One Man's War (9 page)

Tess wavered. “Part of me knows you're right, Pete.” She gave a small shrug, enjoying the firmness of his hand on her arm. “But if I change my routine, that's a signal to the VC that their strong-arm tactics are working, and they're liable to kidnap more young boys from the villages or continue their sniper activity.” She tried to give him a smile that would ease the care burning in his dark blue eyes. “This is just one isolated incident. I'll be fine.”

“But Tess—”

“Why did you come? Did you find my well pump?” she asked quickly, wanting to head off any possible argument with Pete. It was the last thing she wanted to do. The terrible shock of losing Hung, and realizing the boy of fifteen was probably already murdered, hung heavily over her.

Pursing his lips, Pete led Tess toward his jeep in the distance. “Changing subjects isn't going to do it, Tess,” he growled, his hand still on her arm. “The marines are devising a new program, a village pacification, where about twenty marines will come and live in a village and protect it. Not only that, but there will be a navy corpsman with the unit, and the village will get needed medical supplies and attention. It's a good program, one that I think respects the Vietnamese way of life and still gives them protection from these damned VC.”

“That's a better idea than the other one I've heard, where they're taking whole hamlets and villages and moving them to another so-called `safer' area.”

“Marines are always on top of things,” he teased. “That's an army concept you're talking about, and one that I don't agree with. Resettlement isn't the answer. Education, food, medicine and protection where these people live is the answer.”

Tess feigned shock. “My heart be still. Pete Mallory isn't as prejudiced as I first thought. Will miracles never cease?”

“What a smart, lovely mouth you have, Miss Ramsey. You'd better be good or I'll do something I've been wanting to do ever since I met you.”

Slowing as they approached the jeep, Tess grinned. “Oh, more threats, Mallory. What are you going to do?”

He turned her around, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. Gently, he cupped them and drew her forward. “Kiss you,” he rasped. And before she could protest, he brought her fully against him and claimed her parted lips.

The instant Pete's mouth sought and found hers, Tess knew it was impossible to resist. Heat exploded between them as his lips slid across hers, testing, tasting and exploring. A swift intake of breath lodged in her throat and for an instant, Tess froze. But then, the cajoling insistence of his assault on her ripened senses won out. As his hands moved slowly, reverently, down her spine to her waist, she felt the wild thud of his heart against her breasts. His ragged breath flowed across her cheek and neck as Tess responded instinctively to his invitation to taste and explore him.

Moments spun into a texture of combined heat and light. Her entire body vibrated with need, with a fierce awakening memory of what it was like to be loved after so many years of denial. That thought caused Tess to break the fiery, searching kiss with Pete. He held her, not allowing her to escape, and she was violently aware of his need of her as he opened his stormy blue eyes and stared down at her.

“I—this is wrong, Pete,” Tess whispered breathlessly.

“No,” he said thickly, “everything's right about it. We're right for each other, Tess.” Never had he wanted a woman more than Tess. Part of it was the challenge, Pete acknowledged, but dammit, his heart was hammering away, strident in its need of her, too. No woman had ever captured his heart, his feelings—until now.

Her body—her emotions, desert dry—agreed with his growled words, but her head and her moral values told her differently. “Please...let me go.”

“You sure?” Pete enjoyed her weight against him, enjoyed where their bodies merged into oneness at their hips. The urge to grip her by her nicely shaped hips and hold her tightly against him was nearly overwhelming.

“Very sure.” Tess struggled a bit, frightened of the feelings Pete's kiss had awakened in her.

Releasing her, Pete studied her in that awkward moment afterward. Tess had enjoyed the kiss just as much as he had. That discovery alone was worth the risk of kissing her in the first place. The look in her dazed green eyes confirmed so much, as did her glistening, well-kissed lips.

Touching her hair nervously, Tess whispered, “You shouldn't have done it.”

“Sure I should have. I can tell you enjoyed it.”

“Stop gloating,” Tess muttered, giving him a defiant glare, anger in her voice. Shaken to the core, she added in a trembling voice, “You planned this.”

“Sort of. I've been wanting to kiss you from the day I met you.”

