"Nah, she's tougher than that."
Harvard gave a short laugh of disbelief as he squeezed the lemon into his iced tea. "Wait a minute. Suddenly you're the authority on this girl?"
"I'm trying to be," Joe said. "I spent about two hours with her today at the range. She just happened to show up while I was there. You know, H., she's really good. She's got a real shooter's instinct. And a natural ability to aim."
Harvard didn't know what to say. P.J. had just happened to show up.... He took a sip of his drink.
"She's funny, too," Joe added. "She has a solid sense of humour. She's one very sharp, very smart lady."
Harvard found his voice. "Oh, yeah? What's Veronica think about that?" He was kidding, but only half kidding.
Joe didn't miss that. And even though P.J. was coming toward them carrying two mugs filled with frothy beer, he leaned closer to Harvard. "It's not about sex," he said, talking fast. "Yes, P.J.'s a woman, and yes, she's attractive, but come on, H., you know me well enough to know I'm not going to go in that direction. Ever. I love Ronnie more than you will ever know. But I'm married, I'm not dead. I can still appreciate an attractive woman when I see one. And being friendly to this particular attractive woman is going to get us further than shutting her out. She approached me. She's clearly trying to make friends. This is exactly what we wanted."
Harvard saw P.J. glance over and see him sitting with Joe. He saw her falter, then square her shoulders and keep coming.
She nodded at him as she set the mugs on the table. "Senior Chief Becker," she said coolly, managing not to meet his eyes. "If I'd known you'd be joining us, I'd have offered to get you a drink, as well."
He wasn't aware they sold hemlock in this bar. "You can catch me on the next round," he said.
"I've got a lot of reading to do. I may not be able to stay for a next round. It might have to be some other time." She sat as far from him as possible and took a sip of her beer.
The temperature in that corner of the room had definitely dropped about twenty degrees.
"Basketball," Joe said to P.J. "I bet you like basketball."
She smiled, and the temperature went up a bit. "Good guess."
"Do you play?"
"I'm a frustrated player," she admitted. "I have certain... height issues. I never really spent enough time on the court to get any good."
"Have you had a chance to check out that new women's professional basketball league?" Harvard asked, attempting to be part of the conversation.
P.J. turned to him, her eyes reminiscent of the frozen tundra. "I've watched a few games." She turned to Joe Cat. "I don't spend much time watching sports—I prefer to be out there playing. Which reminds me, Tim Farber mentioned that you're something of a wizard on the handball court I was wondering if you play racquetball. There's a court here in the hotel, and I'm looking for an opponent"
Harvard shifted in his seat, clenching his teeth to keep from speaking.
"I've played some," Joe told her.
"Hmm. Now, in my experience, when people say they've played some, that really means they're too humble to admit that if you venture onto the court with them, they're going to thoroughly whip your butt"
Joe laughed. "I guess that probably depends on how long you've been playing."
P.J.'s smile returned. "I've played some."
She was flirting with Joe. P.J. was sitting right there, directly in front of him, flirting with the captain. What was this girl up to? What was she trying to pull?
Joe's pager went off. He looked at Harvard. "You getting anything?"
Harvard's pager was silent and still. "No, sir."
"That's a good sign. I'll be right back."
As Joe headed toward the bar and a telephone, P.J. pretended to be fascinated by the architectural structure of the building.
Harvard knocked on the table. Startled, she looked at him.
"I don't know what your deal is," he said bluntly. "I don't know what you stand to gain by getting tight with the captain—whether it's some career thing or just some personal power trip—but I'm here to tell you right now, missy, hands off. Didn't your research on the man include the fact that he's got a wife and kid? Or maybe you're the kind that gets off on things like that."
As Harvard watched, the permafrost in P.J.'s eyes morphed into volcanic anger. "How dare you?" she whispered.
The question was rhetorical, but Harvard answered it anyway. "I dare because Cat is my friend—and because you, little Miss Fink, are temptation incarnate. So back off."
