Chapter Seven

Surprise! …

Ian and the guys were sitting in the mess hall, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. The only one missing was Slick, and God only knew where he’d disappeared to.

They’d all been invited to a party, hosted by some Air Force babes that Cage had met within fifteen minutes of landing here … surprise, surprise! Ian wasn’t sure if he would go, but maybe he should at least make an appearance to avoid the ragging he would get about his libido, or lack thereof. Besides, after the reprimand he’d gotten from General Adams, he could use a beer … or five.

It was almost nine p.m., so the large room was mostly empty. The SEALs of Force Squad were full, relaxed and rehashing their mission for about the tenth time, not counting the unpleasant meeting with General Adams. Ian didn’t like being called on the carpet; it reminded him too much of his father, always criticizing him, never praising. Even when he’d finally given in and gone to officers candidate school, that hadn’t been enough. Even when he … oh, hell, what difference did it make?

“What do you think will happen to Jamal?” Pretty Boy asked.

“My guess is that security around him will be tighter than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Omar said. “That man is one mean mother, up there with Bin Laden and the other super terrorists.”

Ian agreed. “Uncle Sam, and the Iraqis, will want to make an example of him, punish him for all the deaths he’s ordered. Did you hear about that mass grave they found last week in Fallujah? I have a friend with the marines who were first on the scene. He said the jarheads couldn’t stop vomiting, it was that bad.”

“Yeah, but the pussies in Washington will want to be politically correct,” Pretty Boy pointed out. “His trial will have to be squeaking damn fair or the ACLU and Amnesty International will be on the military like dogs on a bone.”

They all nodded, having no liking for the ultra liberals who made their work harder.

“It feels good to have brought the creep in, though,” Geek said, echoing the satisfaction they all felt. As for Geek, he’d done real good for his first mission. Now he could say he’d been “blooded.”

“Did you see that little Arab girl when her granddad came to get her?” Sly asked. “Man, I had tears, and I hardly ever tear up.”

“Yeah. She’ll probably need a shrink for a long time, but she’ll be okay,” Omar said. “Now, if she were living in an Arab culture, she’d be ostracized for the rapes, even though they weren’t her fault. But she’s westernized, and her family lives in the U.S. most of the time. She’ll be okay … in time.”

“What do you think will happen to Yasmine?” Geek wondered.

That was what had been worrying Ian, though he berated himself for even thinking about her. “Hell if I know! If she is Jamal’s lover, she’ll be in big trouble. Prison, for sure.”

“I find it hard to believe that even Jamal would want to screw that … shrew,” Pretty Boy said, then laughed at his own joke. “Screw the shrew. I like that.”

There was a communal groan at Pretty Boy’s warped humor.

“Yeah, but there are those breasts,” Cage reminded them, as if any of them needed a reminder.

“Man, I could have pissed my pants when I saw her launch herself at you,” Omar said. “She was like a nude missile or something.”

“She is … something else,” Ian agreed.

“She seems to have latched on to you, Mac,” JAM said, “like you’re responsible for her or something.”

“I know, and I actually feel guilty for turning her over, terrorist or not,” Ian confessed. “That’s all I need in my life … a cat with an attitude and a hag with an attitude.”

“I think I know what country she comes from,” Geek said. “I recognize the accent.”

They all turned to him with interest.

“Iceland.”

Some of them laughed, even Ian, who said, “Aw, shiiiit! A freakin’ Eskimo.”

“I said Iceland, not Alaska.” Geek looked at him as if he were dumber than dirt. But then, Geek looked at everyone like that, him being so much smarter than the average guy.

“Iceland, Alaska, North Pole, whatever. It’s colder than a witch’s tit up there,” Cage said.

His use of the word tit reminded them all of a pair of those they’d seen recently.

Geek went off on one of his usual tangents then about the statistical probability of Yasmine being from Iceland based on factors and exponents and international language codes and modern Icelandic being similar to Old Norse and numbers and numbers and numbers and other crap.

