Backwoods (8 page)

She cocked her brow and hoisted her chin to
meet his gaze, then held something out at him, a fierce, forceful
gesture. “You dropped this on the floor of the garage. At least,
I’m assuming it’s yours. None of the other guys around here could
land a girl who looks like that.”

Surprised, he glanced at her hand and saw she
held a damp, wallet-sized photograph, a headshot of a young woman,
her dark hair carefully curled and arranged, a sparkling rhinestone
crown perched on top of her head.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He took the photo
from Santoro. “She’s my sister.” Cradling the picture in his hand
as he might have a butterfly, he carried it to his bed, placed it
with the other contents of his wallet—because it must have fallen
out of his billfold as he’d left the garage—and carefully smoothed
it flat with his fingertips.

Hey, Germ.

He closed his eyes, imagining her again in
her hospital bed, so weary and weak, she’d seemed made of glass to
him, fragile and fading.

Hey, Bess,
he’d replied, because as a
kid, he’d lisped;
Bess
had been as close an approximation as
he’d been able to get to
Beth
and the moniker had stuck,
even all of those years since his last speech therapy session.

“What is she, like a homecoming queen?”
Santoro asked from the doorway behind him. He hadn’t meant to leave
the door standing open, hadn’t realized that he had until she
spoke.

“She was Miss Alaska,” he said, opening his
eyes, looking down into Beth’s radiant smile. “Eight years
ago.”

“Wow.” Santoro spoke with an awkward edge to
her voice, as if she recognized she had officially become
intrusive, but couldn’t find a graceful way to excuse herself from
the situation. “You mean she competed in Miss America?”

“No. She got sick right after this picture
was taken. She couldn’t go.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “I thought that got you
brownie points or something with the judges.”

“She died.”

“Oh.” Her laughter cut short. “I’m
sorry.”

“Why?” He glanced at her, found her staring
at him, her dark eyes round, her brows lifted. “You didn’t kill
her.”

Santoro blinked, the softness in her face
abruptly hardening again. “No,” she said. “But that’s what people
say, you know, when they find out someone’s dead. It’s called being
nice.” Spinning smartly on her heel, she marched off. “You should
try it sometime.”

****

Suzette’s meatloaf turned out to be as good
as her fried chicken. The same could be said for the sex that
immediately followed. She didn’t stir as he eased his way out of
the bed some time later and redressed. The gin and tonic she’d
downed with her cigarette had only been a nightcap to top off the
countless shots of tequila she’d had in place of any food for
supper. His hangover from the night before had remained too fresh
in his mind for Andrew to have joined her, but this hadn’t deterred
Suzette in the least. And like the night before, she’d eventually
passed out, obliviously unconscious.

As he made his way to the front door, he
glanced toward the living room, half-expecting to see Alice sitting
in the shadows at the coffee table again, computing the square root
of pi. He was almost disappointed when he didn’t.

He carried his boots in his hand as he ducked
out of the apartment, not wanting to clomp too loudly across the
hardwood floor and disturb Alice or Suzette. Sitting on the top
step leading down to the main floor, he shoved his feet back into
the shoes, and cocked his head, listening to sounds of laughter
floating up to reach him.

He went downstairs and saw the lights on in
the rec room. The laughter emanated from here, along with the faint
sounds of music. Someone had fired up the jukebox.

Shit.
The last thing he needed was for
the soldiers to catch him sneaking out of the Moore residence.

Failure to comply with these instructions
will result in your being arrested and charged with felony trespass
on government property.
He could hear Prendick’s stern voice in
his mind.

Shit.

He thought about going back upstairs to the
apartment and laying low until the soldiers left. They were only
allowed an hour of free time in the evenings, two at most, so he
figured they wouldn’t be much longer in the rec room.

But then I’ll be risking getting caught if
Moore comes home early.
Which would be worse, he wondered—being
busted by the good doctor, with whom he’d stand a snowball’s chance
in hell of staying out of jail? Or the soldiers, who at least might
be sympathetic to him, understanding that he’d been getting laid,
for Christ’s sake, not pilfering government secrets?

