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positively the first lacy underwear I’d been that close to on deployment. I mean you were totally my first.”
    She laughed out loud. “I better have been.” She stopped laughing and went back to tapping out the rhythm of the music on her leg again.
    He could feel his blood pressure rising the nearer they got to D.C. He wanted to throttle Sadie for not letting their dad sort out the threat. If indeed it was a threat. Thank goodness Beth didn’t mind riding in silence when there was nothing to say. A couple of hours later, he pulled off the I-495 to hit the mall. “We’ll stop at Tysons Corner and I’ll leave you to buy whatever you need. Three days and two nights. One day just hanging out, then the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, black tie evening reception, then on Sunday we’ll head back to base. Does that sound doable?”
    Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew it sounded overwhelming. It had seemed that way to him. He’d played with the invitation for nearly two months, so he knew the wedding details better than he knew his rank and serial number.
    “Are you one hundred percent sure you want to do this?” He chanced a quick glance at her, and she was staring out of the windshield, seemingly deep in thought.
    “Sure.” She turned to him and added, “Will we be even? You saved my life, and I’ll save you from your father’s women. My debt will be served, right?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.” He wondered what she was thinking, and just had no idea whatsoever. She was totally inscrutable. But she was there with him, which was half the battle.
    “Just remember to ignore my parents, okay? You will not have met anyone like them before, so you’ll just have to try to be unfazed by them.”
    “Explain?”
    He wiped a hand over his face, as if that could wipe his parents away. If only it was that easy. “My parents are a force of nature. And a force of politics. And frankly, my father could ruin my career with one phone call. He’s lived his whole life connected, and he’s spent all of
my
life wishing I was more connected. If he made a call, my job would disappear and I’d be reassigned to a trash disposal plant, in the hopes I’d come home and join the family business. I only tell him what he absolutely needs to know. It keeps him off my back. It keeps me from hating him, and keeps him from ruining my life.”
    He thought she would give him shit for this, which would be well-deserved. But she didn’t.
    “It’s okay. I understand. I spent my whole childhood in pink lacy dresses playing secretly with G.I. Joe. If my mother hadn’t died—” She paused as if to collect herself. “If she hadn’t died, I would never have been able to join the army. To do what I do.
    “If she was still alive, I’d be married, pregnant, and barefoot in the kitchen. It’s all she wanted for me. It’s everything she never had, and always wanted.”
    She put a hand on his arm, briefly, obviously to make a point, and the heat of her skin on his almost made him stop listening to her. Almost. His mind wandered momentarily to a familiar place in his fantasies, where she was virtually naked, and reaching for him. He dragged his attention back to the here and now.
    “I would never have wanted to disappoint her. It was unfortunate that it took her dying to give me my freedom.” Her voice dropped to a whisper with the last comment.
    Damn it.
If they weren’t driving, he’d grab her to him in a fierce hug. He hated hearing the pain in her voice.
    “I’m sorry,” he said with a degree of inadequacy that was embarrassing.
    “It’s all right,” she said with a stronger voice. “It was a long time ago. A really long time ago. I just wanted to say that I understand the unreasonable expectations of parents. That’s all.”
    “Thanks. I’m sorry our plans changed. Especially since we now have to brave the Hammer House of Horror. And I’m not really exaggerating. But maybe we’ll find time to have a