Cage spoke for them all when he said, “Geek, you make my head hurt.”

Luckily, something happened to interrupt the flow of Geek’s brainy discourse … or perhaps not so lucky.

“Sonofabitch!” Omar’s jaw dropped practically to his chest.

“Hot damn!” JAM added.

“Holy crawfish! I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Cage put a hand over his heart and sighed dramatically.

Omar, Cage and JAM were sitting on the opposite side of the table from Ian, Geek, Sly and Pretty Boy, who had their backs to the doorway.

The four of them turned on their seats, looking back to see what had caught their buddies’ attention. Three women were walking toward them, two of them dressed in traditional Navy uniforms—Ensigns Amber Wilson and Dolores Baxter. The one in the middle—the statuesque blonde—wore fatigues with an olive drab T-shirt.

Ian’s brain morphed into slow-mo then. He couldn’t quite grasp the scene unfolding before him. His men were talking with excitement, but he filtered out their words of astonishment and appreciation.

First, he took in the fact that the woman in the middle was gorgeous. Well, not gorgeous. Her nose was too straight and her face too thin for that. Stunning would be a better word.

Her blond hair hung down her back in a long braid, like a twisted skein of spun silver. Except it wasn’t gray; it was platinum.

She was tall, at least five-ten. With legs that were as long as a Coronado mile. Despite her slim frame, her breasts were nothing short of magnificent. Probably due to some push-up thing or other that women used to fool men. Even so, the favorite part of his body jump-started into full-tilt testosterone overload; if it could say howdy, it probably would.

When was the last time I was this attracted to a woman?

Never.

Her chin was lifted high like some friggin’ princess looking down on all the lesser beings, including him. No, in particular, him. Why me? Ian had no illusions about his sex appeal, compared to some of the other studs sitting with him. Hell, he even had a receding hairline.

Hold the train! Something strange is going on. He frowned in confusion.

Why were her blue eyes directed at him with haughty disdain? He didn’t even know the woman.

Yes, I do.

It can’t be.

I must be the blindest guy in the universe.

It was the hag … Yasmine.

Except she wasn’t a hag.

His eyes went back to her breasts, which were clearly outlined by the drab Navy T-shirt. Yep, it’s her. And there’s nothing common about her. Nosirree!

“Oh … my … God!” he said as all the implications hit him in the gut like a sucker punch. His squad members were exclaiming as well, all talking at once.

He stood and started to walk toward her, dazed. It was probably a testosterone trance. So obvious was his reaction to the woman that the guys behind him hooted with laughter. He couldn’t care less what they thought.

“Yasmine?” he said.

She blinked several times, then said. “Nay. Maddie.”

Another name. He rolled his eyes.

She punched him in the stomach.

“Hey, why did you do that?”

“One, you abandoned me. Two, you did not tell me how bad I looked. Bloody hell, I almost scared myself when I looked in the mirror. Three, you are not a troll, but a real man. Four, you failed to inform me that you are handsome as all the gods under all that face paint. Five, your hair is rusty brown, not black. Six, I asked you to take me to Baghdad and you bring me to this military fortress. Seven, you put me in a flying bird and almost frightened me to death.”

Slowly he grinned. “You think I’m handsome?”

“Pfff. As if you didn’t know, you puffed-up son of a lout. Go get me some food. My stomach is screaming, and after arguing with those lackwits in the general’s office, I have a megrim that would down a dragon. I will sit over here.” She waved a hand airily and sat down at the next table. Her two guards sat, too … looking a bit poleaxed. He knew how they felt.

He still grinned, though. When had her nagging started to have an appeal? Shaking his head to clear it, he went over to get her a tray of food, like a bloomin’ lackey.

When he came back, he sat down across from her. Amber and Dolores kept a constant eye on their “prisoner” but went over to the next table. Immediately they began to talk with the guys on his squad, who were mouthing suggestions to him and making hand gestures, all of which were obscene.

He noticed that Yasmine was sniffing her arm. She even lifted her arm and smelled her armpit. Subtlety was not her strong point. “Yas … I mean, Maddie, what are you doing?”

