Cassy came awake slowly, as she did most mornings. He watched her with pleasure as she stretched, arching her back, tasting her lips as if she were testing the air, just like a cat did, smiling, almost purring. Her shoulder-length dark hair was tousled, the sheet down, exposing one small breast.
Her eyes opened and she looked up at him, propped up on one elbow, watching her. “What?” she asked, smiling.
“I can’t stop looking at you.”
“I’m a wreck at this hour.”
“My wreck,” he said, and he reached for her.
She pushed back the covers and scrambled out of bed, stepping back. “Not this morning.”
“We have time,” Ben said, and he shoved back his covers and started to get up.
“Benjamin, no,” she screeched, backing up.
They both slept in the nude, and in his eyes every square inch of her body was perfect. And again, as he did just about every hour of every day, he said a Hail Mary to his luck. He was a kid from the wrong end of a steel plant/iron-ore-mining town, and she was a New England privileged blue blood.
“Just a shower together. One reason why not.”
“I’ll give you two. You’re taking the shuttle down to the Navy Yard in D.C. first thing, and in the meantime the roof might cave in on me this morning, so I have to be on the floor ASAP.”
“Come on, Cassy. It’s me you’re talking to. What’s going on?”
“Something. I’m not sure. But big.”
Her narrow shoulders slumped, and for just a moment Ben thought that she was going to cry.
He got out of bed, and before she could turn away, he took her in his arms. She was shivering, and he held her without saying a word for a long time until she calmed down. When they parted, she looked up at him.
“I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. I’m here.”
“Just be here for me, Ben. Please. Promise me that no matter what happens in the next twenty-four hours or so, be here.”
“Promise,” he said, and he was more concerned than he’d ever been in a combat situation, where the SEALs’ number-one Murphy’s law was: Incoming rounds have the right of way.