Still, he'd made her trust him before, under even more difficult circumstances. He could do it again. He had to do it again, no matter how hard, no matter how much fear of his own he felt. This was too important to him.
He took a deep breath. "What if I promised...?" What? That he wouldn't pull her into his arms? Wouldn't try to kiss her? He needed to do both of those things as much as he needed to keep breathing. Keeping his distance from this woman was going to be hard to do. Nevertheless, he had no choice. It was gonna hurt, but he'd done hard and painful things before. "What if I swore I wouldn't touch you? You pick a distance. Two feet, three feet, six feet, whatever, and I promise I won't cross that line."
She wasn't convinced He could see her about to turn him down, but he didn't give her a chance to speak.
"I also promise that I won't say a single word tonight about weddings or obligations or responsibilities or anything heavy. We'll talk about something entirely different. We'll talk about—" he was grasping at straws here, but she hadn't left the room yet "—Andy Marshall, all right? We'll figure out what we're going to do about him."
She turned to face him. "What can we do?"
Cowboy already knew the best way to deal with Andy—directly, ruthlessly and mercilessly. He'd been intending to call on Vince Romanella later tonight and ask his permission to spend part of tomorrow with the kid.
But why not teach Andy his lesson tonight?
"There's a place in the woods, up by the old quarry," he told Melody, willing her to sit back down at the table, "that's always littered with beer bottles and cigarette butts. My guess is that's where Andy was going to go with his six-pack."
Melody actually sat down, and Cowboy used all of his self-control to keep from reacting. He had to play it really cool or she'd run.
"I know the place you mean," she said. "It was a popular hangout spot back when I was in high school, too. But Andy's only twelve. He wouldn't exactly be welcome there."
"He would if he showed up with a six-pack of brew under his arm."
"Why on earth would Andy want to make friends with high school seniors?" Melody wondered.
"That kid he's always fighting with," Cowboy said. "What's his name? Parks?"
"Alex Parks."
"He's only a freshman or a sophomore, right?"
Melody nodded. She was actually looking into his eyes. She was actually sitting there and talking to him. He knew it was only a small victory, but he'd take 'em where he found 'em.
"Well, there you go," he concluded. "It seems like a pretty sound strategy to me. Make friends with people who can crush— or at least control—your enemy. Andy's not stupid."
"Then the six-pack was really just an offering to the gods, so to speak. Andy wasn't really going to drink it."
Her eyes begged him to tell her she was right. He wished he could agree so that she would smile at him, but he couldn't.
"I'd bet he wasn't planning to drink all of it," he told her, "but he was certainly intending to drink some. Probably enough to give him a good buzz. And to come out of it thinking the entire evening was a positive experience. Which would leave him wanting to go back and do it again."
Melody nodded, her face so serious, her eyes still glued to his as if he held all the wisdom and knowledge in the universe.
"So what we've got to do," Cowboy continued, "is make sure his first experience with a six-pack of beer is a nightmare."
She blinked. And then she leaned forward. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Remember Crash?" Cowboy asked. "William Hawk? My swim buddy?"
"Of course."
"To this day, he doesn't drink. At least I assume he still doesn't. He didn't during the time we were going through BUDI S training. Anyway, he told me he wasn't much older than Andy when his uncle caught him sneaking a beer from the downstairs refrigerator." It was one of the few stories about his childhood that Crash had told Cowboy. And he'd told it only to convince Cowboy that no, he didn't want a beer, thank you very much. "Crash's uncle taught him a thing or two that day, and we, in turn, are going to run the same drill with Andy." He smiled ruefully. "It's a lesson I could've used myself, but the admiral wasn't around enough to know what kind of trouble I was getting myself into."
She was watching him. "I thought you told me your father was really strict."
"He was—when he was home. But after we moved to Texas, he was hardly ever home. There were a few years he even missed Christmas."
He had her full attention and he kept going. She claimed they didn't know each other. And as hard as it was to talk about his less-than-perfect childhood, it was important that she understood where he came from—and why walking away from her and this baby was not an option for him.
