"Yes, sir." Jack called over his shoulder to Monica, "See you in the mess hall?"
"If you're still there when I'm finished."
"I'll be there." His words echoed clear, the rafters throwing them back at her a couple more times for good measure.
Watching Jack's long legs swallow distance with lazy strides, she didn't doubt him for a minute. She knew the guy well enough to expect his persistence, but she didn't understand why. He couldn't envision how they would mend their differences any more than she could. He just expected great sex— okay, awesome sex—to smooth the way during his wait-and-see mode of solving their problems. Not enough of a reassurance for her, especially when Jack had blinders about her narrowing his field of vision more effectively than NVGs.
She restacked the foil squares of alcohol swabs, prepping for the next patient.
Did she love him? Well, if she ascribed to the Jack Korba theory that love was a good cheeseburger and an Elvis tune, then sure. She loved him. But the part of her that was so damned scared of being like her mama thought there should be more to love than that.
Except who the hell was she to judge when she didn't even know what love was? Certainly not her mother's dreams that hurt innocent children. Or her father's obsession with a lost woman that drained his spirit and broke other women along the way. She'd even spent four years dating, then engaged to a man she'd thought she loved, only to lose him in the end when they broke up.
She didn't want to be hurt again, and God, she didn't want to hurt Jack any more than she already had. She was right to walk away.
So why could she swear she heard Santuci's headphones pulsing with "Heartbreak Hotel"?
Damn.
Chapter 4
Damnation!" Colonel Drew Cullen gulped down half a bottle of lukewarm water to wash away the crappy beef stew. Twenty years of Army mess halls and seventeen years of bachelorhood since his divorce should have made any food palatable. Apparently not. "What the hell did they put in this? Goat guts?"
Across the table, Jack Korba paused midbite. "Goat? Probably." He spooned the stringy meat to his mouth, winced, shrugged. "Could be horse, though. Seems like that's what we ate during Afghanistan."
"Probably the same damned batch from then." Drew jammed a LifeSaver in his mouth, sucked,
subduing the curse he really wanted to spit out faster than the vile stew. He was getting too old for this shit.
The orange LifeSaver melted. Drew smiled. Victory.
Another day won in his personal cussing-cutback campaign. He was a grandfather now, after all, goddamn it. He may have done a piss-poor job being much of a role model for his daughter, but he'd do better by his granddaughter.
Starting with less crass language.
Of course twenty rough-talking years in the Army trenches couldn't be undone in a day. Hell, no. He figured he'd take it a step at a time. Address one letter of the alphabet a month.
April: eliminate "F" words.
Since he'd been reading up on all those child psychology books he never made time for twenty-one years ago, he knew modified behavior deserved a reward—like a LifeSaver for every time he swallowed back any curse starting with "F."
Drew stared into the bowl of mushy potatoes bobbing in grease. He sucked harder on the taste of orange while the clatter of dishes and conversation swelled from soldiers, aircrew and a lone table of SEALs filling the dining area. Not surprising the food blew monkey chunks in a place with dust and drab the decor of choice.
Spartan, but serviceable. Like his life and place back at Ft. Benning.
A month ago the stew wouldn't have bothered him. But a month ago he hadn't been a grandfather suddenly realizing he'd never been much of a father, too married to the military. Was he going soft?
Scanning the packed tables, he watched the hungry troops, more his kids than his own blood. Kids who kept an M-16 close by even at lunch.
His troops shoveled the stew so fast he prayed they wouldn't be doubled over with stomach cramps later. At least they were all drinking plenty of water, which may have had something to do with the young local woman passing out refills and snagging their lonely eyes with her hip swishing.
Trouble.
He assessed her as a potential problem. Attractive kid, probably about his daughter's age. A tomato-red scarf with bursts of white flowers in the print covered most of her dark hair in a surprise splash of color, but left her pretty little face free to smile at all the men sniffing after her. Not much to her, but more than enough to wreak serious mayhem among his men.
Damn. Just what he needed, his captains and lieutenants restraining troops from a girl angling for a green card. As if this place didn't have enough uproar brewing. Hell, the locals were already clamoring at the gates for food rations and medical aid— part of the deal with the Rubistans in exchange for free rein to use this shithole airport.
With crappy stew.