By the Book

by Mary Kay McComas

  First dates were so tedious, she thought. Really. So regimented and traditional. Why should a passionate kiss in the parking lot less than twelve hours after they met throw the whole thing off? Or had it? Maybe their instincts knew best.

  “Just don’t tell me you’re a mercenary, okay?” she said, forcing herself to break the silence first, using the playful, carefree attitude he seemed to like. “I’m not at all sure how I’ll react to that.”

  He chuckled and grinned, laying his menu on the table, folding his hands on top.

  “Okay,” he said, simply enjoying the sight of her across the table from him. “I’m not a mercenary.”

  “Or a spy. You say it out loud and, date-wise, you think ... unreliable.” The twinkle in her eyes was humorous. “Like he’ll go to make a phone call between dinner and dessert and disappear—leaving you with the bill and a long walk home.”

  Silent laughter.

  “Spies have gotten a bad rap. Most of them live very normal, very ordinary lives.”

  With the humor fading quickly, she whispered, “You’re a spy?”

  She would have bet her last dime there wasn’t one word of advice in the little green book that addressed the dating and charming of spies. And she really wanted to charm him.

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “FBI?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “CIA?”

  “No. Not quite.”

  “Oh God.” She moaned. “You’re not one of those special forces guys they make the movies about who go off alone to do all the dangerous stuff no one else will do, are you?”

  He laughed heartily this time. “You mean women aren’t really attracted to the action-adventure types?”

  “Well, in the movies, yeah. But in real life?” She looked mighty dubious.

  Still amused, he said, “In real life I rarely go off anywhere anymore outside the United States, and what I do is probably less dangerous than what you do.” He chuckled again. “But the truth is I’m a captain in the United States Navy, attached to the Naval Sector of DIAC in Washington, D.C. Most days I work nine to five in an office with no windows.”

  “The Navy? Really?”

  “Disappointed?”

  “No. Not at all,” she said. “Relieved. And you live in Washington? Oh, that must be fascinating. So many things to see. The museums and the people and historic buildings and—have you seen the president? In person?”

  “Several times,” he said, highly entertained by her reaction. Pleased to have pleased her.

  They ordered and their meal came while she rattled off the names of people he may or may not have seen or met, and asked him about the places he’d been to and things he’d done. She was making this getting-to-know-you period—this impossibly frustrating part of his relationships—so easy. Granted, he generally chose women who could care less about who he was or what he did, but there was a reason for that. He simply thought that no one really wanted to know. But Ellen did. She hung on his every word. She’d grow quiet and thoughtful, then ask questions. Correlated the answers into what it meant to him or for him and was genuinely interested. No little thing was too little for her; it all intrigued her. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d intrigued anyone, and the revelation was heady.

  “Now tell me about this place you talked about before. The one you’re attached to?”

  “DIAC,” he said, watching her cut her veal Parmesan a little slower than she had at the beginning of the meal. She was getting full, he noticed, noting everything she did and the way she did it with an uncommon interest. With an uncommon satisfaction as well. “The Defense Intelligence Analysis Center. That’s where I work, what I do.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly in thought. “You ... analyze intelligence?”

  Oh man. He’d just finished explaining that the Senate and the Congress weren’t located in the House of Representatives. He must be thinking she was the biggest nitwit to draw air.

  “Not that kind of intelligence,” he said as if he could read her mind, though he was simply reacting to the confusion he always got when he told civilians what he did. “Information. I analyze information from satellite photos, from sonar and radar readings. Surveillance reports. Ship logs. Debriefings. That sort of thing.” She was staring at him. “It all comes to the Center. Information gathered by NASA, the FBI, the CIA, Naval Intelligence, allied foreign governments, the FCC ... everywhere. Tons of raw data. We look at it, compare it to other things we know, feed it into computers, record it, dissect it, add to it, figure it out, decipher it. Then we put it all in a report and send it upstairs to the decision makers. My superior officer, the JCS—the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the Department of Defense, the president ...”

  “Spy stuff,” she said, her voice breathy and awed.

  He opened his mouth to deny it, but then reconsidered. “Yeah. I guess so. Spy stuff.”

  “You profile foreign officials and military leaders down to the toothpaste they use and the decisions they’ll make in any given situation and ... and you use those photographs to see if anyone’s developing new kinds of airplanes and ships and bombs and things.”

  “That’s right.” So easy.

  “Just like in the movies!” she said, and they both laughed.

  “Tell me how you got into that,” she said, developing a true fondness for the sound of his voice—strong and smooth, like aged brandy. “Did you always want to do that? Is it hard? Do you have to go to a special school or something? It must be really interesting.”

  So very easy.

  Through the rest of the meal and over cappuccinos, he told her about the natural progression of his career. From Annapolis to submarines, from radio specialist to specializing in sonar and radar, from his promotion to Naval Intelligence to his present assignment at DIAC. She listened avidly, made him slow down or back up to ask questions, and, in general, made him feel like the most important man in the world.

