Her Survivor: A Black Eagle Ops Novel Read Online Free

to numb the memory. Hell, if she hadn’t had a pulse, they wouldn’t have been able to tell if she was alive, she’d been beaten so badly. Poor kid had gone so deep inside herself to hide from all the shit being done to her, he wasn’t sure the Ashley who’d joined his team and teased his men about all their bad habits would ever resurface.
    JJ and Nance were sleeping close to the house tonight. ZQ strode to the kitchen, grabbed four longnecks from the refrigerator, and slipped a rawhide treat into his shirt pocket. He turned on the back porch light and sat on one of the Adirondack chairs positioned around the fire pit between the house and the stables, both the newer one used for horses and the older, larger one he was turning into a training area for his men. “JJ, you still awake?”
    From the darkness whispered an answer in the affirmative. Damn, it brought back memories. “Want a beer? I need to talk.”
    “Stand down,” JJ told Nance, and she barreled around the side of the ranch house.
    ZQ grunted when she landed on his lap and smiled as she bestowed a bounty of doggie kisses over his face. It wasn’t long before her nose went to his pocket to sniff between her shows of affection.
    JJ folded himself into a chair and ZQ handed him two bottles.
    “Whazup?” He raised the beer to his lips. Nance placed her paw on JJ’s arm and whined as if to ask for permission. “Did you smell something, baby? Go get it.”
    She daintily removed the treat with her teeth and jumped down to lie across JJ’s feet.
    “Got a call from Ashley.” ZQ sipped at his beer.
    The air around them stilled. So did JJ.
    “I sent Ashley a phone like I did Dust. Also sent one to Reece.” He chuckled. “Or Steelhead, as you guys called him. I email Cudo since he lives in Guam. When I hear some of my guys could use help, I reach out.” ZQ shrugged his shoulders. “So many suffer from PTSD, just like you are. They might need a place to acclimate to normal life at a slower pace than most. They’re always welcome here.” Moths flew around the porch and pole lights.
    JJ stared off. “Roland Cudo in Guam? How did you ever find him? Still got your fingers in the intelligence pie, don’cha?” He shook his head a couple times. “What did Ashley have to say?”
    “She calls most every night at the same time. Sounds like she’s in a full-blown panic attack.”
    “Nightmares.”
    Two horses whinnied back and forth in the stables. Nance stopped chewing her rawhide for a minute to listen, while ZQ guzzled more beer. “That’s what I figured. Rapid breathing and sometimes she whines like a wounded animal, but she never speaks.”
    JJ downed the rest of his first beer. “Damn. Damn it all to hell and back. You know she should never have been over there. She’d been trained to translate emails and texts, not go face-to-face with those heartless sonsabitches. Hell, she barely knew how to shoot a gun.”
    “She’d been through basic training like every other sailor. Even so, you got my vote on that sentiment. She hadn’t been through the intense training we were. Too bad I didn’t have a voice in the situation at the time. After Stoney got killed, a translator was requisitioned for our unit ASAP.”
    “And you mean to fuckin’ tell me she was the
only
one they had? Navy clerical? Hell, she was no trigger puller. What did command think would happen to a petite, beautiful, blond woman once ISIS saw her and set their demented minds on capturing her?”
    Yeah, it was just as ZQ figured. JJ had it bad for Ashley. “Every night when she calls, I try to engage her in conversation. Tonight I asked her if she liked kittens and she said she did. Her first word to me, man. I was never so happy to hear a single word in my whole life. Then I made a big mistake.”
    JJ glared at him, his ebony eyes sparkling in the night, and his second beer nearly touching his lips. “What?”
    “I told her all she had to do was say the word and I’d fly the