“You’re doing all right, P.J.,” he said, standing in one graceful movement. “Keep it up.”
As he walked away, P.J. closed her eyes. God, it had been so long since she’d been given any words of encouragement, she’d almost forgotten how important it was to hear praise. Someone else—in this case, the commanding officer of Alpha Squad—recognized that she was doing her job well. He thought she was the one who should lead the team.
Out of the four FInCOM agents…
P.J. opened her eyes, realizing with a flash of clarity that the captain’s compliment hadn’t been quite as flattering as she’d first believed. She was the best candidate for team leader—compared to Farber, Schneider and Greene.
Still, it was better than being told that women had no place on a team like this one.
She wrapped her half-eaten sandwich and threw it in the trash on her way out of the mess hall, aware of Harvard glancing up to watch her go.
CHAPTER FOUR
“BLUE CALLED TO SAY HE’S RUNNING LATE. He’ll be here in about a half hour.” Joe Catalanotto closed the door behind Harvard, leading him through the little rented house.
“He went home first, didn’t he?” Harvard shook his head in amused disgust. “I told the fool not to stop at home.” Blue McCoy’s wife, Lucy, had come into town two days ago. After spending a month and a half apart, Harvard had no doubt exactly what was causing Blue’s current lateness.
And now Blue was going to show up for this meeting at Joe Cat’s house grinning like the Cheshire cat, looking relaxed and happy, looking exactly like what he was—a man who just got some.
Damn, it seemed everyone in Alpha Squad had that little extra swing in their steps these days. Everyone but Harvard.
Joe’s wife was with him in Virginia, too. Lucky O’Donlon was living up to his nickname, romancing Miss East Coast Virginia. Even Bobby and Wes had hooked up with a pair of local women who were serving up more than home-cooked meals.
Harvard tried to remember the last time he’d gone one on one with a member of the opposite sex. June, May, April, March… Damn, it had been February. He’d been seeing a woman named Ellen off and on for a few months. It was nothing serious—she’d call him, they’d go out and wind up at her place. But he hadn’t noticed when she’d stopped phoning. He couldn’t call up a clear picture of her face.
Every time he tried, he kept seeing P. J. Richards’s big brown eyes.
“Hello, Harvard.” Joe’s wife, Veronica, was in the kitchen. As usual, she was doing three different things at once. A pile of vegetables was next to a cutting board, and a pot of something unidentifiable was bubbling on the stove. She had paperwork from her latest consulting assignment spread out across the kitchen table and one-and-a-half-year-old Frankie in his high chair, where he was attempting rather clumsily to feed himself his dinner.
“Hey, Ron,” Harvard said as Joe stopped to pull several bottles of beer from the refrigerator. “What’s up?”
“I’m teaching myself to cook,” she told him in her crisp British accent. Her red hair was loose around her shoulders, and she was casually dressed in shorts and a halter top. But she was the kind of super classy woman who, no matter what she wore, always looked ready to attend some kind of state function. Just throw on a string of pearls, and she’d be ready to go. “How’s your father?”
“Much better, thanks. Almost back to one hundred percent.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Moving day’s coming. My mother keeps threatening to pack him in a box if he doesn’t quit trying to lift things she perceives as being too heavy for him.”
Joe looked up from his search for a bottle opener. “You didn’t tell me your parents were moving.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“My father’s taking a position at a school out in Arizona. In Phoenix. Some little low-key private college.”
“It sounds perfect,” Veronica said. “Just what he needs—a slower pace. A change of climate.”
“Yeah, it’s great,” Harvard said, trying to mean it. “And they found a buyer for the house, so…”
Joe found the bottle opener and closed the drawer with his hip, still gazing at Harvard. “You okay about that?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Harvard said, shrugging it off.
Veronica turned to the baby. “Now, Frank, really. You’re supposed to use the other end of the spoon.”
Frankie grinned at her as he continued to chew on the spoon’s handle.
“He inherited that smile from his father,” Veronica told Harvard, sending a special smile of her own in Joe Cat’s direction. “And he knows when he uses it, he can get away with anything. I swear, I’m doomed. I’m destined to spend the rest of my life completely manipulated by these two men.”
“That’s right,” Joe said, stopping to kiss his wife’s bare shoulder before he handed Harvard an opened bottle of beer. “I manipulated her into allowing me to refinish the back deck two weeks ago. We don’t even own this place, and yet I managed to talk her into letting me work out there in the hot sun, sanding it down, applying all those coats of waterproofing….”
“It was fun. Frank and I helped,” Veronica said.
Joe just laughed.
“Can I convince you to stay for dinner?” she asked Harvard. “I’m making a stew. I hope.”
“Oh, no, Ron, I’m sorry,” Harvard said, trying hard to sound as if he meant it. “I have other plans.” Plans such as eating digestible food. Veronica may have been one of the sweetest and most beautiful women in the world, but her cooking skills were nonexistent.
“Really? Do you have a date?” Her eyes lit up. “With what’s her name? The FInCOM agent? P.J. something?”
Harvard nearly choked on his beer. “No,” he said. “No, I’m not seeing her socially.” He shot a look at Joe Cat. “Who told you that I was?”
Joe was shaking his head, shrugging and making not-me faces.
“Just a guess. I saw her the other day.” Veronica stirred the alleged stew. “While I was dropping something off at the base. She’s very attractive.”
No kidding.
“So what’s the deal?” Veronica asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Has Lucky O’Donlon already staked his claim three feet in every direction around her?”
Lucky and P.J.? Of course, now that Harvard was thinking about it, Lucky had been circling P.J.—albeit somewhat warily—for the past few days. No doubt Miss East Coast Virginia was starting to cling. Harvard knew of nothing else that would send Lucky so quickly into jettison mode—and put him back on the prowl again. He had to smile, thinking of the way P.J. would react to Lucky’s less-than-subtle advances.
His smile faded. Unless it was only Harvard she was determined to keep her distance from.
“P.J.’s not seeing anyone, Ron,” Joe told his wife as he slid open the door to the back deck. “She’s working overtime trying to be one of the guys. She’s not going to blow that just because Lucky gives her a healthy dose of the O’Donlon charm.”
“Some women find heart-stoppingly handsome blond men like Lucky irresistible,” Veronica teased. “Particularly heart-stoppingly handsome blond men who look as if they’ve stepped off the set of Baywatch.”
“There’s