I’d been told not to talk to her, but I also knew that if I looked at her I’d give myself away, so I spent most of the meal staring at the food, or gazing into the distance. Even that seemed to piss off Grant, but since I was following orders, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Eventually, Caro went to leave, and we all stood up politely. I risked a quick glance at her.

“Sleep well, gentlemen,” she said quietly.

The others sat down again, but Caro was looking straight at me when she ran her fingers along the chain around her neck. She was telling me that she was wearing my ring. Yeah, that was a good moment.

As soon as she left, Grant repeated his orders not to give her any information, not even whether it was hot in summer. What an asshole. He had no idea how good of a journalist Caro was if he thought that was going to stop her from getting a story. Hadn’t he read her articles? Although I liked the idea that Grant was trying to keep her out of the loop and safe.

After that, we were dismissed.

I spent three tedious hours going through the transcripts, learning not one single useful new fact.

With my eyes burning, I rolled into my bedding and passed out.

Reveille was at oh-four-hundred. I was washed, shaved and fed 30 minutes later, and we were waiting for Caro. And waiting. And waiting.

Grant looked like he was about to stroke-out when he sent the same female PFC that I’d seen the night before to shake her awake.

Caro emerged five minutes later, red-faced and embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, sounding flustered. “I overslept. It won’t happen again.”

Grant was too irritated to reply, merely nodding and getting ready for our small convoy to leave Leatherneck.

I noticed that Caro was moving stiffly. I longed to walk over and rub her shoulders and do a bunch of other stuff that isn’t in the Marine Corps Manual.

She pulled on her body armor, tugged her hair up into a rough ponytail, and slapped on her helmet. Damn, she looked cute.

Grant was so pissed, he did the one thing he could to show he was mad at her—told her to sit by me. I was the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole damn world. And yeah, my mom really was a bitch.

“Good morning, Ms. Venzi,” I said in my best panty-dropping voice. “I trust you slept well?”

“Too well, thank you,” she replied politely, raising one eyebrow.

As we sat side-by-side in the APC, I was aware of the pressure of her thigh in the next seat. I slid my backpack closer and took her hand in mine. She didn’t look at me, but her lips turned upward in a private smile. Yep, that look went straight to my dick. It was going to be a long ride.

We headed north, the scenery the same dusty, barren landscape, bumping along a broken road, heading up into the foothills. The heat was already building and we were all sweating.

Our road followed the side of a riverbed, and for a hundred yards in each direction, a strip of green vegetation broke the bleakness of the lunar landscape.

Scattered in the stony fields were the typical fortified farms with high walls, built from a mixture of mud and straw so they blended into the dirt. Some were collected into loose hamlets for protection, but most had been abandoned after heavy fighting in the area. They were a complete fucking nightmare to search, and often booby-trapped after the families had been kicked out. The area seemed deserted but I could see herds of skinny goats, which meant that the owners were around, watching us. I scanned the high ground, looking for anything out of place, but there was nothing. I knew they were there, hidden. At least they weren’t firing at us.

It took us five hours to travel the 60 miles to our next stop, thanks to roads that had the shit bombed out of them, and there were some that had been washed away in Spring floods. Our destination was the town of Now Zad.

What a shithole.

It had been an important market town once, but now it was torn to pieces, buildings destroyed by mortar fire, bullet holes across every wall, empty shops were open to the sky, shutters drooping. But there were still people living here, God knows why. Nowhere else to go, I guess.

An elderly man was selling a few potatoes and eggs from a rug outside a vacant lot. He waved his hands wildly as we drove past, cursing the Infidel invaders and hoping that our balls rotted to dung and fed the crows, Allah be praised.

Caro glanced at me.

“What did he say?”

I saw Grant’s head turn toward us, also waiting for the answer.

“Nothing I’d like to repeat, ma’am,” I said, running my thumb over the back of her hand. She got the message.

Our compound had been a police station at some point in its life, but used many times over by ISAF soldiers from both British and US forces. There was no fresh water, no electricity, and the sleep area was in the old cells, up to a dozen men per room.

I listened carefully as the quarters were allocated and I was glad to hear that Caro was given a separate room.

I was sent to talk to the squad of Marines we were relieving, all who were happy as fuck to be getting back to Leatherneck.

But it wasn’t good news: the Taliban had been sending in reinforcements over the last week, even though the number of RPG attacks had decreased. I got a cold feeling in my gut—the bastards were waiting for us. I couldn’t help thinking that they knew why we were here.

Not good.

I hadn’t even had time to find out where I was sleeping when chow was called. But then Grant ordered me to go talk to a bunch of locals who were hanging around the observation post at the entrance.

It turned out that they wanted to invite the boss to meet the town elder; they even promised to kill a goat for him. I’d bet my ass that Grant would be thrilled. It was polite to let them invite you three times and they would say ‘stay for tea’ the way we’d say ‘how are you?’ but not expect a real answer. But when they kept on inviting you, that was serious.

I passed the message on and Grant agreed that he’d come soon, but was unwilling to commit to a date in advance. I tried to tell him that this would be considered an insult, but he didn’t care. So much for hearts and minds. I relayed his answer, then spent 45 minutes dealing with the fall-out.

I was on his shit list but at least he didn’t give me punishment duty of doing a burn from the shit pits—no flushing toilets or refuse collection here. Setting fire to the latrine waste was seriously gross. Necessary, but gross.

I finally got some food three hours after everyone else had turned in and the first watch were on duty.

I wanted to make sure that Caro was okay before I headed back to the comms room to listen to the radio chatter about our arrival. What the fuck had I been given five terps for if I had to do all the grunt work? Okay, I knew the answer to that, but I was tired and pissed and really wanted to make sure Caro was safe. So I waited until I was sure no one would notice, then made my way to her side of the compound.

I crouched down outside her room, then opened the creaky door, whispering her name as I crawled inside.

She was sitting on a narrow air mattress, and I could just make out in the dim light that she had a huge smile on her face. My heart thumped painfully just looking at her.

“It’s like a dream having you here,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find I’ve imagined you.”

I pulled her into my arms and she clutched me tightly.

“My dreams aren’t usually this good,” she sighed against my chest.

“Mine are,” I said, a smile in my voice. “Or they used to be. When you first left, I dreamed about you all the time.”

“What was I doing?” she asked, stroking my cheek as the memories flooded back.

“Mostly, we were just walking on the beach.”