Free The White Vixen by David Tindell

and seas were light.
    Jo Ann’s hand found Ian’s as they negotiated the twisting path through the rocks and trees. She feigned stumbling and grabbed hold of him, and he didn’t let go. “Good thing we’re not trying this in full darkness,” he said. The path was not lighted, and the moon wouldn’t be up for another couple hours.
    “Normally I’m fairly agile,” she said. “That one got me, though.”
    “Well, we’ll do our best to keep from a repetition.” He squeezed her hand.
    She’d learned a little bit more about him over dinner. He was from Cornwall, in the extreme southwest of England, middle-class family, his father a World War II Army officer who’d survived the beaches of Normandy. Ian went off to join the Royal Marines at eighteen, made officer within two years, and by twenty-five had worked his way into Special Boat Squadron. He was thirty-three now, just two years older than Jo.
    “You’ve never married?” she asked.
    “Came close once or twice,” he said. “Ultimately, neither of them wanted a husband who’d rarely be around. They wanted home and hearth, children, all that.”
    “Not a bad life,” she said.
    “True, but not what I was looking for at the time. Perhaps later.” She could certainly understand why a woman would want to marry him. Not particularly tall, maybe about six feet, but strikingly good-looking, resembling an actor she’d seen recently, a British actor in a movie…what was it?
    They passed another couple sitting on a bench, watching the sunset. Ian nodded to the man, a Caucasian, while his Asian companion pointed out something to the west. An airliner, lights flashing, was coming in to land at Hong Kong Airport, on the other side of Lantau Island.
    “He’s an officer aboard Cumberland ,” Ian told Jo when they’d passed out of earshot of the couple. “We’ve worked together once or twice.”
    A few minutes later, they came to another bench, this one unoccupied. “Do we have some time for a break?” he asked.
    Jo checked her wristwatch. The ferry was due an hour from now, and they were about halfway there, so she figured they could spare about fifteen minutes. “Yes,” she said, leading him to the bench.
    “You’re quite the one for precision, aren’t you?” he asked after they’d sat down. The evening was beginning to get a bit chilly, and she sat closely against him; his arm found its way around her shoulders.
    “I have to be, in my line of work,” she said.
    “Ah, yes, now what is it, commando, secret agent?”
    She looked up at him, and the dying sunlight twinkled in his eyes. “Maybe a little bit of both,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve already had a look at my jacket.” Her USAF personnel file had surely found its way to Ian’s commanding officer, who put together the rescue mission.
    “Well, I am the ranking Royal Marine aboard,” he said. “Let’s see…a rather interesting childhood and adolescence, going hither and yon with your parents, then college at Stanford, graduate school at your Air Force Academy. When did you join the military, exactly?”
    “I was an Air Force ROTC cadet at Stanford,” she said. “I went on active duty as a second lieutenant after graduation. Got my master’s in international relations at Colorado Springs.”
    “International relations. Based on the course of our evening so far, you know your stuff.” Jo gave him a playful elbow in the ribs. “Ow,” he said, feigning pain. “I must be more careful, since I read you are also somewhat of a martial arts expert.”
    She laughed. “I’ve studied tae kwon do for several years. That’s a Korean martial art, and when we lived in Japan I also studied naginata. Since then I’ve picked up some things from other arts—a little judo, kung fu .”
    “Really? Kung fu, as in the movies?”
    “Kung fu as in the ancient Chinese martial art, developed by the Shaolin monks,” she said. “But during my college days I did study it under Bruce Lee in