One Man's War. Lindsay McKenna

like today is shot day. Lucky people,” Pete teased. “Glad it’s not me.”

      Tess glanced at the long line in front of her. “Well, if I had some help, the vaccinations could go faster.”

      “Is that a hint for me to roll up my sleeves and get to work?”

      She smiled up at him as his shadow fell across her. “You seemed to know a great deal about medicine last week. Sure, pitch in. If you can fill the syringes, hand them to me, this will go twice as fast.”

      “If I do, will you take an hour out of your schedule and visit with me?”

      Tess shook her head and managed a sour laugh. “Do you always have to bargain with a woman, trade something for her attention?”

      Pete moseyed on over to her “table” and methodically began to do as Tess asked. “Well, now remember, most ladies just fall into my arms without a fight. I only make trade-offs with tough lady customers who have to be convinced of my being a good thing in their lives.”

      “Oh, boy,” Tess said, rolling her eyes and laughing as the next person in line, a mother with three small children, stepped up to her.

      Occasionally, Pete looked up from his duties. Tess knew Vietnamese fluently, and her voice was soft and rhythmic as she spoke to each woman and child. She had such gentleness. Pete wished mightily that Tess would touch him like that. It was obvious to him that the Vietnamese worshipped Tess. But he knew they could never really appreciate her fully—the way he could.

      “So, Lee is getting better, huh?” he asked, handing her another syringe filled with vaccine.

      “Yes, much better. Thanks to you.”

      “You promised to have a glass of mineral water at the O club with me on that one.”

      Tess gave him a wary look. “I haven’t forgotten.”

      “More importantly, have you been looking forward to it?”

      With a delicate shrug, Tess said, “Would a monkey look forward to being trapped and eaten by a tiger?”

      “You’ve been in Nam too long. You’re already beginning to sound like a Zen Buddhist—answering a question with a question.”

      She grinned and swabbed down the next boy’s arm. “Just answer my question, Mallory. Why should I allow myself to be trapped by you?”

      Pete had the good grace to blush, something he’d not done in a long, long time. Placing two more filled syringes next to her, he muttered, “Since when is kissing or making love a trap?”

      Tess hooted, and several of the villagers smiled even though they didn’t understand enough English to know what had been said. “Real love is never a trap. Is that how you see love?”

      Uncomfortable, Pete shrugged. Only five more people stood in line and then they’d have time to themselves, time for him to woo Tess with his array of scrounged gifts. “I’m not sure what love is.”

      Giving him a curious look, Tess said, “What an odd thing to say.” What had happened to Pete to make him that doubtful of one of the most beautiful feelings in the world? “There are so many kinds of love,” Tess began softly. Smiling up at her next patients, she said, “The love of a mother for her child. The love of a brother for a sister. The love of a husband for his wife.”

      Scowling heavily, Pete fixed the last syringe and handed it to Tess. “Yeah, well, I’m not too well acquainted with any of the above. Maybe that’s why I don’t put much stock in this thing called love that everyone thinks is so great.”

      The vibrating anger beneath his words made Tess turn and study him for a moment. She returned to the last few vaccinations. “Tell me about your mother. What kind of woman is she?”

      Pete snorted violently and shoved his hands into the pockets of his flight suit. “A bitch.”

      Tess froze momentarily beneath his grated words, then finished the injections. She slowly turned around to face Pete. His eyes refused to meet hers, but the anger banked in them was very real. And so was the thundercloud-dark expression on his hardened features. Instinctively, Tess knew she was treading on some very painful ground.

      “Tell me about her,” she coaxed gently as she gathered up the used syringes and empty vaccine bottles.

      He shrugged and his mouth quirked. “What’s there to tell? I was the unwanted brat. The minute after I was born, my mother gave me up. She abandoned me, according to her older sister, because she was only sixteen years old at the time. I was a mistake that happened, and believe me, her whole family thought so, too. No one in the family would take me for various and sundry reasons, so I ended up in a string of foster homes until I was twelve. By that time, I was past the cute and cuddly stage, so no one wanted me. I spent time in a Chicago orphanage until I was eighteen. When I got out, I headed to college to make something of myself. I never wanted to look back. I never wanted to hear from any of my so-called `real’ family again. They didn’t want me, so I don’t give a damn about them.”

      Pete nailed Tess with a lethal look. “Don’t talk to me about love. I don’t know what the hell it is. I never did. Now, rejection—I can tell you a whole lot about that. And quitting—that, too. I come from a family of gutless wonders who would rather let a little kid go than try to keep him.” Darkly, he looked down at his dusty flight boots. Why the hell was he telling Tess about himself? It was the cardinal rule in his book of life never to divulge anything of himself to anyone—especially a woman. She could do too much damage with that kind of information.

      Tess packed the medical supplies into the small cardboard box, at a loss for words for several moments. She felt Pete’s pain as if it were her own. Glancing around the village, where so many children played happily, she looked up at him, her face filled with compassion. His mouth was a tight line holding back a deluge of suppressed feelings. Somehow, some-where in her heart, Tess knew she could unlock that buried grief and pain for Pete. But at what price to herself? He didn’t acknowledge love, and with good reason. He could take, but he wasn’t going to give to her or anyone.

      “I’m sorry if I touched a raw nerve.”

      “Hell, that nerve’s been dead a long time,” he said explosively. Exasperated, he added, “Look, I didn’t mean to talk about myself. Let’s forget it.” He moved like a tightly coiled spring to where he’d set the box, and brought it back to the makeshift table. In an effort to shake off all mention of his dark and unhappy past, Pete struggled to put on a smile and tuck away all his emotions. “I’ve been gathering things all week for you. Go on, take a look.”

      Hesitantly, Tess stood up and moved over beside Pete. As he folded open the flaps of the cardboard box, she gasped. There was an incredible array of medical supplies—adhesive tape, several thermometers, huge rolls of gauze, brand-new scissors, Mercurochrome and at least fifty bottles of penicillin. With a gasp, she reached out, barely touching the items.

      “Pete...” she breathed disbelievingly. “How—”

      “Now, honey, don’t go asking a scrounger how he got what he got for you. Those are trade secrets.” He forced a smile he still didn’t feel, although Tess’s glowing features assuaged some of the pain that lingered in his chest. Still in shock that he’d admitted his anger toward his mother to Tess, he felt awkward.

      “This is wonderful! Oh, look! Typhoid, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccine! The babies won’t die from any of those, now.” She held up a huge amber bottle. “And malaria tablets!”

      A hot, powerful feeling moved through Pete as Tess made a big deal over the supplies. Something good and clean flowed through him, erasing much of the ugliness that roiled within him. Her joy was genuine, the look in her lovely green eyes telling him everything. It struck Pete that Tess simply didn’t play the games other women played back in the States. There was a straightforward simpleness about her, that soft Texas drawl of hers touching him like a heated fever, changing him in ways he’d never be able to logically categorize.