“Smelling myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I smell good, lackwit.”

Considering how she’d stunk to high heaven before, anything would be an improvement.

“My skin smells like flowers and my hair smells like apples. If I run into a swarm of bees or a hungry horse, you may have to rescue me.”

Was she actually making a joke? Wonders never ceased. Meanwhile, she continued to sniff herself.

“Can I come over there and smell you, too?” he teased.

She gave him a look that pretty much said, Do and die!

“Yasmine, …” he started to say.

She glared at him.

He propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand. “Maddie … I keep forgetting. You sure do lie a lot, don’t you, Maddie?”

She studied him for a long moment. “Yea, I do.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“But only these past two years. Lies have been my only tool for survival.”

“Well, you sure pulled one over on me today.”

“I did?”

“Who knew that the ugly duckling would turn into a swan?”

She threw her hands up in air. “I swear, you have an obsession with animals. Seals, birds, turkeys, swans.”

“Turkeys?”

“Not turkeys. Turkey. Amber and Dough-lore-ass asked me if I came from Turkey.”

“Oh.” Talking with her was like going through a maze. You never knew what turn you would take next.

She sat playing with the jello on her tray with a butter knife. She did the same to the corned beef hash and tossed salad. The roll was the only thing she ate, gobbling it down as if it were gourmet food. Then she just stared forlornly at her tray of food.

“What’s the matter? I thought you were hungry.”

“I am.” She sighed. “I do not know how to eat this food.” She jiggled the jello again to demonstrate.

He got up and went around the table to sit next to her. Yep, she did smell like flowers and apples. It wasn’t a bee or a horse that should worry her. He might just take a bite himself.

“That’s jello,” he said, picking up a spoon and scooping a small amount up and putting it in his mouth. “Yummm.” God, I hate jello!

She took the spoon from him and did the same. Smiling, she took one spoonful after another till it was all gone. “Jello,” she said. “I like it.”

She licked her lips.

His cock thought her gesture was talking to him, and raised its head. Do that again, honey.

“What’s this?” She stared with dismay at the entree on her tray.

“Corned beef hash.”

“It looks like vomit.”

She must be an alien or something. Nothing here seems to be familiar to her. “It’s beef and potatoes and onions. It’s not bad.” Liar! he told himself. I hate corned beef hash almost as much as I hate jello.

At first she was awkward with the fork, but then she got the hang of it and ate all the hash, which indeed did look like barf, especially after hours under the steam warmer. She concluded, “Interesting.” She smiled at him then, as if he’d done her some favor.

It had to be the first time in the world that hash affected a person so, but her smile touched him. He didn’t know why, it just did.

She took a long drink of water then, after picking up one of the ice cubes and studying it carefully. With each swallow her chest moved. In, out, in, out.

Amazing! Her simple drinking was an erotic exercise. For sure, you-know-who agreed and twitched in his pants.

Now she was eating the salad and started in on the brownie. “Ummmm,” she said. “I am not so fond of the dish of weeds, but the brown thing is delicious.” Replete, she raised her hands above her head and stretched. Mid-yawn, she turned on him. “Stop looking at my breasts.”

“I can’t help myself. Are you wearing one of those push-up things?”

She frowned. “I do not think so, but I am wearing a lace harness. Leastways, I don’t jiggle anymore.” She reached for the hem of her T-shirt and started to lift it.

Holy shit, she was going to show him her “harness.” Laughing, he took her hands and put them and her hem in her lap. “That’s okay. I know what you mean.”

“I am also wearing a silk garment to cover my arse and female parts,” she confessed to him. “Pan-teas they are called.”

He made a gurgling sound, which she must have interpreted as encouragement to go on.

“Whenever I walk, the silk moves against my body in the most sensuous way. And my breasts feel as if someone is holding them up. I have ne’er heard of a country where people wear silk under their clothing where it cannot be seen. Can you imagine that?”

He groaned. I’m imagining, all right.

