Pushing Up Daisies (2 page)

“I would much prefer a Grey Goose martini. Water tastes like…water.”

“It's not what it tastes like that's important, silly,” Sarah said as she changed her uniform to a loose bright-green and purple dress she'd bought in a local market. “It's what it does for you.”

“I like what vodka does for me.”

“Why are you here anyway?” Sarah asked as she strapped on her sturdy sandals.

“The Hegstroms have always done U.N. work. It is who we are. My father and mother both work for the U.N.”

Sarah shook her head. She couldn't understand Anna's attitude. She was here. She should at least try to get something out of it. “I'm taking the Jeep out to Elaayo. Want to come?”

“They allow this?”

“They will if I talk Sgt. Cooper into going with me.”

“I don't think so, Sarah. It is too hot.”

“Elaayo is right on the water. There should be a sea breeze.”

“Why is it you are going?”

“It's a huge unexplored archeological site. There was an Egyptian and a Roman city there at one time that traded all over the Middle East. There are even tombs…unexplored tombs.” Sarah added this last bit as she pulled her digging kit out from under her bunk. “Because of all the political unrest in this country, no one has opened them or explored the city. I can't wait to see it.”

Anna shook her head. “Take Hillary. She's crazy for antiquities, forever pointing out old buildings and ruins.”

“I'll ask her.” Sarah left their room and knocked on Hillary Wilkins door. Hillary was the British member of their team. She was about Sarah's age with thick dark hair and brown skin. Sarah thought she might have Indian blood.

Hillary didn't answer the door. Her roommate, the French team member, Eloise Lefavre, cracked the door and looked sleepily through the aperture.

“We are napping,” Eloise said in her strong French accent. “The heat was unbearable today.”

“May I speak to Hillary?”

Eloise opened the door and Sarah walked in to find Hillary naked on one of the bunks. Her face flushed and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment when she realized Eloise had been hiding behind the door because she too was naked.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I want to go on a digging expedition. Today seemed right since we returned early.”

Hillary smiled and waved one brown arm which caused her brown nipple to bob. “Too hot, my dear. We are resting.”

Eloise sat next to Hillary and deliberately stroked her inner thigh, stopping inches before touching Hillary's hairless mound. “Yes, we are resting.” She giggled.

Sarah backed out of the room too embarrassed to reply. She was a twenty-four-year-old virgin. Her father was overprotective and she'd spent most of her life out of the country, the rest in a Christian college.

Once outside their room with the door shut behind her, Sarah fanned her hot cheeks with one hand. The sight of the two naked women had her disturbed. Her stomach fluttered and her privates buzzed with sinful excitement. She swallowed the lump in her throat and walked down the hall.

She finally talked Freidrick Almquist, the other Swedish team member into going with her. He said he'd meet her out back by the Jeeps so she took off to locate Sgt. Howard Cooper.

Sgt. Cooper preferred she call him Coop. He was short and stocky, a British member of the U.N. Peacekeeping Corps and totally in love with her. She found him drinking a beer with two other members of the military support. When he saw her, his face lit up and she smiled.

“Sarah, how nice to see you.” He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her away from the other men. A silly grin was plastered on his freckled face and a stray lock of sandy hair lay across his brow

“Coop, a friend and I would like to drive out to Elaayo and look at the ruins,” she said. “Would you drive us?”

His arm fell away. “No, Sarah, I couldn't. It would be too dangerous. You never know what's brewing in this hell hole.”

“It's on the coast, east of here. There are few residents in that area. It's very dry and full of old burial cairns and ruins. This is the first chance we've had to take a break, Coop. Please. What could happen? It's not very far away, only a few kilometers? It's right on the Gulf.”

She accompanied her plea with a sweet look, a lot of eyelash batting and a brush of her left breast across his elbow.

His face reflected his desire to please her and the inner conflict warring within his chest. He put his arm back around her. “I'd love to. I just don't think it's safe.”

