“You too, Dan? What’s with you men? Why does it always have to be something I did?”
Seemingly unabashed, O’Hara grinned. “Maybe because I know how deeply you were involved the last time hell broke out around here?”
Charlie glared her frustration. “As I told Mike Wheeler, I was just doing my job back then. Just as I was trying to do it today. Can I help it if things don’t always go as planned?”
“If you say so.” Dan gazed around the foyer. “Say, who’s in charge around here, anyway?”
“Wheeler, but he’s busy right now,” Charlie answered with a frown as the general recovered his voice and began to rant and rave again. “Since you’re a lawyer, maybe you can do something with the general over there.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Dan laughed. “I’m a JAG lawyer, United States Navy, period. This is State Department business. I just dropped by to deliver a message from Wade and the duchess.”
“How is May doing?” Charlie thought back to the time when JAG Commander Wade Stevens and the Dowager Duchess of Lorrania, then a guest of the U.S. government, had met at a diplomatic function. And she remembered the fur that had flown between them before they realized they were meant for each other. If Stevens and his duchess had managed to find each other in spite of a similar, if not worse, mess than she found herself in now, then maybe there was some hope to get Mike to listen to reason.
“May asked me to tell you she’s deliriously happy. And that she and Wade expect to be back in D.C. in a couple of weeks.”
Charlie considered Dan for a long moment. The frantic activity surrounding her faded into the background as the past flashed through her mind. Wade Stevens and May Baron had had a rocky relationship until May had managed to change Wade for the better. Maybe that’s what it would take to turn a robot like Mike into a feeling man; a woman who was interested and determined enough to humanize him. And maybe even to save the man from himself. If ever there was a man who needed saving, she thought sourly, it was Mike Wheeler. “Really? So you’re saying JAG commanders can be tamed.”
Dan shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, but you have to shoot them first to get their attention.”
“Really?” Charlie gazed over to where Mike was now briefing the new crew reporting for night duty. His all-business, take-charge attitude might be okay for them, but it wasn’t for her.
One thing she did know, Mike’s attitude about women left something to be desired. She wasn’t going to put up with it any longer. It was time to show Mike he was as human as the next man. And to find a way to show him that no matter what he thought about her methods of operation, there was nothing wrong with her. Even if her why-not attitude apparently drove him up a wall.
If getting a man shot was a requirement or prelude to taming him, she mused as she watched Mike limp back to her, at least she was halfway home.
She absentmindedly thanked Dan for delivering the message from the duchess. If he only knew, he’d also delivered another, more interesting message; a Secret Service agent could undoubtedly be tamed by the same means the duchess had used on her JAG lawyer. And Charlie felt she was just the woman to do it.
“O’Hara?” Mike held out his hand. “Haven’t seen you since the wedding. How you doing?”
“Better than you, from what I’ve heard.” Dan grinned as Charlie sniffed and left to speak to the paramedics.
Mike raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Come again?”
“I was thinking about how you and Charlie seldom saw eye-to-eye during the Baronovia caper. Doesn’t look as if much has changed since then, has it?”
“If you’re talking about my reaction to Charlie’s idea of a Frisbee contest in an unguarded park with the duchess’s safety at stake, you’ve got that right,” Mike said after a glance to make sure Charlie was out of hearing. “The lady has a knack for acting before thinking.”
Dan grinned. “From the way you look at her it hasn’t prevented you from falling for her.”
“You’ve got that right, too,” Mike agreed. “But I’ll be damned if I understand why when she attracts trouble the way a cat attracts fleas.”
Dan smothered a laugh and turned to leave. “If anyone can handle Charlie, I have a feeling you’re the man to do it.”
“Not if I can help it,” Mike muttered.
Charlie came back in time to hear him. “Did you have something else to say, Mr. Wheeler?”
Mike glanced at her. Mr. Wheeler? She was back to the best-offense-is-the-best-defense position that fried him. “No. Talk to you later.”
Charlie frowned when Mike walked away. The man was a puzzle, all right. But, first things first, she mused as she set her mind back to the business at hand. There was a wounded man waiting to be taken to the emergency hospital. There was also the shooter, whom the FBI was going to have to debrief. And, to her annoyance, there was Mike wanting to know more about the shooting incident after she’d already told him everything she knew.
Her first opportunity to do something about turning Mike into a more reasonable man would have to wait until Sunday. A day when she’d volunteered her place for a do-it-yourself Blair House picnic. Surely by then they would have a chance to talk to each other like two reasonable people. The only problem was that every time they got together, something major seemed to happen to Mike.
All she had to do was make sure Mike wouldn’t come to harm in the process of taming him, she thought with a guilty twinge of conscience as he limped away. What could possibly go wrong at a picnic?
Squaring her jaw, Charlie turned back to matters at hand. She wasn’t interested in winning Mike for herself, mind you, but showing Mike he was as human as the next person could be interesting. No matter how she looked at it, taming Mike Wheeler was going to be a job and a half.
Chapter Two
Matters didn’t improve between them when Mike arrived unannounced in Charlie’s office the next morning. He carried a sheaf of papers in his hand and had a determined look in his eyes. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have minded, but at the moment he was the last person on earth she cared to entertain in her office. If he discovered what was going on in here, coupled with the negative image he already had of her, her professional reputation wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. Not that it mattered, she told herself, the man’s attitude was enough to try a saint.
“What are you doing here, Mike?”
He looked taken aback at her attitude. His eyes narrowed, an eyebrow rose. “I work here, remember?”
“Of course,” she said, brushing aside her instinctive reaction to his unexpected and definitely unwanted appearance. Forcing a smile, she risked a glance at the coatrack behind him. “Actually, I meant, what are you doing here in my office this morning?”
“I need to get a few more details about the shooting yesterday. I didn’t come back right away because you looked a little queasy and in no condition to talk.” He gestured to her bandaged wrist. “Feeling a little better this morning?”
“I’m fine, it was only a scratch,” Charlie answered, more and more uneasy at his presence with every passing moment. Considering the state of affairs between them, and what was going on in her office, she didn’t feel very well, at that. Too bad she hadn’t had the foresight to close the office door behind her.
Their gazes locked. She could tell he sensed something was wrong with her. It looked as if the visit was going to end in a standoff, until, to her dismay, a strange guttural sound broke the silence.
Mike cocked his head and looked around the office for