They’d be disappointed when they learned they were being taught by an understudy. Hence, Kira’s nerves.

As expected, there were grumbles when she introduced herself, but they dissipated when she explained Diana was recovering from an emergency appendectomy.

A student in the front row raised his hand. She hadn’t planned to take questions until after each topic was covered, but she hadn’t begun yet, so she nodded for him to proceed.

“Are you the same Dr. Hanson who was abducted in connection with Dr. Edwards and the terrorist leader Makram Rafiq?”

Her throat went dry. She should have expected this. It was strange that she hadn’t. The trial for the two men who’d abducted her would likely begin in the fall and was surfacing again on the news as legal dominos lined up. Her abduction had been a side story to the bigger, horrific crimes committed by the terrorist leader and his American accomplices, but she’d had her share of media attention, especially back in December and January.

She nodded and said, “I’m not able to discuss the events of last December any more than Diana could if she were here. Trials are pending, and we won’t do anything to jeopardize the prosecution.” She picked up the remote to start the presentation. “We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s begin.”

The first session went well enough. During her lunch break she texted Diana to tell her things were going fine and ask how she was feeling.

The reply came from Diana’s boyfriend, Lieutenant Chris Flyte.

Chris

Thanks, Kira. D is sleeping but doing better today. So thankful you could step in.

Kira

Of course.

It had been an ordeal to arrange these workshops. A last-minute cancellation for the very first session could have doomed the contract, and Diana had moved to Virginia Beach to be with Chris. Any work she could get locally was a bonus.

Saw some posts in the base chats that tagged you and the news reports from Dec. Hope that wasn’t an issue.

Everyone was so careful around Kira’s mental state. With good reason. She’d just been starting to process what had happened in December when her dad suffered a massive stroke. He was hospitalized for nearly a month. Three weeks after returning home to Kira’s care, just when they thought he was through the worst and had a good chance of recovering most of his speech and mobility, he died suddenly in his sleep.

She gave Chris the same answer she’d been giving everyone the last few months.

I’m fine.

And she was. Now. She fully expected to fall apart later. After Malta. After she had answers.

Then the grieving could begin.

She stared at the phone for the awkward moment of wondering if the conversation was done or if she needed to say “bye.” The joys of group chat with people one didn’t know well.

Her stomach growled. She had only forty-five minutes for lunch. She’d figure out the rules of texting with one of the SEALs who’d saved her life another day.

She didn’t know if she’d ever quite be comfortable around Chris Flyte, and he wasn’t even the SEAL who’d found her lying on the floor, battered and at her worst.

She still shuddered at the state she’d been in when Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon had found her. She knew she’d regained consciousness. If it could be called that. She was pretty sure she’d said something to him, but had no clue what.

Later, she’d told her father to send him and the others who waited at the hospital home. She couldn’t face anyone.

By the time she was ready to face Rand again, he was gone. Then he was deployed. Or maybe he’d been avoiding her. She’d never be sure.

And then her father had the stroke. Still, two weeks after he’d returned from the hospital, with her father’s encouragement—some might even call it nagging—she decided to leave him home alone and attend the baby shower for Morgan’s second child.

She arrived more than an hour late, and as she parked her vehicle, she spotted Rand up against his car with a petite, gorgeous Latina woman Kira had met once at FMV’s offices. Staci was a grad student in cultural heritage preservation who’d been a coworker of Morgan’s when they both waited tables at Double D, a restaurant known for its busty, scantily clad servers.

Staci was beautiful and bold and everything Kira wasn’t.

She wasn’t sure if Rand and Staci had kissed, but regardless of whether or not lips were involved, there had definitely been a moment between the attractive couple. Then Rand opened the passenger door, and Staci climbed inside. Kira ducked in her seat as Rand drove by. She’d waited until they were gone, then she started her engine and drove home to her ailing father. She did not have the energy for peopling after witnessing that.

She’d missed her shot with Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon when she turned him down that fateful December day, but she couldn’t regret it. He’d accepted her no, but he’d left the door open by entering his number into her cell phone. That act had probably saved her life.

She’d texted Help to Rand in the seconds before she was kidnapped. Without her message, no one would have known she’d been abducted, and Diana wouldn’t have taken an enormous risk that led to her being found before the man who’d paid for her abduction had the opportunity to rape her.

She’d done the right thing in turning Rand down then. It was just a shame that by the time she was ready to maybe give him a yes, he’d met someone better.

She let out a sigh. Of course he was on her mind today, given she was teaching on his base and had just exchanged texts with one of his teammates. Thankfully, no SEALs were slated to take these classes. Diana had another series of lectures just for special operators that would begin next month.

Kira locked the classroom and headed to her car. She’d grab lunch at a drive-through. The car line was long, however, so she parked and went inside the fast-food restaurant.

A young Black woman in front of her in line did a double take, then smiled and said, “Dr. Hanson. I enjoyed your class this morning. You won’t believe how many times I’ve had to tell some dumbass on deployment to leave artifacts on the ground or that buying an artifact from a rando on the street is funding the very terrorists we’re there to stop.”

Kira smiled. “It’s an endless battle. Thanks for taking it on. Many choose to look the other way, especially when the person doing it is a friend or peer.”

“I’m planning to study archaeology when I’m out of the Army. I want to specialize in Black history.”

“There are a lot of opportunities in programs focused on decolonizing archaeology and anthropology.”

“I’m two years out, but I’m already searching schools and programs. Any you recommend?”

“I’m more familiar with art history programs in general, and when it comes to anthropology, I’m disappointed to say that efforts to decolonize the profession at the university level began after my time, so I’m not current with the most effective professors and schools.”

“But you’re so young!”

Kira smiled at the familiar refrain. “I’m older than I look. I got my PhD ten years ago.”

“When you were what, twenty?”

“Closer to thirty.”

“Wow. What moisturizer do you use?”

Kira didn’t want to say it was probably more about a life spent indoors and out of the sun than a good skin regimen, so she smiled and said, “Just good genes, I guess.”

At least the too much time indoors thing would change with the trip to Malta. She was going for family research, but she’d have plenty of time to wear a bikini and swim in the Mediterranean. She’d walk along the walls of forts that were nearly five hundred years old and would feel the warm Mediterranean breeze on her skin as she looked across the water and tried to imagine what the sea had looked like as the Ottoman Empire attacked and eventually captured Fort St. Elmo during the Great Siege.

She would visit the Blue Lagoon on the island of Comino and hike to see the megalithic temples on the island of Gozo. And she would drink fruity cocktails and be bold and flirty with handsome strangers. She would do all these things outside, in the searing Maltese sunshine. Starting tomorrow.

The line moved forward, and the young soldier got her food. Moments later, Kira had hers and nodded to the woman as she headed out the door.

She had just survived an unplanned social interaction. Good practice for her trip.