Sandra Hill (21 page)

Zach rolled his eyes and clapped a hand over the kid’s mouth.

Lips twitched on a couple of the guards.

Luckily, Bridget was talking to his dad and didn’t hear Sammy’s remark.

“Uncle Dan said he would bring me a new video game,” Sammy whined to him.

“I know he did, but he was held up. He might not be able to come at all this weekend.”

Sammy’s eyes teared up. The least little disappointment seemed to set him off these days. He was getting spoiled, but it was hard not to spoil a kid who, until recently, had nothing.

“I can get you a video game,” he offered. “We can stop on the way home.”

Sammy’s blue eyes, which matched Zach’s own, lit up. No more sulks. “No
Dora the Explorer
.”

“Okay. But no blood and guts either.”

“Oh, I forgot. I got a little present for you, Sammy,” Bridget said, laying a square box on the table.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Zach said.

“I wanted to, but, really, I just happened to see them in one of those Rodeo Drive boutiques, and they screamed Sammy to me.”

Sammy was giving the box the evil eye. From a kid point of view, a square, flat box usually meant clothing.

Opening the box hesitantly…as if a snake might pop out—or clothing—he removed the tissue. Then Zach and Sammy stared incredulously at the tiny briefs with Hotshot printed on the butt and flames all over the black background.

“How come everyone always gives me underpants? Do I smell?” Sammy asked Zach.

“No, you don’t smell. At least not all the time,” he told him, then turned to Bridget. “Thanks, that was really nice of you.”

He squeezed Sammy’s hand under the table till he, too, thanked Bridget for the “really cool ass covers.”

Just then, Danny, with perfect timing, plowed his way through the Odd Squad. “Dad, sorry I’m late. There was a mother of a traffic jam on the freeway. Oops, sorry for the language, Sammy old man.” He squeezed Dad’s shoulder, then leaned down to kiss Bridget on the cheek. “Hey, Bridge!”

In that blink of a second, Zach noticed Danny noticing Bridget’s breasts. That was confirmed when Danny looked his way and winked.

Bridget just giggled.

His dad beamed, pleased as always to have his two sons with him, like a familial entourage.

And Sammy was happy as a hog in a mud hole now that Danny was here. He probably figured Danny would buy him any kind of game he wanted. Little did he know that Zach was going to have a heart-to-heart with Danny. Big nipples, easy pickin’s, were among the subjects he expected to cover.

“Boys,” his father started, “I have a really good idea, which should solve all our problems.”

They waited as the old man paused dramatically.

“I think we should have a family compound. Like the Kennedys. Stones fences. Guard dogs. The works. That way no bad guys—or loony women—could enter. What do you think?”

“Cool!” Sammy said. He didn’t know what a compound was, but he liked dogs.

“Maybe you could build a moat, too,” Zach offered.

“That’s a thought,” his dad said, not getting the sarcasm.

“Here’s a news flash, Dad,” Danny said, barely stifling a laugh. “We are not the Kennedys. There are only four of us.”

“And your mother and your grandfather and grandmother.”

“Oh, that’ll happen.” Zach couldn’t believe he was even discussing this ludicrous idea. “Remember the last time Mom was in the same room with you, Dad.”

“
Hmpfh!
It’s about time Lillian got over herself.”

“Remember to tell her that next time you see her,” Danny suggested.

“We’re not having a compound,” Zach said. The idea of being locked up anywhere with his father and his bimbo du jour made his skin crawl. One time he stayed at his father’s Hollywood pad and heard him making loud sex through the thin bedroom walls. Yeech! “Eventually this situation with Arsallah will be resolved, and we can go back to living normally.”

Sammy peered up at him with a mixture of hope and disbelief.

“So, pip-squeak, I’m starving.” Danny poked Sammy in the arm.

“Me, too,” Sammy replied.

“You just ate a pound of pasta,” Zach pointed out.

“So? I’m growin’. I need lotsa food.”

“What say we go over to Pizza Pizza for a few slices and a game of pinball?” Danny suggested.

“Cool!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You can’t go out in public without a guard detail.”

“Sammy and I will let them hold all our winnings,” Danny said. “Last time we got five hundred tokens.”

“And only spent fifty dollars,” Zach pointed out.

“What’s your point?”

“And what’s with the you-and-Sammy business? What am I? A potted plant?”

