“I’m a vegetarian because I don’t believe in killing animals and eating them.”
That stopped him. He looked up from the MREs.
“You don’t believe in killing animals and eating them?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“But you make an exception when it comes to what you put on your back.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not ‘nothing.’ You just said something about me and I want to know what it meant.”
“Your supper’s ready.”
“Do not try to change the subject! What did you mean by that re—”
He handed her a plastic spoon and one of the bags he’d been fiddling with. The top was open, and the smell wafted up to her nose.
The frown on her face morphed into a smile of delight directed first at the MRE and then, to his surprise, at him.
Over the years, he’d taken women to dinner at all kinds of places. Pizza joints. Burger shacks. Restaurants where just reading the right-hand column of the menu gave you sticker shock.
He’d never had a woman flash him a smile that said what she was about to eat was surely going to be as good as anything Julia Child had ever cooked.
“If this tastes even half as wonderful as it smells…”
He wanted the chili to turn into lobster. No. She was a vegetarian. He wanted it to turn into whatever it was vegetarians considered a feast. Pad thai, maybe. A chocolate ice cream sundae.
To hell with that.
What he wanted was to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless. Until she melted into him as she’d done all too briefly a little while ago.
He wanted to taste her again, that soft, wild sweetness that reminded him of the raspberries that grew in the Black Hills back home. He could have feasted on that taste all night. If she hadn’t stepped away… If he hadn’t let go of her…
“This,” she said, “this is a Meal Ready to Eat?”
Say something.
“Yes.”
“It smells like food. Real food.” She laughed. “I was kind of expecting, you know, dog chow.”
Say something else.
“Yeah, well, maybe you want to reserve your opinion until you taste it.”
She dipped the spoon in, brought it to her mouth, slipped it between her lips, shut her eyes and sighed with unrestrained pleasure.
Tanner’s body turned to stone.
His brain turned to mush.
Dammit, what was wrong with him?
She was a good-looking woman. And, yes, despite everything, she had traits that, he had to admit, he admired.
So what?
Doctors didn’t come on to their patients. Teachers didn’t flirt with their students. STUD operatives didn’t get involved with those for whom they were responsible.
He was a pro.
And he was responsible for her. That was his job. Thinking about fucking her brains out didn’t have a thing to do with that job.
It could even be dangerous. For her, for him, for them both. He was supposed to have all his senses locked on his surroundings, not on sex.
He watched her eating the MRE.
She ate with gusto. No dainty spoonfuls. No delicate bites. She was hungry and she wasn’t afraid to show it.
A drop of chili landed on her thumb and she brought her hand to her lips and sucked the chili off.
He bit back a groan.
Hungering after a woman with such intensity wasn’t his thing, never had been, not even with Red. Sure, he saw a hot broad, he thought about taking her to bed, but it didn’t occupy his mind to the exclusion of everything else.
Besides, Alessandra Bellini wasn’t hot.
Okay. She was.
But she wasn’t that hot.
No makeup. Dirt on her face. A baggy T and equally baggy scrubs.
He’d never dealt with a woman quite like her before. Yes, she was a powerful man’s daughter. And yes, she had no real focus in life. A designer. Right. Weren’t they all?
Still, there was more to her, something he hadn’t yet figured out.
All that toughness. The determination. The insistence that she could do anything he could do, and he couldn’t flatter himself by believing it had anything to do trying to impress him.
How come?
Women were always trying to impress him, starting way back in high school, when he’d discovered that standing six feet two inches tall, having thick black hair and hazel eyes was a surefire ticket to success.
And what was with the jaguar thing? He’d dated women who wore fur—it wasn’t as if he was a reformer of some kind, although the waste of that kind of killing troubled him—but how did her being a vegetarian square with that?
He could ask her, but, really, there was no point. She’d probably come up with some Zen explanation that would make his head explode.
Besides, it wasn’t his business. What she did with her life had nothing to do with him.
It wasn’t as if they’d ever see each other again after they got back to the States.
She looked up, as if she’d felt him watching her. He broke eye contact, dug his spoon into the food and began eating. He had no appetite, but he needed the calories, the protein, the carbs, the nutrients some dietitian had carefully determined were necessary to keep a man fit for combat and survival.
When he’d finished, he began collecting all the small bags that had been packed inside the main one.
He looked at Alessandra. She’d opened a little bag that contained chocolates and she was eating them one at a time, eyes closed with pleasure. He watched her slick the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip and he thought that if a man was going to die of heart failure, this might be a fucking fine way to go.
It just wasn’t a good way to start the night.
No. It would be okay. She’d sleep under the tarp. He’d sleep here, by the fire.
“Aren’t you going to eat yours?”
“What?”
“Your chocolates.”
“Oh.” He picked up the bag of candy that had been part of his meal and tossed it to her. “All yours,” he said briskly.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “I always have something sweet before bedtime, but I didn’t think that would be possible out here.”
