’ She smiled at him and her good hand gripped his big paw. She drifted off to sleep holding his hand. Jethro watched her closely. He couldn’t tell...if she was pretty or not because her entire head was swollen and she had cuts all over her face. He could tell that she was a very small girl. She might weigh a hundred pounds, but it was doubtful. When he thought of all she had been through, a big tear ran down his cheek and splashed onto her hand. He stayed with her all night. As the days rolled. Few boats drawn up on the beach and a biggishruined building that used to be a fish cannery and pastthe cannery the ground rose up and the beach ended. IfHarold wanted to go further he would have to go inland. It was a real hot day by then so he sat down at atable outside a cantina (the only cantina in the place)and when a young guy came out he ordered a Coke. The guywas about Harold’s age, not as tall and slimmer but goodlooking. He smiled at Harold and pretty soon they werechatting.. Sean, at one time, was as calm, as cool and as collected as a warrior could be. He could roll with the punches, letting neither the unexpected keep him from completing the mission, nor causing him to freeze and not withdraw to fight another day. He had been one with the ways of war.Not now.Now ... he just wanted it to be over. He just wanted to get in, do it, and get out.He wanted to live.That, he knew, would be the death of him."All twelve have hit!" Amanda yelled, her voice full of glee at. But he didn’t stop. He just shifted his hand to pinch my already-stiff nipple and pull it toward him, so hard I had to lean with it, struggling to scoot myself along the bench toward him. "Good," he growled. His voice was rough with a combination of need and temper I’d never heard from him before, and I suddenly wondered if maybe I’d provoked him a little too hard, if things were about to slip totally from my control. I whimpered, not daring to make any more overt moves to stop him..