Jazz was a Cajun boy, brought up in the bayou swamps outside Slidell, Louisiana. His grandfather was an alligator catcher the locals called The Raging Cajun, and as a kid, Jazz lived his summers in the deep swamp camps where the very poor eked out a living off the land, supplemented by selling alligator teeth and chicken claw mojos in the local markets.
Since joining the SEALs, he’d seen other kinds of slums. The garbage mountain city in Manila where the children dug through trash for food. The slums in Hong Kong where people lived like sardines, arranging bed shifts according to their work schedules. The arid lives of people who owned nothing but a piece of Persian carpet spread in a hand-hewn mountain side cave outside Kabul. He’d seen them and had compared the lives of the people with his own childhood. He’d grown up in a large, loving family, with a mother who had fiercely protected her brood, and a rascally grandfather who told tall tales and refused to live a normal life. Poverty had never bothered him, since he’d been taught to take care of himself and his family. He could do anything.
And being a SEAL reinforced that pride. Except that his deployment overseas and what he’d seen was eating at his soul bit by bit, and sometimes he thought he would go a little crazy. He’d learned there were other kinds of poverty in the world, some more horrific than others. Most of the time, he did his job with his SEAL brothers and left quickly. If the team stayed longer, he usually ended up giving most of his cash away. That was why Hawk always joked about his needing to marry every poor girl he’d helped and sending her home to Louisiana.
Jazz looked at the tin huts in the small shantytown Vivi was driving through. People peered out of windows and men stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the vehicle passing by. The ride was bumpy and slowed down by carts and livestock haphazardly blocking their way. They finally stopped in the middle of the dirt path. Children raced over and climbed onto the vehicle, swarming like ants, peering inside at the occupants curiously. They were dirty and bedraggled. Some of them yelled out to Rose.
“Is it safe for you to be out of the vehicle?” Jazz asked. He’d experienced the vicious kiddie pickpockets in Rome before.
“I think I can take of myself. What about you?” Vivi didn’t wait for his answer, climbing out of the car. She pulled the lever to move her seat forward. “Rose?”
The girl gave Jazz a pleading look, then obeyed Vivi’s request. The moment she was outside, the kids started talking to her all at once. She shrugged at them, pushing some of them away. Vivi slammed the door shut.
Jazz opened his and climbed out. He attracted even more attention. Young girls started appearing from nowhere, surrounding him. He looked at Vivi, who stared in contempt.
“It’s the uniform, Lieutenant,” she informed him in a clipped voice.
He frowned. “What’s wrong with my uniform?”
A girl slipped her hand into his. “GI want girl? GI take me out?”
Vivi cocked her head. “Need more explanation?” She turned away, leaving him with the crowd of young women.
Jazz gently unlaced the girl’s hand from his, shaking his head. “No, thank you,” he told her. She pouted at his reply. He began going after Vivi and Rose, even as the bolder girls kept touching him.
When he caught up with them, Vivi darted him a scathing glance. “Maybe you can marry one of them and take her home to your maman.”
“You sound like Hawk,” Jazz commented as he unhooked another hand from his belt.
“I hope not,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t want to be compared to a bunch of drunk soldiers telling each other whom to marry.”
“You don’t just dislike uniforms, do you?” Jazz asked quizzically. “It’s the men, too.”
She rubbed her pale pink lips together. “My opinion is formed by observation and experience. Soldiers use their weapons too freely and frequently.” She slanted a downward gaze below his belt and added, “And they destroy everything.”
So his French film noir heroine had an acid tongue. No wonder he had the feeling all along that she wasn’t on his side.
“That’s what military folks do,” he agreed. He’d always believed one couldn’t win an argument by taking the opposite side immediately. “Are you one of those who believe there’ll be no wars if there weren’t soldiers? I’m a sailor, by the way.”
That didn’t even earn him a smile.
Vivi and Rose came to a halt outside one of the huts. The younger girl had been dragging her feet, growing more and more reluctant as they went nearer. The broken wooden door leading into the house was open, and shouts were coming from inside.
