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

numb because I’d been told that you were never coming home to me just the day before, but the meeting we had was too important to cancel. There was a terror threat for the Embassy and we were all being watched. I’d received several threats already, but it was part of the job and the meeting that day was about the threats and where they were coming from.” She stopped and sucked in a deep breath. “We hadn’t even gone ten feet when the bomb went off.”
    Cam listened quietly, feeling their pain stretch between them like a rubber band, contracting and expanding. It was an infection that needed to be cleansed, ripped open and checked to make sure it didn’t spread. “Did you know you were pregnant?”
    She shook her head. “Imagine my surprise. I was so confused. I’d been bent over picking up a pen from the floorboard when the blast happened. I wasn’t belted in, so the ambassador took most of the shrapnel. They said he died instantly. I was thrown free of the car. I pieced together what must have happened from what little memory I had.”
    Letting out a big sigh, she continued. “Mohammed was there.” She took another long drink. “I’d known him for a long time, and he’d helped me understand the customs so that I wouldn’t offend anyone. He saw the explosion and ran to the car. I was the only one alive, so he picked me up and drove me to a private hospital before emergency personnel could even respond.”
    “Thank God he didn’t wait.”
    She nodded. “He told me that if I did everything that the doctors told me, they might be able to save my baby.” Tears rolled down her cheeks and Cam freed his hand to catch a couple, using his thumb to wipe the moisture away. “I didn’t care then; I just wanted to die,” she whispered. “There was no memory of the bomb, but when I first woke up I remembered you were dead.”
    “I went through the same thing,” he said, hearing the shame in her voice. “Never be ashamed of having those thoughts. You overcame it, and it made you stronger.”
    She shrugged, “It wasn’t until months later that I came out of that dark place. Sammy kicked me and it jolted me so hard that it was like the blindfold had been ripped off.” She smiled and put a hand over her flat stomach. “I looked down and realized I was really pregnant and that it was your baby inside me—that I hadn’t lost you after all.”
    Cam couldn’t stand it; he gathered Pandora into his arms and pulled her close, pillowing her head against his good shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. Sorry you went through all of that because of me.”
    He could feel her shake her head against him, “I knew who I married, and I was fully aware of what it meant to be the wife of a Special Forces soldier. Besides, my job wasn’t exactly safe either. We both knew that.”
    “Tell me the rest,” he said, as she pulled away slightly.
    “I owed Mohammed my life and the life of my son. Initially, he told the staff he was my husband so that he could protect me. The ambassador and I were the specific targets of that attack. Several other bombs had gone off that day, and I was lost in the shuffle. I was written off as deceased.” She shook her head and turned away, staring at something only she could see. “And then, as time went on, he said he loved me and wanted to take care of me and my child. He paid for it all—the bills, the physical therapy. Everything. I can’t even imagine what it cost and he would never tell me.” Her eyebrows knitted. “I’d known him a long time and I never realized that he felt that way about me.”
    “I looked for documentation of your marriage, but I couldn’t find anything.”
    Pandora turned back and stared at him for a moment before she cocked her head to the side. “You wouldn’t because I couldn’t go through with a ceremony, and I was legally dead, according to the world. So Mohammed had documentation forged in case he was ever questioned.”
    “And he accepted that?”