“A
pretty
potted plant. Jeesh, are those leather pants you’re wearing? I didn’t think anyone other than rock stars and gay men wore leather.” Danny smiled at him.

“They’re faux leather, and they’re the latest style.”

“I have a pair,” his father said.

Forget faux leather; that was a designer faux pas he and Danny could not imagine, as evidenced by their exchange of horrified looks.

“Anyhow, Sammy and I are giving you a break,” Danny continued. “Go out and take a breather. Drink a beer. Relax.” He checked his watch and added, “I give you five hours before curfew, big boy.”

“I don’t know.”

“This is the last time I’ll be able to help out for a while,” Danny said. “My leave is over tomorrow.”

“Take him up on the offer,” his dad advised. “He can take two of my guards with him. You need some free time, son.”

“I think you should go find Britta and boink her a bunch of times,” Sammy said around a mouthful of garlic bread.

The entire table went silent.

Finally, Zach choked out, “I beg your pardon.”

“What? Why’s everyone starin’ at me? You and me need someone to take care of us, Dad.”

Zach’s heart lurched. It was the first time he’d heard Sammy call him Dad.

“You’re grouchy all the time, and Britta tells good bedtime stories, and she’s nice-looking, even if she is big and talks funny.” Sammy was on a roll. “And Uncle Dan says the best way to make a woman fall for you is to boink her till her eyeballs roll.”

His father stopped chewing his chicken cacciatore.

Bridget giggled.

Danny grinned shamelessly.

“Oh. My. God!” He wondered with hysterical irrelevance if Sammy even knew what boinking was.

And soon found out.

Leaning in close to Zach’s ear, Sammy told him, “Boinking is lotsa yucky kissin’.”

Everyone turned to stare at Danny, who shrugged. “From the mouths of babes.”

Who needs you, baby? I got chums…

It was nine o’clock before Zach arrived at the Wet and Wild, and the bar was rocking in its usual Friday-night, wall-shaking, yee-haw style.

Bypassing the T-shirt spraying machine at the door, a politically incorrect attraction that drew women as well as men, he made his way through the crowd toward the bar. The band, Bad Love, a favorite of patrons from the naval base, played a mix of country and classic rock. Right now it was a raucous version of Garth Brooks’s “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places,” to which the customers sang along, taking particular delight in the low octaves of
low places
. Next came “Working for the Weekend,” then “We Gotta Get Outta This Place.” It was a wild bunch tonight, singing, shouting, and of course drinking.

He found a spot at the bar and waved at Bo Anders, a bald-headed weekend biker fanatic who had been a bartender at the Wet and Wild for as long as Zach could remember.

“Hey, Pretty Boy, haven’t seen you around lately.”

“Been busy.”

“That gives the other guys a better chance with the chummies.”

“Yeah, well, they can have ’em.”
Chummies
was a less-than-flattering name given to SEAL groupies who hung around Coronado, the name based on chumming, a strategy fishermen used to draw fish into an area where they could be easily hooked. It was an effective method for prize fish as well as arrogant men who preferred a free meal to one requiring expended energy and time. Hey, no one ever accused SEALs of being Alan Alda sensitive.

“What’ll it be?”

“Sam Adams, in the bottle.”

Zach slapped a few bills on the bar, then turned, longneck in hand, and leaned his elbows back on the bar. He took a long pull on the cold beer and surveyed the room, noticing right away the gorgeous babe standing a short distance away. She had long, mussed, black hair, a model-thin body encased in a skintight minidress, and a siren-red mouth that conjured all kinds of images. Slanting her silvery eyes his way, she winked. A chummie, for sure.

Britta had been driving him nuts the past three weeks. He was sick of chasing his tail over her. Sick of teaching women how to run and breathe at the same time. Sick of being on inactive duty. Sick of whacking off himself at night. Sick of being a nonplayer in the dating games. Time to get back to his old modus operandi. Time to forget, at least for a few hours, that he was a father in a pig load of trouble with every frickin’ government official from here to Afghanistan. Time to stop hitting on a thousand-year-old girlfriend who didn’t want to be his girlfriend. He had little free time these days, and he was damn sure going to make good use of this gift from Danny.

He smiled at the woman, and she walked over. “Hi,” she said in a Marilyn Monroe breathy fashion.

A good start. He liked breathy.

“Hi,” he said back. “My name’s Zach Floyd.”

