A Midnight Clear (9 page)

“Another book?” But she sounded pleased. “Jean Plaidy. My friend Sally mentioned this—she liked it. Have you read it already?”

“Yep.” He only blushed a little. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”

She took a step toward him, the curve of her lips speaking of mischief. “Lots of romance then?”

Keep coming.
He wanted to taste the impishness on her mouth, father be damned.

“You two coming in here or do I need to come get you?”

The moment dissolved under the acid of her father’s summons. So much for getting some alone time with her.

Her expression turned rueful. “We should go.”

He held out his arm. The admiral might have interrupted the moment, but Joe could still squeeze a little more pleasure out of this. “Shall we?”

She tucked herself along his side, the soft scent of her perfume tickling his nose as she pressed her even softer flesh against his. This was almost as good as having her cling to him on the motorcycle.

They made their way back to the parlor, where the admiral and Suzanne were waiting. Frances pulled her arm from his and went over to her father.

“Do you need your drink refreshed?” she asked, the consummate hostess even with her father.

The admiral smiled at her. “Please.” The smile died as he turned back to Joe. “Doing aviation, hmm?”

“Yes, sir.” Admiral Dumfries had commanded an aircraft carrier group in the Pacific—no doubt this was where Joe was supposed to push his ambitions forward. He picked up his drink instead and waited.

“Off to Pensacola after graduation then?” The admiral sounded very pleased by the idea.

Joe snuck a glance at Frances, but her expression was carefully blank. If she were upset at the thought of him leaving, he’d never know from her face.

“If all goes well,” he allowed. Still nothing from Frances.

A long stretch of silence, in which Joe felt like an actor who’d missed his lines. Was he supposed to say something more?

“Um—”

“Your C.O. tells me you’re ambitious,” the admiral said over him. Not aggressively—more like assessingly.

“Well, I’d say every midshipman is ambitious.” Annapolis wasn’t someplace you flitted your way through.

“You’re ranked in the top fifty in your class,” Admiral Dumfries said dryly.

Frances sent him a look of pleased surprise tinged with apprehension, although he couldn’t figure out why.

And how was he supposed to answer that? He
was
ranked in the top fifty, but he wasn’t going to boast about it. He put his glass to his lips, thinking to take a fortifying gulp, then thought better of it.

A maid poked her head into the doorway. “Dinner is served.”

No time to breathe a sigh of relief—it was on to the next trial
.
Joe set his glass down—he never did get a sip—and offered his arm again to Frances. She didn’t nestle as close to him this time, which was a shame.

All four of them processed to the dining room. Joe held out a chair for Frances and tried not to fixate on the line of her neck as it dipped into the collar of her emerald green silk dress. He took the seat next to her, while Suzanne was settled in across from them. Naturally, the admiral was at the head of the table.

They started off with a kind of soup that had nothing in it. Joe guessed it was consommé, although he’d never had it before. He took a test sip. Not bad. But he still preferred his soup with actual stuff in it, like a nice chowder.

“Why’d you join the Navy?”

That question from her father could be seen as small talk, but there was a jut to the man’s chin that put Joe on alert. The man meant to feel him out… some more. Fair enough.

Joe squared his shoulders. “I grew up in Maine. Spent a lot of time on a boat.” He could almost smell the salt in the wind in his memories. “When the war broke out, I was too young to join, but I still wanted to do my part. As soon I was old enough, I knew the Navy was for me. My way to serve our nation.”

He flicked a glance at Frances, to see her reaction to his mention of service. She was studying him closely, her attention on him almost as sharp as her father’s.

“But aviation is your service selection.”

Joe turned back to the admiral. “Yes, sir. When I got in the cockpit of the school’s biplane, I knew what I was put on this earth to do.” He gave Frances a significant look. “It’s rare when a man receives such a sign. He’s got to listen to it.”

The expression on her face made his heart go double time—she understood what he’d meant, that he was speaking of her as well.

And she perhaps felt the same.

“My daughter’s never brought home a midshipman before.” But the admiral sounded less grudging than before. Maybe Joe was making some headway. “So I must guess this is serious.”

“I’m serious about your daughter’s happiness, yes.” Joe held her father’s gaze, steady, true. Just like his feelings for Frances.

“That says nothing. I’m talking about marriage.”

“Frances and I haven’t discussed that yet.” Joe kept his voice as fixed as his gaze. “When she’s ready, we will.” No matter how eager he was to have that conversation with her, he’d wait for her. She deserved to decide for herself.

“Hmphf.” There was the admiral’s annoyed noise again. “I suppose if you do marry her, you’ll expect to haul her off to Pensacola.” Clearly he thought Pensacola farther than the ends of the earth, an odd attitude for a man who’d fought for nameless islands in the Pacific.

“If we were married, yes, I’d expect my wife to live where I was posted.” God, he wanted to see Frances’s expression, to include her somehow in this conversation, but he didn’t dare break eye contact with the admiral. They weren’t even married and Joe was already steering through rough waters when it came to her and his career. And not doing a great job of it.

“You shouldn’t,” her father said. “It’s better that she stays with her family if you’re in some backwater.” Pensacola wasn’t a backwater, but Joe held his tongue. “Especially if you’ll be at sea. That’s what wives did during the war. It worked well then and we ought to keep it up. No reason for your wife to suffer through junior officer housing when she could be comfortable.”

Joe knew Frances’s face was bone white, knew without even glancing at her. Damn discretion—Joe was going to answer in kind. “Your wife was here during the war. More comfortable than the boys overseas, I’m sure. But your daughters were still alone when she passed.”

Joe had gone out onto thin ice there. But he couldn’t let the admiral’s comments pass by. Not when Frances was hurting.

