Through Waters Deep (28 page)

If she said she'd come, she'd come.

Jim paced on the sailboat to keep warm and to relieve tension. The two Harvard boys had left to see a movie. They'd be back in a couple of hours for their boat, but for now it was Jim's.

He spun and marched aft. Mary would keep her word. But what words would she have for him? Not only was she protective of Quintessa, but Jim had called down loads of attention on her. If Jim were in her shoes, he'd be furious.

But he'd do it again in an instant.

The pier creaked, and Jim wheeled around.

Mary approached, her arms crossed over her stomach, her eyes big, and her mouth small as a button.

Maybe the right gesture would dissolve the awkwardness and pull her straight into his arms. He stepped closer to the pier and held out his hand to her. “Come sail with me.”

She stopped ten feet away. “I need answers.”

He lowered his hand. “Where would you like me to start?”

“The beginning.”

“Let's see. I'm the third of seven children, born in the small town of—”

“Jim!” At least she laughed. “You know what I mean.”

He did. His foot nudged a tangled coil of line. Jim squatted and looped it properly, the Navy way. “This spring when I first came to Boston, I enjoyed your friendship, nothing more. I didn't even want a girlfriend, not when I was about to ship out.”

“Mm-hmm.” No emotion revealed at all. She wouldn't make this easy.

“After the shakedown cruise when we found the bomb, I started to notice how pretty you are, how much I like your company. I wanted to impress you, see if you might be interested. I didn't want to make a fool of myself, so I tried to act suave.”

“Suave?”

He glanced at her, one eyebrow high. “As you can see, it was a highly effective campaign.”

A glimmer of a smile, but then she drew her mouth in tight.

Jim moved to the next coil of line. For experienced yachtsmen, the Harvard boys were sloppy. “All summer I floated, waiting to see what would happen. I should have kissed you, should have told you I was falling in love. By the time I decided to act, it was too late. There we were on the pier, my shipmates hounding me to kiss you. Nothing I wanted more, but how could I when you can't stand public attention?”

No words, no movement from Mary.

Jim grabbed a rag on the deck and went to work on the brass. “Then you had to kiss me because I was too stupid to kiss you first. But I was determined. The night we returned I planned to march into your apartment and say, ‘Ever since we said good-bye, I couldn't wait to say hello,' and then I'd kiss you and tell you I love you. If you weren't interested, I'd find out right then, but if you were—”

A soft gulping sound from Mary.

He looked up.

She pressed her fist to her mouth, and her eyes were red.

Jim needed to hold her. He stood and beckoned with his fingers. “Come here, sweetheart.”

She shook her head. “Continue.”

No more deck swabbing. He leaned his shoulder against the mast, flipped back his unbuttoned overcoat, and sank his hands into his trouser pockets. “But when I came back, Quintessa was there, gushing over me, and you told me the kiss meant nothing and you were so happy my dreams had come true. But they hadn't. You're my dream.”

Another gulp. Mary ducked her chin and pressed her hand so hard over her mouth, her cheeks bulged out on either side. Somehow she looked more beautiful than ever. Her distress showed she cared, maybe cared a lot.

“I believed you.” His voice came out too husky, and he cleared his throat. “But I didn't want to be with Quintessa. I wanted to be with you. Today after church, I told her.”

Mary peeked at him over her hand, her eyes wary and worried.

He gave her a soft smile. “She'd already figured it out. She knows I love you. She feels awful that she got in the way, that she presumed to know what I wanted, what you wanted.”

Mary closed her eyes and shook her head, but what did that mean?

Jim charged ahead. “We have her blessing. That is, if you're at all interested, if you want anything to do with me after the spectacle I made on this sailboat.”

“Oh, Jim.” Her voice came out muffled, and she lowered her hand. “That spectacle was the sweetest, most extravagant, most romantic thing I've ever seen.”

If he didn't get her in his arms in the next five minutes, he'd explode. “Come here, sweetheart. Please, come here.”

Mary stood up tall and coiled her fingers around her purse strap. “You need some answers too.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “But can you come down here and give them to me?”

