The Officer Breaks the Rules (4 page)

She stared, willing him to change his mind, to back down, say he was sorry and beg
her to please give him another shot. But she knew he wouldn’t. A man’s pride only
stretched so far, and Jeremy’s had been given a workout the last two days.

Tactical retreat time, as her father would say.

“Fine.” Picking up her book bag, as if nothing had happened and she was just paying
a friendly call, she waved to him over her shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice
the confused look on his face when she sent him a pleasant smile.

Good. Let him guess. Let him try to figure out what the hell was going on. Let him
stay on his toes for once.

“See ya around!”

“Probably not,” he finally managed to get out. “I’ve got a lot of work going on right
now.”

“Ah.” She stood with the door wide open. “Then I guess I’ll see you Saturday for the
get-together at my place.”

Awareness of his previous promise washed over him, and she smiled again. “Bye!” And
she shut the door behind her as she left.

Yeah. Tactical retreat was one thing. But as her daddy also said… she wasn’t really
retreating. She was just advancing from another direction.

***

“This was fun. Yes, we’ll talk again soon. Bye!”

Veronica waved once more to Skye’s parents and hit
end
call
on the screen. Then she hit the red X and watched as the Skype program minimized
down to the dock at the bottom of the screen.

Technology was amazing. She’d missed out on so many unbelievable advances. Just one
more reason she’d made the ultimate choice she finally had to make, coming back to
America for good.

She missed her aunt and uncle desperately. But thanks to modern technology—which seemed
much more amazing to her than anyone else—she could talk to them face to face. At
least as much as one video camera was to another. It helped, more than she could say,
when she felt the loneliness creeping in. If only she’d had this sort of thing available
to her a few years ago.

And wasn’t it a shame that she didn’t miss her parents with the same ferocity as her
aunt and uncle? Though her parents had barely even acknowledged her moving back to
the United States with anything other than disappointment. And guilt.

But she didn’t share their passion for missionary work, for finding the most destitute,
barren places on the globe and making a difference. She wanted a life of her own.
At twenty-six, it wasn’t unkind or selfish of her to branch out and start a life of
her own—even if her parents tried to make her feel that way. And she was blessed that
her cousin had embraced her so willingly.

More than once, she doubted her choice to leave her aunt and uncle’s home in Texas
and move in with her cousin, even temporarily. But there were so many more opportunities
for her here in California. And she intended to grab at as many of them as she could,
while she could. She might be naïve and still working to catch up with other people
her age, but she wasn’t stupid. This opportunity wouldn’t last forever.

A little bubble sound came from the speakers, and then a face popped up on the screen.

Her eyes widened and she jerked back in the computer chair, completely taken off guard.

“Hey there. You’re not Tim. Or Skye,” the man on the screen drawled.

She glanced toward the door, listening to see if either one had come home while she
was speaking with her aunt and uncle. But no, she was still alone.

“Do you talk? Or are you taking a mime class?”

“What?” Her eyes snapped back to the screen to watch the stranger tilt his head to
the side and chuckle in a deep-throated sound that sent chills up her arms. Combined
with his easy smile and eyes that held more than a little bit of humor, her gut didn’t
clench in the normal way it did when she met new people.

Or maybe that was just the added benefit of being two computer monitors away.

“Just checking. I assume you’re a friend of Skye’s?”

“I’m her cousin.” Before he got any ideas, she added, “I’m staying here. I didn’t
break in or anything.”

He laughed now, full-out body spasms included, to the point where she wondered if
he would tip back in his chair and fall over. But it gave her the chance to look at
him better.

He wore an olive undershirt and camouflage pants, just like Tim did when he worked.
But the lighting in the room behind him was somewhat poor. She could barely make out
a bunk-style bed and shiny walls, but little else.

“Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before. No, I didn’t think you broke in. If you
stopped to Skype on your way out the door, you’d be a poor excuse for a burglar.”

She cracked a smile at that. “Probably.” Then, realizing he called her cousin’s computer,
she scrambled for a pad of paper in the desk. “I’m sorry, I should have asked. Do
you want me to take a message?”

“Nah, no message. Just thought one of them might be home and I could catch them at
the computer. We didn’t have a date or anything.” His voice, which had been so full
of laughter before, suddenly sounded tinged with disappointment.

It finally clicked, and she felt awful for not having picked up on it sooner. “Are
you deployed?”