"You know, I used to be like Andy," he continued, "always making excuses for my old man. He had to go where he was needed. He was very important. He had to be where the action was. Even though—during the Vietnam conflict—he'd more than earned the chance to sit back and relax, he wouldn't ask to be assigned to a cushy post like Hawaii. Hawaii wasn't exactly what my mother wanted, but she would have settled for it. But old Harlan wanted to keep moving forward in his career.
"I always used to think he had such a tough job—going out to sea for all those months, being in charge of all those men, knowing that if an aggressive action started, he'd be right in the middle of it. But the fact is, that stuff was easy for him. We were the hard stuff. A wife who honestly didn't understand why he didn't retire from the Navy and take a job selling cars with her Uncle Harold. A kid who needed more than constantly being told that B's and B pluses weren't good enough. You know, I could work my butt off, cleaning my room for him, making it shipshape, and he would focus on the one spot of dust I'd missed. Yeah," he repeated softly, "we were the hard stuff, and he ran away from us."
She didn't say anything, but he knew she read his message loud and clear. He wasn't going to run away.
Cowboy pushed back his chair, still careful to move slowly. "Mind if I use your phone?"
She shook her head, distracted, as if she were still absorbing all that he'd told her. But then she looked up. "Wait. You haven't told me exactly what Crash's uncle did that day."
"Do you have Vince Romanella's number—?" Cowboy scanned the list of neighbors' and friends' numbers posted on a corkboard near the kitchen phone. "Here it is. And as for Crash's uncle..." He smiled at her. "You're just going to have to wait and see." He dialed Vince's number.
She laughed in disbelief. "Jones. Just tell me."
"Hey, Vince," he said into the phone, "it's Jones—you know, from the Evanses next door? I heard about the trouble Andy got into this evening. Is he there?"
"He's probably in his room, grounded for a week and writing a twenty-page paper on why he shouldn't drink beer," Melody said, rolling her eyes. "Vince's heart is in the right place, but something tells me all the essay writing in the world isn't going to have any impact on a kid like Andy Marshall."
Across the room, Jones smiled again. "You're right," he mouthed to her, shaking his head as he listened to Vince recount the evening's excitement—and the subsequent ineffective punishment.
"Yeah," Jones said into the phone, "I know he's grounded, Vince, but I think I know a way to make sure he doesn't drink again—at least not until he's old enough to handle it." He laughed. "You heard of that method, too? Well, a friend of mine told me that when he was a kid... Yeah, I can understand that. As his official foster parents, the state might not approve of... But I'm not his foster parent, so..." He laughed again.
The way he was standing, leaning against the kitchen counter, phone receiver held easily under his chin, reminded Melody of Paris. He'd stood the same way in the hotel lobby, leaning back against the concierge's desk as he took a call. Except back then, he'd been wearing a U.S. Navy uniform, he'd been speaking flawless French and he'd been looking at her with heat simmering in his eyes.
There was still heat there now, but it was tempered by a great deal of res
erve and caution. In Paris, the idea of an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy had been the furthest thing from either of their minds. But here in Appleton, the fact that they'd made an error in judgment was kind of hard to avoid. She carried an extremely obvious and constant reminder with her everywhere she went.
And as much as he was pretending otherwise, Melody knew that Jones didn't really want to marry her.
"Okay," he said into the telephone now. His slightly twangy Western drawl still had the power to send chills down her spine. "That'd be great. There's no time like the present, so send him over." He hung up the phone. "Andy's on his way."
Melody forced the chills away. "What are you planning to do?"
Jones smiled. "I'm going to wait and tell you at the same time I tell Andy. That way, we can get a good-cop, bad-cop thing going that'll sound really sincere."
"Jones, for crying out loud..."
His smile turned to a grin. "I thought pregnant women were supposed to be really patient."
"Oh yeah? Guess again. With all these extra hormones flying around in my system, I sometimes feel like Lizzie Borden's crazier sister."