“Shit,” he muttered, moving forward, trying
to stick to the shadows just beyond the spill of yellow glow coming
from the rec room doorway. His plan was simple: slip past the room
unnoticed, then cross the foyer, head upstairs and dart into his
room with no one the wiser. And it was a good plan, too, one that
probably would have went off without a hitch had Corporal O’Malley
not walked out of the rec room just as Andrew crept past.

“Hey, Mister Braddock,” he called with a
broad grin, entirely too loud and cheerful.

“It’s just Andrew,” Andrew replied with a
cringe, glancing nervously past O’Malley’s shoulder toward the
interior of the rec room.

“You know how to play eight-ball,
Just-Andrew?” O’Malley asked, still with that goofy-looking
half-cocked grin on his face. “You know, pool.”

“Sure,” Andrew said, at a loss, wanting
desperately to escape.

“Great,” O’Malley exclaimed, hooking Andrew
by the arm as he turned to call back into the rec room. “Hey,
Danny! Looks like the game’s back on. I found you a new
partner.”

“What?” Andrew blinked, then shook his head
even as O’Malley dragged him across the threshold. “Hold on. No. I
didn’t—”

His protest cut short once inside the rec
room, where he faced twin pool tables, one of which stood
conspicuously vacant. Several soldiers had gathered around the
other, most out of uniform and in the T-shirts, sweatpants or
jogging shorts worn for physical training.

Not Danny,
Andrew realized in
surprise. He hadn’t pictured Santoro in his mind as someone who
went by
Dani.

Wow,
he thought.

He hadn’t recognized her at first. Her hair,
normally up in a ponytail or bun, hung down to her shoulders in
loose, dark waves. Her grey T-shirt hugged the trim curves of her
torso, the emblazoned
ARMY
lettering standing out against
the slight swells of her breasts. Her black shorts revealed tanned,
toned legs, generous hips and a slender waist beneath.

Wow,
he thought again.

“Good news.” O’Malley slapped Andrew heavily
on the shoulder that left him stumbling forward. “Just-Andrew here
said he’d partner up with you.”

“Great,” Dani said, although the look on her
face suggested she thought it was anything but.

When Andrew tried to sputter in protest,
O’Malley leaned close, speaking into his ear. “Look, this is really
important—the grand championship finals between the E-3s and E-4s.
Me and Dani, we’ve worked our asses off these past few weeks to get
to this round, only to find out my squad’s got maneuvers tonight. I
can’t hang or I would. It’s just two more games. You two smoke
them.” He nodded to indicate two of the soldiers standing near the
pool table. “Then those two.” Another nod. “That’s it.”

“But I—” Andrew began, shooting a pleading
look at Santoro.

O’Malley clapped his shoulder again.
“Consider this your chance to be military material. A gift from me
to you.”

“Great,” Andrew said.
Some fucking
gift.

“Thanks.” To Dani, O’Malley leaned forward,
holding out his fist. When she did the same, he knocked his
knuckles into hers. “Kick some PFC ass for me.”

CHAPTER TEN

“PVC?” Andrew asked as Santoro led him back
to the pool table.

“
PFC,”
she corrected. “Stands for
Private First Class. They’re E-3s, ranked beneath E-4s like me and
O’Malley.”

“Oh.” Feeling uncomfortable and intrusive,
Andrew stood somewhat behind her as she offered introductions. He
wanted to say something to her, apologize for being such a dickhead
earlier when she’d brought back his photograph of Beth, but she
wouldn’t give him the chance.

“This is Greg Taylor and Nick Jones.” She
pointed to the pair closest to the table, who each leaned against
the pool cues they held and awarded Andrew affable nods. “We’re
playing them first. Then if we win, we’re up against Tweedledee and
Tweedledum over there, Matt LaFollette and Mike Turner.”

She flapped her hand at the other two
soldiers. One of them gave him a short, curt wave, while the other
nodded once.

“You ever play before?” Santoro asked,
chalking up her cue stick.

“Uh.” Andrew shrugged. “Sure.”

When she tossed him the little, well-worn
cube, he fumbled, then dropped it on the floor, leaving a bright
blue smutch on the linoleum. She rolled her eyes. “Great,” she
muttered within his earshot. “This should be fun.”

