan dog at his side skidded to a stop, her nose to the air as she sniffed and then whined and sat at his feet. Mc Mann had been walking point; he didn’t need to turn around to know they had stopped to watch the dog. She had gotten them through quite a few rough spots. He stopped, eyes trained into the semi darkness watching for what, he wasn’t sure.

What is it Caj? What’s there? The lieutenant watched closely as she circled him again and sat with the same whine. He shook out the length of the leather lead line and shrugged, Guess we’ll find out yeah? Come on girl, let’s work. What’s out there? Search. She was prancing about and as soon as she had her command she lunged toward the fern lined path and bolted ahead. Barking and yipping as she plowed through the underbrush. A little voice at the back of his mind was screaming a warning, telling him it was no coincidence.

The last time Caja had been this squirrely was after Kat had walked out of his world. He couldn’t say it was a surprise. Kandahar was no place to have a love life, or try to rekindle ancient history. That was how he categorized anything from the first time he had really noticed her. His mind travelled back in time as he hurdled dead fall and ferns.

Kat and Mandy Barker had been best friends for more years than he could remember. One was dark haired and the Mexican heritage showed in her coloring, one was a sun streaked honey blond that was always tanned and running at life full out. Until their senior year that is. Until him and his buddies bought a bunch of beer at a store two counties over and went out cruising. They had shot around the preacher’s car, laughing and carrying on; they didn’t see the truck coming at them until it was almost too late. The driver had ripped the steering wheel to the left and sent them hurtling down the wash and into a stand of mesquite. He remembered sailing through the air, and the sound of metal meeting tree and the hiss of the radiator as it sprayed its contents everywhere. He heard Mike calling for their friend, and not hearing an answer. The next thing he remembered was lying on the grass with Kat holding a bandage to a spot on his head that was bleeding and seeing an ambulance squad patch on her pocket. She had been telling him help was coming in to get him and he needed to just lie still. Her hands had felt cool and he floated in and out of consciousness and at seventeen he was pretty sure she was as close to an angel as he would ever get. In Mandy’s last letter she said Kat wasn’t dating, her world was work, he would have never pictured that.

They had been the four musketeers of Hensonville. Where you saw one, the other three weren’t far behind. Three of them made it out alive, which was better than the odds they could’ve gotten in Vegas. Someone had come sliding down and saw her go to the car window and leave to go sit by him. They had insisted she could have saved Brett, but that she wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. The coroner had said Brett had died on impact, but that didn’t stop the wagging tongues in a small town.

He had asked her out a couple of times, and then had taken to stalking her. They spent a weekend on a Galveston beach; he gave her a charm, a circle around a heart with a four leaf clover in the center. He thought they had something akin to love. Monday she wasn’t at school and when he stopped by her place on Tuesday, it was empty. It had taken him until the day he left for college to track her down. She had a camera in her hands and was taking pictures of some protest; he walked up as she was asking a wrinkled old woman sitting under an umbrella selling bottled water a question. A week later he saw the picture in a paper in Oklahoma. That had been the start of his collection of her work.

He left college a couple of months before graduation when his girlfriend turned up pregnant and said they were having a baby it was a week before the delivery date when a recent picture landed in his email. The note had said simply, check the background It was his girlfriend in a lip lock with some dude he had never seen before. He strolled out and picked up her phone and found the text messages. The next week he was in an office taking a test to join the military.