Road Tripped (Satan's Devils MC Utah #1) - Manda Mellett Page 0,25

bloody women in the SAS.” I still can’t find sufficient words to explain how proud I am of that.

“Was?” He stiffens, catching onto the tense I’d used. He eyes me thoughtfully, while pushing his hair back from his face. “What happened, Swift? You wouldn’t throw everything away after going through weeks of that hell. What fuckin’ happened?”

“Try months,” I correct him. “The training lasted months. And you’re right, I wouldn’t have.” I pause for a moment trying to push thoughts of what I should be doing now out of my head. I should be facing down terrorists, sneaking around behind enemy lines, working for my country. Instead, I’m here in the States.

A pang of what I lost goes through me, and I clench my fists in an effort to stay calm, before continuing. “I was driving along a motorway in England when an accident happened right in front of me. A tanker jackknifed. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, one of those split-second naps, you know? He realised he was drifting, corrected too hard, lost control of his rig. He walked away. The man in the car behind that crashed into the tanker, could not.”

I stop for a moment to take a breath, viewing the scene dispassionately in my head. “There was smoke, flames. The driver of the car was screaming, so clearly alive, but trapped. I ran to help. I was a soldier in uniform. I told everyone else to step back, and they obeyed as they assumed I knew what I was doing. The passenger side was crushed under the tanker, and the driver’s door wouldn’t open as it had caved in. But from the outside I had the leverage I needed. I managed to get the car door open and pull him out. He was okay and did what any sensible person should, and ran off. I was following him when the whole damn scene exploded.” Automatically, hands go to the back of my head. “He’d just picked up a gas cannister for his barbecue. The valve must have gotten damaged in the collision and the escaping fumes caught fire.”

Road sucks in air, eyeing me carefully as though checking for injuries. He won’t find them, any visible scars have gone. “How badly were you hurt?”

“The blast knocked me off my feet, dropped me down hard on the tarmac, and metal, from the car, cannister, I don’t know what, hit my head. Fire enveloped my back, but luckily a quick-thinking bystander had a fire extinguisher in his car, and managed to put my clothing out before it burned through to the skin. But, the blast, the concussion, well, I’ve lost most of my hearing.”

His brow furrows. “But you’re hearing me? You read lips?”

“I should, but I find lip reading hard.” Tucking my hair back, I point to what’s in my ear. “I depend on hearing aids.”

Road stares at me, then lowers his eyes, then moves his head from side to side. He doesn’t ask, but he tells me, “Which meant you couldn’t be a soldier anymore.”

“I was offered an administrative role in my old unit, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the challenge, I wanted…” The exhilaration. The thrill. The knowledge I was doing what very few could. I don’t try and explain. If captured, all someone would need to do to render me helpless is take my hearing aids away. I shrug. “I took medical retirement and decided to visit the US.”

“Where you found your place and stayed.”

He’s looking at me with a look on his face I’m not able to interpret.

6

Road…

I don’t know what to say. I’d watched her face while she was telling me her history. So many emotions had gone across her features. Pride when she told me she’d succeeded in something very few could, especially given her sex. Then sadness when she told me that, like me, she’d suffered the loss of a dream. Though hers puts my minor inconvenience into perspective.

What kind of woman, person, come to that, must she be to have achieved all that she had? No wonder she’d had Stormy on the ground in seconds flat, she’d have to be an expert at unarmed combat. To stand her ground through the types of interrogation techniques I can only imagine, hell, even Blade wouldn’t break her. She’s so fucking strong, mentally and physically. My first thought when I’d seen her had been that I wouldn’t mind getting in her pants. Now I know she’s so far