Chapter 11

Rory knew heading to Harry’s place was stupid. She should have called and told him she’d changed her mind, but she found herself parking in a guest spot and then ringing the buzzer to be let up. What was she thinking?

During the elevator ride up to his place, she thought about turning around and heading home, but what would she do there other than obsess about what she’d found? Honestly, she hadn’t been looking this time. The latest round of classes had ended, and she was setting up for the next session when she found a laptop computer stored under a stack of manuals at the back of a cabinet. The laptop shouldn’t be there.

When she opened the computer, the first thing she noticed was it wasn’t a military computer. Maybe someone had hidden their personal computer in the cabinet, thinking they would return for it later. But there were restrictions on what you could bring into the facility because of the information they delivered. Who would have been able to get something like this inside?

As she’d sat with the computer, staring at the screen, heat overcame her, and she grabbed a cloth, wiping down all the surfaces to get rid of her fingerprints.

Before anyone came in looking for her, she stored the laptop back where she’d found it, not wanting to delve further. If she really wanted to find out what was on that thing, she would need to go in during the weekend or early on Monday. Laelyn usually showed up at ten after seven on Monday mornings. She could arrive closer to five and say she needed to finish up with something she’d missed on Friday. Few people who knew her would believe she had missed something, but maybe the excuse would fool some.

The door opened, and she pushed the thoughts away as she stepped into Harry’s condo. The place was nice and very clean, which didn’t surprise her at all. Either he had great taste, or someone had helped him decorate.

“Nice place.”

Harry glanced around. “Thank you. I didn’t buy it myself. My father gave it to me. I thought about not accepting it, but it does help.”

“Did he expect anything from you?”

Harry shook his head. “No, he felt guilty about not being around much, and he has the money now.”

“People ask me if I’m ever going to look up my mom and find her, and I don’t want to. She walked away from me and didn’t look back. She was into drugs and partying, and she decided that having fun was more important than I was.”

“That makes my heart hurt,” Harry said.

She turned and stared at him, trying to figure out if he was making fun of her or being serious. “You really do care.”

He swallowed hard, and she could see the conflict in his eyes. Today was the kind of day that could mess them up if they weren’t careful .

“I do care. Probably too much.”

Rory realized they were walking into hot water, so she turned and moved to look out at the view. It was gorgeous. Sure, there were a few buildings in the way of the waterfront, but he was up high enough the ocean was visible. “What pizza did you get?”

“It’s sausage, mushrooms, and black olives, and then one supreme.”

“Nice. Those sound great.”

“They should be here anytime now. So what movie would you like to watch?”

“ Titanic .” She turned and saw the horror he couldn’t mask. She burst out laughing. “Just pulling your leg. I haven’t seen many of the new movies. Actually, I haven’t watched much over the last five or six years.”

“Okay, I’ll see what’s on, and we can choose from that.”

“Cool.”

They watched an action thriller with plenty of car chases and explosions. She was glad there wasn’t anything romantic about the movie at all. After the last scene played and the credits rolled, she knew it was time to leave.

“So, about that shoulder rub,” Harry said.

“You and I both know we should save that for later.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Like when?”

“I’m emailing the recruiter who was interested in getting me interviews. I won’t be out for a while, but I think both of us would rather wait than end up doing something wrong.”

Harry nodded. “You’re right. And that’s smart.”

“So we’ll wait until next week for a run together.”

Harry glanced away, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. We can wait a week.”

“Cool. We’ll go running somewhere away from the strand. Maybe we could head out to one of the parks or nature preserves.”

“I’d like that.” Harry moved toward the door but stopped beside her. His gaze searched hers, and for a second, she thought he would pull her close and kiss her, but he only nodded and stepped over to the door. “I can wait six months or a year or however long I need to for you, Rory Holmes.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Good. Now get out of here and drive safe. I’ll see you in a week on Sunday for a run. We’ll exchange details about it.”

“Sounds good.”

Rory didn’t like leaving Harry’s place, but staying was too much temptation. They’d both been good so far, and pushing their relationship to the next level without going up the chain of command was wrong. They had six months, maybe a few more, to develop their friendship. Then, they could explore more once she was out.

Maybe it was time to complete the paperwork and let the Marines know she was ready to leave. Before meeting Harry, she’d already decided she was tired of being moved around. But with Harry in her life and finding out someone in a command position had done illegal stuff, she was done. She couldn’t stay and be happy. This was just the natural course of life. The private sector job would provide more than enough money to compensate for the loss of retirement income. Moreover, leaving before she could investigate Toovey might just save her a huge headache and maybe even her life.