Tess took several steps away from him. Grasping wildly at any topic except the present one, she pointed to the large cardboard box in the rear of the jeep. “What's that?”

Pete ambled over, pleased with himself, and with her hot, vivid response to his overture. “The pump I promised for your well.”

Gasping, Tess whirled toward him. “Really? It's a pump?”

He grinned cockily. “Of course it is. Remember? I told you I was the best scrounger in Nam. You're not a flowers-and-candy kind of girl. I gotta scrounge up a pump to get your attention.” A pure feeling flowed through him when he saw the anger over his kiss turn to tears of gratitude in Tess's eyes. How easily touched she was. How hungrily he absorbed each of her moods and expressions of emotions. Pete felt like a thief stealing precious moments from her.

Shocked, Tess touched the thick cardboard box. “If we have a pump, we need a generator to generate electricity so it can be used.”

“That's next,” he promised, walking over to her side. “But there're some strings attached to that baby.”

“I'll bet there are,” she growled, giving him a glare.

“Hey,” Pete protested, holding up both his hands, “I didn't plan this. If you want a top-of-the-line generator, you have to fly down with me on a C-130 flight to Saigon. I found out from my buddy on the black market that there's a shipment of generators belonging to a consortium of American construction companies scheduled to arrive in a week. He promised me if I got in early enough, I could probably find one sitting all by itself. What do you say?”

A turbulence of emotions, some of longing, some of distrust, warred within Tess as she studied his happy features. When Pete smiled, it was as if sunlight were cascading through her in warm, wonderful waves. The man could make a stone statue come to life with that smile of his, Tess thought grimly, and she certainly wasn't immune to his powerful, persuasive charms.

“Okay, but I'm not going with you to hop in the sack. I want to make that perfectly clear, Pete.”

“I read you loud and clear.” He grinned wickedly. “But I've already got us a room over at the Caravelle Hotel, the best American-run hotel in Saigon.”

“Two rooms, Pete.”

“Oh, Tess.”

“Two or I don't go, Pete.”

“Damn, you're a tough horse trader.”

“You haven't seen anything yet,” Tess warned him grimly, watching the hope die in his eyes. “This isn't a vacation, Pete. We're going down to Saigon to pick up a generator—
nothing more.
”

“Hey, anything the lady says.” He patted the jeep. “Hop in. This ought to make your chief a little happier when he realizes what I brought to him.”

As Tess climbed into the vehicle, her heart bled for the chief. What Pete didn't realize was that the whole village was in mourning over the loss of Hung. No gift, no matter what its importance, ever transcended the Vietnamese people's closeness with their family and relatives. Still, as she glanced over at Pete's profile and saw the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, Tess couldn't begrudge his feeling good about his gift. Once again, the man behind the walls had proved he had a heart of gold.

Tess mulled over the idea of flying to Saigon with Pete. The unexpected kiss they'd shared moments ago lingered hotly in her memory and her body still vibrated with need. Touching her tingling lower lip, Tess closed her eyes as the jeep bounced along the dirt road toward the village. How could one kiss from a man who was intent on stealing anything he could from her, shake her so? What kind of crazy magic was going on here? Tess had no answer. Her heart pounded not only in anticipation of going to Saigon with Pete, but also with fear. Fear of her own vital reactions to him, as a man who excited her as no other ever had.

* * *

That evening, Tess caught a ride with a small marine convoy heading back to Marble Mountain. She had the lieutenant drop her off at the marine helicopter squadron tent area to see her brother, Gib. Thanking the officer, Tess hopped out. She was dressed in her khaki jumpsuit with the patches that identified her as a US AID official.

Just as Tess stepped onto the dirt path that led to the hut where her brother worked, a loud, irritating bell started clanging through the hot, humid evening air. Turning, Tess saw Gib running out of the tent, his face grim. He spotted her, hesitated and then halted.

“Tess.”

“Hi...what's going on?”

He settled the utility cap on his head. “Trouble. One of my choppers has been hit by VC ground fire. It's got engine trouble.” Gib pointed toward the west, a frown on his long face. “We don't know if it will make it back or not. There's wounded on board.”

