by J C Ryan
So, her gasp of surprise and dismay took him by surprise.
It took him half a second to understand the situation, though, and prepare for the inevitable.
Sunstra was moaning, “No, no, no.” She had no reason to believe he could protect her against four men, but he wasn’t about to let her suffer for his inattention, although that wouldn’t have made any difference to what was bound to happen next.
His eyes shifted from one to another of the thugs, assessing their relative strengths and weaknesses while he once again tried the tactic that didn’t work before to defuse the situation by offering the money in his wallet. It was clear these men had something else on their minds, though.
None of them looked at him. They each had predatory eyes on Sunstra.
One of them said something that caused her to blush in anger. Rex hadn’t heard the words before, but their meaning was plain. He stepped forward to address the situation, and as soon as he moved, another one darted to the side and grabbed Sunstra by the arm.
Rex changed direction in a split second and struck with his protruding middle finger knuckle at a point just below the elbow of the thug who was grabbing Sunstra. The perp howled and involuntarily released Sunstra, grabbing at his forearm where the muscle was spasming painfully. Rex swept Sunstra behind him with his left arm and faced the guy who’d insulted her before.
It had happened so fast that two of the thugs hadn’t made a move toward the fight yet. The mouthy one had a switchblade in his hand as Rex turned back toward him. Rex hated it when people pulled knives in a fist fight. It didn’t scare him, but without exception it always put him in a bad mood immediately. He kicked the knife out of the guy’s hand, breaking the thug’s wrist in the process. The thug dropped to his knees, howling in pain.
Rex was moving to the remaining men when, from the corner of his eye, he saw a black blur take down one of the two remaining men in front of him.
Digger!
There was no time to think about it. The last man standing took a swing at Rex. He ducked below the swinging arm, punched the man in his short rib which doubled him over. Rex moved in, grabbed the thug’s arm and twisted it behind his back and kicked his legs out from under him making him fall flat on his face on the pavement. Rex followed it up with a skillfully-administered kick to the head, putting that adversary out of commission for at least half an hour. The guy would have a headache for a few days, but no permanent damage that any other concussion wouldn’t do.
The clock stopped just shy of four seconds—a little less than one second per hoodlum.
Rex whirled to see if it really was Digger who’d come to his aid with the fourth man. He was shocked to see his four-legged friend sitting on the prone thug, a scrap of the man’s pants in his mouth, and the thug with a bloody wound on his ass, crying and calling out for help.
“Digger! How did you get out? How did you know we needed help? How did you even know where we were?”
With each question, Rex’s voice became more emphatic and at the same time he became more confused.
Digger didn’t answer, of course. He just let his smile overtake his furry face, dropping the scrap of material.
It was a mystery Rex knew he’d never solve. The only thing he could think of was that the dog hadn’t taken being confined to the apartment well and had jumped out an open window to follow him to Sunstra’s, then to the restaurant. Where he’d spent the hours since then, Rex couldn’t imagine.
He could only be grateful for the help. Taking down that fourth guy might have made him a little out of breath.
However, when he glanced at Sunstra, the distress on her face worried him. Was she upset about the men attacking, or because he’d been a bit too rough with the thugs, or worse, had he shown too much of his fighting skills?
***
SUNSTRA TRIED TO keep what was flashing through her mind from her expression as she looked at Ruan warily. Her brother, who was in the Thai navy, had seen to it that she could defend herself before she’d moved to the city. But against four men, she’d have had no chance.
But who was this farang whose company she’d come to enjoy? Who could defeat three healthy, fighting fit, and rough men before she could blink her eyes twice? From what she’d observed, he’d have had no trouble with the fourth, either, if the dog hadn’t come to his aid.
She’d seen a lot of Muay Thai fighting in her lifetime, but she’d never seen anything like what this man had just done. She had to shake her head a few times, as if to rewind the video to remind her what she saw. It looked more like a blur to her than one man moving around taking three mean guys out in a few seconds. One move she was actually certain she’d seen, not imagined, the kick that disarmed the one with the knife, looked like a Muay Thai action.