“Linda Lowery.”

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“Sure. Double shot of VO, straight. Over ice. No water.”

Okaaaay.

When Bo handed her the drink, he gave Zach a silent message, as in
Whoa boy! This is a hot one.
Which soon proved true. She downed the drink in one swallow, then licked her wet, red lips.

Double okaaaay.
He put his arm around her shoulder and tucked her into his side, making room for her to squeeze in at the bar.

“Is it true what they say about SEALs and their…uh, stamina?”

“Oh, yeah.”
Typical groupie question.

She smiled.

Yep, easy breezy fishing here.
He wondered idly if they should cut the crap—uh, small talk—and just take it out to his car for a wham-bam roll in the backseat.

Oddly, that prospect didn’t appeal to him. Before he had a chance to contemplate why, he saw Cage and the gang on the far side of the tavern, waving at him to come over. “Care to join my friends?” he asked Linda.

“Sure.”

He led her by the hand through the crowd, with her hand on his ass…marking her territory, he supposed, but who the hell cared? Soon they arrived at the large round table where Cage, Sly, Geek, JAM, Slick, and Omar were sitting. Slick’s presence was a surprise. He usually didn’t socialize with them, but maybe things had changed since his divorce seemed to be final now. Omar rarely went out, either, being in the same predicament as Zach; he had custody of his seven-year-old daughter.

He introduced Linda to everyone. They all noticed her hand on his ass, if their grins were any indication.

They sat down.

“Man, you’re the only guy I know who wears designer duds to a lowdown bar,” Slick remarked. “And, shiiiiit, are those leather pants?”

“Faux leather,” he replied, used to their teasing.

“I think he looks good,” Linda remarked, rubbing a hand over the sleeve of the silk shirt, then the material at his knee.

“If I wasn’t already Mr.
GQ
, I’d say you fit the bill,” Sly said to Zach. “I used to model underwear for
GQ
.”

Linda listened attentively, as if Sly had just told her he invented oral sex.

“I was out to dinner with my dad,” Zach explained.

Linda turned to chat with JAM on her other side about a doctor they both knew at the naval base hospital, and Cage leaned in close to him. “No more Britta on your mind, buddy?”

“Gone, gone, gone,” he said. And he meant it, too. For some reason, Britta had stuck in his craw for the last two years, probably because she hadn’t given in to him. Then the last few weeks, after she
had
given in to him, he’d convinced himself it was something more than lust. Well, he was over her now. And, to be fair, she was over him, too, as evidenced by her telling him more than once in recent days to “Begone!” Usually after some particularly brutal rotation in WEALS, which she was taking personally.

“Who’s watchin’ the kid?” Sly asked.

“My brother, Danny, again. He’s building up brother points.”

“And he doesn’t mind you being gone?” Omar asked, rubbing the shin that Sammy had bruised a few weeks ago.

“Hah! You know what he told me to do tonight? To go boink Britta till her eyeballs rolled.”

A bunch of the guys, overhearing, laughed. They got a kick out of Sammy’s antics. He did, too. Sometimes.

“So, why aintcha takin’ Sammy’s advice,
mon coeur
? About Britta, I mean?” Cage was staring at him as if he saw something that Zach didn’t realize was apparent.

“Number one, Britta won’t have me. Number two, so the hell what? Number three, out of sight, out of mind. Number four…” Glancing at Linda who was still talking with JAM, he shrugged. “Enough said!”

“Number five, bullshit!” Cage laughed, not buying his story at all.

The waitress showed up then. Not Bawdy Maudy, but an older woman he didn’t recognize. He ordered another Sam Adams, and Linda ordered another Double VO. Yee-haw! No longer talking with JAM, she placed her hand on his thigh, high up, licked those tempting red lips, and began to suck the salt off a stick pretzel she picked up from a basket on the table.

Seven sets of eyes observed intently.

Life is good…or about to get good,
he thought.

Until he saw who was entering the tavern.

Looking for fresh meat…uh, men…

The Wet and Wild was an eating and drinking establishment that had an odd showering device just inside its front door. Women who were willing to have their
sherts
showered went in free.

When an explanation was given to Britta for this odd practice, she exclaimed, “Men! They are e’er the same, drooling over a woman’s udders. Would any right-minded lady e’er suggest wetting down a man’s breeches to ogle his manparts?”

