Stranded With The Sergeant. Cathie Linz

      The same was not true of Joe Wilder.

      She’d have to tell her father he wouldn’t do for this assignment. He’d have to find her someone else. Until then, they might as well begin the tour of the base. There was no reason Joe couldn’t do that. She’d then speak to her father about a replacement for the remainder of the weekend.

      “Okay, class, listen up now. Sergeant Wilder is here to begin our tour of the base. He’s going to give you some background information about the history of the base and then begin the actual tour. Go ahead, Sergeant Wilder.”

      She was a bit surprised by the deer-in-the-headlights look Joe gave the gathered group of twenty-five kids. Maybe speaking in front of a group wasn’t his thing? But then a Marine never showed any fear. And Joe was no different. His voice was strong, his demeanor confident as he began speaking.

      “Listen up, everyone. You may address me as either Sergeant Wilder or sir. I’d like to welcome you all today to Camp Lejeune, a United States Marine Corps base, where we train the Marine Air/Ground Task Forces defending our country. Okay, let’s start the tour.” He seemed in a big hurry to get out of the small conference room all of a sudden.

      “First tell the class a bit more about the base’s history,” Prudence suggested.

      “Well,” he drawled, “the base has been here a long time, ma’am.”

      “How long?” she pressed, enjoying putting him on the spot. There was something about the confidently sexy smile he’d flashed at her when he’d first walked into the room that had irked her. Equally irritating was her own response, the quickening of her heartbeat, the awareness of his vivid blue eyes and good looks.

      And then there was that moment when he’d leaned close as if to kiss her. She hadn’t been expecting that. She’d gotten used to men keeping their distance.

      Turning to the class, Joe said, “Anyone know how long the base has been here?”

      Two hands shot up. Since Joe had asked the question, she let him select which student would answer. He picked Pete Greene, a whiz with facts and figures. “Since World War Two, uh, 1941 to be exact, sir.”

      “Okay, let’s start the tour,” Joe said again.

      Prudence held out a hand, stopping the mass exodus. “I think the class would like to know where the base got its name.”

      “Why did they name it after a legume?” Rosa Santos asked. “Aren’t peanuts legumes?”

      “It’s Lejeune, dummy,” Pete replied on Joe’s behalf. “And it’s huge, over 153,000 acres.”

      Sinatra Washington raised his hand, his silver-rimmed glasses glinting against his dark mocha complexion. “Sergeant Wilder, tell them about the fifty-four live-fire ranges, eighty-nine maneuver areas, thirty-three gun positions and twenty-five tactical landing zones.”

      “Maybe you should lead this tour,” Joe replied. “Where did you get all that information?”

      “From the Internet, sir.” Sinatra, one of her most curious students and an avid fan of the Internet, held up the sheet of paper he’d printed from his computer.

      Not wanting to be left behind in any statistical discussion, Pete said, “I read about that, too. You both failed to mention the state-of-the-art Military Operations in Urban Terrain training facility.”

      “I’m telling you, these kids don’t need me here at all.” Joe’s voice may have been filled with humorous teasing, but she suspected there was an underlying element of fact there. He didn’t want to be here. He wasn’t comfortable around the kids. Oh, he tried not to show it, but there was a definite tenseness in his stance.

      “Camp Lejeune has a self-guided tour with twenty-five points of interest,” Sinatra stated.

      “Self-guided, huh?” Joe repeated.

      “Yes, sir. There’s even a tour book that coordinates with the signs for each numbered point of interest.”

      “Self-guided. Well, that’s great. Then you definitely don’t need me,” Joe stated with a hearty laugh.

      “You’re here to answer any questions,” Prudence reminded him.

      He wanted to tell her that to do that he’d have to have access to the tour book, which the kid with the glasses and strange name seemed to have printed off the Internet. He wanted to tell her that he’d only been at the base a few weeks, he wanted to tell her he wasn’t as dumb as he sounded. But most of all he wanted to get the heck out of here. Which meant starting the tour, whether he knew what he was talking about or not.

      “This building houses base headquarters,” Joe said as he opened the door and headed down the hallway. If the kids wanted to follow him, fine. No way was he staying in that tiny claustrophobic room with twenty-five kids a second longer. Flirting with her had distracted him for a while, but now that he knew the sexy teacher was off-limits, he didn’t have anything to keep his mind off of the panic.

      “The outside of the building looks like my church, only bigger,” Rosa said as she followed him into the hallway, as did all the other kids and along with their rebellious teacher. “Redbrick with that fancy white thing on top.”

      “A cupola.” At least that was one answer he could supply.

      Rosa frowned up at Joe. “I thought he was the director of the movie The Godfather.”

      “That’s Francis Ford Coppola,” Pete said, rolling his eyes at her.

      “An easy mistake to make,” Joe said, wanting to keep moving. “As I said, you’re inside Base Headquarters. From here the Commanding General oversees the daily workings of the entire base.”

      “And how many Marines would that include?” Prudence asked.

      The teacher had it out for him. Joe could tell by the questions she asked and by the way her lush mouth turned up in what he was coming to believe was a diabolical, if sexy, smile each time she asked them.

      Fine, honey. Two can play at that game.

      “Sinatra, how many Marines would that be?” Joe said.

      Consulting his printout first, Sinatra said, “Approximately fifty thousand Marines, Navy personnel, civilian employees and military families, sir.”

      Joe liked this kid. As they passed the front lobby with its small display of historical swords, Sinatra discreetly passed him a copy of the self-guided tour book.

      “Thanks,” Joe murmured.

      “I know what’s it’s like to be picked on,” Sinatra told him with a reassuring smile.

      Jeez, he’d come to this. A middle school teacher was picking on him. Him. Joe Wilder. An experienced United States Marine. Being picked on, not picked up as was often the case, by a woman. A sexy woman. A woman who was completely off-limits to him, seeing as how she was his commanding officer’s “little princess.”

      He had to find a way to get out of this assignment.

      The tour went more smoothly once he had the guidebook in his possession. He was able to tell the class about the massive live oak tree that was estimated to be over 350 years old. When one cocky kid asked him for the Latin name of the tree, he was even able to give that—Quercus virginiana.

      Things got a little trickier in the barracks. There was something unexpectedly provocative about being with Prudence in a room filled with so many mattresses. Maybe he wasn’t as bad off as he thought if he could think of sex at a time like this.

      Of course, another way of looking at things was that he was truly certifiable to be entertaining the thought of his commanding officer’s daughter and the word sex in the same sentence.

      And then there were all the kids, swarming around in masses and sucking all the oxygen from the room.

      “These beds