Page 10 of What is Lost

What also hit her then was just how much she didn’t know about him. She could say the same of the others, but with John, once she relaxed and they talked...there’d been this palpable tug of attraction. With him so close, she’d had this sudden, crazy urge to pull over, throw the car into park, and then throwherselfall overhim. She ached to taste the salt of his neck then run her tongue to the angle of his jaw and down to circle his nipples. She would work her way back up to his mouth, his gorgeous lips, while her fingers worked the snap over the bulge in his jeans and then reach in and slide her hand around his?—

“You okay down there?” Emery asked.

“Fine.”Focus.Wrenching her mind away from fantasies of sweaty limbs and sighs and moans, she worked her neck then embraced the rifle the way her dad had taught and let her breathing settle down.

After her third shot, Roni pushed to her feet and brushed off her pants and shirt. Downrange, the flame still flickered, a tiny bright speck seen through a pinprick in black fabric. “This is impossible,” she grumped.

“But you tried,” John said.

“Yeah, yeah, dare you to do anybetter, hotshot.”

“Easy there, Roni,” Emery said, his tone mild. “I think you were just distracted is all. It happens.”

“Want to go again?” John said. “I don’t mind.”

“No.”Then, as his smile faltered as if that single word were a lash, she said, with effort, “I mean, thanks, but we should stick to the rules.” She waited a beat then continued, “I just don’t like to lose.”

“Yeah? You know, come to think of it, neither did Captain Kirk.”

That broke the tension. “Do tell.” Her mouth quirked into a lopsided grin and then she laughed outright. “And why was that?”

“Are you kidding? Always ready to fire phasers and take names?” John showed a dazzling smile, playful and somehow very intimate. “Kinda no guts, no glory. Totally my kind of guy.”

“Uh-huh.” A loud, phlegmy cough from Emery. “If you space cadets are finished?—”

My God, she’d forgotten the man was there. And when had she moved closer to John?

“Yeah,” she and John said at the same time and then John went on, “I’m good, sir.”

“Okay, Captain Kirk, then let’s see what you got.” Emery cocked a thumb at the Remington. “Go on, Doc. Go for glory.”

DEPLOYMENT

AUGUST 2021

About fourteen hoursafter the Marines were mobilized in early May, John, Roni, and about seven hundred other soldiers in their Army battalion shouldered packs and shambled onto no-frills, private charter Boeings. Their orders were hurry-up last-minute: fly to a staging base in Germany, refuel, and then immediately move on to Qatar where they would board a troop transport for the final leg into Afghanistan.

No one cared where anyone sat on the private charters. Being captains by then, John and Roni were near the front of the line, though the majors and a couple of lieutenant colonels beat them to the exit rows. That was when the trouble started.

“Come on.” He jerked his head toward the rear. “Back here.”

“What?” Roni frowned. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s near the bathrooms.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t like the smell.”

“Yeah, but we’re more likely to survive a crash if we sit in the back near a bulkhead. We’ll be much closer to a decent exit, too.”

“Who said anything about crashing?”

“I’m just thinking ahead,” he said. “Being prepared.”

Roni rolled her eyes. “You’re in the Army now, not the Boy Scouts.”

---