A Friendly Demonstration
Chapter 44
Julia Martinez could barely restrain a yawn as she sat at her desk on Monday morning, bring a warning glance from Jen and a quiet, "Don't let the Captain catch you yawning like that! He'll only tell you that you need to conduct your private life so that it doesn't interfere with your work! I know, he's said it to me in the past! Talk about embarrassing!" she finished ruefully.
"It was partly his fault, anyway!" Julia defended herself, "That detail he had me on, the drive down to Portsmouth and back? Well, it lasted until zero seven hundred by the time Hawkes and myself got the cars back to the motor pool, and it was nearly eight by the time I got to bed!"
"But you had all day Sunday to recover," Jen replied in a puzzled tone.
"Sure!" Julia scoffed, "After sleeping most of Saturday daytime, and then not being able to sleep Saturday night, Sunday was real day of rest!"
"M'mm..." Jen paused for thought. The navy was all about standing watches, and the Lord knew she had stood enough of them in her days as an ET, but now she wondered if she could stand a one night watch and then just pick up her normal routine again. Somehow she doubted it, standing watches and sleeping at irregular hours was something your body took a little time to get used to.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right..." she conceded.
"Huh! Of course I am!" Julia retorted but with a smile as she returned her attention to the pile of official mail that had landed on her desk. Not that the silence between the two women last very long; it was only a couple of minutes
before Julia gave a surprised "Oh!" and as Jen looked across at the other women she saw a pleased smile spread across her face.
"Something interesting, Julia?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.
"M'mm..." Julia agreed, "But it's for the Captain... and I think I'll take it straight in..."
"Is it good news, then?" Jen asked.
"Oh yeah! And... I've had a better thought. Why don't you take it into him?" Julia smiled enigmatically
Jen stood and came around the end of her desk, "Well, if you're going to play international woman of mystery..." and held her hand out for the sheet of paper that Julia waved slowly to and fro.
Plucking it from Julia's grasp, Jen cast her eye over the paper. It was a familiar enough form, a set of movement orders, but it was the name that caught her eye, 'Miss Mathilda G Rabb', and the arrival date she noted was for this Friday.
"Oh Julia! Thank you! Of course I'd love to take this straight in! This will really make his day!"
Julia grinned, "Yeah, I thought it might, and as you and his daughter seem so close, I thought maybe you'd like..."
"Of course!" Jen said her eyes dancing with pleasure. "Thanks again!"
Jen took a moment to compose herself and then unconsciously smoothing her skirt over her thighs she rapped twice on the door frame.
"Enter!"
Jen opened the door and deliberately leaving it ajar so that Julia, whom she had no doubt was straining her ears, could hear what was said marched up to Harm's desk and halted.
"Yes, Legalman One?" Harm asked with a raised eyebrow at the slip of paper in Jen's hand.
"Special delivery, sir!" Jen replied smartly.
"I see..." Harm raised his head to study her and noted the gleam in her eyes. "And is there a good reason you're delivering it, instead of my Yeoman, whose job it is?"
"Oh, yessir!" Jen said enthusiastically.
Harm eyed his junior with grim amusement, "All right then, hand it over," he sighed.
Jen thrust the sheet of paper towards him and bit the inside of her cheek in an effort to stop herself from breaking into grin as Harm read through the orders. At length, just before Jen started dancing with impatience, he laid the orders on the blotter on his desk. "Did you read this?" He asked, and then before Jen could reply he said, "Yes, of course you did." He continued to look levelly at Jen for a few seconds.
"We knew this was coming of course," he told her in a matter of fact voice, but then his one hundred mega-watt grin burst forth, "But it is good news! Very good news!"
"It is! Yes, sir!" Jen at last allowed her own grin to burst through as she happily agreed with Harm, and greatly daring she added, "And it's about damned time!"
The two shared a moment of silent happiness and then Harm stood, "Yes, it is! Thank you, Jennifer. That will be all!"
Hugging his use of her first name, something he rarely used at work, Jen smiled and made a crisp reply of "Aye, aye, sir!"
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"Oh! Isn't that just typical of a man!" Sue exclaimed, halfway between laughter and annoyance, and the in slightly less critical tones she added, "Well, at least he said it, even if it was in the most unromantic setting he could find!"
