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Seeing her mother’s joyful face and remembering the stories and struggles of their lives in San Lucas, Claire had carefully closed the album and written her grandfather’s successor, Dr. Schmidt.
Her father’s droning voice had stopped, and a new electric current ran through the room. She turned away from the wall. Three men stood inside the doorway, the older one some kind of commanding officer and the younger two his subordinates.
Her father leaped to his feet and gave the officer a hearty handshake. “Ah, Colonel Spencer, we spoke on the phone. A pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
“Congressman. Ma’am.” The colonel gave her a curt nod. Claire nodded in return, noting he didn’t verbalize his own delight. The colonel looked like a tougher twin of her father, his silver hair clipped close instead of styled, his green cammies neatly pressed.
If the colonel was spic-and-span army, his men looked like they belonged in the army jail. Were soldiers even allowed to wear beards? The taller, blond guy looked like he might be the cheerful type on a good day, but obviously today wasn’t a good day. He, on the other hand, looked like Miss Susie Sunshine compared to his companion. Claire had a nasty feeling that the darker man more closely resembled a man named Luc Boudreaux than Blondie did.
Blackbeard in the flesh. His eyes were two pieces of black coal, cold and glittering. His hair waved well past his collar, his beard covering most of his tanned face. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in months. Janey’s words about being fresh from the sandbox popped into Claire’s head. Fresh from the desert to the swamp. No wonder he looked ready to spit nails.
Colonel Spencer gestured to his men. “Congressman Cook, Miss Cook, I’d like you to meet Captain Magnus Olson and Sergeant First Class Luc Boudreaux. Captain Olson has kindly released Sergeant Boudreaux from his current duties to serve as your trainer.”
Their lips tightened briefly under all the facial hair. How much pressure had her father exerted on them? They certainly didn’t look like eager volunteers.
A knock sounded at the door. Claire gasped. “Janey, what are you doing here?” Her friend stood in her dress uniform, her hat under her arm.
Janey wouldn’t meet her eyes and snapped a perfect salute to Colonel Spencer and Captain Olson. The colonel returned it and the captain waved his hand vaguely toward his eyebrow. “First Lieutenant Jane Merrick reporting for duty, sir.”
“At ease, Lieutenant.” He took the packet of papers Janey offered him and scanned through the sheets, a cynical smile spreading over his face.
“Duty?” Claire asked. As far as she knew, Janey’s Pentagon stint was to last at least another six to eight months. Why would they send her to Ft. Bragg? “Are you here on account of me?”
“Sir, my commanding officer ordered me to report to Fort Bragg as a special liaison between his office and yours.” Janey still refused to look at Claire, but the tips of her ears were turning red. Captain Olson and Sergeant Boudreaux didn’t change expression but Claire sensed their disgust.
“Well, well.” Colonel Spencer slapped her papers against his open palm. “An unexpected present from our brethren—and sisters—in arms at the Pentagon. My memory is a tad faulty—are we conducting some joint operation that requires a liaison?”
“Sir, I don’t know. I am just following my orders.” Janey looked miserable but didn’t back down.
The colonel sighed. “Yes, I expect you are.” He turned to Claire. “Miss Cook, I assume you know the lieutenant?”
“Yes, we were roommates at UVA—University of Virginia. Go Cavaliers,” she finished weakly.
“I was a West Point man myself. Congressman Cook?” He turned to her father.
“Colonel,” her father said brightly.
“I don’t suppose you would know why First Lieutenant Merrick was plucked from her important desk job in our nation’s military command center and sent down to pal around with us lowly Special Forces types, would you?”
“A chaperone.” Claire jumped to hear the sergeant’s clipped Cajun tones. “Congressman Cook got himself a chaperone for his li’l girl.”
Her father’s mouth twitched guiltily. Claire wanted to die a thousand deaths. “Oh, Janey, I am so sorry he dragged you into this. Dad, how could you? Janey doesn’t deserve this.”
