Chapter 8 #2
Huh?
“Do you know where he is?”
“Up in Ivan’s bedchamber.”
“Come on, let’s take him for a walk on the beach.”
As they walked upstairs, side by side, she noticed Zachary gaping at her.
“What? You do not like my appearance?”
“I love your appearance, babe. Especially the wild sex-tossed hair and the red lip gloss.”
“Did you just insult me?”
“Hardly. I’d like nothing more than to kiss your sweet mouth till it was red and glossy, just from my kisses.”
More pearling and throbbing, just from words now. Britta was beginning to feel like a sinking ship.
Sometimes heroes were of the female persuasion...
They were walking along the beach at the water’s edge, collecting sea shells. There was already a considerable pile stacked at their feet.
Almost like a normal family, she thought. What would it be like to have a husband to love me, and a son of our loins? What foolishness! That life was not for her. Still, that soul-ache that had beset Britta of late assailed her now.
Zachary took her hand in his as they watched Sammy drop down to his knees in the surf, digging for sand crabs. The giggle that escaped Sammy’s lips surprised them both, and Britta realized how rarely the little boy was merry.
She glanced at Zachary and saw the smile he’d flashed at Sammy’s giggle quickly fade to be replaced by worry, something that she was coming to realize was the norm when he was with his son. In fact, his gaze continually darted right and left, as if on alert for some danger.
“Why are you so worried?”
“Sammy’s grandfather is a world-class bad guy, an Afghan terrorist, and he wants Sammy.”
“Oh,” Britta said, beginning to understand the danger.
“Arsallah would be nuts to attempt a kidnapping here where entry could only be by air or sea. He couldn’t sneak in by land, undetected, with so many people strolling on the beach and Wilson posted out front.
Plus there are a half dozen SEALs here to back me up.
And we’re all armed.” He patted a bulge under his flower shert. “Still...”
Sammy kept putting his sand crabs into a little pool he had dug in the sand, but the water kept seeping into the sand. He looked up at Zachary. “Where’s my bucket and shovel?”
“I left them in the car.” Zachary looked at her. “Will you be okay watching him if I run up to get them?” At her nod, he said, “I’ll be back in a sec. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
She went over to kneel beside Sammy. The little sand crabs were fascinating.
So engrossed were the two of them in watching them scurry away that she was unprepared from the wave that came up and covered them both.
She was laughing as she righted herself and combed her hair off her face.
But then she realized that Sammy had been caught in a rip tide.
Slipping off her shoes, she dove under an oncoming wave and began to swim vigorously in a diagonal fashion till she was deliberately caught in the same rip tide. It was best not to fight a rip tide, but let it carry you out to its end. Leastways, that’s what she had always been taught.
Everything had happened so quickly. How could they be out so far already?
She soon caught up to Sammy whose eyes were wide and terrified as he choked and spat out salt water, fighting to stay afloat.
“Shh, shh, you will be safe now,” she said, putting an arm across his front and swimming backward till they were in calmer water.
Then he twisted in her grasp and wrapped his two little arms around her neck, hugging tightly.
Zachary was soon beside them in the water.
Sammy clutched her even tighter.
Other members of the party lined the shore, watching, in the event they were needed. Several had taken off shoes and even braies and sherts.
“Come on, little guy,” Zachary said, trying to take Sammy from her. He was bare-chested, having no doubt shed his shert and weapon on the beach afore entering the water.
“Nooooo,” he wailed. To Britta, he whined, “My father will beat me.”
Britta glanced at Zachary who seemed both angry and hurt by his son’s remark.
“I have never beat you,” Zachary said.
“It wasn’t your fault, Sammy,” she consoled him.
“Now, c’mon. You’re too heavy for Britta,” his father urged.
“Nooooo.”
“He is not too heavy for me,” Britta said...to Zachary’s chagrin, she could tell.
“Okay, let’s go back in together then,” he conceded through gritted teeth.
As they swam side by side, Sammy told his father, “I was only catchin’ sand crabs.”
“I’m not blaming you, Sammy.”
“You will.”
Zachary’s eyes connected with hers for a second, and she saw his misery.
“Go on ahead,” she told Zachary. “And tell the others to go back to the keep. Let me get him settled down a bit first.”
Before he left, Zachary mouthed to her, “Thank you.”
Sometimes love comes not with a bang, but a whimper...
Fifteen minutes later, Zach was walking barefooted across the beach, a towel in one hand and a blanket in the other. He was wearing a pair of the commander’s jeans and one of his old T-shirts, his own clothing being soaked.
His hands were still shaking, and that was a shocker to him. He’d engaged in some of the most dangerous black ops in the history of special forces and couldn’t recall ever having been this scared.
He saw that Britta had Sammy on her lap now, arms wrapped around him to ward off the chill, and was talking softly to him.
He wrapped the blanket around both of them before dropping down beside them.
She glanced his way and nodded her thanks.
Sammy was facing the other direction, probably not even aware of Zach’s presence
If Britta could only see herself holding his son! The reflexive kiss to the top of his head. The soft caress of his back. She would make a wonderful mother. And wife. Oh, man, where did that thought come from?
While his mind had been wandering in that forbidden arena, Zach realized that Britta had encouraged Sammy to talk about himself and how he liked living here in this country.
“I don’t have no friends,” he was telling her. “Other kids don’t wanna play with me.”
“Oh, Sammy, that is not true.”
“Uh-huh. I look different and I talk different. Nobody wants to play with me.”
“Being different is not so bad. I am different.”
He twisted his head to look at her. “Yeah, you are,” he said with a child’s bluntness. “Do you have anyone to play with?”
Britta turned slightly, her eyes connecting with Zach’s for a brief second.
He winked at her. You can play with me anytime you want, baby. He hoped she got that message.
She blushed. Yep, she got the message.
“You and I must work to fit in better in this country,” she told Sammy, meanwhile brushing his hair back off his face in a maternal fashion.
“We need to learn to speak better, to write in this language, to adapt to the way of living here. Because, like it or not, this is where we are both going to stay.”
“My father will send me away,” Sammy said in a small voice, but Zach heard.
“No, he will not.”
“He’ll whip me like my grandfather did.”
Zach’s hands fisted, and his eyes watered.
“My father beat me, too,” she confided in a voice so low he barely heard her.
Now, not only were Zach’s hands fisted and his eyes watering, but he felt a tightening in his chest.
“But your father, he will never do that,” she assured the boy.
“Good,” Sammy said sleepily and snuggled up against her chest.
For a few moments, he and Britta sat in silence.
Her blonde hair, which had been wildly sexy with curls a short time ago, now hung in lanky hunks. Her sexy red lip gloss was gone; in fact, her lips were kind of blue. Mascara had run down her cheeks, making black tracks.
Still, she looked gorgeous to him.
This woman was like no other. Instead of screaming for help, like many females would have, this had not hesitated to dive into the ocean to save his son. Now, she sat Madonna-like holding the boy, the antithesis of the GI Jane she tried to portray.
He had no idea how it had crept up on him. Somehow, he had always imagined he’d hear bells, see stars. But, quietly and with no fanfare, a remarkable fact hit him square in the face...rather, heart.
He was in love with her.
No, no, no, he immediately corrected himself. I am in like, not love. She saved my son. What’s not to like?