The Protector (23 page)

Vivi opened her eyes slowly. She’d just had the most
marvelous dream. She had been flying, floating higher and higher. She could still smell the sweetness in the air as she flew toward some unknown destination. Everything was light and joyful, and a smile fluttered the corner of her lips as she sleepily enjoyed the last vestiges of her dream. Light and joyful. She hadn’t felt that in a long time, and wondered where she had been heading in her…

Dream. Her mind came alive with a start and she jerked up and found a heavy vise wrapped around torso. Her hand reached up automatically and felt the warm muscular arm keeping her against a very warm body.

“Go back to sleep.” His voice was low.

“Have you been awake all this time?” She couldn’t believe she had dozed off like that. They were still far from safe, for God’s sake. What had she been thinking, attacking the man like a sex maniac while in the middle of an operation? Then she remembered what they had done—what
he
had done to her—and heat suffused her entire body.

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured.

She couldn’t think of anything to say. “You go to sleep now. My turn to keep watch.”

“I’m fine. I like listening to you snore.”

“I do not snore.” She poked him with her elbow when he chuckled sleepily.

“I’m only teasing,
chouchou.
”

She felt him kiss the top of her head. “Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she said.

“I like the way you thanked me. Ouch.”

She gave him another poke to the ribs. “Are you teasing me?” She felt very comfortable lying here in the dark. The man was a marvelous lover, just as she had known he would be. She guessed it had been inevitable that they would end up naked but she hadn’t thought it would be in the middle of nowhere. “Seriously, I can’t believe you came after me.”

His caress paused. “Did you think I’d just leave you on your own?” He sounded incredulous. “With Dilaver?”

She smiled in the dark. No need to start a fight after such wonderful sex. “I didn’t know anyone saw me. Everything happened so fast,” she replied soothingly.

He gave a disbelieving snort. “
Chouchou,
after watching your antics with the goats, I’m having a hard time believing that you were unaware that half your men watched your being taken prisoner and didn’t lift a finger to go after Dilaver. They were following orders, no doubt.”

Vivi shrugged. “They knew what was more important—the girls.”

His arm tightened around her. “Not to me.” His voice had turned edgy. “If I hadn’t been there…You shouldn’t take such risks.”

Vivi sighed. She really didn’t want to discuss this right now, not when she wanted to savor the last couple of hours.

“It’s my job,” she said, repeating T.’s usual line. Well, at least now she understood why T. used it. It was the easiest way to answer any question on which she didn’t want to expand.

“I know. Part of me accepts it. But I don’t have to like it.”

She thought about it a moment. Fair enough. “Okay.”

“You should have told me about your crazy plan.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t have the energy to lead my group of men
and
mollify a group of SEALs who aren’t used to GEM activities. I know how you guys would have been. All of you would have insisted on changing the original plan.”

“What’s wrong with a little input?” He had resumed his caressing. “A joint mission is about teamwork, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m also aware our groups had two different goals and I was only trying to make sure both got accomplished. Let’s face it, Jazz, had your men known, they would have gotten all protective of me. I really appreciate it but I don’t need all your eyes on me while I do my job. As it is, the mission goals have been accomplished.”

“You’ve rescued the girls. We’ve gotten Dilaver stranded. And…” Jazz pulled her closer. “I got you naked. Mission goals accomplished.”

Hearing the amused note in his voice, Vivi relaxed again. One thing about this man she really liked—as long as she had an explanation, he always accepted her as she was. She suddenly felt the need to give a personal one. He had freely spoken about his family, giving glimpses of his childhood. Perhaps if she shared a little, he would understand.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“Yeah. I won’t sleep. I want you to rest, though. We have a long way to go tomorrow.”

His concern for her touched her more than anything else. Physical attraction was just chemistry, but personal sacrifice and a willingness to shoulder responsibilities, even pain, were choices that spoke volumes to her. They were important lessons she had learned from the past and she admired those qualities in others. Jazz had all these, and more. She leaned back against his heat, giving a soft sigh. So maybe this was what being wanted felt like.