She leaned over and beat him to the punch,
just as he, too, reached for the fallen chalk. “Okay, listen,” she
said, her brows narrowing. “Nick just broke. They’re solids. That
means we’re trying to hit the balls with the stripes on them…” She
mimed holding a ball in her hand, painting a stripe around its
diameter. “…into the pockets.” Now she pretended to plunk the
invisible ball into an equally invisible hole.

“Thanks for that,” he said dryly.

“Just try not to scratch and stay out of my
way,” she said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ten minutes later, Andrew leaned across the
table, his arm extended, his fingers fanned out to bridge his cue.
“Corner pocket,” he said, leveling his sites on the eight ball near
the far end of the table. Pausing conspicuously, he glanced over
his shoulder at Dani Santoro, his brow arched. “It’s okay to hit
that one now, isn’t it? Even though it doesn’t have…” He relaxed
his grip on the back of cue long enough to twirl his index finger
in a circle. “…a stripe around it?”

Without looking back at the table, he made
the shot, sinking the eight in the pocket he’d predicted, thus
winning the game for them—and all without the other team having
even had the chance to take a shot.

“You ran the table,” Santoro observed as Greg
Taylor and Nick Jones slinked away, muttering together and shooting
dark looks in Andrew’s general direction.

“I did?” Andrew feigned innocent
obliviousness while the next two players, Matt LaFollette and Mike
Turner chalked their sticks and racked the balls.

“Where’d you learn to play like that?”

Dropping her a wink, he said, “North
Pole.”

On the next game, he let her take some shots,
primarily because he was curious to see if she was any good. She
turned out to be surprisingly so, particularly considering she was
short enough for her stature to have been a possible handicap when
it came to making long shots. He discovered something else along
the way that had been hidden beneath the drab and unflattering
uniform—Dani Santoro had a great ass. And when she bent over the
pool table, stretching out her arms to take aim, the dark cotton of
her shorts stretched tight, the bottom hem riding up just enough to
make the crotch of Andrew’s jeans feel uncomfortably tight.

“Go ahead, Santoro,” one of their opponents,
Turner, said as she lined up a shot. “Put it up the little tramp’s
ass.” Leaning against the nearest wall, his arms folded across his
chest, he dropped a conspicuous sideways grin at his partner,
LaFollette, who then guffawed.

Santoro glanced up from her cue, her brows
narrowed. “Real funny,” she said, and whatever the private pun was,
it clearly bothered her. Even though she redirected her attention
to the table, she missed the shot, the nine ball glancing off the
bumper and narrowly skating past the pocket.

“Little tramp’s ass?” Andrew said, curious,
his brow raised.

“It’s nothing.” Santoro glowered at Turner
again.

“It’s a Langley-ism,” Turner offered
helpfully, though this meant nothing to Andrew.

“Like I said. It’s nothing,” Santoro said,
still frowning. With this, she turned, handing her cue stick to
Andrew. “I’ll be right back. I need to hit the latrine.”

Andrew couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t
alone in not-so-surreptitiously checking Santoro out as she left
the room.

“Man,” LaFollette said, sucking in a hiss
through his teeth. “How’d you like to tap a piece of that?”

“Watch it, man,” Turner said. “Don’t let
O’Malley hear you say shit like that.”

The two privates laughed.

“You mean, the two of them…they’re together?”
Andrew asked.

LaFollette laughed again. “Yeah. In
O’Malley’s wet dreams.”

“He just wants to,” Turner said.

“He’s been trying to get in her pants since
the day he got here,” said LaFollette. “Langley said he was the
only guy he’d ever seen who was pussy-whipped without getting any
pussy.”

The two soldiers laughed again.

“Langley?” Andrew said. “The guy who came up
with ‘put it up the little tramp’s ass?’” Apparently Langley was a
veritable fount of such colorful phrases.

“Yeah. Grant Langley. He was A squadron’s
leader. Hand-picked by Prendick. They all were.”

“Santoro’s always been pissed off about
that,” Turner told Andrew, leaning forward and speaking in a low,
conspiratorial tone. “Said he didn’t deserve it. She was just
jealous, if you ask me.”

“He got sent home a month or so ago along
with the rest of his squad. Captain Peterson, too. They all came
down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever.” LaFollette shook his head,
looking somber. “That’s some nasty ass shit.”