White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel (16 page)

“Hit the showers,” Garrett told him.
“But you’re to do target practice for an hour every day this
week.”

Ledo didn’t even nod. He was too tired.
He trudged back into the monastery, the gun still hanging from his
finger.

Garrett turned and walked around the
corner of the building. He was going back to his office, Carmen
guessed. She poked her tongue at his back, then saw that Efraín was
watching her. He grinned and stuck his thumb up.

After she had finished eating, Carmen
made her way stiffly back to her sleeping bag and eased herself
down on to it, then onto her side. Sleep grabbed her almost
instantly. She surfaced a few times as the afternoon wore on and
the heat of the day blasted the earth beyond the roof of the
refectory. There was nothing moving under the roof itself and she
heard snores from others around her. It let her drift back to
sleep.

When she finally woke properly, it was
close to sunset. Llora was watching her and as Carmen sat up, she
beckoned with her hand.

Carmen gasped as her muscles protested
at the simple act of sitting. She had to get to her hands and
knees, then one foot after the other. Her back twinged and
everything hurt. Finally, when she was on her feet, she walked
slowly over to where Llora was standing by the makeshift bench
holding up the kitchen equipment and gas cookers.

“Everyone will be very hungry tonight,”
Llora told her. “You must help me.”

Carmen nodded. “I’m on KP. I know. What
are you cooking and what do you want me to do?”

Carmen’s cooking skills were very basic,
so Llora had her prepare vegetables and stir soup. The small
movements as she shifted up and down the bench, washing dishes and
stirring in ingredients, warmed up her muscles and eased the ache.
A bit.

Llora had guessed correctly. Everyone
was starving by the time Llora called that supper was ready,
including Carmen. She fell on the food as hungrily as any of the
men, serving herself a huge portion.

The fire in the middle of the room had
been lit again, even though the night wasn’t much cooler than the
day had been. Everyone sat around the fire, more for companionship
than for warmth. It was only a small fire but the crackle of the
flames was cheering.

Carmen had nearly finished her meal when
Garrett appeared. He had showered and changed not long ago, for his
hair was slicked back wetly. He was carrying a bottle of what
looked like mescal. How many bottles had Hernandez given him?

Garrett stepped up to the fire and
turned to face them. “You all did well, today,” he told them. He
held the bottle up. “A shot each, as a thank you.”

They all smiled and laughed. There was a
scramble to collect cups and glasses, anything that could be used
to hold a shot, while Garrett cracked the seal on the bottle and
passed it on.

Carmen eased away from the fire, leaving
her empty plate there. She moved back down the long room to her
sleeping bag. She lowered herself down on to the bag slowly, then
put her back against the stone wall. She wasn’t tired yet, but she
refused to share the bottle with Garrett.

She watched the bottle move around the
fire and the smiles as they clinked glasses and cups together and
drank their shot. The air around the fire was one of contentment.
Garrett was back in everyone’s good graces.

Carmen scowled. She had no intention of
forgiving him like they had.

Garrett snagged two tin cups from Llora
and stepped around the fire. He was heading in her direction.

Her heart sank.

He was pouring two shots as he walked,
his head down. Carmen watched his approached, her arms around her
knees, her fingers digging into them. She wanted to speak first, to
say something cutting and send him on his way. That would avoid
having to deal with him at all. But she couldn’t come up with a
single thing to say.

Instead, she realized she was watching
the play of his thighs under the denim, remembering how the scar
curled over his hip just there, under the belt and above the edge
of his pocket.

And she remembered how he liked her
stroking the sensitive flesh on either side of the ridge of
scar.

She had spent the last three nights in
Garrett’s bed, sneaking out just before dawn and walking around the
monastery to come to the camp area from the side, instead of
walking out through the interior door next to the kitchen area. It
had been three nights of some of the best sex she had ever
experienced.

She had finally started to relax around
Garrett during the day. He still fired zingers and complaints and
sarcastic observations, but she was able to shake them off easier
than she used to. Until this morning, that was.

