Stranded With The Sergeant

“Sometimes laughter is the only thing that keeps you going when it seems impossible to continue,” Joe quietly said, his smile disappearing. And sometimes even that didn’t work.

The Fates had to be laughing their heads off at him, crammed in a tin can van with five kids and his C.O.’s daughter. Yeah, someone up there was no doubt having hysterics right about now.

Too bad Joe wasn’t laughing with them. A year ago, none of this would have bothered him. But then Joe was a very different Marine than he’d been a year ago.

So far he seemed to be the only one aware of it. But that awareness was slowly eating away at him, along with the guilt and the secret shame that he was no longer good enough, strong enough, courageous enough to be called a United States Marine.

He bolted down those dark emotions and focused his attention on the passing scenery. They’d left the coastal plain and the short palmetto palms behind. They’d also passed the urban areas of Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, traveling clear across the state until they were now surrounded by pine forests. The green foothills had given way to bigger mountains, their rounded curves flowing from one ridge to the next in layers of smoky-blue.

The kids…er…the very short recruits continued peppering him with questions for the remainder of the drive. Every so often, Joe would turn to look at Prudence to see if he could read her thoughts. She didn’t talk much, letting him do the bulk of the work in responding to the questions being tossed his way by her ubercurious students. The small smile on her lips made him think that she was enjoying putting him in the hot seat.

Looking at her mouth made him hot, hot in a different way. Hot to kiss her, hot to taste her mouth, part her lips with his tongue and…

Joe blinked. What was he doing? He had no business fantasizing about his commanding officer’s daughter. No business at all.

Ordering his gaze away from her, he reminded himself that she was off-limits to him in every way.

“Is it true Marines have nicknames like Jughead?” Keishon said.

Joe tried not to wince. “Jarhead, not Jughead.”

“What other nicknames do Marines have?”

“Devil Dogs,” Joe replied.

“Sounds like a kind of hot dog they have at Dog ’n’ Suds. I think it has hot peppers in it,” Pete said.

Joe tried not to grit his teeth. “Sinatra, do you know why Marines are called Devil Dogs?”

“It better not be because they’re mean to dogs,” Keishon, the animal activist, said.

“Marines aren’t mean to dogs. The name came from the Germans during the first World War,” Sinatra proudly replied.

“Teufelhunden,” Joe said. “So named because of the Marines’ tenacity in combat during the Battle of Belleau Wood. Nice going, Sinatra.”

“Teacher’s pet,” Pete muttered.

“What was that?” Joe demanded, using his drill instructor voice.

“Nothing,” Pete quickly replied. “I was just…uh…coughing, sir.”

Just when Joe was sure he couldn’t stand being cooped up with this bunch a second later, Prudence cheerfully announced, “We’re here!”

The Sunshine Trailhead wasn’t nearly as impressive as it sounded. In reality it was merely a graveled parking lot. But it represented the end of the line as far as being stuck in this van with Pete, Keishon, Gem, Rosa and Sinatra—not to mention their impossibly sexy teacher Prudence.

Joe was the first one out of the van. As he watched the really short recruits climbing out of the van, he was reminded of circus routine he’d seen as a kid with clowns tumbling out of a VW Bug.

This wasn’t the most graceful bunch of really short recruits he’d ever seen. Not that being graceful was something a Marine aimed for, but this group seemed to fall over their own feet an awful lot.

Meanwhile Prudence stood watch with a clipboard, ticking off items as they were unpacked from the van.

“Six sleeping bags…” She paused to count them off as each student donned their backpack. “Check. Two tents. Check. Six backpacks. Check. I’m assuming you’re responsible for your own items, Sergeant Wilder?”

“Affirmative,” he replied, while efficiently adding the larger of the tents to his pack.

Prudence watched him work, the muscles in his arms rippling as he easily hefted the pack and put it on. He didn’t have the bulky frame of a football player or wrestler, but he was powerfully built in a lean-and-mean kind of way.

The sun had seared crinkles around his eyes, or maybe those were laugh lines? She was only now noticing that his nose and jaw weren’t perfectly symmetrical, saving him from a merely pretty-boy handsomeness. His was the face of a man who’d seen and done more than his fair share of living.

