Just a Kiss Away (27 page)
Authors: Jill Barnett
“Huh?” Jim shook his head.
“Sam’s here! He’s full of it! Get a shovel!” the bird cried from its perch above them.
Three more men ran around the corner. Two held machetes and another a huge, wide-barreled gun. Lollie took a deep breath and looked at the three men. The one with the huge gun pointed it right at her. She gasped and practically climbed onto Sam, looking up at him while she tried to speak. “I . . . he . . . we . . .” and she burst into tears.
“Shit! Cassidy, you ass.”
“What’d you say?” Jim frowned as if in pain.
“Sam’s an ass! Sam’s an ass!”
“I’m going to kill that bird,” Sam muttered. “Stop crying, Lollie. He’s not going to hurt you.”
She cried even harder, unable to stop herself until Sam finally put his hard arms around her. Her tears tapered to small sniffles almost the second she felt the warmth of his arms and his hand gently rubbing her back. He had the most comforting chest.
“This one’s off limits.”
“I can’t hear you. What’d you say?” Jim blinked.
“Keep away from her!” Sam shouted so loud Lollie jumped. Then she turned within the circle of his arms and looked at Jim.
He looked at them, his gaze going from her to Sam. “Ah, I see.” He gave Lollie an annoyed stare. “I can’t hear, but I see. It’s real plain.”
“Just what the hell do you see?” Sam’s bellow echoed above her.
“It’s all right, Sammy old boy. I won’t trespass on your property.” He grinned.
“Sam’s bought the farm!” crowed the bird, and Jim snorted with laughter.
Lollie looked up at Sam at the same instant he looked at her, his face a mask of pure horror. His arms left her so fast it was as if her skin had turned to fire. He stepped back two strides, putting plenty of distance between them. She was instantly cold.
“I don’t want her, Cassidy. I’m stuck with her until I can get her back to her daddy, unharmed.” He looked at her as if she were quicksand and then turned his angry gaze toward his friend.
Her heart sank. She felt humiliated that he could be so public about his lack of regard for her, and she was hurt that once again a man didn’t want her around. She swallowed to fight back the burn of her silly tears.
“So hands off. That’s an order.” Sam nodded at the huge-barreled gun that the one soldier held. “The guns are here. I need your help.”
Nobody was looking at her, so Lollie quickly wiped her eyes, took a deep cleansing breath, and looked up. One of the soldiers—Gomez, she thought his name was—smiled at her and nodded as if to say it was okay. Then he and the other soldier turned and left.
She
felt better. Sam might not like her, but his men did.
Jim pushed away from the wall of the wooden bungalow and whistled. The bird paced back and forth, squawking, but it didn’t leave its perch. “Come on, Medusa.” Jim held out his arm.
It flapped its wings and paced again, still not leaving the eave.
“What’s the matter with you?” He stared at the bird, then reached into his shirt pocket and held out a nut.
The bird ignored it, screeched, whistled once, then flew from the eave right onto Lollie’s head.
She stood as still as a hickory tree. Her eyes widened as she whispered, “Does she bite?”
“Only me,” Sam said, his gaze aimed toward the top of her head.
“Can someone get her off?” Lollie whispered, feeling the bird shift its weight from one foot to the other.
Jim walked over to the bird. “Come on, you. Let’s go help Sam.”
“Awk! Help Sam! He’s full of it! Get him a shovel!” Medusa stepped off her head, and Lollie exhaled with relief. Then the bird hopped from Jim’s arm right back onto Lollie’s shoulder. She froze, trying to see out of the corner of her eye. The bird shifted, then hummed a little purring sound and stretched its neck out to peer at her. “Who’s that?”
She looked at Sam, at Jim, and finally at the bird. “I’m Eulalie Grace LaRue.”
“Awwww. Pretty Eulalie Grace LaRue.” The bird ducked her head and nuzzled Lollie’s jaw.
Surprised, she laughed. “And what’s your name?”
“I’m Medusa. I’m a mynah. Sam’s an ass.”
Lollie giggled and looked up at Sam. He wasn’t happy, which made her giggle more because a grown man could look so irritated with a little bird.
He turned to Jim. “Leave that damn bird with her. Neither of them knows when to shut up. Now let’s go.” He spun around and stalked away.
Jim shrugged and started to follow him. He glanced in Sam’s direction, then quickly back at her. “Later,” he said in a voice much too loud for secrecy.
“Like hell!” Sam shouted over his shoulder. Jim frowned, hit his ear a couple of times, and followed him, laughing very loud.
Lollie watched them go, then turned to look at the mynah. “Well, now I have some company.”
“Company halt!” Medusa shouted in a deep voice.
“I see I’ll have to work on your vocabulary.” She turned and walked back to the bungalow. “Now, Medusa, say `Yan-kee . . .”
The knife blade sliced through the air. Sam jumped back, dodging its sharp edge. He crouched again, his own knife poised, ready. Others fought around him. He could hear the dull thud of men falling to the ground, the victors’ shouts, the exhaled breath of the fallen. He ignored the sounds, instead taking in air slowly, with purpose, controlled. He and his adversary moved in a circle, two instruments of war, combatants with instincts sharp, eyes locked in battle, ready to move with deadly accuracy at the mere blink of the other’s eye.
