Tall, Dark and Devastating: Harvard's Education

Harvard stopped laughing. A bigot? “Hey,” he said.

But P.J. was already walking away, her beer barely touched.

Harvard had never been called a bigot before. A bigot was someone narrow-minded who believed unswervingly that he and his opinions were inarguably right. But the fact is, he was right. Women did not belong on combat missions, carrying—and firing—weapons and being shot at. It was not easy to stare down the sight of a rifle at a human being and pull the trigger. And countless psych reports stated that women, God bless ’em, had a higher choke factor. When the time came to pull that trigger, after all those tax dollars had been spent on thousands of hours of training, most women couldn’t get the job done.

God knows that certainly was the truth when it came to women like his mother and sisters and Rachel. He couldn’t picture Rachel holding an MP5 automatic weapon. And his sisters… All four of them were card-carrying pacifists who spouted make-love-not-war-type clichés whenever he was around.

Still, after his sister Kendra had gotten married and started a family, she’d attached an addendum to her non-violent beliefs. “Except if you threaten or hurt my kids.” Harvard could still see the light of murder in his sister’s eyes as the former president of Students Against Violence proclaimed that if anyone, anyone threatened her precious children, she would rip out their lungs with her bare hands.

Put an MP5 in that girl’s hands and tell her her children were in danger, and she’d be using up her ammo faster than any man.

But on the other hand, you’d never be able even to get a weapon into his father’s hands. The old man would gently push the barrel toward the floor and start lecturing on the theme of war in modern American literature.

Harvard could imagine what P.J. would say about that. He could hear her husky voice as clearly as if she were standing right behind him. Just because your father and men like him don’t make good soldiers doesn’t mean that all men shouldn’t be soldiers. And in the same way, women like me shouldn’t be lumped together with softer women like Rachel or your mother.

Damn, maybe he was a bigot.

Joe returned to the table. “I don’t suppose P.J.’s in the ladies’ room?”

Harvard shook his head. “No, I, uh…let’s see.” He counted on his fingers. “I totally alienated her, I incensed her, and last but not least, I made her walk away in sheer disgust.”

Joe pursed his lips, nodding slowly. “All that in only six minutes. Very impressive.”

“She called me,” Harvard said, “a bigot.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got to admit, you’ve been pretty narrow-minded when it comes to P.J.’s part in this exercise.”

Damn, Joe Cat thought he was a bigot, too.

Joe finished his beer. “I’ve got to go. That was Ronnie who paged me. Frankie’s had an ear infection over the past few days, and now he’s throwing up the antibiotic. I’m meeting them at the hospital in fifteen minutes.”

“Is it serious?”

“Nah, the kid’s fine. I keep telling Ronnie, babies barf. It’s what they do. She’s just not going to sleep tonight until she hears a doctor say it, too.” Joe rolled his eyes. “Of course, she probably won’t even sleep then. I keep telling her it’s the baby who’s supposed to wake the mother up at night, not the other way around. But she has a friend who lost a kid to SIDS. I’m hoping by the time Frank turns two, Veronica will finally sleep through the night.” Joe picked up his jacket from the back of the chair he’d thrown it over.

“You sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”

The captain turned to look at him. “Yeah,” he said. “There is something you can do. You can stay away from P. J. Richards after hours. It’s clear you two aren’t ever going to be best friends.”

There was that word again. Friends.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a commander,” Joe continued, “it’s that you can’t force people to like each other.”

The stupid thing was, Harvard did like P.J. He liked her a lot.

“But it’s not too much to ask that you and she work together in a civil manner,” Joe continued.

“I’ve been civil,” Harvard said. “She’s the one who walked away in a huff.”

Joe nodded. “I’ll speak to her about that in the morning.”

“No, Cat…” Harvard took a deep breath and started again. “With your permission, Captain, allow me to handle the situation.” He wasn’t a bigot, but he was guilty of generalizing without noting that there was, of course, a minuscule amount of the population that was an exception to the rule. And maybe P. J. Richards was in that tiny percentage.

Joe Cat looked at Harvard and grinned. “She drives you crazy, but you can’t stay away from her, can you? Aw, H., you’re in trouble, man.”

Harvard shook his head. “No, Captain, you’ve got it wrong. I just want to be the lady’s friend.”

They both knew he was lying through his teeth.

CHAPTER SIX

“THAT’S AN APOLOGY?” P.J. laughed. “You say, ‘Yes, I’m guilty of being small-minded when it comes to my opinions about women, but oh, by the way, I still think I’m right’?”

Harvard shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. I’m paraphrasing, but that is the extent of the message you just delivered.”

“What I said was that I think women who have the, shall we say, aggressive tendencies needed to handle frontline pressures are the exception rather than the rule.”

“They’re few and far between, was what you said.” P.J. crossed her arms. “As in practically nonexistent.”

Harvard turned away, then turned back. He was trying hard to curb his frustration, she had to give him that much. “Look, I didn’t come here to argue with you. In fact, I want us to try to figure out a way we can get along over the next six weeks. Joe Cat’s aware that we’re having some kind of personality clash. I want him to be able to look over, see us working side by side without this heavy cloud of tension following us around. Do you think we can manage to do that?”

“The captain knows?” Every muscle in P.J.’s body ached, and she finally gave in to the urge to sit on the soft leather of the lobby couch.

Harvard sat across from her. “It’s not that big a deal. When you’re dealing with mostly alpha personalities, you’ve got to expect that sometimes the fit won’t work.” He gazed at her steadily, leaning slightly forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “But I think that transferring out of this particular program isn’t an option for either of us. Both of us want to be here badly enough to put in a little extra effort, am I right?”

“You are.” She smiled. “For once.”

Harvard smiled, too. “A joke. Much better than fighting.”

“A half a joke,” she corrected him.

His smile widened, and she saw a flash of his perfect white teeth. “That’s a start,” he told her.

P.J. took a chance and went directly to the bottom line. “Seriously, Senior Chief, I need you to treat me as an equal.”

She was gazing at him, her pretty face so somber. She’d changed out of her uniform shirt and into a snugly fitting T-shirt boasting the logo, Title Nine Sports. She had put on running shorts, too, and Harvard forced his gaze away from the graceful shape of her bare legs and back to her eyes. “I thought I had been.”

“You’re always watching me—checking up on me as if I were some little child, making sure I haven’t wandered away from the rest of the kindergarten class.”

Harvard shook his head. “I don’t—”

“Yeah,” she said, “you do. You’re always looking to see if I need some help. ‘Is that pack too heavy for you, Ms. Richards?’ ‘Careful of your step, Ms. Richards.’ ‘Let me give you a boost into the boat, Ms. Richards.’”

“I remember doing that,” Harvard admitted. “But I gave Schneider and Greene a boost, too.”

“Maybe so, but you didn’t announce it to the world, the way you did with me.”