Sandra Hill (12 page)

“Oh, yeah! I can’t wait to see their faces,” Dough-lore-ass
replied. “I heard Seaman LeBlanc refer to her Phyllis Diller hair.”

“Are you speaking of me?” Madrene asked.

“Yep. You are beautiful, and I’ll bet my stripes they didn’t have a clue,” Amber explained.

“I am
not
beautiful,” Madrene said with consternation. She hated it when people felt the need to pay false compliments.

“Maybe not beautiful exactly,” Dough-lore-ass said. “More like knock-’em-dead attractive.”

“Tsk-tsk! What nonsense you spout!”

“Honey, you’re tall, you’re slim, you have to-die-for hair, and you have breasts that would stop even a gay guy in his tracks.”

“Gay guy? Why would my breasts make a happy man stop?”

Amber and Dough-lore-ass erupted with laughter. When they explained what “gay” meant, she laughed, too. Thus the three of them were laughing as they entered the general’s chamber.

Surprise! …

Ian and the guys were sitting in the mess hall, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. The only one missing was Slick, and God only knew where he’d disappeared to.

They’d all been invited to a party, hosted by some Air Force babes that Cage had met within fifteen minutes of landing here … surprise, surprise! Ian wasn’t sure if he would go, but maybe he should at least make an appearance to avoid the ragging he would get about his libido, or lack thereof. Besides, after the reprimand he’d gotten from General Adams, he could use a beer … or five.

It was almost nine p.m., so the large room was mostly empty. The SEALs of Force Squad were full, relaxed and rehashing their mission for about the tenth time, not counting the unpleasant meeting with General Adams. Ian didn’t like being called on the carpet; it reminded him too much of his father,
always criticizing him, never praising. Even when he’d finally given in and gone to officers candidate school, that hadn’t been enough. Even when he … oh, hell, what difference did it make?

“What do you think will happen to Jamal?” Pretty Boy asked.

“My guess is that security around him will be tighter than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Omar said. “That man is one mean mother, up there with Bin Laden and the other super terrorists.”

Ian agreed. “Uncle Sam,
and
the Iraqis, will want to make an example of him, punish him for all the deaths he’s ordered. Did you hear about that mass grave they found last week in Fallujah? I have a friend with the marines who were first on the scene. He said the jarheads couldn’t stop vomiting, it was that bad.”

“Yeah, but the pussies in Washington will want to be politically correct,” Pretty Boy pointed out. “His trial will have to be squeaking damn fair or the ACLU and Amnesty International will be on the military like dogs on a bone.”

They all nodded, having no liking for the ultra liberals who made their work harder.

“It feels good to have brought the creep in, though,” Geek said, echoing the satisfaction they all felt. As for Geek, he’d done real good for his first mission. Now he could say he’d been “blooded.”

“Did you see that little Arab girl when her granddad came to get her?” Sly asked. “Man, I had tears, and I hardly ever tear up.”

“Yeah. She’ll probably need a shrink for a long time, but she’ll be okay,” Omar said. “Now, if she were living in an Arab culture, she’d be ostracized
for the rapes, even though they weren’t her fault. But she’s westernized, and her family lives in the U.S. most of the time. She’ll be okay … in time.”

“What do you think will happen to Yasmine?” Geek wondered.

That was what had been worrying Ian, though he berated himself for even thinking about her. “Hell if I know! If she
is
Jamal’s lover, she’ll be in big trouble. Prison, for sure.”

“I find it hard to believe that even Jamal would want to screw that … shrew,” Pretty Boy said, then laughed at his own joke. “Screw the shrew. I like that.”

There was a communal groan at Pretty Boy’s warped humor.

“Yeah, but there are those breasts,” Cage reminded them, as if any of them needed a reminder.

“Man, I could have pissed my pants when I saw her launch herself at you,” Omar said. “She was like a nude missile or something.”

“She is … something else,” Ian agreed.

“She seems to have latched on to you, Mac,” JAM said, “like you’re responsible for her or something.”

“I know, and I actually feel guilty for turning her over, terrorist or not,” Ian confessed. “That’s all I need in my life … a cat with an attitude and a hag with an attitude.”