“Do you wear silk pan-teas, too?

“No.”

“Never?”

“Well, once.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She frowned. Apparently, his eyebrow waggling did nothing for her. “Are you married?”

Where did that come from? “No. Are you interested?” Where did that come from? Honest to God, they oughta nominate me for dumb man of the year.

“Pffff. One marriage was more than enough for me. How about you? Are you interested?”

“In what?”

“You are rather thick-headed, aren’t you?”

He smiled.

“Stop it.”

“What?”

“Smiling.”

“Why?”

“It does fluttery things to my stomach.”

He put his face in his hands. His cock was doing the hallelujah dance. And he … well, he was in big trouble if this conversation went any further. “You shouldn’t be telling me things like that … Maddie.” He had trouble remembering what her name of the moment was.

“Why not?”

Because I might just jump your bones, that’s why. “You shouldn’t tell a man that he turns you on … unless …”

“Turn on? Turn on? Turn on?” she repeated the words over and over, as if trying to understand the expression. He was just about to explain when she slapped him on the arm. “You think I want to fornicate with you?”

Well, yeah! He felt his face warm up. “You did say you got all fluttery when I smiled.” He smiled just to see if he got a reaction.

She put both hands to her stomach.

Oh, boy!

“That’s not what it means. It can’t be that! ”

Yep, it’s that. He felt about ten feet tall.

Then reality began to creep in to testosterone city. “We can’t do anything about it anyway. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.”

“Leaving? For where?”

“Home.”

She tilted her head in question.

“Coronado. California.”

“You are not leaving me here.”

He had no chance to respond because, despite his glares and silently mouthed “Go away!” the guys and two women came over to sit with him and Yas … Maddie. The guys grinned at him. The women looked confused. He understood both the humor and the confusion.

Pretty Boy had plopped himself down next to Maddie. Geesh, I have trouble with that name. Cage sat on his left. The other guys sat on the facing bench with the two women.

“Why don’t you introduce us, Mac?” Sly suggested, ignoring his glower and smiling at Maddie.

“You already met Maddie back at the cave,” he grumbled.

“That wasn’t Maddie,” Cage said. “That was Phyllis Diller on crack.” He winked at Maddie.

Ian elbowed Cage for his remark and the wink. Cage elbowed him back.

Reluctantly, Ian introduced them all, ending with Pretty Boy.

Maddie frowned. “Why do they call you Pretty Boy?”

Everyone laughed except Pretty Boy, whose face had turned red. Pretty Boy had been given that nickname—all SEALs got nicknames—because his last name was Floyd, but also because he was exceptionally good-looking, or so women said … lots of women.

“Because I’m pretty?” Pretty Boy said. The overconfident ass. When Maddie still appeared confused, he added, “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

“Well, I suppose some might say so, but, of course, you are not near as handsome as the lackwit Scotsman.”

At first, Ian didn’t know that she referred to him … not till the guys laughed and teased him about his prettiness. Everyone in the world thought Pretty Boy was God’s gift to women, including Pretty Boy. No one, no one, ever said Ian was handsome when Pretty Boy was in the room. Everyone at the table looked as astonished as he felt.

“I have a receding hairline,” he said. Why don’t I just shoot myself? I have the finesse of a twelve-year-old.

“You need to get out more,” Sly said.

“I could give you lessons,” Cage offered.

Maddie studied his hairline, than asked, “Do you have much hair on your chest?”

Ian’s jaw dropped open.

“My father always said that a man’s virility could be measured by the amount of hair on his chest. The less, the better. Now on the manparts, hair is an entirely different matter.”

Several males looked down at their chests, then below.

“Maddie, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Women are supposed to be demure and—”

“Oh, bloody hell! Not that demure business. I am tired to my teeth of men requiring meekness in a woman. The men in my family were like that. And the sultans in the harems where I served were even worse. Do you know what those lackbrain houris did to please men? They plucked—”

Ian put a hand over her mouth. “We get the picture, Maddie.”