“When I was very young,” she began, softly, “I fantasized about who my father was. He had strange hair like mine and weird colored eyes, and for a small child, it sounded as if her father had been from outer space. The fairy tales in my cul
ture always had gods and goddesses coming down to earth and doing magic and fighting bad evil spirits, so in my mind, my father was from heaven and he came down to do battle with bad men, and one day would come to take me.”

She paused. What a stupid way to start an explanation. She hadn’t ever told him she was brought up here—how would he understand if she didn’t tell him? Maybe she should stop. She felt Jazz’s arm tighten around her, as if he had read her thoughts.

“Go on,” he urged.

She gathered her memories and tried to gloss over the emotional parts. “He was going to be tall and strong. Big as an ox. And he’d come back and beat up on those horrid people who called me names, who said kids like me were unwanted and useless.” She paused again. “Back then, being mixed-blooded was a sign that the mother was probably unmarried and so the child was a bastard. Basically, my whole future was ruined, and being a woman made it worse. I didn’t know that, of course. I only knew I looked different.”

“You were like those children we saw in the slums that first day,” Jazz interrupted. “You said they were orphans but they weren’t really, were they?”

“No. They were abandoned by their mothers. Or told to stay away from home till nighttime. Or their mothers probably ran away and left them in the care of relatives, which was even worse. But yeah, I was one of them, Jazz.” She closed her eyes, and once again she was the grimy child of the past, fighting bullies, stealing food, and trying to survive. “I had relatives but they didn’t really want me.”

Jazz removed his arm and turned her around to face him. Vivi opened her eyes but could see only the dark outline of his face. His hand was very tender, his knuckles tracing her jaw, then her lips. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Vivi kissed his fingers. “It’s okay, you don’t have to comfort me now. I’m one of the lucky ones who got out. There were many who weren’t as fortunate.” She smoothed a hand over his chest. It was solid and strong. She closed her eyes
again. She had never shared her childhood memories this intimately. The version she always gave to people was less personal, with a lot of the details left out. “Anyway, where was I? I wanted to show them I was better than the names they called me, that my father was a god, like the ones depicted on the temple doors—very strong-looking, fierce, in battle gear and holding some big weapon, guarding the place against evil.” She smiled bitterly. “Of course, when I was old enough to dare tell others about this, I was laughed at by the adults. I was so humiliated. I hated their laughter.”

Your father is a what? A god? You’re a slut’s daughter, that’s what you are. Here, here, take a look at your father. Over there, those men that just came to town in the Jeep.

“One day, I saw some soldiers in town. Their hair was light-colored, like mine. One of them had blue eyes. And they were all in uniform, with big shiny weapons. They looked so handsome. Big and strong and…well fed.” She laughed. “I was very hungry, so well fed was kind of attractive, you know? I quickly learned why the older girls were always around these soldiers. I learned that they weren’t gods very, very quickly.”

“You didn’t—”

Vivi shook her head. “No, I didn’t. There was a nice young man who gave me chocolate all the time. He taught me quite a bit of English while he was stationed here, and I think he saved me from his buddies who were less discriminating about the differences between a woman and a child. He was different from some of the other soldiers.”

You stay away from my friends, you understand? Don’t take their chocolate. Say no and run away if you see them drunk, okay? You’re too damn young. You just stay away, especially at night, okay?

“I get why you’re so hostile against anyone in uniform now,” Jazz told her softly. “Growing up in that kind of environment…my God, Vivi. How did you get out of there?”