“Soldiers count their success by their number of kills, Jazz. I don’t think they care whether there’s war or not, just where the next battle is to add to the count,” Vivi murmured softly as she gazed at the entrance to the hut. “And in between kills, they enjoy the spoils.”
She spoke so softly he must have imagined she called him Jazz. He would have liked to be given a chance to answer the charges she’d just made, but the shouting from within the hut didn’t seem conducive to further debate. He stepped closer, not liking the tone of voice as it went on and on, almost shrill in its demands.
“What’s the shouting about?” he asked.
“Money,” Vivi said, and tapped at the old battered door.
There was a pause and then a short little man, no taller than five feet or so, appeared. Unkempt, with a cigarette hanging from his lips, he stood with his hands on his hips. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Rose standing behind Vivi. He began to speak quickly, angrily, the cigarette dropping ash. Vivi shrugged. His face turned beet-red. He ground out the cigarette and started gesturing wildly as he shouted in broken English.
“I have no interest in your income, Mr. Tham,” Vivi finally interrupted. “You refused the food the organization brought here for distribution.”
“Food? Who wants your food?” the man sneered, his speech slurred by accent and alcohol. “We want cash, American dollar. You bring food! Gimme money and we be fine.”
“You’ll be fine, Mr. Tham, but what about your family? I think they’d be happier with food than you gambling and losing all the money.”
The man looked as if he was going to explode in fury. He started yelling at Rose in his native tongue, gesturing her to get into the house.
Jazz looked at Vivi. Was she really going to let Rose go? The younger girl cast a quick last glance at Vivi, who nodded to her. Rose disappeared into the dark interior.
Vivi held up an envelope, took out a small wad of cash, and fanned it out in front of Mr. Tham. The change in the man was instantaneous. A smile broke out, showing yellowed teeth. His eyes lost their glare, gleaming now with anticipation.
“Let me make this very clear,” Vivi said in a soft voice. “This is not U.S. government money. This is my cash. I expect Rose to be here for a few weeks or you’ll answer to me.”
Mr. Tham’s eyes narrowed. “Woman no threaten man,” he announced.
“I wouldn’t dream of threatening a man like you,” Vivi said, arching a brow. “This is purely business. If you don’t want to do it, I can always negotiate with some of your neighbors for their daughters.”
The man scowled and tried to snatch the money away from Vivi. She kept it out of his reach. “Three weeks, Mr. Tham,” she pressed.
“Three,” he agreed, small eyes following Vivi as she put away the cash.
No sooner had Vivi handed him the envelope, he turned his back to them, pulling out the money to count. He began walking back into the house.
“Mr. Tham,” Vivi called after him.
He waved them away. “Three weeks, three weeks,” he repeated.
Jazz watched Vivi’s expression closely. She was clenching her jaw as she stared stonily at the empty doorway. He felt helpless, not knowing how exactly to help.
“Why negotiate with a man like that?” he asked gently.
The gaze she shot him was heated. “All I can do is buy more time,” she said, and turned back toward the path. The kids followed them.
The girls continued to touch Jazz wherever they could. He unhooked a hand from his back pocket. “Is he her father?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to beat him up?”
Vivi stopped and turned around slowly. She stood there as the girls crowded around him, still hopeful he would change his mind. One of them said something, and the rest giggled loudly.
“Do you think anything would be accomplished if you beat him up?” Vivi asked conversationally. She arched her brows as Jazz disentangled himself from a pair of arms around his waist. “Look at them hanging on to you like leeches. Are you going to beat them up too?”
“I don’t hit women.” He was, however, beginning to weary of these girls, who didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. He wanted to get out of here soon.
“You see, that’s all very good and proper,” she said, “but what are you going to do about the situation?”
He frowned at her. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Well, sailor, think outside the box.” Vivi stopped just in front of him. “You can’t hit them. So do you run off and ignore the situation? That’s what all the soldiers they’ve met have done, you know. They all took off.”
His frown deepened. “Not the same thing,” he said, shaking off someone patting his butt. “I’m not taking off that way. I don’t even know them.”
