Chapter 16

"Is that Bob Eubanks?"

The question snapped Mac out of her bored reverie.  She glanced at Harm, then followed his gaze to the man who stood talking with Tony Ariel and a small crowd of production people. 

She grinned at his startled expression.  "Of course it is.  They're doing a Newlywed Game tie-in.  Weren't you paying attention when Steiner went over that in the contestant briefing?"

Harm cocked his eyebrows in the equivalent of a shrug.  "Must've missed that one.  I was probably too busy looking at your legs."

Mac smiled, inordinately pleased by the comment. It was the first real admission Harm had made of wanting her before the wedding.  She tried not to let on too much, however.

"Well, we knew one of the couples' competitions would be a Newlywed Game thing.  I guess it makes sense for it to be the first one," she said.

"They're going to run a special one-hour episode in the time slot after the Temptation Cruise premier," Carmen added as she and Boothe walked up.  Carmen, Mac noted, was dressed to kill.  Her red dress left little to the imagination, and everything that showed, she flaunted with culpable intent.  Boothe matched her, his stylish black suit lending him an air of danger.  The two took the pair of seats next to Mac and Harm.  The third couple for their first round of the game was already seated on the far end of the row-- the Na's.  Nguyen and Stephanie Na were a quiet pair.  They kept mostly to themselves, and Mac knew little of them beyond the background information they'd gathered before the cruise.

"You know, there's something vaguely terrifying about the idea of being on The Newlywed Game, though I'm not quite sure why," Harm commented.

Boothe chuckled.  "Probably has to do with having to answer questions like 'Where is the most unusual place you ever made whoopie?', wouldn't you say?"  He didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable.

Harm laughed with him, but the look he flashed Mac was anything but humored.  He leaned close to her.

"How are we going to answer that?" he murmured into her hair. 

Mac considered the question.  In our stateroom, was hardly a response calculated to divert suspicion.  After a moment, though, she smiled.

"How about 'Where's the most unusual place we didn't make love?'," she suggested in the same low tone. 

Harm gave her a very surprised look, but then grinned.  "I guess that keeps with the spirit of the game, anyway."  He reached over to take her hand and brought it to his lips.  "This is going to be interesting, to say the least."

Mac had to laugh at that.

The Newlywed Game was traditionally played with four couples, a format they were modifying to fit the needs of the show.  The nine couples would compete in groups of three, and the winners of the first round would compete against each other for the final prize-- a pair of his and hers SUVs, and the right to choose their spouses' companion for the next day's outing.  Mac and Harm were in the third group.

They spent the rest of the long, boring wait for their round to begin chatting with Boothe and Carmen.  It was more like fencing than conversation, Mac thought.  Perhaps Harm would have compared it to dogfighting, or more likely, to the dangerous game of target-lock chicken fighter pilots most often played.

But eventually, things got underway.  She and Harm endured a last once-over from makeup, and then they were in the harsh spotlights, with Bob Eubanks standing at his podium, smiling radiantly at the cameras. 

"Welcome to the Newlywed Game! As you know, the purpose of our game is to find out how much these three newlywed couples really know about each other by asking a set of questions to each spouse and asking them to pick the answer they think their husband or wife would answer.  In the first round, the women will exit the stage and go into our specially soundproofed studio while the men tell us what they think their wives will say.  Each question is worth five points.  In the second round, the men will go into the studio while the women tell what they think their husbands will say.  The questions in the second round are worth ten points.  At the end, there will be a twenty-five point bonus question.  Now, let's meet our contestants!" Bob gestured toward the waiting couples to the enthusiastic applause of the audience, which was comprised of everyone from the ship that didn't have to be doing something else.

Bob walked over to the Na's to exchange introductions.  "Now, we all know you've only been married for a couple of days, but how long did you date before this?"

"Four years," was the soft-spoken response.

"Four years?" Eubanks had a gift for making anything sound ridiculous, no matter how ordinary. "What was the slowdown?"

Nguyen hooked a thumb at his wife.  "Her mother."  The comment earned him an embarrassed, slightly venomous look.

Grinning, Bob moved on.  "You must be Boothe and Carmen."

