Project Reunion (24 page)

“Thank you,” I breathed. “How do I love the fierceness in you, and the pacifist in Mangal? Both.”

“They’re both in you,” he replied simply.

“That’s pretty contrary.”

“In most people, maybe. Not in you. I think it’s pretty cool.”

“So what did Zack do?” I asked. “About Grace and you.”

“Oh, you know. Zack. Tried to work it out with her. Stayed friends with me. Stuck to his guns. Just like she did. They had that in common. Grace was the one who resolved it. She dumped him.”

“You wouldn’t dump me for staying friends with Mangal.”

He snuffed amusement. “No. Neither did she, really. It was never about me. How did Mangal do with Zack?”

“I guess he wasn’t happy with Zack, either.”

Emmett sighed. “Well, I’m sorry your friend doesn’t approve of me. For what it’s worth, I like him fine. I like his wife even better. Shanti’s brave as a lion. Hope you feel better, darlin’.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Emmett. You helped.”

Chapter 18

Interesting fact: Emma MacLaren – Emmett’s mother – ignored the directive that she had Resco authority for only one county. Essentially, the Missouri-Arkansas border troops grew bored. Their commander was happy to entertain suggestions to put them to good use. By Thanksgiving she coordinated three Missouri counties, all thinly populated.

“Hey, there,” said Emmett, smiling so hard his chapped lips split. You could wear chapstick an inch thick here. It still wouldn’t prevent chapping, living on New York Harbor in November. I’d managed to surprise him, boarding his destroyer the night before Thanksgiving. He hadn’t expected to see me again until the refugee extravaganza two weeks later at Camp Yankee.

“You
so
don’t belong here, darlin’,” Emmett mock-scolded, shaking his head in disbelief. “I should turn you over to the M.P.’s as a stow-away.”

I grinned ferociously, and tapped my ‘PRESS’ badge. “Captain Flores was most accommodating.”

Emmett had tossed the Thanksgiving dinner problem to Captain Niedermeyer. Typical of Niedermeyer’s solutions, a champion emerged who didn’t appear to have anything to do with the Coast Guard. Captain Gil Flores was Navy, and he coordinated Merchant Marine, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, and a vast network of donations and logistics for the Dinner Bash Mobilization Detail. He’d also arranged for my overnight visit on Emmett’s destroyer to be a surprise.

“No,” Emmett denied flatly. “
You
are not my media coverage.” As though to underscore this point, his own war correspondent team zeroed in on us on the deck for pictures. Team Flores had notified them, naturally. Emmett unclipped my ‘PRESS’ badge sourly and stuffed it in his pocket. We smiled and cuddled for a few camera shots, and then Emmett swatted the media duo away. I silently vowed to meet them later.

“They’re doing news coverage, Emmett,” I picked up the argument. “We still haven’t done my personal interview.”

“Yeah, they’ll do that, too,” he insisted. “Dee, this is every kind of wrong, you being here.” He looked like a starving man pushing food away, though.

“Why wrong?”

“Darlin’, do you see all these troops? They don’t get to see their wives and boyfriends this holiday, or their ankle-biters and chihuahuas.”

Ah. He actually meant it – he didn’t believe I should be there. Well, that sucked. He’d just have to get over it. I pursed my lips and retrieved the ‘PRESS’ badge from his pocket, and re-affixed it to my cherry red swing coat. A swing coat strategically reinforced with velcro to lock it closed, while merely looking free to swing. I was no novice to the grey New York winter wind-scape.

“I brought food,” I announced practically, refusing to buy into his hum bug-itude. “Let’s hide in your cabin and eat it. Then you won’t have to stand here looking mortified by me anymore.” I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head at him. “Or would you prefer I embarrass you further?” I leaned my face closer to his. “I could, you know. Embarrass you. Much,
much
further. You’ve seen it happen.”

“Uh-huh.” He relented, laughing, and drew me into a hug. He kissed me on the cheek, though even yet not on the mouth. He broke it off and picked up my bag and food box, and led the way into the ship.

