| Subject: “Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 4 |
Author:
Dancer
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Date Posted: 22:09:00 07/27/02 Sat
In reply to:
Dancer
's message, "“Full Engagement -- Broken Engagement” - Part 3" on 22:01:08 07/27/02 Sat
The light from the campfire flared brightly for a moment shaking Harm from his reverie. The mixture of dried and unseasoned scraps of wood made for an uneven burn with the occasional, spontaneous outburst of flame and noise threatening to overwhelm its confinement.
Harm stared down at the touchy construction resentfully. He didn’t like the interruption, but more than that, he didn’t like the facts he was having to consider. This time next week, Mac would be a married woman. The good part was that they had decided to stay in Washington for the time being, so she’d still be with him. The bad part was that she’d be someone else’s wife.
As much as he tried to tell himself it was what Mac must want, part of him just couldn’t accept the idea that she wouldn’t be his. They were running out of time.
When he finally went to look for her, Harm found Mac crouched down inside the back hatch of the Humvee spreading out bedding by lantern light. The vehicle in question was originally built to carry a whole squad on maneuvers, but the extra seats had been removed on this one, to make it a cargo carrier. The “bed” of this truck was certainly big enough for both of them to stretch out in relative comfort with just the narrow benches along each side left to hem them in.
From the placement of the mats Mac was laying out, she apparently felt there was enough room to leave an aisle between them as they slept.
“I could only find one bed roll,” she was saying, “so one of us will have to take the ground cover while the other one gets the sleeping bag.” She heard Harm sigh and thought he looked a little distressed. “We’ve got plenty of blankets, though,” she said to reassure him.
There was something about the arrangement that troubled him. The two rows of mats – parallel lines with a carefully maintained gap between them -- were too much of a metaphor for their situation in general. Harm just nodded silently before picking up one of the flashlights. “I’ll be back in a minute,” is all he said before leaving.
As soon as he was out of sight, Mac slumped down inside the small space she’d left herself to rest in, and finally breathed out. This was going to be a long night. As she looked at the twin rows of thick floor mats she’d arranged for them to sleep on, she couldn’t help focusing on the empty space about a foot wide she’d left between them and shook her head sorrowfully. “It has to be this way,” she told herself. “It has to.” But with her left hand, the one that held Mic Brumby’s ring, she still reached out to the other side of the gap and gently stroked the edge of the far mat. She gave one last, longing look to the vacant hatchway behind her, looked down at the bed she’d arranged and sighed.
*****************************
Back at the “Sky Room”, the slightly sloshed sojourners were leaving, bound for the parking lot before heading back to that little suburban church where Renee had left her car. At least, that was the plan. Mic was already reconsidering whether or not the blonde bombedshell should try to drive home by herself. After all, the lady had put away her share of liquid refreshment over the course of the evening, and as a former officer and something of a gentleman, Mic had to wonder at just what his responsibilities should be in that regard.
As they stepped onto the elevator, the Cipher from Sydney draped the faux fur coat over Renee’s shoulders, and watched the woman teeter just a bit on her heels as the car began to move.
“You all right, luv?” Mic asked casually.
“Oh, sure,” Renee waved nonchalantly, “I’m fine.” Her words were confident. The expression on her face was less so. There was a pleasant sort of disconnection evident on her face as she fixed her unfocused eyes on the elevator control panel, but something about it seemed to worry her. “Did you press the button?” she asked in a slightly more girlish voice than Mic was used to.
“Course.”
“Then, why isn’t it working?” she wailed.
Brumby couldn’t make sense of her question. In addition to sensations of movement he was feeling, there was also the vague sort of hum evident over the Muzak to tell him the elevator was operating, but Renee remained unsatisfied.
As she stared into the stainless steel cover over the dimly lit buttons, she finally turned to Mic to ask, “Shouldn’t it turn green?”
Mic was about to laugh when he was cut short. Something was wrong with the elevator.
There was a rumble, a click and a clacking noise just before the car slammed to a halt. In the jarring stop, Renee was finally thrown off the feet she’d been threatening to leave since they’d gotten on the car. Only a quick move on the Aussie’s part saved the hapless heroine from tumbling to the floor.