He grimaced. “Yes, ma’am. Unfortunately, I am.”

“What’s your name?”

He raised one eyebrow and stared at her long enough that she flushed. “It’s on the
screen, darlin’.”

“Oh! Oh, of course.” She glanced at the top and saw Dwayne Robertson. The mysterious,
missing Dwayne. Of course. The other best friend who recently deployed. Why hadn’t
she put that together sooner? “I apologize; I’m still learning the ropes of this program,
it seems.”

Learning the ropes of modern life in general. Skye taught her to Google just two weeks
ago. Not much need for computers and search engines in the jungles of South America.

“Not a problem.” He sat back and laced his fingers over his stomach. From the angle,
his biceps strained a little at the edge of his T-shirt. Veronica felt a stirring
in her belly she hadn’t felt before. Ever. It wasn’t nerves. And it wasn’t excitement.
So what was it?

“How long you stayin’ with them?”

“For a while,” she hedged. Truthfully, she had no clue. She didn’t make enough working
as a waitress to afford her own apartment. And Skye and Tim never treated her as if
she were a burden. But she felt it all the same. Just a little more of the guilt she
was raised with rearing its ugly head. She could have been Catholic, for all her parents’
love of guilt as discipline.

To change the subject, she asked, “Are you doing well over there?”

He smiled. “Well as can be, I’m sure. Bored is more like it.”

“Bored?” That sounded almost ideal, given where he currently was.

“It’s not exactly a fighting deployment. Our mission here isn’t to run out and catch
bad guys. We’re here to build, not tear down.”

“Oh. That sounds… nice, actually.” She’d always thought of militaries in the terms
she knew of them. The South American militias she’d witnessed, been warned by, avoided
at all costs. They were never ones to rebuild. Destruction was their game.

“It’s never one hundred percent safe. But I’m little more than a desk jockey this
time around. No real action for me.”

“Isn’t that what you’d want?” she blurted out. It was war! How could he not want to
be safe with a nice, easy job?

He shook his head. “You don’t typically join the military hoping for an easy ride.
Not that I’m dying to see a lot of action or anything. No death wishes here. Just
a nice scrap now and then to mix it up wouldn’t be out of order.”

“I’m sure,” she murmured. What must his life be like? She could easily imagine less-than-stellar
accommodations, as she’d lived in third world countries most of her life. But despite
that, her parents and the other missionaries had managed to shelter her from the more
unseemly side of life. Sterile. It’s the only way she could explain her first twenty-six
years of life.

He leaned forward and gave her a slow smile that started little birds doing gymnastics
in her stomach. “So, Ronnie—”

“It’s Veronica,” she said automatically.

He nodded. “What’s your story, Ms. Veronica?”

“My story?” she squeaked out. That was absolutely not something she was willing to
share. Not with a stranger. Even Skye only knew the important bits—the CliffsNotes
version, her cousin had called it—to her pre-U.S. days. She certainly wasn’t about
to spill the entire sob story to someone she’d never met. “I’m as boring as they come.”

His eyes tracked around, and she could easily imagine he was taking all of her in.
Her skin prickled as if he’d actually touched her. “Boring? I doubt that’s true.”

She swallowed and rubbed a hand over her arm to soothe the goose bumps away. “It’s
very true. No story here.”

He chuckled again and leaned back. “Everyone’s got a story. I hate to call you a liar,
darlin’. So I’ll just sit here and you can imagine I said it.”

What? Of all the… She grabbed the pen and pad of paper. “Are you sure there’s no message
I can take for you to pass along to Tim or Skye when they get back?”

The smile dropped just a little, and she instantly regretted the tone of her voice.
“Nah. Just that I said hi, and they can try me anytime on here if they’re in the mood.”

“All right.” She had to say something more. Make amends for being so upset earlier.
“I hope you stay safe, Mr. Robertson.”

“Dwayne.” He perked up at that. “Do you, now?”

“Do I what?”

His voice lowered to a purr. “Hope I stay safe.”

“Of course. I hope everyone stays safe.”

He winked at her. Winked! Then in a slow, smooth voice that had the hair on her arms
standing straight up again, he looked dead at her. As if there weren’t two computer
screens and thousands of miles between them. As if he could actually see right through
her, into her, know all her secrets. “You know, you really are a pretty one, aren’t
you?”

She gasped and clicked the end call button.