It was Monday lunchtime, and unable to get a reply from Gill on Saturday or Sunday, Sue had grabbed her 'phone and settled down in her bunk in the Mess at Tidworth instead of making for the dining room and lunch,
Gill smiled at the memory, "Yes," she breathed into the phone, "he did say it in the kitchen, and me in my old pink PJs! But, Sue, do you know, somehow it seemed perfectly fitting just there and then!"
"At least tell me he said it first!" Sue demanded.
"Oh, yes, and took the wind right out of my sails!" Gill chuckled, "I hadn't even had my coffee and he more or less cut the ground right out from under my feet!"
Suddenly the significance of what Gill had said made it from Sue's ears to her brain, "Hey! Hang on a second there, lady! Did you just say you were in your PJs and that you hadn't even had your coffee?"
Gill silently cursed her incautious words, but then shrugged, Sue was bound to have caught on sooner or later, "Yes, I was in my PJs, my old, faded pink PJs, and no, I hadn't had my first cup of coffee of the day yet!"
"So... where – exactly – did you spend the night?" Sue demanded, an interrogative edge to her voice.
Gill took a bite of her sandwich and a hasty sip of her mug of tea, "I told you, at the Wardroom at HMS Nelson," she hedged.
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line, before Said with infinite sweetness and faux great patience, "Now, Gill, you know exactly what I meant, so give, before I jump in my car and drive up to town to beat the truth out of you!"
""Yeah, right!" Gill scoffed, not at all disturbed by the empty threat. "We didn't get back from Portsmouth until oh six hundred hours, so the truth is we spent the night at the ball at HMS Nelson."
"And when you got back to town, just what did Cinderella and her Prince Charming do then?" Sue persisted.
Gill grinned, she was bursting to bring Sue right up to date, but it was just so much fun making the blonde work for her reward. "Well, we sat around and talked about David's surprise engagement to his Abi..."
"Oooh! Never mind about your brother and his … his..." Sue stuttered to a halt.
"Fiancée?" Gill contributed in a helpful voice.
"Yes, dammit! His fiancée! But you can't expect me to believe that's all!"
"Well, we couldn't really talk in the car! There was a young Marine driving us, and she would have heard every word we said, and I don't really want to discuss family in front of total strangers. I mean, she's a nice kid – oh, and she's the niece of the navigator Harm used to fly with!"
"Oh, never mind about the damned Marine or her damned uncle! I want the nitty gritty about you and your dishy Yankee sailor!" Sue replied, knowing that Gill objected to that particular label being attached to Harm and hoping that the use of it might fluster Gill into being more forthcoming.
"Oh, not uncle," Gill continued blithely, ignoring Sue's barb, "Aunt. Really, Sue, I didn't expect you to fall into the gender trap!" she ended on a slightly recriminatory note.
There was a long silence from the Tidworth end of the line before Sue spoke heavily, "Gill, I don't give a damn about your Marine and her family! So come clean or... or Te voy a dar... (I'm going to give you such a smack). What did you and your Captain do when you got to town this morning? I'm taking it from your story so far, that you weren't in your bunk at the Wood?"
"No, we weren't... for the past few weeks I've been staying with Harm at the weekends..."
"One room or two?" Sue interjected sharply.
Gill decoded that it was time to take pity on her friend, and satisfy her curiosity, "Well... it started off with separate rooms..." she admitted with a grin, "but a couple of weeks ago I upped the ante..."
"You upped the ante?" Sue asked incredulously. "Gillian Shephard, this is serious!" all of sudden the teasing note was nearly gone from the blonde's voice.
"Yes, I rather think it is," Gill agreed soberly.
Again Sue paused before she spoke, "And are you going to marry him?"
"Oh Sue! He hasn't asked me yet, and I think we're still a long way from that! For a start there's his daughter to contend with. If she and I can't get along, then there isn't going to be much of a future for us!"
Unseen by Gill, Sue shook her head, "Gill, I've known you for what, five, six years now? and I know you, you Vicar's daughter you, and I know that you don't just jump into bed with a guy because he's got blue eyes or a killer smile! Now come clean, do you intend to marry him?"
"Sue! As I said, he hasn't asked me, and ..."
"And if he does ask you?" Sue interrupted.
"At the moment... I honestly don't know, Sue. There's so much to be taken into consideration... we've both got careers and what happens if one gets a posting to the other side of the world?... Then there's the security implications of having a foreign spouse... and I've already mentioned that there's a chance of friction with his daughter..."
"Yeah, what this business with him having a daughter? I thought he was single, not divorced or widowed? And where is she, how come this is the first time I've heard of her?"
