Kronos hammer, p.3
No Turning Back, page 3
“It’s nothing like that,” she agreed, sadness in her tone. Once more, she was seeing Ram being more emotional than usual. Clearly, he was worried about Zap being initiated into a live-fire situation where life, death or being taken prisoner was on the line. The kid had nothing to compare real life with the canned software gamer life he’d led before.
“I’m sure you can help him, too,” Ram added, giving her a hopeful look. “You were always ‘mother’ to all of us on the team.”
Snorting, Dare grinned wickedly. “You warned me right off the bat not to mother the guys. What’s this? All of a sudden looking for a mommy in the group now?”
He had the good grace to manage a twist of his mouth. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t want you mothering my men.”
“And it didn’t happen. But obviously, that’s a secret fear you held about me? That I’d do that?”
“I guess I was hoping you might let some of that mommy side of you show to Zap. I think the kid is going to need a ‘dad’ and a ‘mom’ for a while as he gets rid of his gamer reality and trades it in for the hard-core reality of what war is really like, instead. It’s going to throw him and I can’t have the kid losing it and forgetting what he’s supposed to be doing out in the field working with us.”
“It’s a delicate balance,” Dare agreed, frowning. “I’ll do what I can.”
He looked at the watch on his wrist. “I must go. Did Adam invite you over to his home in Bucha, yet?”
“Yes, he called me last night. I usually spend weekends with him, Lera and the kids. I act as kind of a babysitter and housekeeper for them.”
“And what does that give you?” Ram wondered.
“I get to practice my mothering skills.”
He laughed sourly and shook his head, standing. “Touché, you nailed me.”
“You’re an easy target, Captain.”
He placed the hat on his head, lowering the bill. “Well, I sure walked into that one with you, but no one said you were asleep at the switch, either.”
“Never will be.” She stood, folding the orders and placing them in a ziplock pocket on the left thigh of her fatigues. “When I talked to Adam yesterday he said there was a secret visitor coming for the weekend to stay with them. Is that you?”
“You’re good, Dare. Really good. You must have that psychic switch turned on right now.”
Grinning wolfishly, she walked up to the desk and retrieved her knapsack, pulling it over her shoulders. “Well, I didn’t know until just now. It makes sense that Adam knew because he’s second-in-command, and I would be there babysitting this weekend and he wanted to get you out of that combat environment and let you ramp down for a weekend.”
“I told him I’d stay tonight and leave on Sunday afternoon.”
“Good. You need to be around people who love you.”
Chapter Two
November 1
By the time Dare got off the bus at her fourteen-story apartment building near the center of Kyiv, her thoughts remained centered on Ram. It was 1300, 1:00 p.m. She had time to change, get a shower, pack a small suitcase and drive out to Bucha, the village where Adam and Lera lived. She liked spending her weekends with them whenever possible.
Ram...the enigma. She’d walked out of his life two years ago and it had been heart-wrenching for her because she’d secretly fallen in love with the hardened warrior who let no one into his inner life. He was all business. Always. Why?
After slipping the code card into the slot of her ground-floor apartment, she pushed the door open with her boot and it closed automatically behind her. Even though it was a rainy, gray day, the three massive floor-to-ceiling windows made her two-bedroom apartment look bright. After placing her briefcase and several other items into the guest bedroom, she went across the hall to climb out of her military gear and slip into a quick, hot shower. That always revived and centered her. She slowly inhaled the rose-scented soap, its delicious fragrance filling her lungs. So, she was going to war—again. The shock still reverberated within her.
Dare was older now, twenty-nine, not a young twenty-five-year-old when she’d been ordered to Ram’s black ops unit in Afghanistan. It had been an adventure to her, a challenge she readily accepted, but she soon found out that learning combat medicine in a schoolroom didn’t even come close to being out in the field where life and death was a breath away from every member of the team. After two years, she was ready to leave the war-torn fields of Afghanistan, overjoyed at the Lviv, Ukraine, assignment to teach field combat medicine to the medics of this wonderful country.