Of all the… Veronica watched as her hand tapped the pen against the desk in rapid-fire
motions. Then the pen slowed, stopped, and rolled away.

What an arrogant example of the male species, thinking she needed to hear he found
her attractive and that he could sucker her in with that honey-coated Southern drawl.
He probably wasn’t even from the south, just developed the accent to lure in unsuspecting
females.

Or maybe she was being overdramatic. He was being nice. It was a compliment. She had
to stop turning everything people said into an inquisition, dissecting their reasoning
behind their words. He’d been kind. And it’s not like she had to speak to him often
anyway. That’s the absolute truth. She could just put Dwayne Robertson and his wandering
eyes out of her mind completely. The conversation meant nothing. Nothing at all.

But she couldn’t help the smile that crept over her face as she stood up and turned
the computer off.

Saturday night, and Madison was a woman on a mission. Mission Jeremy.

Too bad her brother didn��t get the memo and was unconsciously doing everything in
his power to ruin said mission. Or maybe he did get the memo and was on a mission
of his own. How else could she explain why Tim insisted on playing yet another game,
rather than heading home to hang out with his wife? It was sabotage, obviously.

Mission Make Madison a Pure Spinster.

Sorry, bro… that’s not gonna happen.
She grinned at the thought of her brother’s imagined outrage. Men could be such hypocrites.
Always thinking they had to defend the virtue of their womenfolk while they didn’t
have a problem taking a lover or two before marriage themselves.

She watched from behind lowered lashes as Jeremy poured himself an iced tea in her
apartment’s kitchen. A real kitchen, not a dinky kitchenette. She knew he had some
misguided thought that going after her would break the bonds of brotherhood or some
such crap. And maybe there really was a secret guy code that you didn’t date your
friend’s sister or whatever.

But why? Why was that even an issue? If Tim dated her best friend… Okay, that didn’t
work, since her best friend was Matthew, and he was gay. The thought gave her a serious
chuckle, which she swallowed. But that was all beside the point. Then again, she lacked
the Y chromosome, which carried the stupid gene as far as she was concerned.

Jeremy took the slow route back to the coffee table with his tea. And since he’d played
his card early in the round and wasn’t needed again until the next one, he took his
time.

He paused by a picture of her from graduation, and she got another good look at him.

If his one hang-up was that he didn’t want to offend or piss off Tim, that might be
a tricky one to overcome. They were best friends, had been since TBS ten years ago.

But to her mind, that meant Tim should be happy they were together. If the guy was
good enough to be Tim’s best friend, wasn’t he good enough to date Tim’s sister?

It was a logical thought process.

Too bad men were born without a logic gene. That one, she reasoned, must be connected
to the second X chromosome.

“Madison.” Veronica nudged her and pointed to the deck. “It’s your turn.”

“Oh, whoops! Mind drifted,” she said easily. Playing Apples to Apples might have been
a bad idea, as the downtime between rounds gave her mind way too much time to wander.

Madison drew a green card and laid it down. “Disturbing.”

A quick hush filled the room as everyone else glanced at their cards. Madison watched
as Jeremy continued to stare at her pictures. “Are you going to play this round, Jeremy?”

He took a side step over, grabbed the top card from his stack, and tossed it down
without even giving it a glance before resuming his study of her photos.

Madison rolled her eyes. Nice.

Finally, Veronica laid down her own card, chewing her lip as she did. Madison shuffled
them on the table without looking, then sorted them into a pile and picked them up.
“Drumroll please.”

Tim beat his fingers on the coffee table.

“What is disturbing? We have… mold.” She laid down the first card. “Pretty gross.
Next one is conspiracy theories. Definitely something to play with your mind. The
third card is…” She rolled her eyes. “A little on the nose. But it’s the morgue.”
She’d be willing to bet that was Jeremy’s. “And then lastly we have our winner.” She
snorted with laughter as she laid the card down face up. “Beanie Babies.”

“What?” Veronica shrieked in surprise, then immediately shrank an inch as if she wanted
to take it back.

Tim pumped his fist. “Yeah, that’s right! That one was mine.”

“I don’t get it.” Veronica took the red cards and stuffed them on the bottom of the
stack, grabbing a fresh card from the top for herself. “How are Beanie Babies more
disturbing than the morgue?”

