Stranded with the Sergeant

by Cathie Linz

  Glancing at her reflection in the van’s outside mirror, she adjusted the silver hair clip she’d fastened her hair back with before turning to inspect her students. She checked each child’s backpack to make sure it was properly positioned, wasn’t too heavy and that the straps weren’t twisted.

  Finally they headed off, with Joe in the front and Prudence bringing up the rear. From this vantage point she watched Joe. She’d always had a thing for guys in jeans, which is why she was surprised to find her heartbeat quickening. The man was wearing camouflage utilities, for heaven’s sake. Camies. Hardly sexy attire. But it was the man not the uniform that was getting to her. It was the man who was getting away from her as he set a pace much too fast for this group.

  “Sergeant, we’re not on an enforced march here,” she called out. “We’re supposed to be enjoying the wilderness, not marching through it double-time.”

  Joe shortened his usual long stride and fast tempo in order for the others to keep up with him. Even so, Prudence wasn’t satisfied, as she indicated when they took their first rest stop.

  “Sergeant, you’re supposed to be leading the troop,” she said, “not running away from us.”

  Her words were a deliberate red flag. A Marine never ran away from anything.

  Prudence was trying to taunt him. He refused to give her the satisfaction of reacting.

  Ignoring her comment, he spoke to the really short recruits, addressing them as if they were “poolies”—high school seniors who’d signed up for delayed entry into the Marine Corps upon graduation. “While we’re paused here, I’ll review the Marine Corps Survival techniques. Think of the word Survival. S stands for Sizing Up The Situation.”

  The situation was that Joe was stuck in the mountains with a forbidden woman and five kids.

  Shoving that thought aside, Joe asked. “What can you hear and see?”

  “I hear birds and the wind in the trees,” Sinatra said.

  “And I see a squirrel on that tree over there,” Rosa said.

  “What about smell?” Joe asked.

  “Hey, I took a shower this morning,” Pete declared. “I don’t smell.”

  Joe stifled a laugh. “Close your eyes and sniff the air. What can you smell?”

  “Pine. I smell pine,” Pete replied. “What about you, sir? What do you smell?”

  Perfume. Joe smelled Prudence’s perfume. Like Al Pacino in that movie, Joe was pretty good at identifying a woman’s perfume. But this one had him stymied. It was something citrusy with a bit…of cinnamon maybe?

  Erase that thought, Joe ordered himself. He refused to allow her entry into his thoughts. And if she barged into his thoughts, he vowed to toss her out.

  “I smell pine, too,” Joe replied. “Now U stands for Undue Haste Makes Waste.”

  “My point exactly,” Prudence inserted.

  “R stands for Remember Where You Are.” Joe pointed to the topographical hiking map he had with him. “Orient yourself to the terrain, like that mountain over there.”

  “The mountains all look the same,” Pete said.

  “Not if you look closely,” Joe said. “See how it has that stand of bare trees near the top?”

  “Probably killed by acid rain,” Keishon stated darkly.

  Joe continued, “V stands for Vanquishing Fear and Panic.” Yeah, right. This was one Joe had to work on himself, big-time. He shoved those thoughts aside. “I stands for Improvise. V stands for Value Living and A for Act Like Natives.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keishon said. “What natives live in the mountains?”

  “Animals,” Gem replied on Joe’s behalf. “Animals live in the mountains.”

  “And animals are smarter than people,” Keishon said. “They know stuff, like where water is, right?”

  “That’s right,” Joe said. “So we’ve covered S…U…R…V…I…V…A. Which leaves us with?”

  “L,” Sinatra supplied.

  “And L stands for Live by Your Wits,” Joe concluded. “Learning basic skills helps you develop your self-confidence.”

  Sinatra nodded. “I checked out some camping Web sites and learned about wilderness skills stuff. It made me feel better about this trip, made me look forward to it more.”

  Keishon added, “And Ms. Martin covered other information in class.”