Where did Ruan learn that? For that matter, where did he learn any of this stuff? Who is this man?
And Digger.
How is it possible that this soft-spoken, well-mannered man and his friendly service dog could become so viciously violent one moment and the next moment behaved as if nothing’d happened?
She hadn’t had much experience with support animals. Most of what she’d encountered before had been seeing-eye dogs. This dog seemed to have superhuman—or super-dog—capabilities.
Service dog? Not likely. More like fighting partner.
There’s more here than Ruan has led me to believe.
University lecturer? Not likely, either.
Despite her misgivings, the adrenaline from the scare suddenly left her, causing her to start shaking and her knees to buckle. Ruan was there in a heartbeat, supporting her and smoothing her hair.
“Hey, it’s all right, Beautiful Eyes. These guys won’t be attacking anyone else anytime soon. Let’s get out of here,” he said.
As soon as the man took her in his arms, the dog was there between them, pushing them apart.
“What did I do to make you hate me?” she asked, staring at Digger.
The dog responded with a soft, non-threatening growl, which earned a rebuke from Ruan. She didn’t want that—they were obviously a team, and from what she’d seen, that’s how it was meant to be.
But, who is this man and his dog? He’s not a criminal, he’s not a university lecturer, he doesn’t look and act like a soldier or a policeman. What is he hiding?
She was silent as they rode in the tuk-tuk to her apartment, Digger in the back seat as he’d always been when she was with Ruan. She mulled over the times Digger had seemed unfriendly, though other times he’d been fine, like when she scratched behind his ears. It occurred to her then that Digger didn’t hate her. He just didn’t want her to get too friendly with Ruan.
But why? That’s strange behavior for a dog, well, as far as her knowledge of dogs went. She looked at him and thought, So, you’re just jealous then. Is that it?
Digger didn’t look at her. He had his head stuck out of the tuk-tuk and his tongue hanging out.
Well, Digger, I’ve got news for you. You just have to get over it, because as of tonight, this man, Ruan or whatever his real name is, is important to me.
It wasn’t just his heroics with the attackers that attracted her to him. It was the gentle way he treated her, the way he respected her, the way he looked at her. It was the fun they’d had at dinner, and on other occasions, his dry humor and wittiness at times, his willingness to try new experiences, his honesty when he didn’t like them. She suppressed a giggle at the memory of the face he’d made when he tasted the Khao Neow Toorien. She’d been so sure he would like it, but it seemed he didn’t appreciate how sweet it was.
If only I could know who he really is.
Ruan told Digger to stay in the tuk-tuk when he walked her to her door. She understood why he told Digger to stay behind when he took her into his arms again and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She’d turned her head when she saw his intent. It was too soon for him to kiss her lips. He seemed to take it in stride, but she saw the disappointment in his eyes. She was also a bit disappointed about her
reaction, but she followed her emotions, which told her to take a bit of time to think about the surprising side of him she’d seen tonight.
There’ll be a next time, and a next… and maybe… many more.
***
REX WAS STILL unsettled about the end to the night when he and Digger got back to the apartment. The first thing he did was check the windows. Sure enough, a window in the bedroom was open about eight inches. Rex looked at Digger in disbelief.
“Did you really wiggle out through that? And if you didn’t catch up with me, how did you think you would get back in?” It didn’t seem possible, but he couldn’t find another plausible answer. To think Digger could have done it in time to follow him in the tuk-tuk was even more of a puzzle, but the evidence was there, irrefutable.
Digger tilted his head at the question. Rex shook his head and went into the little kitchen to stuff Digger’s Kong with peanut butter, a special treat. His help had been timely, and there was no point in scolding him for his escape. In any event, it seemed a little insulting to a dog as intelligent as Digger to treat him like an unruly child. Although, there was still the matter of his behavior when it came to Rex and Sunstra touching each other.
