Tall, Dark and Devastating: Harvard's Education

Joe looked up from his search for a bottle opener. “You didn’t tell me your parents were moving.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“My father’s taking a position at a school out in Arizona. In Phoenix. Some little low-key private college.”

“It sounds perfect,” Veronica said. “Just what he needs—a slower pace. A change of climate.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Harvard said, trying to mean it. “And they found a buyer for the house, so…”

Joe found the bottle opener and closed the drawer with his hip, still gazing at Harvard. “You okay about that?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Harvard said, shrugging it off.

Veronica turned to the baby. “Now, Frank, really. You’re supposed to use the other end of the spoon.”

Frankie grinned at her as he continued to chew on the spoon’s handle.

“He inherited that smile from his father,” Veronica told Harvard, sending a special smile of her own in Joe Cat’s direction. “And he knows when he uses it, he can get away with anything. I swear, I’m doomed. I’m destined to spend the rest of my life completely manipulated by these two men.”

“That’s right,” Joe said, stopping to kiss his wife’s bare shoulder before he handed Harvard an opened bottle of beer. “I manipulated her into allowing me to refinish the back deck two weeks ago. We don’t even own this place, and yet I managed to talk her into letting me work out there in the hot sun, sanding it down, applying all those coats of waterproofing….”

“It was fun. Frank and I helped,” Veronica said.

Joe just laughed.

“Can I convince you to stay for dinner?” she asked Harvard. “I’m making a stew. I hope.”

“Oh, no, Ron, I’m sorry,” Harvard said, trying hard to sound as if he meant it. “I have other plans.” Plans such as eating digestible food. Veronica may have been one of the sweetest and most beautiful women in the world, but her cooking skills were nonexistent.

“Really? Do you have a date?” Her eyes lit up. “With what’s her name? The FInCOM agent? P.J. something?”

Harvard nearly choked on his beer. “No,” he said. “No, I’m not seeing her socially.” He shot a look at Joe Cat. “Who told you that I was?”

Joe was shaking his head, shrugging and making not-me faces.

“Just a guess. I saw her the other day.” Veronica stirred the alleged stew. “While I was dropping something off at the base. She’s very attractive.”

No kidding.

“So what’s the deal?” Veronica asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Has Lucky O’Donlon already staked his claim three feet in every direction around her?”

Lucky and P.J.? Of course, now that Harvard was thinking about it, Lucky had been circling P.J.—albeit somewhat warily—for the past few days. No doubt Miss East Coast Virginia was starting to cling. Harvard knew of nothing else that would send Lucky so quickly into jettison mode—and put him back on the prowl again. He had to smile, thinking of the way P.J. would react to Lucky’s less-than-subtle advances.

His smile faded. Unless it was only Harvard she was determined to keep her distance from.

“P.J.’s not seeing anyone, Ron,” Joe told his wife as he slid open the door to the back deck. “She’s working overtime trying to be one of the guys. She’s not going to blow that just because Lucky gives her a healthy dose of the O’Donlon charm.”

“Some women find heart-stoppingly handsome blond men like Lucky irresistible,” Veronica teased. “Particularly heart-stoppingly handsome blond men who look as if they’ve stepped off the set of Baywatch.”

“There’s no rule against a SEAL getting together with a FInCOM agent.” Harvard managed to keep his voice calm. “I have no problem with it, either. As long as the two of them are discreet.” The minute he got back to base, he was going to track down O’Donlon and… What? Beat him up? Warn him off? He shook his head. He had no claim on the girl.

“Ronnie, would you please send Blue out here after he gets here?” Joe asked his wife as he led Harvard onto the deck.

As Harvard closed the door behind him, he looked closely at his longtime friend. The captain of Alpha Squad looked relaxed and happy. The undercurrent of tension that seemed to surround the man like an aura was down to a low glow. And that was amazing, since the meeting tonight was to discuss the fact that the frustration levels regarding this FInCOM training mission were about to go off the chart.

At least Harvard’s were.

“You’re not really that bothered by all the interference we’re getting from FInCOM and Admiral Stonegate, are you?” Harvard asked.

Joe shrugged and leaned both elbows on the deck railing. “You know, H., I knew this program was a lost cause the day I met FInCOM’s choices for the team. To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything we can do to get those four working effectively together. So we do what we do, and then we recommend—emphatically—that FInCOM stay the hell out of counterterrorist operations. We suggest—strongly—that they leave that to the SEALs.”

“If you’re quitting, man, why not just detonate the entire program right now? Why keep on wasting our time with—”

“Because I’m being selfish.” Joe turned to look at him, his dark eyes serious. “Because Alpha Squad runs at two-hundred-and-fifty percent energy and efficiency one hundred percent of the time, and the guys need this down time. I need this down time. I’m telling you, H., it’s tough on Ronnie with me always leaving. She never knows when we sit down to dinner at night if that’s the last time I’m going to be around for a week or for a month or—God forbid—forever. She doesn’t say anything, but I see it in her eyes. And that look’s not there right now because she knows I’m leading this training drill for the next six weeks. She’s got another six weeks of reprieve, and I’m not taking that away from her. Or from any of the other wives, either.”

“I hear you,” Harvard said. “But it rubs the wrong way. Doing all this for nothing.”

“It’s not for nothing.” Joe finished his beer. “We’ve just got to revise this mission’s goal. Instead of creating a Combined SEAL/FInCOM counterterrorist team, we’re creating a FInCOM counterterrorist expert. We’re giving this expert all of the information she can possibly carry, and you know what she’s gonna do?”

“She?”

“She’s gonna take that expertise back to Kevin Laughton, and she’s gonna tell him and all of the FInCOM leaders that the best thing they can do in a terrorist situation is to step back and let SEAL Team Ten do the job.” Harvard swore. “She?”

“Yes, I’m referring to P. J. Richards.” Joe grinned. “You know, you should try talking to her sometime. She doesn’t bite.”

Harvard scowled. “Yes, she does. And I have the teeth marks to prove it.”

Joe’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, really?”

Harvard shook his head. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I almost forgot—you have no problem with her hooking up with Lucky O’Donlon as long as the two of them are discreet.” Joe snorted. “Why do I foresee a temporary transfer for O’Donlon crossing my desk in the near future?”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

Harvard clenched his teeth and set his barely touched bottle of beer on the deck railing. “Cat, I’m trying to be professional here.”

“What happened, she turn you down?”

Harvard pushed himself off the rail and walked toward the sliding doors, then stopped and walked toward the captain. “What exactly do you envision her role at FInCOM to be?”

“You’re purposely changing the subject.”

“Yes, I am.”