She was looking at him as if he were something awful she'd stepped in, something disgusting that had stuck onto the bottom of her shoe. "You're such a...man," she said, as if that were the worst possible name she could call him. "The captain is the only person in this entire program who's even bothered to sit down and talk to me. But if you're telling me that all he's doing is dogging me, despite having a wife and kid at home—"
"He's not dogging you, baby, you're dogging him."
"I am not!"
"You just happen to head over to the firing range while Cat's scheduled to be there. He walks into this bar, and you all but launch yourself at him."
She flushed, unable to deny his accusations. "You really have no idea what it's like, do you?"
"Poor baby, all alone, far away from home. Is this where the violins start to play? Tell me, do you go for the married men because there's less of a chance of actually becoming involved?"
She was seething, her eyes all but shooting sparks. "I was only trying to be friends!"
"Friends?"
"You know, people who hang out together, share meals occasionally, sometimes get together for a game of cards or Scrabble?"
"Friends." Harvard let scepticism drip from his voice. "You want to be Cat's friend."
P.J. stood. "I knew you wouldn't understand. You've probably never had a friend who was a woman in your entire life."
"I'm ready to learn—a willing and able volunteer with the added bonus of being unattached. I'm wicked good at Scrabble. Among other things."
She snorted. "Sorry. From where I stand, you're the enemy."
"I'm what?"
"You heard me. You want me gone from this training op on pure principle. You think women have no place out in the field, in the line of fire. You're judging me not as an individual, but based only on the fact that I don't have a penis. What's the deal with that? Do you use your penis to aim your rifle better? Does it help you dodge bullets or run faster?"
This woman could really piss him off, but at the same time, she could really make him laugh. "Not that I know of."
"Not that I know of, either. You're a narrow-minded bigot, Senior Chief, and I have no desire to spend even a minute more in your company."
Harvard stopped laughing. A bigot? "Hey," he said.
But P.J. was already walking away, her beer barely touched.
Harvard had never been called a bigot before. A bigot was someone narrow-minded who believed unswervingly that he and his opinions were inarguably right. But the fact is, he was right. Women did not belong on combat missions, carrying—and firing—weapons and being shot at. It was not easy to stare down the sight of a rifle at a human being and pull the trigger. And countless psych reports stated that women, God bless 'em, had a higher choke factor. When the time came to pull that trigger, after all those tax dollars had been spent on thousands of hours of training, most women couldn't get the job done.
God knows that certainly was the truth when it came to women like his mother and sisters and Rachel. He couldn't picture Rachel holding an MP5 automatic weapon. And his sisters... All four of them were card-carrying pacifists who spouted make-love-not-war-type clichés whenever he was around.
Still, after his sister Kendra had gotten married and started a family, she'd attached an addendum to her nonviolent beliefs. "Except if you threaten or hurt my kids." Harvard could still see the light of murder in his sister's eyes as the former president of Students Against Violence pr
oclaimed that if anyone, anyone threatened her precious children, she would rip out their lungs with her bare hands.
Put an MP5 in that girl's hands and tell her her children were in danger, and she'd be using up her ammo faster than any man.
But on the other hand, you'd never be able even to get a weapon into his father's hands. The old man would gently push the barrel toward the floor and start lecturing on the theme of war in modern American literature.
Harvard could imagine what P.J. would say about that. He could hear her husky voice as clearly as if she were standing right behind him. Just because your father and men like him don't make good soldiers doesn't mean that all men shouldn't be soldiers. And in the same way, women like me shouldn't be lumped together with softer women like Rachel or your mother.
Damn, maybe he was a bigot
Joe returned to the table. "I don't suppose P.J.'s in the ladies' room?"
Harvard shook his head. "No, I, uh...let's see." He counted on his fingers. "I totally alienated her, I incensed her, and last but not least, I made her walk away in sheer disgust."
