Carly (19 page)

Troubled, Bowie led Carly away from the lights of the USO center back to where they’d been before. Quiet corners were hard
to come by in a camp of over four hundred thousand soldiers. The tent she shared with the other women of the company was still
quiet, so Bowie led her behind its shelter. He eased down and then pulled her so she was sitting between his thighs. He nudged
her head onto his chest; she curled up like a kitten against him. He liked that image. He took off her hat and stroked her
hair. He couldn’t keep silent. “Why’d you introduce me to your parents? You know they wouldn’t want you involved with someone
like me.”

“What’s wrong with you?” She lifted her eyes to his and the moonlight illuminated her face.

“I’m a redneck from Nowhere, Alabama.”

She sighed and cuddled closer to him. “I haven’t chosen to live my life, or I guess I should say
start
my life, like my mom wanted me to.”

“She wanted you to go to college, right?”

“Yes.”

“Just yes?” He let his fingers trail over the soft skin of her cheek. Carly was so strong and yet so feminine. It awed him
that she could care for him.

“What do you want me to say, Bowie?”

“I’m just tryin’ to say you shouldn’t have introduced me to your family. I know I won’t fit into your life away from the army.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth, honey, and you know it.”

She sat up straight, pulling away from him. “I don’t know where you get this!”

“I’m from a family that lives out in the sticks.” He missed her warmth immediately. “My mama sews quilts for craft fairs.
My daddy works construction and farms a few acres. My sisters all got married right out of high school and started producing
grandkids—”

“Bowie,” Carly interrupted, “what is happening between you and me has nothing to do with where we were raised and who we’re
related to. If you think you wouldn’t be welcome at Ivy Manor, you don’t know anything.”

He liked the starch that had come bristling into her tone. “Carly,” he whispered, leaning forward, “I think I’m fallin’ in
love with you.”

“Good,” she replied and kissed him.

This kiss was nothing like the quick stolen kisses they’d shared before. This was a full-blown kiss. He put his arms around
her and pulled her against him. “Oh, Carly, you’re so special,” he murmured against her soft mouth.

She responded by parting her lips and deepening their kiss.

Rational thought left him and all he could process was the glorious feeling of holding Carly and kissing her.

Saudi Arabia, December 26, 1990

At 7:30 in the morning, Carly and her platoon were busy as usual cleaning out the sand-clogged fuel and oil filters of Humvees.
In spite of improvising extra coverings for each of the critical openings in the engines, the blowing sand always got through.
The constant desert wind, called
Shammal
, had picked up in the days heading into January. At the end of every day, Carly looked into a mirror and saw her eyebrows
and hair white with the insidious sand. The rushing wind also provided a constant white noise behind every voice, every sound
they made as they worked. It dulled Carly’s hearing.

When Haskell walked up to the vehicle Carly, Bowie, Joe, and Sam were working on, she saw his lips move but didn’t hear his
words at first. She moved closer and then she heard him. “You guys got lucky. A Marine observation post needs to be resupplied.
It will give you some practice for what we’ll be doing soon. Our company will be moving farther forward in a few days to get
in place and set up to supply our ground troops when the real war begins.”

The words “the real war begins” caught Carly unexpectedly. She realized that she’d gotten accustomed to the daily routine
and hadn’t thought very far da>.

“Here’s the map. Your squad will head out as soon as your vehicle is loaded with supplies. Gallagher, you did the best of
the platoon on map reading, so you’ll be the navigator. Get the trucks there and back before nightfall.”

Carly looked at the map he’d handed her. “What about GPS?”

Haskell snorted. “Combat troops get GPS. Support gets maps.”

Carly watched him walk away, a chill running through her. The Marine OPs were charged with keeping an eye out for any Iraqi
movement, so they’d be far forward. A scary thought. Her instant apprehension was a stark contrast to the guys’ reaction—they
all were grinning. Again, she felt the odd man out. Was her fellow crew really thrilled to be going so far forward, or was
it just a male thing? Since she wasn’t going to ask them, she’d probably never know.