To his surprise, the admiral didn’t respond with anger at Joe’s presumption—instead his expression sagged, remorse darkening his eyes. “I wish I could have been there at the end, but it wasn’t possible. My wife understood I had my duty. And she knew how I felt.”

Joe’s heart twisted. The man’s grief was deep and tightly held. But so was his daughter’s.

The admiral cleared his throat. “Frances dealt with it all beautifully and took care of her sister.” He sent a profound look toward her. “I’m so proud of her and her strength.”

Frances blinked hard, but nothing fell from her eyes. Once again, Joe’s heart wrung itself out.

“No doubt your daughter is strong enough to handle anything. Even the life of a junior officer’s wife, if she wanted.” Now, finally, he met her gaze, locked with hers across the table as he declared himself again. “I’d want my family close to me, always. I wouldn’t want them to feel as through I’d abandoned them for my duties.”

“I don’t think they would,” Frances said gently.
 

The moment between them held, potent, fraught. He’d declared himself and it appeared she might be as well, if indirectly. But that was the only way they could approach this, gathered at the table with her family as they were.

He couldn’t wait for dinner to be over, couldn’t wait to get her alone, his entire frame tense with expectation.
 

“What are your plans for Christmas?” Suzanne asked, dissolving the too heavy moment over them.

The rest of dinner went on in a lighter tone, with talk about Joe’s planned trip home, Frances’s Shakespeare class, and Suzanne’s upcoming winter formal. Joe wouldn’t say he’d completely won over the admiral, but the man wasn’t entirely hostile.
 

After the baked Alaska had been eaten, after Joe had made his goodbyes to the admiral and Suzanne, he found himself back on the front stoop, saying goodbye to the one person he didn’t want to bid farewell to.

The night was close to freezing and while he was bundled up against the cold, Frances wasn’t. He’d have to keep this short and sweet. Damn it all.

“Thank you for having me.” He leaned in close, telling himself he was protecting her from the elements.

She tilted her head up, her lashes veiling those gorgeous eyes of hers. “Thank you for coming.”

He waited for her to move back toward the door. When she didn’t, he leaned closer, his skin tingling at her nearness. “Do you think your father’s watching?” he asked.

“Oh, no one can see this part of the stoop from the house—”

“Good.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

She tasted of coffee and the dessert and herself, the headiest ambrosia he could imagine. He kept it chaste—no trespassing tongue, even if her father couldn’t see—but just the press of her mouth against his, her body enclosed by his, was enough to make his head spin as if he’d downed the entire bottle of scotch he’d given the admiral.

She curled her fists into the lapels of his jacket and heat bloomed between, pushed the cold night away from the bubble enclosing them.
A few more moments. Just a few more.
Joe didn’t want to test his luck and get caught kissing her, but he couldn’t let her go. Not yet.

Never. I never want to let her go.
But he had to, eventually.

Reluctantly, he lifted his mouth and set his forehead to hers, wanting to keep at least some closeness. He nuzzled his nose against hers as he’d imagined the first moment he’d seen her. It was even better than he’d dreamed. “I wish I could do this forever,” he confessed. “But it’s too cold out for you and I have to be up early tomorrow.”

Her hands tightened on his jacket. “I don’t like the idea of you going on this training cruise.”

“It’s only a short off-shore training sail. I’ve done a million of them.” But he was touched by her concern. Her almost wifely concern.

“I feel like the weather is going to shift and in a bad way.” She didn’t want to admit that, he could tell by the stiffness in her tone.

“Feel the wind changing in your bad leg, huh? You sound like an old sailor.” He kissed her again, tempting fate, but finding he didn’t care. “You don’t kiss like one though.”

“I don’t want to know how you know that.”

“From kissing old sailors, of course.” He winked at her. “It gets lonely on these cruises.”

She laughed, the tension leaving her grip on his lapels. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I’ve done bunches of these. And we’ve got a radio if something really goes wrong. Don’t worry—I’ll be there at our bridge on Tuesday, like we arranged.” He breathed a kiss against her cheek. “You can write in your journal all weekend about how much you miss me.”
 

But she didn’t laugh again—she went deadly earnest. “Promise me you’ll be there. Joe, I don’t…” Her jaw went tight as she gathered herself. “This is what scares me about being with you. One day, you might not come back. There were so many boys who didn’t come back.”

He rubbed his hand down her back. “The war’s over, sweetheart. And I swear to you, I will always move heaven and earth to come back to you. I’m not your father. You’re not your mother. If you call me, I’ll be by your side. If you want me to be.”

Here then was the direct declaration he’d wanted to make over dinner. He held his breath as he waited, watching as she absorbed his words.

“I… I think I do,” she finally said, just as his lungs were beginning to burn.

He kissed her again, slow, but deep, cradling her face as he did. “Do you really mean it?” It was a small step, but for a woman who’d said she didn’t want to be a Navy wife… by God, to Joe it was everything.

“Let’s talk about this on Tuesday.” She loosed her hands from his jacket and he took the cue—he released her so she could step back toward the door. “Once you’ve come back.”

“I’ll be there. I swear. Even if I have to row the boat back myself.”

The wind coming off the swells hit Joe in the face, pinching his cheeks and nose with cold. He sucked in a great lungful of salt-tinged air in as he steered the ship, contentment bone deep within him. He’d have to take Frances out sometime, let her experience this. When it was warmer though and the sea was less churlish, of course—Kelsey had hurled over the side this morning, which would have been an embarrassment if he weren’t going into the submarine service.

“It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here,” Steven complained as he clung to the starboard rail.

Joe kept from rolling his eyes. “Not that cold.” He made a minute adjustment to the wheel, most of his attention on the ship and her ten-man crew of midshipmen. Things could go wrong fast on a sailing ship, although the cruise had been smooth so far.