Harvard didn’t catch up to P.J. until after lunch. She’d left messages on his voice mail—both at home and in the office—telling him not to bother giving her a ride to the base in the morning. She was going in early, and it worked for her to catch a ride with Chuck Schneider.
He’d tried phoning her back, but the hotel was holding her calls.
Harvard had thought about everything she said to him as she got out of the jeep last night. He’d thought hard about it well into the early hours of the morning. And he thought about it first thing when he woke up, as well.
But it wasn’t until they were both heading to a meeting at the Quonset hut after lunch that he was able to snatch a few seconds to talk to her.
“You’re wrong,” he said without any ceremony, without even the civility of a greeting.
P.J. glanced at him, then glanced at Farber, who was walking alongside Joe Cat. The two men were a few yards ahead of her. She slowed her pace, clearly not wanting either of them to overhear.
But there was nothing to overhear. “Now’s not the time to get into this discussion,” Harvard continued. “But I just wanted you to know that I’ve thought—very carefully—about everything you said, and my conclusion is that you’re totally off base.”
“But—”
He opened the door to the Quonset hut and held it for her, gesturing for her to go in first. “I’d be more than happy to sit down with you this evening, maybe have an iced tea or two, and talk this through.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t give him an immediate and unequivocal no, either.
Harvard took that as a good sign.
The main room in the Quonset hut had been set up as a briefing area.
Harvard moved to the front of the room to stand next to Joe Cat and Blue. He watched as P.J. took a seat. She made a point not to look at him. In fact, she looked damn near everywhere but at him.
That was, perhaps, not such a good sign.
P.J. paid rapt attention to Joe Cat as he outlined the exercise that would take place over the next few days. Day one would be preparation. The CSF team would receive Intel reports about a mock hostage situation. Day two would be the first phase of the rescue—location and reconnaissance of the tangos holding the hostages. Day three would be the rescue.
Harvard looked at the four finks sitting surrounded by the men of Alpha Squad. Schneider and Greene looked perpetually bored, as usual. Farber looked slightly disattached, as if his thoughts weren’t one hundred percent on the project being discussed. And P.J…. As the captain continued to talk, P.J. looked more and more perplexed and more and more uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat and glanced at Farber and the others but got no response from them. She risked a glance in Harvard’s direction.
There were about a million questions in her eyes, and he suspected he knew exactly what she wanted answered.
She finally raised her hand. “Excuse me, Captain, I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m afraid I can’t go into any specifics at this time,” Cat told her. “In order for this training op to run effectively, I can’t give you any further information than I already have.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” P.J. said, “but it seems to me that you’ve already given us too much information. That’s what I don’t understand. You’ve tipped us off as to the nature of this exercise. And what’s the deal with giving us an entire day to prepare? In a real-life scenario, we’ll have no warning. And everything I’ve learned from you to date stresses the importance of immediate action. Sitting around with an entire day of prep time doesn’t read as immediate in my book.”
Joe Cat moved to the front of the desk he’d been standing behind, sat on the edge and looked at P.J. He didn’t speak for several long moments. “Anything else bothering you, Richards?” he finally asked.
As Harvard watched, P.J. nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m wondering why the location of the terrorists and the rescue attempt will take place over the course of two individual days in two different phases of activity. That also doesn’t gel with a realistic rescue scenario. In the real world,” she said, using the SEAL slang for genuine real-life operations, “we wouldn’t go back to our hotel for a good night’s sleep in the middle of a hostage crisis. I don’t understand why we’re going to be doing that here.”
The captain glanced first at Blue and then at Harvard. Then he turned to the other finks. “Anyone else have the same problems Ms. Richards is having?” he asked. “Mr. Farber? You have any problems with our procedure?”
Farber straightened up, snapping to attention. As Harvard watched, he saw the FInCOM agent study the captain’s face, trying to read from Joe’s expression whether he should agree or disagree.
“He’s looking for your opinion, Mr. Farber,” Harvard indicated. “There’s no right answer.”