Tess walked swiftly at Gib's side, his stride longer because of his height. “Well...who is it? Someone I know?” Tess knew a good number of the pilots and crews of Gib's squadron.

“It's Pete Mallory and his crew.”

Terror rooted Tess momentarily to the spot. “Pete?” she gasped.

Gib gripped her arm. “Yeah. Come on. You can stay at the line shack. I'll be coordinating the fire rescue team. He ought to be flying in here in about ten minutes if that chopper of his hangs together that long.”

Her head spun with questions and a terrible, sinking fear. “Who's hurt?”

“I don't know. One, two, maybe all three of them. My radio man reported hearing them take heavy fire at the landing zone where they were delivering supplies to a dug-in marine company. Radio comms with them is sporadic.” Gib gripped her by the arm and forced her stop at the line shack. “No matter what happens, you stay here.”

Trembling inwardly, Tess nodded. Her brother, always calm and cool in emergency situations, brushed by her and started issuing a series of orders to the men standing tensely at the line shack counter. Immediately, men sprinted to waiting fire trucks, donning bulky asbestos suits that would protect them from a possible aircraft fire if the helicopter crashed.

The line shack was all but deserted in a matter of moments. Gib had ridden out in one fire truck to coordinate the possible crash sequence. Placing her hands on the wooden counter, Tess watched out the window. She couldn't see Pete's aircraft yet. The young black man who'd remained behind the desk, a marine lance corporal, turned to her.

“He'll be coming in shortly, Miss Ramsey.”

Tess nodded tensely. She tucked her lower lip between her teeth. Was Pete wounded? Dying? Closing her eyes, she leaned her full weight against the counter, her knees suddenly shaky.

“I hate this,” Tess whispered. “I hate war.”

The lance corporal glanced up from his radio duties, his eyes sad. “It doesn't make anyone's day, if you ask me.”

Tess saw the ambulance scream by, its siren wailing as it headed toward the landing apron area.

“Mr. Mallory's a fine pilot,” the lance corporal went on. “He's got wings instead of arms. If anyone can bring in a crippled helo, it's him. He's got what it takes.”

Some of the marine's confidence soothed part of Tess's fear. “But what if he's wounded...dying...?”

“You gotta take this one step at a time, Miss Ramsey. Let's get Mr. Mallory and his crew here on the ground in one piece, first.”

Words were so damned useless. Tess stood, her joints frozen, her muscles going tight with fear. Oh, why had she been so breezy and teasing with Pete? Underneath, she knew he was a good man, a man lost in a jungle of emotions and feelings like so many other men, that was all. That kiss. That one heated kiss slammed back to Tess, and she shut her eyes tightly, remembering the feeling of it...of Pete.

The kiss wasn't like the ones Eric had given her, soft and chaste. Pete's one kiss had been searching, and dominating. There had been taking
and
giving as they'd stood in each other's arms. Opening her eyes, Tess realized that even though Pete wanted her to believe he was a selfish son of a bitch like most other men, he really wasn't.

Her hands tightening into fists on the counter, Tess jumped when the lance corporal leaped to his feet.

“There!” the marine told her, pointing to the west. “There he is!”

Her eyes riveted on the pale golden sky, where the clouds hung along the jungle horizon like cotton balls, Tess saw the limping helicopter slowly closing the distance toward the base. Huge roiling clouds of black smoke poured from the engine located in the nose. Tess's pulse skyrocketed, and sweat bathed her, mingling with her fear.

“Oh, man, that dude's in big trouble,” the lance corporal whispered, coming around the counter to stand next to her. “Those Sikorsky helos are tough birds, but I'm afraid Mr. Mallory took a bad hit.”

Tess moved blindly toward the door and jerked it open. She ran far enough away from the building so that she could have a full, unobstructed view. She heard the Sikorsky's sputtering engine and saw the helicopter dancing jaggedly up and down in the sky, about a thousand feet in the air. As it drew closer, Tess could see that the side of the fuselage had huge holes torn through the skin. The cockpit windows had been shattered.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. Around her the sirens stopped wailing and the men stood tensely by hoses near their trucks as the helicopter limped toward the chosen spot, attempting to land less than a quarter mile from the line shack.