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“Fine. Make yourself comfortable, Liz.” I took a deep breath, trying to marshal my thoughts.

“I met my husband, David, when I was 17, and we married a month after my 19th birthday. He was in the Navy, so we moved around. We did a six month stint in San Diego after we’d been married about a year-and-a-half. Sebastian was the son of David’s CO. He was a sweet, lonely child – his parents were just monstrous – and we became friends. That’s all, I swear it. He used to come by after school and we’d talk about books and listen to opera. Then David got posted to Lejeune and that was that. But nine years later, we were back in San Diego again. Sebastian… found me. He was nearly 18 and God, Liz, he was gorgeous even then. At first, I just thought of him as the kid I used to know, but it soon became obvious that he… had other feelings for me.”

Liz
was watching me intently, a deep frown of concentration on her face.

“And… one thing led to another. I
’d been unhappy in my marriage for a long time. And Sebastian was just so loving. He was sweet and funny – fun to be with. And he encouraged me with my writing: if it hadn’t been for him, I don’t think I’d ever have become a journalist. Well, his parents found out… and because he wasn’t quite 18, it was a felony in California. His parents said they wouldn’t prosecute me if I left quietly and didn’t come back. The statute of limitations was three years: they threatened me, saying that if we tried to stay in touch, they’d have me arrested. Even if I didn’t do jail time, I’d have had a criminal record. So I stayed away.”

I paused, trying to scrub away the desolate feelings that thinking about those events always wrought in me.

“But Sebastian waited for me: when he was 21 we tried to find each other, but it never happened. I won’t go into the details, but he realized eventually that I wasn’t coming for him… and that’s when all the drinking and womanizing started. I hadn’t seen him for 10 years when we met in Geneva again. He still loves me, Liz. He says he’s always loved me – and I love him: desperately. We’re engaged and we’re going to be married. But no one can know while I’m still out here. No one.”

She looked at me steadily and
shook her head slowly, a worried expression etched on her face, her eyes kind and concerned.

“
Bloody hell! That’s quite a story.” She shook her head. “You and the beautiful Chief Hunter. I hope you know what you’re doing, Lee, I really do.”

She stood up and paced to the window, then turned to look at me.

“
I’ll say one thing: if Shakespeare had known you, he wouldn’t have had to steal all his plot lines, because that’s one hell of a yarn. I hope you’re right about him, because the man you’re describing is not the one I’ve seen in action. Take tonight, for example, that French tart was all over him.”

“I know,” I said, with a small smile. “One of his Parisian conquests. I asked him to tell
her to dress more appropriately; indirectly, it was his fault she was dressed like that. Of course, that was after Sebastian and I had sex in one of the hotel’s offices. Over a desk.”

She stared at me
, then laughed out loud.

“You are extraordinary, Lee, you really are!
I thought I knew you: I mean I knew you were tough, on the quiet, but you must have balls of iron – or tits like Exocet missiles. Fine, if that’s what you want: far be it for me to tell you you’re making a giant, Hoover dam-size mistake.”

She paused.

“Is he as good as they say?”

My jaw dropped and I
gaped at her, far, far beyond embarrassed that she’d asked me that question.

“I
’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” she said with a wry smile.

I winked, but didn
’t reply.

Chapter 14

The journey to Leatherneck was hell.

What would have been a six- or seven-hour journey back home, turned into 15 hours of baking sun, choking dust and gut-churning fear.

The fear was sporadic, triggered every time I saw turbaned men with
AK-47 rifles. I was traveling in a heavily armored car that looked more like a tank than anything else, and I was told it had been designed to withstand roadside bombs, but every time I saw the Afghan forces at checkpoints, a chill went through me. Green-on-blue attacks were escalating to the point where each International Security Assistance Force unit had appointed at least one solder as a ‘guardian angel’ to keep an eye on our Afghan allies.

It had been both unnerving and arousing to see Sebastian armed with his
M16 for the first time. He looked so damn hard and kick-ass. I wanted to go and run my teeth down his exposed neck, and then expose a lot more of his body. What the hell was happening to me? I couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

I blamed Sebastian.

The convoy I traveled in was well-armed, but I would be relieved to get off this exposed stretch of road, pockmarked with bomb craters, and with blackened carcasses of burnt-out cars strewn at the side.

It was comforting to know that somewhere in the
back of the line of trucks and armored vehicles, Liz was traveling with British forces on their way to Bastion. We’d agreed to try and meet up but, as ever, nothing was guaranteed.