“It’s not always about the best match,” Madison reminded her. “It’s whatever the judge
thinks is the best, period. Best funny card, best serious card, best whatever. I happen
to find the game works best when I play for laughter. Plus, those things always creep
me out. Their eyes… it’s like they are just staring at you.”

“Know your audience,” Tim crowed as he snatched the green card and set it to the side
with his other greens.

Veronica looked confused but didn’t ask further.

Skye came next and laid down her green card with a wicked smile. “Charming. What’s
charming in your cards?”

As Madison glanced through her cards, she couldn’t concentrate on her best pick. Jeremy
finally sat down next to her on the floor, his knee brushing hers as he settled into
a spot and picked up his own hand.

Did he feel the same chest-tightening thing she did when they were close by? She hoped
so. The world wouldn’t be fair if she suffered alone in silence. Realizing she was
last to go and everyone was waiting on her, she tossed down the first card she glanced
at, then immediately wished she hadn’t.

Skye picked up the red cards and started to giggle immediately. Madison bit the inside
of her cheek. At least her sister-in-law got the point of the game.

“What is charming? You guys said… Republicans?” Skye raised a brow at that. “Uh-huh.
Moving on. Bonbons, yum. Diamonds, which are naturally any girl’s best friend. And
last but not least…” Skye looked right at Madison with a huge grin. “Festering wounds?
Seriously? There’s a card for that?”

Madison shrugged innocently. “Apparently.
Somebody
played it.”

Eventually, after a minute of debate, Skye chose diamonds.

“They’re just all sparkly and fantastic,” she said when the rest of them groaned and
Tim smirked.

“Thank you, baby.” He leaned over and kissed her, sliding the green card to his ever-growing
pile.

“No fair. Nepotism at work,” Madison grumbled.

“I don’t think it works that way when you don’t know whose card belongs to who,” Skye
pointed out. Then she glanced at her cousin. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.”

Veronica looked down in front of her, no green cards in sight, indicating she’d yet
to win a round, and shrugged. “I don’t have very good cards.”

Jeremy straightened his red cards and set them aside. Then he drew the top green card
and laid it down. “Sexy.”

A pleasant buzz hummed through Madison’s bloodstream as she contemplated which card
to put down. There was the safe bet,
kilts
. Totally effective, completely true. Or there was the more amusing choice,
cabbage
. Nonsensical, but funny.

She’d never liked playing it safe. And she wasn’t in the mood to laugh right now.
Biting the inside of her cheek, she laid down her choice.

Jeremy grabbed the four cards and shuffled them with his eyes closed, then picked
them up.

“Being in love.”

There was a chorus of aws, and everyone knew it was Veronica’s card.

“Then we have recycling.”

Clearly Skye’s.

“French wine?” Jeremy asked with a skeptical look for everyone. “What’s wrong with
a good, cold beer?”

Skye motioned him to keep going.

“And then we have… my body.”

Tim and Skye erupted into laughter. Veronica blushed furiously and grabbed her empty
water bottle as if she were going to take it to throw it away. But Jeremy said nothing,
only stared right at Madison.

He knew it was her card, no question about it.

Her brother and Skye said something, but she didn’t hear. The world blocked out, and
nothing existed but Jeremy. His eyes were like melted chocolate, pools she wanted
to fall into.

“Jeremy.”

He broke the connection to glance at Skye. “Sorry, yeah?”

“Pick a winner.”

“Ah, right.” He gave the cards another glance and pushed forward the card reading
being
in
love
.

“That’s mine!” Veronica bounced back to her seat and grabbed the card. “I won one!”

Everyone clapped to jokingly celebrate her victory and she smiled.

But Madison was too busy trying to figure out if Jeremy realized he was rubbing his
knee against hers under the table, or if it was just a coincidence.

She never was a big believer in coincidences.

***

Madison stood and stretched her legs. “That was fun, you guys. Thanks for coming over
to help me break the place in.”

Veronica curled up in the recliner. “Do you need help cleaning up?”

Skye stood and grabbed the chip bowl, now full of crumbs, and walked it over to the
kitchen. “Of course she does. We’ll—”

“We’ll get out of her hair so Madison can clean,” Tim finished for her.

“Timothy,” Skye scolded.

“No, he’s right. I’m sort of specific on how I like to clean. Thanks though, Skye.”
She gave her brother a look from the corner of her eye. He so owed her. “Veronica,
you wanna stay and help, maybe watch a movie afterward?”