Digger was making his usual amusing fuss over the Kong when a knock at the door put Rex on full alert. He hadn’t even looked to see if there were witnesses when he’d hastily led Sunstra away from the fallen thugs. Chances were, he’d open the door to an angry Thai police officer. But he had no choice. If he was in trouble for defending himself and Sunstra against superior numbers, he’d just have to get an attorney and fight the charges. At least he could count on Sunstra being an honest witness.
He opened the door with a hard look on his face, which he smoothed instantly when he saw it was only Marcel Arts, the silly kid from down the hall.
What the hell does he want at this time of night?
Oblivious to Rex’s abrupt change in expression or apparently the time of night, Marcel swaggered into the room and took a seat uninvited. He ignored Digger and started to tell Rex about a confrontation he’d had with some mugger earlier.
Must be muggers’ night out, Rex thought.
Rex didn’t answer, and it didn’t faze Marcel. He continued with a stream of verbal diarrhea giving a blow-by-blow description of the fight, without a doubt all of it imaginary, and then, without waiting for a comment, or stopping to take a breath, went straight into how tough his training was and what a lethal fighter he’d become.
“You should have seen it, man! I was poetry in motion. Just like that old guy, Muhammed Ali. ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’ That asshole didn’t know what hit him. Ka-pow!”
Marcel punched the air with a quick right-left. Rex still hadn’t had an opening to even say ‘hello’ or ‘please come in, have a seat’. He couldn’t have without interrupting the punk, and he thought the quickest way to get it over was to just remain quiet and ride out the tsunami of bullshit coming out of the boy’s mouth and let him go.
“You should come on down and train with me,” Marcel said. “I’ll put in a word for them not to go real hard on you until you get the hang of it. I mean, you’re not flabby, like some old dudes. You could get in shape, if you tried. Everyone ought to know a little self-defense. I mean, I won’t always be around to get you out of a scrape, right?”
“Hmm, I don’t know about that. I’m not a violent man—I’m a pacifist. I abhor any form of violence,” Rex said, when Marcel finally paused for an answer.
“Oh, yeah, sure I understand that, but some day you’re going to land in a position where you’d have no choice. You’ll then have to choose, you die or you fight. Just think about it, though. I mean, you don’t have to try to go pro, like me. Just enough to defend yourself, right?”
“Right,” Rex said. “I’ll think about it.” He fell silent, not wanting to encourage the kid to stay any later. Digger had finished getting all the peanut butter out of the Kong and was looking at Marcel, just staring like he didn’t quite know what to make of the kid.
“Hey, nice dog you got there. What’s its name?”
“His name is Digger,” Rex answered.
Digger lifted his ears slightly and looked at Rex. Then he went back to staring at Marcel.
“Funny name. Does he dig holes in the yard? My folks had a dog that pretty much destroyed our garden with all the holes he dug. In the end my dad shot it. Can’t have a dog doing that.”
Rex hadn’t particularly liked the kid before, but at that moment, he developed an active dislike for Marcel and his dad, who seemed to be someone who deserved obnoxious offspring like this kid.
“Marcel, I hate to cut this short, but I need my beauty rest,” he said, working to keep the revulsion out of his voice.
“Oh, yeah, sure. My grandpa’s like that, too. Always wanting to go to bed early. Not like my folks. They’re party animals.” He grinned, got up, and sauntered to the door. “Think about those self-defense lessons,” he said. “This is a dangerous city at night.”
Rex closed the door quietly behind Marcel, although he wanted to slam it, preferably with Marcel’s head jammed in it.
“Digger, please promise me whenever I see that kid you’ll remind me why I shouldn’t knock the punk on his arrogant ass,” he said.
Digger grinned for the first time since Marcel had knocked on the door.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Chapter Nine
ON THE MONDAY a week after he took Sunstra to their first dinner, Rex was ready for his first side trip. He’d seen Sunstra for dates a couple more times in the previous week, making sure that all the apartment windows were firmly closed when they were going somewhere Digger wouldn’t be welcome. They worked on his language skills while cruising the city in his tuk-tuk, Digger in attendance at those times. The dog still objected any time Rex got physically close to Sunstra, but then she didn’t seem especially anxious to do more than hold hands and occasionally let him kiss her cheek.
