Hiding Catherine

Chapter 1 Captain Charlie “Bulldog” Green was in a foul mood as he drove home from the base and it had little to do with the weather. The rain beat down on the windshield of his black jeep making visibility low. He could barely see beyond the hood of the car. It was a good thing he lived only a few miles off base. He had been stationed at Fort Sam for five years now. Out of his fifteen-year military career, Fort Sam had to be his favorite base to be stationed at. The scorching heat held little joy for him. And he cared little for the snakes or other poisonous creatures here. It was his team that made it worth living here. He couldn’t imagine having a better team. They were a true band of brothers. So why was he in a foul mood? Charlie was returning from Panama. He had been there to assist another Delta Force team in extracting hostages and collecting data from a contact with ISIS, Alejandro Ferrero. It should have been a simple in and out mission. One Charlie’s team had done a hundred times. So, what had been so different about this one? Someone had set them up and tried to end both teams. If Charlie hadn’t commandeered a truck and rammed through the gate, they would have most likely died on that miserable island. Militia had surrounded them and had been using RPG’s and other heavy weaponry. No wonder he was ISIS’s new best friend. He had a large supply of weapons and drugs, plus an entire island to hide them, and ship from. Once off Alejandro’s grounds, it had been smooth sailing. They had landed at Patrick Air Force base in Florida. Charlie and his team took the first C-17 out to home base. Their mission was accomplished, but Charlie now wanted to know who set them up and how long until another of their missions was sabotaged. Or a team member was killed. Ben, AKA Midas, the leader of the team he assisted, had assured him they would find the mole, but Charlie didn’t want to put his faith all in one person. He would do his own research as well and leave nothing to chance. Several heads were better than one, especially something that affected the whole military organization. Charlie’s mood worsened when upon debriefing, the team discovered that some hostages they had helped rescue had drugs implanted inside of them. One woman they had rescued was being flown back to Ben’s base, Fort Irwin in California, to help find the mole. He would hold off a few days before making calls, depending on what this woman knew. For all Charlie knew, she could be a mole and set a trap for the other team. Charlie had seen little of the women on the rescue mission. His job had been to secure the perimeter while Ben’s team did the extraction. He didn’t know how reliable this source was. If Ben were willing to trust her, then he would give it a few days before he calling someone to do some digging. Charlie was not a computer guy himself. He hated computers. He preferred his guns over anything. Or any weapon. They were more reliable than computers in his opinion. They didn’t crash or get viruses or whatever computers got. A weapon was simple and deadly. He trained for hours with his weapons. Taking them apart and putting them back together. He even went out to the firing range every chance he got. The guys teased him that he spent more time with guns than women. It wasn’t far from the truth. With a mug like his, women flinched at his constant scowl, thanks to an IED exploding close to him and tearing up his face. After fifteen surgeries, this was the best they could do for him. He hadn’t been pretty before, but after all the surgeries it wasn’t much better. Not that he cared. If someone couldn’t accept him for him then they weren’t worth his time. His team accepted him, bulldog face and all. That was all that mattered to him. Charlie squinted and leaned toward the windshield trying to get his bearings when he spotted something on the side of the road. He thought little of it at first until he pulled alongside it, and saw it was a car pulled over with someone standing beside it, flagging him down. Charlie wasn’t so sure about pulling over on a deserted road at this hour of night. But it went against his nature to keep driving, especially when the person flagging him down looked like a woman with their slight frame and short stature. Charlie pulled over in front of the car. He hadn’t packed any rain gear, so all he had was his American flag baseball hat. It wasn’t much, but it would at least keep the rain out of his eyes. Charlie got out of his jeep and met the woman at the front of her car. “Thank you for pulling over. I’ve been standing here for the past forty-five minutes, and you are the first to pull over. You’d think someone thought I was a serial killer or something.” The woman laughed at her own joke. Charlie didn’t c***k a smile. He didn’t smile anymore. He didn’t have anything to smile about, and it hurt his face. He looked down at the woman that was several inches smaller than his six-foot frame. She wore a heavy raincoat with the hood pulled over most of her face, concealing her features. Her voice was sweet and soft. It made him think of things he hadn’t thought about since before his incident. He didn’t like it. Women equaled complications, and this wisp of a woman had trouble written all over her. He needed to help her and leave. In and out. “What seems to be the problem?” Charlie said in his typical no-nonsense voice. He didn’t like to talk more than what was necessary, nor did he want to be out in the pouring rain longer than he had to. The woman tilted her head back revealing more of her face and looked him in the eye. He knew she couldn’t see all of him because his baseball cap was pulled low over his face. His lower face was still exposed to the harsh head lights of her car. He waited for her to flinch at seeing him like everyone else did, but she did the opposite. She smiled at him, and he could have sworn the rain stopped, and the sun had come out, it was so bright and warm. No one ever smiled at him when they first met him. Did she not see the permanent scowl on his face? The deep scars that his beard could never fully conceal. How could she not, everyone else did. “I know you from base.” Charlie’s body tensed, he immediately looked around for possible