Page 14 of Indirect Attack
“Sergeant?”
I turned at the address to find a corporal standing at attention behind me, fatigues dusty as though he’d been working on recovery earlier in the way. He held out a packet of papers. They turned out to be a printed list of names and information in neat columns.
“Lieutenant Colonel Barker asked me to give this to you. The entire archeological team is here—the final members arrived last night.”
“Thank you, Corporal.”
Returning to the light from the window, I leafed through the pages with information about each team member, getting a brief glimpse of the people my squad and I would oversee. It was an international group with specialists and archeologists from multiple countries.
Then I turned a page and nearly dropped the dossier in surprise.
“Sir?”
When I looked up, the young corporal was watching me with eyebrows drawn in down in concern.
“Nothing,” I grumbled, then added, “I’m fine.”
But fine was not what I was. Someone I knew was smiling up at me from the 4x6 photo pasted onto the page. Intimately. The face and the eyes were more mature, the hair shorter, and the qualifications far more impressive than that fateful last night we’d last talked. But I would know that face anywhere, and the name beside was only a formality: Jasmine Davis.
Jasmine was on the archeological team excavating the find here in Florin. The team my squad and I would be protecting.
Which meant that for the first time in three years, Jasmine and I would be in the same place at the same time. My pulse began to skip and race.
Jasmine, here? In Florin?
She was, according to her credentials, a volunteer with the group, but as a Ph.D. candidate. So she had, after all, followed her dream, and she was almost there.
Since we’d been kids, Jasmine had talked about becoming an archeologist. We’d had way too many trips together to the Smithsonian growing up. Enough that I felt like I knew every hall like the back of my hand despite my lack of interest in the subject and the fact that I’d gone along just to be with Jasmine. More than that, I’d loved watching how her face lit up as sheexplored the ancient artifacts, reading each plaque and studying each piece until I was ready to go out of my mind with boredom.
In high school, she’d studied more than she’d gone out, her goal set to get into the school of her dreams, which she had. I’d learned early that there was little Jasmine set out to do that she didn’t accomplish, one of the many things I’d loved and admired about her.
I still loved and admired her, if I was honest with myself. Which I didn’t want to be.
But staring at her photo, looking at all she’d accomplished in our years apart, it was difficult not to be.
As I flipped absently through the rest of the team’s dossier, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like seeing her for the first time. Would it be strained? Joyful? Would she even acknowledge me? We hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Or any terms at all.
I got my answer several pages later when another face jumped out at me, a face I would never forget, that came with crawling ice and a sense of my heart dropping: Jasmine’s boyfriend.
Gregory Rawlins.
So that was his name? I’d never found out.
If Jasmine and this guy were on the same dig, they must still be together. And since they’d been together for over three years, I figured it had to be a serious relationship.
The pages of the dossier flipped closed with a flick of my wrist, and I stuffed it under my arm. The UN representatives were beginning to file out, and I followed, the corporal close on my heels. I responded to several friendly farewells while weaving my way outside, but only distractedly. Seeing Jasmine with someone else once was bad enough. But now, not only would I have to see Jasmine with her boyfriend, but I would have tospend the next weeks—months, years, maybe—watching them together.
I’d been through a lot, but I wasn’t sure I could handle this assignment.
The truth was, Jasmine was still the woman I dreamed of, the one I thought of in those dark, haunted hours of the night. She was the reason I was rarely home, the reason I barely looked at other women, the reason my mother despaired of me ever finding someone. My brothers, even my younger brother Sam, had all found incredible women to stay by their sides. But I remained entirely, stubbornly alone.
In the intervening years, I’d lost the pain from that night, the anger, and gained perspective. But it didn’t mean seeing Jasmine again, and seeing her with someone else, wasn’t painful.
The corporal driving, we headed back to the base, and I returned to my barracks. A quick change, and I stomped to the workout area and the boxing equipment, pounding out my anger on the bags. Then I found a sparring partner and pounded out my aggression on him.
But even a shower afterward couldn’t rid me of the unsettled cloud that hovered over me. My mood was stormy enough that other Marines, the ones who fought on the front lines, went out of their way to avoid me.
I knew there was only one thing that would help me get the roiling storm out from inside. In only my shorts, I pulled out my drawing gear from my footlocker.