Rex had a few dalliances over the years whenever he was on compulsory R and R after missions for CRC, all of them nice and short and with no strings attached. But in reality, he didn’t have any more experience with women than he did with other dogs than Digger. He’d had a steady girlfriend, long ago, but it felt like it was in another life. At the time, he’d even intended to propose to her. But then the tragedy had occurred, a terrorist attack on a Spanish railway station that killed his parents and two younger siblings. The peaceful young man who’d loved that girl and who’d looked forward to a career in the US Foreign Service was emotionally damaged in that attack, and he’d transformed into the brooding, angry man who’d joined the Marines to avenge his losses. From there he was recruited into Delta Force and trained as a Special Forces operator and from there into the black ops outfit, CRC, where he was trained as one of the world’s most lethal assassins—a capacity in which he rained terror, destruction, and death on the enemies of the US.
But Rex wasn’t that man anymore, either. He’d burned out the anger in rooting out terrorists, drug and arms dealers who supported and financed them, and even in killing a few people who’d needed killing but weren’t part of his official assignments. His current nomadic life was his attempt to get away from all of that.
For those reasons, his attraction to Sunstra was a new experience for him.
Not wanting to make a misstep, he told himself to let her set the pace. He wasn’t in a hurry to move a romance along, even though to some extent, he was allowing long-repressed urges to inform his feelings for her. Therefore, when he’d achieved enough fluency in the language to feel he could get along on his own, he picked one of the sites he’d listed for exploration and took his leave for a week of travel.
From his research about the country he’d done since arriving, he knew the relatively modern history of Udon Thani wasn’t the most interesting part for someone like him. The area had been occupied since prehistoric times, as evidenced by paintings thought to be six-thousand y
ears old on the unusual rock formations within the Phu Phra Bat historical park. More recently, the park’s temples and shrines showed hints of Dvaravati and Khmer culture. Rex planned to drive there in a rented car, and then on the way back, take a side trip to Phanom Rung, another historical park.
The temple complex built between the tenth century and thirteenth at Phanom Rung was said to be stunningly preserved. Rex had another interest in it, as the temple complex was initially Hindu, but later became Buddhist. It was arranged to mirror the Hindu god Shiva’s heaven.
***
ON HIS RETURN to Bangkok, he called Sunstra to resume their afternoon language lessons, and when he picked her up from her apartment that afternoon, she greeted him so enthusiastically he got the distinct impression that she’d missed him as much as he had missed her. He couldn’t help but think there might be the prospect of moving their relationship to the next level.
Clearly he’d already forgotten that Digger had claimed the right, like an over-protective parent, to have a say in this relationship.
They talked, in Thai of course, about expats in Thailand that day as she took him to various street-markets and helped him shop to restock his pantry and refrigerator. The subject matter was her choice.
Later on, the conversation moved to places to visit while in Thailand, and Rex didn’t detect an ulterior motive until she asked if he would consider making Pattaya his permanent home.
“What gave you the idea I was looking for a permanent home in Thailand?”
Rex had been studying her face closely, and for a fleeting moment she appeared a bit crestfallen with his answer. However, the expression quickly changed into a smile as she shrugged and said, “No, nothing you did gave me that idea, it’s just that Pattaya is such an idyllic place, many people who visit it want to make it their permanent home.”
It was the first time since laying eyes on her, weeks ago, that Rex got the impression that she was not entirely candid with him.
He tried to repair his faux pas. “Pattaya seems to be one of the most sublime places I’ll ever have the pleasure to visit, but the thought of living there permanently hadn’t crossed my mind, not yet. And even if it does when I visit it, my finances have limitations. I’ll have to go back to America when my sabbatical is over.”
