Sandra Hill (7 page)

Zach was about to object to MacLean’s crudity, not to mention his mistaken notion that they’d been doing the deed.

Britta gasped. “You missay…I take exception to…,” she began.

But MacLean put up a halting hand at both of their sputtered protests and said, “Since you two are so fond of each other, maybe you’d both like to work out together tomorrow. Let’s say, oh four hundred for surf appreciation.”

“Surf appreciation” was a SEAL exercise meant to be hated, not appreciated. It involved the icy waters of the Pacific Ocean, where victims were required to sit, arms locked, in water up to their shoulders as waves crashed over them. It usually only lasted six minutes, but it felt like six hours. Occasionally they were ordered to run into the waves, then run back to shore where push-ups in shallow water were de rigueur. Each time the body lowered, the person would be covered with water.

“And Ms. Asado,” MacLean added, stepping around them and walking into the room, then returning with Britta’s bra and panties dangling from each forefinger, “could these be yours?”

Britta glared at Zach.

MacLean glared at Zach.

Zach was in deep shit, even deeper than before, and now he’d dragged Britta down there with him.

Could life get any better than this?

Beer: A clueless man’s answer to any of life’s problems…

Zach was sitting at a table, sipping suds, in the Wet and Wild, an off-base bar that catered to SEALs and other Navy personnel.

It was early, so the usual nighttime crowd wasn’t around. No band. No sprinklers at the entrance to wet the female T-shirts. No horny men, well not too horny yet. And no wild women. Mostly old or married fuddy-duddies on their way home. Like him. Except he was only thirty-two, and he sure as hell wasn’t married.

He checked his watch for the fifth time since they’d arrived. It was only five thirty, but he needed to relieve Madrene pretty soon or Lean Mean would be after his butt. He wasn’t worried about any immediate danger to Madrene or Sammy. Hell, his town house had been made more secure than a virgin with a chastity belt, and more help was on the way. Nah, it was his kid who worried him. The boy had more than earned the nickname Sammy the Snot after only two weeks in this country, and he was probably revving up his engines to pull more mischief on him the minute he got home. He had news for the brat. He was in a foul mood. One false move, and he was wrapping him in duct tape, especially his mouth.

His buddies, Cage, Sly, and Jacob Alvarez “JAM” Mendozo were sipping suds, too, and grinning at him. Geek, their resident genius on the team, was on base trying to teach some four-star generals how to use a computer. Omar was at home nursing a bruised shin, on top of his prior bruised hamstring. Slick was in a Malibu court trying to fight his ex-wife’s latest effort to empty his bank account. Max was on liberty for two weeks while his wife Hilda opened her new women’s shelter up near Hog Heaven, a motorcyclists’ trailer park, of all things.

“What?” he inquired at their continuing grins.

“It’s jist hard ta believe,
cher
, that a player like you could be so…domesticated.” Cage, named for his Cajun heritage, enjoyed poking fun at him. They all did.

“I am not domesticated,” Zach protested.

“Oh, yeah? What time do ya have to be home, Mr. Pussy-whipped…I mean, Kid-whipped?” Sly asked. Sly was a big black dude who once modeled tighty whities for
Esquire
and other hoity-toity magazines.

“A half hour ago.” He grimaced as the truth hit home.

They all gave him a pitying shake of their heads.

JAM, who used to be a Jesuit priest, or at least he had studied in a Jesuit seminary, wasn’t any more sympathetic.
Too many years of yours truly rubbing my sexual conquests in their faces.
“You are so screwed. You’ve suddenly got a kid, you’re on the Taliban shit list, and now a thousand-year-old girlfriend shows up. How lucky can one guy get?”

That’s all I need, a reminder that an eleventh-century Viking woman has landed in my lap. A sexy-as-sin Viking woman, thank you very much.

“Were you really nailing a female tadpole in the rehab center on the first day of training? And what the hell is this thousand-year-old reference?” Sly asked. Sly hadn’t been with them on that ill-fated trip to Norway.

“Even fer you, first day hanky-panky, thass remarkable,” Cage observed. “Talk about!”

“I wasn’t nailing anybody.”
Although the thought did enter my mind.
“I was just helping Britta to shower and get rid of first-day kinks.”

“Kinky. Did ya say kinky?” Cage grinned at him.

