Chapter 21
That evening Randi once again waited until she thought it was late enough that all the JAG staff would have left for the day. She smiled when she thought of AJ and the talk that they'd had at lunch about him always being the first there in the morning and the last to leave at night, so she knew that she would have to wait until his Escalade had left the parking lot before she went down to the second floor. Once she saw him pull out of the guard gate, she headed downstairs and entered the bullpen.
"May I help you, Judge Love?" the Marine that had been assigned to guard the bullpen asked her.
"Oh!" she gasped, surprised to find someone there. "You startled me," she told him.
"Sorry Ma'am, but there has been a rash of unauthorized usage of the computers here and I was assigned to guard the room."
"I see," Randi replied.
"May I ask you what you are doing here?"
"I was looking for Admiral Chegwidden," she quickly answered. Holding out the small pot of African Violets that AJ had sent her, which she was planning on taking home and putting with her others, she added, "He sent me these flowers today and I wanted to thank him for them."
"I'm afraid that you just missed him, Ma'am. He left for the day."
"Oh," Randi sighed, in pretend disappointment. "I guess that I'll just have to call him at home later. Thank you."
"You're welcome Ma'am," he said and walked her to the elevator.
She got home, changed into lightweight cotton nightgown, grabbed a TV dinner out of the freezer and popped it into the microwave. While it cooked she poured herself a glass wine and set the table, even if she was having an inexpensive pre-made dinner, she liked to sit down at the table and look out at her garden while she ate. When she was done eating she poured a second glass of wine and settled down on the couch, picking up the phone she dialed AJ's home number from the card on the flowers.
"Chegwidden," he answered the phone, wondering who it could be since he didn't recognize the number showing on the caller ID.
With a giggle she asked, "What happened to good old fashioned 'hello' when answering a phone?"
"Miranda?" he asked with a chuckle of his own.
"Yes AJ, it's me, you suggested on your card that I call. Is this a bad time?"
"No not at all! So you did get the flowers? I wondered when I didn't hear from you this afternoon."
"Yes, I got them, but I wanted to wait till I got home to call because I wanted to talk with you for a bit without all the distractions that we can both get at work."
"Oh, good thought," he said with a sigh of relief.
"I hope you weren't hurt by my waiting till tonight to call…"
"No!" he denied, even though he had been a bit.
She could tell he was lying, but pretended to believe him. "That's good. I really loved the flowers, did you mean what they say?" she tried to suppress a giggle, figuring that he would have no idea what variety of African Violets that the florist had sent.
"Well I am pretty well versed in the language of flowers and I know that violets in general mean modesty and that blue ones mean 'I'll always be true' and white ones mean 'let's take a chance on happiness', is that what you meant?"
"Actually no, but that is very interesting. Did you request a certain color when you called in the order?" she wanted to know.
"I did," he answered.
"And are you going to tell me what you requested?" she asked coyly.
"I requested white ones, but they told me that the only ones that had white on them had a pink center. I hope that they looked alright?"
"They are beautiful AJ. So you want us to take a chance on happiness?"
"Well, I know that I want to see more of you, and that I really don't go in for casual dating. I know that it's too soon for anything more than friendship yet, but I would like to see where this can go," he told her.
To Be Continued….