He’d been fairly good-natured about the kids’ incessant questions during the drive. She was surprised. She shouldn’t have been. Marines were infamous for following orders and as Joe had told her more than once, he’d been ordered to accompany her and her students on this field trip.

But that didn’t mean he’d grown any more comfortable with the situation. She still didn’t know what it was about the kids that made him uneasy. Maybe he was an only child or something and didn’t have much experience with kids.

She could ask him, she supposed. But she was hesitant to form a friendship with him. She didn’t want to know if he was an only child, didn’t want to know why his nose was a little off-kilter. The man himself made her feel off-kilter all the time. Keeping her distance, emotionally even if she couldn’t do that physically, was clearly the wise thing to do in this situation.

Yes, she was spending the weekend in the mountains with him, but they were being chaperoned by five sixth-graders. And it wasn’t as if she was dressed like a fashion model or anything. Her hardy hiking boots were hardly the thing to turn a man’s head. She was wearing the same khaki slacks and white T-shirt she’d had on earlier. She’d added a long-sleeved denim shirt and tied a red windbreaker around her waist.

Glancing at her reflection in the van’s outside mirror, she adjusted the silver hair clip she’d fastened her hair back with before turning to inspect her students. She checked each child’s backpack to make sure it was properly positioned, wasn’t too heavy and that the straps weren’t twisted.

Finally they headed off, with Joe in the front and Prudence bringing up the rear. From this vantage point she watched Joe. She’d always had a thing for guys in jeans, which is why she was surprised to find her heartbeat quickening. The man was wearing camouflage utilities, for heaven’s sake. Camies. Hardly sexy attire. But it was the man not the uniform that was getting to her. It was the man who was getting away from her as he set a pace much too fast for this group.

“Sergeant, we’re not on an enforced march here,” she called out. “We’re supposed to be enjoying the wilderness, not marching through it double-time.”

Joe shortened his usual long stride and fast tempo in order for the others to keep up with him. Even so, Prudence wasn’t satisfied, as she indicated when they took their first rest stop.

“Sergeant, you’re supposed to be leading the troop,” she said, “not running away from us.”

Her words were a deliberate red flag. A Marine never ran away from anything.

Prudence was trying to taunt him. He refused to give her the satisfaction of reacting.

Ignoring her comment, he spoke to the really short recruits, addressing them as if they were “poolies”—high school seniors who’d signed up for delayed entry into the Marine Corps upon graduation. “While we’re paused here, I’ll review the Marine Corps Survival techniques. Think of the word Survival. S stands for Sizing Up The Situation.”

The situation was that Joe was stuck in the mountains with a forbidden woman and five kids.

Shoving that thought aside, Joe asked. “What can you hear and see?”

“I hear birds and the wind in the trees,” Sinatra said.

“And I see a squirrel on that tree over there,” Rosa said.

“What about smell?” Joe asked.

“Hey, I took a shower this morning,” Pete declared. “I don’t smell.”

Joe stifled a laugh. “Close your eyes and sniff the air. What can you smell?”

“Pine. I smell pine,” Pete replied. “What about you, sir? What do you smell?”

Perfume. Joe smelled Prudence’s perfume. Like Al Pacino in that movie, Joe was pretty good at identifying a woman’s perfume. But this one had him stymied. It was something citrusy with a bit…of cinnamon maybe?

Erase that thought, Joe ordered himself. He refused to allow her entry into his thoughts. And if she barged into his thoughts, he vowed to toss her out.

“I smell pine, too,” Joe replied. “Now U stands for Undue Haste Makes Waste.”

“My point exactly,” Prudence inserted.

“R stands for Remember Where You Are.” Joe pointed to the topographical hiking map he had with him. “Orient yourself to the terrain, like that mountain over there.”

“The mountains all look the same,” Pete said.

“Not if you look closely,” Joe said. “See how it has that stand of bare trees near the top?”

“Probably killed by acid rain,” Keishon stated darkly.

Joe continued, “V stands for Vanquishing Fear and Panic.” Yeah, right. This was one Joe had to work on himself, big-time. He shoved those thoughts aside. “I stands for Improvise. V stands for Value Living and A for Act Like Natives.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keishon said. “What natives live in the mountains?”

“Animals,” Gem replied on Joe’s behalf. “Animals live in the mountains.”

“And animals are smarter than people,” Keishon said. “They know stuff, like where water is, right?”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “So we’ve covered S…U…R…V…I…V…A. Which leaves us with?”

