friend a brilliant smile. “And marines! Oh! I just love a man in uniform. This is turning out better than I’d ever dreamed.”
Dev rolled her eyes. “Correction: you’re an international sensation, I’m not. You’re the top foil fencer in the U.S.” The comment went right over Sarah’s petite head, and Dev smiled benignly. Well, what could she expect? Sarah was only twenty and she was twenty-eight. A world of difference and different experiences, Dev thought, trying to look philosophically upon the evening. Sarah had eyes for any man who was handsome but remained loyal to her steady boyfriend David back home. Besides, for Sarah, life was a nonstop adventure.
Sarah pouted. “You never give yourself credit, Dev. If you weren’t important, they wouldn’t have asked you along.”
Dev grinned, her blue eyes sparkling. “Right. The woman èpèe specialist.”
“Don’t knock it. You and Sue Barnes not only made it acceptable for women to fence one another with heavier weapons, but you’ve also got it legally accepted at the national level. That’s nothing to sniff at. It’s impressive.”
“I just wish Sue was here right now,” Dev groaned.
“Well, if you were having a baby right now, you’d be home, too.”
“Can I say I’m having morning sickness and gracefully bow out of this party we have to attend?”
Sarah laughed. “You’re so funny, Dev. Guess it goes along with your funny name.”
“And funny, gangly body.”
“Oh, stop it!”
Dev laughed with her. “Hey, that’s how I got into èpèe in the first place: I was too tall for foil. Did you ever see a good woman foil fencer over five-foot-six?”
Sarah shook her head. “Small means swift.”
“Right. And large means a bigger target who’s slower moving.” She looked down at herself. “I’m five-foot-nine and a hundred and thirty pounds. That’s why I went into èpè. All épéeists are tall and slender. Merely a matter of self-defense.” She tapped her head. “And smarts.” Foil was a light weapon compared to the épée blade. Because of the difference in styles, many men thought women couldn’t adjust to the more demanding and physical game of èpè. Dev had proved them wrong.
“You’re crazy, Dev! You always make me laugh.”
Dev’s full mouth curved into a smile as she watched her smaller friend’s delight. “Yeah, that’s what the guys at the TV station say, too.”
“Have Minicam, will travel,” Sarah agreed. And then she frowned. “You sure your wrist is healed enough? I mean, when that big guy tried to punch you out because you were the one with the camera…”
Dev looked at her right wrist. Ordinarily, the California sun would have tanned her whole arm; around her wrist the skin was white. The ace bandage had come off two days ago. Dev had spent every moment she could spare from her exhausting job as a camera operator fencing to rebuild the strained muscles. “It should hold up. Coach told me to tape it, but I don’t know. I don’t feel like losing in front of an international television audience. I need all the flexibility I can get to win.” She hadn’t told Coach Jack Gordon there were times when she experienced such excruciating pain that she dropped whatever she was carrying in her right hand. No, if Jack had known that, he would never have allowed her to come to this international meet. She was there to show the rest of the world that women were just as good in épée and sabre as any man in the sport.
Sarah frowned. “Yes, but if one of those big Russian women decides to poke you right there with the steel tip of an pe, you could really get it injured.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Dev put her hand on Sarah’s bare shoulder. The cocktail-length black chemise made Sarah look smashing. Dev, on the other hand, wore a stunning strapless Victor Kosta dress of red-and-white stripes, complementing her auburn hair and blue eyes. “I’m supposed to be big sister, not you,” she teased, laughing.
“I know, I know. Devorah Hunter is our den mother on this trip.” At that moment, Sarah was distracted. Her eyes grew large as she eyed the pilots. “Oh, don’t they look gorgeous?” she breathed.
Dev gave them a practiced once-over. “No,” she drawled, amusement in her tone. “They look like they’re on the prowl.”
“Marines! Real men! Look at them!”
With a shake of her head, Dev excused herself and slid among the rest of the women fencers, making her way to the rear, resting her back against the marble wall. Mrs. Weintraub, wife of one of the officials from the American embassy, began to make introductions. Dev’s eyes sparkled with laughter as she watched the older woman pairing off pilots with fencers based on the criterion of height. Couldn’t have a short marine with a tall fencer, could we? Dev almost laughed aloud and then thought better of it. Most of the women were much younger than her; either Olympic hopefuls for 1988 or international foil fencers in their early twenties. And all short.
Her gaze roved without interest over the pilots. Most of them were short, too, and Dev wondered why, never having had much to do with the military services. The closest she got was when her television station had her and reporter Fred Tucker drive up to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert to take pictures of Shuttle landings and astronauts waving as they disembarked from the huge white craft. Dev smiled as she saw Sarah blushing. A decidedly handsome pilot barely a head taller than her gallantly took her arm and escorted her toward the bank of elevators. Sarah was in love, Dev decided humorously, drowning in all that dashing derring-do of the fighter pilot image.
“Uh, Miss—let’s see, dear…” The wife of the embassy official gave Dev a forced smile as she walked over quickly to her. Dev straightened. She saw the woman nervously riffling through the neatly typed lists in her hands. “Oh, dear…what is your name?”
“Dev. Dev Hunter, Mrs. Weintraub,” she supplied, trying to look properly interested. Good! Maybe her name wasn’t on the list, which meant she could go back to her room in the hotel and soak her wrist. It was aching and she had no desire to dance or do anything but rest her arm for the forthcoming meet.
“Oh, dear…I just know they have your name somewhere here.”
Dev looked up. Up into dark-gray eyes that ruthlessly assessed her. She swallowed, caught in the web of his appraisal of her. He was tall. Much taller than any of the other pilots. And his lean face was closed, measured and disapproving. Her heart beat a little more quickly, a reaction that nonplussed her. Whoever he was, he was whipcord lean with squared broad shoulders that were thrown back confidently. An image flitted through her alerted mind: the expression in those almost colorless gray eyes with their huge black pupils warned that he was ready to pounce and shred his next victim. He looked like an eagle. His mouth, although well shaped, was thinned by obvious irritation. But Dev might have been more on guard if the corners of his mouth hadn’t been turned softly upward. At some point, he must have laughed a great deal. He wasn’t laughing now. No, if looks could kill, she’d be dead and so would poor Mrs. Weintraub, who was flustered by the faux pas.
Dev was far more concerned about Mrs. Weintraub’s embarrassment. She appeared to be going into cardiac arrest as she tore through the sheaf of papers in her trembling fingers. Dev reached out and touched her elegantly clad silk shoulder. “It’s quite all right, Mrs. Weintraub.”
“Well, I just know you are a fencer…I feel terrible.”
Dev risked a glance up at the marine corps officer, who was standing there as if bored to death. What was the matter with the arrogant idiot? He was just making Mrs. Weintraub that much more uncomfortable. Her blue eyes darkened when they met his gray ones. “Egotistical” flashed to mind. And then “cold.” Cold and cruelly insensitive. She disliked him intensely in those seconds. Well, she didn’t want to be here, either, but she wasn’t acting like an ass, at least.
Dev’s mouth pursed. “Look, Mrs. Weintraub, it’s all right. I honestly