I'm not sure how the two of us are going to sleep in the same room. She seems like the kind who might try to kill me in my sleep. Might be a good thing I rarely sleep.
"Any preference as to which rack you want, ma'am?" I call.
"No."
I claim one side of the room. It takes me ten minutes to make my bed, position everything in drawers, and stow the rest out of sight, ensuring an aesthetically pleasing room.
"You don't have to do that," she says from the doorway.
I glance at her. "Do what?"
"That." She's pointing at the corners of my bed, which are crisp and tight. "You can relax."
"Discipline stems from routine," I reply automatically.
"Right. They don't let you jarheads think, do they?" She sighs and walks in, gazing around, unimpressed with our comfortable quarters. "You allergic to peppermint?"
"No."
"Okay, good." Katya goes to the corner and pulls a dark glass bottle from her large purse. Pinching the top of the dropper-lid, she deposits a few drops of something into the corner.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Peppermint oil. Keeps spiders away."
No sleeping bag or halfway decent shoes, but she remembers bug repellant? I don't think this woman has an ounce of sense.
This isn't going to work. I watch her deposit oil into each corner then under the window, unable to find a polite way to tell her that her priorities suck.
When she's done, she faces me. The tension between us isn't normal. She doesn't look at me; she glares. There's always fire burning in the depths of her gaze, and she's tense. There's a tiny part of me that wants to say something to help her.
The rest … well, I'm not sure what to do. I can't remember anything ever feeling so awkward. Unaccustomed to dealing with civilians, I have a feeling my preferred way of handling her won't go over well.
"This is gonna be a long week," she voices what I'm thinking. "It's not too late to go back to Iraq. You won't be stuck with me."
"I'm not afraid of you, Katya," I assure her. "Even if your brother and father are."
"You're right. Staying here might keep your men from getting killed."
"Might teach you a thing or two about what it means to work with someone else instead of running people like Petr over."
"I don't run him over. I'm taking care of him, something you should've done in the first place!" The fire is in her gaze. She strides up to me, pausing in my space.
The beauty glaring up at me might be a turn on, if her tongue wasn't so fucking lethal.