Soldier And The Society Girl. Vivian Leiber

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СКАЧАТЬ McKenna, I said we have work to do!”

      She trotted after him, regretting her heels, desperate not to lose him as a Japanese tourist group clogged the sidewalk. He walked away with no more regard for her frantic shouts than he did for any other street distraction. The cabdriver leaning on his horn and bellowing at the driver in front of him. The jackhammer grinding cement on the next corner. The youth with a boom box playing heavy metal.

      Still, he was not the type she could lose in a crowd. He stood out—taller than anyone on the street He wore a pair of worn-out jeans that fit low on his hips and a button-down shirt that showed the wrinkles of a twelve-hour transatlantic flight. It was white—the kind of white that reflects that dazzling sun. He had a muscular build, surprising given his time in prison, but Chessey remembered reading somewhere that he had required all his men to maintain absolutely peak physical conditioning. And had required nothing less from himself. His hair was cut a little longer than regulation. His skin was ruddy and sunburned, which only accentuated his blue eyes.

      He garnered his share of second looks from women in his path, but not a flicker of recognition since, courtesy of an Army shave and a haircut, he bore little resemblance to the ragged hero who had led his men to the Turkish border.

      “Derek McKenna, you stop right there!” Chessey shrieked, grabbing his elbow as he came to a stop at the crosswalk.

      He glanced at her with a sorrowful expression that made her back off. Made her think, right then, right there, that maybe it was cruel to take a man like this and parade him around the country for a month. But then he followed his haunted-eye look with something approaching a leer and then pridesmashing dismissal.

      “I’m not going with you,” he said. “Save your animal-training tricks for some other sucker.”

      “They’ll call the President.”

      He tilted his chin thoughtfully. For a scant second, as the sun played across his face, Chessey thought she saw warmth and longing in his eyes. On the other hand, it could have simply been glare.

      “I’ve been giving the President some thought. I don’t think he will reinstate me. He can’t afford the bad publicity. So I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to do since the moment I got captured by the Iraqis. I’m going home.”

      The light changed. He stepped forward. She held her ground in front of him. He took another step, invading her space with the natural scent of bay leaf and musk. She tilted her chin up, balanced on her toes, rued the fact that even with her heels he was a good six inches taller than she was. It was hard to look like an authority figure when she could hardly keep her balance and she still had to look up at him.

      His mouth was scant inches from her, his sweet minty breath a whisper at her forehead. She wondered if he was going to kiss her again.

      She wondered what she would do if he did.

      “You have a problem with me going home?”

      “I do. What about the enlisted men?” she asked, remembering how he had been thrown off balance by the general with just the same concern.

      His eyes narrowed.

      “What about ’em?”

      “Their morale.”

      “If the men don’t know that their officers will stick by them, then the military’s got a bigger problem on its hands than I could ever solve in a month of stump speeches.”

      “You can’t go!”

      She didn’t realize until he looked at his chest that her fingers, perfectly manicured in ballet slipper pink, were splayed along the rock-hard definition of his chest muscles.

      “Darlin’, I didn’t know my kiss could affect you like this,” he drawled.

      She jerked as if he were a hot stove. He reached to the sidewalk and handed her the schedule she had dropped. He lingered a nanosecond at her long legs.

      “I’m just trying to do my job,” she said stiffly. “It’s nothing personal.”

      He stood up.

      “Then you’ll understand that it’s nothing personal, but I’m going home.”

      He stepped around her and walked across the street.

      “But you’re a hero!” she cried, scrambling to keep up with him.

      “I’m done with this hero business. Want nothing more to do with it.”

      He held his hand straight in the air. A cab screeched to a halt in front of him.

      “Where are you going?” Chessey demanded.

      “The airport. It’s faster than walking to Kentucky.”

      “I’m going with you.”

      “Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, getting into the cab. “My pappy told me a long time ago that any woman I brought home with me had better be bride material.”

      In a split second pondering the gray, sunless office she called her own and the sense of personal failure that was her constant companion, Chessey decided she didn’t care what a man named Pappy said.

      She opened the cab door, took advantage of the lieutenant’s reflexive good manners by nudging him over to give her room and told the cabdriver to take them both to Dulles Airport.

      

      “Here you are, sir,” the ticket agent said, handing McKenna a ticket envelope. She tilted her face to the side and smiled winningly. “One-way to Louisville, Kentucky, connecting with the commuter flight to the Elizabethtown airfield. Have a nice trip, sir.”

      “Thanks,” McKenna said, fingering the envelope reverently. Home. He was finally going home. He grinned, knowing the ticket agent misinterpreted his expression as interest in her but being powerless to stop himself. “Thanks, ma’am.”

      She blushed.

      And then the protocol specialist shoved her way past him, throwing her briefcase on the counter.

      “I’ll have what he’s having,” Chessey said.

      “Oh,” said the ticket agent “Are you two together?”

      “No,” Derek said.

      “Yes,” Chessey said.

      “No.”

      “Yes.”

      “No.”

      “This is a free country!”

      “We’ve already discussed freedom in the cab,” Derek said impatiently. “I’m going home. You’re not going with me. A free country means I don’t have to be with you.”

      “A free country means I can go anywhere I want,” Chessey corrected. “Miss, I’ll be going with him. Wherever he’s going.”

      The СКАЧАТЬ