Officer Breaks the Rules (Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful.)

by Murray, Jeanette

  Madison scoffed. “Satisfied? Hardly. I think confused is more like it. He wants me. And I feel like we’re making headway. But it’s one of those two steps forward, one step back sort of things. Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, we stumble.”

  “Ah, amore,” Matthew said with a phony French accent that had Madison giggling. “Dude totally wants you. And man, I can’t blame you for wanting him.” When Madison raised a brow, he grinned. “He might not be for sale, but I can still window shop.”

  Madison smiled and shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “It’s all a part of my charm.” He reached over and grabbed a chart. “Williams in room 302 needs another IV drip in about fifteen.”

  “I’ll get it.” She sighed and rolled her neck, working out the kinks. Though OB was her favorite in all the rotations, it was hard on the body. Moms needed what they needed as soon as they needed it, and Madison was the one responsible for getting it. But who could resist the cute little babies? Once they were all cleaned up, naturally. The best part, though, were the fathers, who always looked so mystified and poleaxed when they were handed their little bundle for the first time, almost as if they were afraid they might break it. Then that look of pure love would cross their faces and—

  “You’re going gooey.”

  “Hmm?” She glanced up to see Matthew grinning down at her. “I am not.”

  “You were thinking about him again, weren’t you?”

  “No. I was not,” she said with total honesty. The look on Matthew’s face said he didn’t believe her one bit. Her phone buzzed in her sweatshirt pocket and she grabbed at it like a lifeline. “Hold on. Text message.”

  “Is it from lover boy?”

  She nudged him with her foot, a silent threat that she could kick if he kept it up. “No. Veronica. Just wanting to know if she can borrow my computer to get some stuff done.” Madison typed a quick affirmative back, letting her know she could use whatever she needed, along with the password to unlock the screen from sleep mode, then shut the phone.

  “You know what you need to do?”

  “Please tell me, oh wise one.” This would be good.

  Matthew walked around the desk and reached under to the mini-fridge stashed by the chair, grabbing the Coke he was addicted to. “You need to make one big push. Subtly is not your friend with this one, it seems. He’s a hard nut to crack—pun intended—so you need to do something big to push him over the edge. The little stuff’s been good so far. Cute, even. But right now you need something that he can’t ignore. The now-or-never moment.”

  “The now-or-never moment?” She stared at him, not even sure if he was speaking her language any longer.

  Matthew rolled his eyes like she just asked him how to start a basic IV. “In the movies, there’s always that one moment where the main character has the choice. Do I take this road or that one?”

  “Sounds like the guy’s lost,” she said idly.

  “More or less,” Matthew agreed. “But the point is, the main character in every movie is staring at two choices. The comfortable choice, or the road less traveled.”

  “I think you’re mixing metaphors and media now. That was Robert Frost.”

  “Whatever.” He waved that away, nearly spilling his precious Coke in the process. “The point is, you’ve laid the groundwork. Everyone’s on even levels now. The field is wide open.”

  “Movies, poetry, and now sports,” she murmured as she reached over him to grab a water.

  “So go do something he can’t ignore. One big, fantastic push to have him say yes, yes, yes. Grab you, kiss you senseless, and make you scream with passion…” Matthew’s eyes glazed over just a little, and she poked him in the chest with one finger. “Sorry. Got lost. Had a moment of jealousy. I’m better now. Where was I?”

  She raised a brow. “I believe I was screaming with passion.”

  “Right. Or, he turns you down and loses you forever.”

  “Forever? That’s a little drastic.” And terrifying. She laid a hand over her racing heart.

  Matthew shrugged. “You can’t turn back after the now-or-never. It’d be too weird.” He glanced at his watch. “Williams needs that drip. Do you want me to—”

  “No, I’ve got it.” She stowed her water back in the fridge and headed to grab the bag. But she held a hand to her pounding heart as she walked and thought for a moment about Matthew’s words.