She chewed on the lips he wanted to kiss, her face competing with her coat for redness.

He held out his hand. He'd already laid down his heart. What more did he have to lose?

In a flash, she took his hand, hopped into the sailboat like an old sea salt, and threw her arms around his middle, her face burrowed into his shoulder.

Jim wrapped his arms around her as warm contentment wrapped around him.

“Oh, Jim, I love you so much. I have for so long, but I didn't think—I never thought—”

“Shh.” He kissed her forehead. He didn't need to hear one more word from her.

“I never thought you were interested. You didn't act . . . didn't act . . .”

“Foolish.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “So when Quintessa came—”

“You don't have to say anything more. We figured it out. You sacrificed for Quintessa's sake, for my sake—or what you thought I wanted anyway. I wish someone had asked my opinion.”

Mary clutched at the back of his coat. “How can you ever forgive me?”

He brushed his lips down her forehead, nudging her face up. “What's to forgive? I'm at fault too. I never told you how I felt. But now you've told me you love me. That's the only thing I want to hear. That and the answer to my question.”

She eased back and looked him in the eye. “Your question?”

Jim cocked his head toward the pier. “The one I asked earlier. Will you sail with me?”

Her eyes cleared, and her lips curved in a smile. “Aye aye, sir. Chart your course, and I'll be there.”

Holding her in his arms wasn't enough. He leaned closer and tilted his head.

Her pupils widened, and her lips parted.

He knew the taste of her lips, and he longed for them, but first he had to attend to business. “For the record, I am about to kiss you, and it will not be just a friendly kiss. No, ma'am. In case there's any confusion, I intend to kiss you passionately because I love you and I—”

His words caught. How could he tell her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? Not yet. He swallowed hard. “And I—I never want you to doubt my love again. Are we clear?”

“Aye aye.” Her voice was so breathy, so irresistibly close. “But that's an awful lot of talking for a man in the throes of passion.”

His smile edged up, but he wouldn't take back one word. All year he'd failed to communicate, and so had she, and he didn't want to leave any room for doubt. “Too much talking, eh?”

“Uh-huh.” She curled her hands up around his shoulder blades and drew him closer.

Jim brushed the backs of his fingers across her damp cheek, ran his hand into her night-dark hair, tipped up her face, and gazed into the silvery blue depths of her eyes. “Now I suppose you'll say I'm doing too much adoring and not enough kissing.”

“You . . . are.”

Well, if she insisted. Jim closed the gap and kissed her. He might have kissed her before, but not like this, open and honest, bold and gentle. Her body melted into his, and he
gathered her even closer, savoring the vanilla sweetness of her lips, their warmth, their softness, and the message they spoke louder and clearer than any words. She did love him, and he did love her, and nothing could keep them apart.

She pulled back, her eyelids low, her lips full and smiling. “We sail well together.”

He chuckled and kissed her red nose. “We do. I even promise to let you take the helm sometimes, as long as you wear that spotted blue swimsuit.”

“Spotted?” She giggled. “They're called polka dots.”

“I don't care what you call them as long as you wear them.”

Mary dipped her head, then swept her dark eyelashes, beckoning him. “Once again, too much talking.” She kissed him, long and fervent.

So she preferred kissing to talking. Falling in love with a quiet woman had its advantages.

“Found them!” A flash of light illuminated the boat, bright as star shells.

Mary whirled around in his arms, and Jim blinked away the spots in his eyes.

Two men stood on the pier, one with a camera, one with a notepad. For crying out loud. Reporters.

The journalist pointed at Jim with his pen. “So you're the fella who chased down a ferry in a sailboat.”

Mary groaned and covered her face with her hand.

A giant protective impulse swelled inside, and he pulled her close under his arm. “Must have been someone else. Now, if you'll excuse us, my girlfriend and I were about to go for a sail.”

“Ah, come on, Ensign. We know it was you. Got a great description from folks on the ferry. Dark-haired officer in blues, dame in a red coat. Why, you look like the Fourth of July, you two. Great story.”