“I think I know what country she comes from,” Geek said. “I recognize the accent.”

They all turned to him with interest.

“Iceland.”

Some of them laughed, even Ian, who said, “Aw, shiiiit! A freakin’ Eskimo.”

“I said Iceland, not Alaska.” Geek looked at him as
if he were dumber than dirt. But then, Geek looked at everyone like that, him being so much smarter than the average guy.

“Iceland, Alaska, North Pole, whatever. It’s colder than a witch’s tit up there,” Cage said.

His use of the word tit reminded them all of a pair of those they’d seen recently.

Geek went off on one of his usual tangents then about the statistical probability of Yasmine being from Iceland based on factors and exponents and international language codes and modern Icelandic being similar to Old Norse and numbers and numbers and numbers and other crap.

Cage spoke for them all when he said, “Geek, you make my head hurt.”

Luckily, something happened to interrupt the flow of Geek’s brainy discourse … or perhaps not so lucky.

“Sonofabitch!” Omar’s jaw dropped practically to his chest.

“Hot damn!” JAM added.

“Holy crawfish! I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Cage put a hand over his heart and sighed dramatically.

Omar, Cage and JAM were sitting on the opposite side of the table from Ian, Geek, Sly and Pretty Boy, who had their backs to the doorway.

The four of them turned on their seats, looking back to see what had caught their buddies’ attention. Three women were walking toward them, two of them dressed in traditional Navy uniforms—Ensigns Amber Wilson and Dolores Baxter. The one in the middle—the statuesque blonde—wore fatigues with an olive drab T-shirt.

Ian’s brain morphed into slow-mo then. He couldn’t quite grasp the scene unfolding before him. His men were talking with excitement, but he filtered out their words of astonishment and appreciation.

First, he took in the fact that the woman in the middle was gorgeous. Well, not gorgeous. Her nose was too straight and her face too thin for that. Stunning would be a better word.

Her blond hair hung down her back in a long braid, like a twisted skein of spun silver. Except it wasn’t gray; it was platinum.

She was tall, at least five-ten. With legs that were as long as a Coronado mile. Despite her slim frame, her breasts were nothing short of magnificent. Probably due to some push-up thing or other that women used to fool men. Even so, the favorite part of his body jump-started into full-tilt testosterone overload; if it could say howdy, it probably would.

When was the last time I was this attracted to a woman?

Never.

Her chin was lifted high like some friggin’ princess looking down on all the lesser beings, including him. No, in particular, him.
Why me?
Ian had no illusions about his sex appeal, compared to some of the other studs sitting with him. Hell, he even had a receding hairline.

Hold the train! Something strange is going on.
He frowned in confusion.

Why were her blue eyes directed at him with haughty disdain? He didn’t even know the woman.

Yes, I do.

It can’t be.

I must be the blindest guy in the universe.

It was the hag … Yasmine.

Except she wasn’t a hag.

His eyes went back to her breasts, which were clearly outlined by the drab Navy T-shirt.
Yep, it’s her. And there’s nothing common about her. Nosirree!

“Oh … my … God!” he said as all the implications hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. His squad members were exclaiming as well, all talking at once.

He stood and started to walk toward her, dazed. It was probably a testosterone trance. So obvious was his reaction to the woman that the guys behind him hooted with laughter. He couldn’t care less what they thought.

“Yasmine?” he said.

She blinked several times, then said. “Nay. Maddie.”

Another name. He rolled his eyes.

She punched him in the stomach.

“Hey, why did you do that?”

“One, you abandoned me. Two, you did not tell me how bad I looked. Bloody hell, I almost scared myself when I looked in the mirror. Three, you are not a troll, but a real man. Four, you failed to inform me that you are handsome as all the gods under all that face paint. Five, your hair is rusty brown, not black. Six, I asked you to take me to Baghdad and you bring me to this military fortress. Seven, you put me in a flying bird and almost frightened me to death.”

Slowly he grinned. “You think I’m handsome?”