"Okay... to take your last point... I don't tell you everything about Harm and myself, because quite frankly Sue, a lot of it isn't your damn' business!"
"Oh, I know Gill, it's just that I do worry about about you... this guy seemed okay at first, but now there are all sorts of skeletons falling out of the cupboard..."
"Relax, Sue, there's nothing sinister, no late or ex-wives hiding away. And it's not unknown for a single man to have a child, now is it?"
"No... I s'pose not," Sue agreed grudgingly.
"But in this case, it's all legal and above board. Mattie is his adopted teenage daughter, her mother died and her father disappeared. Harm adopted her, and she's coming over to join him in the very near future."
"So why hasn't she been with him from the start?" Sue asked.
"Honestly, Sue! I give you an inch and you try to take a mile! Okay, but this is the last piece of int you get: Mattie had a crash in a light 'plane, and she's been in hospital and rehab for about eleven months. She's still in a wheelchair, and as I said, she'll be joining him shortly."
"She's a wheelchair bound teenager? Oh, Gill! What have you got yourself into?" Sue's voice had lost the last trace of it's bantering, teasing edge and now revealed her real concern for her friend.
Gill gave a short laugh, "I honestly don't know, but I have a feeling I'm going to find out in the very near future!"
"Just make sure that you're not getting in over your head, that's all!" Sue urged her.
"I will, I will, so don't go on so much – worry-wort!" Gill chuckled.
"Somebody's got to keep a level head and watch out for pitfalls," Sue objected, "Especially when you're all wrapped up in warm, pink and fuzzy cotton wool!"
To her great, if unexpressed, indignation, Gill's only reply was a loud shout of laughter.
At the end of the call Sue Marshall snapped her phone shut and stared at it for a while, her brows knitted in concern for her friend. "She'll marry him!" she said aloud, "Dammit Gill, I hope you know what you're doing!"
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Harm had had an excellent lunch, although it had been slightly marred by his failure to contact Gill, he'd tried calling her six or seven times to tell her about Mattie's impending arrival but each attempt had been met by the 'busy' signal. 'Oh well,' he told himself, 'she was probably talking to her mom or grandma about David's engagement.'
Still, an egg salad, slightly different in make-up from those he was used to Stateside, washed down by a glass of chilled milk had pleasantly fortified the inner man and he'd made it back to JAG in plenty of time to change back into uniform for the afternoon's work.
Forty minutes or so into the afternoon, he had just signed off on the vexatious case of the bicycle-borrowing Petty Officer when his concentration was disturbed by his phone's shrill double-ring.
"Yes?" he asked when he picked up.
"Miss Rabb on line one for you, sir," Julia Martinez's voice almost bubbling over with pleasure sounded in his ear.
"Put her through, please, Yeoman Two!" Harm grinned. He had been half-expecting Mattie to call, but then he frowned. At this time of day she should be in school, in class. If she was cutting a class just to call him, she'd very soon have the error of her ways brought to her attention.
"Hey, Squirt, wassup?"
"Hey Harm, I got my movement orders! I fly out on Friday, man I can't wait! I'll have to call Jen later and let her know!"
Harm nearly laughed out loud as in her excitement, Mattie's words came tumbling out in a rapid stream, almost tripping over each other.
"Yeah, we know, Mats, we got a copy of the order this morning. But first things first, why aren't you in class?"
"First class today is gym, and Stephanie, my physical therapist, had to cancel – her kid's sick - so Miss Grant told me to take myself off to the library."
Harm nodded, it was a plausible explanation, and he knew that Stephanie Sheridan, the physical therapist, had a son with a heart condition, and this wasn't the first session she'd had to cancel without being able to find a replacement therapist. "Okay...now that's settled..."
"Yeah, my movement orders... How come you got it so early? The mail only arrived as I was leaving for school!"
"You're forgetting we're five hours ahead of you over here. Maybe you should actually go in to the library and look up international time zones," Harm chuckled as he relaxed back into his chair a smile settling on his face in his anticipation of Mattie's arrival and now that had asked her why she wasn't in class.
"Uh... if that's so, how come it takes fourteen hours to fly there?" Mattie asked, her confusion plain to hear. "I mean we take off from Andrews Air Force Base at zero eight hundred hours and we arrive at RAF Lakenheath – what a dumb name – at twenty two hundred hours!"
