The Heart Beneath Read online

  Despite the urgency of the situation, Wes found himself staring at Callie Evans. She was tiny, built like a bird. She was wearing the standard camouflage, desert-colored cammos, a cap over her short, sandy-colored hair. Her eyes were beautiful, large and intelligent looking. She didn’t miss much, Wes guessed as he created a path through the crowd and led her toward his makeshift office. Callie followed him, almost tripping on his heels. She was too small in this sea of men, he thought. A delicate flower among a bunch of tall redwood trees.

  Once they got into the smaller room, Callie saw at least ten other officers standing around a huge square table covered with blueprint maps. Most were dressed in civilian clothes, and it was obvious they had gone out to party the night away—until the earthquake occurred. They all stopped talking when Wes reentered the room. He looked around to find her.

  “I’m right behind you,” Callie assured him in an amused tone. She knew she was short and could easily get lost. He managed a slight smile as he looked down at her, his green eyes growing warm as they perused her. And then Callie saw them become stern and professional once again. For that brief moment, though, she’d felt the warmth flow straight to her heart, which pounded briefly in response. What was going on? A wild giddiness thrummed through Callie, catching her completely off guard.

  “Good, Lieutenant. Stand over there,” he ordered, pointing to one end of the table.

  Callie nodded a silent hello to the other officers, who gave her a deferential nod back. Everyone looked grim, and the stress was palpable in the room. Her gaze shifted to Wes James, the officer in charge. As he spread a roll of maps on the table with his large, square hands, she found herself liking him even more than when she’d seen him at the colonel’s side. There was a brisk efficiency to his motions; and she liked his low-key approach to this situation. He wasn’t a drama king like some of the officers she’d seen out in the main room. No, he was quiet, all-business, and had that eaglelike look in his eyes that told her he was capable of handling this assignment. And he was handsome with his oval face, strong chin, and full mouth. When she noticed the laughter lines at the corners of his eyes, she smiled to herself. Obviously he had a sense of humor, and that was good in her book.

  After Wes went over the grid scheme for the L.A. basin, pinpointing the largest skyscrapers that had been destroyed according to earlier reports, he began handing out assignments. Callie was able to give him one handler and dog for each of the twenty-two grid areas. He seemed pleased with her efficiency and ideas. Finally, at the end of the process, he wrapped up one roll of blueprints and tucked it beneath his arm.

  “Okay, Lieutenant Evans, I’m assigning you to me. We’re going to the Hoyt Hotel in southern Los Angeles. It’s a fourteen-story structure that, according to the best intel we have, has completely collapsed. It was built in the 1920s, long before earthquake codes were in place, so I know it’s going to be one helluva hot spot. According to the local fire department in that area, that hotel was filled to the gills with party goers. It was one of the ‘in’ spots.” He searched her wide, flawless eyes. Her pupils were large and black, her lashes thick and long. Despite her height, or lack of it, he liked the set of her square jaw and the confidence in her demeanor. “You think you can handle it?”

  Callie grinned back, once again receiving that green-eyed warmth from him. “No question about it, Lieutenant James. My dog and I can handle anything you throw at us. We’re vets of Turkey, Greece, Colombia and Mexico. This isn’t going to be any worse than that.” Or maybe it was and Callie just didn’t want to believe it.

  Satisfied, Wes gestured for her to step ahead of him. “Good enough, Callie. I’ve got a Humvee outside. I want you to ride over to your H.Q., grab your dog and meet me at the airport. We have a Huey at our disposal to take me and my crew—and you—to our assigned grid area. Make it back as fast as you can?”

  Callie nodded. “Yes, sir, I will.”

  Before she hurried out, she saw Wes give her a slight, tired smile, concern burning in his eyes. This was a man who cared deeply, and that made her feel glad to be working with him. The urgency to help the thousands of victims out there thrummed through both of them, as well as the rest of the officer corps. This was worse than a war: no shots had been fired, but the death toll was going to be horrific, Callie thought.

  She moved briskly toward the door at the rear of the room. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was beating hard in her chest as she trotted down the concrete steps to a dark brown and tan desert-camouflaged Humvee that waited for her at the bottom. The sky was just beginning to turn a turgid gray color. Soon, dawn would come. And soon they would all see the devastation that this quake of the century had caused.