Zach stopped talking when he realized his buddies were all smiling and that his explanation was more incriminating than what had actually happened. Besides, he couldn’t think about Britta right now, or he would go crazy. “Back to my problems with Sammy, they should soon be over,” he said.
I hope.

“How do you figure?” It was Sly getting his digs in now.

“My lawyer is handling the Afghan government and U.S. legal process proclaiming Sammy my son. My dad is hiring professional bodyguards to keep the kid from being kidnapped. And Geek is helping me investigate boarding schools.”

“Boarding school for a five-year-old? That is cruel.” It was JAM speaking, but the others nodded their heads in agreement. “I was sent to seminary when I was twelve, and that was painful. He’s only five.”

Five going on fifty.
“What else can I do? I’ll be back on active duty soon, and I can’t just leave him with a babysitter for weeks at a time.”

“Dum-dum-de-dum,” Sly sang.

“Do y’all smell weddin’ cake?” Cage added.

“Whaaaat? Marriage? Are you two nuts?”

“Listen, mah friend. If ya get hitched, ya have sex whenever ya want and a resident babysitter. As my maw maw usta say, ‘Ya gotta jump the fence iffen ya wanna taste the berries.’” Cage had a thing about hokey Cajun sayings, which he attributed to his grandmother but probably made up himself.

“That makes absolutely no sense. And I’d like to meet the woman who would want that job.” Actually, he’d already offered it to Britta, sort of, and she hadn’t been interested.

“I don’t know,” Sly said. “There are a lot of chicks who would love to park their Jimmy Choos under your bed.”

“Not anymore.”

“Who’s Jimmy Choo?” JAM asked, frowning with confusion. “Why would a woman want to put another man under Pretty Boy’s bed?”

“Shoes. Jimmy Choos are shoes, you moron. Dontcha know anything about fashion?” Sly jabbed JAM in the arm.

“Apparently not,” JAM said, jabbing him back.

“Back to my plan. I’ve got to get out of this WEALS instructor billet. ASAP. Arsallah, Sammy’s grandfather, is one of the worst tangos in al-Qaeda. He pretends to be all religious and Allah-be-praised in public, but he’s the bastard who beheaded those Marines last week.”

“Why does Arsallah want the kid?” JAM asked. “I mean, under normal circumstances, yeah, I could see a grandfather wanting his own blood kept close to home. But these fundamentalist Muslims would consider him an infidel, wouldn’t they?”

Zach nodded. “I suspect this is all just a power play. The Ugly Americans steal our children, that kind of thing.”

“Reminds me of that Elián González case,” Cage mused. “Remember the Cuban kid whose Miami family wanted him to stay here, but his dad wanted him back with him in Cuba?”

Zach nodded again.

“I might be able to use my situation to draw Arsallah out of his hiding hole. I can’t do that when I’m teaching misguided women how to do jumping jacks.”

“You’d use your son as bait?” JAM was staring at him as if he were lower than a snake’s belly.

“No, knucklehead, I wouldn’t use Sammy. He would be in deep hiding by then.”

“We’ll do whatever we can,” Sly said, “but in the meantime you’ve got to keep your nose clean. Do jumping jacks till your balls are in shell shock. Otherwise, you’re gonna be leadin’ females off to war, buddy.”

He nodded.

A waitress walked up to the table and put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Want a refill, Pretty Boy?”

He peered up over his shoulder at Maudeen. “No thanks, honey. Gotta leave soon.”

“Hiiiii, Maudy darlin’,” Cage drawled, his voice dripping with innuendo.

“Go screw one of your gators, redneck boy,” she snapped.

They all laughed.

Maudeen was a five-foot-two bundle of sexy curves and a smile that would light a black op sky, not to mention a mouth that could turn a sailor’s tongue blue. She was also the ex-wife of a world-class spouse abuser and was a single mother of twin toddlers. She was trying to get a teaching degree. Sexual harassment wasn’t a word in her dictionary; she just gave back as good as she got with the horny sailors who hit on her.

“How’s that education loan coming?” he inquired, patting the hand that still rested on his shoulder.

“Great. Thanks for recommending that counselor at San Diego State.”

After a bit more chitchat, Maudeen left, and he turned back to the table where all his buddies were gawking at him. “What?”

“Do you know how many men have been trying to get in Bawdy Maudy’s pants this past year?” Sly asked.

“I haven’t been anywhere near Maudeen’s undies.”

