Catch Her If You Can (6 page)

Of all the items we evaluated, Snoopy had the greatest possibilities. I could envision a hundred uses for him. Assuming we could get him to function within guidelines of the Geneva Convention and not creep everyone out.

With that goal in mind, I got over my snit at Farmer Farnsworth and finally sent him a much-edited email. In it I requested additional time to complete our evaluations. This time, I promised, we would carefully screen Snoopy’s menu and take extreme measures to avoid negative publicity. I didn’t detail those measures, mostly because I hadn’t formulated them yet, but I did win an extension from the disgruntled potato planter.

Then I had to convince a very skeptical Dr. J to let us give Snoop another shot. That took considerably more effort. Like me, he’d spent a fair number of hours perusing the Geneva Convention. We’d both received a thorough and very nerve-wracking education. But when my team packed up Friday afternoon, Snoopy went with us instead of getting shipped home.

Normally we convoy back to El Paso. Sergeant Cassidy drives his pickup loaded with our personal gear, Dennis the van crammed with our portable equipment. Rocky usually rides with Dennis. Pen cruises home with me.

I much prefer her company to the others on the drive to and from El Paso. She doesn’t twitch and start to sweat like Rocky does every time I skim a curve. Nor does she keep a running tally of how much I’ve forked over for speeding tickets, like Dennis. It’s a trade-off, though. Instead of nervous or sarcastic comments, I get lengthy monologues on various topics dear to Pen’s heart.

This time, however, she’d driven her own vehicle out to the site. We’d all wondered about that, as she’s into her second term as president of the El Paso chapter of Citizens United for a Greener Biosphere and is always on our case about carpooling to reduce our carbon footprint. After that business with the antique teapot, though, I wasn’t surprised when we made our obligatory farewell stop at Pancho’s and Pen decided to linger awhile.

“You sure?” I asked while Pancho tried to look as innocent as a guy with a black eye patch and waxed handlebar mustache can.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. Well. Um. Drive carefully,” I finished lamely.

Pen merely smiled, but everyone else within earshot let loose with a chorus of hoots and catcalls at hearing that advice coming from me. I ignored them, made a dignified exit, and slid behind the wheel of my Sebring convertible.

My insurance company had balked at writing the convertible off as a total loss after I’d used it as a battering ram. They’d replaced the engine, though, and hammered out the dents. I missed its delicious new-car smell but couldn’t complain too much as I’d put the top down before we left our site and the predominant scent right now was baked leather. I wiggled my fanny from side to side until the bucket seat cooled enough to settle both cheeks.

Eager to hit the road, I tossed my patrol cap on the passenger seat and slipped on my wraparound sunglasses. I wanted to remove the clip anchoring my hair and let it blow in the wind. Unfortunately, allowing so much as a stray strand to touch your uniform collar is one of the many mysterious military no-no’s. This one makes absolutely no sense to me. I suspect it was promulgated by the same jerk who decided female cadets at the service academies should wear pants in marching formation instead of skirts. Heaven forbid we should show some leg and look like women instead of mutant males.

With that bit of internal editorializing out of my system, I keyed the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot. The guys followed at a more sedate speed.

I might as well have unclipped my hair. The wind tugged most of it loose anyway during the drive to El Paso. It’s just a little over eighty miles as the crow flies. We wingless humanoids have to navigate a series of two-lane county roads north, then west, then north again until we finally reach I-10.

This circuitous route takes us through several topological zones. As Pen has reminded my team on numerous occasions, the Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North America. It stretches from just south of Albuquerque through Arizona and Texas all the way down to Mexico City. I must admit I never paid much attention to such matters as topographical zones pre-Pen. I’ve become a reluctant expert, though, after all her monologues.

Go ahead. Ask me about the growth patterns of the Bigtooth maples that flame with fall color in high mountain canyons. Or a plant group entirely composed of gypsophiles and gypsovags. Hint: They grow only in gypsum deposits like New Mexico’s spectacular White Sands.

