“Okay.” He’d devoured his dinner by then. “I went to school after that. Liked engineering, but didn’t like going to classes, that whole school environment. So I enlisted in the army. My dad thought that was crazy-I never owned a weapon, never wanted to, don’t like anything about wars-but I seriously believed that career army was going to work for me. I didn’t want to be an engineer who sat at a desk. I wanted to be one of those people who built bridges and roads and dams across the planet.”
“And did you?”
“Oh, yeah. For years. Now what’s wrong?” He saw the slight shake of her head.
“Nothing. I was just inclined for a second to go back to the kitchen and give the chef some friendly advice.” She waved a fork. “Forget I said anything. You still haven’t gotten into wife number two. Hard to imagine how a woman could have fit into that life program.”
“Well, this wasn’t exactly a typical marriage. In fact, what I’m about to tell you has a little tinge of not exactly kosher.”
She shivered all over. “Good. Let’s hear it.” The dessert menu came and went. Some kind of fancy coffee was served, along with… Well, whatever it was tasted richer than Croesus.
“Kayla was Muslim. I met her in a hospital where I was getting stitches-not for anything interesting, just a minor accident, long cut on my side. Anyway. She was eighteen. A baby. So beat-up the doctors weren’t sure she could survive it. I didn’t see her initially-being a Muslim woman, she was treated only by females, and only behind closed curtains. But after I heard the story…I couldn’t let it go. She was supposed to marry this man that she’d met, and strongly disliked. He was much older than she was. He told her up front what he expected in a wife. Her own father beat her when she claimed she couldn’t marry him.”
“My heavens,” Cate murmured.
“She was suicidal. It wasn’t just that she said it. I believed it. I think she would have killed herself if she had to go back to her family, to that ‘fiancé.’ So…”
“So you married her?”
“I know. That’s the part that wasn’t exactly kosher. Complicated as hell to pull off besides. There are too many people trying to immigrate to America, any way they can, so for a marriage to be ‘valid’, the pair has to stay together for a serious amount of time. She didn’t have anyone here, didn’t have any idea what to do with herself, her time, her life. All she wanted was to come to America, to get away from the situation she was in.”
“How long did you stay married?”
Harm frowned, trying to remember. “First off, I got her in school-she was smart, just not educated in a system like ours. Thankfully, my family took to her, helped get her set up in a job after that, close enough they could be part of her world. I was still army then, still working projects around the world, so I couldn’t be that close. But she thrived, almost from the start. It just took time to make it right, to make it work.”
“Did you love her, Harm?”
“From the moment I first met her, I liked her. I cared about her. So, sure, I loved her.”
“I mean, did you love love her?”
He answered the questions he figured she hadn’t gotten around to asking yet. “I wasn’t in love with anyone else. She was and is a terrific person. I honestly never regretted the marriage. I don’t believe she did, either.”
“But you did divorce.”
He nodded. “She finally fell in love. But not with me. And to be honest-it was a relief, because I think she would have stayed with me out of loyalty and respect, and yeah, out of love. But not the right kind of love. Anyway, I still see her. She still sees my family. If I get you out to the left coast one of these days, you’ll meet her, too. I guarantee you’ll like her.”
“Harm.”
“What?”
“That was really a heroic thing to do!”
He frowned. “No, it wasn’t. I wasn’t with anyone else. I couldn’t just walk away. I don’t think anyone could have. I’m not exaggerating her situation. She would have died, and she had no possible way to help herself. Not in that culture.” He cupped his chin in a hand. “You know, I was trying to treat you to a really nice dinner. You know. Like a date, even.”
“This is a nice dinner! Thank you very much.” Her voice radiated sincerity, although she did plunk down her spoon with a little distracted thunk. “Anyone can have a problem with cream. I’ll bet he had an under chef handling the desserts, and he doesn’t realize it’s been overwhipped.”
Harm shook his head. “Just so you know. If I ever want to seduce you or stage a romantic setting, I’m never taking you to a restaurant again. Maybe ever. It’s a little too much like taking a cop to a robbery on his off day.”
“What’d I do? What’d I say?” she asked bewilderedly.
“Nothing, Cookie. Now…you’ve got the story about my marriages out of me. Don’t you think it’s your turn to tell me about your guys?”
She blotted the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin. “There’ve been millions. I can’t remember them all.”
“Ah. I believe that.”
She glowered at him. “No, you don’t.”
Since they were putting a few straight cards on the table, he ventured a few more. “My guess is that there’ve been very few men…and none who you really loved. None who you really trusted. And since casual friends don’t count, I’d guess the number is right around, well…one.”
She blinked. “One?”
“Yeah. One. Me. You trust me, Cate.”
She sucked in a breath. As he could have expected, she got that fight-or-flight look in her eyes again. Given a puff of wind, the scent of roses, the wrong kind of smile, she’d have bolted for the exit so fast it’d make his head spin.
But this time…she didn’t bolt. She only looked as if she wanted to. “Don’t flatter yourself, Connolly. But don’t feel insulted, either. I don’t trust anyone, not at a certain level. That’s the way it is for me and always will be. I’m not the girl you take home. Trust me.”
He’d already managed to take her home, Harm thought.
But not to win her. And for a man who had a full-scale trauma about to catch up with him, no time to even sleep, no way to keep her beyond a few more days…Harm was beginning to doubt there was any way he could force her to see what they were together.
What they could be.
Chapter 11
As they left the restaurant, Cate pulled her patience together and forced herself to say calmly, “Harm, you seriously need rest. I slept on the flights. You didn’t. It just makes sense for you to get a few hours’ sleep before we go to the lab.”
Harm dug in his pocket for the car key. “I think it’d be a good idea for me to drop you off at the house. You catch some z’s. I’ll go to the lab.”
Cate didn’t kick him with one of her three-inch heels, but she was tempted. The man was more stubborn than a hound. He’d been cave-in tired by the time they’d finished dinner; she knew he couldn’t keep going. But then his cell phone rang when he was paying the restaurant bill. She didn’t know who called, only that he’d discovered Yale and Purdue had managed to catch an earlier flight.
None of the others were scheduled to arrive home before Sunday morning. Now, it appeared that two of them would be landing in Boston a full day earlier-as soon as fourteen hours from now.
“But,” she reminded Harm, as he opened the passenger door for her, “they’ll be exhausted. I’m sure they’ll go to their own homes first, if only to drop off their gear and catch some rest. So we still likely have all day tomorrow before having to worry about them. And we’ll get much more out of the day if you had some sleep.”
“No.”