  As she rode over in the Humvee, down an asphalt road that was buckled in some places, but still functional, she clasped her hands together. Her attention seesawed from details of her duty to thoughts of the green-eyed officer with the warm, caring smile. He treated her as if he liked her—a lot. That was nonsense, of course. She was no looker. She wasn’t pretty in any sense. Just a plain Jane. So why had he given her that look? Oh, Callie recognized it well. She’d seen men give it to women thousands of times before—but never to her. Rubbing her hot cheek, Callie wondered if she were dreaming. But with the quake and all, it felt more like she was in the middle of a very bad nightmare, with Wes in the role of the hero she’d always dreamed about meeting. Shaking her head, Callie decided her emotions were skewed because of the quake and the awful disaster that surrounded them. That was it: she was in mild shock and completely misreading him.

  Still, as she disembarked at her unit’s H.Q. and ran toward the kennel to retrieve Dusty, Callie’s heart thumped hard in her chest—and it wasn’t from fear. No, it was in anticipation of working with Lieutenant Wes James. He liked her and she knew it. And she found that amazing.

  Chapter Two

  January 1: 0700

  As the Huey helicopter landed and Wes saw what was left of the Hoyt Hotel, he couldn’t contain his shock. Once a proud, prestigious structure of world renown, the hotel had enjoyed a five-star rating since the twenties. Now all fourteen stories had collapsed in on one another like a house of cards. The asphalt at the intersection where it once stood had been lifted, tossed around and completely destroyed.

  Wes opened the door and lifted his hand to tell his team to disembark. Leaping down, he felt the wind blast from the rotors strike him forcefully. He kept one hand on his camouflaged-patterned utility cap and gripped a large case carrying the planning essentials he needed. Head bowed slightly, he turned and saw Lieutenant Callie Evans release her dog from the travel cage that sat in the crowded area behind the pilots. The golden retriever acted as if nothing were wrong as he leaped off the lip and onto the churned asphalt that had once been a street. Callie had him on a leash as she hurried by Wes and out of the way of the turning rotors.

  Next came the supplies that they’d need to set up shop for this grid coordinate. Wes’s four enlisted marines climbed out and formed a line to bring box after box out of the bird. The boxes contained tents, food, a first-aid kit, water and latrine supplies. They hurried, for time was of the essence. The door gunner handed out the last of their goods, lifted a hand toward Wes, saluted him and then shut the door. Wes returned the crisp salute and stepped away from the rotor wash.

  The engine began to shriek as the pilot powered up the helicopter for takeoff. As the chopper lifted off, Wes held his utility cap on his head until the buffeting stopped. His team—the four enlisted marines, trained in the use of heavy equipment, and Lieutenant Callie Evans and her golden retriever—all looked to him expectantly for orders. Having a woman in the group was soothing to Wes. For whatever reason, he liked having women as part of his team. They seemed to lend a gentler and quieter energy that served to calm him. Right now, however, his stomach was in knots. The destruction was simply beyond anything he could have imagined. Standing with his team, Wes surveyed the area. At six lanes wide, Palm Boulevard had once been
one of the busiest streets in southern Los Angeles. Now, the asphalt was so broken up it resembled rocks and pebbles. The once proud palm trees that had lined the route were lying like scattered toothpicks in every direction. Cars had been tossed into one another. Wes saw a policeman and policewoman, on foot, going from car to car in the gray dawn light, their flashlights on as they searched each car for victims.

  The city blocks around Palm Boulevard contained upscale one- and two-story suburban houses. This had been a very rich enclave in what was considered the poorer section of L.A. Computer people who had plenty of money had moved in around the Hoyt, and the grid under Wes’s direction, a five-mile-square area, included this wealthy suburb.

  Looking at the city blocks from the air as they’d come in to land, Wes had noticed only a few houses still standing. He’d seen a lot of people wandering around the chewed up streets, clearly in shock, or standing in small groups looking at the devastation. Very few buildings of any kind still stood; most had collapsed in a shambles. The palm trees that had once inspired the proud moniker of this pricey neighborhood were uprooted and lay everywhere. Expensive foreign cars that had once sat curbside in front of these million-dollar homes were useless. To Wes, it looked as if all the cars had come from an auto graveyard, they were so damaged by the killer quake. Few appeared to be salvageable or drivable.