"Nice catch on the twenty-four hour clock, Squirt, but take off the five hours time difference and you'll see that you'll be in the air for nine hours. So although it will be late evening when you get in, it will only be dinner time to you!"
"Yeah... talking about dinner... as it's going to be a reunion of some kind, can I get to choose what we have?"
"You don't have to, Squirt, it's already in the freezer at home. Pizza, a half and half meat lover's and veggie."
"Do they even have pizza over there?" Mattie asked sceptically.
"They sure do," Harm grinned, "Maybe not quite like Donatelli's back in DC, but not too bad, but this one I made myself!"
"You made a pizza?" Mattie exclaimed in disbelief, "Man, you must have been missing me!"
"You'll never know just how much I missed you Mats, almost as much as I love you."
"Yeah," Mattie gave what sounded suspiciously like a sniff, and then a gulp, "I've missed you too Harm, heaps. Harriet and Bud have been great, but they're not you... they're not... family..."
For some strange reason Harm felt deeply touched by the implication that Mattie considered him as her... family... that was something for which he'd hoped, but had never really expected, and he had a feeling that if he wasn't careful he'd be sniffing and gulping just as the teenager on the other end of the line was doing.
"So... you're all set?" he asked, "All packed and everything squared away?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't have much left to bring with me. Bud's boxed up most of my stuff and it will follow, he's arranged some sort of deal with the Navy... all I got to do is throw what clothes I've got left into a sea-bag and beg borrow or steal a ride to Andrews on Friday morning."
"I'm sure Bud will take you," Harm smiled, "But you've got something else to do as well!"
"Oh?" a note of caution crept into Mattie's voice.
"Yeah, you need to buy Bud and Harriet something to say thank you for looking after you."
"Already done, Kemo Sabe," Mattie grinned, the threat of tears vanished from her voice, "I've bought Bud a plastic kit of the Enterprise – the Star Trek one, not the real one – and a box of Godiva chocolates for Harriet and I've arranged for a bunch of flowers to arrive on Saturday morning, from you and me!"
"That great, Mats, Bravo Zulu!"
"Well, the plastic kit and the chocolates I bought out of my allowance, but the flowers, well they're from both of us and I had to use the card you left me, but I'll pay up my half the next time you give me my allowance!"
"That's fine, Mattie. You've done really well there!"
"Oh, it wasn't much, just good manners... You and Jen did manage to manage to refresh some of the lessons my mom tried to teach me!"
"Well, I'm glad we were of some use!" Harm smiled.
"Yeah, right," Mattie drawled, but then a slight note of worry crept into her voice, "You are coming to pick me up at Lakenheath, aren't you?"
"Of course! How could you think for even a minute that I wouldn't!" Harm bolted upright in his chair.
"Oh, I didn't, but I just wanted to make sure that you Jen were there to meet me."
"Uh, I don't know about Legalman One Coates, Mattie. She's got her own life to lead now... She's moved off base, and has rented her own place, and she's seeing someone... but I'm sure she told you all that... she tells me you call her every week..."
"Of course I do, Jen's like a big sister to me! And I know all about her and her Marine, and I can't wait to meet him. Harriet and Bud both have nothing but good to say about him!"
"And neither do I!" Harm agreed fervently, "but even if she wasn't seeing him, we still need to back off a little from her life, let her get a life of her own. It was great having her live with you next door, but we weren't doing her any favours; she should have been dating, or going out for coffee or to the movies with girl friends, not baby sitting you when I couldn't be there!"
"It was a bit more than just baby-sitting!" Mattie said fiercely, "You should have been there when Jen went head to head with the Dragon Lady at school!"
"You're right Mattie, I should have been there, and it's my biggest regret that I wasn't there. Not just that once but so many times..."
"Hey, don't beat yourself up!" Mattie objected, "We both knew going in that you had a job to do, and that job would take you away at times, I'm just grateful that it didn't take you away for ever! Besides, you were there for me plenty of times, especially when it really mattered, And," she added shrewdly, "considering that you're such a trouble magnet, that's a lot to be thankful for!"
"Trouble magnet?" Harm asked in surprise.
"Yeah, trouble magnet. Minefields, dirty nukes, murder accusations, getting involved in other people's wars, mixing it up with mad terrorists... you want me to go on?"
"No, no... that's all right, you can stop there!" Harm replied, inwardly vowing to strangle Bud Roberts and take his chances at another court martial. "And anyway, I've gotten older and wiser since those days, and I've steadied down now I've got a daughter that's depending on me!"