Farber shrugged. “Then I guess I’d have to say no. A training exercise is a training exercise. We go into it well aware that it’s make-believe. There’re no real hostages, and there’s no real danger. So there’s no real point to working around the clock to—”
“Wrong,” Harvard interrupted loudly. “There’s no right answer, but there are wrong answers, and you’re wrong. There’s a list of reasons longer than my—” he glanced at P.J. “—arm as to why it’s vitally necessary to train under conditions that are as realistic as possible.”
“Then why are we wasting our time with this half-baked exercise?” P.J. interjected.
“Because FInCOM gave us a rule book,” Joe explained, “that outlined in pretty specific detail exactly what we could and could not subject the CSF agents to. We’re limited to working within any given ten-hour period. We can’t exceed that without providing you with a minimum of eight hours down time.”
“But that’s absurd,” P.J. protested. “With those restrictions, there’s no way we’re going to be able to set up a scenario that has any basis in reality. I mean, part of the challenge of dealing with the stress of a hostage crisis is coping with little or no sleep, of being on the job forty-eight or seventy-two or—God!—ninety hours in a row. Of catching naps in the back of a car or in the middle of the woods or…This is ludicrous.” She gestured toward herself and the other FInCOM agents. “We’re big boys and girls. We’ve all been on assignments that have required us to work around the clock. What’s the deal?”
“Someone upstairs at FInCOM is afraid of the SEAL teams,” Joe said. “I think they think we’re going to try to drag you through some version of BUD/S training. We’ve tried to assure them that’s not possible or even desirable. We’ve been actively trying to persuade FInCOM to revise that restrictive rule for weeks now. Months.”
“This is just plain stupid.” P.J. wasn’t mincing words. “I can’t believe Kevin Laughton would agree to this.”
Harvard stepped forward again. “We haven’t been able to reach Laughton,” he told her. “Apparently the man has dropped off the face of the earth.”
P.J. looked at her watch, looked at the “Baywatch” calendar that was pinned to the wall near Wesley’s computer. “Of course you haven’t been able to reach him. Because he’s on vacation,” she said. “He’s got a beach house on Pawley’s Island in South Carolina.” She stood. “Captain, if you let me use your office, I can call him right now—at least make him aware of the situation.”
“You have the phone number of Laughton’s vacation house?” Harvard couldn’t keep from asking. P.J. and Laughton. There was that image again. He liked it even less today.
P.J. didn’t answer. Joe had already led her into his office, shutting the door behind her to give her privacy.
Harvard turned to the finks and SEALs still sitting in rows. “I think we’re done here for now,” he said, dismissing them.
He turned to find the captain and Blue exchanging a long look.
“How well does she know Laughton, anyway?” Joe murmured.
Blue didn’t answer, but Harvard knew exactly what both men were thinking. If she knew her boss well enough to have his home phone number, she knew him pretty damn well.
* * *
The call came within two hours.
Harvard was surfing the net, wondering how long he’d have to wait before he could head over to P.J.’s hotel, wondering if she’d agree to have a drink with him or if she’d hide in her room, not answer the phone when he called from the lobby.
Wondering exactly what her connection to Kevin Laughton was.
The phone rang, and Wes scooped it up. “Skelly.” He sat a little straighter. “Yes, sir. One moment, Admiral, sir.” He put the call on hold. “Captain, Admiral Stonegate on line one.”
Joe went into his office to take the call. Blue went in with him, closing the door tightly behind them both.
“That was too quick.” Lucky was the first to speak, looking up from his computerized game of golf. “He’s either not calling about the FInCOM project or he’s calling to say no.”
“How well does P.J. know Kevin Laughton?” Bobby put down his book to voice the question they all were thinking.
“How well do you have to know a girl before you give her the phone number of your beach house?” Wes countered.
“I don’t have a beach house,” Bobby pointed out.
“Suppose that you did.”
“I guess it would really depend on how much I liked the girl.”
“And what the girl looks like,” Lucky added.
“We know what the girl looks like,” Wes said. “She looks like P.J. Exactly like P.J. She is P.J.”
“For P.J., I’d consider going out and buying a beach house, just so I could give her my number there,” Bobby decided.