  Grimly, he surveyed his awaiting team as they huddled with him in the cool dawn light. As he lifted his gaze, he saw that the entire L.A. basin was covered with a thick layer of black, greasy smoke. Thousands of fires were burning, the flicker of red-and-yellow flames standing out against the approaching sunrise. The air was choked with dust, debris and throat-clogging smoke from the thousands of burning buildings. Everything was on fire, including one-third of the houses surrounding the Hoyt.

  There was no water available to fight the fires because the pipes had been broken by the quake. Fire departments couldn’t respond because there were no roads on which to travel. No matter where Wes looked, something was flattened. A posh restaurant on the corner of Palm and Miranda Boulevard was so much debris, with part of the once-proud Spanish tile roof visible on the ground next to it. Red tiles had been shattered into marble-size pieces, mixed within gray-and-black asphalt that had been churned up by the undulating shocks.

  Wes forced himself to concentrate on what they had to do. Luckily for the team, there was a construction company less than a quarter mile away, down a small side street. Turning to blond-haired Sergeant Barry Cove, who was in his late twenties, Wes said, “Sergeant, you and Lance Corporal Stevens go down to that construction company and see what you can find. Find the owner, if he’s around. If he’s not, break into the office and locate keys for whatever equipment he’s got inside that cyclone-fence area. Get the following, if you can find it—a cherry picker, because we’re going to need a crane and hook to start lifting off the top debris on the Hoyt to try and find survivors. A front-end loader with a bucket would also be useful to us. I want a list of everything he has. If you do locate him, send him to me. Right now, martial law is imposed, and we’re the law. What we need, we get. Be diplomatic with him, if he’s there. If not, take what we need and leave a note. Bring that equipment up here to the Hoyt.” Wes pointed to the wrecked hotel, the ruins of which stood on the corner opposite them.

  Sergeant Cove nodded. “Yes, sir!” And the two men started off at a trot down the pulverized street.

  Wes glanced at Callie. Though he was feeling shocked by all of this, one quick look at her calm features soothed him somewhat. She was gazing toward the collapsed hotel, her full lips parted, the pain very real in her huge blue eyes. His gaze settled on his other two men, Corporal Felipe Orlando and Private Hugh Bertram.

  “Corporal, take Private Bertram with you and canvass the hotel with this map.” Wes handed the corporal one of the tightly rolled blueprints from beneath his arm. Orlando had worked with him for nearly a year helping to build roads and bridges at Camp Reed, which was why he and Wes had been specially assigned to the base. Orlando was in his late twenties, married, and the father of three beautiful little girls. At Wes’s words, his round coppery face lit up and he nodded briskly and took the map.

  “Yes, sir. Where are we putting the H.Q.?”

  Wes grinned slightly and nodded to Orlando. They needed a central location to erect tents and store food before they could get busy with the rescue effort. Looking around, Wes saw a car that had been knocked around and smashed by several falling palm trees right in front of the collapsed Hoyt. With a little cleaning, the broad hood of the car could be used as a table.

  “Near that blue SUV, Corporal. Once you finish canvassing the hotel, you two can get the tents up, store our supplies and get us operational. That will be our ops center until we can get reinforcement in here.” There was a convoy starting out of Camp Reed, heavy trucks and Humvees bringing more tents, MREs—Meals Ready to Eat—and anything else they might need for their stay. This was a field operation, and everyone knew it was going to be a long, arduous one. Supplies that were coming to each grid area would help the local people survive.

  “Yes, sir, that looks like a real good area.” Orlando turned to Hugh Bertram, a soft-spoken, red-haired Southerner from Georgia. “Come on, Bertram. We got work to do.”

  The private nodded and saluted and, turning on his heel, followed the corporal, who was trotting toward the hotel.

  “That leaves me,” Callie said as Wes’s warm green gaze settled on her. She offered him a slight smile, feeling as if the sun were shining around her. Throughout the trip in the Huey, she’d sat beside Wes. And she had been privileged to wear a set of headphones hooked up to the intercom. For the entire trip, she was able to converse easily with Wes without having to shout over the roar of the helo.