I was glad he was leading. He couldn’t see my face as I gulped heading into the grey belly of a Navy ship again. The Coast Guard boats hadn’t bothered me. Nor the ferry doing Greenwich-to-Apple-Core transport. Nor the little kodiak that whisked me over to Emmett’s destroyer. I grew up on Long Island Sound. I love boats. But I’d only been in the one Navy ship before, and that didn’t end well. Fortunately, a destroyer is a much smaller boat than the Ark 7 aircraft carrier. And HomeSec was on my side now. A development that still made me faintly nauseous.

After a long journey through the warren of pipe-lined grey corridors, we arrived at a surprisingly posh suite, with separate bedroom, couch-lined sitting room, and private bath. “Wow, Emmett. What does the captain’s cabin look like?”

“This is the captain’s cabin,” he explained. “His port cabin. At sea, he has a cabin near the conn.” He stowed my things in the bedroom.

He didn’t grab me and throw me to the bed the way I was kind of hoping. Not even a clinch. I sighed and took off my coat and winter things. He leaned in the bedroom doorway and looked at my feet.

“Darlin’, those shoes...”

I looked down at my sensible middle-height heel pumps. “I brought deck shoes, too,” I allowed. “They look kinda foolish with a dress.”

“Good,” he said. He dug my pink-and-green plaid deck shoes out of my luggage and handed them to me. “Come!” he called at a knock on the hatch.

A Navy woman in a royal blue jumpsuit entered, beamed at me, and handed Emmett a tablet. He sat on the couch by the door to look it over. Multi-tasking, he asked her, “How’s your track record at guessing my answers, Lieutenant?”

“Maybe 40 percent, sir.”

Emmett appeared to be signing off on things. Or not, as the case might be. A number of items he corrected, denied, asked questions, or otherwise disagreed with. After five or ten minutes, he handed the tablet back with a smile. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Sir. The captain’s mess is at nineteen hundred,” she noted. “He’s looking forward to meeting Ms. Baker.”

As the hatch shut, I muttered, “We can’t eat dinner alone?”

Emmett shook his head slightly. “Two more aides,” he warned. He reached over and brushed hair out of my face. Hooked his hand around my neck to draw me to him for a kiss. And the hatch banged again. He dropped his hand. “Come!” he called.

His invitation was apparently optional. The next guy was already stepping into the room, this one in forest cammies. Marine combat uniform, at a guess. He braced and pretended I wasn’t there, after handing a slate to Emmett. Again, after a first-pass perusal of the list, Emmett asked, “What’s your track record, for guessing my answers, Major?” He didn’t stop processing the stuff on the slate.

“Haven’t really kept track, sir,” admitted the Marine.

Emmett nodded absently. He was busy frowning at something in detail. He took out his phone and took notes. A to-do list, I feared. Several other items on the slate generated notes as well. I gave up and drifted into the bathroom to touch up my face for the unwelcome dinner with the captain. The Marine left, but Emmett continued working on his follow-up. The promised third aide showed before that was done, and had to stand waiting for Emmett’s attention. Army this time, or perhaps National Guard. Emmett asked again about his track record.

“Getting better, sir,” the man replied. “Maybe 70 percent.”

“Outstanding,” said Emmett. “Major, after dinner, I’d like to go off duty until oh-five hundred. Can you make that happen?”

The aide considered this, and shot me a smile. “Would the colonel be willing to address issues at twenty-three hundred, and at oh-four-thirty?”

“I like this model,” Emmett said with a grin. “Let’s make it thirties in general. Every other one. Twenty thirty, twenty-two thirty, all the way to oh-four thirty. And just sort of channel everything into those windows. Excellent idea, Major. Thank you. Get the other two, please, and tell them the plan?”

“Of course, sir. Ma’am.” He grinned, accepted his tablet back, and left.

I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes to captain’s mess. “I don’t suppose you could blow off the captain, huh?”

“No,” Emmett agreed. “In fact...” He shot up and headed to the bedroom, pulling off clothes as he went, to change into dress uniform for dinner. It was unlike him to dump discarded clothes on the bed. But I supposed there was an aide for that, as well.