Armed with such arcane detail, I was able to take in the passing scenery with something of a connoisseur’s eye as our little convoy descended from wind-carved sandstone buttes to the wide, flat Rio Grande Valley. Once we zipped up the ramp onto I-10, though, all bets were off. I was morally obligated to leave every lumbering semi in my dust, right?

I extended an arm straight up and waggled my fingers in farewell to the guys. Then I hit the gas. The stars must have aligned just right because not a single flashing red light appeared in my rearview mirror as I cruised along. Soon, very soon, I made out the purple smudge of the Franklin Mountains just west of El Paso. Some moments later the city itself appeared in the distance. Downtown rose from the flatlands cut by the Rio Grande like steel-and-glass fingers reaching for the sky.

Since I’m not into cooking if there’s a restaurant or fast-food joint within striking distance, I called my favorite Chinese place for a to-go order of dim sum, pork fried rice, and an extra crispy spring roll. I picked up the order and was sniffing the delicious scents emanating from the bag when I pulled into the entrance to my apartment complex. The place is typical Southwest, with lots of tile and adobe. Since it’s close to Fort Bliss, it’s also very military friendly. That makes for some lively Friday and Saturday nights around the pool.

As I toted my gear bag and dinner along the walkway to my apartment, I could see happy hour had already kicked off. Several couples were engaged in an energetic game of water volleyball. Others sprawled on loungers with plastic cups in hand. A portable iPod player belted out a golden oldie by Johnny Cash. I was humming along with the Man in Black and hoping to make it to my front door unnoticed when the wife of one of the instructors at Fort Bliss spotted me.

“Hey, Samantha!”

“Hi, Janie.”

“We saw you on TV.” She hooked an arm, waving me over. “Come tell us about this hit man you got crosswise with.”

“Forget the hit man,” her husband countered. “I want to hear about the reward.”

I weighed the invitation against my half-formed plans for the evening. They included dinner in front of the TV while I did a week’s worth of laundry and sorted through the junk mail that had piled up. A leisurely shower during which I would shampoo my hair and shave my legs in anticipation of Mitch’s visit early tomorrow morning. A blissful night of sleep uninterrupted by Pen’s snorts and snuffles.

As opposed to a sparkling pool and a friendly crowd.

No contest!

“I’ll dump my stuff and change into my suit,” I called back. “Pour me a cold one.”

“You got it.”

The dim sum and fried rice went into the fridge. My dusty boots and ABUs hit the bedroom floor. The clip still clinging haphazardly to my wind-whipped hair got tossed aside. I felt almost human again in my flip-flops and skimpy two-piece, with an old UNLV T-shirt as a cover up.

Several long, thirsty swallows of ice-cold Coors completed the transformation. Everyone poolside wanted the gory details. Not just about Duarte and his trophies. As I mentioned previously, drug wars and violence are pandemic along the border. The reward and Snoopy generated a good deal more interest among this mostly military crowd.

Discussion soon progressed from the robots’s fuel consumption to possible battlefield applications. I was both relieved and pleased to have the crowd validate my gut instinct about Snoop’s potential. Now all I had to do was demonstrate it, I reminded myself when I left the gang at the pool some hours later and flip-flopped back to may apartment.

That’s when I spotted a figure dressed in dark clothes trying to jimmy open the sliding glass door to my patio. I stopped dead, gaping in surprise, then gave an indignant yelp.

“Hey! What the heck do you think . . . ?”

That’s all I got out before he whirled and my stomach dropped like the proverbial stone.

“Hi, babe.”

My former, unlamented husband gave me an all-too-familiar grin. Half cocky, half pure sex. The curly black hair, laughing blue eyes, and broad chest that went with it weren’t too shabby, either.

Charlie Spade still had one smokin’ hot bod. All I needed was a single glance at his thigh-hugging jeans and the T-shirt stretched across the aforementioned chest to see he’d kept in shape since our quickie marriage and divorce.

Those wide shoulders and cheeky grin didn’t do it for me anymore, though. I’d built up immunity to both even before I caught him with our over-endowed neighbor.

“When did you get into breaking and entering?” I demanded, hands on hips.

“I wasn’t trying to get in. Just look in.”

