Navy Blues

“Thank you.” A weak smile hovered over her lips. “You, too. How’s the Navy treating you?”

“Good.”

“Are you still on the Atlantis?”

He nodded shortly.

Silence.

Carol groped for something more to say. “It was a surprise to discover that Lindy’s living in Seattle.”

“Did she tell you she married Rush?”

Carol noted the way his brows drew together and darkened his face momentarily when he mentioned the fact. “I didn’t realize Lindy even knew Rush,” Carol said, and took a sip of the coffee.

“They were married two weeks after they met. Lord, I can’t believe it yet.”

“Two weeks? That doesn’t sound anything like Rush. I remember him as being so methodical about everything.”

Steve’s frown relaxed, but only a little. “Apparently they fell in love.”

Carol knew Steve well enough to recognize the hint of sarcasm in his voice, as if he were telling her what a mockery that emotion was. In their instance it had certainly been wasted. Sadly wasted.

“Are they happy?” That was the important thing as far as Carol was concerned.

“They went through a rough period a while back, but since the Mitchell docked they seem to have mended their fences.”

Carol dropped her gaze to her cup as reality cut sharply into her heart. “That’s more than we did.”

“As you recall,” he said harshly, under his breath, “there wasn’t any fence left to repair. The night you started sleeping with Todd Larson, you destroyed our marriage.”

Carol didn’t rise to the challenge, although Steve had all but slapped her face with it. There was nothing she could say to exonerate herself, and she’d given up explaining the facts to him more than a year ago. Steve chose to believe what he wanted. She’d tried, God knew, to set the record straight. Todd had been her employer and her friend, but never anything more. Carol had pleaded with Steve until she was blue with exasperation, but it hadn’t done her any good. Rehashing the same argument now wasn’t going to help either of them.

Silence stretched between them and was broken by the waitress who had returned to their booth, pad and pen in hand. “Have you decided?”

Carol hadn’t even glanced at the menu. “Do you have sweet-potato pie?”

“No, but pecan is the special this month.”

Carol shook her head, ignoring the strange look Steve was giving her. “Just coffee then.”

“Same here,” Steve added.

The woman replenished both their cups and left.

“So how is good ol’ Todd?”

His question lacked any real interest, and Carol had already decided her former boss was a subject they’d best avoid. “Fine,” she lied. She had no idea how Todd was doing, since she hadn’t worked for Larson Sporting Goods for over a year. She’d been offered a better job with Boeing and had been employed at the airplane company since before the divorce was final.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Steve said with a soft snicker. “I suppose you called this little meeting to tell me the two of you are finally going to be married.”

“No. Steve, please, I didn’t call to talk about Todd.”

He arched his brows in mock consternation. “I’m surprised. What’s the matter, is wife number one still giving him problems? You mean to tell me their divorce hasn’t gone through?”

A shattering feeling of hopelessness nearly choked Carol, and she struggled to meet his gaze without flinching. Steve was still so bitter, so intent on making her suffer.

“I really would prefer it if we didn’t discuss Todd or Joyce.”

“Fine. What do you want to talk about?” He checked his watch as if to announce he had plenty of other things he could be doing and didn’t want to waste precious time with her.

Carol had carefully planned everything she was going to say. Each sentence had been rehearsed several times over in her mind, and now it seemed so trite and ridiculous, she couldn’t manage a single word.

“Well?” he demanded. “Since you don’t want to rub my nose in the fact that you’re marrying Todd, what could you possibly have to tell me?”

Carol gestured with her hand, her fingers trembling. “It’s Christmastime,” she murmured.

“Congratulations, you’ve glanced at a calendar lately.” He looked straight through her with eyes as hard as diamond bits.

“I thought … well, you know, that we could put our differences aside for a little while and at least be civil to each other.”

His eyes narrowed. “What possible reason could there be for us to have anything to do with each other? You mean nothing to me, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”

“You were my husband for five years.”

“So?”

She rearranged the silverware several times, choosing not to look at Steve. He wore his anger like a tight pair of shoes and sitting across from him was almost too painful to bear.

“We loved each other once,” she said after a drawn-out, strained moment.

“I loved my dog once, too,” he came back. One corner of his mouth was pulled down, and his eyes had thinned to narrow slits. “What does having cared about each other have to do with anything now?”

Carol couldn’t answer his question. She knew the divorce had made him bitter, but she’d counted on this long time apart to have healed some of his animosity.

“What did you do for the holidays last year?” she asked, refusing to argue with him. She wasn’t going to allow him to rile her into losing her temper. He’d played that trick once too often, and she was wise to his game.

“What the hell difference does it make to you how I spent Christmas?”

This wasn’t going well, Carol decided—not the least bit as she’d planned. Steve seemed to think she wanted him to admit he’d been miserable without her.

“I … I spent the day alone,” she told him softly, reluctantly. Their divorce had been final three weeks before the holiday and Carol’s emotions had been so raw she’d hardly been able to deal with the usual festivities connected with the holiday.

“I wasn’t alone,” Steve answered with a cocky half smile that suggested that whoever he was with had been pleasant company, and he hadn’t missed her in the least.

Carol didn’t know how anyone could look so damned insolent and sensuous at the same moment. It required effort to keep her chin up and meet his gaze, but she managed.

“So you were alone,” he added. The news appeared to delight him. “That’s what happens when you mess around with a married man, my dear. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Todd’s wife and family will always come first. That’s the other woman’s sad lot in life.”