Page 18 of Prisoner of War
Chapter Five
His fingertips slipped down her cheek, their touch soft as petals. “I have never seen such beauty before. Tell me what to do to keep you by me.” The words were Spanish, breathed with buried passion driving them.
Even as Minnie delighted in hearing Duardo’s voice, in feeling his touch, she knew she was dreaming. She recognized, too, that she was on that fleetingly rare borderlinebetween wake and sleep, where dreams took on more substance and became rich emotional memories that would survive the waking.
Sadness tore through her. She would not be able to linger in this moment.
Then, abruptly, she was awake. She kept her eyes closed, her cheek still tingling where the dream-memory Duardo had touched it. Slowly, the real world intruded upon her senses. Soft movements soundedas someone went to bed or rose from it.
The room was a makeshift dormitory. Sixteen women used it. They came and went at different hours, according to the roles they had taken in the household. Minnie couldn’t tell if it was late or early in the morning. There were no windows in the room and the lamps that served it were always turned low.
She hugged herself under the covers, still not fullyawake. Even the lumps in the thin mattress did not register. If she could slip back into sleep, would she revisit that long-gone moment? That touch on her cheek...that had been the first time she met Duardo. The night of the Luna Festival, the night Calli had first arrived in Vistaria and got herself arrested.
Minnie tried to sink into the memory, to coax both the memory and sleep to take her.
Calli had been arrested and Minnie’s father made frantic phone calls, trying to find a way to get her out. Minnie went with him to the police station because she was dying to find out what the festival was all about and the station was located in the central square in the downtown area—the heart of the festival.
There had been chat amongst mining staff that Fiesta de la Luna was, in practice,more like a Saturnalia than a cultural acknowledgement, a week when Vistarians shucked off their most proper dignity and left their honor at home. The gossip had piqued Minnie’s curiosity.
Her father was forced to leave the car a quarter mile away from the main square. Traffic was congested and the square itself blocked to anything but pedestrians. They wended their way past Vistarians in thecolorful national dress while Minnie’s eyes grew wider.
Inhibitions were gone. Minnie watched, amazed, as men and women who appeared to be strangers would greet each other and come together to kiss and caress. Her father didn’t notice.
When they reached the station, Minnie glanced in at the unshaved soldier behind the reception desk, his rifle on the desk, while he leaned frankly against thewall. The soldier’s gaze narrowed when he saw her through the glass doors. A lewd smile appeared.
She knew that smile. She’d seen it many times on other men. She stepped back down to the ground. “I think I’m going to stay out here,” she told her father.
Josh glanced at the soldier behind the counter, which told her he’d noticed the man’s smile, too. “All right,” he said with a distracted air.Then he glanced around the square. “Don’t wander away, huh? It doesn’t look much better out here.”
“Tell me about it,” she murmured. “I’ll be right here.”
Josh went into the station.
Minnie looked around, wondering where she could wait that wouldn’t involve her in the fiesta. She wanted to watch but had no intention of letting a strange man kiss her.
She moved a few feet from the steps andleaned back against the wall of the station. It put her in shadows and in a good position to watch the dancing and listen to the music. It was endlessly fascinating.
The police station was located on the corner of one of the tiny side streets that fed into the square. From that narrow, cobblestone road, a group of three Vistarian soldiers moved into the square, heading for the station. They patentlyhad nothing to do with the festival. They wore the dark green pants with the double red stripe down the leg and the short, light jacket with red stripes around the bottom of the sleeves to denote rank.
One was taller than the other two. He had glossy black hair pulled back into a short ponytail at the back of his neck. In this matter, the Vistarian army appeared to hold different standards fromthe rest of the world. He was laughing as the three climbed the steps. The lights inside the station fell on his face.
Minnie caught her breath. Oh wow!
He had white, even teeth and midnight black eyes to go with his olive skin. High cheekbones, a strong jaw. Wide, square shoulders, tight hips and waist...
They slipped inside and the door swung shut on them.
Minnie sighed to herself. Vistarianmen all seemed to lean toward the taller, overtly masculine male. Combined with Mediterranean looks, it meant there were an above average number of men in Vistaria who were too damn sexy for Minnie’s pulse. She smiled—Vistaria was a great country in which to stand around watching the world go by.
After a few minutes, the door to the station opened again and she looked up, expecting her fatherand Calli, but the three soldiers re-emerged with their heads close together. They moved slowly down the steps, talking hard and came to a stop on the cobbles.
Minnie straightened and focused on the taller one. His smile had gone, replaced by a thoughtful look. He listened to the others and shook his head, glancing around the square.
His gaze found her in the shadows and Minnie caught her breathas he spoke to his friends then stepped around them and walked toward her, speaking rapid Spanish. His voice was pleasant.
Minnie caught only the odd word here and there, enough to know he was asking if she was all right. Clearly, her position close by the station, standing in shadows had alerted him. She stepped out from the shadow and held up her hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak much Spanish.Just some. Ummm...¿Apenas un poco español?” She held her forefinger and thumb a bare inch apart to indicate just how little Spanish she had.
He smiled and held up his finger and thumb, about three inches apart. “I speak English this much, yes?”
