Hot SEALs: SEAL's Ultimate Challenge Read Free

wasn’t working. But his left one did. With his strength fading, he touched Tuck with his left hand. “Promise.”
    Tuck frowned, a muscle jerking in his jaw. “Bullshit on all this talk about dying. You’re making it out of here alive, so hang on.” He bent, grabbed Reaper’s left arm, and dragged him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
    Pain shot through Reaper, and he slipped into that black abyss of unconsciousness.
    He faded in and out as his body was jolted and jostled.
    Gunfire sounded around him.
    “Hang on,” Tuck said. “Hang on.” The word echoed again and again as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
    Through the ringing in his ears, Reaper heard the distant sound of rotor blades beating the air. Come on, Tuck. Almost there.
    Pain radiated throughout his body, seeming to come from his right arm. He blacked out and woke up, lying on the ground, with something heavy lying over his chest. The sound of gunfire and helicopter rotors filled the air. The pressure on his chest shifted.
    Tuck cried out, “No!”
    An explosion overhead lit the insides of Reaper’s eyelids. He blinked open his eyes to a huge fireball above him, rotor blades breaking away from the fuselage of a helicopter. It fell from the sky, crashing to the ground.
    Reaper’s last thought before he passed out was Delaney. He woke once more and stared up at the interior of a helicopter.
    Fish’s face swam before him. Fish was saying something. “He’s hanging on…”
    The darkness consumed Reaper. He didn’t surface again until the familiar thumping sound of rotor blades slowed to a halt.
    Hands rolled his body over and back onto a hard board. Pain ripped through him, and he hissed. The next thing he was conscious of was being lifted and carried across the landing pad then settled onto a gurney.
    He forced his eyes open and stared up into Delaney’s serious face. A huge sense of relief washed over him, pushing the pain to the back of his mind, if only for a moment.
    “O’Connell?” He tried to reach out with his right hand, but it wasn’t working, so he raised his left hand.
    Delaney grasped it. “Yeah, Cory, I’m here.”
    “You never answered.” He coughed, something thick and warm dribbled from the side of his mouth. “You gonna marry…me?” His eyelids were too heavy to keep open. He let them drift closed, and he waited for her response.
    “Sure, Cory. I’ll marry you. Just hurry up and get better.” Her voice cracked.
    A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Damn. Even that hurt. “Tuck?”
    “I’m here.” Tuck’s voice sounded rough.
    Remaining awake was getting increasingly difficult. “Take care of her,” Reaper said, his own voice fading.
    “I will,” Tuck promised. “Until you’re back on your feet. Because you will be back on your feet.”
    Reaper would have chuckled, but that required more energy than he had. “That an order?”
    “You bet.”
    “Aye, aye,” Reaper said then blacked out.

Chapter Two
    One month later
    “I’M NOT READY.” Leigha Fields stood in the break room on the first floor of the Orthopedics & Rehabilitation building at Walter Reed Bethesda National Medical Military Center, her heart pounding, her hands sweaty. This case would be her first amputee on her own since she’d completed her training. Yeah, she’d worked with wounded soldiers who had torn ACLs, taken shrapnel to their legs and arms, and had to rebuild the muscles since their injuries. But this was the first amputee. A SEAL who’d lost his arm in a special operation in Afghanistan. “What if I hurt him? What if he refuses to do the exercises I prescribe?”
    “You’ll do fine. All you have to do is be patient and remember your training.” Eric Shipley, one of the therapists working with wounded warriors, patted her back. “You’ll do fine.”
    “I’ve never been a patient person,” she admitted.
    Normally, Leigha went into everything she did without hesitation, full-on, no fear. Her training