Tess led Pete to the back of a large thatched hut—literally, a wooden frame roofed with a blend of dried grass and woven palm leaves. Behind it ran a small stream about four feet deep and six feet wide. She gestured to the water.
“This is where you can clean up. I suggest you strip out of that flight suit, wash it out and put it back on.”
“Hey, wait! Where are you going?”
“To my hut to get cleaned up,” Tess said wryly. There was something vulnerable about Pete Mallory in that moment. It struck Tess acutely, and she mentally assimilated the discovery. For all his macho bravado, suddenly he looked helpless. “When you get washed off, come to my hut. I’ve got a comb you can use, and some soap, plus a small bowl.”
He grinned suddenly. “Sounds good.”
“That’s an invitation to clean up, Captain, not chase me. Okay?”
“Anything the lady wants,” he returned, flipping a smart salute in her direction.
Tess shook her head and turned away.
Things weren’t looking too bad despite the embarrassing situation, Pete decided as he stripped out of his smelly flight suit and threw it into the stream. Luckily, he wore a regulation olive green cotton T-shirt and boxer shorts under the suit, but those were going to have to come off, too. The stream was surrounded by tall elephant grass, a profusion of shrubbery and a few rubber trees, so he was relatively hidden from any curious eyes as he stripped naked and stood in the lukewarm water of the clear stream.
Humming to himself and plotting his next strategy, Pete knelt down and began sluicing the clean, clear water over himself. It was hell without a washcloth—more than ever he missed the amenities that Americans back in the States took for granted. Finally cleaned up, he struggled back into his wet clothes and zipped up his flight suit. Running his fingers through his dripping wet hair and pushing it off his brow, Pete turned and walked back into the village.
Damn! He came to a halt, realizing that Tess hadn’t told him which hut she was in. He grimaced, taking in the number of thatched dwellings. Just then, a young boy, thin as a proverbial rail, approached him curiously.
“Missy Tess said you come,” the boy said in pidgin English. He gripped Pete’s hand and tugged on it.
Extricating his hand from the boy’s small, thin one, Pete followed him, whistling cheerfully. Maybe the day wasn’t lost after all. Maybe, if he was diligent enough, persuasive enough, he’d talk bullheaded Tess Ramsey into coming to that party tonight—as his date.
Tess’s hut looked like all the rest: woven rice grass hung around the outside of a wooden frame. Carefully woven palm spikes had been thatched to make a thick, impermeable roof to keep the rain at bay during the monsoon season, which would begin shortly. The boy pointed to an opening covered with a faded orange cotton cloth.
“Tess?” Pete called hesitantly at the door.
“Come in.”
He pushed the cloth aside. The three small windows were open to allow air and light into the hut, but he had to stand still for a moment to let his eyes adjust. Tess sat cross-legged on a rice mat with a child in her arms. She had cleaned up and changed out of her black pajama outfit into a pale pink cotton blouse and khaki pants that looked threadbare. Her hair had been washed and brushed, and it lay in damp strands down her back. Long hair meant sweet exploration, Pete thought as he imagined his fingers combing through that rich red, gold and copper carpet. The image sent a sharp shaft of longing through him.
The child in her arms was a little girl, no more than four years old. Frowning, Pete stepped closer.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Tess glanced up at him. In the shadowy light, Pete’s face showed the first genuine concern she’d seen in him for someone other than himself.
“She stepped on a rusty nail the other day.” Tess ran her hand worriedly down the child’s spindly leg to where a dirty bandage covered her small foot. Feeling the child’s damp brow, she murmured, “She’s running a fever.”
“Has she had a tetanus shot?”
Tess held his troubled stare. Maybe he wasn’t as shallow as she’d first thought. Maybe there was a shred of depth and concern for others in his life. Maybe. “What tetanus shot? Captain, out here we don’t have such things.” She gently unbandaged the girl’s foot. The flesh was red and swollen around the puncture wound.
Pete came forward and crouched next to Tess and the girl, frowning. “Damn, but that looks ugly.”
“It is,” Tess said softly as she gently stroked the girl’s sweaty cheek and head. “I washed it out the best I could this morning. The supply truck comes by tomorrow. I could send her on it to the hospital at Da Nang.”
“Did you use soap and water?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you have?”
“We didn’t get soap until about six months ago, Captain, so I’m not complaining. It’s a step forward.”
Pete’s heart went out to the little girl, who sleepily rubbed her eyes, then nuzzled deeply into Tess’s arms, her face pressed against Tess’s breast, as if she were her mother. “Where are her parents?”
“The mother’s dead. She stepped on a mine meant for an ARVN soldier in one of our rice paddies earlier this month.”
“Oh.”
“This is the frustrating part of being over here. I know about tetanus shots, antibiotics and everything else available in the real world. But they don’t exist here.” Tess’s voice lowered with pain and weariness. “In fifteen months I’ve seen so many needless deaths just for lack of simple things like vaccines and antibiotics.”
Bitter memories surfaced in Pete, and he struggled to keep them at bay. He watched almost with jealousy as the little girl in Tess’s arms gradually fell asleep, warm, obviously loved and protected.
Looking at Tess in the dim light, her damp red hair curling softly as it dried, Pete felt his heart respond powerfully to the expression on her face. In the shadows her features glowed with such care and concern for the child in her arms. Each stroke of her long, work-worn fingers across the child’s injured extremity tore at his closely guarded heart. It was the look of love on Tess’s face that suddenly gripped him, held him as nothing ever had in his entire life. There was such compassion in her large green eyes fraught with anguish. The richness of her mouth, her lips parted as if in a silent cry for the helpless child, startled him.
Shaken deeply, Pete suddenly got to his feet and backed away. He scowled, feeling a mixture of pain, hope, anger and need. It was a stupid array of feelings to have churning within him, but he wanted to be in Tess’s arms, being stroked by her caring hand, seeing that look in her eyes for him. Muttering a curse under his breath, Pete walked to the door of the hut, unable to sort through what was going on within him. Why should this particular scene, a not-unfamiliar one, get to him? Why now? Was it Tess? Him?
“I hate Vietnam,” he ground out in frustration. “Everywhere I look, there’s nothing but stinking poverty and suffering.” He gripped the orange curtain with his fist and pulled it aside to stare blindly out the opening.
Tess