Harvard spun around in his chair, unable to listen to any more inane speculation. “The girl is a woman and her ears are probably ringing with all this talk about her. Show a little respect here. So she had her boss’s phone number. So what?”
“The Senior Chief is probably right,” Wes said with a grin. “Laughton probably gives his vacation phone number to all the agents he works with—not just the beautiful female agents he’s sleeping with.”
Crash spoke. He’d been so quiet, Harvard had almost forgotten he was in the room. “I’ve heard that Laughton just got married. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of man who would cheat on his wife—let alone a bride of less than a year.”
“And P.J.’s not the kind of woman who would get with a married man,” Harvard added, trying to convince himself as well. He’d come to know P.J. well over the past few weeks. He shouldn’t doubt her, but still, there was this tiny echo of a voice that kept asking, Are you sure?
“I’m friends with a guy who’s working for the San Diego police,” Lucky said, opening the wrapper of a granola bar. “He said working with women in the squad adds all kinds of craziness to the usual stress of the job. If you’re working a case with a female partner and there’s any kind of attraction there at all, it can easily get blown out of proportion. Think about it. You know how everything gets heightened when you’re out on an op.”
Harvard kept his face carefully expressionless. He knew firsthand what that was about. He’d experienced it yesterday afternoon.
The captain came out of his office, grinning. “We got it,” he announced. “Permission to trash the rule book and permission to take our little finks out of the country for some on-location fun and games. We’re going west, guys—so far west, it’s east. Whatever P.J. said to Kevin Laughton—it had an impact.”
“There’s your proof,” Lucky said. “She calls Laughton, two hours later, major policies are changed. She’s doin’ him. Gotta be.”
Harvard had had enough. He stood up, the wheels of his chair rattling across the concrete floor. “Has it occurred to you that Laughton might have responded so quickly because he respects and values P.J.’s opinion as a member of his staff?”
Lucky took another bite of his granola bar, thinking for a moment while he chewed. “No,” he said with his mouth full. “She’s not interested in any kind of new relationship—she told me that herself. She doesn’t want a new relationship because she’s already got an old relationship. With Kevin Laughton.”
Harvard laughed in disbelief. “You’re speculating.” He turned to the captain. “Why are we talking about this? P.J.’s relationship with Laughton is none of our damned business—whatever it may be.”
“Amen to that,” Joe Cat said. “The exercise start date has been pushed back two days,” he announced. “Anyone on the CSF team should take a few days of leave, get some rest.” He looked at Crash. “Sorry, Hawken. I know you’re going to be disappointed, but apparently there are a few Marines who’ve been working with the locals, and they’re going to be our terrorists for this exercise. You’re going to have to go along as one of the good guys.”
Crash’s lips moved into what might have been a smile. “Too bad.”
The captain looked at Harvard. “We’re going to have to notify P.J. and the other finks—let ’em know we’re heading to Southeast Asia.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Harvard said.
Joe Cat smiled. “I figured you’d want to.”
“Make sure you tell ’em to put their wills and personal effects in order,” Wes said with a grin that dripped pure mischief. “Because from now on, there’re no rules.”
* * *
P.J. finished the steak and baked potato she’d ordered from room service and set the tray in the hall outside her room. She showered and pulled on a clean T-shirt and a pair of cutoff sweatpants and then, only then, did she phone the hotel desk and ask them to stop holding her calls.
There was a message on her voice mail from Kevin, telling her he’d managed to pull the necessary strings. The CSF team project would be given the elbow room it needed, without interference.
There was also a message from Harvard—“Call me. It’s important.” He’d left his beeper number.
P.J. wrote the number down.
She knew he wanted to talk to her, to try to convince her he didn’t want to have sex with her in an attempt to dominate and put her securely in her place as first and foremost a woman. No, his feelings of desire had grown out of the extreme respect he had for her, and from his realization that gender didn’t matter in the work she did.
Yeah, right.
Of course, he might have asked her to call so he could give her some important work-related information. Kevin’s message meant there was bound to be some news.
As much as she didn’t want to—and she didn’t want to call Harvard, she told herself—she was going to have to.