  Covered…oh, yes, he’d like to see Ms. Martin covered, all right. Covered in yards and yards of concealing material, because maybe then he wouldn’t notice the way her T-shirt molded the curve of her breasts. He was watching the woman breathe, for God’s sake. Not a good sign.

  “All right, recruits,” Joe barked. “Time to move out!” And time for him to remember the goals of his mission this weekend where Prudence Martin was concerned—survival, not seduction.

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t agree,” Prudence was saying.

  Surprise, surprise, Joe irritably thought to himself. His C.O.’s little princess hadn’t agreed with one single thing he’d done or said for the past two hours.

  Pointing to a spot just to her right in the opposite direction of the place Joe had chosen, she said, “I think this campsite is better.”

  “It is if you want the cold night air blowing through your tent. The prevailing winds here are from the west, which means you don’t want the entrance to your tent facing that way. Ma’am,” he added.

  “Why didn’t you just say why you wanted the tent placed the way you did in the first place?” she asked in exasperation before holding up her hand like a cop stopping traffic. “Never mind, I know the answer to that question. Because you’re a Marine and you’re used to having your orders blindly obeyed.” Placing her hands on her slender hips, she said, “Well, I’m not one of your recruits.”

  “No kidding, ma’am,” he drawled respectfully, unable to stop himself from appreciating what a pretty picture she made, standing there all flushed and riled up.

  “So let’s both keep in mind the reason we’re here.”

  “Because your father, my commanding officer, ordered me to be here, ma’am,” he said.

  “To give the kids an educational and enjoyable outing,” she corrected him. “They worked hard on their science projects and I don’t want anything ruining this weekend for them.” Her gaze was direct, her chocolate-brown eyes unwavering. “So what do you say we call a temporary truce?” She held out her hand. “For the kids. Shall we shake on it?”

  There was no reason for Joe to hesitate. No reason to expect the powerful jolt of sexual attraction that slammed into him at the feel of her slender fingers curled around his hand. But it was there. Unmistakable. Ferocious. Unsettling.

  Studying her face, he saw that Prudence felt it, too. There was a startled yet intrigued look in her eyes that he found incredibly appealing. He’d found plenty of women sexy in the past, but none of them had made him feel downright bedazzled the way she did.

  Danger, Joe Wilder! The silent warning shot through his mind and he dropped her hand as if it were a live grenade.

  Sure, Joe liked a challenge, especially one that involved a good-looking woman, but he was no dummy. This wasn’t a challenge, it was professional suicide.

  Taking any action on the sizzling chemistry crackling between them would be a speedy one-way ticket right out of the Marines. Her father would see to that. Not that there was any regulation against dating your C.O.’s daughter; it was one of those unspoken rules like not putting your hand in a raging inferno. Common sense dictated you didn’t do stupid things like that.

  And Joe had plenty of common sense. Or at least he always had in the past.

  Stepping away from her, he concentrated on getting the two tents up, making sure the very short recruits assisted.

  Watching him supervise the kids, Prudence rubbed her fingers, which still hummed from his touch. He had a large hand, but it wasn’t his handshake that had been overpowering. No, it was Joe that was overpowering. And not just in a physical way, although she was extremely aware of him physi
cally.

  The camies and field jacket he wore were hardly the most sexy attire. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen thousands of Marines dressed identically in her lifetime. But there was something about this Marine that got to her.

  Maybe it was his Mel Gibson blue eyes or the slight dimple at the right of his mouth when he smiled. There was just something about him…

  It certainly wasn’t his way with kids. He was still on edge around them.

  Oh, it wasn’t noticeable if you weren’t looking. But she was looking, that was the problem. She was looking at Joe Wilder entirely too much.

  Asking Gem and Keishon to help her, she gathered firewood for a campfire. The campsite already had an area for fires designated by a ring of large rocks. By the time they had a healthy-size fire going, the tents were up and the sleeping bags stowed.

