***This is the final chapter. I hope it hasn't been too hard to follow. With everything in place for Kate and Jürgen, I can now take the reader to the ending in one hopefully enjoyable go. This was never meant to be a long romancy thing. Rather, It's more of a little tale where two people find a lot for themselves in a very short time, so I've kept it a little brief, since there was too much deep stuff in the first chapter, I think. 0_o
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Their attention was drawn by other things during the drive and before long; they were grinding up the rise to their quarters.
"Your little motor seems to be struggling a little, Jürgen," she smiled, "I can get out and walk from here. I don't mind."
He shook his head and selected a lower gear like lightning, "No, Kate, I was just pre-occupied with something. The fault lies with the idiot driver; not with the car and certainly not you. I think that I have made the wrong impression on my new boss over this."
"Forget it," she laughed as she shook her head, "As I told you in our discussions earlier, the gearshift on a Ferret is just a little different from even this. It's more of a pre-select than a proper gearshift, so you need to be thinking a bit ahead. The number of times when I've stalled because I was daydreaming aren't worth remembering.
And by the way," she smiled over at him, "I'm expecting to feel just a little satisfaction when you do stall out a few times, so please be sure not to disappoint me too much."
Corinne's surprise turned out to be a large polyethylene children's wading pool which had been tossed over her courtyard fence and there was a box of Antiguan beer in front of her door.
While Jürgen puzzled over the manual that she'd handed him, Kate wasted no time in getting the box inside and into her little fridge. Right after that, she ran out to her little courtyard and dragged the pool out of the plants where it had landed and over to the shade of the single large tree there.
Then she found the hose to begin filling it in a little glee just to have something nice to sit in and cool off later.
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While Jürgen sat in the driver's position inside Farley and tried to get a feel for the layout of everything while reading the manual which Kate had provided, he looked back when she climbed aboard rather carefully.
"Here," she said, handing him a notebook computer, "This goes over there where you can see it now and then, and you'll find the power connector already there along with the USB plug for the GPS antenna there next to the right side port. I'm also trying to decide on just how much the roles of the crew ought to be split up.
In service with the Royal Army, it was always the commander who dictated where they ought to go and when, since he was the one who had the radio. But since we're not looking to go bumping into the Russian Army anywhere out here, I've been thinking of just allowing the driver to do all the navigation. That leaves less of a commander in the back seat and more of just a gunner- slash-radio man, in case it ever gets to that. What do you think?"
"I see it," he said, "but I do not know yet how busy I will be driving, so I can't say with any certainty."
The only thing that she didn't like about the layout of the crew positions --and it had never occurred to her before now was that she couldn't see his face from where she sat.
"Well that's fair," she nodded, "And I think we'll need a little time to figure that out, so hook up the notebook and start up so that it gets a little power and then we'll wait until the GPS has a chance to acquire signals. We'll take the notebook inside tonight so you'll have lots of time to get used to the software."
He had it booted in a minute and was looking at a dot in the Caribbean in another minute. She told him how to zoom the map a little and then how to open the GPS dialog. While she'd been doing this, Kate was keenly aware of her position in leaning forward like this to reach past him and the way that it brought her breasts forward to press against his back.
She didn't say a word to him, and he said nothing of it, though she knew that there was really no way around it and she could even admit to herself just how much she liked how it felt to her. She even wondered at herself for the way that she had to fight off the urge to kiss his cheek or something.
It was absurd, she thought, but it was there all the same.
"Alright Jürgen," she smiled, "Take us for a little spin around the yard. I don't mean to sound like a right twit right now, but try to bear in mind that a speedy and incorrect turn here could adversely affect the property value, a five tonne Ferret being what it is and all."
He nodded and selected first gear and then kicking the actuation pedal just as the manual said, they were off and grinding along slowly.
"Try for second," she said quietly and he nodded.
There was a bit of a lurch, but they were fine for the most part and with her gentle words to him, they rumbled their way down the road to where they could turn around. As they whined a little on the way back up, Jürgen felt the hair rising a little on his neck to hear Kate's voice from right beside his ear.
"Take us home, Jürgen. It's a little early, but as far as I know, this must be breakfast time for you for the past while. I can't offer anything much other than frozen dinners, but I think my new driver and I have earned at least another meal together."