Cage made a snorting sound of disbelief. “Didja notice,
cher
, that she dint ask any of the rest of us if we wanted a refill?”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “She probably forgot.”

“Earth to clueless Navy SEAL,” Sly remarked. “Maudy has had the hots for you from the get-go.”

“Probably,” he admitted. No false modesty here. Attracting women had never been a problem for him.

“What a shock to see Britta on the grinder today!” Good ol’ JAM to the rescue, changing the subject.

“Tell me about it!”

Zach, along with JAM, Cage, Max, and Geek, had fallen into the most bizarre situation two years ago. They’d been on a reproduction Viking longship on some godforsaken fjord in Norway when they somehow landed in the eleventh century. Yeah, yeah, it sounded insane. It had been. While there for a few weeks, they’d defeated some tango named Steinolf, Max had met Hilda, the love of his life, whom he brought back to the future with him, and Zach had fallen for the infamous Britta the Big, whom he’d left behind. Or so he’d thought, until today.

“I don’t understand,” Sly said. “How do you all know this Amazon babe?”

Every one of them shifted uncomfortably.

Sly narrowed his eyes. “Is this tied into that crazy-ass trip you guys took to Norway?”

Oh, yeah!
“Sort of.”

He and his buddies never talked about the experience. If they didn’t analyze it, they could pretend it never happened. Plus, they’d all find themselves strapped to a table in a mental hospital or under some scientist’s dissecting knife if word got out. At the very least, they would be living in a bubble. Instead, they chose to believe it had all been a communal bad dream, a hallucination.

But now there was Britta, bringing it all to the forefront again.

“What’re you gonna do about Britta?” JAM asked.

“Why should I be the one to help Britta? Why not you guys?”

“’Cause yer the one that chased her tail twenty-four/seven two years ago.”

“Really?” Sly appeared skeptical. “I’ve never seen Pretty Boy chase a woman before. Wish I’d been there.”

“It wasn’t pretty, especially fer
Pretty
Boy.” Cage ducked the pretzel Zach threw at him.

“I called Max and Hilda and left a message on their answering machine. I’m sure he and his family will be able to do something to help Britta…uh, transition,” he told them. “In the meantime, I’m just going to play it by ear.”

“Or by ass,” Sly contributed.

“Transition, my ass!” That was Cage’s opinion.

“In other words,” JAM interpreted, “he doesn’t have a clue.”

Zach stood and tossed some bills on the table, preparing to leave.

A group of six Navy nurses, still in uniform, sat down at a table nearby and placed orders for hot wings, a pitcher of beer, and an extra helping of celery sticks with blue cheese dressing. He’d forgotten that tonight was wing night.

“Hey, Sheila,” he said as he passed their table. Then he greeted the others, “Candy. Fran. Dot. Beth. Wanda.”

He heard JAM mutter behind him. “Frickin’ unbelievable!”

“He’s like a chick magnet,” Sly responded.

“I’d lak ta have a few of his leftovers.” Cage sighed with exaggeration.

As if any of the SEALs had trouble getting dates!

And, yeah, he knew all of these women, but it was Sheila he knew best. They had shared an incredible night making love in the sand following a beach party a few years back after having drunk about two gallons of Dirty Gin. The most memorable image in his mind of that night was Sheila showing him her new breast implants. They had looked like bleepin’ torpedoes. God bless silicone! He wouldn’t mind picking up where they’d left off, though why he hadn’t made a move since then, he had no idea.

Well, yes, he did.

Britta.

He’d stopped calling lots of women because he’d been hung up over Britta for a long time. Maybe it was time to get back in the game.

But just then, his cell phone rang. The caller ID indicated it was his home phone.

Uh-oh!
“Hello.”

“I wanna go home,” his five-year-old son screamed.

Zach held the phone away from his ear. “You don’t have to yell. Besides, you
are
home.”

Sammy said a really bad word, for a kid, something about mother-something dickhead, meaning him, he supposed, and he heard Madrene in the background say really bad words for an adult around a kid, something about “bloody damn spoiled rotten bratlings and fathers who tup way too many wanton ladies.” Sammy did tend to bring out the worst in people.

“I wanna go to my real home.”

“What happened this time?”

“The witch,” he started…
witch
being the name he reserved for Madrene, who took none of his crap, “she made me eat grass.”

“It was a salad,” Madrene yelled out.