“They don’t know that. They think you’re just like the others. They believe one of them will get you sooner or later, and then you will give her money, establish the same pattern of existence she’s seen a dozen times.”
Jazz stared back into her dark eyes, trying to read her thoughts. She was so angry. Or frustrated. For some reason, she was testing him, or goading him to do something. Fine. Think outside the box. She obviously thought all military men were alike, that they were a group that had established some sort of destructive pattern when it came to women. He looked around at the eager eyes and hands, and wondered which came first—the temptation of money from the men or the temptation of willing flesh from the women. But like many times before, he shook off the need to philosophize too much. In his profession, it was best not to think too deeply.
Right now, he wished to make a point. His eyes met Vivi’s mocking ones again. Being a SEAL, he’d been trained to think “outside the box” before the stupid phrase ever existed. His gaze never leaving hers, he pulled out from inside his collar the chain with the pendant his maman had given him. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him take it off, then widened as he stepped closer to her. She didn’t move as he slipped the chain over her head, the look in her eyes turning mysterious, like dark chocolate, full of sensual promise. His maman’s pendant slipped inside the front of her blouse.
Jazz slid his arm around Vivi’s shoulders and curled her unresisting body against his. He grinned cheerfully at the girls who were watching the entire scene. “Mine. Number one girl,” he declared, and turned to kiss the top of Vivi’s head. He murmured into her hair, sniffing appreciatively at her perfume. “Let’s go, shall we, chouchou? I just bought me some time too.”
Now if he could buy some time to understand Vivi Verreau’s anger. For some reason, he felt compelled to know more about this woman.
***
Vivi glared at the girls hanging on to Lieutenant Zeringue, buzzing around him like flies. It upset her. It was an irrational irritation because she understood why they were the way they were. Yet the idea of them and Jazz together made her want to go to each one of the girls and shove her out of the way.
It couldn’t have been that long ago, could it? Not to Vivi’s mind, which was spinning with angry voices and hushed whispers. Not to her heart, which was thudding painfully at every step she took back to the car.
Once upon a time, she too had touched a soldier like the way they were doing. He had the smile of someone who knew about life. He descended into her village like one of the ancient Asian demigods, bearing good tidings for everyone. And she’d touched his sleeve for good luck. She remembered that one time when he turned to look at her, that big smile, and the piece of chocolate he’d offered.
But of course, as the years went by, she’d grown to understand why there were so many orphans like her around. Abandoned by family. Outcasts. No one wanted half-breeds in the family—too obvious where they came from. Her mouth twisted. There were more enterprising families, of course. Females could be a commodity.
Vivi recaptured her childhood every time she drove into this kind of neighborhood. It wasn’t pleasant, a constant reminder of how she could have turned out. The tangy smell of food and trash. Burning incense from the outside altars permeated the air. The clucking of hens as they moved among the humans. The sight and sounds of days gone by when she was at that desperate stage between fear and trepidation. The fear that she would be trussed out alone in the world with no income. The trepidation from knowing what she had to do to survive.
Vivi didn’t want to be here. She felt out of place, unwelcome.
She blamed her bad mood on the frustrating day. She was edgy from her inability to find a solution for Rose. Then she’d challenged Juliana Kohl, knowing very well it was going to come back to bite her ass. But her instructions from GEM were specific. She pursed her lips as she darted a quick glance at Jazz again. He was too busy peeling another one of the girls off him. New orders. More complications.
Jazz’s offer to beat up Rose’s father gave her an opening to vent her frustration. He was so smart, wasn’t he? Just beat up the guys at the bar, give the girl enough money for a couple of nights in the room, and all would be well. Just beat up the father, then life would be blue skies and sunshine. So she’d goaded him, questioning his ability to act beyond violence.
What he did next silenced all her inner rage. She could feel his pendant hot and intimate in the valley between her breasts. When he put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her own body against his, it caught her off guard. Then he nuzzled her hair, his breath blowing warmly where he gave her a kiss near her forehead. Through the rush of blood in her head, she heard him call her an endearment.