But first she had more important things to do, such as checking in with the weather channel, to see if Mr. Murphy was going to send a tropical depression into their midst on the days they were scheduled to battle the steely-eyed Lieutenant William Hawken and his merry band of mock terrorists.
The phone rang before she’d keyed up the weather channel with the remote control.
P.J. hit the mute button and picked up the call. “Richards.”
“Yo, it’s H. Did you just page me?”
P.J. closed her eyes. “No. No, not yet. I was going to, but—”
“Good, you got my message, at least. Why don’t you come down to the bar and—”
P.J. forced herself to sound neutral and pleasant. “Thanks, but no. I’m ready for bed—”
“It’s only twenty hundred.” His voice nearly cracked in disbelief. “You can’t be serious—”
“I’m very serious. We’ve got some tough days ahead of us, starting tomorrow,” she told him. “I intend to sleep as much now as I possibly—”
“Starting tomorrow, we’ve got two days of leave,” he interrupted her.
Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t on the list. “We do?”
“We’ll be boarding a plane for Southeast Asia on Thursday. Until then we’ve got a break.”
“Southeast Asia?” P.J. laughed, tickled with delight. “Kevin really came through, didn’t he? What a guy! He deserves something special for this one. I’m going to have to think long and hard.”
On the other end of the line, Harvard was silent. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different. Stiffer. More formal. “Richards, come downstairs. We really have to talk.”
Now the silence was all hers. P.J. took a deep breath. “Daryl, I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s—”
“All right. Then I’ll be right up.”
“No—”
He’d already hung up.
P.J. swore sharply, then threw the phone’s handset into the cradle with a clatter. Her bed was a rumpled mess of unmade blankets and sheets, her pillow slightly indented from her late afternoon nap.
She didn’t want to make her bed. She wasn’t going to make her bed, damn it. She’d meet him at the door, and they’d step outside into that little lobby near the elevators to talk. He’d say whatever it was he had to say, she’d turn him down one more time, and then she’d go back into her room.
He knocked, and P.J. quickly rifled through the mess on the dresser to find her key card. Slipping it into the pocket of her shorts, she went to the door. She peeked out the peephole. Yeah, it was definitely Harvard. She opened the door.
He wasn’t smiling. He was just standing there, so big and forbidding. “May I come in?”
P.J. forced a smile. “Maybe we should talk outside.”
Harvard glanced over his shoulder, and she realized there were people sitting on the sofa and chairs by the elevators. “I would prefer the privacy of your room. But if you’re uncomfortable with that…”
Admitting she had a problem sitting down and talking to Harvard in the intimate setting of her hotel room would be tantamount to admitting she was not immune to his magnetic sexuality. Yes, she was uncomfortable. But her discomfort was not because she was afraid he would try to seduce her—that was a given. Her discomfort came from her fear that once he started touching her, once he started kissing her, she wouldn’t have the strength to turn him down.
And God help her if he ever realized that.
“I just want to talk to you,” he said, searching her eyes. “Throw on a pair of shoes and we can go for a walk. I’ll wait for you by the elevator,” he added when she hesitated.
It was a good solution. She didn’t have to change out of her shorts and T-shirt to go to the bar, but she didn’t have to let him into her room, either.
“I’ll be right there,” P.J. told him.
It took a moment to find her sandals under the piles of dirty clothes scattered around the room. She finally slipped her feet into them and, taking a deep breath, left her room.
Harvard was holding an elevator, and he followed her in and pushed the button for the main floor of the big hotel complex. He was silent all the way down, silent as she led the way out of the hotel lobby and headed toward the glistening water of the swimming pool.
The sky was streaked with the colors of the setting sun, and the early evening still held the muggy heat of the day. A family—mother, father, two young children—were in the pool, and several couples, one elderly, the other achingly young, sat in the row of lounge chairs watching the first stars of the evening appear.
Harvard was silent until they had walked to the other side of the pool.
“I have a question for you,” he finally said, leaning against the railing that overlooked the deep end. “A personal question. And I keep thinking, this is not my business. But then I keep thinking that in a way, it is my business, because it affects me and…” He took a deep breath, letting it out in a burst of air. “I’m talking all around it, aren’t I? I suppose the best way to ask is simply to ask point-blank.”
