Holiday Op

Chapter Five

Prue felt strong arms around her. She couldn't open her eyes because pain had paralyzed her, along with fear.

No white light. Only the wind and dust and someone yelling at her from a distance. Was it really the distance?

Sounded closer.

The arms pulled a bit and suddenly she felt freed from her captor, although no lessening of the pain. Then, a thud.

"Oh,” she heard herself mumble along with several groans.

"First the shelf of mistletoe takes a nosedive cause of you and now you've taken out one of the hundred-or-so-year-old Saguaro, Captain Hamlin. I can see I'm gonna have to watch my step with you."

She opened her eyes to see a foggy, dusty, dirty Slick above her. Slick? Slick? Wow. What a hallucination this was.

Then it dawned on her. She wasn't having her usual lusty reaction to him. Actually, she felt odd. Weird. That was when she realized silence filled the air.

"Where's the helicopter? Or did you just fall out of the sky?” She looked down and he'd torn her uniform sleeve and was doing all sorts of things to her arm, including pouring something cold and stinging onto it, and then stuck a needle into her thigh.

"Ouch!"

"Bad news is the chopper couldn't land, and with these blasted winds I barely made it down without following you onto one of the Saguaros. Whole base is out looking for you, but by land would have taken too long.” He wrapped something tight around her shoulder and arm. “Good news is, I've just given you something for the pain, and the even better news, Captain, is that I'm here now."

She opened her eyes and glared at him.

"What? Aren't you glad to have a PJ fall out of the sky to rescue a damsel in distress?” He'd fiddled around in his bag and held something to her lips. “Drink."

"What it is? I don't want anything. I'm…” Oops. Her words had sounded a bit “too many glasses of wine” slurred.

"Look, Captain, I'm a trained medic. I've risked my life to come rescue you-"

"It's your… your job… duty.” In her head it sounded as if she said “dwuty."

He leaned near.

She could see his face. His Newman eyes. A slight smile.

"I volunteered."

Prue watched Slick remove his helmet, although her vision now matched the blurriness of her speech. “You… vowuntweered?"

"Get some sleep. That morphine is kicking in now by the sound of your speaking and the size of your pupils.” He pushed her hair from her face.

Gulp.

Could morphine cause a rush inside her like this?

Or, admittedly, it was his touch on her skin. Warm fingers, male fingers, strong male fingers doing something as simple as pushing damp, dusty hair from her eyes. Great. Even knocking on the door of death, she had sensual feelings for this cocky, gorgeous, out of her league, PJ.

Sometimes life sucked.

Prue felt something.

Something that had made her feel good. Better. Cooler. Was the A/C on in her room? She opened one eyelid-to see she was nowhere near her room or any form of A/C.

A makeshift tent, attached to the vicious cacti on both sides, shielded her from sun. The pain in her shoulder was tolerable, and she actually wasn't as dusty and dirty feeling as she'd remembered. At least not on her face. She ran a finger across her cheek. Wow. Yep. Cleaner.

Then she looked past the lean-to to see him.

Slick knelt several feet away tending to a fire.

She pushed up on her elbows, then quickly fell back in a bout of dizziness. “Drat.” She'd said it softly, but Slick swung around as if she'd yelled across the desert. And he was next to her before she could blink. Wow. PJs sure gave good service.

"Hey.” He pushed her hair back again.

Gulp. “Hey,” she managed while he pulled a canteen out of his bag and held it to her lips. This time she drank the water without question. Even from a canteen, it tasted delicious. She swallowed, then pulled back and wiped her hand across her lips. “Yum."

It dawned on her that she must look like crap. But, his eyes still held something interesting when he looked at her. Something that made her insides quiver. And why was it that she even cared how she looked? Normally not a vain person, she found herself pushing back her hair at the same time Slick did-and their fingers touched.

Oh… my.

"You cleaned my face off,” came out before she could think of how stupid that actually sounded. “Thanks."

He smiled.

"I… when is the helicopter coming back?” She almost didn't care. She almost didn't want it to come back too soon. She almost forgot it was Christmas day and now she was stranded in the New Mexico desert with one hunk of a hunky PJ-and she wanted these few minutes to last.

Snowy, white New England Christmases seemed a thing of the past.

She looked up at him, pushed up on her elbows, and with his help, managed to sit. “Thank you.” It came out softer than she'd planned. Quieter than she'd expected, and sounding almost sensual without her planning it.

Slick moved closer and supported her back. “It's my job."

When he'd said it, her heart had sunk and her face must have shown the disappointment.

He chuckled. “A job I love and risk my life for nearly every day. I've done tours in the Middle East and survived-thank goodness. But, Prue, when the call came in last night that a nurse was in a helo accident and stranded in the desert-I instinctively knew it was you.” He touched her forehead this time and ran his finger down her cheek. Wow.

She wanted to ask, “How?” but then remembered she'd told him she was on-call. Deep inside she really wanted to know that he volunteered because he felt something too. Something like the shivers she felt right about now despite the desert sun.

"Thank you again,” came out instead. And her hand touched his as his finger lingered on her face.

What pleased her most was that he didn't pull away. Maybe this Christmas wasn't going to be so bad after all.