“Why haven’t you beat feet or married one of the other girls around me? Amanda Kutter, now, she’s got to be the most beautiful girl a guy could ask for.”
“She’s not bad-looking,” Jack admitted.
Kris elbowed him in the ribs.
“But she took the ticket home, remember? No way I was leaving your side with one hell of a battle coming up.”
“But it was ship to ship. Nothing for your Marines to do.”
“There was that mining concern Admiral Krätz wanted us to capture. Don’t forget. You got yourself shot down trying to get a good look at it. Tell me you could have gotten that canopy open without my strong back.”
“No, I could not have, and I’d likely have burned to death or been blown to bits when the antimatter containment went, or worse, been captured. You are so right, my wise and eternally vigilant security advisor.”
“And my Marines would have been massacred when they flew into the trap the mining head had set for them.”
Kris gave Jack a puzzled look. “I do dimly remember a wise and perpetually overaggressive young woman who has insisted on that point.”
For several long, peaceful minutes, they enjoyed the ever-changing waves.
“We have saved each other’s asses a few times, haven’t we?” Kris said.
“And, if I may be permitted to say, and dredge up from memory, yours is a most beautiful ass.”
“Yes, you may, kind sir,” Kris said, “because if my dim and fading memory is right, yours is a most spectacular ass in its own right.”
“But not as round and smooth as yours,” Jack countered.
“But more muscled and hairy,” Kris replied.
“My ass is not hairy. It has a fine down, maybe, but not hairy.”
“Hairy as a monkey’s,” Kris insisted. “I know. I spent some wonderful time stroking it while you were sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was enjoying your touch. And it is not hairy as a monkey.”
“It’s your rear. You never look at it in the mirror.”
As things were progressing, Kris half expected Jack to drop his shorts right there in front of her and twist himself into a pretzel to see his own rear. She found herself looking forward to where that might lead.
The dinner bell rang for supper.
Jack gave Kris a questioning raised eyebrow.
For all of five seconds, Kris considered her options. The problem was she hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the Wasp, and her tummy was very empty, and while the thought of filling it from something other than food was getting more attractive by the moment, she doubted it would quiet the rumbling.
She offered Jack her hand up.
She enjoyed rubbing the sand off Jack’s shorts while he dusted her behind with long and loving strokes.
She reconsidered how hungry she was, but her tummy rumbled again.
“I wonder what they mean by ‘Total Nudity Not Allowed’?” Jack asked no one in particular.
“You are such a guy,” Kris muttered.
“Don’t tell me you won’t be checking out the guys. I saw what was in my closet.”
“Did you check out mine?”
“I have the right to remain silent because you are way too good at blowing up ships.”
“Smart man. Educable. I should keep you.”
“Besides, my commission is for the duration, and I think you just started a war that’s going to have a very long duration.”
“Promise me we aren’t going to talk about that. Anything that happened before the Voyage of Discovery is fair game. My Granny Rita is fair game, but the bug-eyed monsters who look too damn much like us are out of bounds.”
“I’m sorry, Kris. You shouldn’t have had to tell me that. The stars are coming out. Aren’t they lovely?” Jack said, changing the subject.
They walked to the restaurant, discussing stars. And they spotted their first songbird. Apparently it was a night creature, and it sang the most lovely song as it flitted among the trees. More birds, with different songs, joined in.
The walk became quite pleasant.
11
They arrived to discover they had the place to themselves. The owner who also acted as the receptionist gave them just a bit of an eye but then offered them their choice of seating.
They chose a quiet corner. They sat with their backs to the rest of the dining room and enjoyed a lovely view of the ocean. The moon was already coming up, huge and orange in the sea air.
While they savored the view, two more couples arrived. The guys were in shorts and shirts like Jack. The women were in muumuus. All showed wet from having sat on the sand. Kris and Jack shared smiles with each other, but the two couples settled in different quiet corners, so they didn’t get to smile at them.
The waitress finally arrived; she wore a dress flowered like Kris’s muumuu, but cut tight into a sheath to show off her curves. She offered them a choice of fish or fish. She named both types, but they meant nothing to Kris. For a moment, the three stared at each other. Then Jack led off.
“Is one of them white fish and the other dark fish?”
The waitress stared blankly and renamed the fish. Apparently, if you were from here, you knew your fish.
“Okay, this is what we’ll do,” Jack said. “I will take one of them. Please serve the lady the other.” That satisfied the waitress, and she bounced off.
“Enjoying the view,” Kris whispered.
“I’m wondering why they didn’t provide one of those for your closet.”
Kris started to say something about how she had nothing to fill out the top but swallowed it. Jack said so very many nice things about her. Why should she repeat all her negatives? Especially since he wouldn’t agree with her. The big liar.
She changed the subject. “So what are we going to do if I hate the fish I get?”
“You will switch with me.”
“And if you hate the fish I got?”
“I will be a gentleman and eat it so my lady can enjoy herself.”
Kris considered that. Jack had an all-encompassing definition of chivalry. “And if I don’t like either of them?”
“Don’t be such a pessimist. We’re surrounded by a lovely view. Notice how the moon is causing the waves to glow. We’re not on duty. No one’s trying to kill us. Have faith. We’ll love both fish and end up feeding tidbits to each other from our plates.”
Kris considered that. “Okay. You carrying?”
Jack scowled. “Yes. You?”
“Yes,” Kris answered. “But I left the spider-silk bodysuit off when I put on the muumuu.”
“So you and I are half on vacation.”
“Well, that’s more than I’ve been since college. Even there, most of my summer vacations were spent covering campaign gigs for Father.”
“You enjoy them?”
“Usually.”
“I loved my work at summer camps. I badly needed the money to help me through the school year. I enjoyed mountains, the hiking and fishing and the kids. Most of them.”
“Let me guess, the rich, spoiled brats weren’t in the ‘most of them.’”
“Sadly yes, but let’s not go there.”
“Gladly. They were a pain in my butt, too. Trust me, the Great Billy Longknife, Man of the People, would not have one of his kids misbehaving in public or otherwise.”
“But the other rich kids . . . ?” Jack left the question hanging.
Kris refused to rise to the bait. “So, you earned money summers to pay for college. What kind of college scholarship did you have? Let me guess. You’re big. It could have been football.”
Jack silently shook his head.
“You’re tall and fast. Basketball?”
This time Jack grinned as he shook his head.
“Soccer? Father played soccer in college.”
Again Jack shook his head, now grinning from ear to ear.
“Baseball? Boxing? Wrestling? Swimming?”
“I would have accepted a swimming scholarship if I’d been offered one.”
“Okay, you win. I give up. After five years of you constantly at my elbow, telling me when and where I can pee, I don’t know what sports scholarship you had in college.”