Feeling Hot (Out of Uniform #7)

So why was he finding it impossible to focus on the television screen?

For the hundredth time in the last hour, his gaze moved away from the TV and landed on the blonde across the room. She had a pair of earbuds on and was listening to music on her iPod. She hadn’t voiced a single complaint when he’d laid down the Sunday football law. Instead, she’d spent the past hour transferring photos from a very expensive-looking camera to her laptop.

He had no idea what was up with him, why he felt the strongest urge to pull up the chair next to Jen’s and find out what she was working on. To spend the day sitting and talking. Maybe steal some kisses.

Talking. Stealing kisses.

What was he, a teenaged girl?

This need to get to know the woman he was sleeping with, to be friends with her, was disconcerting as hell.

Curiosity had him grudgingly rising from the couch. Jen’s blue eyes flicked up at his approach and she pulled out her earphones. “What’s up? Did your team lose or something?”

“No.” He rounded the table and flopped down beside her. “I was curious about what you’re working on.”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh. Nothing really. I’m just uploading some pictures.”

Cash inspected the Nikon on the table. “Shit, that camera is hardcore. When you said you liked messing around with photography, I figured you had one of those point-and-shoot cameras.”

“I used to, but there’s no fun in that.” She shrugged. “It’s more satisfying adjusting the settings yourself and capturing something unique.”

“Can I see some of your pictures?”

Now she looked uneasy. “Why?”

“Why not?”

She chewed on her bottom lip as if trying to decide whether or not he was genuinely interested, and Cash suddenly remembered that comment she’d made when they’d first met, about how nobody in her family took her seriously. Maybe she was worried he’d make fun of her work and belittle her hobby.

“Come on,” he pressed. “I’d love to take a look.”

“Um. Okay.” She shifted the laptop so they could both see the screen. “These are some shots I took in January when I went to a resort in Jamaica.”

Cash leaned in, expecting to find postcard-perfect shots of swaying palm trees, sandy white beaches and a calm ocean, but that was not the case. At all.

“What the hell kind of resort did you to go?” he asked suspiciously, his gaze focused on the desolate scene before him.

She offered a sheepish look. “I didn’t spend much time on the resort. But don’t tell my brother,” she added quickly. “Carson and my parents think I take these yearly sun-and-fun vacations for the, well, sun and fun.”

Her fingers traveled over the laptop’s track pad to scroll through the pictures. Cash was blown away. Some of the pictures were in color, others in black and white, but all displayed images he hadn’t expected. Several featured a little boy, not older than five or six, with dirt on his face and crooked teeth bared in a big grin. In one the boy sat on the dirt, playing with marbles. In another, he dashed toward a small hut with a tin roof and made of rotting wood that looked about to collapse. The last shot showed the boy weaving through piles of garbage, while black flies hovered around him.

Cash frowned. “Where was this taken?”

“In a little town outside of Kingston. Poverty is their way of life. But Marcus—that’s the kid in the picture—he was the sweetest kid I’d ever met. Smiling all the time, despite it all.”

“What the hell were you thinking, walking around in places like these? You should’ve stayed at the hotel where it was safe.”

She didn’t even have the decency to look contrite. “There’s only so many times you can ooh and aah at the ocean. Besides, I’m easily bored. Lying on the beach all day for a week isn’t my thing. I want to see and do things I’ve never experienced before. So if it means stepping out of my comfort zone and visiting a poor village, or checking out the ganja shops in Kingston—”

“What?”

“Or visiting sugar cane fields in Haiti, ancient ruins in Mexico…” She trailed off with a shrug. “And you’ve got to admit, it makes for more interesting pictures.”

She kept scrolling through photos, and Cash couldn’t fight the disapproval bubbling in his gut. When he saw a series of photographs that looked like they’d been taken in the middle of a full-blown riot, he let out an expletive and scowled at Jen.

“So you take these trips, tell your family you’re sun-tanning at a resort, and then you disappear into some of the most dangerous areas in those damn countries?”

“Pretty much.”

His jaw tensed. “That’s beyond foolish, Jen. It’s downright reckless.”