Terms of Surrender

by Leslie Kelly

  Interestingly, though, we did have a chance to speak, albeit in front of an audience. And it turns out I made a pretty big mistake the day we met. So while I can still think he’s a numero uno creeper for blowing me off the morning after, I can’t be mad at him for…something else.

  Argh! I know it’s frustrating that I can’t expound—it frustrates me, too. But trust me, I can’t. Heaven forbid this guy ever find out who I am and stumble over this blog. Can you imagine him reading my entries over the past couple of weeks, when I’ve done something I NEVER do—pretty much spilled my heart all over the web? :shudder:

  Interestingly, I kinda think he cared about me forgiving him. It mattered to him.

  And I suspect he might even have wanted to see me again. But considering how blue I felt after he didn’t call, no way am I gonna travel down Excitement Road into Ditched-and-Heartbroken Valley again.

  Anyway, I’m feeling better on one hand, worse on the other. Why does trying to be smart and sensible leave you feeling so damned miserable? Discuss!

  Have a good one—

  Mari

  DANNY ARRIVED ON MARISSA’S street at 6:30 the next evening, wondering what kind of reaction he was going to get when he knocked on her apartment door.

  A good, solid slam probably had the highest odds.

  A welcoming kiss? About slim to none.

  But that didn’t deter him. He had to see her, to explain things to her. That last zinger in the classroom today told him she had her back up and wasn’t going to make it easy on him. But hell, the best things in life never came easily.

  Besides, he had another reason to talk to her—and it had nothing to do with them, personally.

  “Damn you, Riddick,” he mumbled, not for the first time. It appeared the old dean had managed to actually cause some trouble this time—trouble aimed directly at Marissa.

  Though, to be honest, he had to give credit where it was due—Riddick might be an ass, but he’d done Danny a favor today. Because the man’s complaints had actually enabled Danny to get Mari’s address. When the Deputy to the Commandant had asked Danny to his office late this afternoon, and shared Riddick’s concerns—and the deputy’s solution—Danny had been ready to kiss them both. Not only because Danny now had the perfect excuse to ask for Mari’s contact information, but because he also had a solid reason to spend time with her.

  Hopefully, there would be enough time for him to explain about his phone…and get her to agree to give him another chance. Knowing now that she had a serious thing against any man in uniform had pushed the obstacle even higher, but he wasn’t about to give up without at least making sure she knew he hadn’t blown her off.

  Arriving at her place in downtown Baltimore, he hoped she didn’t live in a high-security building, where he’d have to buzz her to get her to let him in. He suspected she wouldn’t do it and he’d be left trying to sneak in behind another resident. That was all he needed, getting arrested as a stalker. Wouldn’t that look great to NASA.

  Right now, though, he couldn’t think about that. He could only think about the look on Mari’s face when she’d made those comments about not keeping promises and not being interested. He had to talk to her. Just had to.

  Fortunately, the building was an older one, though it looked well kept and was on a nice, safe-looking street. But there was no real security at the entrance. He got in without any difficulty, made his way up to her door, and knocked.

  A few seconds passed. Then a full minute. Silence filled the hall, not a sound came from behind the closed door.

  He knocked again. “Mari? It’s Danny, I need to talk to you. Please let me in.” Wondering if it might help, he added, “It’s about work.”

  Nada. He didn’t think he’d have heard a mouse stirring.

  “Don’t give up, hon, she’s in there,” said a voice thick with that oh-so-distinctive Baltimore accent. Or, in local terminology, Bal’mer.

  Turning, Danny saw an older woman watching him from her own doorway next door. He had to wonder if this was the one Mari had called to take care of her cat—the nosy one who would have noticed what time Mari got home that Sunday morning.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Marissa, I mean. She’s home, I heard her shower running through the walls not twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thin walls,” he muttered.

  “That’s what Marissa says, every time she complains about me listening to my afternoon stories!” the woman exclaimed, sounding indignant. “I don’t know why she doesn’t like them, that Erica on All My Children is a hootenanny and a half. And there’s lots of good romance and stuff on there.” The woman wagged her eyebrows. “She could use some of that.”

  He managed to hide a grin. “Thanks.”

  “So, anyway, she’s in there,” the woman insisted. “I would have heard her door if she’d left.”

  “Oh, okay…”

  “So you should knock again.”

  Nosy neighbor much? He suddenly felt for Mari, who was, he suspected standing on the other side of the door, eyeing him through the peephole. She’d probably been trying to avoid him and was now torn between wanting to stay there so he’d go away, or open the door and yank him in just to get him away from her gabby old neighbor.

  He could be nice and just leave. But damned if he was going without giving it one more shot.

  And there’s still the other little matter to discuss.

  Which might not make her happy, either. Especially if she didn’t get over her anger at him.

  As if suddenly struck by something—maybe some common sense?—the gabby old woman asked, “Is she expecting you, hon?”

  What are you, her doorman?

  “Uh, no, I’m surprising her.”

  The woman’s mouth pursed, emphasizing the wrinkles around the too-brightly lipsticked lips. Her friendly tone disappeared. “I have a stun-gun. And pepper spray. And I will tase you, bro.”