“L,” Sinatra supplied.

“And L stands for Live by Your Wits,” Joe concluded. “Learning basic skills helps you develop your self-confidence.”

Sinatra nodded. “I checked out some camping Web sites and learned about wilderness skills stuff. It made me feel better about this trip, made me look forward to it more.”

Keishon added, “And Ms. Martin covered other information in class.”

Covered…oh, yes, he’d like to see Ms. Martin covered, all right. Covered in yards and yards of concealing material, because maybe then he wouldn’t notice the way her T-shirt molded the curve of her breasts. He was watching the woman breathe, for God’s sake. Not a good sign.

“All right, recruits,” Joe barked. “Time to move out!” And time for him to remember the goals of his mission this weekend where Prudence Martin was concerned—survival, not seduction.

Chapter Four

“I don’t agree,” Prudence was saying.

Surprise, surprise, Joe irritably thought to himself. His C.O.’s little princess hadn’t agreed with one single thing he’d done or said for the past two hours.

Pointing to a spot just to her right in the opposite direction of the place Joe had chosen, she said, “I think this campsite is better.”

“It is if you want the cold night air blowing through your tent. The prevailing winds here are from the west, which means you don’t want the entrance to your tent facing that way. Ma’am,” he added.

“Why didn’t you just say why you wanted the tent placed the way you did in the first place?” she asked in exasperation before holding up her hand like a cop stopping traffic. “Never mind, I know the answer to that question. Because you’re a Marine and you’re used to having your orders blindly obeyed.” Placing her hands on her slender hips, she said, “Well, I’m not one of your recruits.”

“No kidding, ma’am,” he drawled respectfully, unable to stop himself from appreciating what a pretty picture she made, standing there all flushed and riled up.

“So let’s both keep in mind the reason we’re here.”

“Because your father, my commanding officer, ordered me to be here, ma’am,” he said.

“To give the kids an educational and enjoyable outing,” she corrected him. “They worked hard on their science projects and I don’t want anything ruining this weekend for them.” Her gaze was direct, her chocolate-brown eyes unwavering. “So what do you say we call a temporary truce?” She held out her hand. “For the kids. Shall we shake on it?”

There was no reason for Joe to hesitate. No reason to expect the powerful jolt of sexual attraction that slammed into him at the feel of her slender fingers curled around his hand. But it was there. Unmistakable. Ferocious. Unsettling.

Studying her face, he saw that Prudence felt it, too. There was a startled yet intrigued look in her eyes that he found incredibly appealing. He’d found plenty of women sexy in the past, but none of them had made him feel downright bedazzled the way she did.

Danger, Joe Wilder! The silent warning shot through his mind and he dropped her hand as if it were a live grenade.

Sure, Joe liked a challenge, especially one that involved a good-looking woman, but he was no dummy. This wasn’t a challenge, it was professional suicide.

Taking any action on the sizzling chemistry crackling between them would be a speedy one-way ticket right out of the Marines. Her father would see to that. Not that there was any regulation against dating your C.O.’s daughter; it was one of those unspoken rules like not putting your hand in a raging inferno. Common sense dictated you didn’t do stupid things like that.

And Joe had plenty of common sense. Or at least he always had in the past.

Stepping away from her, he concentrated on getting the two tents up, making sure the very short recruits assisted.

Watching him supervise the kids, Prudence rubbed her fingers, which still hummed from his touch. He had a large hand, but it wasn’t his handshake that had been overpowering. No, it was Joe that was overpowering. And not just in a physical way, although she was extremely aware of him physically.

The camies and field jacket he wore were hardly the most sexy attire. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen thousands of Marines dressed identically in her lifetime. But there was something about this Marine that got to her.

Maybe it was his Mel Gibson blue eyes or the slight dimple at the right of his mouth when he smiled. There was just something about him…

It certainly wasn’t his way with kids. He was still on edge around them.

Oh, it wasn’t noticeable if you weren’t looking. But she was looking, that was the problem. She was looking at Joe Wilder entirely too much.

Asking Gem and Keishon to help her, she gathered firewood for a campfire. The campsite already had an area for fires designated by a ring of large rocks. By the time they had a healthy-size fire going, the tents were up and the sleeping bags stowed.

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