"Yeah..." again Mattie's voice sounded constricted, "Well, I'm depending on you to bring Jen to meet me. It's important to me. Harm..."
"Okay," Harm sighed in resignation, pretty sure that he was being played, but when Mattie used that voice, he found it almost impossible to refuse her anything. "Hold on..." He leaned forward and pressed the speak button on the desktop intercom, "Legalman One, could you come in please...?"
"Yes, sir!" Jen replied smartly, and within a couple of seconds, she tapped on the door frame and entered the office. Harm beckoned her forward as she hesitated when she saw he still had the phone at his ear, and in obedience to his signal advanced to the desk.
"Sir?" she inquired,
"Mattie wants you to come with me to Lakenheath on Friday evening when I go to pick her up after her flight. Would that be convenient for you?"
"Of course it's convenient, sir! I wouldn't have it any other way, I can't wait to see her again!"
Harm winced as Mattie, obviously having heard Jen's reply uttered a squeal of joy. "I take it you heard what Legalman One Coates said?" he asked in a voice heavy with irony.
"I sure did! Tell her I love her to bits, will ya?"
"Okay, I'll do that..."
"Good, 'cos I gotta go, before I hit my phone limit!" Mattie said, and even over the three thousand or so miles that separated them Harm could tell that she was grinning even as she spoke.
"Okay, Squirt. I'll see you on Friday... I love you..."
"Yeah," a suddenly tearful Mattie sniffed again, "I love you too... and Jen – don't forget to tell her that! I'll check!"
Harm's face wore a gentle smile as he said goodbye and put the phone down.
"Everything okay, sir?" Jen asked, more as a means of reminding him that she was still in the room.
"Yes, everything's fine, thank you Jennifer. Mattie says that I am to tell you that she loves you to bits, and that she'll be checking up on that when she gets here.
Jen's dimple flowered as she returned Harm's smile, "I love her to bits, too, sir!"
Harm looked up at the young woman standing in front of his desk. "Yes, I know..." he said softly, and for a brief moment the two were caught up in their shared memories of the joy-filled months the three had spent as a sort of proxy family and for Harm and Jen especially the heartbreak of standing vigil over Mattie's hospital bed before she woke from her crash induced coma, and in a way Harm thought how very fitting it had been that it was Jen who had been sitting by the bed, holding Mattie's hand when the youngster's blue eyes had finally fluttered open, at a time when even he had begun to give up hope, but Jen had remained fiercely convinced that Mattie would wake up.
"Uh...I'd better get back to my desk, sir," Jen said after what seemed a lengthy pause, "There's no telling what sort of mischief those kids will get into if I'm not keeping an eye on things!"
Harm couldn't prevent a smile of amusement at Jen's words, but, "Before you go, Jennifer, is Victor going to be all right with you not being around on Friday evening?"
"Victor's a marine, sir. He understands all about commitment, even if it's not quite the same sort of commitment. Besides he has sisters of his own, and if he get angsty about me going to meet my sister off a plane when I haven't seen her for ages, especially when it's someone as close to me as Mattie, then he isn't the right man for me, so we'd best end it sooner rather than later!"
Harm looked at Jen a little more closely. She had that stubborn set to her chin that he had only seen on the odd occasion when she was bound and determined on a course of action so he nodded. "Okay, but you are not to think that you're obliged to be at Mattie's beck and call twenty-four seven. You are an attractive young woman Jennifer Coates, and you've spent more than enough time worrying about other people. It's time you spared a thought for yourself and where you want to be, and what you want to be happening in your own life! I was never more pleased than when you and Victor started dating, it seemed to me that all the while Mattie was with us, and then while she was in hospital you put your life on hold, and now it's time, and past time you looked out for yourself for a change!"
Jen blinked, Harm had never spoken to her quite so firmly, but with such concern before and never on such a personal note, "Aye, aye,sir! And don't worry, I won't let Mattie take advantage of me, because you are right, it is time I started living my own life!"
"Good!" Harm smiled even as he spoke emphatically, "Now, I believe you said something about keeping an eye on things out there?"
"I did, sir. So by your leave"
"Yeah, g'wan, get outta here!" Harm chuckled. He was still chuckling a few seconds later as Jen closed the door behind her.