“I discovered that I could pick up languages easily. Pretty soon I was speaking English and French well enough
and was running errands for the soldiers who wanted to buy stuff in town. They gave me food and change; I got to ride in their Jeeps and show off. One day, my friend said goodbye because he had to leave. I was very sad but didn’t think much of it till he was gone. Then I realized how much he had been a buffer for me. He had always sent me off on errands or away from the place when the soldiers were rowdy, and I’d never asked why. With him gone, I saw everything, Jazz. Every disgusting thing that they did. It was a shock to see my heroes doing those things to girls. I knew it was wrong because some of the girls would be crying and saying no, but that never stopped the men when they were drunk. I was very afraid then because I knew this was my fate, that I would end up like…my mother.”

Jazz gathered her closer, and his tender kisses pushed away the pain of reliving the humiliation. She let the minutes drift by, grateful for the comfort given. She didn’t want to admit it but today’s events had hit too close to her heart. She understood adrenaline played a big part in the cathartic release of emotions, that different people reacted to danger differently.

She released a cleansing breath. Today had been more than role-playing. Then all those hours thinking Jazz was dead had been agony. Emotionally, she had been put through a wringer. No wonder she had attacked the man when they had found somewhere to hide. And now it felt right that he be told about her background.

“How did you run away?” he asked, after a long satisfying kiss.

Vivi laid her head against his breast and listened to his heartbeat for a while. “I had a best friend. She was going to be given to this ugly old man. So we decided to run away.”

Vivi, I’m so scared. Where are we going to go? What if we get lost?

Everything is going to be all right, Sia-Sia. We’ll hide out in the temple for a bit.

“We hid in a temple but one of the nuns locked us in the
upper room one night. Said that it was for our own good. I tried to convince my friend to escape with me but the window was too small and she was afraid of the height and dark. I knew I had to go, so I went off on my own. Somehow I made my way through the woods and village paths and survived. I don’t remember how long it took, except that I was hungry and tired all the time. Some missionaries mistook me for an orphan and put me in a refugee camp. I must have been very close to the border or something because there were many foreign visitors coming in and out constantly. One day, a woman told me I was adopted and that my new home would be in America.”

She didn’t elaborate about the guilt of leaving her friend behind. She was the stronger of the two and she had promised Sia-Sia she would return for her. She never did. She had carried the guilt all these years, wondering what had happened to her childhood friend.

I hate the dark. When you come back, you’ll bring me something nice, okay?

What do you want?

A new Dan Nhat would be nice. Mine’s all out of tune.

All Jazz wanted to do was to hold Vivi like this and take away all that painful past. He understood how difficult it was for her to tell him about it. His mother was the same way, always telling him and his siblings stories about their dead dad. Whenever they had gone to her about their pain of losing him, she had focused on how strong and brave he had been and that they should be too, and had never once betrayed her own feelings.

As Jazz grew up, he had realized that it was a defense mechanism. His mother was the strongest woman he had ever known. She had been determined to bring up all her children without crying for help and although they had started out dirt poor, she had learned to run a small laundry business.

His mother’s strength had been his moral compass all his
life. As a kid, he had helped out with the work and had learned how much a woman would sacrifice for her children. In his job he had seen so many abandoned children that only emphasized how much he owed what he was today to his mother.

Vivi had nobody. And yet she, too, had the strength to overcome her obstacles. She didn’t tell him all that she had gone through but he got the picture. Watching his mother had given him plenty of insight at how some people responded to personal pain and loss.

Vivi had been determined to rise above her lot, and she had succeeded. And she was so alone. From her story, he knew this. She had done everything alone for so long that he knew that sharing her story was something she didn’t do with anyone. In her own way, she was reaching out for his understanding of her past. He was also beginning to realize that he had fallen in love with this remarkable woman.

“It has a happy ending,” he said.

“But not for others.” Her voice cracked a little. “Not for too many girls.”

“You can’t save the whole world, sweetheart. You saved those girls today, and that’s enough for today.” It was a soldier’s philosophy. If one kept imagining the entire bloody war, one would go crazy. Somehow he needed to instill this in her. “Dwell on the positive, Vivi.”

“You don’t understand. I failed so many times. I can’t find homes for them…no solutions. I’m just a total—”