“It's all right, Jim.” Mary gazed up at him. “I don't mind.”

How he loved this woman. “You don't have to, sweetheart.”

Mary's face glowed. “People do love a happy ending.”

“You admit it?” the reporter said.

Jim sighed in resignation. “That was me, all right.”

“Swell. Betcha this will make the front page tomorrow. Roddy, get a shot of these two. Yeah, just like that with his arm around her, with the sail and the harbor in the background.”

Mary snuggled close to his side, and Jim embraced her slim shoulders.

The flashbulb popped—once, twice, three times.

“So, Ensign, give us the whole scoop.” The reporter poised his pen over his notepad and licked his lips. “Start at the—”

“Roddy! Chuck!” Another man loped down the pier, bracing his hat, his black overcoat flying behind him. “Boss is looking for you two. Story of the century! We need every hand.”

Chuck's shoulders slumped. “Story of the century. Yeah, I've heard that before. Least once a week.”

“No, this is it.” The newcomer stopped, rested his hands on his knees, and panted. “This is the big one. The Japanese—they bombed our naval base in Hawaii.”

Jim went stiff. “Pearl Harbor?”

“Yeah, that's what they called it. Bunch of our ships have been sunk—battleships and cruisers. Hundreds of men killed, maybe thousands. This is it. This is war.”

Roddy and Chuck let out the same expletive, then the three newsmen raced down the pier.

Jim's arm clamped around Mary's shoulder, and his mind reeled. Pearl Harbor? How many ships had been sunk? How many of his friends from the Academy had been killed? Injured?

“Oh, Jim.” Mary rolled into his arms. “It can't be. It can't be.”

He rubbed her slender back, determined to cheer her up. “On the positive side, now your picture won't be on the front page of the
Globe
.”

She looked up, her expression saying she couldn't believe he was joking at a time like this, but she appreciated the effort. Then she buried her face in his coat. “We're at war now, aren't we?”

“Ask any man in the Atlantic Fleet. We've been at war for months.”

“I know, but now it's official.”

Jim gazed over her head at the buildings of the city. “Now maybe the nation will back us up. Maybe we'll be united. Maybe we'll put aside this stupid arguing once and for all.”

“I'm sure we will. I've noticed things changing at the Navy Yard—” Her head jerked up, and her eyes grew big. “Oh no. My job.”

He grimaced. “Michigan? Is it true?”

She moaned. “Yes, it's true. Oh dear. Now I don't want to leave Boston.”

“Any chance Mr. Pennington would take you back?”

One corner of her mouth twitched. “He did say he'd hire me back in a heartbeat.”

“Well, my heart's beating that you take him up on the offer.”

“I'll talk to him first thing in the morning.” She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “I'm glad I planned to purchase my airplane ticket at the airport. Oh, and I'll have to fetch my luggage from the ferry terminal.”

“We'll do that. I have a thirty-day survivor's leave, and I want to spend every moment with you.”

“Uh-oh.” She cringed. “My parents are expecting me home for Christmas.”

“Good.” Jim kissed her forehead. “I told my parents Arch and I might come home for Christmas, but I didn't want to make any definite plans until I knew how you'd react.”

“Do you think you'll still get leave now that we're at war?”

“I'll report in today, but we don't have our new assignments and the Navy is strict about offering survivor's leave.”

“A whole month. And then . . .”

And then off to real declared war.

A sense of purpose solidified inside. The Navy would need good line officers who could make wise decisions, balancing the needs of the country, the ship, and the men. He settled a kiss on her nose. “Don't worry. I'm ready.”

“I know.” Her expression brimmed over with love for who he was and confidence in who he could be. “Don't worry about me either. You have a job to do, and I'll be right beside you.”

“Not at sea you won't.”

Mary laughed. “In my heart I will be. In my prayers.”

“What more could I want?”

She brushed her lips over his chin. “How about a proper good-bye?”

“Only if I also get a proper hello.” When she smiled her approval, he said hello, over and over.