Sam saw it coming. It was always in the eyes. The man shot forward, his knife poised like a bayonet in front of his body. Sam grabbed his wrist and rammed the man’s arm and knife upward, his own arm slid in a death pin on the man’s throat. Sam squeezed.
Barely ten feet away, a blond head—an empty blond head—poked out from the bushes. It plunged back down, leaving the bush rattling loud enough to be heard above the exercise.
Sam released the rebel. “Take a rest. And, Gomez . . .” The soldier picked up his knife and shoved it back in its sheath.
“ . . . Next time don’t blink.”
The rebel nodded and left the small dirt arena they used to train the men in armed combat. Sam turned back toward the bushes and waited. It didn’t take long.
The adjacent bushes shook, branches cracked, a gasp cut through the air. Shaking his head, he moved over to the perimeter, leaning in the comfortable shade of a lowland pine. Lollie was behind a wall of giant croton bushes, tiptoeing in those hard militia boots, something he would have bet a month’s pay was impossible. Since she was on tiptoe, he assumed that her intention was furtive silence. He exhaled in disgust. She muttered the whole way.
She moved toward him, pausing to poke her head out of the bushes every so often. Less than five feet from him she stopped again, bending around the bush, butt up, so she could look between the branches. Her blond hair was tied back with a piece of jute rope and hung down her back. He could still see the light blond streaks that blended with the color of the rest of her hair, a dark blond that was the color of Old Crow, his favorite drink.
In the dark rebel clothing Jim’d scrounged up for her, she looked different, less lah-dee-dah LaRuish. She shifted her weight, drawing his gaze to her round rump and the tight black pants that covered it and her legs. His mind flashed with the thought that whoever had invented the skirt ought to be shot.
“Where is he?” she murmured, breaking his concentration and calling his attention away from her butt and back to her head, which shifted from one opening to another.
A lazy smile touched Sam’s lips, and he pushed away from the tree. “Looking for me?”
She gasped and shot upright.
He watched her turn and gape at him, and her wide eyes darted left, then right, a sign she was looking for something to say. Finally he gave up, deciding he would be a grandfather by the time she spoke up. “What do you want?”
She rammed her shoulders back and stuck up her chin.
Jesus, what now?
“I’d like something to do.”
“Look, I told you before. This is a war camp. We’re training soldiers to fight for their freedom and their lives. It’s not some social club.”
“Where’s Mr. Bonifacio? He’s in charge. I think he’ll give me something to do.”
“Andres is in Quezon, meeting with Aguinaldo. He won’t be back for a while.” He crossed his arms over his chest and added, “So you’re stuck with me.”
She sighed one of those hurricane winds, then looked around. He could see her trying to think, and the thought crossed his mind that any minute he might smell smoke.
She looked him in the eye. “I’m just asking for something to do. Can’t I help with something, anything, please, Sam?”
“Where’s the damn bird? I heard she’s been keeping you busy.”
“Jim took her with him today.”
“That must have been interesting. Jim’s been complaining that he never sees Medusa anymore. I understand she’s taken quite a liking to you.”
Birdbrains of a feather.
“She didn’t want to go with him, but I talked her into it.
“I’m sure that did wonders for Jim’s ego.” The woman had managed to lure Jim’s obnoxious bird away, which didn’t exactly bother Sam. He could live without that bird chattering constantly. And if it kept this woman busy, then that was fine with him. But now she was bored again. It might be worthwhile to give her something to do just to keep her out of his hair. “What can you do?”
She looked a little lost for an answer, but eager. Then she asked, “What do you need done?”
I need you gone, he thought, distractedly brushing some dust from his pants while he tried to come up with something. He stopped and stared at his dusty pants. Then he smiled, coming up with the perfect solution. “Laundry.”
“Laundry?” The eagerness left her face.
“Follow me.” He walked right past her, soon hearing the thud of her boots behind him. He crossed the camp to the north side, where ten long wooden bungalows served as the barracks. He rounded a corner, then moved past a stack of barrels and the small pit the men used for recreation. Her boot steps scurried behind him, and suddenly he felt her tug at his arm.
“Sam?”
He stopped. “What?”
“What’s that?” She pointed to the dirt pit lined with sandbags.
“The cockpit.” He turned to go, but she wrenched back on his arm.
“The what?”
“The men use it in their free hours. For cockfights.”
“Cockfights?”
“Yeah, where they put two birds in a pit and let them fight it out while the men bet on which one will win.”
“Oh, my Gawd . . .”
“Gambling’s big in the islands. It’s their way to relax.”
Her face looked like she’d just met the devil. “What about the birds?”
“They’re treated like prized pets. Bought and sold based on their strength and number of wins. Most of the birds lead better lives than slum children, since the Filipinos take the sport seriously.”
“What happens to the birds? Don’t they get hurt?”
“The strongest fighters in the sport survive. The others . . .” Sam shrugged.
“Riding is a sport, horse racing is a sport, lawn tennis and croquet are sports, even that Yankee pastime, baseball, is a sport. Putting two helpless birds in a ring to fight is not a sport!”