Hulk Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought made him look older.
    Caught off guard, Betty was still wearing the very short nightgown she’d slept in and her hair was in disarray. Her robe had been hanging open and she pulled it more tightly around herself with one hand while making vague and futile efforts with the other to pull her hair into line. “Uh, hi. Did I just wake up in an alternate universe where you have a son?”
    The young man at the skillet laughed. “She’s funny. You didn’t tell me she was funny.” He looked back at Betty. “How do you like it?”
    “It?”
she said, unsure of what he was referring to, but a bit suspicious of the possibilities.
    “Your eggs.” He nodded toward the stove top.
    “Oh! Uh, scrambled, I guess. Dad . . . ?”
    Ross, who was busily studying the newspaper, nodded absently. “Yes, you like them scrambled.”
    “No, I know that. I mean . . .” And she sharply inclined her head toward the young man.
    “I think she means ‘Who the heck is this dashingly handsome fellow cooking up eggs?’ ”
    Despite the awkwardness of the situation, Betty laughed lightly at that. “Well, I don’t know about the ‘dashingly handsome’ part, but . . .”
    “This is Glen Talbot,” Thunderbolt Ross said. “Out here visiting his uncle, Colonel Talbot.”
    “Ah. Okay, so, welcome to Fort Meade, Maryland,” Betty said, being as affable as she could considering it was first thing in the morning. “Significant for—well—not much, really.”
    “Well, I hear you won’t have to worry about that much longer,” Glen said, deftly mixing the eggs in the skillet.
    She looked in confusion at him. “Why not?”
    Ross set down his newspaper. “Yes, ah . . . I was going to tell you this, Betty.”
    “Oh!” Talbot looked a bit chagrined. “I’m sorry. Did I spoil the surprise?”
    “Surprise?” Her befuddlement grew.
    Ross cleared his throat and said, “We’ve been reassigned, Betty.”
    “Awwww, no.” Betty sagged into a chair at the table, dropping her head into one hand. “Not
again
. I was just starting to get used to
this
place.”
    “I know it’s difficult,” Talbot said sympathetically as he flipped the eggs onto her plate. The aroma wafted up from them, and she had to admit they didn’t smell bad at all. She poked at them experimentally and took a bite. Didn’t taste bad, either.
    “Actually, it shouldn’t be so unpleasant this time, Betty,” Ross told his daughter. “In fact, it may be like old times.”
    She started to get excited. “Italy? Back to Italy?” She’d loved the time they’d spent there, two years ago, and had hated that it had only lasted a couple of months.
    “No, not Italy. Desert Base.”
    Slowly Betty lowered her fork, letting it clink down onto the plate. “You’re . . . not
serious
.”
    “Very serious.”
    “Do we have to?”
    Talbot looked curiously from Betty to her father. “Is there a problem with Desert Base? I hear Nevada’s pretty nice, actually.”
    “We have some . . . unpleasant memories of it, that’s all,” said Ross.
    “Yeah, if you consider we almost got killed when it blew up and, by the way, my mom dying there a week later ‘unpleasant.’ ”
    She was unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, which was unfortunate because she knew that attitude put her father on edge. But he maintained his cool, which was to be expected since they had a guest.
    “Sorry,” mumbled Talbot. “I had no idea.”
    Her heart softened a bit. “It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. But at least, knowing the army, it’ll be temporary . . .”
    “Permanent, actually,” Ross said. “At least as permanent as such things are.”
    Betty couldn’t believe it. Of all the glorious places they’d been to, that damned desert was where they were being stuck for good? “I thought the place was leveled!”
    “It was rebuilt. I’ll be taking command of it.”
    “Oh, God,” she moaned, convinced that there wasn’t a teenager in the world who was having a worse day