do that? To your own father?” He was practically stammering in indignation.
“You were always talking about retiring.”
“Retiring! Retiring, not losing to that nobody state senator who’s running against me.”
“If your constituents don’t like your little forays into meddling, they can vote their opinion. I may endorse your opponent myself,” she added darkly.
Her father made a choking noise, but wasn’t turning any funny colors or clutching his chest so Claire figured he was only pissed off.
She turned to the sergeant. “So you’re off the hook with me. Again, I’m sorry for this mess, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t harm you or your career.”
He stared silently at her, his dark eyes unreadable.
She fumbled slightly but finally shoved her hands into two of the pants’ eight pockets.
Her father finally found his voice. “You ungrateful child!” He swung around and stomped off to where his aide stood back at the building practically wringing his hands.
“The man surely has a sense of the dramatic. I’m shocked he didn’t quote King Lear at you.”
“What?” Claire looked at him in surprise.
“I see you as more of a Cordelia type—the dutiful daughter who is the only one to stick with her cranky old dad.”
Claire blinked. “Yes, I read King Lear in college. When did you read it?”
“The army sends Shakespeare comic books overseas for us to look at the pictures when we aren’t blowing things up.” He delivered his smarty-pants answer with a straight face.
“Oh, buzz off!” She jumped off the picnic table, intending to find Janey and beg her forgiveness.
Boudreaux blocked her way so quickly she didn’t see him move. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Claire turned to him.
“Train you. Get ready for San Lucas—as ready as you can be. As ready as anyone can be,” he muttered to himself.
“You will?” Claire’s heart beat faster.
“I’ll tell you right now—you’re nuts for wanting to go, and I fully plan on making you rethink your decision.” Her stomach flipped at the first smile she’d seen from him, his teeth flashing white in his black beard. “In fact, I plan on making you regret your decision.”
OLIE RUBBED HIS BARE chin, which was fish-belly pale in comparison to his sun-darkened cheekbones and forehead. He had dragged Luc off to the base’s barber shop, as well, yesterday after the colonel had yelled at them a new one for looking scruffy, especially in front of so-called VIPs. “Rage, you said she spiked her old man’s guns so he can’t cause trouble for us. We’re all off the hook—so why are you doing this?” He gestured to the bartender for a couple beers as they sat side-by-side in the Special Forces’ local hangout.
Luc shook his head, his hair now too short to brush his collar. “I’m gonna try like hell to convince her to give up this dumb idea. But if I can’t, the girl’s gonna go, whether she knows jack-shit about the jungle or not. How will I feel four, five months from now if I hear she got snakebit, got herself sick eating something she shouldn’t have, or worse, gets herself out in the jungle and doesn’t come back?”
“Been known to happen.” Olie nodded solemnly. The bartender set down their drinks.
“That it has.” Luc nodded back. They had lost a teammate in the same incident that had stranded Luc for five weeks. Luc knew it still ate up Olie, him being the commanding officer and all, even if it wasn’t his fault. Luc lifted his mug in a silent toast to fallen brothers in arms. Olie lifted his in reply and they both drank solemnly.
After a few minutes, Olie broke the silence.
“As long as that’s all you do with her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Miss Cook is not exactly hard on the eyes, Rage. Pretty hair, bright smile and a sweet disposition all look mighty nice to a man who hasn’t got laid for almost nine months. Maybe you should reconsider and take that cute lieutenant with you after all.”
Luc straightened in outrage. “You saying she’s not safe with me? That I need a chaperone to make sure I act as a gentleman and a soldier of the United States Army?”
“At ease.” Olie waved a hand at him. “All I’m saying is that a ragin’ Cajun, war hero-type like yourself might appeal to a girl who’s finally away from her overprotective dad. Too much of that Frenchie accent and she may go crazy and throw herself at you.”
“Right,” Luc scoffed. “Princess Cook probably has some weenie boyfriend named Preston Shelby Blueblood the Nineteenth waiting for her back in ol’ Virginia. He’ll spend the next year screwing around on her while she’s in San Lucas and ask her to marry him as soon as she gets off the plane. They’ll have a couple kids while he keeps screwing around on her and dumps her for his secretary in ten years.” He subsided into a funk, realizing he sounded like an idiot.
“O-kay.” Olie raised his blond eyebrows. “Well, our immediate concern is not for her future marital happiness, so that’s one burden we don’t have to carry.”
“Yes, sir,” Luc muttered. What the hell was wrong with him? Her personal life was none of his damn business anyway.
Olie’s cell phone rang and he flipped it open, answering with several “yes, sirs.” He closed the phone and swiveled on the bar stool back to Luc. “Colonel Spencer says he made arrangements for you both with the marines at Parris Island. The swamp is about as close to jungle as you can get in the Southeast.”
Luc wished he could take her back to Louisiana, but everything was still torn up from the hurricane last fall, and he didn’t think he could stand being so close to home and not see his family. And he wasn’t about to come home with a woman. His mother would never understand his unorthodox situation and would be calling Father Andre at the church to set a wedding date. He shuddered.
Olie continued, “She’ll do her training during the day and sleep in the VIP quarters at night.”
“Shit, they don’t even want her to know how to make shelter at night? That’s where you run in to trouble.”
Olie grunted. “She probably gets her bed turned down and a mint on her pillow.” He dug around in the nut dish and chose a big brown Brazil nut.
“Funny, I don’t remember mints on my pillow when I was in the jungle—the only brown things under my head were bugs. And at one point, that bug was my bedtime snack.” Luc ate a peanut. Pistaches de terre, they called them at home. Too salty—he liked plain boiled peanuts better.
Olie shook his head. “Not doing her any favors by letting her off easy at night.”
Luc thought for several seconds. Nuts to the jarheads at Parris Island and their VIP quarters. Survival training without night training meant no survival at all. “This thing