  Mari’s door swung inward, almost violently and she stared at them both, unsurprised by his presence. “I’m here,” she snapped. “Sorry, I was just, uh, drying my hair.”

  The neighbor smirked. “I didn’t hear the hair dryer.” Danny had to think about the words, not sure what the woman had said at first, since it had sounded like “heer drar.”

  Casting the woman a baleful look, Mari grabbed the front of Danny’s shirt, dragging him in.

  Laughter on his lips, he waited for her to close the door, then asked, “Would she really have tased me?”

  “I should have let her,” Mari snapped.

  Her eyes snapped fire, and her lips were parted as she heaved deep breaths across them. The color was high in her cheeks, her slightly damp hair curling at her nape, and she smelled like sweetly scented soap, all clean and soft and feminine.

  She was beautiful. So damned beautiful she took his breath away. And he suspected she didn’t even know it.

  Danny swallowed, shoved the instinctive reactions to her away and focused on getting her to listen. She’d let him through the door…but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t shove him back out of it the minute her neighbor disappeared.

  Hell, she lived on the third floor. Given her angry expression, he’d be lucky if she decided not to shove him out a window.

  “What are you doing here? How did you find out where I live?”

  “I got your contact info from the personnel office,” he admitted, knowing how bad that sounded.

  “I can’t believe they’d give you that,” she said, sounding slightly stunned.

  “Like I said, I need to talk to you about work. Let’s call it official business.”

  Mari thrust a hand through her hair and turned away from him, as if needing time to gather her thoughts. Danny took the opportunity to look around her apartment. It was a little messy, a little cluttered. Papers and books were stacked on one cushion of an oversize couch, and a nearby bookshelf groaned under the weight of thick textbooks and bulging three-ring binders. Competing for the space were a few knickknacks�
��a pair of ceramic kittens, a frame containing a picture of a smiling teenage girl; another with two young men. Her siblings?

  A sliding glass door revealed a small patio. It didn’t provide much of a view, but she’d filled it with plants and colorful outdoor furniture. An open laptop sat on a small café table, and he imagined she often worked out there on beautiful days like this one.

  He liked getting this glimpse into her home, her life. It said a lot about her—that she wasn’t wound up too tight, that she liked being comfortable, that she was well-read and smart. Of course, that he already knew.

  “Okay, so what’s this official business?” she asked. Then she glanced at his clothes. “You’re certainly not dressed for it.”

  No, he wasn’t. He’d worn jeans and a T-shirt today, not his uniform. He’d figured there was no point in waving a red flag at a bull. “Look, can I at least sit down? The brass had a suggestion about your lecture series, and I told them I’d talk to you about it.”

  Her mouth rounded into an O, and she blinked a few times, as if genuinely surprised. Or maybe—and it could have been wishful thinking on his part—but maybe that had been a flash of disappointment in her expression when she’d realized he really had come to talk about work.

  Well, at first, anyway. Then he intended to get personal. If she shoved him out the door afterward, well, at least he’d have had his say.

  But God, he hoped she didn’t shove him out the door. What he most wanted was another chance with her.

  A chance to make her understand why he hadn’t called, to convince her he’d wanted to—desperately—and then to start over. Sounded like a good plan to him.

  Not looking particularly gracious about it, she waved him toward a chair, which faced the cluttered sofa. Danny took a seat, then immediately felt something swatting at his pants leg.

  Startled, he shifted sideways, and glanced under the chair to see a furry white-and-gray face peering out at him. A plaintive meow criticized him for having moved his leg out of swatting range.

  “Well, hello there. Fierce little guard cat, are you?” he said with a soft laugh. “You’re about as welcoming as your owner.”

  “Ha ha,” Mari said with a definite eye roll. “She’s not trying to scratch, she’s just trying to get you to play with her.”

  As if to prove that point, the cat suddenly nudged her nose against a small foam ball, rolling it toward Danny’s foot, then meowed loudly.

  “Catnip?”

  Sighing, Mari shook her head. “I think she hung out with the canine crowd when she was at the shelter where I got her, she’s forgotten she’s a cat. That sounded like a meow, but I’m sure in her mind she thinks it’s a woof.”

  He raised a brow. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Deep down Brionne really thinks she’s a dog,” Mari explained. “She wants you to play fetch with her.”

  Surprised, and wanting to see for himself, Danny took the ball and gently rolled it across the room. The cat darted out from under the chair in a flash, pouncing on the ball, scooping it up in her mouth and dashing back with it. She dropped it right on Danny’s shoes and looked up at him with an expectant expression…just like a dog.

  He let out a deep laugh. “That’s great! The best of both pets—you get to play fetch, but don’t have to go outside for any middle-of-the-night business.”

  “Believe me, I think if I did, she’d beeline for the nearest fire plug,” Mari admitted, her voice softening, as did her expression when she looked at her obviously beloved feline companion.

  That expression hardened when she returned her attention to him. “Now, what is it you want?”

  You. Us. A chance. Another night. A thousand of them.

  He started with the basics. “One of the deans attended your lecture yesterday, and he had some concerns.”

