Camouflaged (Hiding From Love #0.5) (4 page)

T
he
desert of Afghanistan wasn’t stereotypical flat sand desert. There was plenty of dirt, but there were also rocks. Outcroppings everywhere, giant cliffs and caves, and piles of rocks. But it was all dry. Dry as the proverbial bone and one of the harshest landscapes I’d ever seen. In the midst of all of this, there were sandstorms that would blow up out of nowhere. Sometimes they’d last a few minutes, but other times a few hours.

Three days after we called a truce, Alexis and I were working our way through the village, doing a survey of needs when one of the storms whipped through. Our group had split up into different sections of the village, and the area we were canvassing was almost entirely residential—narrow streets with rows of adobe housing strung together with common walls. There weren’t any businesses on this street, and no one was opening up their door to offer us help. But I knew from experience that if we didn’t get to cover fast we’d be sandblasted.

Alexis stood with her head down, face against the wall of a house, as I’d instructed, while I looked around as best I could for someplace to take her. This was why she had me here—to be the one who knew how the place worked, to keep her safe and make sure she could do her humanitarian work. As a fifty-mile-per-hour wind scoured her hair and scalp with sand and she huddled against the side of a mud hut, I didn’t feel like I was doing such a great job.

Finally, I spotted a crevice between two houses down the street. Most houses were constructed with common walls, so there weren’t a lot of spaces in between, but I guessed we could fit into the one I’d spotted.

I had my bandana over my mouth and nose in order to breathe while I hunted down a safe place, but I took it off and came up behind Alexis, reaching around her and tying it over her face, leaving just her eyes exposed.

“What about you?” she shouted over the wind.

“I’ll be fine,” I answered, my mouth right next to her ear. “We’re not going far.” I pointed toward the crevice. She squinted at me, but for once, she didn’t argue. I put my arm around her, she tucked into my side, and we ran.

When we reached the small opening, I shoved her inside. There was slightly more room than I had thought, and we each fit facing one another so our backs were to the openings on either end, blocking the wind and sand that occasionally surged in.

Once we were settled, Alexis yanked down the scarf and looked up at me with big, wide eyes.

“Oh my God! What
is
that?” she breathed out.

“
That
is a sandstorm, and not even a very bad one,” I said, reaching out and tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear without even thinking.

“Does it happen a lot?”

“Every few weeks. They’re not so bad if you’re on base or in a vehicle, but out in the open it’s major suckage.”

She laughed at my understatement. “So I guess we’re stuck here until it’s over?”

“I’m afraid so, but a lot of times they’re quick, so don’t panic.”

She shifted a little, trying to find some way to get comfortable in our little prison. “I just hope I don’t have to pee or anything before it’s over.”

I chuckled. “I think you’ll be all right. One of the other guys and I were trapped in a cargo truck for six hours during one of these things, and amazingly, no one wet themselves.”

She rolled her eyes at me before she said suddenly, “Why’d you join the Army anyway?”

“Wow. Don’t bother with any preliminaries.”

She blushed and shifted her weight from one leg to another again, accidently brushing my chest with hers as she did.

“Sorry, my mom’s always saying I’m completely tactless.”

I smiled, secretly relishing that little chest-to-chest contact.

“It’s okay. Really. I enlisted for two reasons. The first was that my best friend from home, Nick, wanted to enlist, and well, I’ve always watched out for him. It’s sort of how we work. Although in the end even I couldn’t save him.”

She started at that, and her face fell, her eyes welling up. “Oh, God, he…I mean, he isn’t…”

“No, no, he’s alive and well in Sacramento. Or maybe not so well, but in one healthy piece physically and the rest I guess he’s working on.”

She sighed and I saw a single tear roll out of her eye and run down her cheek.

“Aw, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how that sounded when I said it. I’ll tell you about what happened to Nick someday, but now’s not the time. He’ll be fine though. Back out there wandering around like a lost puppy before I can get home I’m sure.” I took my index finger and gently wiped the tear away.

She sniffed then blushed again and dropped her head down as she looked at our booted feet. “Sorry. I’m kind of an idiot sometimes. I used to cry over cheesy commercials even.”

