Alex (In the Company of Snipers) Read Online Free PDF Page A

moved in close. With a quiet gasp, she held her breath Suddenly, and he was back in an Iraqi village, trying to help a little girl who had been injured when an insurgent’s improvised bomb exploded in her village. Kelsey had that same look. As much as she needed help, she was scared. Of him.
    “Hey. It’s okay. I’m just going to clean your face.” He wanted to reassure her, but it was too late. He had already made too much of a negative impression.
    Alex blew out a long, slow breath. The more he handled her, the more he realized his hands were too large and too rough for this kind of work. He was a pipe wrench performing delicate surgery on a china cup.
    His sweet wife’s admonition on the night of his daughter’s birth came back to him. “Sweetheart, she’s not going to break.”
    His heart stuttered. Sara? He hadn’t thought of that night in years. Why now?
    As he smoothed the cloth over Kelsey’s forehead and cheeks, he was close enough to notice the long eyelashes beneath a puffy eyelid. Squeezing a dribble of water against the sealed eyelid, the dried blood softened enough to be wiped away. He did everything with extra gentleness now, but she still trembled.
    “Am I hurting you?” he asked softly.
    “No.” Her one word answer came out squeaky, fast, and sad. Again, he felt ashamed. This poor woman was primed to fight or flee—from him. Not a response he was proud of. The last thing she needed was another monster in her life.
    “I’ll fix some soup when we’re done. Do you think you can eat?”
    She sniffed, her one clean hand to her nose.
    Very gently, he stretched a butterfly band-aid across her split cheekbone and placed another band-aid over the cut above her swollen eye, just beside the arch of a delicate brow. Her petite nose sported a smattering of brown freckles and shouldn’t have been as full of dried blood and dirt as it was. As angry as he was at the person who had hurt this petite woman, he was angrier with himself. He had acted badly today.
    It was too much for her. She pushed his hand away and took a deep breath through her mouth. “Do-do you have a tissue?”
    “You bet.” He scrambled for a paper towel, and then thought better of it and dampened it with cool water before he handed it to her. She was shaking so hard she could barely blow her nose, but he saw the blood.
    He braced a hand to her shoulder. “I’m almost done. Let me check your lip, and we’ll call it good.” By now, Alex was nose to nose with her. He held a damp cloth to a lip that was swollen and split. He had been in enough brawls to know this kind of wound well. He just hadn’t seen it on such a delicate face before.
    “Ouch,” she said softly when he smoothed a layer of ointment over her lips.
    “Sorry.” He tried to be more careful. “Did someone hit you or something? Did you fall?”
    “I sat down ….” She glanced toward the door. “Out there.”
    “Right. You were on my porch. Is that all you remember?”
    “A bear.” She nodded toward Whisper. “A big bear.”
    “That’s just my dog,” he offered her a glass of salt water to rinse her mouth. “He won’t hurt you. Here. Swish this around and spit it out.” He held the washbasin so she could spit the blood from her mouth. That’s when he saw her teeth were bloodied as well. Probably loose, too.
    “Thank you,” she whispered, wiping her mouth.
    “Hey, don’t worry about it. Looks like you’ve been through a pretty hard time.”
    She was in rough shape, but at least she was halfway clean. She still wouldn’t look at him though.
    “You had enough for one night?”
    “Yes.” She shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
    “Good. Let’s get you into some clean clothes. Come on. I’ll help you up.”
    She rose shaky from the cot, balancing with both hands on his shoulders while he eased her into a pair of his old grey sweats. They were way too large, but at least they were clean and warm. They would do for tonight.