Bowie, Sam, and Joe stepped up the pace and she had to hustle to keep up with them. Before Carly could deal with the throbbing
fear inside her, she was sitting beside Bowie in the front seat of the first truck, the map and a compass on her lap. Joe
and Sam were in a smaller truck behind them. The rest of the squad rode inside the back of both trucks. Carly studied the
topographic map and then gazed out at the rough desert terrain far da> of them. A distant memory came to her. She was back
in basic, trying not to fall asleep during a lecture on map reading.

All too soon, Bowie had driven them through the troop concentration areas, over the good highways and then the unimproved
roads and finally beyond, into the desert proper. They saw a herd of camels loping across the uneven ground, an eerie sight.
It made Carly feel as if she’d drifted into an earlier time or a Barbara Cartland romance.

“You okay?” Bowie asked.

“Fine,” she lied. The topographic map she’d been given didn’t inspire confidence. It was stamped: “Not Suitable for Ground
Use.” “I’m just worried that I might miss a landmark or something.” In fact, there didn’t appear to be any landmarks in this
vast open county. The terrain da> was beautiful in a stark way, with low red sand dunes and outcroppings of rock.

“You’ll do fine. You’ve got a sharp eye.”

Carly gave him a grateful smile. During their workdays, they tried very hard to keep their personal feelings hidden. So even
though she thought a kiss now might help her feel better, she turned back to focusing on their course. If the map failed her,
she’d been taught how to navigate by dead reckoning using a lensatic compass and the truck’s odometer. She noted down the
reading from the latter. The wind whipped up a bit more, and gusts buffeted the side of their high vehicle.

“This is the kind of day where at home, they’d be taking trailers and RVs off the highways,” Bowie commented.

Carly only nodded. Saudi Arabia wasn’t like the Sahara with its classic white sand dunes. Its desert was flatter with boulders,
lots of rocks, and scrub vegetation. Her mind drifted momentarily back to summer and Ivy Manor’s lush green garden. Then she
snapped herself back to the present. It wouldn’t do for her to let Bowie drive them into something like a
sabkhas
, a salt marsh.

At that time of year, just before the January rain, Carly had learned that
sabkhas
could be concealed by a fragile crust. And she’d also been warned that the desert landscape changed with the wind. There
was plenty of wind that day. She had to keep the platoon on track. Haskell would never let her forget it if she got them all
lost. Feeling disoriented, she prayed for the first time in a long time.
Dear God, don’t let me screw up
.

Ivy Manor, December 26, 1990

Bette came in from the cottage for morning coffee. She had recalled that long-ago childhood day in 1929, soon after her mother
had come back to stay, when they had gone to clean up the cottage for her mother to live in. Since then, the cottage had rarely
been empty. That day, light snow was falling, and the summerhouse looked forlorn and out of place presiding over the dormant
garden. Bette walked into the kitchen and Leigh was sitting at the table alone. Bette had hoped to have the first cup of coffee
by herself, but she couldn’t retreat now. “Good morning, Leigh.”

“Hi, Mom.” Leigh sipped her coffee.

Bette poured her coffee and sat down across from her daughter.

“Your friend went home then?” Leigh lifted an eyebrow.

“You know he drove back to Washington last night.”

“How long have you been dating him?”

“We met at a World War II War Department reunion a few months ago.”

“I thought you worked for the CIA.”

“The CIA didn’t start until after the war. I started out working at the War Department while your father went to school at
Georgetown.”

“I don’t believe it. You mentioned my father.”

Bette ignored Leigh’s tone. “There isn’t much to tell about those days. Curt went to school. We married. He went to war. He
came home and died when you were a baby.” Protecting her secret, Bette kept all emotion from her voice.

“Why do I always get the feeling that there is something you haven’t told me?”

Bette carefully controlled her expression. She’d promised Curt that she would never tell their daughter the truth. “You will
just have to accept the facts as they are.”

Leigh looked unhappy.

Bette waited to see how her daughter would try to find out more about her growing friendship with Dan.

Instead, Leigh brought up a different topic. “I might as well tell you: Nate and I are at odds again.”