P.J. could feel tension creeping into her shoulders and neck. He wanted to ask a personal question. Was it possible he’d somehow guessed? He was, after all, a very perceptive man. Was it possible he’d figured it out from those kisses they’d shared?
She took a deep breath. Maybe it was better that he knew. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he’d take it—and her—as some kind of a challenge.
“You can ask whatever you want,” she told him, “but I can’t promise I’m going to answer.”
He turned toward her, his face shadowed in the rapidly fading light. “Is the reason you’ve been pushing me away—”
Here it came.
“—because of your relationship with Kevin Laughton?”
P.J. heard the words, but they were so different from the ones she’d been expecting, it took a moment for her to understand what he’d asked.
Kevin Laughton. Relationship. Relationship?
But then she understood. She understood far too well.
“You think because I have Kevin’s home number, because I have direct access to the man when he’s on vacation, that I must be getting it on with him, don’t you?” She shook her head in disgust, moving away from him. “I should’ve known. With men like you, everything always comes down to sex.”
Harvard followed her. “P.J., wait. Talk to me. Are you saying no? Are you saying there’s nothing going on between you and Laughton?”
She turned to face him. “The only thing going on between me and Kevin—besides our highly exemplary work relationship—is a solid friendship. Kind of like what I thought you and I had going between us. The man is married to one of my best friends from college, a former roommate of mine. I introduced them because I like Kevin and I thought Elaine would like him even more, in a different way. I was right, and they got married last year. The three of us continue to be good friends. I’ve spent time at the beach house on Pawley’s Island with the two of them. Does that satisfy your sordid curiosity?”
“P.J., I’m sorry—”
“Not half as sorry as I am. Let me guess—the whole damned Alpha Squad is speculating as to how many different times and different ways I’ve had to get it on with Kevin in order to get his home phone number, right?” P.J. didn’t give him a chance to answer. “But if I were a man, everyone would’ve just assumed I was someone who had earned Kevin Laughton’s trust through hard work.”
“You’re right to be upset,” Harvard said. “It was wrong of me to think that way. I was jealous—”
“I bet you were,” she said sharply. “You were probably thinking it wasn’t fair—Kevin getting some, you not getting any.”
She turned to walk away, but he moved quickly, blocking her path. “I’d be lying if I said sex didn’t play a part in the way I was feeling,” Harvard said, his voice low. “But there’s so much more to this thing we’ve got going—this friendship, I guess I’d have to call it for lack of a better name. In a lot of ways, the relationship you have with Laughton is far more intimate than any kind of casual sexual fling might be. And I’m standing here feeling even more jealous about that. I know it’s stupid, but I like you too much to want to share you with anyone else.”
The edge on P.J.’s anger instantly softened. This man sure could talk a good game. And the look in his eyes was enough to convince her he wasn’t just slinging around slick, empty words. He was confused by having a real friendship with a woman, and honest enough to admit it.
“Friends don’t own friends,” she told him gently. “In fact, I thought the entire issue of people owning other people was taken care of a few hundred years ago.”
Harvard smiled. “I don’t want to own you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Harvard was silent for a moment, gazing into her eyes. “I want to be your lover,” he told her. “And maybe your experiences with other men have led you to believe that means I want to dominate and control—as you so aptly put it the other day. And while I’d truly love to make you beg, chances are if we ever get into that kind of…position, you’re going to be hearing me do some begging, too.”
He was moving closer, an inch at a time, but P.J. was frozen in place, pinned by the look in his eyes and the heat of his soft words. He touched the side of her face, gently skimming the tips of his fingers across her cheek.
“We’ve played it your way, and we’re friends, P.J.,” he said softly. “I like being your friend, but there’s more that I want to share with you. Much more.
“We can go into this with our eyes open,” he continued. “We can go upstairs to your room, and you can lend yourself to me tonight—and I’ll lend myself to you. No ownership, no problems.” Harvard ran his thumb across her lips. “We can lock your door and we don’t have to come out for two whole days.”