They nodded.  Carmen looked like she was having trouble keeping her attention on the host.  Her eyes kept sliding toward the hulking forms of the television cameras.

Eubanks undoubtedly noticed, Mac thought.  He centered on Carmen.  "So tell me, Ms. Esperanza, why did you choose not to change your name?"

Carmen stiffened ever so slightly and licked her lips.  Mac recognized the defensive reaction for what it was.  "I guess because I don't feel like I need a man to define who I am," Carmen said.  "My family name is important to me."

Bob raised his eyebrows at that, though Boothe gave no perceptible reaction.

"What do you think about that, Boothe?" Eubanks asked.

He shrugged.  "I wouldn't be willing to change my name to Esperanza, so I don't see why anyone should have a problem with it."

With an equivocal shrug that drew laughter from the audience, Bob moved on.  Mac met his gaze briefly as he came to stand near them.

"And here we have Harmon and Sarah Rabb, correct?"

"Harm is fine," Harm told him.

"Call me Mac," Mac said at nearly the same time.

Bob paused, his comedic timing impeccable.  "Mack?"  He looked at Harm.  "You call your wife 'Mack'?"

Harm shrugged, but his smile was full of mischief.  "Everybody calls her Mac."

"It's short for MacKenzie, my maiden name," Mac explained.  She glanced at Harm.  "That's going to get harder to explain, isn't it?"

Harm chuckled.  "Why bother?  If anybody gives you trouble about it, just give them that deadly stare of yours and say, 'You got a problem with that?'" He dropped his voice in a fair drill sergeant imitation.  Then he grinned, ruining the impression.  "And if that doesn't work, you can always break their arm."

Bob winked at Mac.  "I'm beginning to see the real reason… Tell me, Harm, can she beat you up?"

"Yes," Mac answered promptly, shooting her husband a sly grin.

Harm laughed and gave her a playfully wounded look in return.  "Well, two times out of three, maybe."

"Sounds like your house must be an interesting place."

Then it was time for Mac, Carmen and Stephanie to leave the stage and go into the soundproofed cubby to wait while the men answered the first round of questions.  The interior of the little room was barren except for three metal and plastic chairs.  Stephanie sat down while Mac leaned her shoulder against the wall.  Carmen paced, her stiletto heels occasionally snagging on the cheap carpet.

"So what's your story?" Carmen asked Mac after a few moments.

Mac raised an eyebrow.

"You're some hot shot lawyer, can beat people up… you really gonna be happy just being Mrs. Rabb for the rest of your life?"

It's Lieutenant Colonel Rabb, and I sure hope so! Mac couldn't say that, though.  She stared at Carmen in silence as her thoughts turned.  Eubanks had definitely touched a nerve in the other woman, however unwittingly.

Mac chose her answer carefully.  "I've spent most of my life trying to live down the legacy my parents left me," she said.  "The only reason I kept the name MacKenzie was because no better one belonged to me.  That's not true any more."

Carmen snorted.  "Well, don't think that man out there is gonna make you a better person, honey."

Mac tensed, torn between pity for the other woman and the instinctive desire to defend Harm.  "Actually, he does make me a better person," she answered, keeping her voice mild with an effort.  "I've never met anyone with more courage or integrity."  She stepped away from the wall.  "For all that the man has his faults-- and everyone does-- he's one of the best people I've ever known."

Carmen stared at her, her open disdain slowly fading to puzzlement.  But before she could say anything else, the door to the room opened.  A production person waved them out, his headset cord trailing behind him like a tail.

Mac followed Carmen out into the painfully bright lighting of the stage, trying not to wince.  She couldn't help the smile that lit her face on seeing Harm, not with the thoughts that were floating around in her head.  He really was the very best thing that had ever happened to her. 

Harm grinned back at her, though a bit sheepishly.  Mac settled in her chair and cocked her head at him.  "They been putting you on the spot?"

His smile deepened.  "I told you this was going to be interesting."

"That sounds bad."

"We'll see."

"All right, ladies, here's the first question we asked your husbands: Of the two of you, who do you say is the better catch?"  Bob Eubanks swept his gaze across them, gauging reactions no doubt, before walking over to the Na's.  "Now remember, Stephanie, your husband has tried to give the answer he thought you would say."