“Yo’ papa don’t trust you’re alone in the woods with a big, bad Green Beret?” For the first time, Sergeant Boudreaux met her shamed gaze with a mocking one of his own. “You must be quite the tiger.”
“Shut your mouth, you!” Her father shot to his feet, his face mottled.
“No offense, sir, but you’re not my commanding officer, and last I checked, Fort Bragg is still in the U.S. of A., where freedom of speech still applies.”
“Zip it, Boudreaux,” his captain said without heat.
“Zipping it, sir.” He closed his mouth, his point made.
“No, you zip it, Dad!” Claire turned on her father. “That man is totally justified in his outrage.”
“Outrage,” Boudreaux mused. “Now that is a fine word for this situation.”
“You zip it, too! I’m trying to defend you here,” Claire cried in frustration.
He arched a black eyebrow at her. “Bébé, do I look like a man who needs defending?”
She huffed out a breath and turned back to her father. “You have constantly thrown up roadblocks to my plans, you have tampered with the workings of the U.S. Army, and meddled with the careers of Janey and at least three of her fellow soldiers. You’ve abused your authority and are a disgrace to your office.”
“I don’t know about that, cher,” Boudreaux interjected with a smirk. “Your daddy hasn’t been indicted, served prison time or accidentally killed someone—he’s an amateur in comparison to his fellow politicians.”
Captain Olson unsuccessfully muffled a snort. Colonel Spencer intently studied the ceiling, his jaw twitching.
Claire clenched her trembling fists. “Dad, I have had enough. I am going to San Lucas, Janey is going to Washington and these nice men can go wherever they had planned to go before you came along. Hopefully to a barber,” she added, ticked off at the sergeant’s enjoyment of her embarrassment. And who was he to call her cher, anyway, in that mocking French-tinged accent?
She hurried from the conference room, ignoring her father’s shouts, wanting to escape. She dashed into the humid Carolina afternoon, crossing the parking lot into a small landscaped grove with a picnic bench. The scent of pines didn’t quite cover the smell of diesel and something else pungent—explosives? She wasn’t sure. Claire climbed onto the picnic table, her feet resting on the bench.
A new scent came along, clean and masculine. She turned and stifled a yelp. Good thing Sergeant Boudreau was wearing cologne because she certainly hadn’t heard him approach. Of course, that would be a plus in his line of work. He stood next to her and stared across the parking lot, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, tightening the thin fabric across his zipper. Not that she noticed things like that.
“Don’t worry—you’re off the hook.” Claire didn’t want to meet his mocking glance again. “I’ll be fine—the Río San Lucas settlement is like a small town, running water and everything so I can wash my hair.” She gave a little laugh, trying to get him to leave her alone.
“Why you wanna go down to that jungle snake hole anyway, Mademoiselle Cook?” This time he wasn’t mocking, just curious. “You got somethin’ to prove to your papa?”
She tried to hide her flinch. “Maybe I have something to prove to myself.”
“There are easier ways to do that. Go mountain climbing or white-water rafting if you want to see how tough you are. Walk across the country to raise money for cancer, but moving to the jungle doesn’t make you tough—just foolish.”
Claire saw red. “Shut up! You denigrate my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather.” She slammed her fist into her palm as she named each of her family members. “They moved to San Lucas to serve people who had no one and had nothing. You talk to all the women who lived after my grandfather saved them during difficult childbirth—you talk to all their babies who lived because they had their mothers to breastfeed them. You ask them how foolish it is that they are alive and not buried in an unmarked jungle grave site!”
He stood in silence for a minute. “I apologize,” he finally said.
Claire almost fell off the picnic table. “What?”
He ran a strong hand through his wavy hair. “I have been extremely rude and my grand-mère and maman would pass me a slap. My only defense is that I’ve been overseas away from civilization too long.”
“How long?” she asked without thinking.
“Now that’s classified information, ma’am.”
