A Friend in Need (Gift of the Ancients Book 3) Read online

  Gift of the Ancients #3

  A Friend in Need

  by

  Bianca D’Arc

  It’s a case of wrong place, right time when Hannah meets Carter in the middle of a mall shooting spree.

  She’s a wounded warrior…

  Hannah came home from her tour in the desert with a foot busted up almost beyond repair. It’s been a struggle to get back to civilian life after her injury, but she’s working at the mall and doing what the doctors tell her, when all of a sudden, she’s back in a firefight, in the middle of suburbia!

  He’s a very special operator…

  Carter is tasked to look after the woman who can’t run, and finds himself enchanted by her coolness under fire. He’s a Special Forces warrior with a near-magic ability for language. Days after the mall incident, he feels compelled to check on her, and then, the true adventure begins as attraction explodes into heated desire, and enemies on her doorstep cause him to take drastic action.

  They have a lot in common, including a smoldering mutual attraction…

  Both sergeants, they’re both in the Army, though under very different commands. Still, they find common ground and fiery passion, together. When a sleeper cell is awakened, it will take both of them to stop the insanity. Can they do it without losing anyone…especially each other?

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright ©2020 Bianca D’Arc

  Published by Hawk Publishing, LLC

  New York

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Dedication

  This book was edited and proofed during the unprecedented isolation of the Spring 2020 corona virus pandemic in the United States. Everything was made more difficult by the need for social distancing and the horrible news of illness and death bombarding us every single day. My editor, in particular, is going through a rough patch and yet, she still found time to edit this for me. Thank you, Jess, from the bottom of my heart.

  I also must thank Peggy McChesney for finding a few more errors than usual. She is my final check and my dear friend for being willing to give these books a read when they might not be perfectly ready for ‘human consumption.’ LOL. Thank you, Peggy, for always being willing and so incredibly helpful. You’re the best!

  And a special nod to my 94 year old Dad, who has been putting up with my cooking for the last five weeks, while we’ve been in self-imposed isolation. Our small county on Long Island, in New York, is number two in the nation for corona virus illness and death right now. It’s a scary place to be, especially since he is so vulnerable. (Though, I’m no spring chicken either, these days!)

  Dad and I started isolating before any of the orders went out because I can’t take chances with his health. As a result, we’ve had to eat my lousy cooking for five weeks already, and I can’t tell you how much we are both looking forward to being able to eat out again!

  And finally, just a thought for us all who are living through this crisis, and all those who didn’t make it. My heart goes out to you and your families. We’re all in this together…but at a safe, socially-distanced space. We’ll get through this and when we do, I hope and pray that life will be better than ever, and all the more precious for what we have just experienced. Hang in there.

  I hope this story will bring you all a little respite from your cares and woes, if only for a few hours…

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Carter was back on Plum Island, doing PT with the rest of his unit. They were a top-secret military Spec Ops unit that had gone to the Middle East and come back…changed. They’d encountered something odd in that desert, and their fates had been altered by what could only have been a magical being that they met in a tower that couldn’t possibly be where it had been. At least, not in the present day.

  The jury was still out on whether they’d been transported back to the days of ancient Babylon or if they’d someone crossed over some interdimensional portal, but they all agreed, they’d climbed that tower and met a very strange man in the top chamber. A man wearing a turban and brightly colored clothing like something out of an Arabian Nights fantasy. He’d asked them many questions about current events in the world, as if he had no idea what had been going on in the region for centuries.

  Oddly, they’d answered his questions and talked with the man far longer than should have been safe for them to linger. It felt like something had compelled them to stay and chat, when they should have been on the move. The strange man had looked at each member of the unit, as if assessing them for their true character. Then, he’d smiled, and after a few more words, they had left.

  It wasn’t until later that they realized they had each acquired some freaky new abilities. Carter’s friend, Jeff, for instance. He’d started seeing the future.

  They hadn’t really believed in any of it at first, but over the next few days, working as a unit in a war zone, Jeff’s premonitions had saved the team from ambushes and hidden bombs over and over. He was the real deal. A newly hatched clairvoyant.

  His buddy, Rick, had been given the gift of healing. He could put his hands on an open wound and make it disappear. In fact, he’d just done so for Carter, the day before.

  They’d all been helping Jeff with a mission of his own less than a week ago, to stop a local woman from being kidnapped. Jeff’d had a vision that showed the woman was in danger, and he’d gone charging in to change the outcome. Carter had been on the support team when a shooter had opened fire in the local mall.

  Carter had taken a hit to the thigh and had stayed behind when the team left the scene. The team had taken the female target with them, and they’d tasked Carter to interface with the local authorities and see to the safety of another woman, who’d gotten caught in the middle.

