One Man's War Read online

  Gripping her arm and bringing her to a halt, Pete muttered, “Hey, look, lady, I don’t understand. I mean, it’s not exactly a lot of fun bumping over a ten-mile dirt road to reach this miserable place and then get covered with water buffalo dung to find you. I think you damn well ought to show up after all I’ve been through.”

  A flicker of anger went through Tess. She pulled her arm from his grip. “Captain, I’m staying. Is that clear enough for you?” She turned and continued off the dike onto a well-beaten path that led back to Le My, less than a quarter of a mile away.

  Angrily, Pete caught up with her. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her how bullheaded she was. He’d never met a woman like her before—so damned independent and confident! Her red hair was plastered against her neck and shoulders, and she stank no less than he, yet she carried herself proudly, as if it didn’t matter. “You’re something else,” he groused. “No girl in her right mind would miss a party.” He gestured to her clothes, which looked like castoffs from the Salvation Army. “And how can you feel good about yourself as a woman running around in these things? I thought US AID advisors had a one-piece khaki uniform they were supposed to wear.”

  Tess glanced at him and continued toward the village. “First of all, I don’t like being referred to as a girl, Captain. I’m a full-grown woman. Secondly, clothes do not make a person what they are.” She grinned slightly, her lips curving into a teasing angle. “Look at you.”

  “What do you mean, look at me? What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” he snapped irritably.

  “It’s obvious you don’t respect the Vietnamese people or me, Captain. Yet, you’re dressed impeccably well under the circumstances.”

  Stung, Pete glared at her. Damn, but she had a long stride. She didn’t even walk like a woman should! He didn’t like her candor or the way she saw him, either.

  Scrambling to save what little was left of the deteriorating situation, Pete tried another angle. “My friends call me Pete.”

  “I’m not your friend, Captain.”

  “You can be, if you want. I’d like that.”

  “Oh, please! I know your type. You’d be better off chasing some poor Vietnamese bar girl who needs your money to put food in her family’s mouths. You forget: I’ve been over here for fifteen months. I’m on my second tour. There’s nothing you marines can put over on me that hasn’t been tried by the male military advisors I worked with long before you chopper jockeys landed. So, let’s put the games away. I don’t play them. Life’s too short, too important, to play games.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re outspoken?” Pete demanded hotly.

  “Plenty of times.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?” he asked, incredulous.

  Tess shook her head. “Captain, I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve kicked around the Far East the last four of those years. There’s not much I haven’t seen, done or been part of. I’m not your typical American girl out of college, okay? The sooner that fact lodges in that brain of yours, the better we’ll get along.”

  Pete said nothing more as they walked back to the village. Well, he’d wanted a challenge, and Tess Ramsey was certainly all of that—and more. He thought of giving up. Obviously she could see straight through his usual routine. Then he shook his head. Any woman he’d ever wanted, he’d gotten—it was that simple. He could pursue a girl better than any of his buddies. His reputation was on the line, anyway, because he’d made several bets at the O club last night that he’d bed down Tess Ramsey. Of course, her brother didn’t know it. That wouldn’t bode well for Pete’s career as a helicopter pilot. Besides, Gib Ramsey was a prude in Pete’s opinion—a man who didn’t chase the bar girls at the O club as most of the pilots did.

  Tess led Pete to the back of a large thatched hut—literally, a wooden frame roofed with a blend of dried grass and woven palm leaves. Behind it ran a small stream about four feet deep and six feet wide. She gestured to the water.

  “This is where you can clean up. I suggest you strip out of that flight suit, wash it out and put it back on.”

  “Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

  “To my hut to get cleaned up,” Tess said wryly. There was something vulnerable about Pete Mallory in that moment. It struck Tess acutely, and she mentally assimilated the discovery. For all his macho bravado, suddenly he looked helpless. “When you get washed off, come to my hut. I’ve got a comb you can use, and some soap, plus a small bowl.”

  He grinned suddenly. “Sounds good.”

  “That’s an invitation to clean up, Captain, not chase me. Okay?”