My voice came out gruff when I answered her, and my throat felt thick and awkward. “You’re not an idiot, you care about people. Maybe too much sometimes, but that’s better than caring too little. The world needs people like you, Alexis. If they were all like me everyone would kill each other and civilization would end.”

She giggled and gave me a little push in the chest. My heart thumped –
again, again, again
.

“You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you’re a lot nicer guy than you let on.”

I shook my head at her, but I was smiling.

“You said there were two reasons you joined up. Nick was the first, so what was the second?”

I sighed, wishing I hadn’t started this. “Well, I’ve got a single mom. She’s the secretary for the Lieutenant Governor of California, so it’s a great job, but it’s still government pay and long hours. She really struggled while I was growing up, and as soon as I finished high school, I wanted to help her out. The military was the fastest way to get decent pay that I could send back home to her. I’ve got her putting most of it in an extra retirement account so she’ll be very comfortable when she can’t work anymore.”

Alexis looked at me with those sweet brown eyes, and the little freckles across her nose stood out in the weird tinted light that accompanied the sandstorm.

“That’s incredible,” she said to me with awe. “I can’t imagine being the one to support your parent at our age. I mean, I’ve got some loans for school, but I rely on my parents for almost everything. You are a way better guy than you let on.”

I felt that familiar ache in my midsection. Not this. Not the expectations. Expectations were my enemy because I knew I couldn’t meet them. My full-time job was killing those damn expectations in their infancy before they could take hold and ruin my fucking life.

“No, babe, I’m really not. I’m every bit the asshole you first thought I was, but even assholes have mothers.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Not buying it. Why do you work so hard at making everyone hate you?”

It took every bit of my willpower not to back out of that tiny space and head off into the sandstorm. This was the moment when I’d normally run far, far away. It’s what my dad had done, and I was one hundred percent his boy. But stuck in a situation where I couldn’t escape, I had to figure out a different way to deal.

I looked down at her beautiful face though, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say except the truth. It poured out of me against my will, and the whole time some little part of my brain was screaming,
This will ruin you
.

“My dad. I was seven when he left me and my mom high and dry. I can hardly remember him, but I do remember that day. Him standing there next to his big pickup truck while my mom sobbed and hit him over and over. He took her by the arms and shoved her away and said, ‘You can cry all you want, darlin’, but I’m not coming back. I wasn’t meant for all this, and you can’t change who I am.’ He couldn’t be bothered to say even
that
much to me. No ‘Goodbye, kid,’ nothing. After that, it was weeks before my mom could leave the house again. By the time she got it together, child protective services was threatening to take me away and our house was in foreclosure.”

I heard Alexis suck in her breath, and her face turned pale as her eyes dropped away from mine. Good. Maybe this
was
the best way. Let her hear it all. Then she’d know who she was really dealing with.

“Years later, when I tracked him down, I found out he’d fathered two other kids with two other women after my mom, and he’d left all of them too. That’s who I come from. If you’re looking for a good time, give me a call. If you’re looking for a good guy, keep on walking.”

The small space we occupied seemed to become larger and larger as I felt Alexis withdraw, trying to get as far from me as she could. I didn’t blame her.

Then without any warning, she stepped forward, bringing her into full contact with me, toe to chest. She was warm, and I felt her soft breasts give way against my chest as she stood on her tiptoes. She reached up and put her hand along my cheek, the stubble there making a rasping noise against her palm.

Her lips parted, and for a minute, I thought she was going to kiss me. I felt my breath hitch with the anticipation, and my hands automatically went to her hips. I looked down at her, trying to decipher what was going through her mind.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” she said fiercely as she rubbed her thumb across my lips. “Don’t make what he did your sin. You’re smart and healthy and young. You can be anyone you want. You could have been fathered by the devil himself and it wouldn’t matter. Be you, but be the
best
you, not some bad rendition of
him
.”

She licked her lips, and we froze for a moment that seemed to carry on for hours. Finally, she stepped back, taking her hand off my face, and it was like I’d surfaced from being underwater. The sounds around me rushed back in as if I’d been deaf and could now hear. The tightness of the space was overwhelming and I felt my heart pull inside my chest until it physically ached. I swallowed, trying to overcome the sensation, but it lodged there like a burning lump of coal.