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As he deposited his now clean dinner plate on the rack on the draining board Harm reflected that somehow or other dining alone had lost its appeal, despite the fact that he didn't have to worry about catering to anybody else's tastes but his own. An ironic grin stretched across his face, "Somehow or other!" he said aloud as he carried the last of his glass of wine into the lounge, "I know exactly why I don't like eating alone anymore! Funny, it never used to bother me, back in the day when I thought that Mac and I... Oh, well..." Ordinarily such a train of thought would have led him into a mood of bleak depression, but with the events of the day still so fresh, he was safe from falling into a black mood, and if he was any judge, and an anticipatory smile replaced his saturnine grin, the evening was about to get better, much better. Placing his drink on a coaster on the occasional table. He stretched out an arm and picked up the phone, dialling a number he now knew by heart. "Hey you..." Harm said softly into the mouthpiece.
"Hey yourself," Gill smiled and replied softly.
"Um... got some news today..." Harm said. A bit diffidently.
"Oh?" Harm wasn't in the slightest deceived by Gill's elaborately disinterested monosyllabic reply; it was definitely a request for further information.
"Oh well, if you're not that interested, I'll keep my news to myself," he threatened.
"Not of you want to stay healthy, sailor!" Gill half laughed and half growled.
"Oh well if you're threatening to inflict, what's the phrase 'Actual Bodily Harm' on me?"
"I was thinking more in terms of 'Grievous Bodily Harm', so give!" Gill laughed.
Harm smiled in sheer pleasure, "Okay... Mattie's movement orders arrived this morning. She's flying in on Friday, arriving Lakenheath at twenty-two hundred hours... I was wondering if you wanted to come and meet her?"
Gill's heart gave a leap and a bound; her first instinct was to shout 'yes, of course!', but a moment's reflection led her to answer, "No... I don't think I will. If you don't mind, I'll let you and she share that moment, let you keep it for yourselves. I don't want to get off to a bad start with Mattie – she might already hate me, and if we don't hit it off, then it's better any fireworks should be in private, not in an arrivals hall at an airport. Besides, she shouldn't be overwhelmed by strangers the second she gets off the flight, but if you don't mind, I'll come to your place after endex on Friday and get dinner ready and get her room ready for her, just the last couple of female touches, and then I'll be available to help get her to bed when she's ready, unless you were planning to see her to the bathroom and help her get undressed and into her night clothes?"
Gill's last sentence was added in a light teasing note, but for a horrifying moment Harm had a vision of Mattie's appalled and shocked face when she realised that Harm was going to help her get ready for bed, and he was of course totally unaware that his own face was wearing a mirror image of the expression he envisaged on Mattie's face.
Harm shuddered and nodded, "Good call – on all counts! It's about ninety miles from here to Lakenheath, so to be on the safe side, we'll leave at twenty hundred hours, that should give us a sufficient margin for error and traffic delays.
"We?" Gill queried lightly.
"Yeah, Mattie's insisted that Jennifer Coates comes with me to meet her. They're very close, almost like sisters. I told you that Jen helped me with Mattie when we were all in DC, I'm sure I did!"
"Yes, of course you did!" Gill agreed. "So, it's all settled, I'll arrive at Northolt at about eighteen hundred hours, and you'll depart for Lakenheath at twenty hundred. What time do you expect to be back?"
"Uh... pretty late... Say twenty two thirty by the time Mattie clears customs and baggage reclaim, so about zero zero thirty hours by the time we get home... That being so, you don't have to wait up for us."
"Harmon Rabb! Of course I do! Somebody's got to fix that poor girl a meal, and there's still her bed time to take into consideration!"
"Ouch, I was forgetting that! Okay, but it's going to be a late night – for all of us!"
"Yes, well, it won't be the first!" Gill pointed out, referring to the past weekend at Portsmouth, "And you'd better start thinking seriously about what you're going to do about getting Mattie to bed and up in the mornings on a long-term basis. I'd love to be there with you, but it's just too far for a daily commute!"!"
Harm nodded, "First thing in the morning, I get onto a nursing agency and then onto Stoke Mandeville and confirm Mattie's reception there!"
"Good. Now that's settled, was there anything else, sailor?" Gill's voice descended into a throaty purr.
"Um... no... I don't think so..." Harm paused a wicked grin on his face as he heard Gill draw a sharp breath, "Except to tell you that I love you..."
"Oh, Harmon Rabb, no wonder you're still single – and thank God for that!" Gill laughed. "And yes, I love you too!"