  She sighed deeply. “Old guy with one big, gray eyebrow?”

  “That’d be him.” Danny quickly explained Riddick’s concerns. He emphasized that the man’s problems had nothing to do with Mari personally, and were just par for the course with him.

  “So he thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to be alone with the students? What does he think I’m going to do to them?” she asked, sounding both horrified and embarrassed.

  “I think his concerns were for you, rather than about you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if I can’t handle a roomful of twenty-year-olds? Good grief.”

  “Well, I guess because he knows you’re not technically a teacher and have no previous experience…”

  She nibbled her lip, not arguing the point.

  “Here’s the thing, though. Apparently the students who attended the lecture really enjoyed it when I came up and the two of us were interacting. Word got back to the Deputy to the Commandant.”

  She groaned and lifted a hand to her eyes. “I can’t believe I let you distract me. Why on earth did you just show up in the room and ambush me like that?”

  “I didn’t mean to ambush you,” he explained. “I just wanted to see you again.”

  She huffed. “Sure.”

  “I mean it, Mari…”

  “Why don’t you get back to the subject at hand? What, exactly, did the student rumor mill have to say about our verbal sparring match?”

  He liked that—a verbal sparring match. That kind of described what they’d done, and actually what he and Mari had been doing since day one. That was one thing he liked best about her—she could talk. She had real conversation skills and a quick wit. There wasn’t a lot of calculation or intentional silence or mind games. With Mari, what he’d seen had been what he got.

  He just wanted to get more. A lot more.

  “Actually, the feedback was very positive. In fact, the students seemed really jazzed up about having a point-counterpoint, he-said/she-said kind of experience. Given Dean Riddick’s concerns, and the positive feedback about the two of us, uh…”

  She was already shaking her head. “No way.”

  “’Fraid so. The big boss liked the sound of it so much, he asked me to see if you would agree to make it an ongoing thing.

  She shot straight up in her seat, her mouth opening in dismay. “You…he…”

  “Yeah. He wants us to work together.”

  Knowing she had to be feeling not only annoyed, but perhaps a bit vulnerable about how she’d done—since he remembered how important the job was to her—he quickly explained. “It’s not that he thinks you didn’t do a great job. In fact, the students loved you.”

  A little too much, in Danny’s opinion. He suspected there had been some serious locker room chatter about the hot new teacher on campus, which he didn’t like one damned bit. Though he trusted her and knew she could do the job, if his presence in the classroom kept the students eyes in their head and their suggestive remarks behind their teeth, he was all for it.

  Besides, even though Riddick was a dinosaur, he wasn’t the only campus official who had some pretty old-fashioned ideas. The USNA hadn’t gone coed long enough ago for there not to be some remnants of sexism left behind. He didn’t like it, tried to combat it when he saw it, but it still appeared on occasion.

  “I don’t understand,” she said with a frown. “What would be the point of us teaming up? Why does he think this would be a good idea?”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m a living example of what their future might look like,” he offered. “I’ve walked the walk, now I can talk the talk.”

  “But aren’t they already your students?” She rolled her eyes. “They seemed to know you.”

  “Some of them are. But believe me, my aeronautics class isn’t giving them a chance to see me as a person the way your lectures would.”

  Mari rose from her seat, pacing back and forth across the small room, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. Mumbling under her breath, she admitted, “Things did improve after you got there.”

  “Had they been discourteous?” he asked with a frown.

  “No, not at all. Nothing but respectf
ul, for the most part. But they seemed more lively—more involved—once you got there.”

  “I’m an ice-breaker. One of them. My presence might make them more willing to open up and listen, or even to talk.”

  She stopped pacing and stared at him. “Which would be a good thing. Some of those kids seem pretty clueless. I think a few of them came to Annapolis without really understanding that it’s not all a snazzy uniform, travel and exotic hookers in different ports of call.”

  He gawked.

  “Not that they put it exactly like that,” she admitted, her face pinkening.

  “Well, they’re right about the uniform, and the travel,” he said. “But even the newest middie should realize exotic hookers are a surefire way to risk having body parts rot and fall off.”

  She chuckled a little. It was something, anyway.

  Then, as if remembering she wasn’t supposed to enjoy being around him—God, she really had her back up about him not calling—her humor disappeared. “I already have the rest of the lectures written, the course series completely laid out.”

  He held up both hands, palms out. “And I wouldn’t interfere with that. I’ll sit quietly and listen, then jump in during the discussion period. All right?”

  She snagged her bottom lip with her teeth, her thoughts racing across her face in a visible picture of uncertainty. He knew what she was thinking, why she was unsure, and wished he’d started this conversation differently. It wasn’t just having to work with someone else that was bothering her. It was having to work with him.

  Hopefully that wouldn’t be an issue once they got to the second reason for his visit. He’d considered having that conversation first, because getting them on even footing personally might have made this professional thing easier. But there had been that slamming-the-door-in-his-face thing to consider. He might never have gotten her to talk to him at all without playing the work card.

  Finally, after a long, silent moment of thought, she began to nod, whether in actual agreement or simple acceptance, he couldn’t be sure. “Okay,” she muttered. “I guess we’ll give it a try.”