danger. Had the woman lured him out of his vehicle on purpose? No, he was being silly. She seemed surprised to see him. He was acting paranoid after Panama but who could blame him? “How’s that?” He asked trying to place her. He was always watching his surroundings but didn’t memorize faces unless they were a target. He would have to get better about that. “I work at the PX. I’ve seen you there on several occasions.” The woman looked crestfallen that he didn’t remember her. Charlie searched his memory. Yep, sure enough, he remembered her. He had never spoken to her, but she always wore the same bright smile as she had given him a moment ago. “I remember you. So, what’s wrong with your car?” Steering her back toward the problem at hand. He had training in the morning, and the firing range if he had time before catching up on paperwork. He didn’t have time for a conversation in the rain. “Oh yeah,” the woman shook her head as if she forgot she was standing in a rainstorm. “I got a flat tire, and I don’t have a spare. I used it a while back, and I never replaced it. I need a ride either to my house or back to base so I can call a tow.” “You don’t have a cell phone?” he asked skeptically. Everyone had cell phones now a days. He was only thirty-seven and always had one in case of an emergency. The woman cringed under his scrutiny. “I misplaced the charger in my house somewhere, so it died a few days ago.” It seemed plausible. Charlie looked around again for any hint of danger, but when there was none, he relaxed. Charlie knew he didn’t have a spare tire that would fit her car. He would have to give her a ride. “Hop in, and I’ll give you a ride home.” The woman beamed up at Charlie as if he handed her the moon. “Thank you so much.” Charlie felt uncomfortable under her praise, so he nodded and headed back to his jeep, and waited for her to get in. It only took her a few minutes to turn her car off and climb in the jeep. “Sorry, I’m getting your seat all wet.” She said, trying her best not to sit all the way back in her seat to keep it somewhat dry. Charlie shrugged and threw his soaked hat in the back seat. He didn’t care about his seats getting wet. They would dry. “So where do you live?” She gave him her address, and they were back on the road. “I’m Catherine by the way. Catherine Cunningham.” “Charlie,” was all he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “So, what do you do on base, Charlie?” “Do you always ask strangers so many questions?” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye then back on the road. “When a stranger is giving me a ride home late at night, yes.” “That seems a moot point now to ask questions when you’re already in the car.” He pointed out. He wasn’t trying to scare her, but she needed to be careful. One could never be too safe, and she was so small, she would be easy prey. Catherine seemed to ponder his question. “Would you rather have had this conversation in the rain?” “No,” he grumbled. He’d rather be home already and still dry, and not have a chatty woman sitting next to him that smelled of vanilla. It was distracting. He hated distractions. They were deadly. “You don’t talk a lot, do you?” “Not if I can help it.” Charlie had never been much of a talker. He never felt like he had anything to say that took more than a simple answer. He was a simple, straight to the point, kind of guy. He turned on the radio hoping Catherine got the point he didn’t want to talk. In recent news, another woman has gone missing today in San Antonio. Her name is Marcia Sinclair. She is thirty-three years old. There were signs of a struggle in her apartment but no witnesses have come forward. San Antonio police department has asked if anyone has any information to please come forward. This makes the third missing person in the past four weeks. We’ll have more as the story unfolds. Charlie turned off the radio. He had been listening to the same story for the past month. It made him uncomfortable that Catherine had been standing outside in the rain for as long as she had. There were a lot of unsavory people in the world, and he knew all too well about them. He saw Catherine shiver out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know if it was because of the story or she was cold. He turned up the heat just in case it was the later. “Thank you,” she murmured as she rubbed her hands together. They rode the rest of the way to her house in silence. As soon as they pulled into her driveway, she pulled her keys out of her purse. “Thank you again, Charlie, for getting me home.” “It was my pleasure. Take care.” Charlie didn’t know what else to say though for some reason he wasn’t ready for her to leave. He was going to call it a moment of insanity. Charlie liked his solitude. If he was going to ask a woman out, it wouldn’t be her. Catherine liked to talk, and he didn’t. It would be better if this were the only interaction they had. Catherine opened the door, and the dome light came on illuminating the car. She turned back to look at Charlie. Here it was. Time for her to cringe at him. He no longer had a cap on to hide most of his face like he always did wherever he went. Even the few times he saw her in the PX he always kept a hat pulled low over his face. “Good night,” she whispered and did the most unexpected thing of all. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was his unscarred one, but she kissed his cheek all the same, without so much as a glance at his scars. She gave him one of her bright smiles, and got out of the car racing to her front door, and all too swiftly disappeared inside. Charlie sat stunned in his jeep watching her race inside. He could still feel her lips on his cheek. What had possessed her to do that? She hadn’t cringed at all when she saw him. That was strange. He shook his head at himself and backed out of her driveway heading home. It didn’t matter that Catherine didn’t cringe at the sight of him. It didn’t matter she kissed his cheek. Catherine Cunningham meant nothing to him. He was a Delta Force operative. One of the most secretive groups in the military. He was dedicated to his job and his country. He didn’t have time for chatty women, even when they looked at him like he was the most handsome man alive.