If only he had a handlebar mustache. Now would be the time to twirl it and tell her how easily something sweet before bedtime could be arranged.
All his blood pooled in his groin. He swung away, fast. Turning his back on her was the only safe bet.
“The brass thinks of everything,” he said lightly. “Do you want coffee?”
“You know, I thought I would, but…” He heard her yawn. “On second thought, maybe not.”
“No. Me neither. That’s good.” He squatted down, hissed as he plucked the hot pot from the fire and set it on the ground. “That means we have this water for washing.”
“With what?”
Good question. He looked around, saw the T-shirt she’d exchanged for one of his.
“This okay?”
She nodded, and he dipped the shirt into the hot water, wrung it out and then dipped it in again before he offered it to her. She ran it over her face and throat, and made a little mmm sound at the welcome feel of it.
“What I’d give for a real bath,” she said as she gave the wet shirt back to him.
What he’d give to see her take a real bath or, better still, to take that bath with her, but he’d already thought about that before and if it had been a bad idea then, it was worse now.
Man, if he kept going like this, he was a dead man walking.
“Thanks,” he said, and scrubbed his hands and face hard, hoping he’d gotten off most of the camo paint.
“Warrior paint? Or military paint?”
He looked at her. “What?”
“I just wondered…” She blushed and sho
ok her head. “Sorry.”
“The stripes, you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You mean,” he said, deadpan, is it what they teach in Sneaking Through the Jungle 101? Or did I dance around a campfire first?”
Alessandra buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, I never should have…”
“It’s standard-issue military camouflage paint.” He grinned. “But now that I think about it, my great-great-great-grandfather probably would have approved.”
She took her hands from her face. “Are you making fun of me, Lieutenant?”
“He was a warrior. A war chief. He fought at Little Bighorn.”
“Really?” She folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t know as much as I should about American history, but I know about that. It must have been an amazing day for him and his people.”
Tanner nodded. The story had been passed from generation to generation. His own father had told it to him countless times. At first, he’d hung on every word. By the time he turned thirteen, he’d hated the tale. He’d started to see it as the one thing his old man could be proud of and it had happened more than one hundred years before.
Eventually, of course, his perception had changed…
“What was his name? Your great-great-grandfather?”
“You left out a ‘great.’ His name was Running Bear. But after Little Big Horn, the people called him Akecheta. Warrior.”
“And you’re named for him.”
Hell. Why had he told her all that? At least he could keep quiet about the rest, that the name had been given to him after he’d participated in a sacred Sun Dance.
“Something like that.”
She gave him a long, searching look.
“So, we both come from military families.”
This was a pointless conversation. Next thing, she’d want to exchange family photos. Tanner folded the empty MRE bags into small, neat squares and stowed them in his backpack.
“Time to get things moving,” he said briskly. “We want to be stowed away when all the light is gone.”
“But with one big difference. You spoke of your great-great-great-grandfather with pride. That’s not the way I feel about my father.”
Okay. The discussion still wasn’t over. There had to be a way to end it, some subtle way to change the topic.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what the situation is between you but if it helps, you should know that your old man was very upset about you.”
“Why wouldn’t he be? We’re probably still some deep, dark secret.”
“We?”
“My brothers, my sister and me.”
“As I said, I don’t know anything about that, but—”
“My father, the general,” Alessandra said with forced lightness, “the guy with the four shiny stars and a bunch of medals, was a bigamist. He was married to our mother and to another woman at the same time.”
Tanner sat back on his heels. “Wow.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much how we see it, too.”
They fell silent. Tanner wanted to say something more intelligent than “wow,” but he couldn’t come up with anything. He knew what he was probably supposed to do. Ask her how such a thing had affected her, what did she feel, or at least offer a tidbit of personal information in exchange, but he wasn’t into navel-gazing, and he’d already told her more about himself than made sense.
He was a man who kept his thoughts and feelings private.
Women didn’t like that about him. More than one had called him removed. Remote. Cold.
Even Red had.
“You’re burning hot in bed, sugar,” she’d said, “but you’re an iceman everywhere else.”
Yeah, well, if that meant he didn’t talk about himself, so be it.
“Call of nature,” Alessandra said brightly as she rose to her feet.
He nodded. “Don’t go too far. And check for—”
“Critters. I know. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded again.
She was probably moving away to avoid his silence. So what? He was the silent type. Give away too much of yourself, you might as well paint a big red X on your forehead.
That had been the big lesson of his childhood, learned first when his mother went out the door one morning and left behind a note that said she needed something more in her life. Relearned when his old man dealt with it by losing himself in cheap whiskey until he wandered away one snowy night and died on the quiet plains.
After that, Tanner had been lost for a while.
The spirit, the memory of his long-dead great-great-great-grandfather, was what had saved him.