“Could’ve fooled me!”

“I rang the doorbell, Sam. You didn’t answer, but the lights were on. I thought maybe you looked through the peephole, saw it was me, and went into hiding.”

“Why would I hide from you?”

Dumb question, I realized as soon as the words were out. There was only one reason he would show up on my doorstep unannounced.

“You heard about the reward, didn’t you?”

“Brenda did.”

Brenda being our slutty ex-neighbor and Charlie’s current wife.

“She saw your picture on TV. She said the photo made you look sort of bloated but . . .”

“She’s one to talk!”

He skimmed a glance down my bikini-clad length. “But it looks to me like you’ve shed a few pounds.”

Guess that’s what chasing robots and other outlandish inventions in the desert heat will do for you. I appreciated the compliment but not the complimenter.

“If you made the trip from Vegas hoping for a cut of that reward, you can jump in whatever you’re driving these days and head right back.”

“The thing is, Sam, I’m in kind of a jam.”

“Not my problem.” I waved good-bye and breezed toward the door. “Adios, Carlos.”

“Geez, Samantha.” He dogged my heels. “We haven’t seen each other in more than two years. Least you could do is invite me in for coffee or a beer or something.”

I rolled my eyes. That’s Charlie Spade in a nutshell. Completely oblivious to the fact that the last time we were together in the same room he came perilously close to being gelded.

“Com’on, babe.” While I keyed the door, he rubbed the back of his neck and let a little boy whine sneak into his voice. “It’s a long stretch from Vegas to El Paso. One cup of coffee. That’s all I’m asking for before you send me on my way.”

“The 7-Eleven on the corner is open all night. You can get a cup there.”

I closed the door in his face, or tried to. His foot wedged in the crack.

“Please, Sam.” The whine evaporated, replaced by a desperate note. “I’m in over my head. You gotta help me climb out.”

I didn’t have to help him climb anywhere. I had a divorce decree to prove it. I started to remind him of our non-joined status when his expression stopped me cold. No question about it. The man was scared.

My conscience doesn’t ping very often, but Charlie and I
had
exchanged bodily fluids two or three times a day during our first, heady weeks together. I couldn’t turn the man away without at least letting him cry on my shoulder for a few minutes.

“Okay,” I conceded with something less than graciousness. “One cup of coffee, then you hit the road.”

I almost changed my mind once we were inside the apartment and he looked around, smirking.

“I see you’re still not real big on dusting.”

I could have informed him that I just returned from a week in the desert and hadn’t had time to unpack, much less stir the accumulated dust. I would have been wasting my breath. As my former husband knows very well, comfortable and cluttered is a whole lot more my style than neat and tidy.

Which is why officer training school darn near killed me, by the way. Not the aerobics or the marching drills or all the classes on military history and strategy. Those I whizzed through. What almost did me in were the idiotic room inspections. Beds had to be made so tight you could bounce a quarter off the blanket. Shoes had to be precisely aligned. Bras had to be cupped, panties folded into two-inch squares, slips and camisoles . . .

Well, you get the picture. Not being the cupping or quarter-bouncing type, I conducted a special celebration when I finally pinned on my lieutenant’s bars. Academy grads toss their hats in the air at graduation. I tossed my bras and panties.

They still get tossed. Onto chairs or floors or door handles. It’s my way of expressing the non-military side of my personality. The tossing extends to other objects as well but I won’t bore you with a detailed description of the items littering my apartment. Suffice it to say I’m very content in my surroundings.

“The coffeemaker’s on the kitchen counter,” I informed my ex. “The coffee’s in the cupboard right above it. Why don’t you get a pot perking while I change out of this bathing suit?”

“Hey, don’t change on my account.”

His eyes did the skimming thing again. Mine did another roll.

“Put the coffee on, Spade.”

I went in the bedroom and shimmied out of the wet suit. The air conditioner was raising goose bumps all over, so I slipped into briefs, drawstring sweatpants that rode loose on my hips, and a red tank with a sequined Eiffel Tower—symbol of the Vegas casino where I used to work, not the French icon.