Ram...
She scrubbed her hair and rinsed beneath the streams of water, trying to tame her powerful feelings of joy intertwined with the shock of him walking back into her life once again.
What was she going to do? What should she do? Was it really orders from higher up that assigned her back to his team? Or did he have something to do with it? Her gut told her someone above him in rank had made that decision because he didn’t seem particularly happy to see her back with his unit. Worse, as she stepped out of the shower, grabbing a pale yellow bath towel, starting to dry herself off, she’d seen and felt conflicting emotions around him. Did he not want her on his team again? There had been a crosscurrent within him, but she couldn’t suss it out any more than that. Being a sensitive, somewhat psychic individual, she hated that she’d gotten a hit on it but not the whole story. And usually, that made her impatient and frustrated. Ram Kozak was not the kind of man to let her see what cards he held in his hand and he wasn’t about to show them to her now, either.
She hated him being like a Rubik’s Cube and she could never figure him out or sense the feelings around him that he’d never given voice to. Yet, as she sat down on the chair and put on a pair of warm, lambswool socks, then pulled on her loose-fitting jeans and a lambswool, long-sleeved pink sweater, she never knew how he really felt or thought. Even Adam, who was close to Ram, like a brother, didn’t know his backstory. Where was he born? Where was his family? Where did they live? He never talked about them, and family was everything to the Ukrainian people, so tightly knit and woven together. Adam’s parents were dead now, and he lived in the same village and in the same house he’d been born in. She loved that about Ukraine. In the USA, it was vastly different. Extended family didn’t necessarily live in the same house or even town.
After combing her short crop of black hair, using her fingers to fluff it up a bit, she tidied up the bathroom, left the door open and headed for the kitchen.
Ram...
As she made herself some coffee, hips resting against the counter, arms across her breasts, she stared down at the colorful tile floor. How shocked, curious and stunned she still felt by today’s unexpected event.
She realized Ram had changed from her Afghanistan days with him. He was, well, almost warm toward her, showing a little emotion here and there, which had been completely MIA, missing in action, before. He even cracked a partial smile earlier, which truly stunned her. Their conversation was far more personal, a giving and taking, than it ever had been before. Had he changed because of some incident she didn’t know about? He was older now. Or was this the “real” Ram, a man who had a rich tapestry of emotions just like any other human being possessed and was allowing them some airtime? Behind his back, she always thought of him as Ram the Robot. A robot didn’t have a heart and possessed no emotions. Just a head full of mental activity and focus was all. This latest version of Ram was far nicer, a tad more open, even a hint of emotion in his gruff voice now and then. All new!
What had changed him, she wondered. Maybe Adam could shed some light on it since he’d been with the team those two years after she’d left. Two years was a long time, she conceded. A lot could have happened. Adam would be the one to talk with and he’d give her the intel. Maybe then she could figure out this new 2.0 version of Ram and understand it and him better. She had to, because she was going out in the field with him again.
The coffee was ready. She put a dab of honey and cream into the mug and went to the living room, sitting down in her rocking chair. Moving it slowly back and forth, the coffee between her hands, she frowned. Combat. Once again. She had PTSD, but anyone in black ops got that as entrance to the dark games they played behind the scenes with their enemies. Everyone was on war footing in Ukraine and she could see the worry and strain in everyone’s face. They knew what was coming, but she also knew the lion strength of the people’s heart to live in a democracy, too. She knew it would rip Ukraine up, but the people were stalwart and fighters. Putin didn’t know what he was biting off by trying to steal their land and break their will, trying to make everyone Russian by proxy. That would never happen.