“You were in a harem?” Amber asked. She and Dolores had been silent so far, but now they were clearly interested, along with a bunch of horny sailors.

Maddie went on to regale them with a long spiel about all her experiences in harems. Ian had his face in his hands, unsure whether to laugh or cry over this strange, strange woman who had fallen into his life like a meteorite.

Once she’d talked herself out, and everyone was suitably dumbfounded, he told the guys, “Remember, you have to be present tomorrow for the press conference. CentCom wants to brag to the world how they captured Jamal by parading a bunch of presumably hunky SEALs as part of the program.”

They all groaned, except Pretty Boy, who liked that kind of crap.

One time a Pentagon PR person had actually suggested that they might come shirtless. As if! Although some of the guys probably would have. Then the clueless PR person had suggested they wear lots of medals. Unbelievable!

But, for now, the squad members nodded, although they weren’t happy about making nice for a bunch of reporters.

As an afterthought, Ian added, “And make sure you are dressed appropriately.”

“What? You didn’t like my ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy’ T-shirt the last time in South Africa?” Cage, ever the clown, pretended to be offended.

“More like our commander at Coronado, and about twenty frickin’ admirals in D.C., were not amused to see that on CNN,” Ian said.

“It’s just the title of a Big and Rich song,” Cage said with the innocence of one of his native alligators.

“What is a cowboy? Oh, do not tell me. Another animal!” Maddie was shaking her head at them.

“A cowboy is a man who handles cows … out on the open range,” Sly explained.

“Except if you’re in Nashville, where everyone pretends to be a cowboy,” JAM pointed out.

“What is Nash—” Maddie started to ask.

Ian ignored them all. “We will have plenty of time after the press conference to catch the plane back to the States.”

“We are going to the … states?” Madrene inquired, her brow furrowed with her usual confusion.

“ We are not going anywhere. You are staying here,” Ian said. “Unless they send you to prison somewhere else. But I don’t think they’ll do that to a woman.”

“I don’t know about that. Remember Tokyo Rose,” Geek said. “And Hanoi Jane.”

“They didn’t put Jane Fonda in prison, did they?” Sly asked.

“No, but they would have liked to,” JAM answered.

“You would abandon me here in this strange land?” Maddie was looking at Ian, not the group as a whole.

“Hey, you asked me to take you to Baghdad. You’re in Baghdad.”

“This is not the Baghdad I meant.”

“Honey, there’s only one Baghdad,” JAM interjected, even though she hadn’t been addressing him.

“I’m telling you, this is not the Baghdad I meant.” She inhaled and exhaled several times as if to calm herself. Then she looked at Ian like he was a yucky pill she had to swallow. “I suppose I will have to go with you … till I find a ship to take me home.”

That made him sit up a little straighter. “One, you are not going home with me. Two, I am not responsible for you. Three, you can find a ship from here to take you to Iceland. You don’t have to go to California to get a ship.”

“Iceland? Why would I want to go to Iceland?”

“Don’t you live there?”

“Nay. I have visited there, of course, but it is not my home. Where did you get that idea?”

Geek blushed and ducked his head.

Ian said, “Never mind.”

“Tomorrow afternoon, you say? I will have to make sure your general is done questioning me. He seems to consider me a prisoner. I am not really a prisoner, am I?”

“More like a forced guest.” Why else would the guard over her be so loose?

“I am going with you.”

“No, you are not.”

“We shall see.”

“Every time a woman says that, it means she will get her way. Well, you won’t this time, sweetie. Besides, you need a passport to enter the U.S.A. Do you have a passport?”

“What is a passport?”

He spread his hands in a “See!” manner.

“Get me a passport.”

“I can’t do that.”

“There is one way they give passports on short notice here,” Omar said with a grin.

Ian flashed Omar a glare. “You are barking up the wrong tree, buddy.”

“Who barked?” Maddie asked.

Ian ignored Maddie’s question and glared at Omar. “ That is out of the question.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Marriage,” Omar the traitor said.

She let out a whoosh of disgust.