  Her name was Hannah Sullivan. A pretty redhead with dazzling blue-gray eyes. She’d been working at the mall, running a kiosk in the center of the wide walking area between the rows of shops. Jeff and his lady had taken shelter there for a few minutes, with Hannah, in the middle of the gunfire. When they’d made a run for it, inviting Hannah to seek safety with them, she’d revealed that she couldn’t run. She had a cast on her right foot, and she would only slow them down.

  They’d left her behind, but not unprotected. Carter had moved position to stay with Hannah and do his best to keep her safe. He’d already taken the hit in the leg by then, so it was somewhat logical that h
e be the one to stay behind when the rest of the team made tracks. It wasn’t like leaving a guy behind on some foreign battlefield. They were in the States. Not hostile territory.

  The shooter had been quickly subdued by local police, and Carter had done his duty, being the point of contact for the authorities, representing the unit. When they had realized he was bleeding, the questions had stopped in favor of medical assistance. He’d kept Hannah with him, and she had submitted to a quick check by the ambulance attendant.

  Carter had overheard her talking about her foot, and that she was under care of a surgeon and primary care team at the VA hospital not too far away. When Carter heard that, he’d flashed his military I.D. and asked they be taken to the VA for treatment. Both of them. He hadn’t been prepared to let Hannah out of his sight. He’d wanted to know more about her and make sure she would be okay.

  The ambulance had taken them to the VA, and he’d submitted to the local doctors’ treatment. They’d easily removed the bullet and sewed him up. They’d also taken care of Hannah. Doctors from her care team had come down to the Emergency Room, where Carter and Hannah had been given beds next to each other, separated by only a thin curtain that wasn’t closed most of the time.

  He’d been able to hear about her foot through the flimsy curtain. Her doctors sounded concerned because, they had said, it wasn’t healing properly. Carter didn’t like that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Unless… Rick might be able to help her. But, no. Rick’s superpowers were top secret. It would be incredibly difficult to get clearance for Rick to help someone not already in on the unit’s secret.

  As it was, the doctors had clucked over Hannah, but all agreed that she was no worse for her ordeal in the mall. She’d been discharged, and Carter had wanted to leave, too, but they wouldn’t let him. They’d stuffed him in a room after patching him up and told him to stay put.

  He’d stuck it out for a few days at the VA. Hannah had surprised him by coming to visit. She’d thanked him again for staying with her during the gunfire and asked if he wanted anything from the little shop in the basement where they stocked candy, snacks and other items. They commiserated about the blandness of hospital food, but eventually she’d had to leave to go to a regularly scheduled appointment with her physical therapist, also located in the same large building, but on another floor in a separate wing.

  The following day, his unit commander, Captain Haliwell, had gotten him released from the VA hospital. Carter had returned to the island yesterday, where Rick had done his magic. Carter was good as new today and exercising with his unit. As it should be.

  “Heard anything about Hannah?” Jeff asked Carter as they ran along the beach with the other guys.

  “I talked to her before I left the hospital. She came to visit me, to see how I was doing.” Carter’s tone was filled with surprise that she would make a special trip out to see him when he knew how difficult it was for her to get around in that cast.

  “How’s her foot coming along?”

  Carter frowned. “She’s been going to the VA for it, but something’s wrong with the way it’s healing. Did you know she was a vet? She served in Afghanistan and was wounded by a roadside bomb. That’s how her foot got messed up in the first place. Her tour was almost up, and after that, she decided to try civilian life again.”

  “Can’t blame her. Especially if the foot isn’t healing right,” Jeff said as they finished their run. He and the others dropped to the sandy beach to do pushups, Carter beside him. “Maybe Rick could take a look,” Jeff added, surprising Carter. He’d wanted Rick to look at Hannah since he’d found out about her problem, but he hadn’t really thought it would be possible.

  “I wonder if the captain would allow it?” Carter mused, hopeful.

  “Only one way to find out. You should ask him. She did see us in action, so it’s not like she doesn’t know who we are. And she’s a vet. Rick’s talent is going to waste out here with just us to look after. I bet he’d be happy to help her,” Jeff added.

  “You’re right.” Carter felt determined. If Jeff, of all people, suggested he ask, then he would. Sometimes, since gaining his foreseeing gift, Jeff would hint at things that turned out to be very good ideas in the end, without coming out and saying he’d foreseen it all in a vision. “I’ll look into it after breakfast.”

  “Good man,” Jeff replied, his tone satisfied. Carter got the distinct impression that he’d been maneuvered by his clairvoyant teammate, but he didn’t mind. He’d been wanting to get some help for Hannah, and Jeff’s suggestion opened a pathway for him to try.

  Carter made a point to seek out the captain once the PT session was over. No time like the present to start the ball rolling.