Looking up at the ceiling, she sighed. She knew her adopted parents, who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, were worried about it, too. They held dual citizenship, like she did. They had adopted her at three months old after she was left on the steps of an Ohio fire department station. She had no memory of it. Her adopted mother, Maria, and father, Panas Mazur, a world-renowned cardiologist surgeon, had loved her from the moment she was brought to them. They had lived outside the city, in a rural area with a big farmhouse, barn and fifty acres of land. They flew back once a year, to their home, Lviv, Ukraine, near the Polish border, and saw their large, extended family. She had grown up visiting her Ukrainian relatives and always looked forward to seeing them. Half her soul was a part of their beautiful country, and the other half was where she was born in the USA. A foot in two worlds.
Dare preferred the warm, huge, tight Ukrainian family lifestyle. Her parents would stay a month in Lviv and she loved the huge celebratory family gatherings, the women bringing all their favorite dishes, the home smelling of rosemary, basil, garlic and so many other wonderful herbal scents. The Ukrainian people had beautiful ceremonies and dances and she loved the bright costumes, the energy and heart in their songs and movements.
She’d been overjoyed when the US Army had given her a two-year teaching position in Lviv to train Ukrainian Army medics to be even more important in combat than before.
Her mind turned to Adam and Lera, and their two spunky little daughters, Anna and Sofia. She was so at home with them and even though she had her own apartment in Kyiv, she routinely spent weekends with them, starting on Friday night and driving out to their village, one of the two spare bedrooms hers, the children anxiously awaiting her arrival. Her weekends were so much fun, filled with laughter, giggling and exciting exploration outdoors with the children. Their two red-haired daughters followed her around like happy, wriggling puppies in search of a new adventure. Dare loved exploring with them, the woods nearby offering so much to learn about and such wonderful edible wild mushrooms that one could eat with their evening meals. She was teaching the girls how to identify the edibles from the poisonous ones. Lera had begun to teach them, and show them how to always cook them first, and use them in casseroles, soups and stews. Yes, she eagerly looked forward to spending time with them. Dare considered them her second family, feeling very lucky and enriched by her caring Ukrainian friends.
Finishing off her coffee, she looked over at the top of her TV. There were lots of framed photos, some of her mother and father, Adam’s entire family. Her gaze drifted to the last one: Ram Kozak. Dare stared at the warrior, his face set, three-day growth of beard, in black ops gear, staring flatly back at her. She smiled a little, remembering that time. He hated pictures of himself, but she’d caught him off guard one day, lying in wait for him because she knew his habits and routine at the camp, and got the photo. He wasn’t very happy about it, but she’d seen a bit of pluckiness about him after she told him she really wanted a photo of him for her family album.
Ram was still a part of her. Much larger than she wanted to admit. Now? Everything had changed in a snap of the cosmic fingers of Fate. They were together again. A unit. A family...
November 2
“COME IN!” Lera sang, wiping her hands on her apron, smiling at Dare, who had her arms filled with two large paper grocery sacks.
“I’m a little late,” she said, breathless, hurrying inside their large village home. It was warm compared with outside, the wind cutting and cold.
“You’re never late!” Lera said, taking one of the sacks. “You didn’t have to do this, Dare, you know that!” She hurried over to the long kitchen counter with one of the bulging sacks. The area was huge, with a long trestle table with twelve chairs around it. Outside the large bank of windows, the trees were bending with the gusts of rain and wind from the cold front coming through.
“Are we going to have Ram over for dinner?” Dare asked, setting the second sack down on the kitchen counter, unloading all the items to be put into the fridge or the cabinets. She saw Lera’s green eyes twinkle. She had her red hair, which was long and could go halfway down her back, twisted into two red braids and then wound up on top of her head. She too wore jeans and a comfy orange sweater that showed off her shining auburn hair.
“Yes! First time ever. Adam had invited him to have dinner and stay overnight with us, but he always turned us down.” She grinned. “I think he’s invited himself over here because you are here.”
Snorting, taking the sour cream and other containers across the room to the fridge, Dare said, “I had no idea he was coming until he told me himself earlier today.”
“You saw him?” Her eyes went wide with surprise.
Once she placed the items in the fridge, she shut the door and turned. “Yes. Didn’t he tell Adam that orders were cut for me to rejoin his team?”
