every soft curve, every heart-stopping detail. Her legs were bare, and she wore the sandals he’d made for her on her feet.
Nail polish. She had pink nail polish on her toes. Probably hadn’t been able to get any green.
He’d stood there in the doorway, just looking at her, knowing that despite all he’d silently told himself about the basis for the emotion behind hostage-and-rescuer relationships, he was lost. He was truly and desperately lost.
He’d wanted this woman more than he’d ever wanted anyone….
Wes’s voice broke the silence. “You think they’re gonna put us up in the Marriott, too?” the shortest member of Alpha Squad wondered aloud.
Bobby, Wes’s swim buddy, built like a restaurant refrigerator, shook his head. “I didn’t see anything about that in the FinCOM rule book.”
“What FinCOM rule book?” Joe Cat’s husky New York accent cut through the noise of exploding spacecraft. “Blue, you know anything about a rule book?”
“No, sir.”
“This morning, FinCOM sent over something they’re calling a rule book,” Bobby told their commanding officer.
“Let me see it,” Cat ordered. “O’Donlon, kill the volume on that damn thing.”
The computer sounds disappeared as Bobby sifted through the piles of paper on his desk. He uncovered the carefully stapled booklet FinCOM had sent via courier and tossed the entire express envelope across the room to Cat. Cat caught it with one hand.
The phone rang and Wesley picked it up. “Alpha Squad Pizza. We deliver.”
Catalanotto pulled out the booklet and the cover letter. He quickly skimmed the letter, then opened the booklet to the first page and did the same. Then he laughed—a snort of derision—and ripped both the book and the letter in half. He stuffed it back into the envelope and tossed it back to Bob.
“Send this back to Maryland with a letter that tells the good people of FinCOM no rule books. No rules. Sign my name and send it express.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hey, Cowboy.”
Cowboy looked up to see Wes holding up the telephone receiver, hand securely over the mouthpiece. “For you,” Wesley said. “A lady. Someone named Melody Evans.”
Suddenly, the room was quiet.
But then Harvard clapped his hands together. “Okay, coffee break,” he announced loudly. “Everyone but Junior outside. Let’s go. On the double.”
Cowboy held the phone that Wes had handed him until the echo from the slamming door had faded away. Taking a deep breath, he put the receiver to his ear.
“Melody?”
He heard her laugh. It was a thin, shaky laugh, but he didn’t care. Laughter was good, wasn’t it? “Yeah, it’s me,” she said. “Congratulations on making lieutenant, Jones.”
“Its really just junior grade, but thanks,” he said. “And thanks for calling me back. You sound…great. How are you?” He closed his eyes tightly. Damn, he sounded like some kind of fool.
“Busy,” she said without hesitation, as if it was something she’d planned to say if he asked. “I’ve been incredibly busy. I’m working full-time as an AA for the town attorney, Ted Shepherd. He’s running for state representative, so it’s been crazy lately.”
“Look, Mel, I don’t want to play games with you,” he told her. “I mean, we’ve never been anything but honest with each other, and I know you said you didn’t want to see me again, but I can’t get you out of my head. I want to get together.”
There. He’d said it.
He waited for her to say something, but there was only silence.
“I can get a weekend pass and be up in Massachusetts in five hours.”
More silence. Then, “Jones, this weekend is really bad for me. The election’s only a few weeks away and…It’s not a good time.”
Now the silence belonged to him.
He had two options here. He could either accept her excuses and hang up the phone, or he could beg.
He hadn’t begged back in March. He hadn’t dropped to his knees and pleaded with her to reconsider. He hadn’t tried to convince her that everything she’d told him about their passion being false, about their relationship being based on the adrenaline rush of her rescue, was wrong.
He was a psych specialist. Everything she said made sense—everything but the incredible intensity of his feelings for her. If those feelings weren’t real, he didn’t know what real was.
But his pride had kept him from saying everything he should have said. Maybe if he’d said it then, she wouldn’t have walked away.
So maybe he should beg. It wouldn’t kill him to beg, would it? But if he was going to beg, it would have to be face-to-face. No way was he going to do it over the phone.
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