  Chapter One

  Hannah was back at the mall, manning the kiosk a few days after the shooting. Mall traffic was down a little, but Long Islanders were pretty resilient. They’d taken the news story that the mall gunfire had been caused by rival gangs having a turf war with alacrity. Hannah knew it hadn’t been any sort of gang action. For one thing, the men who had been the target of the gunfire were military.

  Oh, they might not have been wearing actual uniforms, but she recognized what they were. She’d served alongside men like them for a few years, herself. Okay. Maybe not exactly like them, but she’d seen SEAL teams and Green Beret units come through the forward base where she’d been stationed, a few times. The guys from the mall looked like that. Same hard edges, hard bodies and state-of-the-art weaponry.

  They hadn’t used their firepower in the mall incident. If they had, the whole darn place would’ve been shot up to hell and back. The only people who had fired at the mall had been the bad guy and the local cops. Thankfully, there had been only one shooter, and the cops had been able to take him down—with a little help from the guy the Spec Ops team had left behind to watch over her.

  Carter. That had been his name, he’d said. Whether that was his first name or his last name, she had no idea. It seemed to serve as both.

  He was a dreamboat of a guy with chiseled features and the bluest of blue eyes. He’d been injured, too. The gunman had caught Carter in the leg while he’d been moving to cover the petite woman at the center of the knot of big men. She and another guy had taken cover behind Hannah’s kiosk for a few minutes. Rose. She’d taken the time to introduce herself just before she and that other man had run for cover farther down the mall.

  Hannah hoped Rose and the others had gotten away clean. She didn’t really know what had been the cause of all the ruckus, but it was pretty clear it hadn’t been gang warfare. At least to her. It had looked more like the shooter was after Rose and those guys were taking her to safety.

  Just like Carter had been detailed to see to Hannah’s safety, even though he was injured, himself. He’d stuck by her side until the mayhem was over, and then, he’d even insisted on riding in the same ambulance with her to the hospital.

  She hadn’t been hurt. Not in that incident, at least, but Carter had insisted that she get checked out. He’d spoken quietly with the local cops and the ambulance attendants, and they’d both been transported to the nearby VA hospital. Only after they’d settled Hannah on a bed in one open ER spot and Carter in the very next bed, with only a thin curtain ineffectively granting them token privacy, had he allowed them to treat his gunshot wound.

  She’d heard Special Forces guys were tough, but she hadn’t realized how tough until she saw for herself the wound he’d insisted was “nothing” for more than an hour. She’d listened shamelessly as the ER doctor tut-tutted over Carter’s injury. The bullet had still been lodged in his leg, so the doctor had wanted to put Carter under general anesthesia while he dug it out, but Carter had adamantly refused.

  The doctor hadn’t been happy, but had eventually agreed to inject a local anesthetic while he did the job right then and there. Carter didn’t make a single sound of pain throughout the procedure, though she had heard the doctor warning Carter that the local anesthetic would onl
y dull the area, not take away sensation completely and that it might still hurt. A lot.

  Regardless, Carter didn’t groan or suck in his breath. Nothing. Only a mild observation that the bullet wasn’t as deep in there as he’d thought. Hannah was shocked. He was watching the doctor dig the bullet out of his own leg! Talk about hardcore.

  A few minutes later, the doctor had stitched up the wound and left Carter an I.V. drip of very strong antibiotics. Hannah would have observed more, but another doctor had come to her bedside with a bunch of questions.

  Hannah had given the emergency room doctor the names of her primary care physician in the VA system and the specialists she’d been seeing upstairs at this very hospital. They had been able to pull up her records on one of the rolling computer stations the nurses used, and they’d called her foot doctor to come down to the ER for a consult. While they waited, the ER doctor looked her over quickly, just to make sure Hannah wasn’t hiding any sort of serious injury.

  A few minutes later, her usual doctor had peeked around the curtain and after greeting her, asked the usual questions about her level of pain and discomfort. He spent a few minutes examining what he could see of the skin above and below the cast, testing her reflexes and ability to feel different sensations in her toes. Just like he did every time she saw him.

  “I kept telling them all that I was okay, but the guy in the next bed insisted I come in,” Hannah had explained, once again, this time to her doctor.

  “Ah,” the doctor had said, her face clouding with a hard-to-read expression. “Well, if you don’t have any new injuries, I suspect there’s another reason they wanted you to come in. In fact, I have orders not to release you until you’ve spoken to a Navy commander who’s coming in especially to see you.”

  That had struck Hannah as decidedly odd. She was a sergeant in the Army. She’d had no idea why the Navy would be interested in her. Unless maybe Carter was a Navy SEAL or something. She had listened hard to see if she could learn more about his identity—his rank or any other information—but they’d been very circumspect about discussing any personal information. She decided the staff had probably been given a heads-up prior to the ambulance’s arrival, and had known ahead not to speak too much about Carter’s records.