Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Rescuing Pandora (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Kori David

helped Dad deliver just about every kind of animal. You want to catch the next one?”
    “Are you sure?”
    She smiled, a beautiful tilt of her lips, and nodded. “If you plan on being a farmer or rancher, then you need to learn. Might as well start small.”
    The next one out was a grey and white striped baby. Cam picked it up and rubbed it gently, the way he’d seen Pandora do, until the little guy started wiggling and making noise. He let out the breath he’d been holding and placed him down by the mama’s head, so she could inspect the newest one. And when she was done, the new mama had six little babies searching for a nipple. Pandora moved the family to an empty moving box with clean towels.
    “I would have loved seeing my son born,” he whispered. It was more to himself, but he saw Pandora sigh and get to her feet.
    “I think I need a beer,” she said.
    “You read my mind.”
    Cam led the way into the kitchen, where they stood side by side, washing their hands. It was companionable and not the least bit sexy, but the smell of roses lifted from her hair and Cam could feel his body tense and react. It wasn’t something he was about to act on, however, because they needed to talk.
    Taking their beer into the front room, they sat on the leather couch and Cam held his bottle up. “To the new mama.”
    “Hear, hear,” Pandora said solemnly.
    “Tell me about Mohammed.” It was something he wanted to know about, not that he begrudged the man, but he could see the pain in Pan’s eyes, and not all of it was because of the way he’d left her, twice. She sucked in a breath and took a long swallow.
    “I want to hear about that last mission. Technically, you died first, so I want to know what happened.”
    Cam nodded. She was right, he owed it to her to explain. “We were ambushed because our guide sold us out. We’d been working with this guy for a couple of years, and no one guessed he was playing us all. We got too close to one of the secret bases they have and he led us right into a damned trap.”
    He could feel his throat close up and his heart thudded hard, making his chest hurt. Taking his own long drink of the cold beer, he let it slide down his constricted throat and tried to relax. But he could still hear the screams of his men as they took bullets and shrapnel from the damn IEDs that were thrown at them. The smell of the gun powder and smoke was as real for him today as it had been then.
    Cam felt her cool hand on his clenched fist that lay in his lap. When he looked up, Pandora had moved closer, setting her drink on the table, and holding his hand in hers. “Remember Flea?”
    She nodded and smiled. “He always bounced around, just excited to be an Operator. He was the youngest member of the team.”
    “He threw himself in front of me when one of the insurgents hit us with explosives. I took part of the blast in the hip and it slammed us both back into a brick wall. When I woke up, Hawk was scraping him off of me.”
    Tears rolled down her face as she whispered, “Oh, God.”
    “He was so young,” Cam’s voice broke. “Hawk and I found Blue barely alive. Hell, we were all shot to shit and bleeding everywhere. But we managed to hole up in the next village until back-up arrived. We hid in one of the cellars for two days, thinking we were going to die, and all I could think about was getting home to you.”
    He didn’t tell her about the rescue or waking up in the hospital only to find out that Pandora had died in a car bombing. He didn’t tell her about the wild impulse he had of staying drugged into a stupor so he didn’t have to deal with it. Instead, he let himself be recruited by the CIA and he set about making sure that ISIS was wiped off the planet. Hawk and Blue had signed up as well, but he wasn’t sure where they were now.
    When he was quiet for so long, Pandora started talking. Still squeezing his hand, she began, “I just remember getting into the car with the ambassador. I was