  The big push made sense. They were tiptoeing around the idea of being together. Well, she was tiptoeing. He was pretending to ignore the whole subject entirely. And the thought that it might just take one big choice to finish the dance and get them into a relationship was thrilling.

  And terrifying. What if Jeremy wasn’t ready? If he said no, and she lost the only opportunity she had to connect with him…

  Not the way to think about that. Madison pulled out the saline bag and walked with renewed purpose to 302, determined to make the now-or-never be a now.

  Because never wasn’t an option.

  ***

  Dwayne sat back and rubbed a hand over his face. Skype was a beautiful invention for deployments, but Jeremy was making the video chat an almost painful experience. “Jer, dude, it’s pulling teeth with you, man. What’s going on?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “Sorry, man. Just a lot to deal with right now. Work and stuff.”

  Uh-huh. Dwayne didn’t buy that sorry excuse for a minute. “Any new chicks in the picture? Been over to Slider’s recently? Right before I left there was that one hot girl we kept running into. The blonde. What was her name? Talia? Tina? Them—”

  “No,” Jeremy cut in. “No new… chicks.”

  “Maybe there should be,” Dwayne muttered.

  “I heard that.” Jeremy scowled back at him.

  “Well, good. You should get laid, for the love of Chesty.”

  “No,” his friend repeated through clenched teeth.

  This would be yet another issue with deployments. No way to tell what the hell was bugging a friend, and no way to fix it. “Fine. If you’re going to be an ass, I’ll just call Madison.”

  “Madison? Why?” Jeremy sat up straighter.

  Dwayne raised a brow. “Because she’s my friend, and I call her sometimes to talk.”

  “We’re talking.” Jeremy waved a finger between the screen and his chest, somewhat needlessly.

  “No, I’m talking, and you’re doing a whole lot of scowling and mumbling and spreading your bad attitude. Plus, Madison’s fun to chat with. She works weird hours. So our schedules mesh up better some weeks thanks to the time difference.” Dwayne looked forward to his Skype calls with the squirt. She had funny stories, and she was always enthusiastic to see him. He loved her like a little sister, and she managed to make him smile. Which was definitely something to grab onto out in the middle of Bumfuck, Afghanistan. Any smiles were a blessing.

  “You’ve talked to her recently?”

  Now he was getting closer. Something was up with Jeremy, and Madison might know a part of it. Or maybe all. “Yeah, not too long ago. She just switched rotations, so it’s been a little longer than usual.” Dwayne sat forward and smiled as wickedly as he could manage. “She promised if I was a good boy, next time she’d show me something… interesting.”

  “Like hell she did!” Even through the screen, Dwayne could see Jeremy’s jaw clench, his fists bunch, his muscles tighten. This wasn’t the stance of someone in disbelief, or laughing off a joke. He was pissed at the mere hint of Madison being naughty on a webcam.

  Interesting. Very interesting. Dwayne shrugged and sat back further, settling into his desk chair the best he could. Nothing was more uncomfortable than the cheap plastic and metal the Marine Corps called furniture. Especially for a man his size. “So maybe she didn’t. A boy can hope, yeah?”
/>   “Fuck off,” Jeremy growled and disconnected the call.

  Dwayne was still shaking with laughter five minutes later when he double-clicked to call Madison’s laptop. She should have had enough time to get home and shower by now after her shift. He knew she liked to check email and surf online a little bit before crawling into bed. And since he still had a good thirty minutes before he had to report to his office, he could see what was going on at her end of the stick. Just a little friendly fishing expedition between friends, to see what was going on with Jeremy.

  The program rang once, then twice, and then she answered. But the she who answered wasn’t Madison.

  It was that cute little thing from a few weeks ago at Tim and Skye’s place. What was her name… Victoria? No. Veronica. That was it.

  “Well, hey there.” Though unexpected, he wasn’t displeased with the turn of events. “You making a habit of breaking into people’s homes and using their laptops?”

