The Senator's Daughter by Sophia Sasson

Author:Sophia Sasson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

THE GENERAL HAD been delayed by a day, so Kat was left to find something to do. First Lieutenant Luke Williams was leading his platoon on a routine patrol and offered to take Kat with him. She was waiting for Alex in the mess hall.

“Ma’am, we’re getting ready to leave. If you want to come with us, we need to find you a vest and helmet.”

Nodding, she followed him out. She wasn’t going to miss out on this opportunity by waiting for Alex’s permission. “Please call me Kat—‘ma’am’ seems so formal.”

The man grinned, and for the first time Kat noticed how attractive he was. He must’ve been the “hottie” she’d heard some of the female soldiers discussing last night.

A few minutes later, she was outfitted with a bulletproof vest and helmet. Their luggage hadn’t been recovered, so she was still in the same clothes she’d been given the night before.

Luke explained that they were going to a nearby village. There hadn’t been any insurgent activity there, so their patrols were mostly to reassure the villagers and to remind informants to contact the base if they saw suspicious activity. “You’ll be safe,” Luke assured her. “Else I’d never have gotten permission from the base commander to take you.”

She was put in the front seat of a Jeep, pressed between Luke and another man. She knew they were blanketing her in case the vehicle was hit with bullets.

There was no road to the village, so they followed a dirt path, Kat holding on to a bar overhead to keep from falling all over the men on either side of her.

They chatted about the war and she resisted the urge to pull out her phone and tape their conversation for her research. They openly discussed what it was like on the ground, how the insurgents came back the second troops withdrew, causing them to lose hard-fought territory yet again.

The weariness was obvious in the men’s voices, as was their patriotism. While they were on an “easy” patrol today, yesterday they’d been canvassing for IEDs, aware that any second could mean death. The army corporal next to her had two kids back home and talked about how his wife planned to leave him because their marriage hadn’t withstood his multiple deployments.

They arrived at the village and several children ran up to the Jeep. Luke went to the back and pulled out chocolate bars and MREs, handing them to the kids. “We’re not technically supposed to do this, but it garners a lot of goodwill. They welcome us here and warn us if anything’s about to go down because they want the chocolates.”

Kat made a mental note to send Luke some boxes when she got home and to tell Crista to put candy on the packing list.

Luke introduced her to the villagers. She talked at length to a young paraplegic man, Reza, who spoke English fluently. He had gone to live with relatives in Pakistan so he could study English and get a good job to support his family.

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