  As twilight fell, she tried not to notice the fact that Joe looked good in the firelight. But he kept his distance, not quite joining in with the rest of them. The kids had enjoyed their dinner of hot dogs and potato chips. Their fruit drinks came in a container with a straw so there was no need for cups or glasses, which made cleaning up a breeze. Tomorrow night’s meal—powdered beef stew—probably wouldn’t be as big a hit with the kids as tonight’s.

  Joe had positioned the two tents so that the smoke from the fire didn’t constantly blow into them. She wasn’t sure why she’d argued with him about its location in the first place. He got to her and set her off like flint striking sparks.

  She was just glad that he’d dropped his flirtatious act, the one he’d used on her when he’d first walked into that conference room back at the base. But that had been before he’d known that she was his commanding officer’s daughter. Ever since then he’d been propriety itself. Which made the awareness between them all the more puzzling. He clearly didn’t want to feel anything toward her and she felt the same about him. You’d think that would be enough to keep sexual chemistry at bay. And if that didn’t, the fact that they were surrounded by her students would be sufficient to squelch any romantic notions.

  “While there’s still enough light from the fire, why don’t you all take out your journals and write down your notes for today?” Prudence suggested. “Here, Sergeant, I brought a notebook so you could join in with this exercise and write down your thoughts.”

  “That wasn’t necessary, ma’am.”

  Waving the notebook at him, she said, “I wouldn’t want you to feel left out.”

  “I’m not the sensitive type, ma’am.”

  Seeing she wasn’t about to back down, he took the notebook from her, taking care not to touch her fingertips. What was it about this woman that got to him so? She was cute, but not the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.

  No, it was more than just her physical appearance. It was everything about her—her attitude, her way of handling the very short recruits, her insistence on needling him.

  “Sir, do Marines know how to navigate from the stars?” Gem asked Joe, interrupting his train of thought.

  But even as Joe pointed out the North Star and how to find it in the night sky, a part of his mind remained on Prudence. The group didn’t seem to notice his distraction, but then he was good at hiding his emotions.

  “You can see the Milky Way from here. With all those galaxies up there, there’s no way we’re the only ones in the universe,” Gem said.

  “What do you think aliens really look like?” Rosa asked.

  “I liked the aliens in Men in Black.” This from Pete.

  Keishon wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “They were too slimy and gross.”

  “How do you know we don’t look gross to them?” Pete countered.

  “They haven’t seen us,” Keishon replied.

  “Sure they have. Don’t you read those newspapers at the supermarket? Don’t you know about Roswell? Or The X-Files? The aliens are here among us all right,” Pete said.

  “Maybe you’re one of them,” Keishon retorted. “You sure act strange enough.” Turning to Joe she said, “What do you think, Sergeant? Do you think there is intelligent life in outer space?”

  She was asking this of a guy who wasn’t always even sure there was intelligent life on earth. Joe looked up at the stars and was suddenly reminded of an incident when he was a little kid—when his dad had taken him outside and shown him the Big Dipper. He remembered the awe he’d felt. He hadn’t thought of that for decades. And that awe and sense of wonder had long since disappeared. “I don’t know,” Joe said.

  “The Marines don’t deal with aliens, the Air Force does,” Pete told Keishon. “You’d know that if you watched more TV.”

  Ignoring him, Keishon spoke to Joe. “Who’s Alice? I heard you talking about her before.”

  “I wasn’t talking about a female,” Joe said.

  “You know a guy named Alice?” Pete asked, one brown eyebrow raised so high it almost disappeared beneath his Carolina Panthers cap.

  “ALICE is my pack,” Joe said.

  Pete’s disbelief turned into doubt. “You name your backpack?”

  “ALICE is an acronym for All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment,” Joe explained.

  Keishon frowned. “Don’t you think it would have been easier to just call it a backpack?”

  “Marines don’t do things just because it might be easier that way,” Prudence mockingly noted. “They also have a thing for acronyms.”

  “We talked about acronyms in class. I use them. They help me remember things,” Gem said.

  “My palm computer helps me remember things,” Sinatra said, patting one of the many pockets on his khaki vest where he kept his prized possession.