"One of the books I was reading said that during pregnancy most women feel infused with a sense of calm."
"Someone forgot to give me my infusion," Melody told him.
Jones opened the door to the pantry. "I’m ready with a back rub at any time. Just say the word."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Hey, you promised—"
"I did, and I'm sorry. Please accept my apology." He pulled the string and the pantry light went on. "Do you have any beer that's not in the fridge?"
"Brittany keeps it in there, on the bottom shelf," Melody directed him. "Why?"
"Yup, here it is." He emerged from the pantry with a six-pack of tallboys. "Nice and warm, so the flavor is...especially enhanced. Tell your sister I'll replace these. But right now, Andy needs it more than she does."
"Andy needs...? Jones, what are you—"
"We better go out on the patio." He flipped the light switches next to the kitchen door until he found the one that lit the old-fashioned stone patio out back. "This will get messy. It's better to be outside."
"Please just tell me—"
Melody broke off as she saw Andy standing defiantly at the bottom of the porch stairs. "Vince said you want to see me."
"Yes, we certainly do." Jones held open the back door for Melody.
"He said to give you this." The boy spoke in a near monotone as he held out a half-empty pack of cigarettes. "He said they're from three months ago, when his brother came to visit. He said to tell you that they're probably stale but that he didn't think you'd mind."
Andy tossed the pack into the air, and Jones caught it effort lessly in his left hand. "Thanks. Heard you were hoping to do some partying tonight."
Melody grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door and slipped it on as she went out into the cool evening air. "Hello, Andy." The boy wouldn't meet her gaze. He wouldn't even glance up at her.
"So what? It's not that big a deal," Andy sullenly told Jones.
"Yeah, that's what I figured you'd say." Jones set the beer down on the picnic table that sat in the center of the patio. He brushed a few stray leaves from one of the chairs for Melody. "You just wanted to have some fun. And it was only beer. What's the fuss, right?"
There was a flash of surprise in Andy's eyes before he caught himself and settled back into sullen mode. "Well, yeah," he said. "Right. It's only beer."
Melody didn't sit. "Jones, what are you doing?" she whispered. "Are you actually agreeing with him?"
"All I'm saying is that people get uptight about the littlest things. Sit down, Andy," Jones commanded. "So you're a beer drinker, huh?"
Andy slouched into a chair, a picture of feigned nonchalance. His nervousness was betrayed by the way he kept fiddling with the wide leather band of his beloved wristwatch. "It's all right. I've had it a few times. Like I said, it's no big deal."
Jones took one of the cans off the plastic loop that held the six-pack together. "Drinking some brew and having a few smokes. Just a regular old, no-big-deal Saturday night. You were planning to go up to the quarry, huh?"
Andy gave Jones a perfect poker face. "Up where?"
"To the quarry." Jones exaggerated his enunciation.
Andy shrugged. "Never heard of it."
"Don't try to con a con artist. I know you know where the quarry is. You've been up there while I was doing laps. You don't really think I didn't notice you—sneaking up on me like a herd of stampeding elephants."
"I was quiet!" Andy was insulted.
"You were thunderous."
"I was not!"
"Well, okay, so you were relatively quiet," Jones conceded, "but not quiet enough. There's no SEAL on earth who would've missed hearing you."
Melody couldn't stay silent a moment longer. "You swim laps in the quarry?"
"First he runs five miles," Andy told her. "I know, because I clocked it on my bike. Then he swims—sometimes for half an hour without stopping, sometimes with all of his clothes on."
It was Jones's turn to shrug. "Every so often in the units, you take an unplanned swim and end up in the water, weighed down with all your clothes and gear. It's good to stay in practice for any situation."
"But the water up there's cold in August," Melody argued. "It's October, and lately we've had frost at night. It must be freezing."
Jones grinned. "Yeah, well, lately I've been swimming a little faster."
"And then after you swim, you run another five miles back here," Andy said, "where you work out with your weights."