The PT drill had been brutal and in her
estimation, unnecessary. Everyone was as fit as they could be,
given the poor food and accommodations. Everyone did their share
and then some. There wasn’t a single lazy bum among them.

And Garrett had singled her out for more
punishment than anyone else in the group. He had been almost hazing
her, using his position as the group leader to humiliate her. Her
father had always told her she had too much pride and it would get
her into trouble. But Garrett probably knew that, too and had been
deliberately provoking her. So why do it? What had been the
point?

By the time he stopped at the edge of
her sleeping bag and held out one of the cup, Carmen was angry all
over again. She looked at the proffered cup. “You’ve got to be
kidding me.”

“You deserve it as much as anyone else,”
Garrett told her, the cup held steady at the level of her shoulder.
“Probably more so. Drink.”

“Fuck off, Garrett. I have zero interest
in worshipping at your god-like feet just because you offer a dram
of mescal. I don’t come that cheap.”

She didn’t modulate her voice or keep
her volume down. Garrett hadn’t spoken softly, so neither would
she. Heads were turning. They were listening.

“You’re still pissed about the
training.” He put the nearly empty bottle on the ground, then drank
one of the shots and added that cup next to the bottle. “Get over
it, Escobedo.”

“Get over a pointless morning of
mortification and pain?”

“It wasn’t pointless.” He upended the
second cup, draining it, then bent to dump it next to the first.
“You couldn’t hit the tree the first time. You weren’t even close.
Yet despite physical exhaustion and high stress, you grouped three
shots inside a four inch circle, a short while later. What does
that tell you?”

She glared at him. She had already said
it was pointless.

“
Think
!” he railed at her. “Use
that fancy education of yours and figure it out.”

The broken down room was nearly
completely silent now. No one was pretending not the listen. They
were all watching Garrett. And her.

Carmen stared down at the sleeping bag
where her toes were pushing the nylon into a small ridge. She
scowled, thinking it through.

“You lay in the dirt, too tired to
move,” Garrett added. “But when you thought I was going to kick
you, you
did
move.”

Carmen lifted her chin to look at him,
surprised into it. “It’s mental,” she said.

“It’s mental,” he repeated, agreeing
with her. “If you couldn’t shoot inside the circle on the first
round, then after four miles in this heat, you should have been
even farther off the mark, but you weren’t. You wanted it to stop
badly enough that you overcame your fatigue and shot straight.
Everyone did. Everyone managed to hit the circle sooner or later.
Pain is mostly mental. Tiredness is nearly always mental. And you
now know you can overcome it if you have to.”

The men were stirring and talking among
themselves behind him.

Carmen felt a reluctant admiration. She
hadn’t for a moment thought that Garrett was trying to teach them
something about themselves. But everything he said was true. She
had been blind with fury and that had over-ridden all the tiredness
and aches and the heaviness in her limbs. She
had
found the
energy to roll out of the way when she had thought he was going to
kick her, when a few seconds before that moment she would have
sworn that nothing short of a nuclear holocaust would move her.

“Get up,” Garrett said. “I want to talk
to you face to face.”

Carmen scowled at him. She wasn’t ready
to forgive him. Even if the morning hadn’t been pointless, he had
still singled her out for the brunt of his “lesson.”

Garrett didn’t give her the option. He
leaned over and gripped her arm, then hauled her to her feet,
lifting her like she weighed nothing.

Stiff muscles creaked in protest as she
straightened up. She forced her arms to move, so she could put her
hands on her hips. “You’re still an asshole,” she told him.

“Good. That’s exactly where I want your
focus.”

And he kissed her.

Carmen’s breath rushed out of her, so
surprised was she. Blank nothing enveloped her mind.

She heard cat calls and whistles and
cheers from everyone who was watching. Confusion swamped her.

Garrett’s hands were on her face, in her
hair, holding her steady so he could kiss her properly. And damn it
if she wasn’t responding. The tingling at the base of her belly
started up. Her heart leapt.