  The little blonde’s eyes widened and her mouth formed an adorable O of shock. Then she shook it off and glared at him. “I didn’t break in. I live here.”

  “I thought you lived with Tim and Skye.”

  “Only temporarily. Now I’m Madison’s roommate. As of last week,” she added quickly, like he was going to check to see if her story added up.

  She was something new and interesting, that was for sure. “I think I believe you.” Her brows lowered at the words and he chuckled. “I thought I’d give Madison a call before I went in to work. But she’s not there, huh?”

  “No. I think one of her patients was ready to deliver right as she was going to leave. So she got caught up a little longer than expected.” Folding her hands in front of her, prim as a schoolteacher from two centuries before, she asked, “Can I take a message for her?”

  Lord, he liked the way she talked. All proper and dignified, until something sparked her up, and then she could spit fire with those eyes like nobody’s business. “Nah, just looking for some conversation, as usual. Nice to see a friendly face sometimes.”

  Immediately, Veronica’s face softened. “I’m sure it would be. I’m sorry she isn’t here at the moment. I assume your time is limited for contact.”

  “You assume correctly.” He thought for a moment, checked his watch, then made a decision. “How about you talk to me instead?”

  “Me?” she squeaked. “You wanted Madison.”

  “I did,” he conceded. “But she’s not available and you are. And as we’ve already been introduced—”

  “Hardly,” she cut in, but she smiled as she said it.

  “As we’ve already been introduced,” he repeated, “I consider you a friendly face as well. So. Care to make a Marine a happy man and give him a touch of home?”

  She bit her bottom lip and looked around, as if scared someone would catch her being friendly and punish her. Then she sat up a little straighter and nodded stiffly. “Of course.”

  Good girl. “Tell me about yourself.”

  She blinked twice, owl-like, and tilted her head to one side. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you want to tell me.”

  “I love the color yellow,” she said with a smile.

  That genuine smile, without artifice, without guile, without any sort of agenda attached to it, warmed something deep in him that he’d thought permanently frozen a long time ago. “I could see that about you. And yet, you’re wearing blue.”

  She quirked her mouth. “I don’t think yellow looks good with my hair,” she said, voice dropping as if imparting a secret.

  “I happen to think yellow would look very nice on you. But I’m partial to blue myself.” He stared at the prim little button-down shirt, thinking how odd it was that she had every button—even the one at her throat—done up. Most women at least left the top, if not a few more, undone in a casual setting. But the image somehow seemed naughty while also nice. Like it was a temptation set there to make him want to undo a button or two. “Tell me something else,” he urged, enjoying the little game they seemed to be caught in.

  She did the lip-biting thing again, eyes drifting to the side in thought. Then she smiled. “I hate tofu.”

  He smothered a laugh behind his hand, disguising it as a cough. “That doesn’t tell me much. I think everyone does.”

  She made a face. “Not Skye. She loves the stuff, though I don’t know why. But I tried not to complain. I was a guest, after all.”

  Veronica had good ole Southern manners written all over her. But she didn’t carry the accent. “Where are you from?”

  It was as if someone flipped some internal switch inside her, cutting out all the light that made her glow inside. “Nowhere special.”

  “Everyone’s from somewhere special.”

  “I disagree.” One hand crept up and started playing with the golden braid that hung over her shoulder, the end swinging in front of her breasts like a pendulum. The braid looked thicker than his wrist, and when she let it go, he’d bet it swung down close to her waist. He hadn’t seen hair that long in… ever.

  “Dwayne?”

  “Huh?” Smart. Real smart answer. He shook out of his mental, almost hypnotic, daze and blinked. “Yeah?”

  She frowned a little and tilted her head. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave a message for Madison?”

  He checked his watch once more and sighed. “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind asking her to run over to my apartment when she has a chance and just do a once-over?”

  “Your apartment? You have one here?” Veronica looked utterly confused again.

  “Yup. I don’t live out of my truck while I’m state-side. It’s locked up, but I do like someone to run by every so often just to check. Madison has a spare key.”