He’d caught her around the torso, about letter high in terms of a baseball strike zone, but in sexual harassment terms, it was very near the danger zone. His hands were all right. They were safely clasped around her far shoulder. His arms were another matter. If Renee had been dressed as she might have been in the cut down, boat neck sweater she’d almost worn that night, the blushing barrister might have found the evening even more starkly revealing than it already was.
Renee quickly recovered herself, pushing her weight back onto her own feet and off of Mic, but his arms stayed as they were.
“You all right, then?” he inquired breathlessly.
“Sure. I’m fine,” Miss Hollywood replied tersely. “But, what was that, anyway?”
The shawl collar of the faux leopard skin coat she was wearing had hung itself over Mic’s right arm so that when Renee turned to face Mic, the left side of her coat still hung down in front of Mic like a drape. She was about to relieve him of it when the car gave one more shove throwing them back together rather awkwardly. Hands and arms went flying involuntarily to new and interesting positions as they each tried to keep their balance in the lurch.
As they righted themselves after the fall, Renee discovered she was holding Mic this time. Her left arm seemed to have snagged in the sleeve of her coat and sent it around behind his back. Her right arm had pitched upward to enclose his shoulders in her embrace. That was all right, but from the other side, things were a bit trickier.
Mic’s right arm had slipped around Renee’s ribs and the left was…well, it wasn’t the arm so much as his hand. If Renee had been wearing the aforementioned jersey of the local, major-league baseball team, Mic’s hand would have covered the “O” in Orioles – or at least most of it. Truth be told, Renee had a bit more “O” than most women, but that was the shape her mouth took when she realized where his hand rested. She looked at his face with eyes as wide as the grin on his face. She didn’t look angry with him, just surprised.
“I – ah – I’m sorry, Renee,” he stammered nervously. “I never meant for that to happen.” He was having a bit of trouble suppressing that embarrassed smile.
The smile she gave him back was actually rather sweet. “Oh, it’s all right, Mic,” she answered slowly. Their eyes met rather tensely for a moment before Miss Thang began patting nervously at her blond mane. The burly ex-boxer thought she even looked a little shy before the brass returned to her voice and her manner. “To tell you the truth,” she proclaimed archly, “that’s more action than I’ve had out of Rabb in a month.”
“Come on, Renee,” Mic chuckled lightly. “Surely, that’s not right.”
The befuddled blonde just shrugged. “Well, I don’t think so, either, but it hasn’t seemed to bother him much.”
************************
What was bothering Harm was Mac. “Back at the ranch” out in the woods, Harm had reappeared in that hatchway suddenly, and found Mac rearranging her previous design for their sleeping accommodations. This time, she’d pulled the floor mats further apart, and was busily trying to find enough loose material to construct a makeshift barrier between them.
That was too much, he thought. Now, she was afraid of him, or at least, it looked that way.
“You want me to cut down a tree?” he muttered angrily.
Mac nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t realized he was back. “I’m just trying to cut off the draft,” she said quickly.
“Well, you don’t have to build a wall,” he declared resentfully. “The way you had it before --.”
“I thought you might need more space,” she explained calmly. “I was going to put down a row of blankets and top it off with the ground cover sheet over here and use the sleeping bag over there. You can choose whichever one you want.”
“Do we have to?” Harm was surprised at himself for saying that out loud. “I mean, those thermal blankets don’t make much of a cushion,” he added quickly, “but we could spread out the sleeping bag and just use the blankets for cover.” When Mac seemed slightly alarmed by that idea, Harm offered another suggestion, “We could sleep head-to-toe if you like.”
The Colonel considered this suggestion within the confines of her current set of plans, and then let go a weary sigh. “No. As much as I like you, Commander, I don’t think I want your feet in my face all night.”
Looking down at the heavy boots he’d worn with his utilities, he laughed lightly. “Probably a good choice.”
As Mac unhappily began the task of rearranging the mats again, Harm popped himself through the hatch and made his way over to help her. Seeing his approach, Mac regarded him warily, “Harm, I can do this.”