Melody knew about the weights. She'd been getting dressed each morning for the past week to the sound of clinking as Jones bench-pressed and lifted enormous-looking weights. But she'd had no idea that he ran and swam before that. He must've been up every morning at the very first light of dawn.
"Even though I'm on vacation, it's important to me that I stay in shape," he explained.
She nearly laughed out loud. This was the man who was going to prove to her how average and normal he truly was?
"But we're getting sidetracked here," Jones continued. "We were talking about beer, right?" He held one of the cans out to Andy. "You want one?"
Andy sat straight up in surprise.
Melody nearly fell over. "Jones! You can't offer him that— he's twelve years old."
"He's clearly been around the block a few times," Jones answered, his eyes never leaving Andy. "Do you want it, Andy?
It's not particularly a great brand, but it's not bad, either—at least as far as American beers go. But you probably already know that, right? Being a beer drinker."
"Well, yeah. Sure." Andy reached for the can, but Jones wouldn't let go.
"There's a catch," the SEAL told the boy. "You can't have just one. You have to drink the entire six-pack right now. In the next hour."
Melody couldn't believe what she was hearing. "There's no way Andy could possibly drink an entire six-pack by himself in an hour."
Andy bristled. "Could, too."
Cowboy leaned forward. "Is that a yes?"
"Damn straight!" the boy replied.
Cowboy popped the top open and handed him the can. "Then chug it on down, my friend."
"Jones," Melody hissed, "there's no way Andy could drink that much without getting..." She stopped herself, and Cowboy knew that she'd finally caught on.
She was right. There was no way this kid could drink two cans of warm beer, let alone an entire six-pack, in an hour without getting totally, miserably, horrifically sick.
And that was the point.
Cowboy was going to make damn sure that Andy would associate the overpoweringly bitter taste of beer with one of the most unpleasant side effects of drunkenness.
He watched as Andy took a tentative sip from the can, then as the kid wrinkled his nose at the strong beer taste.
"Gross. It's warm!"
"That's how they ser
ve beer in England," Cowboy told him. "Chilling it hides the taste. Only sissies drink beer cold." He glanced at Mel. She was giving him an "Oh yeah?" look, complete with raised eyebrow. He'd had a chilled beer with dinner tonight himself. He shot her a quick wink. "Come on, Andrew. Bottoms up. Time's a-wasting, and you've got five more cans to drink."
Andy looked a little less certain as he took a deep breath and a long slug of beer, and then another, and another. The kid was tougher than Cowboy had thought—he was actively fighting his urge to gag and spit out the harsh-tasting, room-temperature, totally unappealing beverage.
But Andy wasn't tough enough. He set the empty can on the table, burping loudly, looking as if he was about to protest as Cowboy opened another can and pushed it in front of him.
"You don't have time to talk," Cowboy said. "You only have time to drink."
Andy looked even more uncertain, but he picked up the can and started to drink.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Melody asked softly, sliding into the seat next to him.
It was already working far better than he'd hoped. Melody was sitting beside him, talking to him, watching him, interacting with him. He was aware of her presence, aware of the heavenly blue of her eyes, aware of her sweet perfume—and more than well aware that he still had a hell of a long way to go before he gained her total trust.
But that wasn't what she'd meant. She'd been talking about Andy.
"Yes," he told her with complete confidence. It would work. Especially with the cigarette factor.
Taking a lighter from the pocket of his jeans, he picked up the half-empty pack Vince had sent over. They were old and stale, Andy had said. Yes, this was definitely going to work.
Cowboy held out the pack to Andy, shaking it slightly so that one cigarette appeared invitingly.
Andy thankfully set down the can of beer and reached for the smoke. He may or may not have wanted it—but Cowboy knew what he was thinking. Anything, anything to take a break from having to drink that god-awful beer.
Cowboy could hear Melody's disbelieving laughter as he leaned across the table to give Andy a light. "Good Lord," she said, "I can't believe I'm sitting here giving beer and cigarettes to a child."
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