  “Computers are fine, but you have to be able to survive without them,” Joe said. “You have to depend on your own skills.” A Marine never depended on anything but his fellow Marines.

  Joe tensed against the all-too-familiar pain as emotions hit him like a kick in the gut. He’d let his fellow Marines down. There should have been something he could have done instead of standing there helplessly, a witness to the horrendous accident as the helo went down in flames.

  “The fire is dying down,” Rosa noted.

  “That’s fine,” Joe curtly replied. The fire reminded him too much of the fiery crash. Every damn thing reminded him. “It’s just about time to hit the rack anyway.”

  “That means bed,” Rosa said triumphantly, clearly pleased with herself at being able to translate “Marine-speak” into English.

  “If the fire goes out, we won’t be able to see in the dark.” Keishon didn’t sound too thrilled by that prospect.

  “Sure you can,” Joe replied, going on automatic pilot. “After one minute of darkness the eyes’ sensitivity to light increases ten times. After twenty minutes, it increases six thousand times.” Facts and figures were all he had to hold on to sometimes.

  “And after forty minutes, it achieves the maximum sensitivity increasing…twenty-five thousand times!” Sinatra stated with a dramatic flair.

  “Awesome,” Gem said, his earring and silver braces gleaming in the dying firelight.

  “How did you know that?” Pete demanded.

  “I looked it up on my palm computer,” Sinatra admitted, holding it out for them to see. “I downloaded info into it before I left.”

  To which Joe said, “I’ll bet your palm computer doesn’t tell you that it’s possible, from a mountaintop on a night like tonight, to detect the flare of a match fifty miles away.”

  “No, it didn’t tell me that, but I just entered that info,” Sinatra said.

  “So if we don’t see anything, does that mean there’s nobody around us for fifty miles?” Keishon asked.

  “We’d have to stay out here for forty minutes in order for our eyes to be completely adjusted to the darkness,” Prudence said.

  “Well, I’m not sitting out here in the dark for that long,” Keishon declared, jumping to her feet.

  “She’s afraid of bears,” Pete said.
>
  “I am not,” Keishon angrily denied.

  “Are, too.”

  “If you keep dissing me, the Sergeant is gonna yell at you again,” Keishon warned Pete with a meaningful look in Joe’s direction.

  “He yelled at both of us before,” Pete reminded her.

  “He did not,” Keishon said.

  “He did so.”

  When Joe glared at both of them over the rim of the metal cup holding his instant coffee, their arguing instantly stopped. He’d learned that look from a drill instructor at boot camp who’d had a way of looking at recruits as if they’d been sent from Hades to torment drill instructors. Joe could relate. These kids were driving him up a wall.

  So was the idea of being stuck in the tent with the three boys. It wasn’t that he valued his privacy. A Marine checked his privacy at the gate when he enlisted. It was the vertically challenged recruits. Or in acronym-loving Marine terms—VCR. That’s what they were, a bunch of VCRs.

  Joe would have preferred lying out under the stars, but Prudence was adamant about there being an adult in the male VCRs’ tent. Prudence and the two female VCRs were in the smaller tent.

  Joe was the last to turn in. Even so, he doubted he’d fall asleep.

  He didn’t even realize he’d dozed off…until the nightmare came.

  It always started the same way. He saw the rotor blades gleaming in the sunlight as the helicopter took off. Then time and motion slowed as the Cobra lost power and fell to the earth. Flames shooting into the sky. Death. Destruction. Despair.

  He woke gasping for air, beads of sweat clinging to his clammy forehead.

  No matter how many times Joe relived the past, there was no way to undo it. And that was the torturous part of survival guilt. There was no way of fixing it. No way of making it better. No way of changing his bone-deep belief that if he’d been aboard maybe there would have been something he could have done to prevent the crash—that he could have saved those three Marines who’d died.

  Desperately needing fresh air, Joe got up and slipped out of the tent. Clouds scuttled across the moon as he stared at the sky, gulping cold air as if he’d been suffocating.