Vivian Leiber - Soldier And The Society Girl

His mouth was scant inches from her, his sweet minty breath a whisper at her forehead. She wondered if he was going to kiss her again.

She wondered what she would do if he did.

“You have a problem with me going home?”

“I do. What about the enlisted men?” she asked, remembering how he had been thrown off balance by the general with just the same concern.

His eyes narrowed.

“What about ’em?”

“Their morale.”

“If the men don’t know that their officers will stick by them, then the military’s got a bigger problem on its hands than I could ever solve in a month of stump speeches.”

“You can’t go!”

She didn’t realize until he looked at his chest that her fingers, perfectly manicured in ballet slipper pink, were splayed along the rock-hard definition of his chest muscles.

“Darlin’, I didn’t know my kiss could affect you like this,” he drawled.

She jerked as if he were a hot stove. He reached to the sidewalk and handed her the schedule she had dropped. He lingered a nanosecond at her long legs.

“I’m just trying to do my job,” she said stiffly. “It’s nothing personal.”

He stood up.

“Then you’ll understand that it’s nothing personal, but I’m going home.”

He stepped around her and walked across the street.

“But you’re a hero!” she cried, scrambling to keep up with him.

“I’m done with this hero business. Want nothing more to do with it.”

He held his hand straight in the air. A cab screeched to a halt in front of him.

“Where are you going?” Chessey demanded.

“The airport. It’s faster than walking to Kentucky.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, getting into the cab. “My pappy told me a long time ago that any woman I brought home with me had better be bride material.”

In a split second pondering the gray, sunless office she called her own and the sense of personal failure that was her constant companion, Chessey decided she didn’t care what a man named Pappy said.

She opened the cab door, took advantage of the lieutenant’s reflexive good manners by nudging him over to give her room and told the cabdriver to take them both to Dulles Airport.

“Here you are, sir,” the ticket agent said, handing McKenna a ticket envelope. She tilted her face to the side and smiled winningly. “One-way to Louisville, Kentucky, connecting with the commuter flight to the Elizabethtown airfield. Have a nice trip, sir.”

“Thanks,” McKenna said, fingering the envelope reverently. Home. He was finally going home. He grinned, knowing the ticket agent misinterpreted his expression as interest in her but being powerless to stop himself. “Thanks, ma’am.”

She blushed.

And then the protocol specialist shoved her way past him, throwing her briefcase on the counter.

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Chessey said.

“Oh,” said the ticket agent “Are you two together?”

“No,” Derek said.

“Yes,” Chessey said.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“This is a free country!”

“We’ve already discussed freedom in the cab,” Derek said impatiently. “I’m going home. You’re not going with me. A free country means I don’t have to be with you.”

“A free country means I can go anywhere I want,” Chessey corrected. “Miss, I’ll be going with him. Wherever he’s going.”

The ticket agent’s magenta nails poised above her computer keys.

“Sir?”

“Don’t give her a ticket. I don’t want her going with me.”

“You can’t tell her what to do.”

“Ma’am?” He pleaded.

“I want to go with him!” Chessey wailed.

Derek shook his head. Considering this woman was a maximum of five-five and had less than half his weight on her frame, she wasn’t intimidated and certainly didn’t back down.

The third man in the line waiting to buy tickets harrumphed.

“If she loves you and is willing to make a go of it, you should give it another chance, young man,” he offered. “Too many young people think that they can just walk out on marriages without—”

“I’m not married to her!” Derek roared. “She’s a protocol specialist at the State Department who’s aching to make a promotion on baby-sitting me for a month. She followed me in a cab and talked my ear off all the way here about duty to my country and freedom meaning that she could go anywhere I went.”

For emphasis, he jabbed his fingers in Chessey’s direction and wasn’t comforted by her smile.

On any other woman it would have been a come-on, but on this protocol specialist he figured it was pure trouble.

“Why, Lieutenant Derek McKenna,” she said, slowly and carefully enunciating every syllable of his name. And she added for the benefit of the few people in the line who didn’t immediately do a double take, “Derek McKenna. It must be the stress of being a hero that’s making you act so erratically. You need rest. And some reassurance that America loves you. Oh, Lieutenant Derek McKenna, we all think you’re wonderful!”

“Derek McKenna?” The woman behind Chessey repeated.

“Derek McKenna,” Chessey confirmed.

The woman stared. Derek felt a queasy feeling in his stomach as he watched her dawning recognition.

“Derek McKenna!” she shrieked. “I’m so delighted to meet you. Could I get your autograph?”

As the woman yanked apart her carry-on luggage to find something to write with, the man who had given him a lecture on marital behavior pumped his hand.

“Just shaking hands with you is a privilege,” he said.

The rope-cordoned line surged toward Derek, with requests for autographs, kisses, pictures and handshakes running pretty much even. Derek craned to catch Chessey’s eye, to give her some indication that he held her directly responsible for this calamity or at least to make her feel miserable about herself—as she should! But Chessey coolly turned her back on him and pulled out her employee ID card.

“State Department, official business,” she said briskly, holding her ID out to the ticket agent. “I need a spot on the plane next to him.”

“One way or round trip?”

“Actually, let’s start talking flights from Elizabethtown to New York three days from now.”

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