He lowered his head to kiss her softly, gently. P.J. felt herself sway toward him, felt herself weakening. Two whole days in this man’s arms…Never in her life had she been so tempted.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered. He kissed her again, just as sweetly, as if he’d realized that gentle finesse would get him farther than soul-stealing passion.
But then he stepped away from her, and P.J. realized that all around the pool, lights were going on. One went on directly overhead, and they were no longer hidden by the shadows of the dusk. Harvard still held her hand, though, drawing languorous circles on her palm with his thumb.
He was looking at her as if she were the smartest, sexiest, most desirable woman on the entire planet. And she knew that she was looking at him with an equal amount of hunger in her eyes.
She wanted him.
Worst of all, despite her words, she knew she wanted to own him. Heart, body and soul, she wanted this incredible man for herself and herself alone, and that scared her damn near witless.
She turned away, pulling from his grasp, pressing the palms of her hands against the rough wood of the railing, trying to rid herself of the lingering ghost of his touch.
“This is a really bad idea.” She had to work hard, and even then her voice sounded thin and fluttery.
He stepped closer, close enough so she could feel his body heat but not quite close enough to touch her. “Logically, yes,” he murmured. “Logically, it’s insane. But sometimes you’ve got to go with your gut—and I’m telling you, P.J., every instinct I’ve got is screaming that this is the best idea I’ve had in my entire life.”
All her instincts were screaming, too. But they were screaming the opposite. This may well be the right man, but was so the wrong time.
Those treacherous, treasonous feelings she was having—the crazy need to possess this man—had to be stomped down, hidden away. She had to push these thoughts far from her, and even though she was by no means an expert when it came to intimate relationships, she knew that getting naked with Harvard Becker would only make things worse.
She had to be able to look at him, to work with him over the next few weeks and be cool and rational.
She wasn’t sure she could spend two days making love to him and then pretend there was nothing between them. She wasn’t that good an actor.
“Daryl, I can’t,” she whispered.
He’d been holding his breath, she realized, and he let it out in a rush that was half laughter. “I would say, give me one good reason, except I’m pretty sure you’ve got a half a dozen all ready and waiting, reasons I haven’t even thought of.”
She did have half a dozen reasons, but they were all reasons she couldn’t share with him. How could she tell him she couldn’t risk becoming intimate because she was afraid of falling in love with him?
But she did have one reason she knew he would understand. She took a deep breath. “I’ve never been with…anyone.”
Harvard didn’t understand what P.J. meant. He knew she was telling him something important—he could see that in her eyes. But he couldn’t make sense of her words. Never been where?
“You know, I’ve always hated the word virgin,” P.J. told him, and suddenly what she’d said clicked. “I came from a neighborhood where eleven-year-old girls were taunted by classmates for still being virgins.”
Harvard couldn’t help laughing in disbelief. “No way. Are you telling me you’re—” Damn, he couldn’t even say the word.
“A virgin.”
That was the word. Turning her to face him and searching her eyes, he stopped laughing. “My God, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I used to lie about it,” she told him, pulling away to look out over the swimming pool. “Even when I went to college where, you know, you’d expect people to be cool about whatever personal choices other people make in their lives, I had to lie. For some reason, it was okay to be celibate for—well, you name the reason—taking time off from the dating scene, or concentrating on grades for a while, or finding your own space—but it was only okay if you’d been sexually active in the past. But as soon as people found out you were a virgin, God, it was as if you had some disease you had to be cured of as soon as possible. Forget about personal choice. I watched other girls get talked into doing things they didn’t really want to do with boys they didn’t really like, and so I just kept on lying.”
She turned to face him then. “But I didn’t want to lie to you.”
Harvard cleared his throat. He cleared it again. “I’m, um…”
She smiled. “Look at you. I’ve managed to shock Alpha Squad’s mighty Senior Chief.”
Harvard found his voice. “Yes,” he said. “Shocked is a good word for it.”
She was standing there in front of him, waiting. For what? He wasn’t quite sure of the protocol when the woman he’d been ferociously trying to seduce all evening admitted she’d never been with a man before.