His scornful attitude was back. “I’d say at least seven or eight months according to your facial hair,” she retorted. “If you don’t want people speculating, the least you could do is get a haircut and shave.” He did look good as a pirate—maybe he was descended from Jean Lafitte, the famous Louisianan pirate.
“Maybe you should sign up as an intelligence agent instead. It was actually eight months and ten days.” He rubbed his chin.
“Claire! Claire!” Her father’s voice echoed out the main door of the office building.
She pressed her lips together. She was definitely getting her own place, San Lucas or no. Dad had gone too far.
“There you are, Claire.” He hurried up to her, ignoring Boudreaux. “Now can you see how foolish this idea of yours is?” he asked, unknowingly echoing Boudreaux’s earlier taunt.
Next to her, the Green Beret sucked in a breath, obviously waiting for her to lose her temper with her father like she had with him.
But her will had been tempered into steel. “Who’s going to look like the bigger fool at the press conference I’ll arrange—me, for wanting to go to San Lucas, or you, for throwing so many inappropriate roadblocks into my path? Now you’re interfering with the U.S. Army.”
“And during an election year, too,” Boudreaux added helpfully. “Sir.”
“You’d 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 with Claire Cook is still an unofficial thing—I’m on leave as of now, right?”
“Yeah. Why?” Olie gave him a wary look, his fingers clamped around a cashew.
“Just want to make sure I’m not going AWOL if I take her on a side trip.”
Olie dropped the cashew. “AWOL? Side trip?” He covered his ears with his beefy hands and shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, the only side trip I need to know about is to the Parris Island ice cream stand.”
Luc set down his empty mug. He knew just the place he would take her. One of his old buddies had bought a huge chunk of land abutting a national wildlife refuge and had invited Luc and the guys to use it whenever he wanted. It was really out in the middle of nowhere. The animals couldn’t yet read the signs telling them they were leaving federal land, so plenty wound up at his friend’s place. No marines, no babysitters, no chaperones. Him, her and the swamp.
People who weren’t used to the swamp freaked out pretty easily at all the weird noises, smells and bugs. Maybe if they were lucky, he’d even take her out at night when the gators roared. “We’ll be out in the swamp twenty-four, thirty-six hours tops before she starts crying to go home to Daddy.”
“You think so, huh.” His CO shook his head. “We’ll see, Rage. We’ll see.”
Chapter Three
A TAP SOUNDED ON CLAIRE’S hotel room door. She looked up from the San Lucas guidebook she had been reading and tucked a bookmark inside.
She hadn’t ordered room service, and her father was still probably drinking bourbon and smoking illicit Cuban cigars at the hotel’s private men’s club with the esteemed senator for the state of North Carolina. She hopped out of bed and peeked through the peephole.
A black-haired stranger stood in front of her door, his face turned to the side. Wow, was he a looker with a strong, clean jaw and firm, full lips. His short haircut indicated that he was probably military despite the fact he wore jeans and a black T-shirt. What should she do? It was past midnight. “Yes?” she ventured, tugging her peach-colored cotton robe around her.
“Miss Cook?” He stopped scanning the hall and stared at the peephole.
She swallowed hard. “Sergeant Boudreaux?” she asked faintly. Good Lord, the man cleaned up well. Better than well, magnificently.
“You alone, ma’am?”
“Of course.” She undid the chain and yanked open the door. “Who else would be here with me?” As if she’d brought a boyfriend when she had important preparation to do.
He gave her an amused smile. “Oh, I don’t know—maybe your father or your friend the lieutenant.”
“Oh.” Her mind had immediately jumped to things of a sexual nature and she blamed him. Worst of all, he knew what she’d assumed.
“If you’re not comfortable letting me into your room, we can meet downstairs in the bar.”
“No, no, that’s all right.” She stopped clutching the door and opened it for him. “Come in.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He stepped into her room and looked around. “Never been in this hotel before even though it’s not too far from the base. Fancy.”