  “Anything the lady wants,” he returned, flipping a smart salute in her direction.

  Tess shook her head and turned away.

  Things weren’t looking too bad despite the embarrassing situation, Pete decided as he stripped out of his smelly flight suit and threw it into the stream. Luckily, he wore a regulation olive green cotton T-shirt and boxer shorts under the suit, but those were going to have to come off, too. The stream was surrounded by tall elephant grass, a profusion of shrubbery and a few rubber trees, so he was relatively hidden from any curious eyes as he stripped naked and stood in the lukewarm water of the clear stream.

  Humming to himself and plotting his next strategy, Pete knelt down and began sluicing the clean, clear water over himself. It was hell without a washcloth—more than ever he missed the amenities that Americans back in the States took for granted. Finally cleaned up, he struggled back into his wet clothes and zipped up his flight suit. Running his fingers through his dripping wet hair and pushing it off his brow, Pete turned and walked back into the village.

  Damn! He came to a halt, realizing that Tess hadn’t told him which hut she was in. He grimaced, taking in the number of thatched dwellings. Just then, a young boy, thin as a proverbial rail, approached him curiously.

  “Missy Tess said you come,” the boy said in pidgin English. He gripped Pete’s hand and tugged on it.

  Extricating his hand from the boy’s small, thin one, Pete followed him, whistling cheerfully. Maybe the day wasn’t lost after all. Maybe, if he was diligent enough, persuasive enough, he’d talk bullheaded Tess Ramsey into coming to that party tonight—as his date.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tess’s hut looked like all the rest: woven rice grass hung around the outside of a wooden frame. Carefully woven palm spikes had been thatched to make a thick, impermeable roof to keep the rain at bay during the monsoon season, which would begin shortly. The boy pointed to an opening covered with a faded orange cotton cloth.

  “Tess?” Pete called hesitantly at the door.

  “Come in.”

  He pushed the cloth aside. The three small windows were open to allow air and light into the hut, but he had to stand still for a moment to let his eyes adjust. Tess sat cross-legged on a rice mat with a child in her arms. She had cleaned up and changed out of her black pajama outfit into a pale pink cotton blouse and khaki pants that looked threadbare. Her hair had been washed and brushed, and it lay in damp strands down her back. Long hair meant sweet exploration, Pete thought as he imagined his fingers combing through that rich red, gold and copper carpet. The image sent a sharp shaft of longing through him.

  The child in her arms was a little girl, no more than four years old. Frowning, Pete stepped closer.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Tess glanced up at him. In the shadowy light, Pete’s face showed the first genuine concern she’d seen in him for someone other than himself.

  “She stepped on a rusty nail the other day.” Tess ran her hand worriedly down the child’s spindly leg to where a dirty bandage covered her small foot. Feeling the child’s damp brow, she murmured, “She’s running a fever.”

  “Has she had a tetanus shot?”

  Tess held his troubled stare. Maybe he wasn’t as shallow as she’d first thought. Maybe there was a shred of depth and concern for others in his life. Maybe. “What tetanus shot? Captain, out here we don’
t have such things.” She gently unbandaged the girl’s foot. The flesh was red and swollen around the puncture wound.

  Pete came forward and crouched next to Tess and the girl, frowning. “Damn, but that looks ugly.”

  “It is,” Tess said softly as she gently stroked the girl’s sweaty cheek and head. “I washed it out the best I could this morning. The supply truck comes by tomorrow. I could send her on it to the hospital at Da Nang.”

  “Did you use soap and water?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all you have?”

  “We didn’t get soap until about six months ago, Captain, so I’m not complaining. It’s a step forward.”

  Pete’s heart went out to the little girl, who sleepily rubbed her eyes, then nuzzled deeply into Tess’s arms, her face pressed against Tess’s breast, as if she were her mother. “Where are her parents?”

  “The mother’s dead. She stepped on a mine meant for an ARVN soldier in one of our rice paddies earlier this month.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is the frustrating part of being over here. I know about tetanus shots, antibiotics and everything else available in the real world. But they don’t exist here.” Tess’s voice lowered with pain and weariness. “In fifteen months I’ve seen so many needless deaths just for lack of simple things like vaccines and antibiotics.”