  He hadn’t known much about quake rescue dogs or what she did for a living. Callie had filled him in as quickly as possible. Every time he settled his full attention on her, her heart beat harder in her chest. She couldn’t explain her reaction. Never had a man’s look affected her as much as his did. When his mouth crooked slightly upward at the corners, she felt a little breathless because he was smiling at her. The look that lingered in his sharply assessing eyes made her feel giddy and unsettled at the same time.

  Callie decided crazy things happened during disasters and her feelings could only be attributed to her skewed, unreliable emotional state. During times of trauma, most people were in shock and nothing made sense to them. Even though she was a trained rescuer, that didn’t mean she could just shut off her emotions and do her job; far from it. Callie had lost count of how many times she’d cried while out on a grid search for victims. Whenever she thought about what the families of the victims went through, she was ripped apart inside. No matter how difficult it made her job, Callie didn’t ever want to lose her capacity for sympathy and empathy with others; she would rather suffer the consequences. She knew herself well enough to know that her reaction to Wes was not normal, and probably a symptom of what she called “earthquake mode” emotions.

  Maybe Wes was in the same mode; she wasn’t sure. As he stood there, tall and straight, his broad shoulders thrown back as he assessed the Hoyt, he seemed rock solid emotionally. Callie was grateful for his quiet, unobtrusive style of command. Right now, with panic rampant, a calm voice and clear thinking were hard to find. She was glad he was in charge of this operation.

  “Let’s get over to the hood of our H.Q.,” he told her wryly. “You need to commence a grid search in that mess, right?” he asked, hooking a thumb toward the pulverized Hoyt Hotel.

  Callie nodded and fell into step with Wes. Dusty got to his feet and walked obediently at her side, his body swinging comfortingly against her leg. “Yes, the search grid has to be overlaid on your blueprint of the hotel, and then I’ll search each square foot with Dusty. Hopefully, he’ll locate someone who’s still alive. He’ll also pick up the scent of those who have died. He’s been trained to whine if the person is dead and to bark if
he finds someone alive. If they’re dead, I’ll put a bright-red plastic square in that place so everyone knows there’s a body under the rubble. If we find someone alive—” she gave him a hopeful look “—I’ll be radioing down to you and asking you to bring the construction equipment to try and help us unearth the person ASAP.”

  Wes nodded, absorbing the information. “I hope you find a lot of live people. Our number-one priority here is to recover survivors. Secondly, we’re charged with getting tents, food and water to the people of this area, as we get supplies delivered here.”

  “You’ve got a tough job ahead of you,” Callie admitted. Their arms brushed together as they walked. She moved away slightly to ensure that didn’t happen again. Though she liked touching him, Callie knew it wasn’t appropriate. Still, her heart had pounded a little harder in her breast when she’d made contact with Wes. And he didn’t seem to mind the accidental touch. In fact, he’d slanted a glance down at her, a slight hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  He snorted softly now. “I’m a construction guy, not a rescue trained military officer. I hope I can do justice to this mess, but I’m not sure.” He held her gaze. “And I’m looking to you for help, Callie. You’re the real disaster expert here. I hope you don’t mind if I call you often on the radio and ask for help and guidance when I need it?”

  What a delightful surprise, Callie thought, happy that Wes didn’t have trouble relying on her. Usually that was the case when she was paired up with a man. “Sure, I’ll try to be of help to you in any way possible, Wes. No one is ever trained well enough for something like this….” She looked around, sadness entering her voice. “No one could ever imagine the scope of this disaster. I mean…I’ve been in some pretty awful places, especially Turkey, but this is even worse because it has affected such a large region—not just one city, a few square miles. No, this is a horse of a different color, Wes, and frankly, I don’t think General Wilson at the base realizes how bad it is—yet. He will.” Lifting her arm, she gestured toward the suburbs surrounding the Hoyt. “This is a nightmare come true. And we’re in it as it’s unfolding. All we can do is help each other, hold one another, do a lot of crying when people aren’t looking, and pray we make the right decisions.”