I unconsciously put my fist up to my chest, wondering how I was supposed to do anything with that pain there. Alexis continued staring at me with her luminous eyes. All at once, I blinked, and she dropped her gaze.

I said, “I’d better check how everything looks at the street.” And I left.

Alexis and I tried to get back to being business-like over the next few days. I helped her as she took her turns with inventory and did more surveying. I walked her to and from all her meals and even played a few rounds of Monopoly with her and the other UN volunteers. Her buddy Steve kept me under his evil eye whenever he was around, but Alexis and I were so formal with each other he couldn’t find anything to tattle about.

The pain in my chest persisted though. Her words came to me at night when I was in my cot, trying unsuccessfully to go to sleep. Why this girl had gotten to me like that, had
gotten
me like that, I couldn’t figure out. She was a girl. An ordinary American girl. Only she wasn’t, and deep down I knew it.

At the end of the second week of the UN’s tour, Alexis and I were walking back to her tent after dinner when I decided I wanted to figure out who she really was. I needed to understand her.

“So, did you grow up in Austin?” I asked as we strolled slowly through camp in the dwindling light.

“No, a little town to the south called San Marcos.”

“And both your parents lived with you?” I watched her profile as we moved along side by side in an easy rhythm.

“Yeah. My parents were both born in Mexico but grew up in Texas. They’re still kind of old fashioned, you know? Catholic and all that. Family’s everything in that world.”

“Catholic. So you probably have a bunch of brothers and sisters?”

She laughed. “Four. But you know, I don’t believe for a second that my parents didn’t use any birth control all those years. I mean, really, only five kids? As much as it grosses me out to think about them having sex, I hope they were having it more than that.”

Somehow the word “sex” coming out of Alexis’s mouth was more than I’d bargained for with this conversation. I took a deep breath. trying to ease the images that popped into my head of her long, dark hair sweeping over my chest while she rode me hard. Fuck. Do. Not. Go there, Thompson.

I cleared my throat. “How’d you get to be such a liberal, do-gooder if you came from a conservative family? Does it piss your parents off?”

She stopped and looked at me thoughtfully. “Well, they’re conservative in their religion, but they always taught me to be kind to less fortunate people in the world. They’ve always felt like we were lucky to live where we do, but they didn’t want us to forget that we have relatives in other places who aren’t as lucky, and we have an obligation to help them.”

I motioned to one of the benches that were sometimes used when the unit gathered for an outdoor training session. We both walked over and sat. She crossed her legs primly, although I knew she wasn’t, so it was a cute gesture.

“And little Alexis grows up in a south Texas town, with her spitfire personality, ready to go off and save the world, huh?”

Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed until she looked at me a little closer and saw I was yanking her chain. She snorted. “Yeah, something like that.”

“But seriously, you’re pretty driven for an eighteen year-old. I mean, most girls your age are running around campus, ditching classes, and wondering where the next party is, but you’ve volunteered for international aid work and you’re thousands of miles from home in a war zone. What makes you tick, Alexis Garcia?” I held out my hand like it had a microphone in it.

She adopted a beauty contestant voice, pitched higher than her normal husky tones. “Well, Gabe, I’ve always loved other people and children and puppies. And I really want to teach everyone about world peace and how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie.”

I busted up, knocking my shoulder against hers as I laughed. She bumped me back and then, as our laughter died, we sat there for a few minutes, looking at the moon that was rising over the tents.

Finally, when I thought we’d have to walk back to her tent without getting the answers I wanted, she spoke softly. “When I was fifteen I was in love.”

I sat still, not looking at her, afraid if I moved a muscle she’d stop.

“The guy was my older brother’s best friend. Juan was from Mexico and his mom had come over illegally. We went to a school that was really mixed. There were mostly Latinos, but some of them were second or third generation, and others had just made it across the border. My family didn’t care. We never asked about anyone’s immigration status even though my parents both had U.S. citizenship. We never thought much of it.”

She sighed then, and I took the chance to look at her. Her face was turned up to the moon, and even in the darkness I could see a single tear slowly rolling down her cheek. My hand fisted as I resisted the urge to reach out and brush the tiny drop away.