His phone rang. “Hey, Momma! Putting you on speaker. Dee’s here. Sort of a surprise present.”

“Hi, Emma,” I sang out, and joined him in the bedroom.

Emma laughed. “Well, I certainly hope you’re sufficiently chaperoned, Dee,” she teased.

“Thoroughly, utterly,” I agreed. “He might get to kiss me again before the night’s out.”

“Uh-huh,” Emma said, exactly the way her son did. “Dee, I watched your interviews with Tom Aoyama and Cam. Great job!”

“Thank you, Emma!”

“We need to run, Momma,” Emmett cut in. “Glad you called, though. Tomorrow’s gonna be a zoo. So we won’t talk.”

“Understood, baby,” she said. “You will thank the Lord tomorrow?”

“Every day,” he agreed, smiling at me. “Whole lot to be thankful for. Love you, Momma. Give the step-dad a hug.”

“Will do. Love you baby. Bye now.”

Emmett had never stopped moving, and was now fully turned out in dress uniform. He dragged me unwilling up off the bed. He drew me to him for a deep kiss, then folded me body to body and whispered in my ear. “I do thank God for you. I’m glad you’re here.”

Someone banged on the door. “Time, sir!” At least the minion didn’t barge in. Not that it mattered.

Emmett smiled wryly at me. “Welcome to my work-life, darlin’.” He put a hand on my back to escort me to the captain’s table.

The officers were charming. They’d seen my video interviews online, giving us some non-classified common ground to converse on. Dinner was surprisingly good, even the inevitable Manhattan clam chowder – tomato base rather than cream this time. Only social-level comment seemed permitted, regarding the massive mission of the morrow. His chosen gatekeeper-aide only dragged Emmett away from the table once. The formal dinner slotted almost exactly into the time Emmett had allowed before his 8:30 p.m. aide-fest back at the cabin.

That didn’t go as smoothly as the before-dinner report routine. There was, after all, this major thing happening the next day. I sprawled across Emmett’s bed, stocking feet waving in the air, and surfed Amenac while my phone recharged. Every once in a while, worrisome bits floated to my ears. But no one was explaining, or even speaking loudly enough for me to follow what was said. And for each out of context snippet, another issue marched in quickly on its heels. At least Emmett shed shoes, tie, and jacket along the way.

I’d nodded off, when he finally flopped across the bed beside me, facing up. I groggily pushed up onto my elbows. “I’m sorry, Emmett,” I said in a small voice. “I shouldn’t have come without asking.”

He turned his head to me, still relaxed back onto the bed. He gave me his best slow smile. If his cracked lip hurt, he didn’t pay any attention to it. “Uh-huh. But I’m glad you did. Selfish of me.”

“Is it always like this?”

“No. Today and tomorrow are light. Flores is running the big feed. Refugee extraction is on hold.” He propped himself on an elbow and slowly unzipped my dress down the back. “Dee? We talk every night. Right now, we have one hour. In private. And a bed.”

Emmett quickly laid to rest any doubts I had about him being uninterested or too tired, or mad at me for coming to New York unannounced.

Chapter 19

Interesting fact: There are over 2,000 bridges in New York City.

“Getting underway,” Emmett murmured in the pre-dawn raw windy drizzle. Our vantage point was on the destroyer’s conning tower. He handed off the infrared binoculars to me, and sidled up to hug me from behind. I peered through the binoculars, but I couldn’t make much sense of what I was seeing. Our ship had moved much closer to Manhattan, that was clear. A whole lot of different-sized ships seemed to be on the move.

“Adam Lacey’s assignment is across the Hudson from ours,” Emmett offered. “Hoboken, etcetera.”

“Oh, cool. Dwayne will be pleased. What are the bright spots on shore?” I asked.

“Feeding stations,” Emmett said. “Probably boiling water by now. They set up yesterday. Everything but the food. But most of the heat signature is waiting crowds.”

“At this hour of the morning?”

“We need to use as much daylight as we can. For crowd control. Our boat is scheduled for three stops. First feed at 8 a.m.” He guided my hands to point the binoculars to the right. “That ferry coming toward us, is ours.”