“Men would jump at the chance,” Terri pointed out, and they all agreed.

“I’d have to be half-blitzed before I’d go in here with a wet T-shirt,” Donita said.

“I doan know,” Marie mused. “Depends on who I’m tryin’ ta impress.”

Britta and her friends chose to pay the entry charge.

It was hard to hear each other speak over the loud music and hum of conversation, clinking of glasses, and laughter.

Immediately, they were accosted by men offering them drinks and places to sit at their tables, or requesting that they dance with them. One particularly persistent fellow identified himself as Dill-land Overdorf, a Navy pilot. That was a person who steered those metal objects flying across the skies. He wore a wide-brimmed hat similar to the one Cage wore betimes…a cow hat for boys, she thought it was called, although Dill-land was far from a boyling. He wore carved leather boots with heels and a belt with a large brass buckle. He pressed a glass of mead into her hand and remarked on how good she smelled.

“Fruit or flower?” she asked, sipping at her mead.

“Uh…flower?”

“Ah, my armpits.” She raised an arm so he could get a whiff of the floral scent.

At first, the guy seemed surprised by her action, but then he grinned, “That would be the one. Hey, I love a gal with a sense of humor.”

Britta gave him another look. He was tall and lean with dark hair and eyes and a most alluring dimple at one side of his mouth. He really was an attractive man. Not as pretty as Zachary, but then no man was.

“Are you Navy, darlin’?” he asked.

“WEALS.”

“Ah.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I’m impressed. You must be one…uh, fit woman.”

“Fit where?”

“Huh? Where you from, darlin’? You have an odd accent.”

“The Norselands.”

“Norway?”

“’Tis what I said. But you are the one with an odd voice. Where are you from?”

“Texas.”

“A country called Tax Us? How odd!”

He gaped at her for a second as if questioning whether she was barmy or not. She probably was, especially since she was actually considering finding herself another man for bedsport, just to see if what she had experienced with Zachary was the usual way things went betwixt men and women.

“How do you feel about orgasms?” she blurted out.

He choked on his mead. Then he smiled, a slow, lazy exercise that drew the dimple out nicely. “Did you say orgasms?”

“Yea, that is what I said. Dost have an ear wax problem?”

“No problem at all, sugar.”

“So, how do you feel about orgasms?”

“Mine or yours?”

She pondered that question. “Both. But I must have multiple ones, or it would not be worth the effort. Would it?”

“Baby, you and I are gonna get along just great. Let’s dance.”

“Oh, nay. I could not do that.”

People were flailing their arms and shaking their hips in a ludicrous manner to loud music that spoke of twisting and shouting.

“I’m not much for fast dancing, either. Oh, here comes a slow one.” Without a pause, the musicians started into a slower melody, with the one singer announcing, “Let’s get it on.”

Dill-land pulled her into his embrace and out onto the dancing arena. He immediately began swaying them back and forth in a shocking manner. Her breasts were pressed into his chest, and she could feel the ridge of his manpart against the joining of her braies. She felt nothing at all. Not the thrill of pleasure that surged through her body at just a look from Zachary. Not the ruching of her nipples at the brush of his
shert
. Not the wet pooling betwixt her thighs that she associated with foresport from Zachary. And this close dancing was definitely foresport, in her opinion.

She was doomed, Britta realized with a sigh. Zachary had ruined her for other men.

Dill-land was humming in her ear…in an attempt to make her grow lustsome, she supposed. All she wanted to do was laugh. His humming was unmelodic.

Smiling, she looked over Dill-land’s shoulder. Then looked again.

Zachary was sitting at a far table with his comrades-in-arms. And, most important, at his side was a black-haired woman staring at Zachary as if she’d just had multiple orgasms.

The loathsome lout! The randy jackass! The womanizing fornicator!

And he was staring back at Britta with equal dismay, glaring at Dill-land’s back. She saw him start to rise, but Cage and Slick took hold of his arms and shoved him back in his seat. They were talking earnestly to him. The black-haired wench was looking back and forth betwixt her and Zachary with a questioning frown.

Britta did the only thing a right-thinking woman could in the circumstances. She nuzzled her face into Dill-land’s neck and kissed his ear.

Dill-land growled his appreciation. And began to hum some more.

She hoped she didn’t hurl the contents of her still-empty stomach.

The froggie turned a lovely shade of green…uh, red…