Mac tried to wait patiently while Bob went through the other two couples.  Stephanie said herself, while Nguyen had said him, which resulted in a pair of dark looks.  Not too surprisingly, Carmen also answered herself, which Boothe matched.  But that made sense, Mac thought.  Carmen would say she was the better catch, and Boothe was shrewd enough to go for the answer she would say rather than what he thought was true.  That much was obvious from his expression.

So, how had Harm answered?  She debated with herself as Bob walked over to her.

"And what do you say, Mac?"

Mac took a deep breath, wondering if she understood how her husband worked at all.  Well, she supposed she would find out.

"Knowing the size of his ego, I guess I'm going to have to go with 'him'."  She gave Harm a teasing smile.  She-- not to mention the Admiral-- had been riding him about the size of his aviator's ego for years.

She knew immediately from the audience's reaction that she'd guessed wrong.  Harm had picked her.  But was that because he believed it, or because he thought she would think so?  Her stomach knotted.

Harm grinned at her, though not entirely happily.  "Ow.  Are you trying to tell me I'm arrogant?"

Mac decided the truth was the only thing that could save her.  "Well, you are… though usually with good reason."  She let a hint of suggestiveness creep into her voice.

Even Bob Eubanks raised his eyebrows at that.  Harm was chuckling.  "I'm not going to let you forget you said that."

Mac rolled her eyes, but figured it was a small price to pay. 

Eubanks went on with the show.  He stayed beside Mac and Harm as he pulled out the second question.  "Mac, which of the following songs best describes your first date with Harm?  A) Sea of Love, B) Let's Get Physical, or C) Crash."

Mac burst out laughing. What could their first "date" have been, but that day Harm had taken her flying in Sarah?

"Oh, 'Crash', definitely," she said through her laughter.

Bob grinned at her.  "That bad, huh?"

"No, literally," Mac explained.  He took me flying in his plane and there were some mechanical difficulties and--"

"It wasn't a crash.  It was an emergency landing," Harm injected indignantly.

Mac turned to him.  "True, but still, you have to admit things kind of went downhill from there."

Harm's snort spoke volumes and drew laughter from the crowd.

Bob looked at Harm.  "So how long was it before she agreed to go out with you again?"

"Years."

Eubanks laughed at that.  "All right.  Well, why don't you show her what you said."

Harm flipped the large blue card, which had 'Crash' written on it in his distinctive handwriting.  Mac smiled at that, but Harm's expression had turned serious.

"That was one of the worst days of my life," he told her softly as Bob moved off to talk to Boothe and Carmen.

Mac sobered at the shadows that turned his normally blue eyes a turbulent gray. It had been a pretty bad day for her, too, even though they laughed about it in retrospect.  She wondered if Harm still felt guilty for leaving her.  She sighed.  Probably.  But there was nothing she could say about it right now.

She turned to watch the other couples take their turns.  Boothe and Carmen matched again with "Let's Get Physical", which didn't surprise Mac in the least.  Nguyen and Stephanie once again did not match.  How did they manage to stay together for four years? she wondered.

The third question was enough to make Mac clamp one hand over her mouth and the Oh no! that threatened to leap off her tongue.

Eubanks stood by Carmen.  "Here's the question we asked your husband: How would she describe you? A) All action, no talk, B) All talk, no action, or C) Entertaining at both.  What do you say, Carmen?"

Mac stared at Harm.  She was reassured to see the laughter that sparkled in his eyes, as if he knew just how dangerous a question it was and was honest enough not to be offended by her assessment.

Once again, Carmen guessed correctly.  Well, Mac thought, 'All action, no talk' is probably a good description of Boothe.  He certainly didn't strike her as the sensitive type.  Nguyen and Stephanie finally got one as well, with 'all talk, no action', though Nguyen sounded bitter as he said it.

When it was her turn, Mac decided to hedge her bets.  In the past, their personal relationship had been 'no talk, no action', but now she had plenty of both.  And in other respects, Harm had always done more than enough of both the talking and the action.  Mac had heard a rumor that some CO's looked for an opportunity to get Harm assigned to them, however briefly, just to give them an excuse to read his service record.  It was supposed to be one of the most… colorful… in the Navy.