  “Of course.” Veronica nodded again, her neck so tight he wondered how her head didn’t pop off and roll away. “I’ll pass along the message.”

  She reached in front, and he realized she was going to click off. So he said, “Ronnie.”

  She looked up. “Hmm?”

  He liked that she didn’t even seem to realize he’d called her Ronnie this time. “You’d look good in yellow.” He closed out before she had a chance to. But even as the screen went black, he saw a small smile creep onto her lips.

  Dwayne stood, stretched, and grabbed his travel mug he loaded with coffee once he got to his office area. But even as he walked out into the smothering Afghan heat and immediately felt sweat pooling in the small of his back, he couldn’t keep the grin from spreading across his face. Getting to talk to Miss Veronica again was unexpected, but as it turned out, it was one hell of a nice way to start the day.

  ***

  Madison opened the door to Dwayne’s apartment and coughed once at the smell. Not a bad smell, but definitely an apartment that hadn’t been opened in a while. Though he’d been careful to empty his kitchen of all food and make sure his trash was gone, being closed up for months on end gave the apartment a musty smell that any home would suffer from.

  Guilt hit her as she opened a window to air the place out. She made a mental note to come back more often and do the check. She should have thought of this before. And a week before he was due home she’d run over to air the place out better and give it a good scrubbing. Though she was no neat freak herself—the same couldn’t be said for her brother—she liked things clean. And though he wasn’t a slob, Dwayne was, at the heart of it, a bachelor. He didn’t notice streaked mirrors or dust on shelves.

  At least his place wasn’t as bad as Jeremy’s. Dwayne had a nice two-bedroom apartment that, while not perfect, was adequate for having people over to watch a game or order pizza and hang out. Jeremy lived in little more than a shoebox, though who knew why.

  Madison made a quick run through all the rooms, checking windows to make sure they were still secure an
d keeping an eye out in case anything looked off. But all was well with Dwayne’s little apartment, and she felt better knowing she’d given it a little chance to breathe and double-check the security. She’d come back again in a month to do so again.

  She sat down on his armchair, smiling when she sank in to the well-worn, well-loved leather. D and his big body certainly made a dent in the cushion. She missed him. Missed having that brotherly connection with someone not actually related. The guy was fantastic with advice, and she never worried about him being too protective like she did with Tim. She curled in just a little, tucking her feet under her. He’d have known what to do with Jeremy. And he would have kept his mouth shut about it, too.

  Too bad she’d missed their chance to Skype the other day. Luckily Veronica had been there to take the message and talk to him. Though oddly, now that Madison thought back, her roommate had blushed fiercely while giving her the message. Veronica was shy; maybe the encounter had startled her.

  No. She threw that thought away. D was sweet as a kitten and could charm any woman into thinking he was harmless. No way would he scare even the sometimes-timid Veronica.

  She slapped her palms on the armrest and pushed up. Time to get back to her own apartment and do a little cleaning. She’d been neglecting that chore the past few weeks.

  As Madison walked to the door, something swinging in the breeze of the open window reminded her she needed to close and lock it. Good thing, too. She did so, then looked back to see what caught her eye.

  Keys, a few different sets, swung from a post by the door. One would be for Tim’s townhouse, naturally. Tim had a key to Dwayne’s place as well. Just a piece of security for the guys who lived alone. Or, well, alone until Skye showed up.

  She took a step toward the door, then stopped.

  If Dwayne had a key to Tim’s place, then he likely had a key to Jeremy’s as well…

  No. That was wrong. It would be a complete invasion of privacy.

  But instead of her feet pointing toward the door, somehow she found herself walking to the key rack instead.

  One key ring had smaller keys, like for a mailbox. Likely one to his apartment, and one to his PO Box. The second key ring had spare keys to his truck, which she knew was stored safely. But the third ring had two house keys. One with a piece of tape with a T written on it in marker. The other, a J.