sat down at the computer and pulled up an internet browser to locate a replacement for the fuel pump. An hour later, she had a man on the phone with her answer. Not the one she wanted to hear, however.
“Five days?” Marly shook her head, despite that the guy on the other end of the communication couldn’t actually see her face as she spoke. “You can’t get it to me any sooner?”
The man answered, “It’s the best I can do. Take it or leave it.”
Marly drew in a deep breath and let it go. “I’ll take it. Thank you.”
She stood and stretched. What now? She hadn’t come prepared to be here for almost a week.
Talia poked her head through the open door of the study. “Find your part?”
Marly nodded and grimaced.
“Let me guess.” Talia tipped her head to the side. “It’ll be a week before they can get it to you.”
Marly laughed. “You know how things work in these parts, I take it.”
“Yes, indeed.” Talia crossed her arms over her ample chest and leaned against the door frame. “The kitchen stove quit working once when I had the resort booked solid. It took over a month to get a replacement. My chef and I had to cook everything on the outdoor grill, rain or shine. We were not amused.”
“Thankfully, it’ll only take five days, not a month. But I didn’t come prepared to stay overnight, much less five days.”
“No worries. I can loan you clothes to last you, and we have extra toiletries for guests who’ve forgotten items.” Talia touched her arm. “I can even cut you a deal on a room for the five days, since we’re not full at this time.”
“Thank you for the room offer.” Marly bit her bottom lip. “Though I’m not sure your clothes will fit.”
Talia ran her glance from Marly’s head to her toes. “You’re taller, so the full-length pants won’t fit, but I have some formal dresses that will be ankle-length on you and shorts and capris you might fit into. We’ll make it work.”
“Dresses?” Marly cringed inwardly. “I haven’t worn a dress since I was in grade school.”
Talia’s brows rose. “Darling, you’ll have to around here, if you want dinner.” She spun toward the door. “And I’ll bet you have some great legs hiding under that flight suit. Follow me. You’ll be staying in one of the upstairs suites inside the house. And I’ll get you fixed up with clothes. If not from my wardrobe, well, people have left articles of clothing over the years. They’ve come in handy when luggage doesn’t arrive with the guests.”
Marly swallowed her groan. She liked her own clothes. They fit her and she felt like herself in them. Beggars can’t be choosers, she reminded herself. She just hoped the tops Talia offered didn’t hang on her chest, making her appear to be an underdeveloped teenager.
Again. Beggars can’t be choosers.
* * *
TALIA HAD SHOWN Pitbull and the other members of his team to their individual bungalows while Marly made her calls to locate the spare part she needed to get her plane back up in the air.
Pitbull welcomed the time away from Marly. Since they’d left that morning, he couldn’t get his mind off the feisty pilot. After their last mission, he hadn’t expected to see her ever again. Even then, he’d felt that spark of something, if not between them, then at least on his side. He didn’t much care for women who wore a lot of makeup or ratted their hair to achieve bigger, brassier hairstyles. He liked that Marly was natural and that she didn’t apologize for it.
He tossed his backpack on the bed, tugged his T-shirt off and headed for the shower. After riding in the back of the old truck, he felt as if he had an inch of dust coating his body and filling all the crevices.
Nothing a little soap and water won’t cure.
If only soap and water could wash Marly out of his head.
He turned the shower to a cool setting and stepped beneath the spray. As he lathered his body, running his hands over his skin, his thoughts drifted back to Marly and that damned flight suit. He wondered what it would be like to undress her body from that all-enveloping garment, starting at the zipper and working his way down. The glimpse of her hot-pink bra had only left him wanting to know more. Such as, did she have matching hot-pink panties?
His groin tightened and his shaft swelled at the image in his mind. She’d be appalled at his lusty thoughts, but he couldn’t seem to stop them. At that moment, he wondered how her long legs would feel wrapped around his waist as he drove into her.
Pitbull reached behind him, turning the water to an even cooler temperature. He didn’t need to show up at dinner and embarrass himself. The guys would rib him endlessly.
After rinsing the soap from his hair, face and body, he turned off the shower, stepped out of the tub and toweled dry with one of the huge luxury towels provided.
As a navy SEAL, he wasn’t used to lavishness. Three squares and a bunk were all he’d come to hope for, and sometimes he went without. Having a shower at all was always a blessing. He pressed the towel to his nose and sniffed the light floral fragrance. Again, he thought of Marly and how that towel would wrap around her slender body twice.
He flung the towel over the curtain rod, pulled his razor out of his shaving kit and scraped three days’ worth of beard from his chin. With a clean body and a smooth chin, he strode into the bedroom naked. Talia had said dinner was formal. He dug inside his backpack for his best white long-sleeved, button-down shirt and his only pair of dark trousers. He didn’t have a suit jacket, but he could at least dress nicely for dinner.
The men had been warned that they needed at least one dressier outfit for dinners during their stay at the resort. Pitbull would have preferred to show up in his jeans and a T-shirt, but he had to respect the proprietress’s rules. He shook his trousers and shirt, hoping to knock the wrinkles out. When that didn’t work, he searched the small bungalow and found an ironing board. Great. Just what he wanted to do on vacation at a safari resort.
Pride forced him to pull the board and iron out. In less than ten minutes, he had the wrinkles smoothed. While the garments were still warm, Pitbull slipped into them and pulled on socks and shoes. He found the necktie he’d picked up at the Post Exchange on Camp Lemonnier, looped it over his neck and knotted it expertly. He might not have grown up in the best neighborhood, but his mother had taught him how to knot a tie for church.
He smiled at her memory. The woman had worked hard all her life, only to die of breast cancer when Pitbull had been in BUD/S training. She’d insisted he not come home for her funeral, knowing how difficult the training was and how much harder it would be to have to start over.
He still regretted not being with his mother at her bedside until her last breath. His parents had always been there for him and believed in him. They always told him that he could accomplish anything he set his mind to.
Except save his mother.
As an only child, he’d felt the burden of guilt for not being there for her when she’d needed him most.
His father had been there, comforting her as she left