  She was like that, he knew. She listened to everyone. Made everyone feel important. Was nice to everyone. He’d watched through the bank window. He knew this. But it didn’t matter. He had her undivided attention—and for however long he had it, there just didn’t seem to be anything better.

  Returning from the restroom, he found her deep in thought, and, in the candlelight, looking almost like something he’d conjured from a dream. All that burnt sienna hair, streaks of vermilion shining bright and healthy. Her eyes hidden by her lowered lids; lashes dark and thick, curved up against the smooth paleness of her skin. Her lips lush and full and soft-looking in their relaxed state; her neck long and elegant, implying innocence, but begging to be nuzzled.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly for control, then sat down across from her again.

  “You look so far-away there,” he said with a curious tilting of his head. “What are you thinking about?”

  She gave him a calculated look. “You,” she said.

  “What about me?” There was a twisting, fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was beginning to anticipate and enjoy.

  She considered him a minute, trying to decide if she should tell the truth about what she was thinking or come up with something else to keep him distracted. The little green book didn’t say she should always go in the opposite direction. Only when it suited her purpose, and this time it didn’t.

  She leaned toward him in earnest. “I was wondering if you’d had a chance to talk with anyone else in town? If you’ve told anyone else what you’ve told me tonight. About your job?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not really. Between the hospital and the shop, I’ve been sticking pretty close to home. Why?”

  “Not your father’s lawyer? Or someone who’s come into the shop? You haven’t told anyone else in town about your job?”

  “No,” he said, at a loss. “No one. I—”

  He was about to explain that he wasn’t an extrovert, that he could talk to someone for hours and never mention anything personal if he wasn’t i
n the mood to share—and he was rarely in the mood—but she smiled and shook her head. She didn’t need an explanation. She already knew.

  “I was just thinking that if you hadn’t told anyone in town about your job before now, that it was sort of interesting how close all the speculation about you really was.” He frowned. “The mercenary/war hero/CIA-FBI-spy guy that was either a loving son or nephew that no one seemed to know anything about.” He started to laugh. “No. Think about it. It’s like that gossip game that kids play where one whispers something into the next person’s ear and he whispers into the next person’s and so on down the line. And when the last person tells what he’s heard, it’s completely false or a garbled mess of the truth. You’re not a mercenary or a war hero but you’re in the military. You’re not with the CIA or the FBI but you work with them, and where you work is referred to by its initials. You’re not a spy, but you do spy work ... sort of.” She bobbed her head. “You’re a relative—a son or a nephew.”

  For an intelligence analyst he didn’t seem to be computing very quickly.

  “Don’t you see? You said you and your father had lost touch long ago, that you didn’t even know where he was until after he’d had his stroke. But someone in this town knew all about you and told someone else, who told someone else, and that’s how things got so confused but still held some element of the truth. And how did whoever it was that notified you, know where to reach you?”

  His gaze slipped away from her face, roamed a bit, and then returned.

  “You think my father kept tabs on me?”

  “Who else?”

  “And he might have told someone about me.”

  “I’d say he bragged about you.” When his expression turned ambivalent, she hurried on to convince him. “Come on. Mercenary, war hero, CIA, FBI, spy? Those are all fascinating and heroic and dangerous. That’s the truth and pride getting blown out of proportion on its way through the grapevine. If he’d never said anything about you, there wouldn’t have been any rumors at all, or maybe just that you were his son, from your meeting with the lawyer. Or if he hadn’t been proud or known exactly what you were doing all that time, he might have casually mentioned to someone that you were a sailor, and the rumor would have gone through the mill and come out that you were a bum from the docks somewhere.”

  “You’re really reaching here,” he said. “And I appreciate what you’re trying to do and all ...”

  She could tell he didn’t appreciate it at all. “I’m not doing anything but telling you what I really think. You said I should.”

  If she was right, and if for one second he started to believe she was right, a whole new bag of bugs would open up, and he wasn’t sure he’d want to look into it. Still, there she was, her honesty and sincerity as plain in her expression as the pale scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was a thoughtful woman—he’d seen a hundred examples of it—and she was simply too nice, too kind to instill false hopes where they didn’t belong.

  “I did say you should. And I still want you to. I just can’t promise I’ll always agree with you.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STEP FOUR

  Say no ... and mean it.

  —Nora Roberts

  Though it’s easy to spell and one of the shortest words in the English language, no is extremely hard to say and even more difficult to enforce. But it’s not impossible. No is a complete sentence in and of itself. No explanations are needed. No excuses required. If you mean to say no, say it. Then say it again. And again ...

  “NO. NO. NO,” SHE told her mother over the phone. “Do not touch your savings or even think of cashing in one of your bonds to pay his gambling debts, Mom. You need that money to live on.” It was midmorning and already her stomach was growling for lunch. Hungry and now angry she could hear her own voice puncturing the ceiling of the requisite noise level inside the bank. She glanced about, saw heads turning, and lowered it. “Listen to me, Mom. Just giving him the money isn’t going to help. He’ll do it again and again until you’re broke.” She listened. “No, I can’t get him a loan here. He has no collateral and I know he won’t pay it back. No. No. I haven’t abandoned him. I told him this morning I’d help him think of something, and I will. But you have to promise me not to give him another dime.” She waited. “Promise me. Okay. Now try to relax. Remember your blood pressure. We’ll think of something. I love you too.”