Mac chuckled at her thoughts.  "I'm going to have to go with 'Entertaining at both'," she told Bob.

To her surprise, Harm had chosen the same thing.

He flashed her a cheeky grin.  "Well I am, aren't I?" he asked when she voiced her surprise.

"I'm beginning to see what you meant about the size of his ego," Bob commented in an aside, to which Mac laughed.  Harm looked on, unfazed.  He knew he was arrogant, Mac realized, and considered it an asset. For him, she had to concede, it generally was.  Fighter pilots lived in a world where being good wasn't enough even to get them into the field.  Being great meant they could handle the job, and only the firm belief that they were absolutely the best gave them the nerve to hazard death every single time they catapulted off the carrier deck.  Loss of confidence killed a lot more fighter pilots than enemy missiles did. 

Oddly enough, Mac thought, the same thing held for lawyers though on a vastly different scale.

The game continued, this time with the men leaving the stage.  To Mac's relief, the questions got better, not worse.  For herself and Harm, anyway.  The Na's nearly came to blows over the question of what he would change about her if he could.  Of course, he'd had the unbelievable idiocy to tell the world he thought his wife's breasts were too small. 

For Mac, that question was easy.  "My diet," she'd told Bob Eubanks without hesitation. Harm agreed.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of junk she eats," he added with a sly smile in Mac's direction.

It was an old argument and a fun one, so Mac jumped in.  "I do not eat junk."

"Three Beltway burgers, fries and a coke for lunch?  That's a hundred grams of fat in one meal."  He cocked an eyebrow in her direction.  "I'm not even going to comment on cholesterol."

For once, Mac could do what she'd always wanted to when he teased her about her food.  She struck a sultry pose.  "Do I look fat?"  The audience, invisible beyond the glare of the lights, roared.

Harm made a show of looking her over, his expression a cross between a serious evaluation and an outright leer.  "You," he finally concluded, "are gorgeous.  But your metabolism must run at an insane rate considering what you eat.  It won't protect you from heart disease or clogged arteries."  Harm leaned close, taking her hand.  His smile was that certain one he reserved just for her.  "Having finally found you, Mac, I'd really like to keep you for a while."

Mac felt her cheeks growing warm beneath the power of his smile.  "Don't worry," she managed to say.  "You won't be getting rid of me any time soon."

For a moment, the rest of the world went away.  Mac lost track of everything but her husband's intense expression and the answering fire it kindled in her own body.

The crowd's laughter brought her back, as Bob fanned himself with his cards and walked away.

The rest of the game passed in a blur.  Unfortunately, they never managed to quite catch up with Boothe and Carmen, and ended up losing the round to them by a mere five points.  Mac found she didn't care as much as she expected to.  Not that she liked the idea of Tony Ariel and his staff picking a date for Harm, but since they'd talked she felt much more confident.  At least this way they were free to enjoy their evening instead of spending it playing the Newlywed Game again.

They found a little bistro, tucked between two larger restaurants on the main concourse, and spent the evening talking over pasta and espresso.  All in all, Mac thought as they made their way to their room, it had turned out to be a pretty good day despite the opportunities there'd been for disaster.

And tomorrow? she wondered for a brief, pessimistic moment.

"What about tomorrow?" Harm asked as he unlocked the door to their stateroom.  He gave her a curious, slightly concerned look.

Mac shook her head, surprised that she'd spoken her thought aloud.  "Nothing.  I was just…"

"…thinking of all the things that could go wrong?"

Caught, Mac sighed.  "Yeah."

Harm grinned as he held the door open for her.  "Tomorrow won't get here for a while yet.  Do you think we can find something better to do with our time than worry about it?"

Mac pushed her dark thoughts away with determination.  Straightening her shoulders, she sauntered past Harm, throwing him a coquettish look over her shoulder.  "Was that an invitation?"

His smile deepened.  "More of a challenge, really."

She turned, waiting for him to cross the distance to her.  "Well, you know how much I love a challenge."

Harm hit the light switch as he passed it, plunging the room into darkness.  She heard him laugh deep in his throat as his arms closed around her.  "That's my Marine," he murmured in the moment before his mouth fastened on hers.