He nodded, feeling the way that she was bent over to be able to speak to him like this. A couple of times, a little bump or a slight jog would bring her cheek against his and neither of them wanted it to stop as he looked ahead at the road.
"I can do a little better for you, I think, Kate," he said quietly just so that her cheek had to remain there to hear him, "I do not know about you, but I have trouble living on that stuff -- other than as a snack. I have a grille and if it is not being presumptuous with my new boss, I would like the honor of cooking a dinner for you.
I have potatoes, green beans and some sausages -- if it is not too much of a stereotype. That is about all that I have to make a proper meal out of until I go to market again.
Oh," he smiled and she felt it against her cheek, "and I have an onion. I could fry that up as well."
Kate sighed. A real meal and not only something that some food factory had thought might sell in little amounts that might be fine for people just a little thicker than twigs but not for people like them. She wasn't fat -- and even she could say that to herself a lot of the time. But she wasn't five-two either, not even close.
She'd had two at a time before and wondered why she felt guilty afterward AND was still a little peckish.
"Jürgen, you fine piece of Germanic horseflesh," she grinned and actually gave in to her desire to kiss his cheek for the briefest moment, "Take us home. I'd absolutely kill for a meal like that."
She sat back up and looked around them to be sure that he allowed enough room for the mirrors that she'd mounted. "There's no shame in admitting what we are, my friend. I think we're almost related in some ways. My ancestors were Saxons, you know. That's not far off at all, is it?"
"No," he grinned, "Unless it is wartime. Then I am related to a Hun or something like that, if not a cavebear, maybe."
"Not to me," she said as she reached down and patted his shoulder, "not to me."
Given the way that they'd spent the day, it was almost unspoken between them and the first thing order of business was their showers, each in their own little cottage. They met again as Jürgen was getting the grille hot and keeping an eye through the doorway on the pots sitting on the stove.
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Kate didn't think that there would have been any way that Jürgen could have possibly improved on the admittedly simple meal, but he did.
He'd mashed the potatoes and laid the fried and unbattered onion rings over top of them.
She was sure that to him, it hadn't been a thought, but to her it was just a really nice touch and the sausages ...
Kate was in heaven over something so simple.
He was still sounding rather cautious every once in a while, though overall, he'd opened up a lot to her and wasn't anywhere as stand-offish as he had been at the outset. There still was some of it, though.
"Listen," she smiled over her plate at him, "I want to get something straight between us, Jürgen."
He looked over and sat up a little, setting his utensils aside as he prepared to listen to her.
"It's that," she said, pointing just a little impolitely, "You're even impeccable in the way that you're sitting there right now. I do appreciate it, Jürgen. Don't think for a minute that I don't, but, ..."
She sighed heavily, "I'd like for you to know something. Whether or not you're aware of it, you've made a friend in me today. I like you quite a bit and it's a gift that we seem to get along so well together. I know that you're often painfully polite in your dealings with other people because I guess that's just the way that you were raised."
He blinked at her.
She nodded, "And my considered opinion is that you were raised very well, I might add.
I just, ..." she sighed again, "I'd just like to see you without the starch every now and then, Jürgen. I'm sure that you didn't have the starch when you were with your friends back home all the time, did you?"
He shook his head and shrugged, "But here, I am with my superior and --"
"And nothing," Kate smiled, "This isn't a staff dinner. I know that we've got our roles down. When we're on the clock, I'm your boss - as ill-suited and inept as I feel to be the boss of a professional soldier like you, Jürgen. While you've been trying to find the roles and loosening up enough to make me laugh, I've been struggling over my words to you because I'd never want to insult you.
Christ, the best that I've done is play at being a soldier and a grease monkey. It's far from the KPK or XYZ or whatever you were, and I --"
"KSK," he smiled, "but I understand, I think."
"Well good," Kate growled a little, "Because we're not on the clock now," she said as she got up and stepped over to her refrigerator. "When we're on our own time, I'd much rather spend time with you as a friend than a boss, alright?"
She had her head in the fridge and she knew that he was looking at her cut-off covered ass and that was far past fine with her. She just couldn't think of a way to use it as an illustration with which to drive her point home any better without sounding crude or she would have.
His eyebrows rose when she placed a bottle in front of him -- just at the right side of his plate in the perfect place for formality.
