The way Lane and Wes made a show of being interested in something in the surrounding darkness would have been comical if Sam didn’t know for a fact that Dalton was lying.
“Dalton, if you have something to say about Poppy, just say it,” Sam ground out. “If not, keep your mouth shut.”
His Teammate glanced at Lane and Wes, something passing between them that obviously had his buddies worried. After several more seconds of silence, Sam cursed under his breath. But before he could blow, Dalton finally spoke.
“Yesterday isn’t the first time I’ve met Poppy,” his friend said, still not looking at Sam. “We knew each other before you came to Coronado.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “So?”
“So…” Dalton sighed. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you deserve to know. Poppy isn’t a math professor at some college. She’s a stripper.”
Sam started to laugh, figuring his Teammates were still ragging on him about having a girlfriend, but then he realized Dalton was serious. He actually believed the crap he’d just said.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Sam growled. “Poppy has a doctorate from UC Berkley. I’ve seen the degree mounted on the wall of her apartment, and I’ve driven her to work at the college several times, as well as seen her talking to her students.”
Dalton shook his head. “Dude, she’s playing you.”
“Oh, yeah? What makes you think that?”
“Dammit, Sam,” Dalton muttered. “I didn’t just know her before. I slept with her. I mean she didn’t even make me work for it. The minute she heard I was a SEAL, she was all over me. Dude, Poppy is a groupie.”
Sam didn’t even realize he was moving until his right fist slammed into Dalton’s jaw. Then he was somehow on top of his friend, fists coming down over and over.
Dalton might have been caught off guard at first, but then he quickly fought back, a knee coming up to smash into Sam’s ribs, a glancing blow from his fist catching him on the chin.
Sam had no idea how long the fight lasted, but it got loud and covered a significant stretch of jungle. He knew that because Dalton tried to smash his head into a tree trunk while Sam did his best to strangle his buddy with a nearby vine.
Everything was still a white-hot blur of anger when Sam felt heavy hands on his shoulders jerking him upright. Holden and Nash got a grip on Dalton, dragging him away from the scuffle. Sam lunged for him again, but Chasen yanked him back and gave him a rough shake.
“Chill the hell out!” his chief warned. “I wish I didn’t know what this was all about, but unfortunately, I do. And guess what? I don’t give a shit. I don’t care what Dalton said. I don’t care how you took it. I don’t care about your hurt feelings or how insulted either of you might be.”
Sam glared at Dalton, supremely satisfied to see that his Teammate was bleeding from a split lip and a cut above his left eyebrow. From the pain he was feeling along his own jaw, as well as the warm trickle trailing down his neck, Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t much better off.
“You know what I do care about?” Chasen added, looking more pissed than Sam had ever seen him. “I care that we’re barely four hundred meters from the edge of a heavily guard terrorist training compound and you two are out here brawling like two idiots in a bar fight. We’re supposed to be finding out when these assholes are planning to buy a nuclear weapon so we can stop them, and you morons seem more interested in ghosting the rest of your Team and letting us get our asses killed.”
Sam possessed at least enough maturity to feel embarrassed about his behavior, even if he still felt like punching Dalton.
“I’m putting you two together for the rest of this op, so you both need to pull your shit together and wire it tight,” Chasen continued, the threat clear in his voice. “If you don’t and this thing goes sideways because of the two of you, I’ll effing leave the both of you on this island and you can swim your juvenile asses all the way back to the States.”
Giving him and Dalton a hard look, Chasen turned and disappeared into the darkness. Sam glanced at Dalton to see that his Teammate was still just as pissed as he was. No one said a word as they followed Chasen toward the training compound.
* * * * *
The mission itself was almost anti-climactic after the fight in the jungle. Sam and the rest of his Team slipped into the fenced-in compound, easily making it past the four roving guards. They set up surveillance equipment on the main building as well as two other possible meeting locations, then they hid, Sam and Dalton squeezing under the flooring of one of the supply huts. The two of them were wedged in so close together that Sam could feel his Dalton’s body heat. Even though they were face to face, they didn’t say a word to each other. They simply couldn’t take the risk. If Sam got pissed off again and they started fighting, they’d be found out for sure.
So, Sam simply lay there in the dirt under the hut, nursing the aches from the recent fight, watching as the occasional spider or snake passed by on the way to who knew where. And the whole time they waited, praying some curious dog didn’t crawl under the hut with them, Sam couldn’t help but think about what Dalton had told him. As much as he knew the stripper stuff was all bullshit, he couldn’t get past the part about Dalton having slept with the woman he’d been falling for. Sam knew it shouldn’t matter, that Poppy was an adult who’d obviously slept with other men before him, but the fact that it was Dalton bothered him more than he would have ever imagined.
The sun was well above the horizon when the Alatas brothers showed and immediately headed for the main building. Sam and Dalton had no access to the surveillance feed from that location, so they were forced to wait for what seemed like forever until Chasen announced they had what they needed. The time and place with the weapon exchange had been set, and they had it all.
Unfortunately, everyone was forced to stay in hiding all day, until the gathering darkness gave them enough cover to escape, which sucked.
Sam would have liked to say he used the time to come up with something intelligent to say to Poppy, but as they boarded another unmarked cargo plane back to the States a few hours later, he still had no idea what he was going to say when he saw her.
CHAPTER NINE
Sam must have stood in the hallway outside Poppy’s apartment for at least ten minutes, trying to figure out if he wanted to knock on her door. But every time he worked up the courage to do it, doubts would creep into his head, and he’d change his mind.
“Maybe I should talk to her tomorrow,” he murmured out loud. “After I get some sleep.”
That would probably be the best idea. The flight back from Madura—with the time change and dateline thrown in—had been murder. Between his concerns about Poppy and the lecture from hell he’d gotten from Chasen, he hadn’t slept a wink. He’d been running on fumes for nearly forty hours with nothing more than a few cat naps while he’d been stuck under that damn hut.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said to the empty hallway. “I’m going to go to bed and talk to Poppy tomorrow. Maybe by then, I’ll know what to say.”