She pouted, dropped her chin and looked up at him. “I might not get another chance. We only had a hundred children to feed today. Tomorrow there could be double that amount and we could get some adults. We'll have to work twice as long and we won't get back until late.” She laid one long-fingered hand on his heavily-muscled forearm. “Please.”

Sgt. Cooper gave in. Ten minutes later, they were sitting side by side in the front of the Jeep with Freidrick in the back.

House sat on a large couch in the luxury of the Company's Greek safe house. Kalarrytes was a small town in the mountains close to the Albanian border. Not much went on there, which was why the Company had located the safe house close by. The local government had been happy to welcome them. Greece was financially screwed. Any investment from a company outside their borders was welcomed.

Daisy, Gopher and Blackberry were draped over chairs in the small dining area drinking beer. Daisy, half Latino and all woman tonight, wore tight black jeans, high-laced boots and a shimmery, black tube top that barely contained her generous breasts. Blackberry's muscles bulged under a tight T-shirt. His color choice was also black. He wore a black bandana over his shaved skull. Gopher was always different. His blond hair was buzz cut. He wore blue jeans and flip-flops with a Hawaiian shirt; red flowers and blue macaws on a blue background.

House left his cozy spot on the couch and took a seat at the table with his team.

“Arm wrestle Berry for me,” Daisy said. “I like watching you two go at it.”

“What do I get if I win?” House leered at her. “Can I see the rack?”

Daisy pulled a butterfly knife out of her tube top and flicked it twice to open it. “Not a chance.”

“Then why should I entertain you?”

“Come on, House, fight Berry. Maybe you'll win this time.”

House grinned. He had yet to beat Blackberry at something he felt was his particular skill. Rolling his sleeve up to bare a huge bicep, House placed his elbow on the table. Berry put his elbow next to House's, they locked fists, and it was on. Their muscles bulged and their faces contorted with the effort.

“Come on, House, you can do it,” Daisy urged.

“Get him, Berry,” Gopher said from the other side of the table.

The two men grunted and groaned as they struggled. Sweat beaded House's forehead. The two men had huge forearms and massive upper arms. They were evenly matched. House had Berry's arm inches from the table when Berry yelled, grimaced, grunted and slammed House's arm onto the table.

“Fuck me!” House snarled. “I'll get you yet, Berry.”

“Pussy,” Berry said with a smile. “You ain't nothing. I'll still be beatin' you when I'm eighty.”

Five Finger Death Punch singing No One Gets Left Behind blared from the pod dock as Daisy poured each of them a shot glass of tequila, her favorite drink. “Let's celebrate another successful mission.”

With the heavy-metal music thumping, they picked up their glasses, pounded them on the table three times, shouted, “No one gets left behind!” and then slammed the shots.

House could feel the need to run coursing through his veins. He rose from the table and stalked to the window. When he flexed, his forearm muscles shimmered with the change. He forced it down. It was too early. Later he would let his inner beast roar.

“Think we'll hit the town,” Daisy said. “These two,” Daisy waved her hand to indicate Gopher and Blackberry, “seem to think there are hot chicks they can pick up in town. I could use a hot chick, so I'm going with them.”

House snorted. “That's funny. This is the sticks. The town has two bars and three hotels. The bars are usually filled with men, Greek men, fat, hairy Greek men. But go, please, knock yourselves out. If you find some hot chicks, let me know. I'll want to post their presence on facebook.”

“Dimitri told me there's a group of Italian hikers staying in the hostel in town…girl hikers,” Gopher said.

Dimitri was one of their elderly caretakers. He liked to gossip with them and practice his English. He had big dreams of traveling to America one day to visit relatives.

House opened his hands. “I told you guys, go. Just remember who you work for and take a minimum number of weapons.” He turned to Daisy, well-known for secreting knives all over her body. “You, too, just one weapon each and keep it well-hidden.”

Members of the Company tried to abide by the rules of the country they were in but keeping safe was their true priority.

When they were gone, House went out on the balcony of the three-story farm house and surveyed the countryside. The sun was slowly setting over the mountains to the west. Below him, a winding road cut through the hills. To the east, a thick forest and a large lake beckoned. Kalarrytes was on one side of a deep gorge where the Chroussias River raced out of the mountains. Syrrako was its sister city on the other side of the gorge.