Had she said there were choices? All alternatives narrowed down to a puddle of female hormones in those five seconds. She had been very conscious of the man’s sexual charisma since arguing with him at the bar, had even taken the steps to create a shield of dislike against him. She hadn’t been wrong about her instincts. The man was dangerous to a woman’s self-preservation, with those sleepy baby blues and that lazy Louisiana drawl. She’d made a mistake coming up so close; now he’d put his arm around her and like one of these girls, she wanted to slip her hand under that shirt, tuck her fingers into those pants, explore the hard body she’d seen that morning. Check out and affirm those girls’ lewd observations to one another. Yeah, baby, he was as big as he was tall.
That line jolted Vivi out of her fantasy. What the hell was wrong with her? Not only was her body flushed with sudden sexual heat, but her imagination had run off with a wet dream. She scowled. When had she lost control of the situation?
“You can at least look more ecstatic at being my number one girl,” he murmured.
“I have no intention of being your girl.”
“You did say think out of the box. Now you’re mad because the girls have stopped.”
The girls had indeed stopped touching Jazz, even though they still followed them. They appeared to accept that he had a girl with him already, and so was unable to afford them. Vivi let out a small sigh, following his lead as he maneuvered them back on the dirt path.
There were small kids playing on top of the hood and the trunk of the car, and they made honking noises as Vivi and Jazz approached. They were still too young to care about being poor, to know about choices and alternatives. She smiled at a really tiny kid sucking on his thumb as he sat on his brother’s shoulders. He grinned back and waved his wet thumb at her.
“Hi there,” she said, wiggling her finger at him.
Jazz removed his arm from her shoulder and took two kids off the roof of the car. They laughed at being swirled high in the air before being set on the ground.
“Little rascals,” he said, and laughed as one of them kicked his shoe.
He was good with kids, she had to give him that. In fact, everything about Jazz Zeringue was too good to be true. Gentleman. Knight. Protective male. There must be something negative she could pin on him.
“Where are their parents?” he asked.
“Some of them don’t have any.”
He ruffled a child’s hair. “Poor kids. Wish I had some more cash to give them.”
“Don’t train them to beg, Lieutenant. Each generation becomes more and more weakened by this system of dependence.”
He regarded her with those blue eyes quietly. “You’ve given this some thought,” he observed. “I was only thinking of a way to help, chouchou.”
“Easy, isn’t it? Throw money at the problem and it’ll solve itself.” Vivi shrugged, taking a last look around at the shantytown. “It’s a temporary patch, Lieutenant. You have to understand cultural values and start from there.”
“I thought your calling me Jazz earlier was a good start to cultural exchange,” he said as he came near her again, much too close for comfort. “Maybe you and I can talk more about this over dinner, chouchou.”
The man was also far too persistent. “Stop calling me that. We aren’t exchanging any kind of cultural lessons during dinner or at any time.”
He grinned devilishly. “Don’t you want to give me some cultural instructions?”
Vivi ignored the challenge. She didn’t want to flirt with him. It was far too tempting. She opened her handbag to retrieve the keys to the car. “Get over to the other side, or they’ll all be swarming in with us. Then you’ll have to send them home to your maman too. What will your poor maman do with your wife and kids?”
His laughter was low and sexy, as if he was very aware of his effect on her. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this flustered by male attention, jabbering nonsensically.
She waited as Jazz cut over to the passenger side. He had a kid hanging on to his back. It seemed the children liked him as much as the girls. There was something about watching a big man playing with a small child that made her weak. She watched as he patiently waited for the kid to get off. Then he turned and gave her one of those lazy smiles.
“Ready, ma’am.”
Vivi pulled the door handle. Something tugged at her blouse and she looked down. It was the same little kid, barely able to stand without wobbling. He looked at her with round innocent eyes full of wonder. She opened the door and slid inside. Slipping her hand into one of the side pockets of her purse, she pulled out a bar of chocolate. The child grabbed the candy as soon as she showed it to him, a smile lighting up his face like bright sunshine.
Vivi smiled sadly. She was now the one handing out the chocolate.