Joe pursed his lips, nodding slowly. "All that in only six minutes. Very impressive."
"She called me," Harvard said, "a bigot."
"Yeah, well, you've got to admit, you've been pretty narrow-minded when it comes to P.J.'s part in this exercise."
Damn, Joe Cat thought he was a bigot, too.
Joe finished his beer. "I've got to go. That was Ronnie who paged me. Frankie's had an ear infection over the past few days, and now he's throwing up the antibiotic. I'm meeting them at the hospital in fifteen minutes."
"Is it serious?"
"Nah, the kid's fine. I keep telling Ronnie, babies barf. It's what they do. She's just not going to sleep tonight until she hears a doctor say it, too." Joe rolled his eyes. "Of course, she probably won't even sleep then. I keep telling her it's the baby who's supposed to wake the mother up at night, not the other way around. But she has a friend who lost a kid to SIDS. I'm hoping by the time Frank turns two, Veronica will finally sleep through the night." Joe picked up his jacket from the back of the chair he'd thrown it over.
"You sure there's nothing I can do to help?"
The captain turned to look at him. "Yeah," he said. "There is something you can do. You can stay away from P.J. Richards after hours. It's clear you two aren't ever going to be best friends."
There was that word again. Friends.
"If there's one thing I've learned as a commander," Joe continued, "it's that you can't force people to like each other."
The stupid thing was, Harvard did like P.J. He liked her a lot.
"But it's not too much to ask that you and she work together in a civil manner," Joe continued.
"I've been civil," Harvard said. "She's the one who walked away in a huff."
Joe nodded. "I'll speak to her about that in the morning."
"No, Cat..." Harvard took a deep breath and started again. "With your permission, Captain, allow me to handle the situation." He wasn't a bigot, but he was guilty of generalizing without noting that there was, of course, a minuscule amount of the population that was an exception to the rule. And maybe P.J. Richards was in that tiny percentage.
Joe Cat looked at Harvard and grinned. "She drives you crazy, but you can't stay away from her, can you? Aw, H., you're in trouble, man."
Harvard shook his head. "No, Captain, you've got it wrong. I just want to be the lady's friend."
They both knew he was lying through his teeth.
Chapter 6
"That's an apology?" P.J. laughed. "You say, 'Yes, I'm guilty of being small-minded when it comes to my opinions about women, but oh, by the way, I still think I'm right'?"
Harvard shook his head. "I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did I'm paraphrasing, but that is the extent of the message you just delivered."
"What I said was that I think women who have the, shall we say, aggressive tendencies needed to handle frontline pressures are the exception rather than the rule."
"They're few and far between, was what you said." P.J. crossed her arms. "As in practically nonexistent."
Harvard turned away, then turned back. He was trying hard to curb his frustration, she had to give him that much. "Look, I didn't come here to argue with you. In fact, I want us to try to figure out a way we can get along over the next six weeks. Joe Cat's aware that we're having some kind of personality clash. I want him to be able to look over, see us working side by side without this heavy cloud of tension following us around. Do you think we can manage to do that?"
"The captain knows?" Every muscle in P.J.'s body ached, and she finally gave in to the urge to sit on the soft leather of the lobby couch.
Harvard sat across from her. "It's not that big a deal. When you're dealing with mostly alpha personalities, you've got to expect that sometimes the fit won't work." He gazed at her steadily, leaning slightly forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "But I think that transferring out of this particular program isn't an option for either of us. Both of us want to be here badly enough to put in a little extra effort, am I right?"
"You are." She smiled. "For once."
Harvard smiled, too. "A joke. Much better than fighting."
"A half a joke," she corrected him.
His smile widened, and she saw a flash of his perfect white teeth. "That's a start," he told her.
P.J. took a chance and went directly to the bottom line. "Seriously, Senior Chief, I need you to treat me as an equal."