“I know,” he said more cheerfully, “but you shouldn’t have to.”
As he reached out to help her with the various pieces, he accidentally brushed against her hand as he sought to take hold of the mat she was already moving.
She reacted instantly. “Harm!” When she shouted his name, he turned quickly, but the look in her eyes froze him where he knelt beside her. There was a plea in those deep, brown eyes of hers that gripped his chest like a vise. He couldn’t breathe. “Please let me do this,” she implored him. When he let go of the mat’s corner and moved back, she seemed to relax a little. “I’ll call you when I have it ready. O.K.?”
“O.K.,” he heard himself say numbly. She wouldn’t look at him now and her hands had come to a complete stop where they held onto the zippered edge of the sleeping bag.
The tension between them was so thick, Harm felt it had actual weight as if it could strain the springs and shock absorbers on the vehicle. To his mind, it had come upon them suddenly, but he recognized its connection to the floor mats and the sleeping bag and all the other pieces of the puzzle of where they were going to sleep tonight – and how. Surely, Mac knew him well enough to know he’d never try to take advantage of her in a situation like this, so why was she so upset?
As he lowered himself out the back hatch and into the night air, he took one more look back at his beautiful partner, and wondered just what was wrong.
The diamond on her left hand had gathered in enough of the diffuse light from the lantern to focus it like a beacon for one startling flash of light that struck Harm right in the eye, and he wondered if that’s what was worrying her.
Brumby couldn’t possibly hold this against her, he reasoned. It was an accident. She had no control over what happened to them this afternoon. And even if Mic thought they did, he would blame Harm, not her.
Still, as he watched Mac slowly unfolding that one, infamous sleeping bag they had between them, he began to wonder and worry.
*******************************
After consulting with the fellow from maintenance on the emergency phone, Mic and Renee had decided to make themselves at home for the duration of their confinement. According to the man named “Burt”, they could expect to be hung there in mid-air for at least half an hour before anyone from the elevator company could even be contacted, so his advice was to get comfortable.
As much as she hated to admit it, Renee needed to sit down. As with most elevators, this one had no seats available except on the floor, so with Mic’s help the erstwhile explorer of such taxing venues as Niemann-Marcus and Versace spread her dreadfully tacky fur coat out flat on the floor in one corner of the car and rested herself against the back wall.
“Well, this is great,” she muttered unhappily.
Mic, who had remained standing by the control panel, advised, “Cheer up, luv. It could be worse.”
“The least you could do is sit down,” she complained angrily. “If I have to keep looking up at you, I’ll get a stiff neck.”
“Ah, well, if you think I should.” As he stooped down to place his bum on the makeshift carpet they’d laid, he did have to ask her to, “Shove over, luv. Give us some room.”
Once he’d settled, the face under the Hollywood hairdo pointedly asked him, “Do you say that to everybody?”
“What?”
“Luv.”
His sudden smile was a bit embarrassed. “No. No,” he replied thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose I do.”
“You call me that a lot,” she reported uncertainly.
“Only ‘cause I like you.”
“You do?” The tone of her voice showed some genuine surprise.
“And why shouldn’t I?” the over-confident Aussie proclaimed. “You’re a lovely girl, Renee.” She sat looking at him quizzically as he looked back at her frankly. “Your taste in men could use a bit of improvement, but aside from that…”
She watched him carefully as a sly smile crept across his face. Her lightening fast insights startled him as she leaned in on him to say, “You’re one of those rogue types, aren’t you, Mic?”
“Am I?” he asked with amusement.
“You know, the happy pirate sailing through blue water looking for some helpless treasure ship to plunder.” As she described the scene, Renee took pains to try and demonstrate the mood with appropriate hand gestures including the flat, palm-down drawing of her hand across the vista to indicate the ocean.
“Don’t know,” Mic replied after due consideration. “I suppose if it had some girls on it.” Then, he winked at her.
“I knew it,” she exclaimed slapping her thigh for emphasis. “You are a rogue.” She sat staring at him with some satisfaction at having placed him so accurately. “I know guys like you,” she said waving a finger at him. Then, she tossed her head to one side and continued. “You don’t want much -- just anything you can get. And you’ll take the gold, all right. You just want twenty, naked, dancing girls to go with it.”
