“A lot of it is because of you.”
He grinned again. “Not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
He took a sip of his wine, studying her. “So now that we’re here, I want something from you.”
A thrill raced through her. “What’s that?”
“You got to ask me questions before, but I never got a turn. A lot of the time, we talked about what scared me. I want to know what scares you, Marion Hart.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I want to talk about that.”
“It’s only fair. Besides, how am I supposed to protect you if I don’t know what to watch for?”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly, “but let’s order first.”
The lobster thermidor, the wine, and the need for more sleep lulled her into a state of deep contentment, and Marion let herself relax into the moment. So she told him about the day on the lake when she’d almost drowned.
“I was just a kid, and I shouldn’t have been out there. I guess most people would have been smart and taken swimming lessons after that. I did the opposite. I decided never to go near water again in my life. Shortsighted, I guess, and stubborn.”
“Got it. No swimming for you.”
They talked comfortably through dinner, getting to know a bit aboutwho they were before they’d met, but the conversation inevitably returned to the war.
“Do you think you’ll see your unit out here?”
His face fell slightly. “I doubt it. Tex is gone.” His nostrils flared with the memory. “I know that for sure. Joey is MIA, but I don’t know anything about the others. It’s been months, so they would have sent in replacements. Young kids.”
“You’re all younger than I am.” She tilted her head. “But I know the war aged you. The adrenaline. The risks. You were close to death so many times.”
“They say you’re never so alive as when you’re looking death in the eye,” he said softly. “I must have been pretty damn close. I looked it in the eye, and it took mine.”
At noon the next day, they were back in the van, bumping along cratered roads. The view kept changing the closer they got to Camp Bao Thinh, where they would learn where she and Daniel were to be stationed. When they arrived, the feel of the place was more military, with sentries standing outside buildings, and high defensive walls topped with razor wire.
Every one of Marion’s muscles was so stiff when they finally parked and got out of the van, she had to force herself not to gasp.
Daniel pointed at a sign nearby. “See that? Skull and crossbones? Indicates a possible minefield. Remember that.”
“Got it. Why are they moving a mirror under our van?”
“In case the Vietcong attached explosives to the undercarriage.”
Her jaw dropped. “Of our van?”
“If there’s anything there, they’d set it off remotely once it arrived. They’d want it to happen where it could do the most damage. Like here,” he said, matter-of-fact. He gestured toward a small group of Vietnamese men in suits and military uniforms standing by a building. “Looks like those are the people we’re meeting with.”
She followed him toward the men, who were saying something like “Gam un! Gam un!”
“Không có gì,” Daniel replied, startling her.
“What’s that? What’s ‘com koy ay’?” she asked.
“They’re thanking us for coming, so I just said, ‘You’re welcome.’ Lucky you. You wanted a bodyguard, and I threw in a translator for free.”
Marion had brought a little book to help her translate, but since the Vietnamese alphabet was nothing like the English one, she had been at a loss for how to handle conversations. She had assumed—or, rather,hopedthat people at the hospital would understand her needs once she got there, but Daniel’s knowledge made everything much simpler. Some of the officials, she discovered, were fairly fluent in English as well. One of them ushered them toward a map on the wall.
“Dr. Hart,” he said, looking reluctant, “I am very sorry. Because you are a woman, I wanted to send you to a hospital in Saigon. Here.” He tapped the map near the southernmost tip of South Vietnam, then he slid his pointer up, up, up. “But we had an accident happen to a surgeon in Qu?ng Nam, and they need urgent help in Da Nang. In I Corps.”
