Sandra Hill (13 page)

Holy shit, she was going to show him her “harness.” Laughing, he took her hands and put them and her hem in her lap. “That’s okay. I know what you mean.”

“I am also wearing a silk garment to cover my arse and female parts,” she confessed to him. “Pan-teas they are called.”

He made a gurgling sound, which she must have interpreted as encouragement to go on.

“Whenever I walk, the silk moves against my body in the most sensuous way. And my breasts feel as if someone is holding them up. I have ne’er heard of a country where people wear silk under their clothing where it cannot be seen. Can you imagine that?”

He groaned.
I’m imagining, all right.

“Do you wear silk pan-teas, too?

“No.”

“Never?”

“Well, once.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She frowned. Apparently, his eyebrow waggling did nothing for her. “Are you married?”

Where did that come from?
“No. Are you interested?”
Where did that come from? Honest to God, they oughta nominate me for dumb man of the year.

“Pffff. One marriage was more than enough for me. How about you? Are
you
interested?”

“In what?”

“You are rather thick-headed, aren’t you?”

He smiled.

“Stop it.”

“What?”

“Smiling.”

“Why?”

“It does fluttery things to my stomach.”

He put his face in his hands. His cock was doing the hallelujah dance. And he … well, he was in big trouble if this conversation went any further. “You shouldn’t be telling me things like that … Maddie.” He had trouble remembering what her name of the moment was.

“Why not?”

Because I might just jump your bones, that’s why.
“You shouldn’t tell a man that he turns you on … unless …”

“Turn on? Turn on? Turn on?” she repeated the words over and over, as if trying to understand the expression. He was just about to explain when she slapped him on the arm. “You think I want to fornicate with you?”

Well, yeah!
He felt his face warm up. “You did say you got all fluttery when I smiled.” He smiled just to see if he got a reaction.

She put both hands to her stomach.

Oh, boy!

“That’s not what it means. It can’t be
that!
”

Yep, it’s that.
He felt about ten feet tall.

Then reality began to creep in to testosterone city. “We can’t do anything about it anyway. I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.”

“Leaving? For where?”

“Home.”

She tilted her head in question.

“Coronado. California.”

“You are
not
leaving me here.”

He had no chance to respond because, despite his glares and silently mouthed “Go away!” the guys and two women came over to sit with him and Yas … Maddie. The guys grinned at him. The women looked confused. He understood both the humor and the confusion.

Pretty Boy had plopped himself down next to Maddie.
Geesh, I have trouble with that name.
Cage sat on his left. The other guys sat on the facing bench with the two women.

“Why don’t you introduce us, Mac?” Sly suggested, ignoring his glower and smiling at Maddie.

“You already met Maddie back at the cave,” he grumbled.

“That wasn’t Maddie,” Cage said. “That was Phyllis Diller on crack.” He winked at Maddie.

Ian elbowed Cage for his remark and the wink. Cage elbowed him back.

Reluctantly, Ian introduced them all, ending with Pretty Boy.

Maddie frowned. “Why do they call you Pretty Boy?”

Everyone laughed except Pretty Boy, whose face had turned red. Pretty Boy had been given that nickname—all SEALs got nicknames—because his last name was Floyd, but also because he was exceptionally good-looking, or so women said … lots of women.

“Because I’m pretty?” Pretty Boy said. The overconfident ass. When Maddie still appeared confused, he added, “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

“Well, I suppose some might say so, but, of course, you are not near as handsome as the lackwit Scotsman.”

At first, Ian didn’t know that she referred to him … not till the guys laughed and teased him about his prettiness. Everyone in the world thought Pretty Boy was God’s gift to women, including Pretty Boy. No one,
no one,
ever said Ian was handsome when Pretty Boy was in the room. Everyone at the table looked as astonished as he felt.

“I have a receding hairline,” he said.
Why don’t I just shoot myself? I have the finesse of a twelve-year-old.

“You need to get out more,” Sly said.

“I could give you lessons,” Cage offered.

Maddie studied his hairline, than asked, “Do you have much hair on your chest?”

