Suzanne Brockmann - Tall, Dark and Devastating - Harvard's Education

P.J. cracked up, trying to imagine him without any hair and coming up with an image very similar to what his wife had described.

Joe was grinning. “Needless to say, I’m keeping my razor securely locked in the medicine cabinet.”

Harvard heard the melodic burst of P.J.’s laughter and gritted his teeth.

It wasn’t that it sounded as if she were flirting with Joe Cat when she laughed that way. It wasn’t that he was jealous in any way of the special friendship she seemed to have formed with Alpha Squad’s captain. It wasn’t even so much that he was having one bitch of a bad day.

But then she laughed again, and the truth of the matter smacked him square in the face.

She did sound as if she were flirting with Joe Cat. Harvard was jealous not only of that, but of any kind of friendship she and the captain had formed, and he couldn’t remember ever having had a worse day in the past year, if not the past few years. Not since that new kid who transferred from SEAL Team One had panicked during a HALO training op. The cells of his chute hadn’t opened right, and he hadn’t fully cut free before pulling the emergency rip cord. That second chute had gotten tangled with the first and never opened. The kid fell to his death, and Harvard had had to help search for his remains. That had been one hell of a bad day.

He knew he should count his blessings. No one had died today. But thinking that way only made him feel worse. It made him feel guilty on top of feeling lousy.

He took a short cut to the base, knowing he could run forever today and it wouldn’t make him feel any better. He ran hard and fast, setting a pace he knew would leave the three male finks in the dust.

He had no doubt that P.J. would keep up. Whenever she ran, she got that same look in her eye he’d seen in many a determined SEAL candidate who made it through BUD/S to the bitter end. Like them, she would have to be dead and buried before she would quit. If then.

It was almost too bad she was a woman. As she’d pointed out to him, she was one of the best shooters in all of FInCOM. She was good, she was tough, but the fact was, she was a girl. Try as he might, he couldn’t accept that there was a place for females in combat situations. The sooner she got promoted up and out of the field, the better.

He ran faster, and as they reached the home stretch, Lucky was cursing him with every step. Bobby and Wes were complaining in stereo by the time Harvard slowed to a stop. Even Blue and Joe Cat were out of breath.

P.J. was trying not to look as if she were gasping for air, but she doubled over, head down, hands on her knees.

Harvard backtracked quickly, hoisting her into a more vertical position by the back of her T-shirt. “You know better than to stick your head down lower than your heart after running like that,” he said sharply.

“Sorry,” she gasped.

“Don’t apologize to me,” he said harshly. “I’m not the one whose reputation is going to suffer when you live up to everyone’s expectations by blacking out and keeling over like some fainthearted little miss.”

Her eyes sparked. “And I’m not the great, huge, stupid he-man who had to prove some kind of macho garbage by running the entire team as hard as he possibly could.”

“Believe me, baby, that wasn’t even half as hard as I can get.” He smiled tightly to make sure she caught the double entendre, then lowered his voice. “Just say the word, and I’ll give you a private demonstration.”

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened, and he knew he’d gone too far. “What’s up with you today?”

He started to turn away, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm, unmindful of the fact that his skin was slick with sweat. “Are you all right, Daryl?” she asked quietly. Beneath the flash of anger and impatience in her eyes, he could see her deep concern.

He could handle fighting with her. He wanted to fight with her. The soft warmth of her dark brown eyes only made him feel worse. Now he felt bad, topped with guilt for feeling bad, and he also felt like a certified fool for lashing out at her.

Harvard swore softly. “Sorry, Richards, I was way out of line. Just…go away, okay? I’m not fit to be around today.”

He looked up to find Joe Cat standing behind him. “I’m going to give everyone the rest of the morning free,” the captain told him quietly. “Let’s meet at the Quonset hut after lunch.”

Harvard knew Joe was giving them free time because of him. Joe knew Harvard needed a few hours to clear his head.

He shouldn’t have needed it—he was too experienced, too much of a professional to become a head case at this stage of his life. But before Harvard could argue, Joe Cat walked away.

“You want to take a walk?” P.J. asked Harvard.

He didn’t get a chance to answer before she tugged at his arm. “Let’s go,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the path they’d run along. She grabbed several bottles of water from her gym bag and handed one to him.

Damn, it was hot. Rivers of perspiration were running down his chest, down his legs, dripping from his chin, beading on his shoulders and arms. He opened the bottle and took a long drink. “What, you want to psychoanalyze me, Richards?”

“Nope. I’m just gonna listen,” she said. “That is, if you want to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Okay,” she said matter-of-factly. “Then we’ll just walk.”

They walked in silence for an entire mile, then two. But right around the three-mile marker, she took the boardwalk right-of-way that led to the beach. He followed in silence, watching as she sat in the sand and began pulling off her sneakers.

She looked at him. “Wanna go for a swim?”

“Yeah.” He sat next to her and took off his running shoes.

P.J. pulled off her T-shirt. She was wearing a gray running bra underneath. It covered her far better than a bathing suit top would have, but the sight of it, the sight of all that smooth, perfect skin reminded him a hundredfold that he wasn’t taking a walk with one of the boys.

“Look at this,” P.J. said. “I can practically wring my shirt out.”

Harvard tried his best to look. He purposely kept his gaze away from the soft mounds of her breasts outlined beneath the thick gray fabric of her running top. She wasn’t overly endowed, not by any means, but what she had sure was nice.

Her arms and her stomach glistened with perspiration as she leaned forward to peel off her socks. It didn’t take much imagination to picture her lying naked on his bed, her gleaming dark skin set off by the white cotton of his sheets, replete after hours of lovemaking. He tried to banish the image instantly. Thinking like that was only going to get him into trouble.

“Come on,” she said, scrambling to her feet. She held out her hand for him, and he took it and let her pull him up.

He wanted to hold on to her, to lace their fingers together, but she broke away, running fearlessly toward the crashing surf. She dove over the breakers, coming up to float on top of the swells beyond.

Harvard joined her in that place of calm before the breaking ocean. The current was strong, and there was a serious undertow. But P.J. had proven her swimming skills many times over during the past few weeks. He didn’t doubt her ability to hold her own.

She pushed her hair out of her face and adjusted her ponytail. “You know, up until last year, I didn’t know how to swim.”

Harvard was glad the water was holding him up, because otherwise, he would have fallen over. “You’re kidding!”

“I grew up in D.C.,” she told him matter-of-factly. “In the inner city. The one time we moved close enough to the pool at the Y, it was shut down for repairs for eight months. By the time it opened again, we were gone.” She smiled. “When I was really little, I used to pretend to swim in the bathtub.”