The mountains and hillsides around the town were wild and filled with game. Tonight, he would change, shift into his wolf body and run. More and more often, he was feeling the need to run in his wolf body. It was time for him to take a mate. Hormones pulsed through him creating a restlessness he found hard to fight.

He loved the mountains, though these were far different from the ones of his home on the White Mountain Reservation in Arizona. His father still lived there. His mother was long gone. She ran away when House was five, unable to deal with marriage to a shifter. His father had never remarried, staying true to the wolf's creed of one mate. Wolves mated for life and werewolves were no different.

When the sun set, he removed his clothes slowly, folded them into a neat pile and walked naked onto the balcony. He stood for a moment in the rising moonlight and flexed his broad shoulders. He ran one hand over his short black hair as he stared into the darkness. His keen eyesight picked up movement on the slope of the nearest hillside. It was a deer. He growled, dropped to his knees and shifted.

As a wolf, House was covered with thick, black hair, his eyes were silver. His paws were silver, his claws sharp. In one bound he cleared the railing and landed on the banked hill behind the house. Grapes grew in ragged rows on terraces carved out of the hill. He raced down one row as he headed toward the forest and that deer.

* * * *

The ride out to Elaayo was short. The ruins were only twenty kilometers from Boosaaso. A hot wind scorched them under the late-afternoon sun as the Jeep bounced over ruts in the dirt road, little more than a track across barren land.

Freidrick wore a broad-brimmed hat to protect himself from the sun. Sarah had a scarf tightly wound around her hair to keep the long blond lengths from blowing. A stray strand had escaped and whipped around her face. Coop, armed to the teeth, never stopped scanning the road ahead and the surrounding countryside. “We shouldn't be out here, Sarah. It's dangerous.”

She waved one slim hand to indicate the surrounding countryside. “See anyone? Anyone at all?”

“U.N. people have been killed all over this godforsaken country,” Coop said. “Remember that.”

Sarah smiled and patted the hand on the steering wheel. “We'll be fine.”

When the road began running close to the Gulf, a sea breeze blew inland, cooling them with moister air. The surrounding landscape was white and barren. An occasional ruin sprouted out of the desolation. Sarah was looking for mounds that might indicate tombs. She had studied Christian history in college and knew early Christians were rumored to have crossed Somalia on their way to Ethiopia. It was her dream to find evidence of this.

They saw no people, just a few goats picking at the sparse grass and shrubs growing along the roadway. When they got to the fishing village of Elaayo, a small jumble of stone and concrete huts, they spotted several children playing in a puddle of dirty water surrounding the town well. A tall Somali woman strode down the white road carrying a clay jar on her head. Several boats were drawn above the tide line with nets draped over their sides to dry.

The Jeep interrupted a flock of scraggly chickens pecking listlessly in the afternoon heat. The birds squawked and flew everywhere as they bounced through the town toward the outskirts and the ruins.

The ruined city of Elaayo was close to the Gulf on a mound that overlooked white sandy beach and sparkling blue water. Coop took off his helmet and laid it on the seat. His sandy hair blew in the breeze.

“This is beautiful,” he said. “Hard to believe it's in Somalia.”

Freidrick laughed from the back seat. “Yah, dis is the most disgusting country I have ever visited. They fight each other and let all the babies starve.”

“You forgot attack the aid workers and steal all the food,” Coop added.

Sarah climbed out of the Jeep and grabbed her digging kit. She kept tools like brushes, trowels and small picks inside a fishing-tackle box. “Yes, Somalia is the worst country I've been to and I've been to a bunch. But because of it, there are so many lovely unexplored ruins. You guys coming with me or hanging by the beach?”

Coop and Freidrick stared with longing at the blue water and bright-white strand of sand. “They have such beautiful beaches and no one ever sees them or swims in the water,” Coop said. “It's such a shame.”

“I will go with Sarah,” Freidrick announced.