Read Online Anything, Anywhere, Anytime by Catherine Mann - Free Book Online

sand." He gulped the last swig of water, scouted for a refill, found the woman trying to capture the attention of a young Private First Class. "After how much time we've spent over here, I feel like I've got an extra five pounds of grit embedded in this old body."
    "Old?" Korba tipped back his chair. "No doubt you'll be running circles around most of us during the rest of your ten years in the service."
    Drew stayed silent. Hauled another bite up to his mouth.
    Korba's chair legs thudded to a landing. "You're getting out at twenty?"
    "Who the hell knows? It's possible." At forty-two, he'd still have time to start another career. Doing...
    what?
    His attention snagged on the woman sidling closer to the young private. Her dress swished like a small dark cloud drifting with each sway of her hips. The young PFC—Santuci, maybe?—pulled his earphones off his head, white bandage on his hand glaring in the bald overhead light. A single look at the flirty bat of eyelashes and Santuci smiled.
    Where the hell was the boy's lieutenant? Homesick soldiers made too easy a target. Hell, they didn't even have to be across the ocean to be lonely. He'd been an ROTC student, taken in by a woman hunting for a way out of her hometown. Any officer would do for her. He'd just bitten first.
    He and Glenna had lasted all of three years and one kid before she moved on to a civilian guy with a smoother veneer and higher pay grade. "Some days I think it would be nice to wake up without sand in my shorts, to spend some time playing with my granddaughter. Other days I figure I'll die with a rifle in my hands because I'm a bachelor soldier at heart. Know what I mean?"
    "Afraid I do."
    Korba twisted open another bottle of the water, reached into his front pocket and pulled out a thin pack of NutraSweet Kool-Aid. The powder spread a cherry-red stain and scent. Two quick shakes of the bottle and he gulped half while Drew kept a steady lock on the young love in action across the crowded dining hall.
    The private pointed as if giving directions. The petite woman stared back at him without talking, studying him, before nodding. Her head tucked, she moved on.
    Relief and a chuckle kicked through him. He'd turned into a cynical old bastard.
    Leaning across the table, Drew tapped Korba's bottle of Kool-Aid, "Wish I'd thought of that during Desert Storm while we were stuck out there eating sand for six months."
    "Here ya go, sir." Jack whipped out a purple packet and skidded it across the table.
    "You could make a mint selling that over here if you bring more."
    "Hope I won't need it again."
    Quiet settled between them, heavy with the unspoken knowledge of the inevitability of another battle on another day in another place. A soldier's mission. Meanwhile, focus on this victory. Tomorrow would come gunning soon enough.
    Korba scraped back his chair. "Well, sir, I need to hook up with Doc Hyatt on a few points and it looks like she's through with the vaccines now."
    Drew flipped his wrist to check his watch. "It's about time to sleep, anyway. See you tomorrow at the mobile command center?"
    "Roger that, sir," Korba shot over his shoulder already rounding the corner of the table.
    Drew wadded up his napkin, pitched it on top of his half-eaten stew. Thumbing up the edge of the grape Kool-Aid, he smacked it against his hand idly and hunted for the girl pushing the water cart. Damn, but a man could dehydrate before she made it over.
    Scanning four tables down, he found her. Talking again. This time with the copilot Derek Washington—
    Rodeo. The copilot's wide smile flashed across his coffee-toned skin. Her hands fluttered through the air with the same gestures as if asking for directions like before with Santuci.
    Exactly the same gestures.
    Like a concocted excuse to talk.
    His brain shifted to military mode, never too far of a shuffle. The Air Force's Office of Special Investigations—OSI—would have checked her out. But shit happened. Stuff got past. Losing some