  She hung up the phone and pressed her eyes closed with her fingers. This lesson in saying no was getting a real workout. She’d told Felix, “No. No. No,” earlier that morning when he’d suggested she loan him the money.

  “I won’t,” she’d said, recalling that the counselor she and Jane and her mother had gone to see about Felix’s drinking problem had said it would only make his drinking easier for him, loaning him money, solving his problems for him. “I couldn’t anyway. I don’t have that kind of money just sitting around.”

  “It doesn’t have to be the whole ten thousand. Five would keep them off my back for a while,” he said, nursing a cup of black coffee. He actually looked better drunk than sober these days. To see what he’d become was heart wrenching.

  “You don’t have anything you could sell? Nothing stashed away?”

  He gave her a flat look. “You mean all the stale air she left me after the divorce? I doubt anyone would be interested in buying the air I breathe. But maybe this old shirt?” His expression brightened falsely. “Think I could sell the shirt off my back?”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “Then you’re going to have to come up with more than a buck fifty-two. These guys are serious, Ellen.”

  “I realize that,” she said, getting up from the small kitchen table to put her cup in the sink. She hesitated and frowned over his reference to a buck fifty-two, then let it go. “I have to go to work. You stay here today. Sleep. Don’t drink. Don’t go out to drink. I need time to think.”

  “Don’t take too long.”

  “Ellen?” She jumped at the sound of her name, turned to find Joleen standing beside her desk, looking concerned. “Is everything all right? Are you all right?”

  “No,” she said automatically. “But I will be. It’s just some personal stuff. Can I do something for you?”

  Joleen looked around them for privacy, then bent low and spoke in a soft voice. “It’s about the loan you’ve applied for at Quincey’s First Savings and Loan.”

  “What loan?”

  She made an awkward noise in her throat. “The loan they called here to get a personal reference for just now. As an employee of First Federal, you should have come here first, dear. I know it isn’t any of my business, but we have special rates for—”

  “I haven’t applied for a loan anywhere. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joleen.”

  “You cosigned? On a loan application? Yesterday? With your brother?”

  “No. No way. No. I didn’t,” she said, shaking her head as the pieces fell into place. “Yesterday. No. Joleen, I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for the telephone. “For taking up your time. For taking up the Savings and Loan’s time. I’ll call them right now and straighten this out.”

  Joleen straightened up, completely dumfounded. She lingered a moment, then wandered off.

  Ellen was mortified, with a singular craving for blood with her lunch. After settling things with the Savings and Loan—a simple matter of canceling the request she hadn’t made in the first place—she took a few minutes’ refuge in the ladies’ room, locking the door, checking both stalls, then sitting on the counter next to the sink to think of something pleasant ... anything pleasant.

  Naturally, Jonah came swiftly to mind, and she smiled. What a wonderfully strange creature he was. Quiet and reserved was her initial perception, but she hadn’t factored in thoughtful and intelligent, really intelligent. A thinker. An observer.

  She hadn’t realized she was tired of sitting in one position over dinner until he’d suggested they leave—
and yet the minute he did, she knew that something in her manner or posture had given her away. He was like that, watching her all the time. Not as if she were a bug under glass, but as if she were a creature he wanted to know in its natural habitat, because it mattered to him. Because he wanted it to survive and thrive in his presence, as if he were an intruder or a foreign organism in a pristine petri dish. Watching her to see if he could fit into her life somehow, without damaging it, without upsetting the natural balance of her existence.

  The derisive noise she made echoed through the restroom. If he knew how unbalanced her life really was, he wouldn’t look twice at her. Well, he might look, but he’d see she was just a too-nice person who couldn’t stop people from walking all over her.

  With more to say and so much more they wanted to know, they had both been reluctant to cut short their first date. It had been a perfect summer evening with a bright half-moon and more than enough stars in the clear night sky. They’d walked up one side of Glover Street and down the other, talking, talking, talking. They were so alone in their own little world, they didn’t notice the change in their surroundings from commercial to residential until the streetlights grew few and far between and she tripped over a piece of uneven sidewalk.

  “Oops. You okay?” he asked, still holding her, a protective arm wrapped behind her after successfully breaking her fall. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come so far without infrared, for night vision.”

  She laughed and held on to him until she was steady ... and for just a little longer after that.

  “You mean you don’t have any special equipment sewn into the lining of your jacket? Or folded into the heel of your shoe?”

  “Sorry. Wrong guy. You’re thinking of James Bond.”

  No, she wasn’t. She was thinking that his arms felt good around her, strong and safe, and that she liked the way he smelled, soapy and male.

  “Oh, that’s right. No British accent. We’re doomed.”

  “Not yet, we’re not.” With his arm still around her, he turned her back the way they’d come. “Here, lean on me. I have super X-ray vision.”