Page 15 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
Three months of this blossoming hell had worn deep paths in the hills and scarred the tranquil groves with grenades and artillery shells, and still nothing had essentially changed. The separatists hadn’t gained any ground, but they hadn’t lost any either. There had been countless firefights and a handful of hospital-worthy injuries, but no deaths. The civilians in the area kept doggedly living their lives as usual—farming sugar beets and oats, logging trees and mining coal. We doggedly shot and were shot at and nothing made any difference.
We all lived in a Mobius strip of a life—press forward, fall back, fight in the valley, fight on the mountain, fight in the valley again. I slept on the ground more than I slept in my bed. I got good at smelling danger; I got smarter about protecting my men. And if there were moments when I closed my eyes and thought only of Colchester reaching across a train table to touch a bruise, then no one needed to know.
The Mobius strip tore one day when the captain called me into his office and I saw Morgan sitting there, looking as polished and expensive as ever. I nearly laughed to see her there in her nude heels and cigarette pants, looking all ready to shoot a Chanel ad (or Dior or whatever the fuck it was she said.) But she was also the prettiest, cleanest thing I’d seen in three months, the first non-war thing I’d seen in three months, and even without all that, she was kin, whatever coldly loyal thing that meant in our family. I stopped my laughter.
Instead, I dropped into a chair next to her and crossed my legs. “Only you would show up in the middle of a war dressed like this.”
Morgan arched a perfect brow, crossing her legs to match mine. “I’m here on business actually. Well, and I wanted to see you.”
But the way her foot traced anxious circles in the air betrayed her. She wouldn’t be anxious if this were about business—hell, she wouldn’t be anxious if I dragged her out on a patrol right this minute, armed only with her Burberry trench coat and a slingshot.
No. She was here for Colchester. I was certain of it.
The captain interjected then, explaining how Morgan’s surprise visit came to be, that her father’s—my stepfather’s—lobbying firm represented one of the largest suppliers of Army munitions, and the supplier wanted a liaison to make sure that field use was going smoothly now that hostilities had escalated. It was bullshit, and what the captain didn’t say was that everyone up and down the ladder had greased the wheels because they knew Morgan’s stepmother was Vivienne Moore, and if Vivienne Moore’s children wanted to do anything at all, then by God, you let them, unless you wanted her to rain hell down on your head.
Vivienne Moore scared everyone. Even me, and I was her son.
The captain stood. “And now I’ll leave you two alone for a moment. While she has a visitor’s pass for the daylight hours during her stay, Ms. Leffey is sleeping down in the village, and I’ve arranged for us to give her a ride back this evening, for safety reasons.”
“I’ll do it,” I offered. I gave Morgan the sweetest, biggest, fakest smile I could. “Anything to spend more time with my sissy.”
The captain smiled, not seeing the way Morgan wrinkled her nose at me, and then he left us alone.
The moment the door closed, I leaned back and examined my nails, ragged and dry from all the fighting and patrolling. “You won’t be able to have another fuck-fest with Colchester, you know. Did you hear those booms twenty minutes ago? Those are mortars. Not ours. Word is that this is the week the separatists are going to move into the valley in full force.”
Her nose wrinkle didn’t go away. “Then just bomb them.”
I stared at her. “Did you not see all those fucking farms and cottages and tiny little hamlets with their tiny little churches? That’s where the separatists do most of their hiding. Hell, half of them live here. We can’t bomb them without bombing the innocent people too.”
“They’re not innocent if they’re sheltering rebels,” Morgan said indifferently. “We agreed to help these countries suffering from the Carpathian problem, so let’s help them and get out of here.”
“I didn’t realize you were so hawkish.”
She turned her pretty head away from me, as if bored, and I observed the delicate line of her jaw, the way muscles tensed in her cheeks.
“Or maybe you’re not that hawkish,” I said slowly. “Maybe you’re just upset that you can’t run away with Colchester and have lots of little Colchester babies with him while he’s fighting a war?”
Her eyes flashed. “Fuck you. And for your information, I didn’t come here for a fuck-fest. I came because I wanted to talk to Maxen, that’s all. He hasn’t answered any of my emails.”
I laughed at that. “Did you really just listen to all that I said about mortars and rebels and feel like we have lots of extra time for answering emails?”
“Everyone has time to answer emails, Embry. If the Pope has time to write blog posts, then soldiers have time to email.”
“As always, Morgan, you’ve found a way to dredge up the most selfish possible lens for any situation. Have you considered that maybe he doesn’t want to talk to you?”
I didn’t know why I said it. I didn’t have any proof that Colchester regretted anything that had happened with Morgan in Prague; in fact, the few times we’d spent more than a few minutes in each other’s presence, he seemed to have nothing but a fond nostalgia for their liaison.
“Remember Prague?” he’d say when we were waiting in line at the canteen. “Remember how the fog moved over the river?”
I remember how the fog moved over you, I’d want to say, but I wouldn’t. I’d just nod. “It was a good trip.”
“It was,” he’d say, staring at his tray. “Lots of beautiful nights.”
Or, when we were unpacking a week’s worth of dirty clothes in the laundry room, he’d say, “I need another dance lesson, Lieutenant Moore. Think someone has a Viennese waltz CD around here?”
“It’s 2004, Colchester. Who still has CDs? Haven’t you heard of iPods?”
“Or I could hum the music,” he’d suggest and I’d snort.