Mic chuckled out loud before offering a mock protest, “See here, Renee. I’m not that hard to please.” He looked her straight in the eye with a devilish gleam showing in his own. “The girls don’t have to dance.”
Renee gave him a playful shove on the shoulder before the two of them fell against one another chuckling as they leaned against the back wall of the elevator car.
“My dad was one,” she sighed wistfully.
“A rogue?”
“No. A CPA, actually, but he always wanted to be one of those cool guys. You know, straight out of the ‘Rat Pack’?” She looked at her burly companion to see if he caught the references. Her eyes glowed with a peaceful nostalgia as she spoke of those formative years. “When I was a kid, every year we had to go to Vegas. The only natural wonder my dad ever heard of was the fountain at the Flamingo.” She nodded at Mic again and found him surprisingly interested in her story. “I mean, the we were always that close, but the only way my brother and I ever got to see the Grand Canyon was one time when my mom stole the car.”
“Your Da was a real gambler, then?” Mic asked her plainly.
“Nah, not really,” she answered pensively. “He just wanted to be. It was just kind of a fantasy. If you ask me, I think he missed his calling. He really wanted to be a lounge lizard.” She said that with a confident nod.
“A what?”
“Lounge lizard,” she repeated with a touch of impatience. She’d finally caught Mic in a reference he didn’t understand, but wasn’t sure how to explain it. “You know,” she said to begin, “someone who’s always mooching off everybody, especially women. A lounge lizard is a guy who just kind of lays around all the time trying to charm his way out of everything.”
A light went on in Brumby’s eyes. “Oh, we have those,” Mic assured her confidently. “We just call ‘em a brother-in-law.”
At that particular bon mot, Renee exploded with laughter, nearly doubling herself over with spasms of hilarity.
When she kept going past what Mic expected for the duration of the joke’s impact, he seemed concerned. “Steady on, then. It’s not that funny.”
Still laughing as she rose and steadied herself against his chest, she managed to gasp out, “That’s what my uncle said!”
That one struck him, too. The thick-voiced sailor chortled in her ear, and Renee collapsed in breathless laughter burying her head against Mic’s chest. As they laughed the joke through, Mic casually wrapped his arms around the buxom blonde gently passing his hand against the open plane of her back between her shoulders.
When he lifted her up from his chest by her elbows, he noticed for the first time the way her crepe blouse had come to rest over her ample “Os”. The top button had come undone somewhere in all the falling and flailing, and without much trouble the unabashed Aussie had gained a rather enviable view of the gifts God and Frederick’s of Hollywood had given her.
“You got something in mind, cowboy?” she asked archly upon seeing the gleeful glow in his eyes.
With a wonderstruck expression on his face, Mic could only marvel, “I must say, Renee, you’re quite something.”
With one eyebrow raised above the smoky look in her soft eyes, she purred, “I’ll bet you say that to all the blondes.”
Much to his delight, this was a woman who didn’t stand on the ceremony of “who first”. Seeing the lustful way he eyed her, feeling the definite energy in the way he held her, she simply didn’t see the need for it. Without any more hesitation than it took for her to consider the possible damage it might cause to her make-up, Renee plunged her lips down firmly on Mic’s planting a definitive kind of kiss on the not-so-startled Aussie lawyer.
When that first kiss ended, Mic could only stare into her eyes to try and confirm the intention he thought he saw there. When he was sure of what he saw, he only uttered the one word assessment, “Blimey!” before eagerly returning the kiss she gave and then some.
By the time that kiss ended, the licentious lawyer and the video vixen had been wrapped together so long they barely parted.
Renee looked up at him hungrily. “You’re good at this.”
“I like to think so,” he replied with a grateful nod. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
While her eyes continued watching him hungrily, her lips had turned upward at the corners in an ironic sort of half-smile. “You always make-out with women in elevators?”
He gave her the deadpan reply, “Every chance I get.”
“Well, then. Don’t stop now, Big Boy. This is just getting interesting.”
To be continued...
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