Hey, marriage to me is not whoosh-worthy. Not that I’m interested. Damn, damn, damn! How did I get involved in a marriage question? “Don’t worry. The general’s staff will take good care of you. Provided you aren’t actually a terrorist.

“If that is the only way, I guess we will have to do it.”

“ What? ” he practically shrieked.

“Get married. Of course, you can put me aside, like my first husband did, once I am on a ship heading home.”

“No, no, no, no, no! We are not getting married.” He thought a moment. His heart was racing hard. He shouldn’t ask, but when did he ever listen to his own sound advice? “Why did your husband divorce you?”

Her face turned white as a sheet, and her fingers clenched and unclenched her paper napkin. “I’m barren.”

“Huh? You’re bare and what?”

“You are the world’s biggest idiot. I’m barren.”

Everyone, especially the women, were looking at Maddie with compassion. Cage even patted her arm.

Ian felt like a louse. “Oh. I’m sorry. What a creep … to walk out on you for such a thing! Hell, it was probably his fault anyway.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, which she wiped away. “ ’Tis nice of you to say so, but he has four children now with his second wife.”

“If it had been me, I would have performed a Lorena Bobbit on him before I danced out the door,” Amber said.

“Except I would have used a butter knife,” Dolores added.

“What is a Lor … that thing she mentioned,” Maddie asked him.

Why me? Ian sighed at the impossible situations this woman kept putting him in. “Lorena Bobbit was a woman who whacked her husband’s pecker off while he was sleeping.”

At first Maddie’s eyes went wide; then she clapped her hands with glee. “I wish I had thought of that.”

Time to get back to the subject they’d been on. “Yasmine …”

“Aaarrgh!”

“Maddie. Are you a terrorist?”

She gave him a long, considering look. “No.”

“Then you’ll probably be freed tomorrow, and you can go anywhere you want.”

“How will I get there? Will you take me home?”

Ian had no idea where “home” was, but it really didn’t matter. His silence was his answer.

Her shoulders slumped. “It would do no good anyway. I must needs raise an army first. Steinolf will not give back my estates willingly.”

Ian refused to ask who Steinolf was. The woman must be a little bit crazy. “An army? You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“In truth, you and your hird of seal soldiers would suffice. My people would follow you if you taught them your fighting skills. What a sight that would be! Norstead would be mine once again.”

Norstead? I won’t even ask what country that is in. “Listen, we’re putting the cart before the horse.” At the questioning tilt of Maddie’s head, he elaborated, “We’re jumping to conclusions. First the general has to release you.”

Her eyes said he was lower than a snake’s belly. “And once he does, then what?” she inquired in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “You are not leaving here without me.”

He had no answer to that.

But JAM did. “I could help, if it came to that.”

Ian refused to ask, but the others had no compunction about hearing JAM’s solution. “God save me from my friends,” Ian muttered, throwing his hands up in disgust. He had a sinking feeling he was not going to like JAM’s answer.

And he was right.

“Even though I left the seminary, I am still able to perform baptisms, last rites and …”

Ian groaned.

The others grinned.

“… civil marriages.”

“So, you could do a quicky wedding if you had to?” Sly asked. He was grinning so wide, you could have stuck a plate in his mouth.

JAM nodded, entirely serious.

“And I could go on the Internet to get all the legal documentation, including the emergency green card application.” Good ol’ Geek. Always had the answers.

“But who would she marry?” Amber asked, excited to be planning a freakin’ wedding. Some guard she was!

Everybody turned to look at Ian.

“No!” he said. “No, no, no, no, no!”

“What a lackwit,” Maddie said.

“You shouldn’t call your groom … uh, potential groom … a bad name,” Dolores advised Maddie. Some guard she was, too!

“Dearling”—Maddie said the odd endearment with sugary sweetness—“I would rather lie with a three-pronged goat than be your bloody bride.”

Now, there’s a picture.

At first there was silence, and then Cage pronounced, “I think they make a perfect couple.”

Ian had the sensation of drowning in quicksand.