Frankie was momentarily plunged back in time, to the Fourth of July party when Finley had brought home his new best friend. “Rye, like the whiskey,” she said, feeling a tightness in her throat. He made her think of Finley, of home, of innocent schoolgirl crushes.
He pulled her into his arms, gave her a hug so fierce she was lifted off her feet.
“Wait. You two know each other?” Coyote said, frowning, looking from one to the other.
“He went to the Naval Academy with my big brother,” Frankie said, stepping back. “He was the one who told me that women could be heroes.”
Coyote put his arm around Frankie, pulled her close. She pulled free.
Rye put his sunglasses back on. “Well. I don’t want to intrude on your fun, kids. Carry on. Nice to see you again, Frankie.” He turned on one heel, a parade-smooth gesture, and walked back to the bar.
Thirteen
“What do you know about your CO?” Frankie asked.
“He’s tough as nails. Doesn’t talk much about himself. I hear he’s engaged to some admiral’s daughter. You probably know him better than we do.”
“No,” Frankie said. “I didn’t really know him well. An admiral’s daughter, huh? Engaged. It’s hardly surprising.”
“Why?”
Frankie almost said, Look at him, but held her tongue.
Even with Coyote’s arms around her, slow-dancing, Frankie found her gaze drawn again and again to Rye; she watched the way he laughed with his men, the way he stood apart from them sometimes. She could tell how much they respected him. Every glance took her back to Finley’s going-away party, when she hadn’t been able to look away, either, and their moment in her father’s office.
Women can be heroes.
Those words—his words—to an impressionable twenty-year-old had led her inevitably to this room, this war. It felt like fate, them meeting here.
“I have my own room, Frankie,” Coyote said, nuzzling her neck as they danced. “We could be alone…”
“Coyote,” she said quietly.
He drew back, looked at her. “You’re right. I should ask you out for a real date. I want to do this right with you, Frankie.”
The music changed. There was a crash of furniture and a rise of laughter.
At the edge of the dance floor, Barb had missed the chair and fallen to the floor. Frankie pulled out of Coyote’s arms and went to her friend.
Rye was there first, helping Barb to her feet. Barb threw her arms around Rye’s neck and hung on. “My bones melted,” she said. Her head lolled back, and she grinned drunkenly at Frankie. “Look a’ this one, Frankie…”
Frankie turned to Rye. The way he looked at her was unnerving. Too intense. It made her feel strange, fluttery. “I should get her back to the Caravelle.”
“I’ll get an MP to drive you.”
Rye helped maneuver Barb out of the O Club and to an MP jeep. Frankie climbed in beside her.
Coyote came out of the O Club. “Frankie, I’ll come to see—”
“’Bye, Coyote!” Frankie said, waving as the jeep took off.
Back at the hotel, she helped Barb up the stairs and into their room.
While Barb was peeing, she looked up, bleary-eyed, and said, “Don’t let me fall off the toilet. M’balance is for shit.”
“Whiskey,” Frankie said, and they both laughed.
Frankie helped Barb out of her clothes and into bed.
“D’ya see the cat in the sunglasses?” Barb said, flopping back into the clean white sheets. “Good-lookin’ man.”
“I saw him,” Frankie said, pulling the covers up to Barb’s chin.
With the lights out, and to the sound of Barb’s snoring, Frankie tried to sleep. It should have been easy; she had drunk plenty tonight, and there was no fear of a mortar attack or a MASCAL to waken her in the middle of the night. She was on clean, fresh sheets. Still, sleep eluded her. She felt restless, anxious.
The phone rang. She answered before it wakened Barb. “Hello?”
“Miss McGrath,” said a Vietnamese man in French-accented English. “There’s a young man here to see you. He asks that you meet him at the top-floor bar.”
Coyote.
Frankie didn’t want to see him now, but she owed him the truth. He wasn’t the man for her. And she couldn’t sleep, anyway.
She threw back the covers and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and went to the elevator, which was out of order. Sighing, she walked up four flights of stairs and emerged onto the hotel’s dimly lit rooftop bar.