Colonel Supo’s agents and passed to the trackers, and finally radioed to the L-19 by the ASA people with the mixed A Teams on the ground.
His interest in seeing the L-19 was perfectly maintained was understandable, Cecilia thought. If the engine failed and the L-19 went down in the trackless bush, that would be the end of Major Smythe.
Smythe’s respect for Lunsford was obvious.
Barefoot Boy is obviously a special type of man.
Watch it, Cecilia. The last thing you want to do, for a long list of reasons, is get emotionally involved with Major George Washington “Father” Lunsford.
“I’ll come by here at about eight and pick you up,” Father said to Cecilia as they sat in the jeep outside the VIP house. “You just tell the houseboys what you want for breakfast, and when.”
“That would be fine,” she said.
“Unless you’d like to have breakfast with us—Aunt Jemima, Jose, and Doc—in the mess,” he said.
“That sounds even better,” she said.
“Then I’ll pick you up about quarter past seven?”
“Fine.”
“Is that where you planned to have dinner? The mess?” she asked.
He took her meaning.
“Good question,” he said. “I can’t go there, can I? Jose Whatsisname will know we didn’t really have plans. No problem. I’ll find something.”
“Would there be enough food in the house for both of us?”
“Sure.”
“Then we’ll have dinner here.”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“We have an understanding, don’t we? Our relationship will be professional, period?”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Father said.
“My, we do talk dirty, don’t we, Major?”
“I’m not very good at this game,” Lunsford said. “I don’t understand women, and never have. I can usually tell when men are lying to me, but I’m not good at that with women, and especially not with you.”
“What have I said that makes you wonder if I’m lying?”
“I just told you,” he said. “With that professional relationship, period, bullshit.”
“It would be an enormous mistake for both of us to get involved, ” she said.
“We’re not talking about enormous mistakes,” Father said. “We’re talking about do you want to, or not.”
“Want to what or not?”
“Shit, there you go again. You know goddamn well what I’m talking about.”
She met his eyes but said nothing.
“I suppose the bottom line is that I’m pretty stupid,” he said. “I just can’t understand how you can drive me crazy, and the only reaction I get from you is that I’m a soldier who talks dirty.”
“I drive you crazy?”
“When Jose Whatsisname came on to you, I wanted to slit his throat,” Father said.
That “slit his throat,” Cecilia decided, is not a figure of speech. “I can only repeat that it would be an enormous mistake for us to become involved,” Cecilia said.
“How the hell would we know that until we do?” Father asked. “Do you always go by the goddamned book? Don’t you ever take a chance? For Christ’s sake, for all you know we could be the greatest goddamned thing since sliced bread!”
She looked at him without speaking, got out of the jeep, and turned to look at him again.
He was sitting, both hands on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead.
She turned and walked onto the verandah, and there thought of something to say.
“George, come on in the house,” she called.
“What?”
“I said, ‘George, come on in the house,’ ” she said. “I am not going to call you ‘Father.’ ”
By the time he got in the house, she was in the corridor, looking into the dining room. She did not turn when she heard him walk up behind her.
“What now?” she asked.
“Well, we could open that bottle of champagne—it’s probably still cold—and sit in there or in the living room and make small talk, or we could take that bottle into the bedroom.”
She turned around and snapped, furiously, “Did you really think you were going to walk in here and jump in my bed? Just like that?”
“I didn’t know,” he said. “It was worth asking. And when you think about it, what’s wrong with it? I don’t think you play by other people’s rules anymore than I do. And, Jesus Christ, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
I should slap his face and tell him to get the hell out of here.
She looked into his eyes.
“If that was over the line,” he said, “and looking at your eyes, I guess it is, it’s because I don’t know where the goddamn line is.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. He stiffened but made no other move.
“Give me five minutes,” Cecilia heard herself saying. “I need a shower.