“Yes!” She jumped up and started grabbing every cup in sight as if her life depended
on a clean house. “You don’t mind driving me back to the house afterward, do you?”

“Of course not.” She shoved Tim and Skye toward the door.

After Skye headed out to the parking lot, Tim turned back around and kissed her on
the cheek. “Thanks, squirt.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, smiling when he all but skipped after his wife.

Madison closed the door and shook her head. The man was a giddy idiot for his wife.
Which wasn’t a bad thing… unless it left her on full-time KP for the rest of their
lives.

Then again, if she kept racking up the IOUs from her brother, maybe she could parlay
those into not giving her grief about a new relationship she was hoping would start
up soon…

As she leaned against the door, Jeremy walked up, hands in his pockets, caught in
quiet contemplation as always. “Sure you don’t need any help?”

Madison was sorely tempted to say yes, just to keep him with her. But Veronica was
there. And that just wasn’t going to do. So instead, she went along with her Mission
Jeremy plan and said, “Thanks, but no.”

He looked almost relieved, like the thought of sticking around in close quarters with
her might have killed him. Flattering, really. But as he walked by her to open the
door, she slid her arm around his waist and gave him a side hug. Completely platonic,
non-threatening.

Everything in his body stiffened, from his shoulders down to his hips. She could feel
the muscles on the side of his torso clench under her hand. But she didn’t linger,
much as she really wanted to lift his shirt and feel that skin with her bare hands.

“Thanks,” she said as if nothing happened, and stepped out of reach. He stared at
her a moment, very much a deer in the headlights. So she planted a hand on his back
and gently pushed until he stood on her doorstep, then waggled her fingers in a sassy
good-bye wave and closed the door with a quiet click.

“He likes you.”

“Ah!” Madison jumped and held a hand to her heart as she spun around. Veronica stood
behind her, dishcloth in hand, staring at her as if Madison were one of those optical
illusion posters that you could make change shapes if you just concentrated hard enough.

“Scare a girl to death, why doncha?” As her breathing returned to normal, Madison
walked toward the kitchen.

“He does, doesn’t he?” Veronica followed along on her heels, determined, it seemed,
to get an answer. “And you like him.”

“That’s not exactly it.”
Like
was too tepid a word for what they had going on. It seemed so bland, so… mashed potatoes,
hold the gravy.

“I think I’m right.” Her voice stronger now, buoyed by confidence, Veronica grabbed
a plate from the drainer and started wiping it down. “I think you both like each other.
And you’re doing a little mating dance to see who might make the first move.”

“Now there, I can say with one hundred percent honesty, you’re wrong,” Madison said
smugly.
Because
I
already
made
the
first
move.

“Oh.” A little crestfallen, Veronica put the dish away in the cabinet and grabbed
another. “I’m sorry then. I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

Madison waved that away and turned on the water, waiting for it to get hot. “Not at
all.”

They worked in silence, making a nice wash-and-dry team. As Veronica settled the last
glass back in the cabinet and shut the door, she said, “Thanks for letting me hang
out here this evening. I always feel a little in the way at their house. I mean, when
both of them are home.”

Madison hopped up on the counter and let her feet dangle. Her heels fell into a comfortable
thud-thud
pattern against the cabinet below. “I know what you mean. It’s why I got this place
as fast as I could once Skye showed up. They never kicked me out, never said I had
to go. But I knew it’s what they needed.”

She thought back to her empty second bedroom, and the light finally went on. “I’m
such an idiot. Why didn’t I think about that before?”

“Think about what?” Veronica hung the dishtowel neatly over the handle of the oven.

“You need a place, right? You want to get out of Tim and Skye’s townhouse.”

“Hmm,” Veronica said, looking a little sad. “I can’t really afford my own apartment
right now.”

“Which makes what I’m about to say so perfect!” Madison hopped down and grabbed Veronica’s
shoulders. “Move in with me. I’ve got a spare bedroom. And I sort of really hate how
quiet this place is.”

Her friend’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious!” Picking up steam, Madison jumped in place a little. “I always
have roommates, and this is my first time living alone. Frankly, I hate it. And the
bedroom is a good size. Plus, since I have a bathroom in the master, you’d get your
own bath, even though it’s out in the hallway. Come on.” She grabbed Veronica’s hand
and tugged her down the hallway and into the nearly empty second bedroom.