Page 40 of Bullets and Dandelions

“I’ll try it next.” Relief flooded me when Stone, Rodriquez and Johnson walked in. Nah, it was more of a badass strut. They loaded up their plates and joined our table.

Whitson nodded at Stone. “What’s a woman doing on a Force Recon team?”

Hmm. I was a bit curious about that too. I kept eating.

“She’s my sniper,” Stone answered.

Whitson’s eyebrows shot up. “Sniper?”

“Her call sign is Scorpion,” Stone replied.

I assumed my father’s predatory expression. “When it’s that time of the month, you really don’t want to piss me off.”

Heads swiveled in my direction.

“Just kidding,” I called.

Stone shook his head. “No, she’s not. Reynolds has a mean streak.”

“Yeah. She likes shooting men in the balls,” Rodriquez added.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing when every man in the mess hall cupped their genitals.

Whitson guffawed loudly. “I like you.”

“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,” I replied.

Stone glowered. “Manners.”

“Yes, sir.” I ate my cakes and was contemplating getting more or maybe a piece of apple pie.

Tex shook his head. “No.”

“But…”

Stone interjected, “You can’t fly if you’re puking up your dinner.”

He had a point.

“You can fly?” Whitson inquired.

“Yep.”

Stone stood up. “Let’s go. We need to get cleaned up before the meeting with Masters.”

Like little ducklings, we followed him out of the mess hall.

“Under no circumstances, are you to leave the barracks without us,” Stone commanded as we entered our assigned room.

“Yes, sir.”

A gleam of amusement in his eyes, Stone said, “I need you to watch our six while we clean up.”

“I’ll stand guard in the hallway, sir.” Ogling all that fine male flesh would lead to touching and other stuff.

Johnson rolled his pelvis. “We’re not shy.”

“You’ve seen us naked before, Chiquita.” Rodriquez said.

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