He’d already known all those stories and he’d written them off as overblown nonsense told by a man who’d had nothing but hand-me-down tales to live by.
But when he’d gotten in trouble one time too many after his father’s death, a tribal elder had confronted him.
“You have the blood of warriors in your veins,” the old man had said.
Tanner had laughed and said he had the blood of a drunk in his veins. The elder had grabbed him by the ear and told him he was a disgrace to the people and to his ancestors.
Then he’d sat him down and told him about his great-great-great-grandfather, told him the past his own father had omitted.
Turned out his great-great-great-grandfather had not always been a hero.
In his teens, he had been a boy who’d sought nothing but trouble.
“He was lost, the same as you,” the elder said. “His mother was dead. His father was a drunkard. He wallowed in self-pity. And then, because he had nothing better to do, he went on a vision quest. He was alone in the sacred hills for three days and nights, and when he returned, he pledged himself to the Sun Dance.”
“Don’t tell me,” Tanner had said sarcastically. “The vision quest and the Dance, a couple of stupid old customs, changed his life.”
“Only a man who questions without understanding that which he questions is stupid, Tanner,” the elder had said quietly.
Two months later, on his sixteenth birthday, Tanner figured he had nothing to lose.
He went up into the hills, alone. No food. No water.
At first, nothing happened. And then, on the third night, an animal came to him. It was a wolf, a sacred animal that symbolized freedom and courage, but the thing was, there were no longer wolves in the Black Hills.
A hallucination, maybe?
Whatever, the experience had left him a little shaken.
When he returned home, he pledged himself to the Dance.
And, when the time came, he danced. For four endless days and nights. He danced until he was bleeding, until he was exhausted, until the world was no longer real.
But he endured, unlike some of the men and boys who had begun the ceremony with him.
And after it was over, when he lay panting and almost delirious on the sacred ground, the elder had come to his side.
“From now on,” he’d said softly, “you will be known as Tanner Akecheta. Tanner the Warrior. Your great-great-great-grandfather’s spirit lives within you, young man. He would be proud to know you.”
It had been the turning point of Tanner’s life. Everything that came after—the academic achievements, his success on the football field, college, being selected first for the SEALs and then for STUD, had happened because of that vision, that dance, but he never talked about it or about his great-great-great-grandfather.
Why would he? It was all private, not to be shared and besides, who would want to hear these things? Only Chay, but he and Chay were like brothers.
He would certainly not talk about himself to a woman.
Except that was exactly what he’d just done.
He hadn’t told her a lot, but he’d told her more than he should have.
Tanner added wood to the fire.
Maybe it was the darkness closing in. Maybe it was the forced intimacy of a dangerous situation.
A musc
le knotted in his jaw.
Or maybe it was just her. Alessandra. There was a complexity to her that baffled him.
Not that he was interested in her in any significant way. Well, sexually, sure. What man wouldn’t be? As for the rest… It was just that she was—that word again—complex. He’d always liked puzzles, and that was what she was. A puzzle. The way she stood up to him. The faint Italian accent that materialized whenever she came close to losing her temper.
The resiliency that had gotten her through being kidnapped and held captive by a pair of brutes.
He’d seen grown men sob as they fell into the arms of their rescuers.
Not this woman.
Still, there was a softness to her. Was what you saw on the outside a barrier against the world? If it was, who was the real woman behind that barrier?
What would a man find if he got past it?
And, Jesus, why was he wasting time and energy on cheap philosophizing? It was definitely time to secure their campsite, call it a night, get some much-needed sleep, she in the shelter, he out here by the fire…
She, still in the underbrush.
He got to his feet. He’d been foolish, letting her go off on her own. Snakes, spiders, God only knew what else might be out there, just waiting for dinner.
“Bellini? What’s taking so long?”
“Dio! If you have to ask me such a dumb question, Lieutenant…”
A sound, something like a deep, rusty bark, echoed through the jungle just as she stepped into the clearing.
She spun towards the wall of green behind her.
“Did you hear that?”
Better safe than sorry, Tanner thought, reaching for his rifle.
“Easy. It’s a jaguar, but he’s a long way off.”
Wide-eyed, she turned in a slow circle. What a wonderful irony, that the woman who wanted to turn cats into coats was terrified because one was in the area.
“How far?”
“It’s hard to tell. A quarter mile, half a mile, maybe. We’ll keep our eyes open, but the odds are good that if he should catch our scent, he’ll do his best to avoid—”
“I’d give anything for a glimpse of him!”
The words came out on a long, excited rush of breath. He looked at her. Hell. She was excited, not fearful.
“They’re not tame pussycats,” he said sharply. “They’re big. Smart. Cornered or frightened, they can be dangerous. And I can assure you that he isn’t interested in being on display for you or anyone else.”
Power: Special Tactical Units Division (In Wilde Country Book 3) Page 11