The cold way her daughter said the words stirred Bette’s worry and caution. She’d been right then. The unspoken conflict between
Nate and Leigh was over Leigh’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia. But Bette said nothing, merely sipped her coffee. Whatever
she said would be the wrong thing. That much the years had taught her.

“Don’t be a coward,” Leigh said, sounding as if she were taunting her. “Ask me.”

“It’s not my place to ask you. You and Nate are adults, and you don’t need me to stick my nose into your marriage.”

“You think Nate can do no wrong.”

Bette closed her eyes, summoning up her forbearance. “Leigh, I wish that someday the war between us could end. I’ve admitted
I was wrong about the way I treated you when you got pregnant with Carly. I sincerely regret the hurtful words I said and
the way I pushed you away. I cannot unsay or undo any of it. Will you never forgive me? Why can’t there ever be peace between
us?”

Leigh wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“We’re about to start a new year. Can’t we bury the hatchet and start out fresh?”

Leigh burst into tears.

Bette didn’t know whether to comfort her or just let her weep. Her beautiful daughter had become as prickly as a porcupine.
Lord, help my daughter. I can’t. I’m at the end of my rope with her
.

In the truck, Carly watched the sun lowering on the western horizon. The daylight dimmed, along with her hope of getting back
to base before dark. They should have reached the Marine outpost by now. Night came fast in the desert, and it was on its
way. And they had been expected back before nightfall.

“How much farther?” Bowie asked her.

Carly bit her lower lip. “We should be there.”

“Where?”

“At the Marine PO.”

“I don’t see anything,” Bowie said.

“Let’s stop. Maybe if I get out and look around, I’ll catch a glimpse of it.”

Bowie slowed to a stop. The truck behind did the same.

Carly climbed out and scrambled up onto the broad flat top of the truck. She lifted her binoculars to her eyes and slowly
pivoted in a complete circle. Nothing moved. No glint off glass or a Humvee mirror. When the circle was complete, she stopped
and stared at the wasteland in front of her. A stray thought occurred to her. Why were they there anyway? Who would want this
barren stretch of desert enough to kill for it?

“Any luck, Carly?”

“I don’t see a thing.” She felt the sick ache of failure, spiced with sheer panic. She controlled her voice. “Come up and
try yourself.”

Bowie climbed up beside her. He went through the same procedure she had. “No, don’t see a thing.” He leaned close and asked
in an undertone, “Are we lost?”

She had felt they were lost the moment they left the main troop area. But she couldn’t say that. She shrugged. “I’ll check
our location with dead reckoning again.”

They both climbed down. The guys crowded around her as she checked the odometer reading and her compass. “From this, it looks
like we’re right where we’re supposed to be.”

“Then why aren’t we there?” Joe, the squad leader, asked, sounding edgy.

Joe’s words sparked a breakout of grumbling, and Carly held up a hand to halt murmurs. Her mind zipped through all her options
and found the remaining one. “I’ll check it one more way. The map Haskell gave me isn’t for ground use. See?” She pointed
to the map. “It’s marked as made by the British Airways. The distances could just be wrong. And the topography might have
just been roughed in.” She looked to Bowie. “I need something like a stick, about this long.” She held her hands about two
feet apart.

“You goin’ to try the shadow-tip method of reckoning to check your compass?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Okay.” He ran back to the truck and popped the hood. He came up with the oil dipstick. As he ran toward her, he wiped the
oil from the stick on a rag and then handed it to her.

She smiled her thanks and stepped over to a flat area blown clean by the wind. Bowie’s quiet confidence was keeping the rest
of the squad from voicing doubt. Trying to look sure of herself, she stuck the dipstick into the ground. Then she picked up
a rock and marked where the shadow of the tip fell on the ground. “We wait about fifteen minutes and we’ll mark it again.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re doing,” Sam said.

“I’m finding due north so I can check the accuracy of my compass. If my compass and the shadow tip coincide, I’ll know if
we’re on course. And if not, I can fix it.”

The guys looked to her and then at Bowie, who began doing some stretching exercises, looking completely unconcerned about
whether they were lost or not. “Feels good to be out of the truck,” he said in an unconcerned voice.

Carly took a cautious deep breath.
Dear Lord, let me be on course
.