  Bitter memories surfaced in Pete, and he struggled to keep them at bay. He watched almost with jealousy as the little girl in Tess’s arms gradually fell asleep, warm, obviously loved and protected.

  Looking at Tess in the dim light, her damp red hair curling softly as it dried, Pete felt his heart respond powerfully to the expression on her face. In the shadows her features glowed with such care and concern for the child in her arms. Each stroke of her long, work-worn fingers across the child’s injured extremity tore at his closely guarded heart. It was the look of love on Tess’s face that suddenly gripped him, held him as nothing ever had in his entire life. There was such compassion in her large green eyes fraught with anguish. The richness of her mouth, her lips parted as if in a silent cry for the helpless child, startled him.

  Shaken deeply, Pete suddenly got to his feet and backed away. He scowled, feeling a mixture of pain, hope, anger and need. It was a stupid array of feelings to have churning within him, but he wanted to be in Tess’s arms, being stroked by her caring hand, seeing that look in her eyes for him. Muttering a curse under his breath, Pete walked to the door of the hut, unable to sort through what was going on within him. Why should this particular scene, a not-unfamiliar one, get to him? Why now? Was it Tess? Him?

  “I hate Vietnam,” he ground out in frustration. “Everywhere I look, there’s nothing but stinking poverty and suffering.” He gripped the orange curtain with his fist and pulled it aside to stare blindly out the opening.

  Tess looked up. “Captain, some things, with time, you’ll get used to.” She glanced lovingly down at the child in her arms. “Others, you never will.”

  “How could you have signed over for a second tour?” Pete demanded in a strangled voice.

  Leaning down, Tess pressed a small kiss on the sleeping child’s brow. Looking up to meet his tortured gaze, she whispered, “How could I not?”

  Pete froze at her softly spoken words. He saw the hope of the world in her eyes, and realized that she was one of those people who had a heart larger than her body, larger than her brain, and that it was going to get her into trouble someday. She gave more than she ever got. He tore his gaze from her lustrous eyes. Pete took more than he gave, and he knew it. But then, everything had been taken away from him since birth—he wasn’t about to give any precious piece of himself back to anyone or anything that might run away with it, hurting him all over again.

  “You know what a scrounger is?” he said abruptly.

  “No.”

  He jabbed his thumb into his chest. “I’m one. Every squadron has a guy who’s good at getting things, scrounging up whatever is needed from God knows where.”

  A slight smile hovered around Tess’s mouth. “Is that more or less like a wheeler-dealer? A used-car salesman?”

  A thaw went through Pete as her smile gently touched his walled heart. How could her one, sad smile, get to him so easily? Completely off balance in Tess’s quiet, serene presence, he nodded. “Yeah, I’m the guy who can double-and triple-talk anyone out of anything. Look, why don’t you come back to Marble Mountain with me? While you’re there, I’ll scrounge up some tetanus vaccine and antibiotics for this kid.”

  Tess gasped. “You could do that?” Even her brother, Gib, who wasn’t immune to the recent suffering of the Vietnamese people, hadn’t been able to requisition any medical supplies for her villages—as much as he’d wanted to.

  Grinning cockily, some of his old spirit returning, Pete nodded. “Honey, I’m the best scrounger in the world. What you need, I can get.” Without reason, he wanted her to come back with him. A hunger ate at him to know Tess better—much better. Normally, he didn’t care what was in a woman’s head, it was always her body that got his undivided attention. But curiosity about Tess transcended his normal needs regarding women, and Pete was at a loss to explain why.

  “Well—”

  “Come on. You can’t do this girl much good here. If you come with me, I’ll make sure you get your medical supplies. Now, how can you pass up a deal like that?” he cajoled.

  Smiling with relief, Tess nodded. “You’re right: I can’t. Not for her or the people of the three villages I work with. Okay, I’ll go with you.”

  “According to Gib, you’re supposed to come back to Da Nang every night, anyway.”