“Pfff. As if you didn’t know, you puffed-up son of a lout. Go get me some food. My stomach is screaming, and after arguing with those lackwits in the
general’s office, I have a megrim that would down a dragon. I will sit over here.” She waved a hand airily and sat down at the next table. Her two guards sat, too … looking a bit poleaxed. He knew how they felt.

He still grinned, though. When had her nagging started to have an appeal? Shaking his head to clear it, he went over to get her a tray of food, like a bloomin’ lackey.

When he came back, he sat down across from her. Amber and Dolores kept a constant eye on their “prisoner” but went over to the next table. Immediately they began to talk with the guys on his squad, who were mouthing suggestions to him and making hand gestures, all of which were obscene.

He noticed that Yasmine was sniffing her arm. She even lifted her arm and smelled her armpit. Subtlety was not her strong point. “Yas … I mean, Maddie, what are you doing?”

“Smelling myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I smell good, lackwit.”

Considering how she’d stunk to high heaven before, anything would be an improvement.

“My skin smells like flowers and my hair smells like apples. If I run into a swarm of bees or a hungry horse, you may have to rescue me.”

Was she actually making a joke? Wonders never ceased. Meanwhile, she continued to sniff herself.

“Can I come over there and smell you, too?” he teased.

She gave him a look that pretty much said,
Do and die!

“Yasmine, …” he started to say.

She glared at him.

He propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. “Maddie … I keep forgetting. You sure do lie a lot, don’t you, Maddie?”

She studied him for a long moment. “Yea, I do.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“But only these past two years. Lies have been my only tool for survival.”

“Well, you sure pulled one over on me today.”

“I did?”

“Who knew that the ugly duckling would turn into a swan?”

She threw her hands up in air. “I swear, you have an obsession with animals. Seals, birds, turkeys, swans.”

“Turkeys?”

“Not turkeys. Turkey. Amber and Dough-lore-ass asked me if I came from Turkey.”

“Oh.” Talking with her was like going through a maze. You never knew what turn you would take next.

She sat playing with the jello on her tray with a butter knife. She did the same to the corned beef hash and tossed salad. The roll was the only thing she ate, gobbling it down as if it were gourmet food. Then she just stared forlornly at her tray of food.

“What’s the matter? I thought you were hungry.”

“I am.” She sighed. “I do not know how to eat this food.” She jiggled the jello again to demonstrate.

He got up and went around the table to sit next to her. Yep, she did smell like flowers and apples. It wasn’t a bee or a horse that should worry her. He might just take a bite himself.

“That’s jello,” he said, picking up a spoon and
scooping a small amount up and putting it in his mouth. “Yummm.”
God, I hate jello!

She took the spoon from him and did the same. Smiling, she took one spoonful after another till it was all gone. “Jello,” she said. “I like it.”

She licked her lips.

His cock thought her gesture was talking to him, and raised its head.
Do that again, honey.

“What’s this?” She stared with dismay at the entree on her tray.

“Corned beef hash.”

“It looks like vomit.”

She must be an alien or something. Nothing here seems to be familiar to her.
“It’s beef and potatoes and onions. It’s not bad.”
Liar!
he told himself.
I hate corned beef hash almost as much as I hate jello.

At first she was awkward with the fork, but then she got the hang of it and ate all the hash, which indeed did look like barf, especially after hours under the steam warmer. She concluded, “Interesting.” She smiled at him then, as if he’d done her some favor.

It had to be the first time in the world that hash affected a person so, but her smile touched him. He didn’t know why, it just did.

She took a long drink of water then, after picking up one of the ice cubes and studying it carefully. With each swallow her chest moved. In, out, in, out.

Amazing! Her simple drinking was an erotic exercise. For sure, you-know-who agreed and twitched in his pants.

Now she was eating the salad and started in on the brownie. “Ummmm,” she said. “I am not so fond of the dish of weeds, but the brown thing is delicious.” Replete, she raised her hands above her
head and stretched. Mid-yawn, she turned on him. “Stop looking at my breasts.”

“I can’t help myself. Are you wearing one of those push-up things?”

She frowned. “I do not think so, but I
am
wearing a lace harness. Leastways, I don’t jiggle anymore.” She reached for the hem of her T-shirt and started to lift it.