Page 79 of The Impossible Princess
“You’d agree?”
“To have Max in my life, I’d do a lot more than that.” My brows gather as I think it out. “I mean, I’d say we were friends, but we have a terrible record of keeping that promise. If I can get him to host to a few movie nights, I’ll start invading his personal space again…he’s really susceptible to that.” My glance strays to the horizon. “I wonder when he gets off duty.”
Caroline laughs, and at that moment, she becomes another person—warm, her eyes lighting with unexpected mischief. She slips her hand in her pocket and draws out a folded scrap of paper. “I made a phone call this morning,” she says, as though picking her way through a minefield of dangerous words, “and identified myself professionally.”
I think for a moment. “Private secretary to Her Majesty the Queen?” It does sound impressive.
“Just so. I never said outright that I was calling on her behalf and would certainly deny it if asked. The Navy was helpful.”
She thrusts the paper into my hands, and I unfold it. Lovely penmanship, I think. It’s Max’s name followed by a date and time. Tomorrow. Eleven hundred hours.
“He volunteered to be something called the Command Duty Officer, which means he’s not so injured that he can’t work. It also means he stays longer than any of the other officers. But,” she adds, helpfully, “when he does leave the ship, there shouldn’t be a crowd.”
34
Welcome Home
MAX
My stitches itch like hell.
As we near port, I stand with the captain on the bridge, observing the activity of the tugboats, and listen to the distant sound of our activists in the hanger bay chanting us safely into position.
“Someone would have died,” he grunts.
I say nothing.
“I can’t be sure I would have made the call to stop without a distress signal,” he continues. “My wife calls me pig-headed, but this—”
“When you saw them riding low, you acted quickly, sir.”
Another rueful grunt. “Good of you to say, but I would have failed my crew without you yesterday. Some of the hippies,” he says, without heat, “would have been lost to the sea.”
“The crew did their duty.”
He releases a short breath. “Then when the nav system almost went out…”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes fixed on the horizon. “I talked to Moller and the Cargo Officer—”
“Lieutenant Baas,” I supply.
“—after you retired. I know what you did, how fast you acted, how bad it could have gone if you hadn’t. I radioed in a report last night, and a longer account will be sent over next week. You’re a pain in therivknow-it-all, Andersen, but that operation went as smooth as a whistle. The promotion board will have a nice, thick file.”
I raise my brows and wince against the pain. I should feel nothing but pleasure at his words, but my mind races to Clara, to how I want to tell her about it. And then it races on to the realization that I can’t.
“Thank you, sir.”
He gives another grunt, but there’s a laugh in it. “You seriously volunteered to be the Command Duty Officer? Your girlfriend is going to kill you, Andersen.”
He grabs his coffee and wanders out to the bridge wing, watching scurrying sailors tie off the lines securing the frigate to the pier. Many of the crew are eligible to leave within the next hours, and I spend my time organizing departures and meeting with a Vorburgian delegation sent to process their citizens.
“You’re that officer the youngest princess is in such trouble with,” one of them observes with a stupid grin. More than a month away and the story hasn’t been killed yet. I want to punch the smile off his face.
I shuffle through some paperwork. “I have a couple of goats you’ll need to take off our hands right away,” I answer. He sputters about his car and his good suit, but I spread my hands apologetically, suddenly blind to the fact that my sailors have fashioned a pen for the animals and they are content enough.
“Navy regulations,” I say, by way of explanation.
I get on with the meetings and reports, taking extra time with Lieutenant Baas, going over the proper process of off-loading supplies. I spend the night sleeping aboard ship as we recover from the weeks at sea—the last days laden with filthy passengers.