When he let her go, his expression was
neutral, but there was a warmth in his eyes that made her heart
thud even harder.

He picked up her hand. Properly, this
time, his fingers curling over hers. “Come with me,” he said
softly.

He turned and walked across the stone
floor, skirting the fire and all the men sprawled around it. They
were grinning now, all except Angelo, who was watching the flames
steadily.

When Carmen realized Garrett was heading
for the interior door that led to his office, she dragged on his
hand, alarmed, but he kept pulling her toward the door. He opened
it and stepped aside and let go of her hand. “After you,” he said
quietly.

Carmen moistened her lips, doubt tearing
at her. But Garrett’s gaze was unflinching, with none of the
cynicism she had grown used to shadowing his expression. He simply
waited.

So she stepped through and he shut the
door behind her.

She whirled to face him. “What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “In front of
everyone, like that?”

He pressed his hand against her back,
shepherding her gently along the corridor. “I would have had a
bigger morale problem if I hadn’t,” he said.

Carmen glanced at him sharply. “Why do
you say that?”

“You’re the only woman under forty in
the camp. You stopped sleeping with Angelo once we…after we had
sex,” he said. “Yes, I noticed,” he added impatiently. “You weren’t
subtle about Angelo and I know that you were flaunting him so the
rest of them would leave you alone. Once you severed your
connection with Angelo, though, it wouldn’t have taken long for one
of them to try their luck. Or more than one. That’s a problem I
didn’t want to have to deal with.”

“So you kissed me in front of them to
keep up morale?”

He opened the door to his office and let
her go through first. The lantern was turned down low and it was
very warm. Garrett shut the door and moved so he was facing her. “I
kissed you in front of them because I don’t like sneaking around
any more than you do. Putting a stop on any carnal intentions they
might have been forming was a small bonus, as far as I’m
concerned.” He brushed stray hair from her face.

Carmen shook her head. “I don’t
understand,” she said flatly. “You were an absolute bastard this
morning. You were way tougher on me than you were on any of the
others. Efraín sat on his ass for most of it and you didn’t make
him run an extra two miles.”

“And everyone saw how tough I was on
you,” Garrett told her, “and now they know that just because you’re
in my bed, I’m not going to give you any breaks at all. I won’t
play favorites.” He stepped away from her, a small pace, and
crossed his arms. “That wasn’t the only reason I did it.”

Carmen frowned. She didn’t like it that
she agreed with him—to a point. “That doesn’t make sense. Okay,
sure, don’t play favorites, but you were vicious with me.”

“I had to be to snap you out of it,”
Garrett said.

“Snap me out of what?”

“You had stopped hating me,” he said
flatly. “You were starting to think about me during the day the way
you do when we’re in bed. You were getting soft. You were getting
distracted.”

“You
want
me to hate you?” she
breathed.

“I want you to not think about me at all
when you’re working. Not in any way other than as your superior who
gives the orders. If that means hating me, then fine, hate me.
Which is the other reason I did everything I’ve done today.”

Carmen wiped the back of her hand
against her brow. “Why?” she asked, honestly bewildered.

“I want you to survive,” he said flatly.
Then his expression softened, to the warm one she liked the most,
the Garrett that hid away most of the time and she only got to see
in bed. He cupped her jaw, his hand warm against her flesh. “You’re
fighting for Vistaria and you’re full of passion for your country
and for the Loyalists and all the old ways you’ve lost and that you
want back. You want peace, not just for you, but also for all the
Vistarians who want their country back. It has been driving you
since you fled Acapulco. But you’re new to warfare and while your
passion makes up for a lot of your ignorance, I want to make sure
you have more than just blazing hot determination to get you
through what the Insurrectos will throw at you.”

Garrett had a way of leaving her
speechless, even when he was being nice. Carmen put her hand on her
hip. “Damn, you’ve ruined it,” she told him.