Ian’s jaw dropped open.

“My father always said that a man’s virility could be measured by the amount of hair on his chest. The less, the better. Now on the manparts, hair is an entirely different matter.”

Several males looked down at their chests, then below.

“Maddie, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

“Women are supposed to be demure and—”

“Oh, bloody hell! Not that demure business. I am tired to my teeth of men requiring meekness in a woman. The men in my family were like that. And the sultans in the harems where I served were even
worse. Do you know what those lackbrain houris did to please men? They plucked—”

Ian put a hand over her mouth. “We get the picture, Maddie.”

“You were in a harem?” Amber asked. She and Dolores had been silent so far, but now they were clearly interested, along with a bunch of horny sailors.

Maddie went on to regale them with a long spiel about all her experiences in harems. Ian had his face in his hands, unsure whether to laugh or cry over this strange, strange woman who had fallen into his life like a meteorite.

Once she’d talked herself out, and everyone was suitably dumbfounded, he told the guys, “Remember, you have to be present tomorrow for the press conference. CentCom wants to brag to the world how they captured Jamal by parading a bunch of presumably hunky SEALs as part of the program.”

They all groaned, except Pretty Boy, who liked that kind of crap.

One time a Pentagon PR person had actually suggested that they might come shirtless. As if! Although some of the guys probably would have. Then the clueless PR person had suggested they wear lots of medals. Unbelievable!

But, for now, the squad members nodded, although they weren’t happy about making nice for a bunch of reporters.

As an afterthought, Ian added, “And make sure you are dressed appropriately.”

“What? You didn’t like my ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy’ T-shirt the last time in South Africa?” Cage, ever the clown, pretended to be offended.

“More like our commander at Coronado, and about twenty frickin’ admirals in D.C., were not amused to see that on CNN,” Ian said.

“It’s just the title of a Big and Rich song,” Cage said with the innocence of one of his native alligators.

“What is a cowboy? Oh, do not tell me. Another animal!” Maddie was shaking her head at them.

“A cowboy is a man who handles cows … out on the open range,” Sly explained.

“Except if you’re in Nashville, where everyone pretends to be a cowboy,” JAM pointed out.

“What is Nash—” Maddie started to ask.

Ian ignored them all. “We will have plenty of time after the press conference to catch the plane back to the States.”

“We are going to the … states?” Madrene inquired, her brow furrowed with her usual confusion.

“
We
are not going anywhere. You are staying here,” Ian said. “Unless they send you to prison somewhere else. But I don’t think they’ll do that to a woman.”

“I don’t know about that. Remember Tokyo Rose,” Geek said. “And Hanoi Jane.”

“They didn’t put Jane Fonda in prison, did they?” Sly asked.

“No, but they would have liked to,” JAM answered.

“You would abandon me here in this strange land?” Maddie was looking at Ian, not the group as a whole.

“Hey, you asked me to take you to Baghdad. You’re in Baghdad.”

“This is not the Baghdad I meant.”

“Honey, there’s only one Baghdad,” JAM interjected, even though she hadn’t been addressing him.

“I’m telling you, this is not the Baghdad I meant.” She inhaled and exhaled several times as if to calm herself. Then she looked at Ian like he was a yucky pill she had to swallow. “I suppose I will have to go with you … till I find a ship to take me home.”

That made him sit up a little straighter. “One, you are
not
going home with me. Two, I am not responsible for you. Three, you can find a ship from here to take you to Iceland. You don’t have to go to California to get a ship.”

“Iceland? Why would I want to go to Iceland?”

“Don’t you live there?”

“Nay. I have visited there, of course, but it is not my home. Where did you get that idea?”

Geek blushed and ducked his head.

Ian said, “Never mind.”

“Tomorrow afternoon, you say? I will have to make sure your general is done questioning me. He seems to consider me a prisoner. I am not really a prisoner, am I?”

“More like a forced guest.” Why else would the guard over her be so loose?

“I am going with you.”

“No, you are not.”

“We shall see.”

