Chapter 46
"Rabb?" AJ snapped.
"Ad…miral?" Harm stuttered.
"Harm?" Meredith gasped.
"Meredith?" Harm inquired.
It was at that point; Jordan entered the living room wearing a man's shirt with her hair wrapped up in a towel. "Aunt Meredith?"
"AUNT Meredith?" Harm demanded.
As Jordan opened the door wider so she could stand next to Harm, both Meredith and AJ could see clothes strewn about the floor near the couch. If their attire hadn't been enough of a give-away as to what was going on, this mess made it abundantly clear.
"I didn't know you knew my aunt, Harm," Jordan said looking at him rather than the two people with disapproving stares still standing in the hall.
"I told you at lunch that Admiral Chegwidden had been my boss!" he accused.
"I know, but you didn't mention you knew my aunt."
"Does it matter who knew who, with what has so clearly has been going on here?" Meredith demanded.
At the same time, AJ had asked, "Harm, what are you doing here?"
With a wry grin, Harm restrained himself from asking, 'I don't suppose you mean in this apartment?' instead he admitted, "I'm in town on a case."
As Harm was answering AJ, Jordan tried to deflect her aunt by saying, "Oh, you brought dinner! If you will give Harm and I a few minutes to get presentable, we can combine it with mine and eat." She grabbed Harm by the arm and pulled him along with her. She scooped up her dress and his underwear and headed to her bedroom still pulling him behind her.
Once they were in her bedroom, Jordan tossed the towel on the bed and unselfconsciously stripped off Harm's shirt. Throwing it and his underwear at him she said, "Get dressed." Her dress joined the towel on the bed as she went to her dresser to pull out jeans and a T-shirt. Combing her fingers through her hair, she put it into a ponytail and turned to find Harm buttoning his shirt. His underwear was on top of her dress.
"I'll get them later, I think we should get out there," he told her nodding towards the other room.
The minute Jordan and Harm left the room, Meredith demanded, "What are you going to do about this, AJ?"
"What do you expect me to do, Meredith?"
"Well…he was so clearly taking advantage of her!" she protested.
"He was? I'm sorry, darling, but I don't think so."
"But they were having sex!"
"So do we."
"But we're engaged!"
"We were sleeping together before we were engaged, Meredith," he reminded her gently.
"But we've known each other almost a year!"
Knowing that reminding Meredith their sexual relationship had started quite some time ago was futile, he decided to try another tact, "How do we know they haven't known each other even longer than you and I have?"
"Because he didn't know I was her aunt!"
"How is that relevant as to how long they've known each other?"
"If they've known each other a long time, then why wouldn't he know who her family was?"
"He just might not have connected the two of you, darling."
"But we have the same last name!"
"And yours is the only family in the world with that last name?
"Well, no…but don't you think you would have put it together?"
"Meredith, if I'd met Jordan on business why would I ever think that she had some relation to my ex-bosses fiancée?"
"Does what we saw when we got here look like 'business' to you?"
"No, but there's no telling how, why, or when, they met."
Before Meredith could answer that, the two in question came back into the room.
"Well, are we all ready to eat?" Jordan asked, as she headed right for the kitchen, basically leaving Harm to face the music alone.
Meredith glared at him, and then turned to AJ with a frown when he didn't immediately say something to Harm. When AJ just stared back at her, she once again turned her glare on Harm. "So, how long have you known my niece?" she demanded.
Not having faced an irate parent since his teenage years, he still recognized the look, he also knew that the truth would not set him free, but more likely would get him killed, so he hedged. "Oh, I don't know exactly, Meredith, it's been some time."
"Some time…like in months, or years?" she grilled him.
Jordan, who'd come back into the room with plates and silverware, tried to help out, "I think it was nine."
"Months?" Meredith seemed a bit less outraged now that she thought this was a long-term relationship.
AJ, trained observer that he was, had seen Jordan surreptitiously look at her watch before answering the question. So he was prepared for her response when she sighed and turned to face her aunt.
Jordan valued honesty even if she had bent and twisted the truth to her own ends when necessary, but she had no reason to lie to her aunt about this, after all she was an adult and had nothing to be ashamed of in what she and Harm had been doing. So she simply said, "No, nine this morning."
To be continued….
