She laughed and slapped the book closed. “What?”
“Hmm. Maybe he wouldn’t have written that. Not sure.”
“Tom, are you trying to ask me on a date? Here and now? This is hardly the place or the time, do you think?”
He shrugged. “I’m never good on timing. And every time I want to ask you out, something goes wrong. So I’m just doing it.”
She was speechless, briefly. “I see. Well, if this is going to be a business dinner, the food has to be good.” She lifted her chin, watching the little curl on the side of his smile. “If it’s a personal dinner, it has to be delicious.”
He nodded. “I hope you like the best steak in the city. It’s personal.”
fortyMARION
After the race, the river, the gunshot, then the kiss—never mind the helicopter crash—Marion was too weak to walk on her own, so Daniel wrapped her good arm around his shoulder, letting her lean against him. After a moment, he found a secluded space and set her gently in the grass, always keeping watch.
“We’ll stay here until you’re ready,” he promised, adjusting the gun where it lay across his lap.
“I didn’t know you had a gun with you.”
“I had a pistol, which we cleared through Customs because of the Red Cross. This one? I took it off Charlie after he shot down the chopper. He owed me.”
The air between them was still with a new awareness. As much as she longed for another kiss, she was glad of the distance. Her gaze lingered on his lips, then she looked away. She couldn’t afford to get distracted. Not here.
The other men from the helicopter eventually caught up, following the sound of gunfire. One was a medic, and he went straight over to examine Marion’s shoulder wound. She could tell it was only a graze, once he unwrapped Daniel’s bandage. The bullet had whizzed by, leaving a deep scrape, but that was quickly put to rights.
She marvelled at the soldier’s expediency. “I imagine you do this a lot,” she said.
He was young—weren’t they all?—with dark hair and a faint moustache. “In my sleep, ma’am.”
“What can you tell me about the hospital in Da Nang?”
“Which one? There’s a surgical, a medical, and an obstetrics hospital there.”
She hadn’t known that. “Surgical. That’s where I’m assigned.”
“Surgical is called the Provincial Hospital. It’s a great place for black-market goods. Fresh fruit, coffee, flashlights, bug spray, rum, and huge crates of clothing marked ‘Not for Sale,’ donated by the United Church of Canada. The whole city is a little nuts, to be honest.”
Daniel agreed. “The traffic is wild. I can’t understand how people aren’t killed there on an hourly basis.”
A man who appeared to be in charge stood and announced that it was time to move on. He’d arranged a rendezvous where a truck would pick them up, then they’d go straight to Da Nang. The very idea of walking through the jungle then driving to a place nicknamed Rocket City shook Marion’s fragile courage.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered to Daniel as they walked.
He didn’t laugh, didn’t scold. “I wish I had a dollar for every time I said that.”
When at last they climbed into the back of the truck, she could only do it with his help. Holding back tears of panic and exhaustion, she finally laid her head down in his lap and fell asleep.
“We’re here,” she heard sometime later. He was leaning over her, peering into her face. “Time to wake up, Doc.”
The truck’s tires crunched over gravelly sand toward a large cement building with yellow stucco walls and orange roof tiles. A large khaki canvas tent stood nearby.
“That’s orthopaedics,” the medic explained. “Up there is the emergency entrance, and there’s a heliport behind that can take in two or three medevacs at a time.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing past the hospital. Small outbuildings stood at the base of a giant cement water tower.
“Laundry and storage facilities.” He pointed. “Those are the bathhouses and lavatories. If there’s a power failure, they’re run by a diesel engine.”
She saw hydro poles stretching across the grounds to the transformer station. “Can’t the Vietcong sabotage those wires? They’re completely exposed.”