Our destination
, 50 miles west of Kandahar, housed 28,000 British troops, several thousand Afghan National Army soldiers at Camp Shorabak, and 20,000 US Marines. Altogether, the three sections must have covered nearly 4,000 acres. Leatherneck, by itself, was bigger than many small towns, supported by four gyms, a vast dining area that could serve 4,000 people at a time, three chapels and, best of all as far as many of the troops were concerned, calling centers where they could phone and email their families back home.

The housing arrangements were restrictive, so the two- or three-thousand female soldiers and contractors were kept segregated, not that there was much privacy for anyone
, should a romance develop. A fact which didn’t go unnoticed by me. In any case, most of the female staff didn’t go outside the wire, unless they were needed on a special assignment to speak to Afghan women.

When we finally crawled into Leatherneck,
I was allocated a bunk in a tiny room shared by Private First Class Mary Sullivan from Beckville, Texas, a small town, some 150 miles east of Dallas – or so she told me. She was 24 and duly impressed that I worked as a journalist. She was one of a team of 15 women who worked in the motor pool, repairing damaged vehicles – and she was truly envious when she learned that I’d be traveling into the countryside and beyond the wire fence.

Sh
e chattered away about her hometown as I unpacked, shrugging off the sadistic body armor, then she showed me the way to the female shower area. A hot shower: what bliss.

It was less blissful
when she insisted on continuing to chat while I washed myself. Despite being surrounded by people 24/7, I got the impression she was lonely. And she called me ‘ma’am’, which made me feel old.

“Do you have a boyfriend, ma
’am? I couldn’t help noticing you were wearing a ring on that chain around your neck.”

“Yes, I do. You?”

“Nah, and it’s not so easy to hook up with people here. I only enlisted because I thought I’d meet loads of cute guys, and get a free college education. So, what does your boyfriend do? Is he a reporter, too?”

“No, he
’s not. I’ve got friends who are reporters – one of them is over at Bastion right now.”

“Uh-huh. Where
’s your boyfriend at?”

She really was tenacious: maybe they taught t
hat in the Marines. Either that or the forces attracted tenacious people.

“I don
’t really like to talk about him, Mary. It just makes me sad that we’re not together.”

By this time I was drying myself off
, and I could see her eyes widen with interest at my words.

“Oh, my God! You must really love him!”

So not going there.

“You know, I
’m surprised, Mary: a nice girl like you – haven’t you seen anyone that you think is cute?”

She twisted her
dog tags around her fingers, as she thought about my question.

“Yeah, there
’s this one guy…”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“Why? If you like him, go talk to him. I don
’t know – offer to change his oil.”

She giggled.

“You think I should?”

I shrugged. “It
’s up to you: but all I can tell you for sure is that life is short. And wouldn’t you rather know once and for all if he liked you or not? If he does, great; if he doesn’t, it’s his loss and you can stop worrying about him.”

After that bit of advice, which I was so much better at giving than taking,
PFC Sullivan escorted me to the briefing room where I was due to meet Grant and the rest of his officers.

But t
he first person I saw was Sebastian, looking hot, dusty and pissed. Clearly he hadn’t had the luxury of time for a shower and a friendly chat about his love life.

His eyes lit up
as he saw me and he started to smile. When he remembered we were trying to be discreet, he dropped his eyes back to the map he was studying.

Luckily, Captain Grant had been focused on the map
spread out beneath his hands, so he hadn’t noticed Sebastian’s slip.

I
caught the tail end of Grant’s monologue.

“If a guy sticks his head around the corner he
could very easily have a gun. If you can’t see his hands, he could have something, a hand grenade, say. Pulling a trigger is easy – we need to bring him in. It’s not about that one person, it’s about the team. I’ll need you to go in first and…”

He became aware of my presence and he ground to a halt, looking irritated.

“I can come back,” I offered, calmly.

“No, that
’s fine, Ms. Venzi. We’re done here.”

He nodded to Sebastian
, who saluted and left the Nissan hut-type room, throwing me a quick smile as he passed.

“We
’ll be moving out in the morning, Ms. Venzi,” continued Captain Grant. “It’s going to get a lot less comfortable – and a lot more dangerous. We’ll be heading out to a remote location further north in Helmand. We’ll have BGAN satcomms, but I can’t guarantee you’ll always be able to get your stories out.”

“I understand, Captain.”

He sighed, and I suspected he’d been hoping I’d change my mind.

We ate
our long-delayed evening meal with Lieutenant Crawley, the executive officer; four second lieutenants; and Sebastian. How very cozy.

Sebastian spent most of the meal staring at his food, or gazing into the distance. I could tell that he was irritating the hell out of Grant, who was
burdened with the lion’s share of trying to make polite conversation with me, although Crawley made a good stab of asking me about my work. My poor fiancé was trying hard to ignore me: he wasn’t very good at it, and it just made me love him a little bit more.