Navy Brat

Be careful what you say, Casey had advised. My Erin’s got her mother’s temper.

Brand didn’t feel good about this minor deception. The sensation intensified as they sat and talked over their drinks. An hour after he’d sat down with her, Erin glanced at her watch and flatly announced she had to be leaving.

As far as Brand was concerned, his duty was done. He’d looked up his friend’s daughter, talked to her long enough to assure her father, when he wrote next, that Erin was in good health. But when she stood to leave, Brand discovered he didn’t want her to go. He’d thoroughly enjoyed her company.

“How about dinner?” he found himself asking.

Twin spots of color appeared in her cheeks, and her eyes darkened slightly as though she’d been caught off guard. “Ah…not tonight. Thanks anyway.”

“Tomorrow?”

Her silence didn’t fool him. She appeared outwardly calm, as if she were considering his invitation, but Brand could feel the resistance radiating from her. That in itself was unusual. Women generally were eager to date him.

“No thanks.” Her soft smile took any sting out of her rejection—or at least it was meant to. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

She stood, smiled sweetly and tucked her purse under her arm. “Thanks for the drink.”

Before Brand had time to respond, she was out the door. He couldn’t remember a woman turning him down in fifteen years of dating. Not once. Most members of the opposite sex treated him as if he were Prince Charming. He’d certainly gone out of his way to be captivating to MacNamera’s daughter.

Who the hell did she think she was?

Standing, Brand started out the cocktail lounge after her. She was halfway down the block on the sidewalk, her pace clipped. Brand ran a few steps, then slowed to a walk. Soon his stride matched hers.

“Why?”

She paused and looked up at him, revealing no surprise that he’d joined her.

“You’re navy.”

Brand was shocked, and he did a poor job of disguising it. “How’d you know?”

“I was raised in the military. I know the lingo, the jargon.”

“I didn’t use any.”

“Not consciously. It was more than that…the way you held your beer bottle should have told me, but it was when we started talking about the ferries crossing Puget Sound that I knew for sure.”

“So I’m navy. Is that so bad?”

“No. Actually, with most women it’s a plus. From what I understand, a lot of females go for guys in uniform. You won’t have any problems meeting someone. Bremerton? Sand Point? Or Whidbey Island?”

Brand ignored the question of where he was stationed and instead asked one of his own. “Most women are attracted to a man in uniform, but not you?”

Her eyes flickered, and she laughed curtly. “Sorry. It lost its appeal when I was around six.”

She was walking so fast that he was losing his breath just keeping up with her. “Do you hate the navy so much?”

His question apparently caught her by surprise, because she stopped abruptly, turned to him and raised wide brown eyes to study him. “I don’t hate it at all.”

“But you won’t even have dinner with someone in the service?”

“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude. You seem like a perfectly nice—”

“You’re not being rude. I’m just curious, is all.” He glanced around them. They’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk on a busy street in downtown Seattle. Several people were forced to walk around them. “I really would be interested in hearing your views. How about if we find a coffee shop and sit down and talk?”

She looked at her watch pointedly.

“This isn’t dinner. Just coffee.” Unwilling to be put off quite so easily a second time, Brand gifted her with one of his most dazzling smiles. For the majority of his adult life, women had claimed he had a smile potent enough to melt the polar ice cap. He issued it now, full strength, and waited for the usual results.

Nothing.

This woman was downright dangerous to his ego. He tried another tactic. “In case you didn’t notice, we’re causing something of a traffic jam here.”

“I’ll pay for my own coffee,” she insisted in a tone that implied she was going against her better judgment to agree to talk to him at all.

“If you insist.”

The lunch counter at Woolworth’s was still open, and they shared a tiny booth designed for two. While the waitress delivered their coffee, Brand reached for a menu, reading over the list of sandwiches. The picture of the turkey, piled high with lettuce and tomato slices between thick slices of bread, looked appetizing, and he reluctantly set it aside.

“Officer?” Erin asked, studying him while he stirred cream into his coffee.

“Adding cream to my coffee told you that?” Casey’s daughter ought to be in intelligence. He’d never met anyone quite like her.

“No. The way you talk. The way you act. Lieutenant j.g. would be my guess?”

He was impressed again. “How’d you know that?”

“Your age. What are you, thirty? Thirty-one?”

“Thirty-two.” This was getting to be downright embarrassing. He’d climbed through the ranks at the normal rate of speed and received a number of special assignments over the years. Since the navy was considering closing down its station at Sand Point, Brand had been sent by the admiral to conduct a feasibility survey. His duties in the area would last only a few weeks. Most of that time had already been spent.

“I take it you weren’t raised in the navy?” Erin questioned.

“No.”

“I might have guessed.”

She sure as hell was batting a thousand with those guesses of hers. Her eyes briefly met his, and Brand was struck once more by how hauntingly dark they were. A spark, a hint of pain—something he couldn’t quite name—touched an emotional chord deep within him.

“Listen,” she said softly, regretfully, “it’s been interesting talking to you, but I should have been home an hour ago.” She was ready to stand when Brand reached across the table and gripped her hand.

The action was as much a shock to Brand as it was to her. She raised her head a fraction of an inch so that their eyes could meet. Hers were wide and questioning, his…he didn’t know. Unrelenting, stubborn, he guessed. Brand wasn’t thinking clearly, and hadn’t been from the moment he’d followed her into the Blue Lagoon.

“We haven’t talked.”

“There isn’t any need to. You weren’t raised in the military. I was. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like unless you were carted from one corner of the world to another.”

“I’d love it.”