  Tess gently placed the girl on a sleeping mat and rummaged through a large rice-mat chest. She felt more than saw Pete draw near to look over her shoulder at what she was doing. “Gib would like me to go to Da Nang every night, but I don’t,” Tess said. Her precious supply of bandages—thin cotton strips that she’d torn from her old shirts, washed and then boiled thoroughly—were almost gone. With care, she took a vial of iodine from the chest.

  Pete snorted as she laid out her meager medical items. “God, is that all you have to work with?” He looked at the strips of cotton in lieu of true bandages or dressings, a lousy one-ounce bottle of iodine, a pair of scissors and a set of tweezers.

  “That’s been it ever since I arrived here.” Tess set to work scrubbing out the girl’s infected foot with cool, soapy water. Afterward, she placed more iodine into the puncture wound, bandaged it, then covered the girl with a thin excuse for a blanket and allowed her to go to sleep.

  Tess got to her feet. “She’ll sleep for a while. Let me go next door and ask the woman to check in on her while I’m gone.”

  “Where’s the rest of this kid’s family?”

  “Her father is a sergeant in the South Vietnamese Army, her two older brothers have been kidnapped by VC, and you know what happened to her mother. She has no one. I’ll be right back.”

  Pete stood in the hut, alone with the sleeping child. As much as he wanted to bar the raw, rising emotions from his heart, he couldn’t. Looking down at the girl, her small hands gently curled in sleep—some of the pain she was suffering eliminated through Tess’s care and love—he felt tears flood into his eyes.

  “What the hell?” he rasped, and took a step back toward the door. Blinking furiously, Pete retreated, unable to deal with the quandary of feelings that Tess had unknowingly evoked within him. What was the matter with him? Why should he feel anything for this little rug rat?

  Tess met him outside. The late afternoon sun shot through the lush vegetation that surrounded the busy village. The fragrant scent of cooking pots filled with rice and vegetables, the wood smoke and the singsong voices of the people impinged upon Pete’s heightened awareness. Although Tess wore baggy clothes, in his opinion barely suitable for a beggar, nothing could hide her obvious femininity.

  Perhaps it was her shoulder-length red hair—now caught up in a haphazard ponytail with ten
drils touching her high cheekbones—that made her so beautiful. Pete blinked, and stared at her as she approached. Back Stateside, a buxom chick in a miniskirt always got his attention. Now this woman, who wore Third World garments and no makeup, somehow looked more beautiful than any of those women he’d ever chased and caught.

  “I’ll get my knapsack and be with you in just a second,” Tess promised. She saw a confused and penetrating look in Pete’s eyes as she walked past him. There was something going on between them, and Tess wasn’t sure what it was. As she went into her hut and picked up the olive green knapsack that had literally been around the world with her, she wondered what it was about this cocky, narrow-minded pilot that touched her heart. One moment he was such a hard case, yet the next he seemed an angel of mercy.

  As Tess walked with Pete back to where the jeep was parked, she asked suspiciously, “So what’s in this for you if you get me the medical supplies I need?”

  Pete grinned. “You.”

  She shot him a withering glance. “I’m off-limits.”

  “Not to me, you’re not.”

  With disgust, Tess muttered, “You can’t demand a person do or be something you want, Captain.”

  Pete laughed and opened his hands in a peaceful gesture. “But look at me: here I am, twenty-eight years old, a bachelor, handsome as hell and unattached. What more could you want, Tess?”

  Inwardly, Tess offered grudging agreement. He was terribly handsome, and when his mouth lifted into his boyish grin, his dimples and smile lines deepened, giving his face a wonderful character. “I would think an intelligent man would want a woman to come to him of her own volition, not because she was blackmailed.”

  “Some women just don’t know what they’re missing until they get it.”

  Tess halted next to the jeep and tossed her knapsack in the back. She climbed in. “`It’ being a roll in the hay?”

  With a shrug, Pete climbed in and started up the jeep. The vehicle coughed, sputtered, then roared to life. “I can’t think of anything better than sharing my bed with a woman. Can you?”