“Every time a woman says that, it means she will get her way. Well, you won’t this time, sweetie. Besides, you need a passport to enter the U.S.A. Do you have a passport?”

“What is a passport?”

He spread his hands in a “See!” manner.

“Get me a passport.”

“I can’t do that.”

“There is one way they give passports on short notice here,” Omar said with a grin.

Ian flashed Omar a glare. “You are barking up the wrong tree, buddy.”

“Who barked?” Maddie asked.

Ian ignored Maddie’s question and glared at Omar. “
That
is out of the question.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Marriage,” Omar the traitor said.

She let out a whoosh of disgust.

Hey, marriage to me is not whoosh-worthy. Not that I’m interested. Damn, damn, damn! How did I get involved in a marriage question?
“Don’t worry. The general’s staff will take good care of you.
Provided you aren’t actually a terrorist.

“If that is the only way, I guess we will have to do it.”

“
What?
” he practically shrieked.

“Get married. Of course, you can put me aside, like my first husband did, once I am on a ship heading home.”

“No, no, no, no, no! We are not getting married.” He thought a moment. His heart was racing hard. He shouldn’t ask, but when did he ever listen to his own sound advice? “Why did your husband divorce you?”

Her face turned white as a sheet, and her fingers clenched and unclenched her paper napkin. “I’m barren.”

“Huh? You’re bare and what?”

“You are the world’s biggest idiot. I’m barren.”

Everyone, especially the women, were looking at Maddie with compassion. Cage even patted her arm.

Ian felt like a louse. “Oh. I’m sorry. What a creep …
to walk out on you for such a thing! Hell, it was probably his fault anyway.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, which she wiped away. “ ’Tis nice of you to say so, but he has four children now with his second wife.”

“If it had been me, I would have performed a Lorena Bobbit on him before I danced out the door,” Amber said.

“Except I would have used a butter knife,” Dolores added.

“What is a Lor … that thing she mentioned,” Maddie asked him.

Why me?
Ian sighed at the impossible situations this woman kept putting him in. “Lorena Bobbit was a woman who whacked her husband’s pecker off while he was sleeping.”

At first Maddie’s eyes went wide; then she clapped her hands with glee. “I wish I had thought of that.”

Time to get back to the subject they’d been on. “Yasmine …”

“Aaarrgh!”

“Maddie. Are you a terrorist?”

She gave him a long, considering look. “No.”

“Then you’ll probably be freed tomorrow, and you can go anywhere you want.”

“How will I get there? Will you take me home?”

Ian had no idea where “home” was, but it really didn’t matter. His silence was his answer.

Her shoulders slumped. “It would do no good anyway. I must needs raise an army first. Steinolf will not give back my estates willingly.”

Ian refused to ask who Steinolf was. The woman
must be a little bit crazy. “An army? You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“In truth, you and your hird of seal soldiers would suffice. My people would follow you if you taught them your fighting skills. What a sight that would be! Norstead would be mine once again.”

Norstead? I won’t even ask what country that is in.
“Listen, we’re putting the cart before the horse.” At the questioning tilt of Maddie’s head, he elaborated, “We’re jumping to conclusions. First the general has to release you.”

Her eyes said he was lower than a snake’s belly. “And once he does, then what?” she inquired in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “You are not leaving here without me.”

He had no answer to that.

But JAM did. “I could help, if it came to that.”

Ian refused to ask, but the others had no compunction about hearing JAM’s solution. “God save me from my friends,” Ian muttered, throwing his hands up in disgust. He had a sinking feeling he was not going to like JAM’s answer.

And he was right.

“Even though I left the seminary, I am still able to perform baptisms, last rites and …”

Ian groaned.

The others grinned.

“… civil marriages.”

“So, you could do a quicky wedding if you had to?” Sly asked. He was grinning so wide, you could have stuck a plate in his mouth.

JAM nodded, entirely serious.

“And I could go on the Internet to get all the legal documentation, including the emergency green
card application.” Good ol’ Geek. Always had the answers.

“But who would she marry?” Amber asked, excited to be planning a freakin’ wedding. Some guard she was!

Everybody turned to look at Ian.