She was gazing at him, her pretty face so sombre. She'd changed out of her uniform shirt and into a snugly fitting T-shirt boasting the logo, Title Nine Sports. She had put on running shorts, too, and Harvard forced his gaze away from the graceful shape of her bare legs and back to her eyes. "I thought I had been."
"You're always watching me—checking up on me as if I were some little child, making sure I haven't wandered away from the rest of the kindergarten class."
Harvard shook his head. "I don't—"
"Yeah," she said, "you do. You're always looking to see if I need some help. 'Is that pack too heavy for you, Ms. Richards?' 'Careful of your step, Ms. Richards.' 'Let me give you a boost into the boat, Ms. Richards."'
"I remember doing that," Harvard admitted. "But I gave Schneider and Greene a boost, too."
"Maybe so, but you didn't announce it to the world, the way you did with me."
"I announced it with you because I felt it was only polite to give you a proper warning before I grabbed your butt."
She gazed steadily into his eyes, refusing to acknowledge the embarrassment that was heating her cheeks. "Well, it just so happens that I didn't need a boost. I'm plenty strong enough to pull myself into that boat on my own."
"It's harder than it looks."
"I didn't get a chance to find that out, did I?"
She was right. She may indeed have found that she couldn't pull herself into the boat without a boost, but she hadn't had that opportunity, and so she was right. Harvard did the only thing he could do.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have assumed. It's just that women tend not to have the upper body strength necessary—"
"I do." She cut him off. "It's one of the times my size works to my advantage. I can probably do more chin ups than you, because I'm lifting less than a hundred pounds."
"I'll grant that you weigh less because you're smaller, but everything's smaller. Your arms are smaller."
"That doesn't mean I don't have muscles." P.J. pushed up the sleeve of her T-shirt and flexed her bicep. "Check this out. Feel this. That's one solid muscle."
She actually wanted him to touch her.
"Check it out," she urged him.
Harvard was so much bigger than she was, he could have encircled her entire upper arm with one hand-flexed bicep and all. But he knew if he did that, she would think he was mocking her. Instead, he touched her lightly, his fingers against the firmness of her muscle, his thumb against the inside of her
arm. Her skin was sinfully soft, impossibly smooth. And as he moved his fingers, it was more like a caress than a test of strength.
His mouth went dry, and as he looked up, he knew everything he was thinking was there in his eyes, clear as day, for her to see. He wanted her. No argument, no doubt. If she said the word go, he wouldn't hesitate even a fraction of a second.
P.J. pulled her arm away as if she'd been burned. "Bad idea, bad idea," she said as if she were talking to—and scolding—herself. She stood up. "I need to go to bed. You should, too. We both have to be up early in the morning."
Harvard slouched on the couch, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a rush of air. "Maybe that's a way to relieve some of the tension between us."
She turned to look at him, her beautiful eyes wary. "What is?"
"You and me," Harvard said bluntly. "Going to bed together—getting this attraction thing out of our systems."
P.J. crossed her arms. "Now, how did I know you were going to suggest that?"
"It's just a thought."
She looked at him, at the way he was sitting, the way he was trying to hide the fact that he'd gotten himself totally turned on just from touching her that little tiny bit. "Somehow I think it's more than just a thought."
"Just say the word and it changes from a good idea to hard reality." His eyes were impossibly hot as he looked at her. "I'm more than ready."
P.J. had to clear her throat before she could speak. "It's not a good idea. It's a bad idea."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"You know it'd be great."
"No, I don't," she told him honestly.
"Well, I know it would be better than great." He looked as if he were ready to sit there all night and try to tease her into getting with him.
But no matter how determined he was, she was more so. "I can't do this. I can't be casual about something so important." Lord, if he only knew the whole truth.... She turned toward her room, and he stood up, ready to follow her.
"I'm not just imagining this," he asked quietly, his handsome face serious. "Am I? I mean, I know you feel this thing between us, too. It's damn powerful."
Harvard's Education Page 6