Gasping, her hands flew to her mouth. Lera stared in shock at her. “No! When did this happen?”
Dare patted her small shoulder. Lera was only five feet six inches tall, slender, but a human dynamo who was always in motion. Dare blamed it on her red hair. “It’s okay, Lera. I was in shock just seeing him. It has been two years since I’ve seen him in person. I didn’t even know he was in Kyiv. That was six months ago. In the last email I received from him, he said his team was in the US learning new things. And that they just returned a few days ago.”
“Adam returned last week ahead of the team,” Lera said pertly, quickly disgorging the rest of the contents from the sack to the counter. “You did not know Ram was here in Kyiv, then?”
“Not at all.”
“Well, the whole team has been in the USA with the Army training programs on different kinds of weapons,” Lera said. “Adam never talked much about it because, as you know, everything in an SSO team is top-secret.”
“Sure is,” Dare agreed, reaching up to put a box of cornmeal onto a shelf that was hard for Lera to reach without her constant companion, a nearby oak stool.
“Still,” Lera persisted, frowning as she folded the sacks and put them away, “Ram has never been over to our home, never asked to come over and share a meal with us. He’s always been standoffish and politely turned down Adam’s invites to be with us every time.”
Dare was familiar with the kitchen and Lera’s needs as the chief cook, and she would assist her. “Have you seen Ram at all?”
“No,” Lera said. “Why?”
“Well,” she murmured, “he’s changed somewhat since I last saw him in Afghanistan.”
“Oh?” Her red brows arched, interest in her eyes. “How do you mean that?”
“Usually he’s like a blank whiteboard. You can’t read him at all. I never could tell when I was on his team if he was happy, sad, depressed or whatever about me. This time, when he saw me after my class was over at the institute, he was...” She hesitated, searching for the right word. “Well... He wasn’t a whiteboard this time.”
Lera walked over to a large glass baking dish where she was fixing a meal for all of them tonight. “You’ve always said he couldn’t be read. Adam says the same thing. He is a very closet-like person, Dare. That hasn’t changed, or has it?”
Dare brought over a kitchen knife and saw the cucumbers that needed to be sliced and diced and put in the half-made potato salad. “Don’t know. He just...well...seemed more open, but I wouldn’t get excited about it. Maybe a crack, not opening the door so you could see what he was feeling and conveying it. Just a hint here and there. That’s what changed. And I don’t know if that was a one-time thing with him or if he’s actually opening up a bit to the rest of the world.”
Lera placed the finishing touches on a large pan of chicken Kyiv, a country favorite. The chicken filets had been well pounded, rolled around in butter mixed with fresh dill, and then coated with a mixture of egg and dried bread crumbs. She lifted up the large baking dish and Dare followed, opening the oven door for her. “Thank you,” Lera said, grinning and shutting the door. “So? His behavior is finally thawing, perhaps?”
Chuckling, Dare went back to her workstation, finishing off the diced cucumbers and starting on the hard-boiled eggs and dicing them. “Thaw is a good word that I was searching for,” she told Lera. The woman had a pleased, foxy look in her expression. “What’s that look for?” Dare demanded.
“Ohhh, my,” Lera trilled, pulling out some cooling garlic bread she’d made. Pampushky was wonderful and one of Dare’s favorites. It was a dinner bread with a sweet taste, the texture billowy, and the garlic, butter and parsley brushed on it after it had browned filled the air with the mouthwatering scents. “Don’t you think it kismet that here you are in town and he’s coming back from the USA and has Adam invite him to dinner? Hmm?” She arched one eyebrow, her grin turning positively merry.
Dare knew that feral look. “Don’t go there,” she warned, slicing the vegetable. “I think he was worried how I’d react to being taken out of the classroom teaching and then summarily dropped back into his team.”
Brushing the garlic bread with swift, knowing strokes, it was Lera’s turn to snort. “There’s more to this! Does he know you are still single and free? No attachments?”