Claire supposed it was, with its high ceilings designed for hot Southern nights, creamy warm yellow wallpaper and matching bedding. She snuck a glance at the dark wooden four-poster bed behind her, which seemed to have tripled in size since she’d answered the door.
His gaze followed hers. “Nice bed.”
“Um, yes. Yes, it is, although I haven’t really tried it out yet. Since we just got here today.” She’d been too nervous to sleep, knowing she’d be out in the woods with him tomorrow, but that was nothing compared to having him in her bedroom. “You got a shave and a haircut.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“You suggested it, didn’t you?” He rubbed his chin. “Feels strange to have a smooth face after so many months.”
Claire never guessed he was so handsome under all that hair. She couldn’t stop watching his hand rub his tight, tanned skin. Her nipples tightened and she gathered her robe closer. “What brings you here, Sergeant?”
“You.”
“What?”
“I need to make sure you’re ready.”
Oh, she was. But probably not for what he had in mind. “I’ll be at the base at oh-seven-hundred hours like we planned.” She thought her little foray into military time was pretty good, but he obviously disagreed.
“Real training should start at what we call ‘oh-dark-thirty.’”
“What time is that?” It sounded terribly early.
“Whenever the CO hauls your ass out of bed—three, four o’clock in the morning.”
“My goodness, that is early.”
“The old army recruiting slogan had it right—’we do more before 9:00 a.m. than most people do all day.’”
“Shouldn’t they have said ‘oh-nine-hundred’?” He gave her a strange look. “I mean, using military time and all that…”
“Let me see your stuff.” Without getting permission, Sergeant Boudreaux hefted one duffel bag. “Crap! Can you even lift this thing?” He easily tossed it to Claire, but its weight pitched her backward onto the bed and she found herself staring at the underside of the yellow canopy.
He muttered another curse and pulled the bag off her chest. “You okay?”
She nodded as she tried to catch her breath. Before she knew it, he was kneeling next to her on the bed and running his hands expertly over her shoulders and arms. He hesitated briefly as his fingers brushed the sides of her unbound breasts, but continued his checkup. “Take a deep breath.”
Claire did, her robe falling open to reveal her sheer cotton nightgown. His gaze fell to the rise and fall of her breasts, and she realized the dark circles of her nipples were visible.
Boudreaux swallowed. “Does it hurt?” His voice was thick and sweet as cane syrup.
“Does what hurt?” Her nipples were starting to hurt from being so hard. Despite his rough exterior, his hands had been gentle.
“Your chest. I mean, when you breathe.” His own breath was coming faster.
“You mean, here?” Some little devil made Claire massage the tops of her breasts and breastbone between.
His hands clearly gripped his jeans-clad knees. “Yeah. There. Do I need to call you an ambulance?”
She stopped, disappointed. “No. Are you trying to break my ribs so I don’t go?”
He leaped off the bed so smoothly the only evidence he’d ever been there was his imprint on the duvet. “Back to the duffel.” He crouched and unzipped it while she sat up. “Camping gear?” He lifted a sarcastic eyebrow. “What did you do, clean out the Bass Pro Shop?”
“No, of course not!” It had been the L.L. Bean catalog.
He pulled out each item, giving a running tally. “Sleeping bag, sleeping bag pillow, mess kit, ground sheet—okay, that might be useful…biodegradable dish soap?” He shook his head. “Planning on doing any dishes? A GPS unit—do you even know how to use this? Got any extra batteries? They go bad quickly in hot, damp climates. Oh, look, how useful. An unsharpened pocketknife. Got a whetstone?”
Claire shrugged. She wasn’t sure.
Boudreaux continued, “No compass, no whetstone, no machete—”
“Machete? What’s that for?”
“A machete, or ma-chay-tay, as our Spanishspeaking friends would call it, is the golden ticket to survival. You wanna make friends in the Amazon, you bring the natives high-quality machetes, and lots of them. If you’ve never seen the gardener on your family estate use one, they look like a really big knife curved on the sharp side.”