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“The brass thinks of everything,” he said lightly. “Do you want coffee?”
“You know, I thought I would, but…” He heard her yawn. “On second thought, maybe not.”
“No. Me neither. That’s good.” He squatted down, hissed as he plucked the hot pot from the fire and set it on the ground. “That means we have this water for washing.”
“With what?”
Good question. He looked around, saw the T-shirt she’d exchanged for one of his.
“This okay?”
She nodded, and he dipped the shirt into the hot water, wrung it out and then dipped it in again before he offered it to her. She ran it over her face and throat, and made a little mmm sound at the welcome feel of it.
“What I’d give for a real bath,” she said as she gave the wet shirt back to him.
What he’d give to see her take a real bath or, better still, to take that bath with her, but he’d already thought about that before and if it had been a bad idea then, it was worse now.
Man, if he kept going like this, he was a dead man walking.
“Thanks,” he said, and scrubbed his hands and face hard, hoping he’d gotten off most of the camo paint.
“Warrior paint? Or military paint?”
He looked at her. “What?”
“I just wondered…” She blushed and sho
ok her head. “Sorry.”
“The stripes, you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You mean,” he said, deadpan, is it what they teach in Sneaking Through the Jungle 101? Or did I dance around a campfire first?”
Alessandra buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, I never should have…”
“It’s standard-issue military camouflage paint.” He grinned. “But now that I think about it, my great-great-great-grandfather probably would have approved.”
She took her hands from her face. “Are you making fun of me, Lieutenant?”
“He was a warrior. A war chief. He fought at Little Bighorn.”
“Really?” She folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t know as much as I should about American history, but I know about that. It must have been an amazing day for him and his people.”
Tanner nodded. The story had been passed from generation to generation. His own father had told it to him countless times. At first, he’d hung on every word. By the time he turned thirteen, he’d hated the tale. He’d started to see it as the one thing his old man could be proud of and it had happened more than one hundred years before.
Eventually, of course, his perception had changed…
“What was his name? Your great-great-grandfather?”
“You left out a ‘great.’ His name was Running Bear. But after Little Big Horn, the people called him Akecheta. Warrior.”
“And you’re named for him.”
Hell. Why had he told her all that? At least he could keep quiet about the rest, that the name had been given to him after he’d participated in a sacred Sun Dance.
“Something like that.”