Some men might take her words as a challenge. Here was a big chance to boldly go where no man had gone before. The prospect could be dizzyingly exciting—until the looming responsibility of such an endeavor came lumbering into view.
This woman had probably turned down dozens, maybe even hundreds of men. The fact that she clearly saw him as a major temptation was outrageously flattering, but it was frightening, too.
What if he could apply the right amount of sweet talk and pressure to make her give in? What if he did go up to her room with her tonight? This would not be just another casual romantic interlude. This would be an important event. Was he ready for that? Was he ready for this woman to get caught up in the whirlwind of physical sensations and mistake a solid sexual encounter for something deeper, like love?
Harvard looked into P.J.’s eyes. “What I want to know is what drives a person to keep one very significant part of her life locked up tight for so many years,” he said. “An incredible, vibrant, passionate woman like you. It’s not like you couldn’t have your pick of men.”
“When I was a little girl, no more than five or six years old,” she told him quietly, “I decided I was going to wait to find a man who would love me enough to marry me first, you know? I didn’t really know too much about sex at the time, but I knew that both my grandmother and my mother hadn’t waited—whatever that meant. I saw all these girls in the neighborhood with their big expanding bellies—girls who hadn’t waited. It was always whispered. Priscilla Simons hadn’t waited. Cheri Richards hadn’t waited. I decided I was going to wait.
“And then when I did start to understand, I was all caught up in the books I read. I was hooked on that fairy-tale myth—you know, waiting on Prince Charming. That carried me through quite a few years.”
Harvard stayed quiet, waiting for her to go on.
P.J. sighed. “I still sometimes wish life could be that simple, though I’m well aware it’s not. I may never have been with a man, but I’m no innocent. I know that no man in his right mind is going to be foolish enough to marry a woman without taking her for a test drive, so to speak. And no woman should do that, either. Sexual compatibility is important in a relationship. I do believe that. But deep inside, I’ve got this little girl who’s just sitting there, quietly waiting.” She laughed, shaking her head. “I see that nervous look in your eyes. Don’t worry. I’m not hinting for a marriage proposal or anything. Being tied down is the last thing I want or need. See, as I got older, I saw more and more of the pitiful samples of men my mother collected, and I started to think maybe marriage wasn’t what I wanted. I mean, who in her right mind would want to be permanently tied to one of these losers? Not me.”
Harvard found his voice. “But not all men are losers.”
“I know that. As I got older, my scope of experience widened, and I met men who weren’t drug dealers or thieves. I made friends with some of them. But only friends. I guess old habits die hard. Or maybe I never really trusted any of them. Or maybe I just never met anyone I’ve wanted to get with.” Until now. P.J. didn’t say the words aloud, but they hung between them as clear as the words in a cartoon bubble.
“I’m not telling you this to create some kind of challenge for you,” she added, as if she’d been able to read his mind. “I’m just trying to explain where I’m coming from and why now probably isn’t the best time for me and you.”
Probably isn’t wasn’t the same as just plain isn’t. Harvard knew that if he was going to talk her into inviting him upstairs, now was the time. He should move closer, touch the side of her face, let her see the heat in his eyes. He should talk his way into her room. He should tell her there was so much more for them to say.
But he couldn’t do it. Not without really thinking it through. Instead of reaching for her, he rested his elbows on the railing. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I can see how this complicates things—for me as well as for you.”
The look in her eyes nearly killed him. She managed to look both relieved and disappointed.
They stood together in silence for several long moments. Then P.J. finally sighed.
Harvard had to hold tightly to the railing to keep from following her as she backed away.
“I’m, uh, I guess I’m going to go back up. To my room. Now.”
Harvard nodded. “Good night.”
She turned and walked away. He stared at the reflected lights dancing on the surface of the swimming pool, thinking about the life P.J. had had as a child, thinking about all she’d had to overcome, thinking about how strong she must’ve been even as a tiny little girl, thinking about her up there in that tree, getting the job done despite her fears, thinking about the sweet taste of her kisses….
And thinking that having a woman like that fall in love with him might not be the worst thing in the world.