“I was glad you called me. You know. When it happened.”
She blinked at him, surprised. “Of course I called you. You’re important to him. And to me. Besides, who else would pick up the phone at that hour?”
He dropped his gaze to the wooden tabletop, scarred by knives and forks over the years.
“And the cheque,” she said softly. “Thank you. That was a lot of money. You didn’t have to do that. Why did you?”
“I want to help.”
“But that’s a lot.”
He shrugged, lifting the collar of his black jacket. “It’s important to you, so it’s important to me. Especially if it can help to find your brother somehow. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”
This was new. Tom didn’t talk about himself much. Probably because she was always the one doing the talking.
“Who did you lose?” she asked softly.
“I told you my parents died years ago, but also my two brothers and a cousin. All three of those were in the last war. I was fourteen when they left, so I was too young to go. They never found my oldest brother’s body, and that’s really stuck with me. Somewhere in France, I was told. I can almost picture the other two, since I know where they’re buried, but all I can imagine of Jeff are his bones in the mud somewhere. I hate the idea of anyone being left behind, dead or alive.”
It was probably inappropriate, thinking of him this way while he was sharing an important story in his life, but Sassy couldn’t help herself. He was striking, she thought with a kind of wonderment. His black hair was messed just a little, his icy-blue eyes even more pronounced because of the dark ringsbeneath them. Was he not sleeping? She didn’t think he was sick, but then again, she hadn’t had as much time for him lately. The hardness was gone from his face now, his earnest expression winning out over the hurt. He was, she saw clearly, much more handsome than Sean Connery.
Sassy wanted Tom more than she’d ever wanted any man in her life.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said softly.
He rubbed his hand hard across his mouth. “You throw me off balance, Sassy. You make me want to scream, and other times I sit back and listen to you laugh, even if I don’t know what’s funny. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before, that laugh.” He huffed out his nose. “I wasn’t trying to just ‘fix everything.’ I hated seeing you so upset, and I wanted to see that smile.”
She dropped her chin. “I know. I’m sorry. I might have gone a little far.”
“You might have.”
She rolled up her white napkin and waved it like a flag. “Truce?”
He leaned back, holding her gaze. “Look. The truth is, I want you to find your brother. And I want the Red Cross to have money to spend on saving those poor fools down there. But mostly, Sassy, I want you to be happy.”
thirty-sevenMARION
Marion sat on the hard leather seat of the UH-1 Iroquois, wind shoving through the open door and whistling past her ears. She gripped her seat until her knuckles cramped, riding the sky as the helicopter angled one way then the other, curving over rice patties and mud-brown rivers, navigating the tangled, impenetrable chaos of the jungle. As they soared over tiny villages, Marion was painfully aware that some might shelter guns, even grenade launchers. When the helicopter angled sharply, she saw their clear, black shadow skimming over the jungle.
She was too scared to scream. Until a week ago, she’d never even stepped into an airplane, and now she flew two thousand feet in the air, deafened by the hum andthumpthumpthumpof a Huey—God! She’d watched these helicopters on TV! In front of her, three men in camouflage sat on either side of the cabin’s open doors, their legs hanging over the edges, machine guns slung over their laps. In addition, a door gunner stood on either side, each manning an M60 machine gun. Long belts of cartridges spilled onto the floor at their feet. Attached to the outside of the Huey, just behind her and thankfully out of her view, was a pair of anti-tank missiles. Just in case, Daniel had said.
He sat on her left, craning over her shoulder to see what she saw, absentlyadjusting his eye patch. He pointed at something, but she couldn’t hear what he said over the drubbing of the chopper blades and the hammering of her pulse. She turned to ask, her eyes streaming tears from the wind, and her helmet bumped his chin. Without a hint of a smile, he pressed down on it, keeping it secure. She recalled the intimate feel of his fingers on her skin as he’d fastened her helmet under her chin before takeoff.
“Nothing’s gonna mess with that brain. Or that face,” he’d said, his tone earnest. “Never take that off.”
“Yes, Major,” she’d said, wanting to make him smile. She had been so afraid, standing by the rumbling helicopter. She needed to hear that reassurance again, the promise that, yes, he would take care of her. A reminder that this was more than a job or duty to both of them. This was him and her.
He didn’t smile, but he held her gaze, and she got what she needed.
Strands of her hair had escaped her braid and her metal helmet, and she swiped them out of her face. Dr. Marion Hart, known for her conservative suits and shoes, her perfectly styled, tight roll, and her punctuality, was now buzzing thousands of feet over Vietnam in camo, her hair like a fright wig under a tin can.
A suddenboom!to the west, and she felt Daniel shift with her, seeking out the source. Grey smoke ballooned in the distance, then again nearby, but that’s all she could see. Daniel was a statue beside her, his hard expression unchanging. The Huey’s shadow skimmed over the green of the trees below, and the copilot twisted backward, yelling something at them and gesturing beyond the open door. She saw his mouth move, but she couldn’t make out anything over the noise. Daniel could. He was nodding. He stuck out his fist, thumb up, then he brought his mouth to her ear.
“Almost there. Hold tight.”
He was shouting, and yet his voice still sounded far away. She wondered if the chopper noise could be harming her hearing long-term, then she rolled her eyes internally. Worrying about her hearing? That should be her last concern.
He pointed out the open door. “Do you see the old temple out there?”
